van Velden BrookeBROOKE VAN VELDEN (Deputy Leader—ACT): Thank you Mr Chair. It's my pleasure to rise to take a call in the committee of the whole House on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2021-22 GST and Remedial Matters) Bill. I wanted to talk about the tax take and in particular what it means for the country that we want to live in. I—and I know the rest of my ACT Party colleagues—want to live in a country where people don't feel bad for wanting to work hard where people get rewarded for their efforts and they know that the money that they're putting aside and setting aside and saving responsibly is actually going to go some way to helping them feed their family and set up some financial security for the future.It's really unfortunate that over this term of Government and since the Government was elected New Zealanders are now paying around $2000 extra or more than they were four years ago. It's a frustration that I'm hearing up and down the country. It feels as though people are working harder and feeling even more tired especially through this COVID pandemic and yet it feels harder and harder to actually get ahead and more of the money that people are earning is going to the Government and not to their own pockets—not to their children to help pay for their uniforms and pay for food on the table but going into the Government to be spent on stupid projects and getting wasted. We know that there has been a huge amount of Government wasteful spending and that's a real tragedy when you know New Zealanders should actually have a little bit more of the money that they earn for themselves and their families going back to them so that they can actually provide for themselves.We are living in a cost of living crisis. You know you only have to go to the supermarket to see the cost of fresh fruit and vegetable going through the roof. And if you're like me and you're just buying for one person it seems remarkable that you can just take one bag to the supermarket and before you know it you've spent 150 bucks just walking out with one bag. I hate to think how that feels when you've got children that you're providing for too and you've you know got a growing kid and they're wanting to go through half a box of Weet-Bix in the morning. It's just incredible how much money people are needing to spend every week at the supermarket and that's on top of the cost of petrol going up. You know there are so many outgoings that people need to set aside their own money for and since this Government was elected $2000 extra per year is going to the Government. What are they actually getting back? There hasn't been any significant improvement from what we're actually seeing being spent by this Government that would actually contribute to it being worthwhile.I'm constantly hearing from people who feel like they have a good income but the pull to go overseas is getting stronger and stronger and a lot of people talk about wanting to go to Australia because they know that their wages will be higher over there and that's a real shame because it's about the type of country that we want to live in and we should be rewarding people with aspiration for their hard work the dedication for wanting to get up in the morning earn a living for themselves and their families. Instead the type of situation that we're in in New Zealand is more and more people are saying You know I actually think another country would reward me for my efforts and would be more welcoming for that type of person."We want to make sure that we're keeping people who want to work hard and so Supplementary Order Paper 140 that's been put forward in David Seymour's name would go some way to helping make sure that that would be a reality. And that would be by reducing the income tax bracket down from the $48000 to $70000 bracket to 17.5 percent. So that would mean that any bit of money between $14001 to $70000 would be taxed at a rate of 17.5 percent and that would mean that the average person would get another $40 in their pocket per week to help pay for their groceries to help pay for their kids' extracurriculars—making it that much easier when they say that they want to join a rugby team this year and they actually need some new boots to say "Yep you know what? We can actually as a family afford that." And it's a real shame that people are actually having to struggle to make those changes to their own lives.This Government's borrowing spending taxing and regulating has added to the cost of everything. There's so much wasteful spending. We need to give New Zealanders a break give them more of the money that they earn for themselves and the ACT Party has a solution that would actually help the middle-class battlers who are being squeezed in every direction. Thank you Mr Chair."