Gilmore Aaron: Taxation (International Taxation Life Insurance and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Gilmore Aaron: Taxation (International Taxation Life Insurance and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:657;Page:6659] 
AARON GILMORE (National) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to rise and talk on the third reading of this bill. Everybody has talked about the sheer size of this bill and the fact of it being intimidating. No doubt it is but the potential impact on the parts of the economy are equally potentially huge. 
I will talk a little bit about my experience with the Finance and Expenditure Committee on this bill given that I am a late arrival to the committee and a late arrival to this bill. As the virgin member of this committee I was deflowered by this bill. I must admit to being quite shocked when I was given this bill amid taking over from the now senior whip Chris Tremain. He gave me a file that was about 3 feet thick and said: “Here you go. Enjoy.” I must admit being given the bill and having 24 hours to get my head around it was an interesting experience. 
I will talk a little bit about some of the positive aspects of this bill because everyone has been talking about the negative issues. There are some really neat positive aspects. I will touch on two of them in particular. One is around the petroleum mining regime changes. Most people do not seem to understand that petroleum mining last year in 2008 was our third-biggest export market. We exported $3 billion worth of petroleum products. That put petroleum exports third behind dairy and meat. Many people are surprised by that. This bill has some changes that bring in some new incentives to allow petroleum explorers to be more creative in their expenditure and that would allow them to spend a little bit more money and effort to drill in New Zealand. That has the potential to make New Zealand incredibly wealthy. We are very lucky and blessed in New Zealand to have the potential to put money into some of our natural resources such as oil and maybe find resources off the coast of the South Island particularly in Canterbury in the South Island that might amount to billions of dollars. If this bill goes a little way towards that I think that is a really good thing. 
The other aspect that I want to quickly touch on is one that has not been mentioned in the Committee stage or during the other readings. That is the change to the GST treatment of loyalty points. Anybody can have a Fly Buys card a BP rewards card an Automobile Association rewards card or whatever. This bill has some changes to the GST treatment of loyalties schemes. That might not mean much to many people sitting in the House today but to the average punter it will. My mum for example was very excited when I explained to her that she might get a few extra points because the GST treatment on the loyalty points will change. That will mean that those companies that currently account for loyalty regimes such as our Fly Buys and Air New Zealand points will have a much better situation and a lot less cost in terms of administering their schemes. We are a Government that is about reducing administrative costs and having more flexibility. 
I will touch on a couple of other aspects that this bill deals with. It contains a complicated set of things that do not link together very well and that has made it quite difficult for people to get their heads around it. Again many people have mentioned how well the officials have done to put such a complicated set of disparate subjects together in a bill and make it work. I think that many Opposition members have spoken on this bill. They talked about Labour introducing this bill and National carrying it on. I do not really care about that. I care about what we have done collectively. We have put in place a bill that will in parts of New Zealand reduce some tax complexity and that has to be a really good thing. 
I also quickly comment—looking at the time tonight—that we have a number of issues to talk about but many people want to get to a couple of functions. We will soon be blessed by having the great Richie McCaw the All Blacks and the Wallabies here. I know that is not the subject of this bill but I look forward to being able to go there. I commend this bill to the House.