Swarbrick Chlöe; Seymour DavidCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Co-Leader—Green): E te Māngai tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. Pretty interesting to hear the Minister of Finance there talking about some of the kind of sociological kind of surrounding issues or cultural issues when it comes to particularly the likes of educational achievement for example. I'm just reflecting there on the cross-party piece of work out of the Education and Workforce Committee in I believe the last term of Parliament particularly on school non-attendance. This cross-party piece of work delved through the evidence and had submissions from many members of the public and it basically settled on the conclusion that the major issue that is driving school non-attendance in this country is inequality and poverty. You can see that in I believe it's about a 30 percentage point gap between those in decile 10 and decile 1 schools when it comes to regular school attendance or non-attendance.The Minister also just said that working people pay the price. She was referring to that in the context of climate change she was referring to that in the context of our tax system. As far as that goes I just again want to reflect on a piece of work that has been undertaken by this Parliament particularly in the last term of Government and that was the IRD's high-wealth individuals report. That showed us that the top 311 families in this country pay an effective tax rate less than half of that of average New Zealanders. That is part of the context which forms the basis of the picture that Treasury is painting for us about the fact that we have a lower productive economy than we otherwise could have if we were to for example implement a capital gains tax.I just also reflect on the fact that the Minister today at question time in response to patsy questions from her own backbenchers was referring to the OECD and how we're an outlier with regard to addressing fiscal tax drag. As far as that's concerned we're also an outlier amongst the OECD for not having a capital gains tax stamp duty wealth tax or otherwise for not having any form of tax that meaningfully taxes those who earn their wealth or their income off of capital gains sole. So again to that effect we actually do have the opportunity here to address these fundamental issues with regard to productivity but as the Treasury themselves say and as is reflected in this annual review report successive Governments have simply refused to pick up that issue and to deal with it properly.I also just wanted to reflect on some of the comments from the Associate Minister of Finance who also happens to be the Minister responsible for fast-tracking legislation. He was talking about how fast-track legislation will be great for us getting to our climate goals particularly because it will enable us to fast track for example the electrification of Aotearoa New Zealand. He said that we shouldn't be afraid of it because it's going to be great for the environment and great for us to fast track projects that are necessary for climate action. To that effect we would put it to the Minister that there's an opportunity here for him to outlaw and to say that he is going to rule out any projects that will be detrimental to the environment or detrimental to the climate because as the Minister of Finance was just speaking before we had another Minister of this Government—the Hon Shane Jones—heckling and saying that we were going to fast track coal mining and fast track coal. So if you can just try and piece the picture together of what the Government is saying here it's pretty damn inconsistent.I just here however wanted to finally get to the point on social investment because this is something which the Minister and I had a bit of back and forth about particularly in the last term in the Finance and Expenditure Committee. I've been putting a few questions through her office about whether she had taken a social investment lens to many of the fast-moving pieces of legislation that the Government is currently ramming through our Parliament. To that effect so far she has said that the Government has taken no advice on those social investment lenses to any of those pieces of legislation that I've put to her in those written questions. So I guess the question to the Minister is: when does the social investment ethos come into effect?Hon DAVID SEYMOUR (Associate Minister of Finance): Well there's quite a few comments there and let me try to respond to them one by one. In particular the comments about school attendance: there is no question that one of the reasons that children don't attend school is being unsettled in their housing. I know this from when we were responsible for charter schools. I know this from being the MP for Epsom—that one of the hardest things that students deal with or at least schools deal with is kids that get passed from auntie to uncle in different housing set-ups and it's never quite clear when they're going to settle at a particular school. But the answer for that that the previous Government totally failed at is to create the conditions for people to build more houses. If more houses were built if the planning was got right if the infrastructure funding and financing was got right then suddenly there would be more chance of a kid staying in one place and going to one school in a stable environment and actually attending school more often. So we're alert that there are other factors to school attendance and our solution is actually better security of housing.Now of course the previous Government their approach was that only the Labour Government could build houses. It's like they had read all those special folklores from the first Labour Government with Peter Fraser pulling the table through the doorway of the first State house. You know what they did? They spent billions of dollars. They had $2 billion they started with then they came back to the Government for another $1.2 billion and they used it to go out and bid up the price of building materials of land of project managers of builders. Only the Labour Government could go out and try and get more houses built and make houses more affordable and spend $3.2 billion of borrowed money borrowed against the taxpayers' future incomes and push up the price of housing.Now you have to ask Chlöe Swarbrick: where was she asking Had the Government evaluated that policy for productivity?" But that's the thing about Chlöe Swarbrick: she's going to get an Oscar pretty soon for her starring role as the woman who wasn't there. She wasn't there when the previous Government was destroying productivity destroying the cost of living destroying the soul of New Zealand as people found that there was too much week left at the end of the money week after week after week because of the previous Government's mismanagement.We now have a Government that is going to create the conditions for New Zealanders to build the houses with fast track with better infrastructure funding and financing with a new Resource Management Act—and yes indeed that is going to do an awful lot for kids having stability of tenure and going to school.Then there's the suggestion—and I think the member Chlöe Swarbrick needs to know that if you could tax your way to prosperity her side would've won the Cold War but unfortunately you can't tax your way to prosperity and a capital gains tax is not going to make housing more affordable for the very simple reason as Chris Bishop will tell you housing is about supply and demand. If there are not enough houses for the number of people you get a shortage and the price rises because demand outstrips supply and a capital gains tax just makes the Government a silent partner in the speculation. How does that help? If she thinks that somehow a capital gains tax will make housing more affordable for the next generation she ought to travel a bit. I'd be happy for her to go to any of the following one way or return—because I'm a generous kind of guy you know—try Vancouver capital gains tax 10 times income; Los Angeles capital gains tax 10 times income. Hong Kong London—you name it. Sydney Melbourne—they've all had a capital gains tax and they've all had housing at 10 times income because it doesn't work.That is the dismal view of the Greens and Chlöe Swarbrick. They tell the younger generation "We're going to solve your problem by taking off someone else." Well actually this Government says to the next generation "We're going to solve the problems by building for everyone."—building more infrastructure building more renewable energy building new homes. We have the policies to reform resource management to fund and finance infrastructure to allow people to have a future in this country. We're going to raise productivity and yes we're also going to get more kids to school so they too can reach their potential for their future in this beautiful land."