Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill

on behalf of the Minister of Finance: I move, That the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill be now read a second time.

The high cost of living is one of the most pressing issues here in New Zealand today, and that is why we are considering this bill under urgency. Given that urgency, I will provide just a brief recap of the content of this bill and the purpose for the second reading.

It will be obvious that the purpose of this bill is to provide responsible tax relief squarely at lower to middle income Kiwis. This will be done by increasing the bottom three personal income tax thresholds, which will allow people to keep more of what they currently earn before moving to higher income tax levels.

The bill will also extend the independent earner tax credit to compensate for wage growth and help more people with the cost of living. It will also boost the in-work tax credit so that low to middle income working families will get up to an extra $50 per fortnight.

These changes are necessary because many families are struggling with the high costs of housing, food, and also childcare. That’s why this bill will also legislate the previously announced FamilyBoost, which will help 100,000 households with young children to be able to afford early childhood education and make that more easy for them. The cost of early childhood education fees can be a barrier to entering the workforce, particularly for the second income-earner in the household. All families earning up to $180,000 with early childhood education costs will be eligible. However, to ensure support goes to families who need it most, the maximum repayment will gradually reduce for families earning more than $140,000.

These changes are what we promised in response to the inflation impacts created by the last Government. But on the other side of the ledger, inflation has also had another effect. Overseas-based student loan borrowers are currently charged interest at the rate of 3.3 percent on their student loans, but over the last three years, inflation has overtaken student loans’ overseas interest rates by 9.5 percent. The bill therefore increases the interest rate charged on overseas-based borrowers of student loans by 1 percent for a period of five years from 1 April 2025. Increasing the current overseas interest rate formula by 1 percent for a limited time of five years will partially cover the loss of value in the scheme caused by the last three years of high inflation.

One of the final items in the bill is an urgent remedial amendment to ensure that Inland Revenue can process claims for research and development tax incentive if a business applies for approval under an incorrect entity name.

Overall, the bill package will increase the income of most households in New Zealand. However, a small number of households—less than 0.3 percent—will have their income reduced by $2 per fortnight on average. This is due to a quirk in the way in which the tax threshold adjustments interact with the calculation of tax for people who receive a benefit for only a part-year. After the personal income tax changes take effect, these part-year benefit recipients will receive slightly smaller tax refunds at the end of the tax year.

What the bill package will do is increase the income of 94 percent of households in this country by $60 per fortnight on average. Households with children will gain $78 per fortnight on average, and that is a great result for hard-working families and households across this country. This Government has delivered on the promises that we committed to the New Zealand public. We have delivered income tax relief to hard-working New Zealanders, and this bill is the proof in the pudding that we have delivered the actions that we promised to New Zealanders. We should be—and New Zealanders should be—proud of that achievement.

This is the full extent of this Budget bill. It will make a real difference for New Zealanders up and down this country, and I commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. In the lead up to the Budget, the Minister of Finance was at pains to say several times that the Government would have tax cuts and that they would be meaningful—they would be meaningful—that they would make a substantial difference to people. But what this bill does is it shifts the tax thresholds around. The net upshot of it is the most that anyone will get—the most that anyone will get—from the shift in the tax thresholds is $25 a week, and that’s only in conjunction with the independent earner tax credit. Now, that’s the amount that someone earning about $60,000 a year will get, in conjunction with the independent earner tax credit. It’s the very most they will get. Most people—people like those of us in this House—who are earning over $78,000 a year will get a tax cut of about $20 a week.

But, in the meantime, public transport costs have gone up. In the meantime, rates have skyrocketed. In the meantime, the cost of going to the doctor has accelerated. In the meantime, there has been substantial inflation caused by worldwide factors; it’s a worldwide phenomenon.

Tom Rutherford: Oh, here we go. Here we go. Playbook number one: worldwide factors.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: In fact, sitting in the Minister of Finance’s speech, the Minister of Finance said—and it was gobsmacking actually—that the Government can only be held responsible for factors within its control. She started talking about the worldwide factors that are affecting them. Somehow, they didn’t exist a year or so ago! And, in the midst of that, what she has been at pains to talk about over the last few weeks are the “meaningful” changes to the after-tax income that people get. I put it to you that, in face of the increased cost—the increased cost because the Government has withdrawn from services—these shifts in the tax thresholds do not deliver anything like a meaningful increase to after-tax incomes.

Tom Rutherford: Nobody’s on that side of the House; they haven’t turned up for days.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Excuse me—that’s not an appropriate comment.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: Going from that broader issue to one more detailed issue, in this bill there is something that was—more or less; until the very previous speech—a secret new tax on student loans, on student loan borrowers. Now, ordinarily, when there’s a measure taken in the Budget, it will be highlighted, it will be discussed, it’ll be in the publicity documents. But the only way we found out about it was by reading the tax bill itself—and here it is. So the interest rate that is going to be charged to people who go overseas on their student loans is going to increase—

Hon Member: By 1 percent.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: —by 1 percent. So, again, sitting in the detailed estimates—I’m going to direct the House’s attention to the section on revenue—there is an increased amount of funding for investment in compliance activities. Let me just read what it says. It says this initiative provides funding for and shows an increase in tax revenue from Inland Revenue’s increased compliance activities on tax and student loan overseas-based borrowers.

Now, having sat in that role myself for some time and having had student loan borrowings within my remit, there are some extraordinary outstanding debts on student loans, and some students—people who studied here in New Zealand then have gone overseas—who are in real financial trouble, who took out loans when they were young and didn’t really understand the impact of it. Now, this Government is going to chase after them even harder and is going to charge them more while they are about it. Sitting in this tax bill is that increased charge on student loan borrowers.

You know, getting an education is sufficiently expensive as it is. It’s hard enough, and that Government is making it harder. That sits along with some of the other stuff they’re doing in tertiary education, making it harder for people to get an education. They should be ashamed of what they are doing in that space.

There are a whole lot of other changes sitting in this Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill. A lot of them are simply consequent on the changes in the tax thresholds. They are deeply detailed; they are flow-through changes to fringe benefit tax, to employer superannuation contribution tax, and so on—all the sorts of changes we would ordinarily expect. But the heart of this tax bill—the heart of it—is that shift in income tax thresholds. As I’ve said before in the first reading speech on this bill, it does provide a change, not as the Minister said—and I’m going to take it that he just made a slip of the tongue. It doesn’t change people’s income; it will change the amount of income they take home after tax. Of course, any increase in after-tax income is welcome.

Of course, another way to increase the income that New Zealanders have is to provide a flourishing economy. This is a Government that in order to provide its billions of dollars of tax cuts—its tax cuts which favour the already wealthy—has cut services and cut jobs dramatically. There is a high cost to this shift in income tax thresholds. The high cost is being borne by people who have lost their jobs.

You know, we’ve had some organisations in this country celebrating that 5,000 people are out of work, in order to provide these tax cuts. So, in this country, we need to have a little bit of a think about why we pay tax in the first place, why paying tax is something that supports us, that supports our health system, that supports our welfare system, that supports our education system, that builds our roads, that provides for our police, that provides for our defence, that provides for our judicial system, that provides for all the things that we like to have in this economy and in this country because it makes living here good.

This is a great place to live, and it is a great place to live precisely because of the things that the Labour Party, and people on this side of the House, have fought for and funded, for generation upon generation. We are the party of health. We are the party of education. We are the party of welfare. We are the party of the environment. We are the party that supports the way of life we like in this country. In order to do that, we all pay our taxes. We all make a contribution to the common good.

Through this tax bill, coupled with all the swingeing cuts to services that this Government has made, all we are doing is shifting costs from one pocket to another. All we are doing is ensuring that families who now have, perhaps, some more money in their pocket—because of the changes in the tax thresholds—have to, at the same time, pay increased public transport fares to get their children to school. All we have is families who might have some extra money in their back pocket—because of these changes in tax thresholds—having to pay more in excise tax, starting from the 2026 year. All we have is families who might have some more in their back pocket—because of this shift in the income tax thresholds—having to pay incredibly increased rates, because that Government would not fund the critical water infrastructure needed in this country. All we have from this shift in income tax thresholds, which might put a bit more money in people’s back pockets, is families who now have to pay more to register their car.

So there’s a whole lot of sneaky increased costs which are now no longer being funded. On top of that, they’ve imported into this an increased tax on our student-loan borrowers—on the very people who’ve done their damnedest to get ahead. It is a disgrace. It’s an absolute disgrace. And this Budget is a disgrace. They should be ashamed to be part of it. It’s a Budget with no vision, with no care, with no forethought for the future, with no way of ensuring that, long term, this country can thrive, that people in this country can do well. They should be ashamed to be part of it.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Members, the time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break. The House will resume at 7.30.

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

Good evening. The House is resumed. We are on the second reading of the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill.

Tēnā koe e te Pīka. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. This bill, the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill, which represents the tax changes that the Government is bringing in, ultimately shows, I think, the ideological difference between the Government and the majority of New Zealanders, because the majority of New Zealanders know that we can do so much more working together. These tax changes are very “I, me, mine”. That’s how I would sum up the ideology of the governing parties: “I, me, mine”. It’s the little gains that they’re giving to individuals and missing out on the bigger picture of what we can do together.

They claim they’re delivering when, at best, they’re delivering $10 or $20 a week extra to people, but they’re taking it back. It’s a drop in the bucket from what they’re taking away that we can achieve together. I’ve already seen people publicly commenting on this. They’re getting an extra $20 a week—that’s what you get if you’re on the higher end of the income spectrum—but they’re going to miss out because their daughter’s bus fare has gone up to over $13 a week and they have prescriptions that they now have to pay more for. It doesn’t take into account the loss of the collective investment that we could be making in the infrastructure and services that serve us better when we work together.

Cheaper public transport, free prescriptions, making it easier for people to buy electric vehicles—because we have to, because that’s how we adapt to the climate crisis: by decarbonising our transport system. But they’ve axed the Clean Car Discount. They’ve massively put up the price for driving electric vehicles (EVs) through road-user charges, and, of course, we haven’t even begun to see the true cost of the cuts that will be felt in public services that are no longer there for people.

This is a smoke-and-mirrors Budget. They very much claim to be delivering, but the big win for people, again, is all broken down into a very individualistic approach. I think that most New Zealanders know that when you go overseas, you see better infrastructure and fewer homeless people. That’s because those countries have fairer tax systems and our tax system is still very unfair, and the changes in this bill make it less fair.

The irony is that the Government will talk about trying to deliver for “hard-working New Zealanders”. It’s very much a kind of virtue signal to say that if you are working in paid work, you’re worth more to society than people who are caring for children or caring for elderly or disabled whānau. What if the work that people contribute to society doesn’t have a commercial return? It still has a value to society, and that is something that people on the Government benches really have not yet understood.

We are continuing to let land bankers and land hoarders pocket more and more untaxed income while working people are struggling with rising rents, rising electricity prices, and rising costs of public transport, all because of decisions this Government has made. And there are certain slogans that get trotted out again and again, and you can go right back to that in the 1980s and 1990s to hear where they first started—“Oh, so and so wrecked the economy”, blah, blah, blah, “Got the country into debt.” Again, it’s all just meaningless slogans, like the quotes from Winston Churchill.

If we really want to understand how to build a more productive economy, one that genuinely benefits everyone, we have 30 years of evidence that the neoliberal ideology does not deliver that. It does not work. That’s the facts. You know, I grew up in the United States, where the infrastructure is crumbling. We’ve had these same ridiculous political lines trotted out by right-wing parties since Ronald Reagan, and what has it delivered? Populist demagogues like Donald Trump and crumbling infrastructure, but a small number of millionaires and billionaires who can claim massive tax deductions for their private jets. It’s just crazy. Like, that’s where it goes. That’s where this ideology leads to. It leads to an incredibly unequal society where people increasingly, if they are lucky enough to be the winners in this society—because they inherited property usually, or because they happened to start out with money—end up living in gated communities and having to pay private armed guards because the crime gets worse because you’ve got people who are starving outside the walls of that gated community.

Now, that sounds extreme, but that’s the road that we are on right now. This bill adjusts personal tax income thresholds, and, as I’ve already said—

Hon Members: Woo hoo!

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: They’re very excited about that. The Government members are super-excited about that because that’s the highest goal they have for our society—it’s for people to get an extra $10 or $20 a week and then miss out on investment in our society, our collective wellbeing, and our collective good. But the difference is that most New Zealanders, I think, actually know this, and this is starting to be reflected in the polls. They realise that they’ve been sold a bit of a sham. And that is why I would say this is very much smoke and mirrors—because where are the cancer drugs? Where are the cancer drugs that were promised? Where are the EV chargers that were promised? Where’s all the infrastructure that was promised? It’s not going to happen and it’s definitely not going to deliver the outcomes.

Finally, in my last few minutes, I just want to talk about how this bill in particular is so harmful right now, because we are facing a climate crisis that is going to continue to affect the world and New Zealand. And the Government parties not only do not have answers; they are literally taking us backwards. The things that they propose as solutions to the climate crisis are the exact opposite. So the changes that they’ve made to the clean car legislation are going to mean higher-emissions vehicles, higher emissions from road transport. The changes that they’re making to the Resource Management Act, to have a fast track—they claim this is about renewable electricity. In reality, they will be allowing more coalmining and motorways that make emissions worse, so it doesn’t stack up.

Ultimately, I think that most New Zealanders have the values—and probably the members opposite; some of them do have the values and they do understand manaakitanga, generosity, working together, being collaborative. How is that not the most fundamental value of a liberal democratic society? And the way that we implement that is through our shared resources, through having a fair tax system that ensures that everyone in New Zealand has what they need to live a good life—not an extra $10 or $20 a week, but spending more on public services, spending more because public transport fares have gone up, because we’re charging more for our prescriptions.

The thing that I really can’t understand about this Government, but I think they have realised, and it will increasingly become clear to the country, is that it is not possible to improve our infrastructure, improve our public services, and deliver large tax cuts to landlords. Until we fix our tax system, we aren’t actually rewarding people for working hard; we’re rewarding people for owning property. And that is one of the biggest challenges for us to improve the productivity of our economy—the fact that there’s an incentive to invest, not to build new houses. The interest deductibility was there for new builds, but now that the Government has given it to existing houses, there’s an incentive to buy more of the houses that already exist, which, of course, has not reduced rents.

Surprise, surprise. No, the changes that benefit the landlords in this society do not put downward pressure on rents—rents continue to go up—but I tell you what would and what the Green Party would definitely support: rent controls. If the members opposite care about keeping rents in check, then build more public housing and put rent controls on rents. Otherwise, it’s just lip-service, and we know who the Government really represents. They represent the landowners. They are feudalist.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Jeez, where to go! I mean, if you needed a lesson in how to kill off any building of rentals, that speech was it. That’s how you kill the rental market—put rent controls in. Honestly!

Look, this bill is pretty simple, really. It’s a movement of the tax brackets. It’s about time—2011 was the last time these tax brackets were shifted. In that time, we’ve had a 34 percent increase in inflation. That’s a 25 percent decrease in people’s purchasing power. For every dollar you had then, you’ve got 25 percent less—you’ve only got 75 percent. This needed to happen a long time ago, this needs to happen now, and, quite frankly, it needs to happen again.

This is really, really simple stuff. It’s not the Government’s money; it’s the people’s money. It’s leaving it in their pockets—it’s pretty simple stuff. I’ve heard a lot about “Oh, we need to be investing in this and investing in that.” Well, this Budget is investing in a lot of the core things. What it’s not investing in is a whole bunch of failed projects, dreamy ideas, and white elephants all over the show—$100 billion was wasted. What can we see for it? Absolutely nothing.

I see across my portfolios things that I could invest in that would deliver results, but there’s no money. It’s all gone—it’s all been wasted. So, like with any business, we’ve got to cut our cloth to suit. Right now, up and down this country, farmers and other small businesses are doing it tough. They’re doing it really tough, and they’re having to cut their cloth to suit. So that’s what this Government has to do.

I’ve heard a bit about inflation happening everywhere and that it’s not the last six years’ fault. I’ll leave you with a quote which will make the Green Party really happy, because they’ll love the person that made this quote. “Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon. It’s caused by too much money chasing after too few goods.”, and in the last six years, we’ve had $100 billion put out there—that’s where your inflation comes from. Thank you, Mr Speaker. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’ll take a short call once again on behalf of New Zealand First to support the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill in the second reading. Now, we support this bill, not only because of what it will do for hard-working New Zealanders but also because it’s another example of this Government delivering, and that is one thing we do. We don’t only talk but we also do what we said we were going to do, and we will continue to deliver for everyone in New Zealand so that they can have greater certainty in what is coming and have faith in us that we will deliver. I commend this bill to the House.

This is an austerity Budget for Māori. This is a Budget that is dashing the hopes of rangatahi Māori, and taking away the dreams of people who want to live here, who want to own a home here, who don’t want to see their dreams of homeownership taken away, their ability to get into work, and their ability to raise a family. But that is all the things that this taxation bill and the Budget bill before it do.

It’s so disappointing for young New Zealanders who have a dream of homeownership, to have that ownership dream ripped away from them, when we see things like the first-home buyers grant taken away to fund a $2.9 billion tax cut enabled in this bill to go ahead. This Budget enables some of the most extensive transfer of wealth from ordinary working New Zealanders to people who already own homes, at the expense of people who National Governments in the past have championed—that’s people who want to get into homes. Do you know who that will affect the most? That will affect the people who have the hardest time getting into secure, warm, dry homes. Māori, Pacific, people on low incomes, people in the South Auckland communities that I represent will be hurt by these economic decisions that that Government is taking, and represented in this taxation bill.

We heard today from Treasury that unemployment is projected to rise to 5.2 percent. Last time that Government were in charge, Māori unemployment went up to 14.5 percent. Tens of thousands of people will lose their jobs in the next quarter. What is that Government’s response? It’s to cut jobs. It’s to put nothing in the Budget to support Māori aspirations into work. There is nothing in this Budget to support Māori to upskill.

There are cuts to things like the Apprenticeship Boost programme that those MPs campaigned on keeping. It’s been halved. You know, just today, I spoke to a young builder, he was an apprentice called Jimmy Edwards. He told me that he wanted to finish his building apprenticeship and he was looking forward to being able to do that through WelTec here in Wellington. It’s that kind of person who this Government is punishing at the expense of landlords to fund a campaign promise that they relied upon to get elected. But $2.9 billion in the context of their finance Minister standing up today, and saying, “Oh, things are hard. Things are really hard out there for working New Zealanders.” Well, it is a choice to give $2.9 billion worth of tax relief—tax cuts to landlords, when, in fact, people are struggling out there, like Jimmy, who just wants to finish his apprenticeship and get into the construction sector; a construction sector that is struggling and needs not only more workers but a pipeline of builds.

But, no, this Government has actually cut 500 Kāinga Ora homes, and another few hundred are on the block. What does that say to the construction sector? It says, “We were all big talk on the campaign trail, but we’re not going to put in those initiatives that would actually help us deliver on our promises.”

An austerity Budget for Māori hurts all New Zealanders. It means Māori homeownership rates will go down. It means Māori unemployment will go up. It means Māori who want to get ahead, who want to provide for their whānau, who want to do well in life are being denied the ability to do that by this Government’s choices and the kind of economy that they are creating with this type of policy.

Contrast that with Labour, where successive quarter after quarter unemployment was below 4 percent, where tens of thousands of people in South Auckland kept their jobs and kept their connections with their employers. It saw Māori unemployment come down to record lows. It’s that kind of investment which makes a change in this country. It’s that kind of investment which leads to the social cohesion that we all talk about wanting in this House. It’s that kind of investment which means that whānau Māori can succeed. If that is what we want, then these choices are not the ones we should be taking.

Tax cuts worth $2.9 billion fly in the face of everything this House should be doing for not only whānau Māori but for Pacific people, for hard-working South Aucklanders, who were told at the election that they would be getting a cut of $250, but they’re not getting that today. Instead they’re getting more costs imposed on their budgets, they’re getting less relief than they were promised, and they’re getting cuts to the public services they rely upon. This austerity Budget for Māori is bad choices all round.

It’s time to address the bill, the trickle-down bill, the inequality increasing bill. I want to take us back to a few months ago when the Government decided to cut benefit increases, which, as officials were speaking about, would have increased the level of child poverty rates, and at the time were told, “Oh, like, we can’t take that in isolation.”, despite the fact that reducing benefit increases would increase poverty. We were told, “Wait. Wait, there’ll be other relief for people, so don’t worry.”

And now we’ve seen the so-called relief after an end to the subsidies for medical prescriptions, the end of public transport subsidies, after we’ve seen rents continue to go up and landlords being given more powers to evict tenants and make life harder for people, after we’ve seen the reduction of emergency housing assistance in this Budget. We’ve now been told that people should be comfortable with breadcrumbs in this bill. And the reality is, if you’re a disabled person on the benefit, if you’re someone who’s struggling to make ends meet or without a home, this bill will do very little to lift you out of poverty or to provide any form of relief, because what this bill contains, beyond the breadcrumbs and tax relief, are changes to the in-work tax credit rate, a discriminatory policy that ignores that caregiving is work.

The in-work tax credit has been labelled as an incentive for people to go into work, but it doesn’t adequately support those in part-time work, nor does it acknowledge the caregiving work that people do in our communities. And, at a time when disabled and carers have told us about the importance of caregiving, the Government has once again chosen to ignore the work that caregivers do to support our communities and leave those struggling the most stranded in this austerity, inequality-increasing piece of legislation, as part of a broader Budget.

Let’s speak to another component of the bill. For the so-called complaints this Government had around the brain drain and the loss of talent and people who were overseas, this bill is, effectively, creating a disincentive for people to come back to Aotearoa, because, already, too many people living overseas with a student loan are feeling like they’re just simply not going to be in a position to come back because of the interest rates that they’re accruing. If we want to attract people back to Aotearoa, the solution to that is to actually create communities here that are attractive for people to come back. Like, it’s understandable for why some people would want to stay overseas when they’re seeing rents go up at record levels, when they’re seeing living standards drop, when they’re seeing a Government scapegoat those struggling to make ends meet the most, when they’re scapegoating Māori. Why would people want to come back seeing a bill that will pay for tax cuts by then also increasing the interest rates that student loans will be paid back to?

So this bill, effectively, all it does is throw some breadcrumbs to people, and, in the context of the broader Budget, it doesn’t make up for the fact that this Government has chosen to make life harder for most people by actually legislating against supporting people with health conditions, people who need to use public transport, and renters. This bill, in and of itself, will ultimately benefit those high-income earners more, rather than people who should have been lifted as part of a cost of living Budget. The truth is that this bill, in of itself, will also continue having early childhood education be run as a for-profit private sector and not be treated as a public good. Because the reality with the FamilyBoost tax credit is that all it does is it creates a continuous incentive for early childhood centres to continue putting prices up. And while some people may see that 25 percent relief, the reality is that it does very little to actually tackle the hard political conversation that is why early childhood education is continuously treated as a business and not a public good.

But, I mean, I’m not surprised, right? This is the party that has continuously supported privatisation, the party that doesn’t support everyone living a good life and under a safe, warm, dry home. And so it is absolutely no surprise that they’re putting forward a bill on Budget day to continue with early childhood education being treated as a for-profit business by many, many entities.

The reality is Budgets, and the legislation that are put forward in Budgets, are political choices. The Greens are clear that we will make the choice, should we be in power, to ensure that we end poverty, that we end discriminated caregivers who receive a benefit, and that we tackle the environmental and biodiversity crisis that we face.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The economic mire that we’re in was six years in the making, and this Budget is the first step to rebuild our economy and get New Zealand back on track. And with that, I commend this bill to the House.

Sometimes when you’re in urgency you’d expect the chair of the Finance and Expenditure Committee to give a more substantial contribution than what we just saw from that member. Budget urgency and the tax packages that often go through them, they do go through under urgency, but I think it is the Government’s responsibility to at least take that process seriously. And for the chair of our select committee, that is in charge of shepherding legislation in this area through, to give a contribution like that, I think exemplifies the disdain to which this Government holds New Zealanders.

Now, we heard the Minister of Finance today in her address talk about doors she had knocked on in the election. And, Mr Speaker, no one knows more than you how effective she was at that task. But what she would have also heard when she knocked on those doors is that National candidates were out there telling the voters of New Zealand they could expect $250 a fortnight in tax cuts. And many of them voted accordingly. Many of them voted expecting that they would be receiving that $250 a fortnight in tax cuts. And what has been delivered to them today? Well, it certainly is not $250 a fortnight. In fact, the Minister of Finance said something different in the House than she would have said on the doorsteps during that election campaign when she told us that for average New Zealand families, that would be $60 a week. There’s $190 missing there in terms of what people were counting on and what people were expecting.

And how are they being paid for when we come to consider the taxation bill that we’ve got before us? And there’s some detailed questions that we will get into at the committee of the whole House stage. But these are being funded by borrowing, and make no mistake about that. The debt track that we are on sees us borrowing $12 billion to deliver $10 billion worth of tax cuts. This is a Government that is pushing the debt as a percentage of GDP higher than it already is, and it’s not to fund services for New Zealanders; it’s to fund tax cuts. And that is what is putting our futures at risk. It is what is taking this country back.

So not only are they not delivering on their promise but the choices being made within this Budget are going to make families worse off. Let’s have a look at some of those things. I think housing is one of those areas. Let’s leave it for another part of the debate, where we’ll get stuck into it—the lack of money for public housing that is in this Budget. But let’s have a look what it does for homeownership. We’d already had the rushed and forced announcement that this Government was killing the Kiwi Dream for a generation of first-home buyers by taking away the First Home grant. But within this Budget, we also see any money that our Government did not spend on progressive homeownership has also been taken away. That money has been put on to the alter of tax cuts. That is one of the prices that New Zealanders are paying.

And what does the Government’s economic adviser Treasury have to tell the Government about what the package that is being delivered in this Budget in the BEFU—the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update—what does it tell will happen to rents? Well, the economic adviser to the Government tells us very clearly it is advising the Government there is going to be upward pressure on rents. That is the result of this package of measures. On page 19 of this document, the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update—to direct those members to something other than the Minister of Finance’s speaking points—you can see that rents are forecast to continue rising rapidly over the early years of this projection. It also says, “the reintroduction of rental property interest deductibility for tax purposes, and changes to the bright-line rules [are] expected to have [an upward] impact.”

So very clearly we can see first-home buyers are being shut out by this Government. And the choices that this Government is making will put upward pressure on rents. That is not the Labour Party saying that; that is the Treasury—the economic advisers that were advising the people that put together this Budget. So when they go back out on the doorsteps, they can ask them how in some cases their $4 and $5 a week tax cut is trending with their rising rents and the fact that they’re shut out of the housing market.

What, then, is this Budget going to deliver for those on superannuation? I am surprised, like my colleague, that New Zealand First let this one through—the fact that we are seeing that for most pensioners we are talking about a $4.30 per fortnight increase, and that is for a couple. That is $2.15 for an individual. That is the benefit that they will see, when other people are getting $40 and up to $60 a week increase. We know that our superannuitants struggle, and ours was a Government that increased superannuation. To see what this Government is doing, how miserly and mean-spirited they are being to superannuitants, is something I am genuinely surprised that a coalition partner took through.

And one of the things I will be interested in when we get to the committee stage is that the regulatory impact analysis goes through a number of the scenarios that ACT put on the table and a number of the options that ACT wanted modelled. And to be perfectly honest, I’ve never seen a regulatory impact statement which is quite so partisan in terms of which party put up what. And what ACT argued for—it lays bare some of the coalition politics, which I think in itself is entirely interesting. But what I do not see in that document is what New Zealand First put up, which I find incredibly interesting, given the impact that this is going to have on what once would have been considered a core constituency.

Another price that New Zealanders will pay for these tax cuts is that we can see that the capital expenditure profile is far lower than that that was sketched out in the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update, or PREFU. What we see is that there will be less invested in the capital track than was being projected before the election. This is something that the Government will have some serious questions to answer about because we know we have an infrastructure deficit. And what we have is a Government that is not funding that infrastructure spending to the level that it was going to be before the election. And we certainly will have some questions on this side of the House.

Because when you have a Government that says they can’t afford things like a homelessness action plan or transitional housing for rangitahi but they can give a $2.9 billion tax cut to landlords, we have a Government that is laying clear where its values sit. The kinds of choices that are being made show the disdain for which this Government holds New Zealanders. New Zealanders are realising that. They are realising that there is a string of broken promises. The things that they were told on the doorstep by their National candidates before the election are not being delivered. Top of that list will be the $250 a fortnight tax cut that people believed they were getting. There is going to be some explaining to do: why it is that family that might be receiving $20-odd a fortnight is now going to have to pay for prescriptions, why they’re going to have to pay to put their kids on the bus to school. They’re the kinds of choices that this Government has made. They have taken far more out of ordinary New Zealander’s’ pockets than they are putting back in with these tax cuts.

But the tragedy is that the cumulative effects of those tax cuts will cost us intergenerationally. It is a Government that has slashed the funding for climate initiatives. It is hard to believe that a Government who is in power in the 21st century could make the kinds of choices that are in this Budget around climate initiatives. And the fact that we have a revenue Minister who is also the climate Minister shows choices.

The member’s time has expired.

I rise in support of this bill. I’m very eager to talk about our Budget, which is delivering on our campaign promises to ensure that there is tax relief for hard-working New Zealanders—that’s right. The member on the other side of the House has spoken about our door-knocking during the campaign, and all of those tradies, all of those truck drivers, all of those nurses, all of those teachers, all of those police officers that I spoke to out on the streets in Hawke’s Bay during the campaign who were sick of the wasteful spending by that side of the House, who were sick of the $100 billion and absolutely nothing to show for it. They want tax relief that goes back into their pocket. They know how to spend it better than the Government on that side of the House. They want the money in their back pocket, not in the bureaucracy and the ideology and everything else. They haven’t had tax relief for 14 years, and that is why this Government is going to deliver it. I commend this bill to the House.

The battle of the shouting is about equal. Can I just see if we can bring it down equally, too, just so everyone can hear. The Hon Willow-Jean Prime—five-minute split call.

Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. Tēnā koe mō te hōmai i te rima miniti ki ahau ki te whakawaha ake i aku whakaaro e pā ana ki tēnei Tahua Pūtea me te iti o te moni ka hoatu ki ngā whānau. Ko te kaupapa i tēnei wā o tēnei o ngā pire, ae, ko tēnei Kāwanatanga, tēnei ringa ka hoatu tētahi wāhi pūtea ki ngā whānau. Ēngari tēnei ringaringa ka tango anō. Koirā te mea e kite ana ahau i roto i tēnei Tahua Pūtea. Ae, ka hoatu ētahi pūtea tēnei ringaringa, ka tango tēnei ringaringa. He aha ngā mea e kite ana ahau? Ko te tango i te pūtea mō te rongoā. Ka whakakorea tēnā. He mea nui tērā mō te oranga o ngā tāngata. He mea nui tēnā i roto i taku rohe o Te Tai Tokerau, ēngari nā tēnei Tahua Pūtea, nā tēnei kaupapa o ngā tax me kī kua hoatu tēnei taha, tango i tēnei ringa. Tētahi anō kaupapa ko te tango i te pūtea hei tautoko i ngā whānau e hoko ana i tētahi whare. Tō rātou whare tuatahi. Kua whakakorengia tērā, kua poronga tērā. Nā, e hoatu ana wētahi moni tēnei ringa, engari tango i tēnei. Te kai i roto i ngā kura, he hanawiti, he pihikete pea noa iho. Ā, ehara i te kai ora, rite ki a mātou. Kua tīni tērā ināianei.

I roto i taku kaupapa o ngā tamariki, hiahia ana rātou ki te hoatu i tēnei pūtea mā ngā take ki ngā whānau, engari ka tango mai e hia miriona tāra i ngā tamariki me ngā ratonga mō ngā tamariki i te Oranga Tamariki. Kahore ahau e whakae ana ki tērā. E kite ana ahau i ētahi pikitia ki waho nei, i tēnei ahiahi. Me te kōrero kei runga, kahore ahau e hiahia ana tēnei Pūtea mai i te Kāwanatanga. Ko tāku e hiahia ana kia tiaki i ngā mokopuna. Hoatu ki ngā hohipera, ki ngā kura, ki ngā pirihimana, rātou katoa. E kite ana ahau i ērā āhuatanga i roto i te Tahua Pūtea. Engari kahore te pūtea e nui rawa mō ērā ratonga katoa. Ko tētahi anō kaupapa, ko te tango i te tautoko mō ngāi tātou te iwi Māori. Ngā ratonga Māori ngā kaupapa Māori. E rapu ana ahau i roto i tēnei o ngā pukapuka kei hea te pūtea hei tautoko i tērā? E mōhio ana ahau kua hoatu ki ngā tāngata whai rawa, whai whare maha: te rua ira iwa piriona tāra ki tērā. Engari ko ngā ratonga Māori, korekau he pūtea kei roto i tēnei Tahua Pūtea mō tērā. Ko ēnei ngā whakataunga o tēnei Kāwanatanga. Tā rātou e hiahia ana ki te tautoko, engari he aha ngā mea kua poro. He nui ngā mea kei roto i tēnā Tahua Pūtea kua poroa.

E hiahia ana ahau ki te whakawaha ake ētahi atu o ngā whiriwhiringa whakataunga o tēnei Kāwanatanga. Ae ka hoatu ētahi wāhi moni mai i tēnei take, horekau he whiwhi i te take mai i ngā whānau engari he aha ngā mea ka ngaro wērā whānau? Kua kī ahau, ētahi o ngā mea, engari kāore e kore, ngā rā kei mua i a tātou ka āta ako mātou ka mārama mātou te hōhonutanga o ēnei poronga. Nā te mea, aini ka rongo mai i ngā ratonga i roto i ngā hapori, ko wai rātou kahore i whiwhi moni ki te mahi wā rātou mahi hei pāinga hei oranga mō ō mātou hapori puta noa i Aotearoa. Nō reira ka hoki anō ahau ki ēnei pukapuka me te āta pānui, āta wetewete i ēnei kōrero kia kite i te hōhonutanga o te tango i tēnei ringa ki te hoatu i tēnei ringa. Nō reira kahore ahau e tautoko ana i tēnei nā te mea he hē ngā whakaaro o tēnei Kāwanatanga.

[Thank you, dear Speaker. Thank you for giving five minutes to me to say what I think about this Budget and the little money that is given to families. The matter at hand for this bill is, yes, this Government. This hand allocates a sum of money to the families. But this hand removes it. That is what I see within this Budget. Yes, this hand allocates some money, and this hand takes it. What else do I see? Taking away money for medicine—that has been removed. That is an integral part of the people’s wellbeing. That is indeed a big deal in my region of the Northland area, but this Budget, and this tax system, I shall say, gives to this side and takes from this hand. Another matter is removing funding to support families to buy a home—their first home. That has also been removed. Therefore, there is money been given to this hand, and taken away from this. The lunches in schools, a sandwich, a biscuit only maybe. It is not the most nutritious. That has now changed.

Within the subject of our kids, they want to allocate this money via taxes to the families, but then take away however many millions of dollars from the children and the child services such as Oranga Tamariki. I don’t agree with that. I see a few pictures here, this afternoon. And what has been said? I don’t want this Budget from this Government. What I want is to care for our grandchildren. Give it to the hospitals, to the schools, to the policeman, all of them. That is what I see for this Budget. But there is not enough funding for all of those services. Other matters include taking money away that support our Māori people, Māori services, Māori initiatives. I am looking within this book for the part that supports that. I know, it has been given to the rich, the home investors: $2.9 billion given. But the Māori services, nothing; there is money here for that. These are the decisions by the Government. What they want to support—but hasn’t been agreed to. There is a lot in that Budget that has been removed.

I want to speak to other matters made by this Government. Yes, there is money given from this tax, nothing given for families, but what do those families lose out on? I have said some of these; however, no doubt the future will show us the true consequences of these actions, because soon we will hear from the services, within the communities, who didn’t receive money to do what they need to do to benefit the wellbeing of all communities in Aotearoa. And so I will return to this book and carefully read through, scrutinise what has been written to see the true consequences of taking from one hand to give to the other hand. Therefore, I do not support this because this Government is wrong.]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It gives me great pleasure to talk about the actual bill that we’re here to talk about tonight: the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill. The previous speakers have been talking about Māori, inequality, housing, and the previous speaker, the Hon Willow-Jean Prime, was talking in te reo about giving with one hand and taking with another. Well, actually, this is just about allowing New Zealanders to keep more of their own money and getting Government out of the way. I ask myself, “Why didn’t we do this 14 years ago?”—why didn’t we do this? Fourteen years. And then I see we did under Sir Bill English and Steven Joyce. We actually did in 2017, but that Government reversed it. Well, here today, we’re getting it back on track.

I just was going to translate for some of the crew on the other side. What the Hon Willow-Jean Prime was saying was this was a rotten, useless Budget for Māori. So I just thought I’d do that for you because I see some of you looking up in the air. It is probably the worst Budget for Māori in my lifetime. And I’m looking on the other side and I’m thinking, “Now, which Māori are responsible for this on the other side?” You know, there’s one or two there, not quite sure if they are Māori—I’ve heard them waffling on. Mr Meager doesn’t know what day of the week it is when he’s a Māori, even though he’s the “great brown hope” according to some of his mates in the media, but he’s not quite sure of himself. He’s like Seymour, who accidentally sort of found out about his Māori side, according to Winston Peters—bit like Abel Tasman, I think Winston said, didn’t he?

But really, this is a shameful, shameful, Budget. We were doing the numbers, Madam Speaker—it’s good to see you there, Madam Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: It’s good to hear you talking about the numbers, Mr Jackson.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Oh, I’m absolutely talking about the tax bill—absolutely, this is all about the tax bill, Madam Speaker. Totally reject this tax bill because we know what they’ve done in terms of financing everything. They’ve looked after their rich friends with $2.9 billion, and they’ve kicked all the Māori people in their guts all around the country. Now I’m looking over there; I look at the Hon Mark Mitchell. Now, Māori had some hope for him, but now he just wants to lock us all up and do his hard-on-crime thing. I’m looking across, I can’t see any hope. Tama Potaka should hang his head in shame after this pathetic—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hey, hey—how about we don’t do too much personal stuff?

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: I can’t help it, Madam Speaker—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I know, but I’m going to have to sit you down if you get too personal.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Oh, I’ll get off that then, Madam Speaker. But I was going through how they funded this in terms of tax, and I saw a cut of $40 million in terms of Māori housing—$40 million. By Māori, for Māori solutions has been a huge success—we had Minister Potaka up there on the East Coast. Sadly, that’s been cut. Also a cut of $20 million in terms of rangatahi—young people—transitional housing; massive cuts in terms of the homeless action plan; Māori development budget cut by $9 million. And this other side are very proud of this—$43 million of increased funding for core services. Basically, the Government is robbing Hōne to give to Peter and Paul—that’s very, very clear. They’re giving a pitiful tax cut with one hand and mugging you with the other hand. See, what’s the point of a $12-a-week tax cut—see, I’m coming on to the tax cuts—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yep.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Yes, I’m doing that for you, Madam Speaker. What’s the point of a $12-a-week tax cut if you have to pay $13-a-week in terms of transport for your kids? That’s all we’re talking about here. [Interruption] Yeah, that’s right. Then the changes will leave beneficiaries behind; almost 30,000 more job losses—that’s not particularly successful; more kids into poverty; the Prime Minister is getting twice the tax cut that the minimum-wage earner gets. And they’re calling this a success. But it upsets me that when I look at the, you know, the “pride and joy of Māoridom” over there, Mr Meager, you should have done a lot better on this. You know, we’ve got a lot of hope for you and the media puts you up there as a “great brown hope”, and you should have done a lot better for us here, but you’ve done nothing. Māori trades training—Māori trades training has been a huge success. You know, Mr Mitchell knows about that; he’s about around that age group when it first came out, he knows all about it. Mr Mitchell knows all about Māori trades training—huge success. Gone, gone, everything gone, so they can look after their rich mates.

Now a disabled person will be up to $256 per fortnight—or $5,742 a year—worse off because of the Government’s changes to disability support, public transport subsidies, benefit injection, the minimum wage, and promised prescription charges.

Hon Jo Luxton: Shameful.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: That is shameful. And they’re all patting themselves on the back today, clapping their leader. How can you be so proud of something that has been so unsuccessful? They don’t have money for the environment, renters, and beneficiaries, but they do have money for their rich landlords. This is a landlords, landlords, landlords Budget. Shame on a lot of them.

Now, on the three official child poverty measures: for the first, there’s no forecast of future numbers; on the second, the numbers will stay the same; and on the third, they will rise. So child poverty will stagnate or worsen—we already know that.

Cameron Luxton: Did it get worse under your watch, Willie?

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Pardon?

Cameron Luxton: Did it get worse under your watch?

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: I couldn’t quite pick that up. But all I know is that is the ACT Party, whose priority are their rich mates, not the workers out there, not the Māori nation, certainly not the struggling. Now, the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update 2024 projects the economy to come out of recession and then growth to drop downwards 3.2 percent in 2026, 2.9 percent in 2027, 2.7 percent in 2028. So where’s the rise in the growth? Where’s the vision from a Government that cares beyond their donors and rich landlord mates? That’s the question. They seem to think that a $12 tax cut for minimum-wage earners and 40 bucks for median-wage earners will make the electorate forget about the Government’s climate-destroying, bashing agenda because we know where it’s all at.

Things are not going well for this Government. I mean, they’re even down on the Roy Morgan poll. Madam Speaker. This is a poll—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: That’s a different set of numbers, Mr Jackson.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Oh, is that a different set of numbers?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yeah.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Right, come back to it. But, really, this is a tax bribe; not one cent—see, when I talk about funding, when we were looking at the Budget today, we found in Minister Potaka’s budget that he was $90 million down in terms of Māori development—$90 million down. That’s terrible for the Māori development budget when you have Māori development funded at around about $600 million a year. So he’s $90 million down, but they’ve said to him, “Oh, well, we’re giving you a bit of extra money for those haka people, Tama. So you should be happy now.” And so those dancing Māoris have got a few more dollars, and so Tama’s really happy with that. Meanwhile, funding’s been cut right across the spectrum. I like Tama very much, but shame on him and shame on the other Māori members across the House when you’re down $90 million in the Māori affairs portfolio. But then when we did the numbers right across the spectrum—former Minister Megan Woods did some wonderful work in the housing area. Very, very happy with what she did. [Interruption] These idiots can laugh, but we know we’ve built more houses—more houses—than anyone else.

Stuart Smith: Point of order.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’ve got a point of order from Stuart Smith.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Sit down, Stuart Smith.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, no. I’ve got a point of order from Stuart Smith.

Stuart Smith: Madam Speaker, he’s using irony in the House—is that allowed?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I think, actually, we might all just calm down a little bit because there was a lot of shouting going on backwards and forwards. And if you want me to hear Mr Jackson using irony, we’ll just take the tone down a little bit.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: OK, well, I mean, Stuart Smith is the irony, if we really want to be clear about it.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, no, no, that’s personal—

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: He’s quite a—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Keep going with—

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: I want it to be personal, Madam Speaker. He is irony.

Stuart Smith: Point of order. It’s “Mr Irony”, thank you.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: OK.

Camilla Belich: Point of order. Madam Speaker. I know that there’s banter in the House, but this is a serious matter. I don’t think that that member’s use of a point of order is appropriate in this debate, and I would prefer you to be able to rule on the appropriateness.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: That’s relevant, thank you. We’ll have no more points of order on that matter. And we’ll have everything in the space of the numbers regarding the Budget from Mr Jackson for the next 1½ minutes.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, it’s very, I suppose, disappointing, for us. As I said, $90 million has been lost in the name of tax cuts in terms of Māori development, but actually $300 million has been lost in terms of Māori funding right across the spectrum. This was picked up in the media conference today by Claudette Hauiti, rejected by the Minister of Finance, but never have we seen in a Budget Māori funding go back so much—$300 million. We will get the story out there—they can reject it all they like and confuse the silly Māoris in their party and say, “Oh, you got the kapa haka money.”, but we actually know how to read Budgets and $300 million is a kick in the guts for Māori.

You saw the level of protests today: thousands and thousands of Māori—thousands of them—are hitting the streets because they see these sell-outs on the other side and they’ve had enough. This is going to be a very, very short term for this useless, race-baiting, right-wing Government who don’t care about Māori, who don’t care about workers, who are just focused on their rich mates, and we’re looking forward to the next poll. Kia ora, Madam Speaker.

I wanted to say to the Pakuranga couple right now at home watching this live on TV, to Yali and Issac: thank you for sending me your screenshot and telling me your plan for the annual saving of $3,029 that we have announced for you and your family today. Thank you. Thank you for telling me that you will be able to get your sons—your two children—to two extracurricular activities every week and take them to the zoo. But you know what? Don’t thank us. Members on this side of the House want to say thank you for voting for us and giving us your trust to be the responsible Government for your hard-earned money. So, with that, I commend this bill to the House.

This bill is set down for committee stage immediately. I declare the House in committee for the consideration of the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill.

In Committee

Part 1 Income Tax Act 2007 amendments commencing 1 April 2024