The pitiful tax cut announced by Bill English at the weekend is as good as it gets for ordinary New Zealanders under National, says Labour finance spokesperson Michael Cullen.

"What needs to be remembered is that the second round of cuts foreshadowed by Mr English and heartily supported by Act - the three cent reduction to the corporate rate and the top income tax rate - will go only to those earning $40,000 and over a year.

"Those on under $40,000 will get nothing," Dr Cullen said.

"This means the person on $20,000 can look forward to no more than a $2.02 a week cut while the Prime Minister, on $204,100, would be an extra $105.15 a week in pocket.

"The further up the income scale one goes the more obscene the differences become. The person on $2.02 a week will be able to look enviously at the chief executive of Telecoms who, on the present salary package, will get a tax cut of almost $1000 a week.

"This underlines just who the National Party is talking to when it talks about middle New Zealand. They don't see middle New Zealanders as those who are battling away on ordinary incomes working full time and scarcely making ends meet.

"They see the real middle New Zealand as those people who earn very much larger sums, the kinds of people that National Party Ministers talk to in their daily lives.

"It really is time for the National Cabinet to go door-knocking and to get back in touch with reality," Dr Cullen said.

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