Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill (No 2)

on behalf of the Minister of Finance: I move, That the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill (No 2) be now read a second time.

It’s an honour to speak again on this year’s Budget bill—a bill focused on growth. New Zealand is still in recovery mode from economic damage caused by the COVID period and we know many Kiwis are still feeling the impact. We need to accelerate our recovery to erase some of the pressures facing many of our households and businesses. The Government recognises the urgent need to grow our economy. When we speak of growth, it is not just about the numbers; we are talking about helping Kiwis get ahead with higher wages, more job opportunities, and better public services. We are already seeing positive progress. We have brought inflation under control, we have delivered tax relief that has put more money in the back pockets of hard-working Kiwis, and we have supported families with childcare payments through FamilyBoost. Businesses will play a critical role in driving this economic growth.

I thought it would be useful to provide the House with some facts and figures regarding the proposed Investment Boost, our policy designed to help businesses invest in their companies and increase productivity. New Zealand’s productivity challenges are strongly linked to low investment in business assets. The root cause is that the cost of capital for investment in New Zealand is high relative to other OECD countries, and this is in part driven by our tax settings. The lower investment that this causes negatively impacts productivity and, importantly, the living standards of New Zealanders across this country. New Zealand has experienced low productivity growth over the past decade, averaging just 0.2 percent per annum. Productivity is important because it’s a determinant for increases in GDP and living standards. It means that New Zealand’s weak productivity has broader economic consequences. New Zealand has a high cost of capital compared with other countries. Changes to the taxation of investment, which this Government is doing today, will lift capital intensity and support New Zealand businesses. Investment Boost is designed to achieve this. Actions speak louder than words, and this is a Government of action.

Over 600,000 businesses are in New Zealand. Farmers, agricultural entities, small businesses across our urban areas—they all contribute to our economy; 600,000 of those businesses. And when this bill passes, these businesses will be able to claim a 20 percent tax deduction for any eligible assets they purchase from today. There is no cap on the value of the asset, and there is no cap on the number of assets for which the tax deduction can be claimed for. Investment Boost is an accelerated depreciation regime—a regime that is going to drive economic growth and is so badly needed in this country right now. Compared with the current depreciation rules, businesses would enjoy a larger immediate tax deduction, thus reducing their tax payments in the first year that they own these assets, and thereby reducing the present value of tax over the life of that investment. Investment in business assets will become a lot more attractive from today and a lot more attractive under this Government, and that is critically important.

We could see over 600,000 businesses across New Zealand investing in their businesses—businesses in Takanini, businesses in Northcote, businesses in Upper Harbour, businesses in Northland, businesses in Thames-Coromandel, businesses in Taumarunui, businesses in the Bay of Plenty, businesses in Kaikōura, businesses in Timaru, businesses in Christchurch, businesses in Ōtaki, businesses in Hamilton-East and Hamilton-West, and businesses in every town and every province of this beautiful country which we all call home—from today.

Treasury estimates that the impact of this will be a 1.6 percent increase in the real capital stock in 20 years, thanks to Investment Boost contributing hugely to productivity. With productivity comes more and better jobs for Kiwis, and, importantly, for those hard-working Kiwis, a rise in their living standards. I’ll tell you what: that is what New Zealanders expect of their Government. As a Government, we have heard that loud and clear, and we are following that through with actions, not words. We’re making that happen. It’s gonna happen from today, and it is a reality. Investment Boost is expected to reduce the cost of capital and increase the capital intensity of New Zealand businesses. All of this means an increase in GDP and, therefore, also increased tax revenue. Guess what! There’s no magic money tree, is there? We need to ensure that we can fund the public services that Kiwis deserve. As a result of more economic growth, we will derive more tax revenue and we will be able to fund those services Kiwis need. We are not a Government of taxing New Zealanders more; we are deriving more economic growth. That is an enduring mechanism in order to improve the living standards of this country.

It is estimated that the nominal GDP will increase by a very healthy $6.4 billion over the forecast period—$6.4 billion. That is a heck of a lot of money, and that is economic growth and benefit for the communities across this country. We acknowledge that the initial fiscal cost will be high, but the forecast is to tail off and the benefits will exceed the costs. It is investment in New Zealand’s future economic success.

I focused this speech on only one of the key measures of this bill, but I will briefly touch on the other two before I conclude. We are supporting Kiwis in saving more through KiwiSaver so that they can enjoy a more comfortable retirement. This side of the House cares about New Zealanders and we care about hard-working Kiwis. We’re doing this by proposing increased contribution rates for employers and employees, which means that by the time Kiwis buy their first home or retire, they will have more money waiting for them in KiwiSaver. Before we move to that, we are also proposing that people aged 16 and 17 years will qualify for Government KiwiSaver contributions, which means that our young people—85,000 young people—will be able to enjoy the benefits and be able to start saving sooner for their retirement. We’re also supporting the families who need it most—through Working for Families, by increasing the abatement threshold. This will benefit 142,000 Kiwis who are dealing with increased cost of living so good.

All of these measures will significantly benefit New Zealanders. I am very proud, as revenue Minister for this Government and as a member of this Government, to be able to deliver this legislation—these changes in our underlying tax settings which will make a tangible and real difference for New Zealanders. That difference will not be felt next year, it will not be felt in a month’s time, it will not be felt in a week; it will be felt from today.

The question is that the motion be agreed to. Time for me to leave the Chair. The House will resume at 7.30 p.m.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Good evening, members. When we broke for the dinner break, we were up to the second reading of the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill (No 2). We were up to call No. 2, the Labour Party call.

Madam Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to speak on this bill. We’ve had a little bit of time now to have a look at the bill, to assess what’s going on in it, to read the details on it. Of course, we’ve also, since about 4.45 today, had access to the various regulatory impact statements and to some of the background information about this bill.

Now, in the first reading of this bill, the Minister of Finance and various speakers from the Government were very enthusiastic about Investment Boost. I have to say that in his speech in the second reading of this bill, the Minister of Revenue, too, was very, very excited about the so-called Investment Boost. I get why they’re excited. It is the major measure that they have put through in economic terms for this particular Budget—there are, of course, other measures—the major positive measure that they have put through.

Now, the trouble with this measure is not whether or not it’s good or bad in itself, although I’m inclined to think that, on the whole, it’s probably something that’s working in the right direction. It has nevertheless been paid for out of the future wages of working women. Women hold up half the sky and it turns out, in this country, they are carrying the Budget this year. That is where this Investment Boost is coming from, so the Investment Boost had better be worth it. It really needs to deliver what the Government has said it is going to deliver, and the only way that we can work that out is to have a look at what is said in the regulatory impact statement.

Now, we have to remember that at this stage, because we are doing this in urgency—and I absolutely understand the need to specify a starting date for this policy—we have not had a select committee process, so we haven’t had time to dig into the economic analysis of this. Of course, this is being justified on economic grounds, and as I’ve said, they’d better be good. Just having said that, it’s still not quite clear to me why this particular measure absolutely had to go through under urgency. There is no reason why a starting date couldn’t have been specified, and that starting date could have been today, but we could still have had time to work the legislation through.

Nevertheless, having not had that opportunity, I want to look at the macroeconomic analysis contained in the regulatory impact statement, because we have been told by the Treasury, by the Treasury’s papers, by the Minister of Finance, and by the Minister of Revenue, that this will contribute to economic growth over time, and it will contribute to economic growth in the order of about 1 percent over the next 20 years or so.

So looking at the macroeconomic impacts, here’s the first interesting statement in the macroeconomic impact, assessing whether or not it is worth pursuing this measure—and I’d like to direct members’ attention to paragraph 62 in the regulatory impact statement. That’s after discussing that this is likely to be a positive measure, but then paragraph 62 says that there is, however, a high level of uncertainty as to the precise magnitude of impacts, although the direction of impact is certain—so, yes, we do think that this will have a positive impact on growth, but it is highly uncertain as to what the magnitude of that impact will be.

Then it carries on to discuss the findings from international literature saying what the heavy economic analysis says might be the effect of this measure. Of course, Treasury did its own estimates. It’s got its own economic model. They do have highly skilled people. It says that they looked at the international literature where the results were broadly consistent with Inland Revenue and Treasury estimates.

But to look at the summary of overseas regimes, we are directed to table 8 in annex 2 of the regulatory impact statement. Sitting there in table 8, it talks about countries where similar work has been done. Now, let’s remember what this measure is. It gives a cash-flow advantage to people who are investing in new depreciable assets, so it gives them a bit of a boost along the way, but that can only be justified if it adds to economic growth.

Now, in Australia, it turns out that the one analysis that’s available from there is from the global financial crisis, and the estimate is that perhaps GDP growth might have been about 1.2 percent higher thanks to a particular accelerated depreciation policy they had in place for a short time for small business. But of course, it was only small business that applied to. They’ve had a 100 percent write-off—full write-off for assets of $150,000 or less—in place for a few years, and they can’t really tell yet the magnitude of the impact of that. They think there was a lift in investment, but whether or not that led through to increased economic growth is a different matter. As we know, Australia, like us, is not growing at the rate that it would like to.

There are some studies from the United States suggesting that having this kind of accelerated depreciation write-off does increase economic growth. The interesting policy is that credible estimates on very recent policy changes suggest maybe a 1.7 percent increase in capital stock, but then it says, “but direct GDP impacts are less clear at this time.” And so it goes on through all the studies that are quoted.

I want to suggest that that paragraph 62 is reflecting very accurately—in fact, it carries a large amount of weight when it says that “there is, however, a high level of uncertainty as to the precise magnitude of impacts.” In other words, despite all the rhetoric from over there, we just don’t know. It’s likely to be positive, but we just don’t know.

What we do know is that women have lost out—to try to get this high level of uncertainty about the economic impacts—on their future pay rises, and that is something that will affect them for a very, very long time. Pay equity has been swept away for this high level of uncertainty as to the precise magnitude of impacts. [Interruption] So we think this policy might work, but we’re highly uncertain.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): We won’t have the conversation across the House, please.

What we are certain about is that women are paying for the cost of that. Carrying on through the other measures that have been taken in this Budget, we know that with the Working for Families changes that have come into place—changes around the abatement rate, around the threshold, around the universal Best Start in the first year of a child’s life—61,000 families will be worse off. So we know that the Working for Families change will be fiscally neutral, the changes within Working for Families—61,000 families are worse off. Well, they are paying for this highly uncertain economic impact as well.

We know that the KiwiSaver tax credit—an incentive to save that also provides a substantial benefit to low-income people—has been halved and has been taken away, and that over the lifetime of a worker, that might amount to as much as $66,000 gone. That, too, is what is paying for this highly uncertain economic impact.

So, yes, we do think that this will have a positive effect, but it is highly uncertain as to how much. What we do know with absolute certainty is that it is the women and the low paid who are paying for this Budget, and that is an appalling thing. We want our country to do well, but it should not do it off the backs of the most vulnerable, and that Government should be ashamed of doing that.

So we are going to carry on opposing this bill. This measure in itself—we should be doing something of this nature. It is worth trying, but I want to know a lot more about it and we need to be a lot more certain about it before we can endorse it.

This is a Budget for the wealthy few, not for the many, and this is so telling in this first piece of legislation we’re debating straight after the Budget speeches. You’ve just got to look at the Hansard record of the first reading speeches, and the New Zealand First member’s speech, because the people that he mentioned this bill would benefit were not working families, were not people in poverty, were not those that are homeless. It was his own colleague—Mark Patterson—who’s now going to be able to buy a tractor. Like, spare a thought for the poor New Zealand First members of Parliament, who will now be able to finally buy a tractor, while children are going to experience greater levels of material hardship. [Interruption] You don’t have to believe me! You can just look at your own Government’s child poverty reports, which show that under this Budget, children will be doing it tougher.

What this bill is doing in order to put more children in material hardship is giving, basically, a tax cut to fossil fuel companies, and, on top of that, leaving low-wage workers worse off. Again, for example, when it comes to the KiwiSaver changes, we have a minimum wage worker who’s working 48 hours. Right now, under the 3 percent contribution, they would be contributing around $1,466.40. Under the changes, under 4 percent, that’s an extra $488, which amounts to around $940 extra a week. This is a Government that will be leaving low-income workers worse off as a result of these changes. Then when it comes to the safety-net changes under this bill in the Working for Families package, they’re stripping away universality from some of these changes to just give breadcrumbs to low-income families. People doing it tough deserve far more than a Government that hands out breadcrumbs while giving billions of dollars to people already doing really, really well. I think it’s also really rich that the Government is just recycling and reheating the nachos, the same very narratives that we’ve heard from the 1980s.

💬 Ryan Hamilton: Nachos?

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: Yeah, you should spend some time with young people, or at least people my age, to know some of this terminology.

💬 Ryan Hamilton: How old are you?

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: Younger than you are, at least, in the front bench. But anyway, the important point is that the Government is reheating the very same old narrative that if we give tax cuts to the wealthy, they’ll trickle down to everyday people. It didn’t work in the 1980s, it didn’t work in the 1990s, it didn’t work in the first few decades of the 2000s, and it won’t work this time—it won’t work this time. This Government is only making the pockets of companies fatter at the expense of people doing it tough.

Again, if we go back to the changes of the bill, I think it’s really lamentable that while we do think that the abatement threshold changes around the Working for Families package are welcomed, it’s the National Party basically trying to fix a problem they created. Because in 2010, they removed the automatic changes to the abatement threshold in the Working for Families package. They themselves created the conditions where, basically, working families on low incomes would be losing money when they entered work, and better-paying work, faster. So this is really weird that the Government is now claiming they’re doing a really good thing where the previous National Government actually created the very same problem, leaving people worse off, and actually with less incentives, to enter employment as a result of those abatement thresholds and changes.

If we go back to the changes to how companies will benefit in terms of the tax breaks that they’re giving to them, the Government members so far haven’t committed to this money being passed down to workers, for example. What they’ve said is that it’ll benefit businesses, but they haven’t given us a guaranteed or evidential basis that this extra money will filter through to workers. They haven’t committed to this, and they haven’t given us a guarantee that there’s any safeguards in this bill that ensure the additional money that businesses receive will equate to higher wages. They can’t make it happen by just repeating it time and time again. What the research does tell us is that if we want to, for example, increase the incomes of families doing it the toughest, we just need to actually continue increasing, at a much higher rate than this Government is doing, things like baseline benefits. We could also be, for example, doing things like pay equity, to ensure that low-paid women, the ones that are paying for the tax cuts under this Budget, can receive adequate and fair wages.

But instead, the Government has relied, in this bill, on trickle-down economics, hoping—literally hoping, because they haven’t presented any evidence—that it will result in higher wages. Saying buzzwords like “productivity” over and over and over in their speeches does not amount to actually a more productive economy. I think, to me, it goes back to the fact that we’ve got a Government that is championing industries that (a) are industries of the past, like the fossil fuel industry that will benefit from this bill; and (b) continues to allow us to have an economy that is sustained by inflated property prices. There’s nothing in this bill that does this. Yet they think that people are somehow ignorant enough that they’ll just buy the buzzwords of saying “productivity” time and time again, hoping that they will buy it.

I want to go back to the Working for Families changes, because one of the key things that is omitted in this bill is that even though the abatement is changing, the recommendations that have been given to us by experts throughout the years around the changes we need to see in the Working for Families package are not presented in this bill. I think this is a massive missed opportunity to recognise that caregiving is work that should be recognised as such, and therefore that we should be actually having a far more universal and broader Working for Families package, rather than trying to narrow the eligibility. Those first days and years of a child’s life are the most important, and the Government shouldn’t be assuming that just because someone’s on a relatively OK income for a period of time, that’s basically how they’ll be doing throughout their lifetime, which is why having a much broader Working for Families package is better as a safety net to put the child at the centre of policy making.

In terms of the Investment Boost, which is what they’ve called it, that allows companies buying assets to claim a tax deduction of 20 percent of the value against it immediately instead of as it depreciates, I just want to say that, once again, this is not substantiated in the Government speeches, nor in any of the evidence that we’re seeing as presenting and people having higher wages and a lower cost of living. What we do know, though, is that there’s components of this bill that will explicitly make it harder for low-wage workers. They’re gambling with people’s retirement and people’s ability to have a safety net once they reach 65-plus. The challenge that I see in this is that many people will end up having to choose to then opt out of KiwiSaver as a result of the negative cost of living impacts that this bill is creating on particularly low-wage workers. If you’re a low-wage worker affected by this bill, you may be thinking that I’m better off basically opting out of KiwiSaver to have that additional—

💬 Simon Court: Put it in Sharesies, then! Go on, take a punt on the private market!

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: —income on a week-to-week basis. What that means is you end up missing out on having the retirement savings that we all deserve as a safety net once we reach our golden years.

I think it’s really rich to be shouted at, nonsensical shouts by Simon Court on the other side of the House, when he’s not so much challenging the facts that I’m presenting in terms of how the KiwiSaver changes will leave low-income workers worse off and is rather doing performative outrage.

I think voters deserve far better than a Government that is quite happy to back their own reports—well, that is quite happy to actually put out reports on child poverty showing us that they’re going to be making things tougher, and then, when it comes to bills like this one, completely omit the families doing it the toughest and talk about businesses, and completely omit components of this bill, in their speeches, that will make life worse for everyday people.

I think this is one of those bills that would have really benefited from a select committee process so that we could have heard from young people who are on low wages, who will now be, basically, missing out on, effectively, real wages because of the higher contributions that themselves and the employer will be making instead of the Government, and who will now be facing the prospect of either opting out so that they can pay their bills and their rent, or continuing to have KiwiSaver but then having to access hardship assistance from Work and Income New Zealand as low-wage workers simply to make ends meet.

The Green Party won’t be supporting this bill, and we look forward to scrutinising it at the committee of the whole House, because this is a Government that has produced legislation that does not serve the interests of everyday workers and, instead, just simply deepens the pockets of business owners that are already doing it well.

This Budget is delivering value for taxpayers, and this bill is a blueprint for a more productive, investment-focused economy. Investment Boost means that businesses can deduct 20 percent of the cost of new assets up front. For contractors building roads and bridges, all the things that New Zealand needs, that makes it easier to finance the big gear: the cranes, the diggers, the concrete pumps.

💬 Hon Dr Duncan Webb: The utes.

The big gear that gets big jobs done faster, Duncan Webb. This Investment Boost also allows petrochemical, petroleum, and mining investment, their development expenditure, to also benefit up to 20 percent—fantastic. When you combine that with what this Government has announced today, providing a $200 million contingency to invest in oil and gas exploration so that we can get New Zealand’s energy sector restored to what it should be, this is a very helpful combination of policies. Less tax delay, more action on the ground. That’s how we build better, sooner, and for less.

This bill also brings common sense to KiwiSaver, increasing contributions over time but giving workers the opportunity to scale back temporarily if they need to. We’re extending access to 16- and 17-year-olds. That means financial security for young people starting earlier in their lives. They’ll save more. They’ll be better off over time. Who wouldn’t support that? I would expect the Opposition to support that at least.

We’re also being honest about who needs help, because high-income earners do not need top-ups for their savings, do they? That money should go to families who do. On Working for Families, we’re lifting the abatement threshold to let more parents keep more of what they earn while making sure the system remains affordable.

For the haters in their “just say no” doom cult in Labour, the Greens, and Te Pāti Māori—that’s right, Ingrid Leary, you put your thumb on your head—

💬 Ingrid Leary: I hate the Budget. You’re absolutely right.

—women own and operate businesses that buy things like diggers and manufacturing equipment. They will benefit from Investment Boost. Māori people own businesses that will benefit from Investment Boost. When I was a civil engineer, I regularly contracted Māori-owned businesses in the civil engineering space, in directional drilling, in environmental management who owned and operated their own gear. They will benefit from this.

The ACT Party supports this Budget, this bill. It’s a great bill. It respects the taxpayer, and it rewards those people who would invest in plant and equipment, improving the productivity of their business and hiring more people. I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First, in the second reading, to support the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill (No 2). This Budget today, from our Minister of Finance, is a responsible Budget and one that we are going to remember for years to come, that has put New Zealand back on track. As much as we are back on track, we love to see all that rail investment as well, because that’s getting trains on tracks.

There have been some announcements made today around Investment Boost that I want to speak on, around the KiwiSaver reforms and Working for Families changes. We heard from the Minister of Revenue how the Investment Boost is going to help up to 600,000 businesses. That is a huge amount of people in New Zealand, that’s across men and women who own businesses in New Zealand, and that’s Pākehā, Māori, and all ethnicities who own those business. It is a Budget—and I’d say that 600,000 businesses will help all Kiwis in New Zealand. Also, we heard through the KiwiSaver reforms, around the eligibility for 16- to 17-year-olds, how that will help up to over 80,000 people—16- and 17-year-olds—in that age group. We also heard from the Minister of Revenue, on the Working for Families changes and how that will benefit 142,000 people. So we are touching a huge amount of people in this Budget and in these policies.

But the Investment Boost, as I said in the first reading, is a game-changer. It is a game-changer when you can deduct 20 percent of a new asset in that first year—and that’s extra—and also deduct the depreciation you normally would. That is a game-changer for those 600,000 businesses. When we are, on this side of the House, going to look at this economy and we want to grow the economy and we’re looking into things like the blue economy—you think of aquaculture, you think of marine farming, you think of things in the mining, all the stuff that’s going to need to be bought there. Farming—we’ve got a Minister here—in wool. We’re going to be getting the wool industry back on track, and we are going to need investment. Tourism—a portfolio I have—all those types of businesses, all can invest, and I do believe, starting tomorrow and in the coming months, that the confidence of businesses across New Zealand will increase.

💬 Hon Mark Patterson: Through the roof.

It will go through the roof. We will be at Mystery Creek, and we will be at the farming—we will be at all those places, where we’ll see the confidence in the farming communities rise. You will see businesses wanting to invest, and it’s owning a business in the past and actually knowing how difficult it is, sometimes, to make that decision whether we are going to invest in the capital. Sometimes there are things we want to do, and you put it on the backburner. This is an incentive to invest in your business.

We had the Green Party attacking me about someone possibly, on this side, might want to buy a tractor, but it might be another business. Someone wants to buy a different type of asset. It doesn’t matter what the asset, but if it’s going to make it productive—if it’s going to make the business more productive—they’re going to employ more people. But you don’t know that on that side of the House, because you ones don’t own businesses.

💬 Hon Jo Luxton: Oh, rubbish. You’ve got no idea.

Yeah—no, you ones are rubbish, because this side of the House, we own businesses, we’ve run businesses, we know what it’s like, we employ people. We don’t think money grows on a tree, because you ones have all this magical money—magical money—that just appears out of nowhere. But on this side of the House, we know businesses earn money, then you actually employ people, and then you’ve got money to pay them. That’s an amazing concept to that side of the House, but this side of the House knows that.

I also mentioned, in the first reading around KiwiSaver, that isn’t it a great day that 16- and 17-year-olds will be eligible for that contribution? As we know, we want to see young people in this country succeed. We want people to learn to work. We don’t want people on the couch. We’ve had the Hon Shane Jones get the nephs off the couch. We want people to have the ability to learn how to work in this country, and if they go to work and they get a little bit of extra money through contributions, that will also set them up for their first homes. Because we want our young people—and I want my daughter, my son—to be able to buy their first home. And actually having KiwiSaver and actually having that extra contribution will be an extra way to actually have a deposit to actually put into the first homes. I think that is, really, again, a game-changer.

Working for Families, again, 142 families will benefit out of this announcement today. So this is a Government—and on this side of the House, we are growing the economy. This is an investment Budget, and we’ve actually come up with a policy. You’re thinking on that side of the House: “Why didn’t we think about it?” Well, this side of the House have. We’re going to implement it. We will grow the economy. We will have more people employed, businesses will have more money to pay them, and the economy will get better and it will grow and it will be the proof. The policy today will be seen on the ground, because this is a policy of action. I commend this bill to the House.

Oh, thank you, Madam Speaker. What a great bill this is. Actually, what I think hasn’t quite been touched on that much and deserves a bit of focus is the growth of potentials in productivity from this partial expensing scheme. It’s going to be a massive boost to the economy. We’ll see it in the regions first, and it will go right through the economy. I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I take it the previous speaker, Stuart Smith, took the call from Te Pāti Māori. Is that what happened? OK. It’s just so naive—like, everything that the Government benches say is so naive. It’s like zero awareness of what actually supports our communities, which is the work of people who are looking after our tamariki. In this very bill, the Government’s literally taking away thousands of dollars from huge numbers of families who’ve had a child. That’s what’s happening with the Best Start payment. They’re taking the Best Start payment away so it’s not a universal thing that everybody can access when they’re having babies. They’re taking money away from babies. It’s really anti-family. But they don’t understand, because they’re just so dyed-in-the-wool in their ridiculous—

💬 Ryan Hamilton: That’s right, bring back wool.

You’ve drunk the Kool-Aid on the neoliberal fantasy of trickle-down economics. Actually, if you go over to countries that are small countries similar to New Zealand but with much higher living standards and much better productivity, they invest in their people. They have generous paid parental leave.

💬 Ryan Hamilton: Like who?

Denmark, for example.

💬 Hon James Meager: Oil?

No—you don’t even know. Like, they don’t even know what they’re talking about. Norway has oil; Sweden doesn’t. Sweden doesn’t. Denmark—it is not a major part of their funding of these things; they have higher marginal tax rates. They tax inheritances; they tax wealth. The UK does that. The United Kingdom has capital gains tax, they have inheritance taxes, and they have more progressive, higher marginal tax rates, to invest that money into people. Now, I’m not saying the UK is great, because the Scandinavian countries are much better when it comes to paid parental leave. Iceland—Iceland has no oil; Iceland has nine months of paid parental leave and free universal early childhood education. And they have maybe 300,000 or 400,000 people.

The Government members know nothing, and they repeat the talking points that their little leaders hand down to them, but if they actually wanted to understand what was going to make New Zealand a more productive and successful economy, they might listen to some of the expert evidence from institutions like the International Monetary Fund—the IMF. What does the IMF say? It says New Zealand should have a capital gains tax, or look at a land tax. That is going to drive more productive investments. But people over on the Government—it’s just very frustrating, for those of us who actually know something about the rest of the world, to listen to the uninformed nonsense coming from the Government benches.

Look, I mean, everything that’s been done in New Zealand since the 1990s, most of it has made us a poorer, less competitive country, and that started with massive privatisation of public assets and reducing the social safety net. That has actually led to New Zealand being a less successful economy, and yet that’s what carries on in this Budget. Rather than making sure that people doing some of the most important public sector work—whether it’s the funded sector or directly employed by Government—people who are care and support workers, who are midwives, who are nurses, who are teachers, who are early childhood teachers—those people are not getting paid sufficiently. If we spent the money paying them properly, then they would spend the money in the economy, and it would actually benefit everyone. But instead, the Government chose to give tens of billions of dollars to people who own property, highly leveraged property investors. And then they have the gall to come in here, and the finance Minister, to say, “We want to incentivise people to work.”

Well, guess what! Having a passive income from an investment property is not working and it’s not making the country more productive. It’s not a productive thing for a small number of people to get rich off investing in property and then we take that money away, when we could have universal investment in services and benefits. If we actually valued children, what would we be investing in? Well, we wouldn’t be cutting back on the Best Start payment. We wouldn’t be cancelling the pay equity claims of early childhood teachers. We wouldn’t have this ridiculous policy for early childhood support that nobody can access, practically. I think the Government members are absolutely dreaming and know nothing. But what is true is that people like them will get richer and do well under this. Those people, they will get richer. They own their investment properties. They will get wealthier. And if they own businesses, they’ll write off the taxes and buy some new toys, which maybe will make their business more productive, but maybe it’ll just be a flash new ute to drive around, and that’s not productive.

💬 Cameron Brewer: Madam Speaker?

💬 Hon Dr Megan Woods: Madam Speaker?

This is a National Party call—oh, is this—

💬 Hon Dr Duncan Webb: Smith took the call.

💬 Hon Dr Megan Woods: It’s all out of whack now.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Just for clarification, we’re out of sequence because of the missed call before, so the National Party have slotted into that one. So it is, in effect, the Labour Party call. My apologies. I call the Hon Dr—

Point of order, Madam Speaker. I took the Māori Party call, which was a five-minute call, and then the Green Party have had a five-minute call, so now it’s a 10-minute call for the National Party. And so that’s the right sequence. So it isn’t out of sequence at all.

As it turns out, if Te Pāti Māori were to come and take a call, they would be entitled to.

💬 Stuart Smith: That’s fine.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): But then they would have to replace someone else’s slot, and so the number of speaking opportunities remains the same until the end.

Speaking to the point of order, well, that’s fine, Madam Speaker. There is a National Party call at the end; if they turn up, then they can have that.

Speaking to the point of order, Madam Speaker, clearly, the allocation of the calls is entirely at the Chair’s discretion—absolutely happy to abide by your decision, whatever it may be. But as I understand it, the call has to be held over for Te Pāti Māori until the end. If they aren’t here or choose not to take it as the final call, then it’s available for a member to take. That’s my understanding of how the House has conventionally approached this problem.

That is the case, and I’ve had advice from the Clerk to that effect.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s my absolute pleasure to take a call on this bill and to spell out why it is that Labour is not supporting this bill. We are under urgency; we are putting this bill through at all stages. So my advice to those on the Government benches is to get a bit beyond your research unit’s speaking notes and get into some detail on the bill.

This bill purports to do three things, but, essentially, what it does is sit at the heart of what this Government is saying is their growth Budget. So I want us to take some time in this House and unpack that and see what the actual advice was. Because what we, on this side of the House, say is this is not a growth Budget; this is a Budget that is cutting the pay of working women in New Zealand to pay for the measures that we are seeing in this bill.

The Government is saying this bill, that will help 600,000 businesses, sits at the heart of their growth agenda. But the advice that Ministers that sat around the Government Cabinet table had was that this was going to increase GDP growth by 1 percent over a period of 20 years. If that is the aspiration that this Government has for growth in New Zealand, then heaven help us.

If we look more closely at the regulatory impact statement—if we go into what was said about that—the Government were also warned that not all the benefit of that 1 percent over the course of 20 years would flow to New Zealanders, because some of it will flow to foreign investors as a return on their investment. We’ve got the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance coming down and trumpeting that this is great for New Zealand businesses and great for New Zealand workers. This certainly is not a measure that is putting New Zealanders first. This is not something that sits at the heart of growing jobs and wages for New Zealanders.

Let’s have a look. What did officials tell the Government it would do due to wage growth over 20 years? Well, 1.5 percent increase difference on wages over 20 years—0.075 of a percent per year difference on wage growth. That’s the kind of aspiration that this Government has for working New Zealanders. It can take $3 billion a year out of what should have been destined for the pay packets and pockets of women in this country and instead put this measure in place that will see a paltry 1.5 percent increase to wages over 20 years. That’s the kind of aspiration that this Government has.

And wait, there’s more. What is more: officials told the Government that 80 percent of the growth in wages that would come as a result of their changes around KiwiSaver contributions and the way in which New Zealanders would benefit from that would come at the expense of wage growth. So when you put these things together, you can see this is a Government that doesn’t give a jot about the wages of working New Zealanders; that is not putting that as its top priority. It’s cutting $3 billion a year out of the wages of working women and it’s putting in place measures that return a pittance to working New Zealanders.

Let’s have a look; let’s unpack some of the other measures that are in this. One of the things I’m very interested to see is analysis that is coming through in terms of the Best Start—and when we get to the committee stage, we will certainly have some questions about this. What officials told Government—and it’s laid out in the regulatory impact statement—is that 9,000 families would have an increased effective marginal tax rate as a result of the changes in the Best Start package. Who are those 9,000 families that are going to have an increased effective marginal tax rate as a result of this package of measures?

We’ve also seen in the regulatory impact statement officials that have estimated that the income testing of that first year of the Best Start payment will result in 53,000 families becoming ineligible for the payment. That is in the advice that the Government was giving. They made these decisions knowing that 53,000 families are going to become ineligible for this payment. Who are those families and who is missing out are questions that, in the Opposition, we will want some answers to.

The Government is trumpeting the $7 a week increase that will go to some families—$14 a fortnight, $28 a month. Let’s put that against some of the cost of the package that we’re seeing here. We know that 61,000 families are going to be $43 a week worse off. How does that add up? How does that purport to be a Budget that is supporting working families in New Zealand and their children and raising incomes? Because that is not what this package is doing.

Now, there are some measures in this bill that we think are good. We think that actually starting KiwiSaver contributions for 16- and 17-year-olds is not a bad idea. But it does not have to come at the expense of halving the contribution and the Government contribution. That is a choice the Government has made. We know that 18-year-olds today are going to be over $66,000 worse off by the time they retire had the Government contribution stayed the same; 30-year-olds are going to be $30,000 worse off when it comes to retirement. That’s the kind of stripping out an expense we are seeing for these measures that are in front of us.

We also think measures to increase productivity are things that we should be exploring—that each Government should explore—and actually this Parliament should enjoy the debate about how we can increase New Zealand’s productivity. I don’t think there’s a parliamentarian who doesn’t know that we need to lift our productivity in this country. But the questions we have are the fact that only two options were explored. Some very orthodox other measures weren’t even considered by the Government. Now we are considering these measures under urgency. It is about time we could have a real debate about this rather than the parroting off of the lines given to them by the Prime Minister’s office. And let’s discuss the reality of what is in the analysis that accompanies this bill. Because there are questions; we are in urgency. We are signalling the areas that we are going to want to delve into in depth when it comes to the committee stages of this bill, because New Zealanders deserve to know about this.

We know that this is a Budget with a whole package of measures that is being paid for fundamentally by cutting that nearly $3 billion a year that was destined for the pay packets and pockets of women workers in this country. We also know that this is a packet of measures that is being paid for by cutting the Government contribution to retirement savings. When we think about retirement savings in New Zealand, I think we all know this is something we want to increase, not something we want to cut. I do not want to be setting up 18-year-olds today to retire with $66,000 less in income when they get there. And this is what this does.

They are raising the marginal tax rates of New Zealanders. They are striking hundreds and tens of thousands of New Zealanders ineligible, so it’s about time we had a real conversation about who these people who are being rendered ineligible are, because there are a lot of New Zealanders paying a very heavy price for the Budget introduced today.

Just picture this—just picture this. If they are so angry at this policy, picture this at the Fieldays on 11 June. Picture this at the cultural festivals. Picture this at the market days. Picture this at the home show. The Labour Party marquee—OK, you’ve got the Labour Party marquee, and it’s got a big sign up and it says, “Axe the tax write-off”, and that’s what they’re promising. Let’s see if they commit to that: axing the tax write-off, axing Investment Boost, where businesses can deduct 20 percent of a new asset’s value from this year’s taxable income—vehicles, tools, plant, commercial buildings. Let’s see if they want to axe that tax write-off.

Secondly, on the marquee: “Rewind the default contributions on KiwiSaver”. Why don’t we bring back the contributions for $180,000-plus earners? Are they going to do that? No. Are they going to take back Government and employer contributions? No. Are they going to reverse the KiwiSaver contributions? No. So if we’re going to make sense out of them tonight, they are the ones that are feigning opposition—they are feigning opposition. And they know that this tax policy and they know that this KiwiSaver policy—they’re not going to change a thing. They’re not going to axe the tax write-off. They are not going to rewind the KiwiSaver changes. They are locked in. And if they disagree, I ask the next speaker to stand up and say, “We will reverse the tax changes; we will reverse the KiwiSaver change.” I commend the bill.

This bill is part of a full-frontal austerity Budget that the National Party Government are paying for through the wages of women and of our young people—shame on them. I would like to say to Cameron Brewer: when you are gloating about the utes and the tractors and the diggers and maybe the boats and the other things that you can call business equipment, you are doing that on the sweat of women from my electorate. Between 60 and 70 percent of the women in the Taieri electorate work in the health and education sectors. That means that between 60 and 70 percent are involved in the 33 pay equity cuts that happened last week. It means they are paying for this Budget.

Let’s remember who those women are: they are nurses, they are midwives, they are care and support workers. They’re psychologists, they’re librarians, they are mothers, they are grandmothers—and believe me, there are many grandmothers in my electorate who are looking after their grandchildren and still working on near minimum wage to bring up their grandchildren. You have just taken, the National Government, the money out of their pockets that they were expecting to get as a result of your miscalculations, and this bill is the centrepiece of that.

Let’s look at young people, the 18-year-olds that will no longer have the $66,000 in their superannuation. Now, that’s an average, but let’s remember that many of them will be women. They won’t get their pay equity claims through. They will be experiencing that pay gender gap. So the $66,000 is actually probably going to be a lot more that they will miss out on in their retirement.

When I think about the 14,500 young people currently in that age group who get $315 a week—we know those numbers, and we know that Nicola Willis in her Budget cannot tell us what the threshold will be for their parents who will be paying for them. Now, how does one put together a Budget and not include the numbers with the threshold that will determine who will be paying that amount and who will not? It does not add up. That is one small example of many examples that we will see as we interrogate this bill where there has been a superficial process and there has not been the depth and the gravitas and the mathematics done in a correct way. That is why women are actually paying the price, because the maths wasn’t done by this Government. That is why women in my electorate are paying.

When we look at families and we look at the means testing of Best Start, which is, effectively, a cut for those who will not get it, let’s remember that we still have not found the family that is getting a $250 a week tax boost from this Government. Where are they? They are not there. What we do know is that 61,000 families will be worse off by $43,000 a week.

When we look at housing, $1 billion is cut from the emergency housing budget. The Ministry of Social Development has already cut the number of emergency housing places from 27 in the Otago-Southland region to just three, between November last year and March 2025. They have declined more than 100 emergency housing grants, and guess what! Ministry of Social Development rental properties in Dunedin are not that much lower than Auckland but our people get half the subsidised amount. How can this Government justify cutting a billion dollars of housing and leave people in the Taieri electorate, in the Oval, who have been in the media, out in the cold, living in tents? It is disgraceful and it is not just adults; it is children.

So there are lots of things the Government could’ve done in this bill that they have not, but instead what they have done is they’ve favoured landlords, the 346 landlords who own 200 properties between them. They each get $464 million worth of tax cuts. They have favoured the ASB and the ANZ. They’re going to pass legislation to make sure that those people who were ripped off by big foreign banks will not get the money that is owed them.

They are repeating history, actually. For those of you old enough to remember, those at home watching, one of the worst decisions made ever in this Chamber was on 15 December 1975, when Mr Muldoon cancelled the superannuation.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): The member’s time has expired. [Interruption] Order!

Well, this is a great growth Budget. Growth is good. But, one more thing: the Government isn’t the generator of economic growth; it’s hard-working New Zealanders that are. It’s the 50,000 farmers across this country, the 600,000 small- and medium-sized businesses, and the 3 million working people across this country. Growth is the answer to our short- and long-term challenges. This bill and this Budget are all about growth.

How great is the Investment Boost? Excellent. It is a great, productivity enhancing measure. But don’t take my word for it. Take Barbara Edmonds’ word, who recently said, on RNZ, when asked what’s one thing she likes from the Budget, “Well, umm, that tax break for businesses.” That’s what she said—that’s what she said.

Let’s talk about KiwiSaver. We need to grow our savings as a country. Tell me a country that is rich without a high savings rate. There is none. So this is great policy for New Zealand. And it’s a great policy, as Minister Simon Watts talked about, for the young people—85,000 people across this country that will have access to KiwiSaver. It’s such a great bill. I’ll cut my speech there. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. Well, it’s interesting when you take a little bit of a look at the media and try to ascertain how this Budget is being digested by New Zealanders. I looked at a few different sources, and one of them was Stuff. It has been running a poll, and 65 percent of New Zealanders say no to this Budget, and say that it doesn’t help them at all and it’s not much good. Then, when I watched TV ONE, I saw a man from a family, which was a farming family, and he wasn’t really excited about getting some money off a tractor. He was more concerned about his superannuation and how he was going to be able to retire, and that was on One News tonight. He was worried about his own family and the cost of living crisis and the fact that butter was more expensive than what he was getting back in his Working for Families kickback.

So that’s really concerning. It is concerning that, in general, the way that New Zealanders have so far seen this Budget is that they’re pretty unimpressed. They’re pretty unimpressed because it doesn’t deliver anything meaningful for New Zealanders who are struggling right now, and that’s the sad part.

When we look at what this Government has done, it has really tried to balance the books based on working women having to shell out. So while it’s nice what we’ve heard tonight about all the incentives that are going to happen under this Budget and how it’s going to go for growth, what it’s really done is it’s stripped it away from the working women of New Zealand, and what I think this Government hasn’t cottoned on to is that women are just over 50 percent of the population. So, in an MMP environment, those percentages are really important.

There are a lot of New Zealand women out there right now who are pretty unhappy with this Government and what it’s done, and the centrepiece of this piece of legislation that we’re debating tonight, which provides a $1.7 billion tax break for business investment—the going for growth centrepiece of the Budget is unlikely to boost investment much at all, according to Treasury. So this is an interesting point that those on the opposite benches haven’t been discussing. According to Treasury and their analysis of the centrepiece of this Budget, it is estimated it would increase New Zealand’s capital stock by around 1.5 to 1.6 percent over the next 20 years. Rua tekau ngā tau—that’s 20 years.

So the going for growth Budget that that side has championed and that side has cut the wages of working women for and that has robbed out of our superannuation for—all of this has been forsaken for the centrepiece of a Budget that is going to produce a 1.6 percent increase in New Zealand’s capital stock in 20 years. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but that doesn’t seem like a very good business decision. In fact, that would mean that you’ve just marginalised 50 percent of the population, who now think that this Government doesn’t support women—isn’t supporting hard-working Kiwi women—in order to pay for a 1.6 percent increase in New Zealand’s capital stock over 20 years. Well, I fail to see how smart a Budget is that does that. In fact, I think it’s a waste of good, hard-working Kiwis’ time and effort.

That is the problem with this Government, and that’s what starting to feed back in the media. That’s what we’re starting to hear back in the feedback as people talk, and what they’re saying is that there is no hope in this Budget. It doesn’t give us a future we’re looking for.

If you’re maybe an 18- or a 19-year-old New Zealander and you’re growing up in this country and you want to see a pathway forward into where you find your way, or if you’re growing up in a household where there would be family violence or sexual violence, under the front-line service cuts of this Government, mental health care is harder to get access to, youth support and social workers are harder to get access to, and even family violence—now that the police don’t turn up, all the NGO providers are telling us that the police are not turning up to family violence and mental health call-outs. So if you’re a young person growing up in a home and you’re 18, you can’t get the jobseeker benefit. You’re left on the streets—but wait, this Budget just cut $1 billion out of emergency housing.

A billion dollars has been cut out of emergency housing, while the Government is making it harder for 18- and 19-year-old New Zealanders to get access to the jobseeker benefit. On top of that, where are the job schemes? Are there any great job schemes in this Budget to help training to help employment? Oh wait, trade training for Māori—that’s been cut, as well, in this Budget.

So you’re cutting from the very people that you’re putting into—and making it harder for 18- and 19-year-olds to get a job, to get employment, to get a house, and to have some hope in the future. While we have to sit here and listen to the arguments for why this is such a productive and growth-focused Government, there is absolutely no key reason why this is driving growth, and when we go back to the very analysis of Treasury, it does absolutely zip. The centrepiece of this Government does zip for this, as well.

When we look at what it’s actually doing, there’s less for young families and there’s less for those that are struggling in New Zealand right now. This set of measures has cut the Government contribution to KiwiSaver from $512 a year to $260, along with an increase in the default employee and employer contribution from 3 percent to 4 percent.

💬 Tom Rutherford: Oh, great stuff.

Great stuff, but not so great if you want to retire comfortably in New Zealand. You make it harder for working New Zealanders to be able to do it. It’s $66,000 less, if you’re 18 years old right now in New Zealand, when you retire.

This Government has also agreed that it’s going to make it harder, which is impacting directly on workers and those on lower incomes, and that’s what this entire Budget does. This Budget is an absolute assault on hard-working people in New Zealand. You only had to be out the front today to look at and talk to those women who came and spoke today, and they were ashamed. They were frustrated and they were angry that 40 years later, they are still fighting in New Zealand for equal pay. How can you call this a growth Budget when it’s impacting those people—the very fabric of our society—whom we rely upon to try and grow our country? It’s cutting those people off at the knees and keeping their wages low at a time when there’s a cost of living crisis.

When we actually take a look, there was a massive opportunity for this Government during a cost of living crisis to actually look at how they could provide some help and some relief, and the only thing in this Government’s Budget is a centrepiece of a 1.5 percent increase over 20 years. What is that doing to put food on the tables of hard-working New Zealanders? What is that doing to help put lunches on the tables of schoolkids who have to eat the slop that’s being dished out under this Government?

It’s absolutely unbelievable, and, on top of all that, the Government has cut spending on housing, mainly by shifting $188 million of Māori housing operational funding into the general spending bill and by reallocating capital spending out of that area. For those people who can’t get on the list for emergency housing, there are further cuts already going through that.

This is a Budget that is really designed to hurt those who are already struggling in New Zealand, and that is exactly the sentiment that is coming back now. As we hear people’s feedback and as we see those news stories feed through, and as people start to take a look and see what this Budget actually does for them, people are realising that it does nothing. It just takes away from people who are already struggling—and those people opposite know that. They’ll have to turn up in their electorates and talk to those people who get less from Working for Families, or who have an 18- or a 19-year-old in their home who is struggling to find employment or training or hope or opportunities in life, or to those people who are struggling to get mental health assessment or treatment, or who are struggling to get someone to turn up when there’s a family violence call-out, because the very parts of our society that need to be connected are being severed by this Government.

They’re being severed by this Government in order to fund 1.6 percent growth over 20 years, and while we can sit back and hear how great it’s going to be at Fieldays with the rebate and “You’re going to get some great tech.”, what’s the cost? What is the cost of that for New Zealanders? You are paying for that off the back of working women, and they’re not going to go away. They’ll keep coming, they will keep talking, and a whole lot of them used to vote National.

National supports this bill. This bill matters because—

💬 Mariameno Kapa-Kingi: Point of order. I was watching just up in my room a little bit ago and I noticed that you said in your ruling if one of us was to return we could take the final call. I’m happy to do that if that’s your will.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Which will be the next call.

National supports this bill because this bill matters for businesses and the economy to grow through investment. So tradies, manufacturers, small businesses, farmers, business owners, employers, this is a clear message for you: the National Government have got your back and we’re helping you to grow.

So, Opposition, listen in. If you have not read the regulatory impact statement, at least read the front page. It means new capital investment from nearly all sectors across the economy would benefit from the policy. So read the front page.

But guess what! The regulatory impact statement also shows the changes to the KiwiSaver will leave people significantly better off in the long run. A typical KiwiSaver balance for the first time will help homebuyers grow 9 percent under the new changes, while a person’s balance at 65 would grow by 26 percent. That is an extra $102,817 for retirement. Now, tell me, Opposition, that you would be saying no, and voting down an extra $102,817 for Kiwis to retire. Tell me that you’ll be voting that down. But don’t worry, this is the “BS Budget”, because it’s a “Barbara Support Budget”.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I already made a contribution in the first reading, and I’m happy to take a short call now, Madam Speaker, thank you. I think I heard Dan Bidois refer to this as a gross Budget—I think that’s what he said. It is a gross Budget. I agree with him entirely: it is gross. It is grossly unfair, it is grossly unjust, and it is disconnected from real communities, particularly the communities that I come from. So to assume that you think you know, in your own comfortable and privileged scenario, is a joke, and shame on you.

The other—well, it’s a muttering, but when somebody, particularly on the other side of the House, talks about the facts of the matter and doing a fact check, surely they mean fictional check. To have actual facts about what is going on, particularly in our Māori communities, but in our smaller rural communities—from what families and whānau tell me, it is far from the truth. In fact, the email that I just got—one just came down—said, “These people are barking mad.” I couldn’t contest that idea. I probably think it’s quite true.

Working for Families—well, it’s the absolute opposite of that. It does not work for families, it does not work for children, and it does not work for real people with real plans, aspirations, and dreams. It doesn’t work, and it won’t ever work until there’s a better listening, particularly for smaller communities; Māori communities. The only way you create a better listening is you educate yourself about what’s really going on, so I’m happy to send some books.

Outside, earlier today—and I did refer to this in my first reading speech—there were the loud and clear voices about this pay equity nonsense. I’ve heard in the House a few times that we’re scaremongering—that this is what’s going on. The fact of the matter is everyone that was out there today, they know exactly what’s going on. They don’t need any scaremongering. They know what’s going on. Why do they know? Because the impacts of what’s run in that equity—which is a bit of an ironic word in this situation. They understand what it means for them. They’re not beguiled by the stuff that comes out of here. In fact, they’re probably laughing at it all. They know exactly. So scaremongering—that is not what’s happening, certainly from our party or any other on this side of the House. They know the reality. They understand the reality. Unfortunately, what they are feeling and recognising is that no one is listening, particularly on the other side of the House.

So I wanted to make those points, and, in particular, I just want to say there’s no possible way Te Pāti Māori will support this barking-mad thinking. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

This bill is set down for committee stage immediately. I declare the House in committee.

In Committee

Part 1 Amendments to Income Tax Act 2007