Swarbrick ChlöeCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): E te Māngai tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. Just to foreshadow at the beginning of this contribution the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand will be abstaining on this bill before the House today. The reason for that is that in the best-case scenario this bill enables us by passage by the majority of the Labour side and the Labour Government to raise nowhere near enough revenue to meet the challenges of the borrowing that we have undertaken and importantly to make the investments that are necessary to build back. But worst-case scenario this further entrenches and exacerbates inequality.We had the honourable Minister Stuart Nash referring particularly to history and here I think it is important to refer to history and to our experiences with raising top income - tax brackets in the past. So we did just that when it was 2000 and the then Minister of Finance Michael Cullen increased the top tax bracket from I believe off the top of my head 33 percent to 39 percent. In the subsequent years we saw an increase in house prices by approximately 17 percent. The reason for that as was unpacked later by academics and experts and researchers was that people were shuffling their money into trusts instead of the typical income which is taxed and then into property property being the major reason that we have the level of wealth inequality that we do in this country today. It then so happens that Sir Michael Cullen after being the Minister of Finance went on to be the chair of the Tax Working Group. He learnt from his mistakes and he recommended a capital gains tax a comprehensive one which would actually tackle the core of the issue of inequality in this country.In his contribution earlier the I believe newly appointed—congratulations—spokesperson for finance for the National Party Andrew Bayly spoke to and I believe he said the quiet part out loud when he said and I quote There is such a thing as legitimate tax avoidance." He was speaking to how we create systems which enable people with power and wealth and resources to shift their money into places and spaces that mean that they don't end up being taxed in the way that they should. We have seen exactly that in the way that we have the highest rates of wealth inequality in this country since the 1980s which notably is when we first started collecting detailed data.To refer to some data the wealthiest 10 percent—the top 10 percent wealthiest—New Zealanders own 59 percent more than half of all of the assets in this country. The poorest half—the poorest half—of New Zealanders own just 2 percent. The warning shot that the Greens are putting out there in discussing and debating this legislation today is that we risk doing exactly the same thing repeating history and entrenching and perpetuating and exacerbating these problems if we do not address the core root of this evil which is that we do not equally tax capital as we do those who work for a living.I'd also refer to the notes that have been prepared the departmental disclosure statement and regulatory impact assessment which speaks to the kind of problem definition and what the objectives as outlined by the Labour Government were in seeking to implement this piece of law ahead of Christmas. The reasons as outlined were of course to implement the Labour Party's 2020 election manifesto but also two key objectives—as bullet pointed at page one for those who are following. It is firstly a revenue objective and secondly a distributional objective. I'll refer to both of those in turn.So on the first around a revenue objective that's defined in this paper in this advice as "The Government is raising extra revenue to reduce the fiscal impact of higher operating allowances proposed in its fiscal strategy." In there what we see as outlined in the projections by officials is that the amount of money that is projected to be raised by this will not touch the sides again as I alluded to before on the amount of borrowing that we are currently undertaking in order to recover from COVID-19. In fact what is stipulated and I quote from this very advice is that "The revenue estimates are sensitive to assumptions about how much people change their behaviour in response to the tax (e.g. reducing hours diverting income into another entity). There is significant uncertainty in these assumptions and changing them results in substantial changes in revenue." That starts to unpick and casts seeds of doubt on that first objective the revenue objective.But more importantly the concern for the Greens lies on the second outlined objective which is a distributional objective. Of course I alluded to inequality as rampant in wealth in this country just earlier but here it's defined as "The Government is seeking to raise this additional revenue in a way which has as little as possible impact on low- and middle-income earners and thus increases the progressivity of the tax system." Absolutely you can see iron-clad in here that there is an intention and in fact it will be achieved with regards to the progressivity of the income tax system but not of the tax system as a whole. That's because we aren't of course increasing—by virtue of this legislation as drafted there's no proposed changes to anybody who is earning less than $180000 per annum on their income on paper. But it doesn't deal with or grapple with the fact that by virtue of potentially continuing to inflate this problem of rampant wealth inequality in this country the costs particularly the cost of housing very well may go up in this country which disproportionately impacts those low and middle income earners.That is the crux of the problem that the Greens are having with this proposed law. At worst it is going to make inequality worse. So it was put to us and has been lauded as one of the potentially great things about this legislation about the proposed tax changes that only the top 2 percent of society is going to pay. Someone actually even mentioned earlier in the debate that it was something that we could celebrate that even MPs weren't going to have to pay because even they wouldn't be touched. I'd hazard a guess that most who sit in this Chamber have probably heard from their constituents about how disgruntled they are about the fact that back in the 1980s the average backbench MP's salary was the equivalent to that of a teacher and we have seen that run-away inequality mirrored in the salaries of those in this Chamber as we have in the wealth inequality. [Interruption] With regard to the barracking I just—yeah I'm not even going to go there.In order to actually meaningfully do and achieve the objectives as outlined in the advice the statement offered by officials that is a revenue objective a meaningful revenue objective that'll enable us to invest in the clean green technology and infrastructure that was spoken to just earlier today when it came to the climate emergency declaration. In order to achieve a distributional objective for a more equal for a more just New Zealand where everybody has the opportunity to thrive we actually need to be doing the likes of which Sir Michael Cullen as the chair of the Tax Working Group having learnt from the mistakes of 2000 recommended only I believe it was earlier this year or late the last. Aotearoa New Zealand needs a wealth tax. We in this Chamber need to be bold enough to engage and debate that on the facts on the evidence and on the data.Dr Duncan Webb: Not this bill.CHLÖE SWARBRICK: And Dr Duncan Webb I deeply respect you my friend. It isn't this bill but it should be because the Labour Party that prides itself on principles like justice and fairness and equal opportunity—I would hope to listen to the forebears that it placed in the chair of its own expert advisory Tax Working Group because we have the opportunity to learn from the past and to do far better to those that we are passing down the future to.The Greens will be abstaining from this bill. Thank you."