11. Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) Link to this
to the Minister of Finance
Will he guarantee that any changes to the tax system in this year’s Budget will decrease inequality in New Zealand?
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance) Link to this
As the member will be aware, the Government has not made decisions in detail on this matter, and any measure of inequality will be affected by the actual details. I might say that the Tax Working Group, with encouragement from the Government, paid a good deal of attention to issues of equality and different measures of inequality as it analysed different scenarios. The part of that analysis that is the most difficult to deal with is the impact of any significant tax revenue from property. By and large, property tends to be owned by New Zealanders on higher incomes but none of the current databases can accurately pin down exactly who owns property and has interests in property-type vehicles. So it will be a bit difficult in the end to tell exactly whether inequality has decreased or not.
Will he then guarantee that by the end of this term of Parliament the gap between the top 10 percent and the bottom 10 percent of income earners will be smaller than when his Government took office?
That would probably depend more on factors outside of a tax package. For instance, the speed of decrease in unemployment will make a big difference to the earnings of the bottom 10 percent as compared with the top 10 percent. Equally, the continued build up of long-term beneficiary numbers, which has been going on for a while, has created a group of a quarter of a million people who are locked into very low incomes. If the Government can make progress on those issues then it may be possible that inequality is decreased, but that is yet to be seen.
Hon David Cunliffe Link to this
I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It is a serious point of order. I contend that the Minister has not sufficiently addressed that question. The Minister—
Mr SPEAKERHon David Cunliffe Link to this
The Minister and his colleagues earlier blocked the tabling of a number of scenarios, any one of which—and all of which—would have conclusively answered the question—