the concept of community and it is our seniors that know
the value of our
our seniors that know the value of community in New Zealand.
our seniors that know the value of community in New Zealand. I call the
Rt Hon David Carter. How galling
it is to be in the House tonight and
receive a lecture from a
New Zealand First member about how easy or hard
it is to sign up to superannuation
and engage
and engage with Work and Income. I've done it. It was easy to do. I
went there, as required, with my
spouse or in my case my wife. I
filled out my forms correctly
and I've since received my due super. It
is not difficult. So why can't
the Hon Tracey Martin tell Mr
Peters how easy it is to
Hon Tracey Martin tell Mr Peters how
difficult. It's not difficult.
the courts. That is an issue in the courts, Madam Speaker, and members
of the Government and their
parliamentary servants are part
of it. You will resume your seat. I
understand the point you are trying
to make but I do not understand
it is in front of the court
and therefore I will take some advice.
Your
Your point of order is not correct. It is not before the courts.
However, I would refer to the
Hon David Carter, to be
careful about the inferences that he is making
about another member's character
and to focus on the bill. The point I
am
Excuse me, I will just ask that Excuse
Excuse me, I will just ask that member just to calm down. The point
I am making is the Hon
Tracey Martin said it is not difficult for people
to engage with Work and
Income. I agree with that. All it takes
is honesty, integrity and a little
bit of intelligence to fill out
the forms properly and
having engaged with Work and Income, there
is no difficulty. It is a good
system. It is a good system but if you go
in there forgetful of the information,
not mindful of the correct
information or, indeed, in
some cases
cases deliberately giving misinformation, I can understand
why you could fall foul of the system.
Being in the second
reading, I wanted to consider why it has been
debated under urgency and why
it has been done in the last few days of
this parliament, when the
Government's had 43 days to do this
classic character legislation
and I figured out what
the problem's been. There has been
great difficulty getting the coalition
to manage this because in has not been a meeting
of the minds at all on this
particular legislation. If you look at the
Green Party policy, particularly in
regards
regards to the Winter Energy Payment, their policy going
into the election was that it should be an
energy supplement to all households
that earn less
energy supplement to all households
there is some merit in. That it is about targeting those
who might need it. But obviously the
Greens, and it is not the first time in the last
43 days
is not the first time in the last 43 is
is not the first time in the last 43 days they have been rolled by this
days
days they have been rolled by this Coalition Government, obviously they
have had to back down on that
position and
position and they've had to accept that it is going to be universal and
that Winter Energy Payment
is going to be available to somebody like
to be available to somebody like
myself. If you look at the
New myself.
myself. If you look at the New Zealand First election position,
if you look at the New Zealand First
election position
election position around benefits, they were requiring greater scrutiny
of the benefit system, adjustment
to benefits and abatement level
and better targeting. So New
Zealand First have been rolled by the
genius Grant Robertson, and I only use that
word because Grant Robertson himself
interjected that he, indeed, was
a interjected that he, indeed, was a
genius. I think that
will surprise many of the
119 fellow members of Parliament
many of the 119 fellow members of many
many of the 119 fellow members of Parliament in this House. New
Zealand First clearly campaigned on
better targeting of benefits, so why
have we ended up in this
situation, when there is
effectively no targeting at all and
the benefits that are being dished out by
this package are
package are super generous, certainly to those that need
them, and so they should be, no
objection to that at all, but they
are equally generous to a person like myself. Mr
Robertson, through
Robertson, through question times, Robertson, through question
times, argued that they were very
keen to make sure the National Tax Cut
Packagedy not proceed,
because it would be available to people like himself and me. As
I outlined in my
first reading contribution on this legislation,
I am significantly better off...
The member yells out I should opt out. Why should I be given
the responsibility of opting out of a
Winter Energy Payment when
the Government's prepared to give it. It
is like asking me to opt out of
superannuation payments. Why
It is the Government's job to target assistance. It is not
the citizen's job to
assistance. It is not the citizen's
of a foolhardy policy, why don't you opt
of a foolhardy policy, why don't you
I say to that member whose name I'm sorry
sorry I can't recall. That is not the way it works. I will
be interested as
interested as we get...
Point of order. The member has just told us how easy it is to go to Work
and Income, so if he
wants to opt out, I'm sure it's very
easy for him to do. That is not a point of
order. That is not the way
this House works to interrupt a member's speech
with what is not a point of order. That
is a debating point. I call the Hon
David Carter. I was
desperately frying to explain to that
member why people won't go out. That is
the question I will
raise in the committee stages. Presumably some
budgeting has been done on this. We
eligible to pick up the Winter Energy Payment and I hope equally
Energy Payment and I hope equally
the Government has done
its research on how many people
it thinks might opt out of
the Winter Energy Payment. So when we get
to committee stages, I give
warning to the minister in the Chair, I will be
asking those questions. I
hope we get the answer. But I'm sure we will
get assistance from madam or Mr
Chairman at the time that if we
are not getting the answers the
debate will be allowed to go on for longer.
So we could be here
for some time. we could be here for
some time. Madam Speaker, the other issue
I wanted to take up was the claim
that's been made that people
will be significantly better
significantly better off with this package. I think the
figure mentioned by the Minister
Grant Robertson was 384,000 people. And
let's work on the average family size being 2.2 or 2.3
let's work on the average family
750,000 people. Yet the National Government had passed tax cuts
into legislation that
legislation that affected 1.2 million people. How can the
Government
Government possibly argue more people are better off under
this package that they're proposing than
are better off under the previous
National Party's tax package passed
Party, and voted for by the New Zealand First party at the time. So
there's another question we will ask
throughout the committee stages
Because to me, they don't make sense. As I said in my first
reading contribution, Madam Speaker,
there are a lot of people in hardship in
this country
are a lot of people in hardship in
And any package that addressed that hardship and was seriously targeted,
I think, would have we'd have had a
rational debate within the
National Caucus and an attempt to find common
ground to support it. But
when you come in with a package like this
that spends billions of dollars,
and you spray it around with universal
acceptance and eligibility,
that just does not
make sense, Madam Speaker. And I say to
the Government, it's had time to do this
policy work. It's had 43 days.
Labour would claim they campaigned
on this through the
election campaign. Why has it taken
so long to bring the New Zealand First party
and the Green Party into
agreement
Coalition deal that we haven't been able
Coalition deal that we haven't been
brought it to parliament today...
..and attempting to pass it in urgency when there's no
implementation date at all before
1 April or 1 July this year, and the
Minister
Minister of Finance, Grant Robertson, nods his head at that.
Surely, Mr Robertson, if it had
gone to a select committee
Surely, Mr Robertson, if it had gone
gone to the select committee and we'd had a chance to help
the government with
..I think we'd have ended up with a far better piece of legislation than
liberally spraying taxpayers' money
around. Madam Speaker,
universality is the problem with this package. It
is giving money to people that
do not need it. The Hon Tracey Martin
passionate speech about the people who are cold through the winter and
needing assistance. National
accepts that those people need assistance.
But I'm not sure that she can
convince me, gate stage, that I
need that assistance. But if she
thinks I'm going to
Government comes to the House tonight, close
tonight, close to the Christmas break, when the Press Gallerys
party on and they know they
won't get scrutineered by the
journalists, they come in here because they're
ashamed of this package to get it
passed. They don't get
my support but, rest assured, the Hon Tracey
Martin, in three years' time,
this National Opposition will be
back to tidy this mess up, and we will do
so very, very quickly after the
election of 2020.
I call Jan Logie.
I'm sorry, can I just ask
the
I don't know whether it's because of where you're sitting, but it is
a constant barrage. And my right ear
Jan Logie. It was sounding very good from here! I do just want to pick
up on one of the points from the
previous speaker when I start. I'd,
I guess, fallen a little bit being
sucked into the rhetoric of
the National Party as the party of
personal responsibility. I
don't know. I'd heard this kind