Penk ChrisCHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you very much Madam Speaker. It's a privilege to speak to the Taxation (COVID-19 Support Payments and Working for Families Tax Credits) Bill. Often one would stand up in the House and say either one had been part of the select committee and reflect on some of the submissions and thank those who had been part of the process or of course alternatively one would say that one hadn't been part of the select committee process and therefore one was at somewhat of a disadvantage compared with one's colleagues but at least one had read some of the submissions. I wasn't part of the select committee process but then again no one was! There hasn't been one. So I'm not able to acknowledge any such contributions much as I actually would have liked to have heard from the New Zealand people on the subject of the taxation bill.These are pretty serious matters and if the other side of the House believed as strongly as they say they do on doing things that are right for people perhaps they would not be so afraid of hearing from the people whom they say that they wish to assist. One is put in mind of that classic dictum that there's no more scary set of words than I'm from the Government and I'm here to help." Well no doubt the intention is to help. The intention as always—or at least is usually the case we can discern—may be a good one but that's not the same as to say that the outcome is a good one. And in relation to this bill a number of proposals are made—a number of claims are made in the bill—that I think we can pretty readily stack up versus reality and see that it doesn't in fact provide all the benefits that it claims and all the benefits that the other side of the House no doubt genuinely would like it to provide. So the first thing I'd say is that often we hear about increases and improvements and for example the Working for Families amendments provide for increases to the family tax credit Best Start tax credit rates and so on. There are proposed increases that will apply from 1 April of next year. Well that's great but these will not be increases in real terms if any such increases are swallowed up by inflation. By inflation of course I mean not only in the obvious monetary sense with the increase of the Consumers Price Index—and that's a matter that is bedevilling New Zealand yes and other countries around the world but I'm not particularly taken with arguments on the other side of the House that say "Well look how much worse things are in some other countries." in relation to inflation or national debt or whatever because the fact of the matter is that in this House we should compare ourselves with the best New Zealand that we can be. We should be comparing our circumstances now as they were but more importantly as they can be if the best possible policy making takes place in this place—and in the Beehive of course.So in real terms the improvement in the situation of families and individuals and businesses is not all that it is claimed in this bill. Of course inflation in monetary terms as I've talked about which even in itself is perhaps a limited way of viewing the increases in the cost of living if we take into account housing costs—which are often excluded from calculations of inflation and yet the most inevitable costs that human beings will have along with I suppose clothing and food because of course shelter is a basic human need. And of course housing whether one is paying rent to a landlord or paying an equivalent amount perhaps to a bank by way of repaying mortgage principal and interest in one's own home—either way housing costs are a considerable part of any household or individual's budget; likewise actually of course in the commercial sense for businesses operating a retail premises. For those costs which have been escalating in the last four years there has been some criticism—or lots of criticism—and perhaps with some justification about the increases in the previous nine years; so huge extra cost pressures that the bill will do very little to ameliorate. The danger of course is not only that it doesn't keep up with these inflationary pressures but also that in fact families and individuals may even fall behind—so in real terms not much of an increase at all and possibly even going backwards.The proposed increases to apply from 1 April of next year: obviously more than three months away. That's a lot of extra time for inflationary pressure to continue to push hard up against households and businesses. This is doing a great disservice to Kiwis who might feel as though they are better off with a greater number of dollars next to their name but of course that's entirely illusory in the case of increased cost pressures which are not only in that sort of general inflationary sense but also in specific items with supply shortages around the world. Yes some of that is to do with COVID-19 and beyond the control of any Government and yes these are global problems to some extent but the fact of the matter is that because these are things outside our control that is all the more reason for the Government of New Zealand to do all the things that are within its control to avoid inflationary pressure. A big-spending Government that does not have sound priorities in terms of return for investment—and I don't mean that in a cold hard calculating way necessarily in the balance sheet but investment in terms of the position of humans and the way that we can create a better New Zealand with infrastructure that we would actually benefit from not pie in the sky stuff such as the proposed and then de-proposed "deposed" even plans for a cycle bridge over the Auckland Harbour for example.But I did want to speak also about the schemes that are being made available here because of course the largess of Government—by which I really mean of course the largess of taxpayers and the funds that they've provided to the Government to spend on their behalf whether willingly or otherwise—is only as useful and only as meaningful as the support actually becoming available actually is. I'd like to give a couple of examples in relation to constituents of mine who have had difficulty accessing the COVID-19 resurgence support payments because this scheme is specifically mentioned in the bill and it's the amendments to that as well as the Working for Families and so forth that the bill is concerned with.The issues faced for example by a business that has effectively been continuing throughout a period of time throughout a period in which a lockdown has vastly reduced the revenue-generating ability of the business has been denied the benefits that they should have been made available to them under the COVID-19 resurgence support payments. The reason from the officials doing the will of the Beehive is that the business was bought and sold during the relevant period. So the determination from the Inland Revenue Department was that the business was a new business and because a company had been incorporated and established for the purpose of buying an existing business a going concern one which was making a certain amount of revenue that was impacted by the lockdown the decision—and it's a real head-scratcher—was that there was no qualification for the payment on the basis that a loss of income hadn't been established because it was a new business when it was exactly the case that it was an existing business albeit under a new name.So the implication is that no businesses should be bought or sold and somehow the good people of New Zealand should have the foresight literally in the case of this business of needing a crystal ball. I'm not talking about prudent planning; I'm talking literally to be able to guess as one would guess Lotto numbers and with about as much success! So that just seems to me extraordinary. The Government needs to have a hard look at the way that they are administering the scheme in a way that actually excludes rather than includes those who are deserving of it and meet the spirit and I would argue the letter of the law as it stands.The other situation is the one of a business that was newly set up around the time of the great lockdown in Auckland. I say it in a way that sort of makes it sound quite historical as though it's in the past; it's very much still in the present up there I can tell you. For a constituent to have her application denied in relation to her new business because it wasn't her income-generating ability that had been affected but her capital-raising ability seems to me extraordinary. These are effectively the same things for a new business. I won't go into the detail—I don't have time for one thing but also not to be too specific in relation to this person's individual case—but again the point remains that the Government has to make available support if it's serious about doing the things that it says it wants to do in this bill."