Lee MelissaMELISSA LEE (National): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. It's a great opportunity for me to actually stand to speak on this the Taxation (Research and Development Tax Credits) Bill. I will start by addressing the concerns that the previous member who just took his seat Michael Wood raised in terms of the minority view and I guess to actually say I wasn't part of the Finance and Expenditure Committee—Kiritapu Allan: Ask your colleague right behind you—Ian McKelvie.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! That is enough. Do not bring me into the debate.MELISSA LEE: —and I'm not a permanent member. Having said that I have actually been in this House longer than the member who just took his seat. Some advice: in fact if there are minority views—Kiritapu Allan: Tell that to your—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order!MELISSA LEE: —and it comes from the National Party or the Green Party or the New Zealand First Party—let's say—or the Labour Party it is the responsibility of that party and they are responsible. It is not up to—Kiritapu Allan: Absolutely and say that to the colleague of your own team.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Can I just ask the member to resume her seat. Ms Allan I've asked you to come to order three times now. As Government whip I expect a much much higher standard from you.Kiritapu Allan: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): This must be a point of order not just an observation.Kiritapu Allan: In respect of the matters that have been discussed in the House this afternoon: as a member sitting on this side of the House to hear matters that have been dealt with in select committee rehashed and reinterpreted in a way that undermines the integrity of those processes—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! You will resume your seat. You're calling into order the integrity of the select committee process. I will not allow that—[Kiritapu Allan stands] No—I will not allow that to happen. This is a third reading debate. It is the debate on how the bill has been returned to the House after the committee of the whole House. Now there was discussion about this at that process. It has been the subject of previous debate calls within this third reading which have not been ruled out of order in terms of being able to be discussed. I will permit the member to continue her contribution.MELISSA LEE: Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. As I was saying for someone who has actually been part of select committees and having actually been a chair of one I think the opinion of another party who happened to be in Opposition and their right to write a minority view is something that should be respected by the Government members and not tried to be altered. The responsibility of whether that report is correct or has inaccuracies is the responsibility of that party or the person who is actually writing the report; it is not the responsibility of the Government members to say whether it is right or wrong.Having said that I move on to the actual bill. Talking about the R & D tax credit I think everyone in this House agrees that the R & D tax credit has a purpose and it is actually a good thing and it can be very supportive for businesses who are trying to grow their business and I think growing business and growing the economy is very important. But there is just something that I heard that an Australia-based academic has said and I'd like to actually quote that for you. His name is Professor Göran Roos. He's an Australia-based Swedish academic and he says None of the top performing R&D countries in the world have R&D tax credits." And he goes on to say—and I quote—"Most companies actually see the way it works and look at it as a free money. [Then] they reclassify overheads and other things to call it R&D and then they get some free money. It is very common practice. What happens when they do [this]… of course they report more R&D [but not] do more R&D."I am quite concerned about this Government and this particular bill because for example for start-ups for much smaller companies—and the New Zealand economy is actually made up of a lot of small companies who are hoping to actually grow their business—when they restrict the R & D below $50000 it could be a problem.I'll give you a reason why. When I was running a television production company I could not afford the big production cost of things like dolly tracks which big budget movies would use so instead I mounted a camera on top of a skateboard to emulate the pictures of a big dolly track. Another thing I needed to create was a sort of a desert scene. I couldn't afford a big wind fan to create this wind to move the sand around so I used a much smaller scale—I put sand on top of glass and used a hairdryer. So the whole number eight wire mentality in New Zealand actually helps create new things. Perhaps I could have used that less than $50000 budget help that we could have possibly got to create a new wind machine or a dolly track that doesn't cost that big budget money and that could be something that we could have actually exported to another country for example.This particular bill does not help people who want to budget under $50000 and to me that's a problem. The very fact that a minority view from the National Party was not allowed just tells me that this Government is very very arrogant indeed. I oppose this bill."