Shaw JamesHon JAMES SHAW (Associate Minister of Finance): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. I rise to take a call on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2018–19 Modernising Tax Administration and Remedial Matters) Bill—a snappily titled piece of legislation which belying its dry kind of title is actually pretty significant because it actually impacts the lives of every single New Zealander. I just wanted to pick up on a point made by the previous speaker Ian McKelvie about the reasons why the National Party are voting against the bill here at this reading. The underlying philosophy that they have is that individuals can spend their money more effectively than the Government can. If you're to follow that line of argument then by definition tax should actually be eliminated entirely along with all public services because if an individual can spend their money more effectively than the Government then there is clearly no need for the Government which provides public services such as education mental health services environmental protection transport housing to people who can't afford it and so on. So I think it is kind of an absurd proposition to hold the idea that you would suggest that you should eliminate all tax on the basis that how we work together as a community is not as effective as how a group of atomised individuals can operate.I was reading a contribution online from a small-business person a plumber who in relation to this bill actually had said Well you know I don't feel that I need a tax cut." He said "I realised what the difference was between what I was being offered at the last election by the National Party with the package that they were putting forward versus getting rid of those changes that are outlined in this bill." which is that that little bit of money that he would have gotten back actually when you add it to that little bit from his neighbour and everyone in his street enables teachers to get paid more more nurses to get hired more police to get hired better public services—Better Public Services of course being a catchcry of the previous Government. That was actually something that he felt was more valuable than him being able to buy another cup of coffee every week. As my colleague Chlöe Swarbrick said in her speech sometime in the last few days in our work when we go out and we talk to people about this people have never actually said to us "We want a tax cut." What they have said is that they want a better quality of life that they want better public services and that they want more effective transport to get around their congested cities particularly in Auckland. They want to be free and to live in a country free from homelessness to be free from endemic child poverty and to be free from the kinds of hospitalisation rates that we see in this country from entirely preventable respiratory diseases because we have such poor-quality housing. So rates of tax as outlined in this bill are really significant because they enable us to confront child poverty they enable us to reduce hospitalisation rates for infants and so on. I thought Mr McKelvie's contribution was very considered very thoughtful and as he said there are a lot of good things in this bill but ultimately the National Party feel that they cannot vote for it because they feel that we should get rid of tax entirely and return everything to the individuals who make up our society. I can't support that line which is why of course we will be supporting it.Having said that there are some things here that I do want to draw specific attention to which I'm really pleased about one of which has been referenced before of course: that's around the simplification of the tax system. Again as Mr McKelvie pointed out the Business Transformation programme that the Inland Revenue Department are engaged in is very significant. It's a massive investment. It runs across multiple years. It is fraught with risk and difficulty as these kinds of projects are but the results—what we're able to do as a result of this programme—are extraordinary. Some of them are reflected here in the bill particularly the ability of people not to have to fill out a tax return because we've been able to automate the calculation of their tax paid and then essentially also automate any kind of return or difference between what was actually paid versus what they need to pay.The fact that you can do that for pretty much three million people and eliminate the need for three-quarters of a million people to ever have to fill out tax returns again—I know it sounds like a small thing but it makes life for people and particularly for small-business people and solo operators so much easier and free of that kind of anxiety of having to interact with a system that they're not familiar with and that causes quite a lot of stress. So it's one of the things I just wanted to highlight in particular because I think in many ways that will be one of the things that people in their everyday lives as a result of this bill feel have gotten better. For that reason alone I think that the National Party ought to vote for it because they're all about—well they say that they're all about—small businesses and making life simpler and better for people particularly when it comes to interacting with Government.The other thing that I wanted to draw attention to is some of the changes around KiwiSaver. I know that this came up in the Finance and Expenditure Committee and with a number of the submissions and I also know that the Retirement Commissioner had made a recommendation specifically to include the additional 6 and 8 percent contribution rates to provide a bit more flexibility for people. Again I think this is one of the ways that this bill will make the lives of ordinary people better because it gives them more options and I think gives people more reason to participate in the KiwiSaver scheme. At the moment the existing options that they've got in terms of those contribution rates might just kind of bounce them out at that decision point whereas if they see that they've got those additional options they feel that actually it becomes more worthwhile.So I do think that there's a good chance that we'll see KiwiSaver contribution and participation rates increasing as a result of that particular change. KiwiSaver is a fantastically successful scheme—like wildly successful—and I think this just makes what's a really good scheme even better and gives people more reason to participate. Likewise scrapping the five-year contribution rule for people over the age of 60; I think that that will again increase the chances that people will choose to participate in the scheme even for periods of time shorter than five years because they will see the value of it. So those changes I think really do kind of add to the success of KiwiSaver.So there are three main reasons why I endorse the bill those changes to KiwiSaver being one; the simplification and the ability for literally hundreds of thousands of people millions of people to have that kind of automated interaction and to take that stress out of it; then also finally to return to my first theme the changes to the actual tax rates which mean that we can actually fund the kinds of public services that create a better quality of life for New Zealanders which they clearly wanted and voted for in the last election. So for those reasons the Green Party will support this bill as it continues its journey through the House and I commend it to the House."