Genter Julie Anne: Taxation (Livestock Valuation Assets Expenditure and Remedial Matters) Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGenter Julie Anne: Taxation (Livestock Valuation Assets Expenditure and Remedial Matters) Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 10 July 2013. Volume:692;Page:11952. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green):Tēnā koe Mr Speaker.Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I rise to speak on the third reading of the Taxation (Livestock Valuation Assets Expenditure and Remedial Matters) Bill. The Green Party will be supporting this bill because it does make some entirely consistent and logical but very small moves to tighten up the tax system. But I have to say that we are very disappointed that we did not take the original opportunity that was proposed in this bill to explore extending the fringe benefit tax to employer-provided car-parks in the Auckland and Wellington central business districts. It is really unfortunate that there was such an uninformed debate about it and that the position the Labour Party took was so inconsistent with the other sorts of outcomes and objectives that it says it is trying to achieve. Of course it is just as bad that the National Government dropped it. It is always good to see it propose to tighten up loopholes particularly in the case when it is going to have added benefits for things like our transport system in our two biggest cities.The Green Party has a very keen interest in reforming our tax system to get better outcomes. The main reason that I stood for the Green Party and I am in Parliament is not just so I can collect a pay cheque; it is that we have some pretty pressing problems that we need to address. One of these is climate change. We have to transition to a sustainable low-carbon economy. If anybody was looking at theGuardian last night there is a very interesting article about a paper by James Hansen one of the foremost climate scientists in the world stating that if we do not fully decarbonise by 2030 we risk completely wrecking the planet for future generations. Obviously I think everyone in New Zealand and everyone in this House cares about their children and their grandchildren and the opportunities that they are going to have to live great lives and to have prosperous sustainable lives. All of us need to come together and figure out how we are going to address this problem. How are we going to transition to a sustainable economy—one that is not over-reliant on fossil fuels? It is not that difficult.In fact when I studied economics urban planning and transport planning and when I worked as a consultant urban planner and transport planner I found we were working on exactly these sorts of smart ideas that can easily be implemented and that are going to result in all sorts of co-benefits.So not only can we decarbonise our economy but also we can—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Taxation we are on taxation.JULIE ANNE GENTER: —do it in a way that is going to save money and get better outcomes in other parts of our lives. Tax law is exactly one of those areas where we can get those sorts of smart outcomes. What was proposed originally in this bill is a perfect example of that. What was proposed was extending fringe benefit tax to employer-provided car-parks admittedly only in the Auckland and Wellington central business districts as those are the areas where car-parks have the highest value.Interestingly early last year in 2012 there was a research report published by the New Zealand Transport Agency entitledCompany cars and fringe benefit tax—understanding the impacts on strategic transport targets . This research report had not been provided to members of the Finance and Expenditure Committee. I do not think officials at the Inland Revenue Department even knew about it when they were proposing to extend fringe benefit tax to car-parks; they were just looking for a way to raise a little bit of revenue. It turns out that there had been all this work done for the New Zealand Transport Agency. It had spoken to somebody at the Inland Revenue Department and what it found was that there were huge potential benefits from extending fringe benefit tax to car-parks in the Auckland and Wellington central business districts and potentially actually anywhere where car-parks have a high value. Of course other countries have done this. It is a perfectly logical thing to do. Australia extends fringe benefit tax to car-parks.What is the point of this? A lot of people got very unhappy about the idea and made it sound like it was a very unfair thing to do to tax a car-park. In fact the value of a car-park in the Auckland or Wellington central business districts is conservatively $2750 annually—that is a very conservative estimate of the value of a car-park. The value of an annual public transport pass is $2700—very similar. If an employer wanted to provide public transport passes to its employees it would be forced to pay fringe benefit tax on those public transport passes. If it offers its employees a free car-park it is not required to pay fringe benefit tax. This is not fair. It is not going to result in good outcomes for transport in our two biggest cities in New Zealand when we have serious issues with congestion in Auckland if employers are able to use a tax loophole—and that is what this is—to provide benefits to their employees and not have to pay tax on that.How is it fair when the majority of people commuting to work in the Wellington and Auckland central business districts do not drive and do not receive free employer-provided car-parks? How is it fair that they get taxed on the additional income they might receive instead of a free car-park or on their public transport passes if the employer decided to provide them yet we are not going to tax the equivalent benefit of a free car-park even though that incentivises people to drive into the central business districts at peak time thereby congesting the roads? Here was something that was actually going to raise a small amount of revenue for the Government was going to result in getting the incentives right direct and fair and was going to have potentially huge benefits for reducing congestion in Auckland because it would mean we were no longer subsidising single-occupant vehicle trips into the Auckland central business district.I admit there were some problems with the proposal. One of the problems was that it could have unfairly hit shift workers such as cleaners who have to go to Skycity in the middle of the night. Obviously it is entirely possible to design this in a way that it would not affect people who do not travel at peak times because the value of a car-park is highest at peak time. Actually there are a whole lot of empty car-parks in Auckland and Wellington central business districts in the middle of the night. There is no reason why somebody using a car-park in the middle of the night should be taxed for it because the value changes depending on the demand and the time of day. Since there isa huge surplus of car-parks in the middle of the night in the Auckland and Wellington central business districts I think it would have been entirely possible to design the tax in such a way that it got the outcome we wanted which was simply to remove a tax loophole that primarily benefits high-income earners. If you look at the people who drive into Auckland and Wellington central business districts for work they are all on above-average incomes and the vast majority of them are on the highest incomes—well over $100000 a year. What many people in the House have described as a sort of unfair tax that would hit hard-working Kiwis would actually have been simply taxing appropriately people who are already on extremely high incomes and making sure that they have the opportunity to benefit from consuming fewer resources.As I said before the Green Party is very interested in using the tax system to get outcomes that are win-win that are better for the economy that are better for people and that are better for the environment. It is entirely possible to do this. We have so many opportunities if we stop thinking in silos and in this kind ofreductionist way that got us into the problem we are in. If we start recognising the interconnectedness of our transport system of our tax law and of our urban planning laws we can create an Aotearoa that is decarbonised that has less air and water pollution that has better public health outcomes and that has good and equal opportunity for everyone so everyone is looked after and it is not just the rich and the children of the rich who get richer with the poorer stuck down there at the bottom. We can create this and all it takes are some smart Green solutions.It is also going to require some patient informed debate. We cannot constantly be jumping on proposals that Government members put forward that might be good just because we see a political opportunity to kick them when they are down. I welcome this Government introducing good positive initiatives that will result in better outcomes and more sustainable outcomes and a fairer more sustainable Aotearoa. I would love to see more of that from it. Unfortunately we do not see much at the moment. A perfect example is in this bill which is about to pass into law without us having taken the opportunity to get a better outcome for our transport system. Thank you.