Hague Kevin: Taxation (Business Tax Measures) Bill — First Reading 
Hague Kevin: Taxation (Business Tax Measures) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:652;Page:1084] 
KEVIN HAGUE (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party’s policy on small businesses is to support those businesses by means of the relaxation and elimination of red tape and compliance costs. For that reason I am happy to stand here today to support the Taxation (Business Tax Measures) Bill going to the select committee. Perhaps some people will be surprised by that but I have to say that our support is cautious and extends no further than voting for the bill to be referred to the select committee. The reason for this is that this bill is being introduced under urgency. Of course taxation bills will sometimes need to be introduced under urgency but nothing in this bill requires that. Once again we see a Government that is causing a further affront to democracy and an affront to healthy politics in the way it is using the processes of the House. We oppose that practice. Today is the first time we have seen this bill and consequently I have not had the opportunity to read it thoroughly. My comments will be general ones. 
I will talk about the bees for a second. Those of us who live in rural areas and particularly in the bush sometimes have a problem with bees. They come into our house because they are looking for their nests. They come in a straight line and they end up buzzing against the windows of the inside of our house. If we go away for a couple of weeks we come back and there is a snowdrift of dead bees. The bees know no other way of getting to their nest and no mater what we try the only way we can fix that problem is to shift the nest. 
Einstein said that solutions to problems would not be found by using the same kind of thinking that created the problem in the first place. Yet that is precisely the kind of thing that this Government and many around the world seem to be doing. The responses we have seen to this recession—or this depression or whatever it may turn out to be—are ones that assume that any economic activity is as good as any other and that the answers to those problems lie in continued consumption and continued credit. Those are ultimately doomed responses. They are like the responses of the bee that sees no other way. We desperately need to shift the goalposts. 
I am a person who has come to this House after a background in owning and managing small businesses. I have to say that there are many aspects of this bill that clearly I would support and it will actually make the running of a lot of small businesses easier. However I am also frustrated by the lack of coherence in the Government’s response and in its measures to assist small businesses. As the Hon David Parker has just said in this House on the one hand the Government is providing a helping hand to small businesses by relieving some of those compliance costs and by relieving some of that unnecessary tax burden. However on other hand it is pulling the rug out from under the feet of many small businesses—those very small businesses that display the innovation that our nation so desperately needs in order to see a way forward in this time of crisis. 
There is no coherent reason for the Government’s withdrawal of the research and development tax credit yet now it is offering small business another hand. I was very pleased to hear the Hon Bill English talk about his readiness to consider the recommendations of the Small Business Advisory Group. I want to focus on a couple of them because that group has consistently provided a number of extremely useful constructive and positive suggestions for Governments to be able to assist small businesses. Many of those suggestions come in the form of extra tools that businesses could use—web-based business centres and online checklists guides and case studies. Those are a couple of things recently suggested by the group. 
I want to focus on a couple of recommendations from the last report of the Small Business Advisory Group. It recommended that “publications be produced that give practical and implementable advice and support for small and medium enterprises to improve their environmental performance and to derive business benefit from the recognised or certified environmental sustainability of their products and processes.” It sounds like good sense to me. It sounds like the kind of thing that could be done for a lot less than $500 million. The group also recommends that “all foodstuffs sold in New Zealand be required to be labelled with the country of origin of the defining component or the most significant component of the foodstuff.” The Green Party would strongly support such a measure. 
In 1933 Franklin Delano Roosevelt in his inauguration address spoke about the origins of the financial crisis that was gripping the world at that time. In particular he spoke about the motivations of those who had speculated through greed and now had no answers to offer. In outlining the principles upon which his New Deal lay he said: “The measure of that restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.” As Dr Russel Norman said earlier today in the House talk around the world is now focusing on a “Green New Deal”—on the need to confront not only the financial crisis but also the crises in environment and energy. They should be confronted not as separate things—not as alternatives as the Government has tended to suggest—but as a coherent whole. The idea of a “Green New Deal” is to tackle those financial problems in a way that also leads and adds to our ability to focus on the environmental crisis we face. 
In January this year Dr Norman issued five challenges to the Government in relation to that green new deal. He challenged the Government to restore the Green Homes Fund because it would keep Kiwis and their economy healthy. He challenged it to set standards for smart meters. It is a shame that Mr Brownlee has just left the Chamber because at a time when it becomes increasingly clear that we also need to rebuild the infrastructure for our national grid it is important that we also set a standard for a smart grid and not simply rebuild the previous old failing one. Smart meters would save New Zealanders money and would save the country power. In the same way that compliance costs for business actually drag down our nation paying for power that we do not need to pay for is another drag on business. This is a smart way forward. By owning the most fuel-efficient cars taxpayers can be saved at least $30 million a year. We could cut our oil consumption by a quarter and save the country $2 billion a year. And for every dollar spent on roads we could spend at least $1 on public transport. 
The economy and the environment are not competitors and they cannot be if we are to survive this. They must be dealt with coherently and as an integrated whole. As Ban Ki-moon said: “Today with the economic downturn and climate change the stakes for companies have never been higher. But for businesses with vision the rewards are equally high. The green economy is low-carbon and energy-efficient. It creates jobs and it creates investment in sustainable technologies that will turn today’s crisis into tomorrow’s sustainable growth.” 
The Green Party supports the bill going forward to a select committee but we announce our frustration that it is actually such a small part of the solution. We look forward to tomorrow’s announcement from the Government and we take heart from the Prime Minister’s assurance that we will be impressed by the things that it contains. Let us hope that he really will embrace a green new deal—a true integrated way forward for this country.