Clark David: Taxation (Annual Rates for 2015-16 Research and Development and Remedial Matters) Bill — In CommitteeText is subject to correctionClark David: Taxation (Annual Rates for 2015-16 Research and Development and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 10 February 2016. Volume:711;Page:8888. Text is subject to correction.]Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North): I am sorry to cut my colleague short because I do realise that the contributions of the Hon Michael Cullen are incredibly important in the tax debate. A few people would actually dispute that but I hazard to guess that even on that side of the Chamber there would be plenty of members who would honour the contributions made by the Hon Michael Cullen.Hon Simon Bridges: He did a good job on the books until Helen and Grant got hold of him.Dr DAVID CLARK: Well I did not quite catch what that member said but I do not credit it as something worth responding at length to in any case. But Dr Cullen of course would have put through a tax bill—I imagine—that had different kinds of tax changes suggested that would have really made New Zealand a fairer place to live in. Here in this bill of course and with the subsequent amendments that we are looking at in Part 4 of the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2015-16 Research and Development and Remedial Matters) Bill we know that what we are affirming is a set of tax changes that were made in 2010—the tax regime we have currently—and the changes made around research and development and other remedial matters that confirm the status quo and that essentially continue us along the road we are going along now.As I noted in my earlier contribution in the House today that is a path we are going down where we are not achieving the kind of export growth and so on that the Government so often accords to the changes that it wants to make in tax packages. So when we are debating the kinds of changes—the research and development expenditures and so on and their flow through to other legislation—this Government claims that it is making a step change in its rhetoric for the New Zealand economy but the evidence that we have seen tells us otherwise: the fact that the export target of 40 percent has not been achieved for exports as a proportion of GDP. It has come nowhere close under this Government. In fact the figure has now dropped below 30 percent and every year it is getting worse. So we find here in this bill and in the changes that are being made—the proposed amendments that will begin in the 2016-17 tax year—that we are really no further ahead.We on this side of the House will be supporting the bill as has been noted earlier and that is off the strength of the fact that remedial changes to tax legislation are imperative to ensure that we maintain our low-rate broad-based tax system which we know is so important in terms of supplying the revenue necessary for the health and education systems that we all depend upon for our children and for the future prosperity of the country and of course the health system in our retirement and throughout our working lives. So we do support the bill and we are glad to do that for those reasons but we are uncomfortable of course with the fact that it is not the kind of bill that the Hon Michael Cullen would have put through which would have had a fairer deal across the whole landscape.It would also have ensured that every New Zealander had their fair share of rewards out of the tax system and ensured that our future prosperity would have been greater because we know that the growing inequalities that are being driven by these kinds of changes—by the rates that we are affirming and so on—are actually holding New Zealand back. In a report from the OECD which I think I have got it here in front of me somewhere about a year ago it gave its view that the New Zealand economy is going 15 percent slower—that is it is 15 percent smaller than it otherwise would be—because of growing inequalities in New Zealand in recent decades. So we on this side of the House would prefer to have seen more progressive changes throughout the legislation and have these flowing right through into Part 4 because we believe that that would have made the society that we have fairer and more prosperous.