SpeechHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you Madam Speaker. Well the one really good thing about following Anna Lorck is that you could deliver the worst speech in 15 years and still sound better than that. It truly was the ramblings of a confused and tired member. As I say it's OK Anna Lorck you've only got seven months to go.Now I must say when the Minister in his second reading speech referred to my time as the Minister of Revenue I was having something of a flashback to meetings with IRD officials in the office of the Minister of Finance because he wanted to keep a weather eye on tax policy. So I as revenue Minister and Bill English as finance Minister would meet with tax officials and their policy people—of whom I have a very high regard I must preface this story by saying—whom every once and a while would come up with a pretty wacky tax policy to which Sir Bill would say Well there's a very good reason to cut the policy budget for the Inland Revenue Department." The problem with the current Minister is that he's never seen a bad idea on tax.It's interesting to reflect on the former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's commitment to the country that there'd be no new taxes in this term of Government—and of course Prime Minister Hipkins has reiterated this. What I think they really meant to say was we're not going to invent a new tax category but we're going to squeeze the hell out of the ones we've already got. The really sad thing about this tax is that it is really squeezing the stone.Now the Minister quoted—as did Ingrid Leary—comments that I made as Minister in 2016 and Todd McClay as well when we were Ministers trying to actually create a framework for a modern economy. Both of them are sort of suggesting that my comments then were inconsistent with the National Party position now and nothing could be further from the truth. What's really inconsistent—and I would encourage Ingrid Leary to think more carefully about this—is to compare a multibillion-dollar company like Netflix with a University of Otago student that wants to make a little bit of money on the side part-time by delivering Uber Eats or the family in Mosgiel when Pink comes to the Forsyth Barr Stadium in 2024 who may be renting out their property through Airbnb to make a few dollars on the side. That's the inconsistency.Actually if one reads the GST Act—and this is really sad because it was a Labour Government that brought the GST Act in in 1986 and they did it then—Andrew Bayly: Were you there then?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: No thankfully. That member's older than I am; I'm not going to take that!Anyway one of the things that successive Governments have been very steadfast on—Hon Member: You've just been to Mongolia and ridden on a horse.Hon Member: You couldn't tell by looking at him!Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: —boy who needs enemies?—is that there is a complete consistency across all goods and services with very few exceptions: exports financial services some residential rentals but everything else has GST on it. In fact you could argue that the services being offered in this bill actually do have an implied GST on it because the Act actually says if GST is not mentioned it's deemed to be included in the price. But this Government has no problem completely mucking up a pure system.One of the things that's really sad I think and very concerning is that this could stifle innovation because what we're now going to have is a situation where if somebody does want to rent out their crib or their bach and they put a sign up on the local dairy and they make a private arrangement with somebody who wants to rent the bach for a week that's not going to be subject to this regime. But if the very same transaction is conducted on an online app just because it's overseas-based then they're going to have to jump through this multitude of hoops even if their total revenue annually is under $60000. That's wrong. It's inconsistent with everything the Labour Party stood for when they introduced the GST Act in 1986 and have steadfastly followed as Governments of both colours have done not to meddle with the GST system. But oh no Minister Parker sees an opportunity and an IRD policy wonk has decided that this is the most efficient way to do it. Well I strongly disagree with that from an efficiency perspective. But certainly in principle the consistent thing to do—and I respectfully disagree with Damien Smith—is that it doesn't matter what the platform is if the person offering the service has turnover of less than $60000 they shouldn't be treated inconsistently.Now there was no reference—and let's get to the elephant in the room—by any member of the Labour Party in their second reading speeches about the real big thing this bill does and that's confirm rates of tax for yet another year. We know that inflation is the biggest tax of all and yet this Government steadfastly refuses to increase the thresholds to adjust for the massive inflation that they have caused by their profligate spending and that's wrong.I talked I think in this bill last year because of course we set tax rates every single year about my previous role as a hospital manager and the nurses when I left there 15 years ago would have to have been on the very very top scale of the registered nursing pay scale or even a clinical nurse specialist or first-year charge nurse in order to be on the 30 percent tax bracket; now a second-year graduate doing a few weekend shifts and evening shifts will be on the 30 percent tax bracket. That's wrong. That's the thief of inflation. The only beneficiary of that is the Minister of Finance.Shanan Halbert: Back to the bill. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: And that's why—this is exactly in the bill Shanan Halbert; we're setting the annual rates of tax. God somebody I don't know. This is exactly what we're doing. In fact it's actually what we're not doing. We're not changing the thresholds through this bill in order that people can get to keep a little more of their money. The reason the Government won't do that is they have a steadfast belief that they know how to spend Kiwis' money better than Kiwis do.Well we've heard a lot about consultancy fees and contractors' fees and billions being poured into health and education for poorer outcomes. I actually back New Zealanders to know how they should firstly keep and then spend or save their money. That's where it comes from. No Government should take a single penny more than is required to deliver the public services—Andrew Bayly: Not according to Dr Deborah Russell.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: That's exactly right Mr Bayly. Well I think we're going to hear a lot more from those New Zealanders over the next few months about what they think about the quality of the spending that the rates of tax we are setting in this bill will generate and it won't be good.Andrew Bayly: Maybe Shanan Halbert will.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Well Shanan Halbert doesn't even know what bill we're debating so I don't actually think we're going to get much of a quality contribution from that member. But that's OK. It's probably going to be a slightly tighter race but I do also think he might be on a limited time span as well.This is a really really bad bill. It's a sad day for Kiwis who as a consequence of this are going to have inflation rob them and have tax rob them."