McKelvie IanIAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Thank you Madam Chair. Well it's a great pleasure to take a short call in the opportunity to review the finance and Government administration sector. It's a new scene for me; I'm new on this committee and in this part of the administration of the country and I think it's a very exciting place to be.I just want to comment very briefly on the previous speaker Fletcher Tabuteau who clearly from a Rangitīkei perspective—they would have had no idea what he was talking about. We're pretty basic people in the Rangitīkei and we believe in pretty basic things. I want to go to a couple of factors that will prove that. I just want to talk briefly about the Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation and it's probably a topic that's dear to the heart of people of my age actually—not necessarily this superannuation fund but superannuation funds are.I just wanted to talk about what happens in the course of I guess a time span in superannuation. I can assure the members of this House that superannuation funds don't always make money. In my earlier life I was the chairman of the superannuation fund of quite a big New Zealand company and it was very difficult going to tell the recipients of that superannuation that they were no longer going to receive the money they thought they were going to receive on retirement because the economy of this country wasn't performing well. So from a superannuation fund perspective it's not only important that our economy performs well; it's important that the international economy performs well. It's also important that in the developing of the criteria that operate those superannuation funds—in other words in this case they have a responsible investment criteria—it's important that they're adhered to. One of the mysteries of that of course for the average New Zealander is that it causes many of our investments not only superannuation to go offshore because we have to have a balanced investment portfolio. One of the challenges for us as a country is that we need to send a fair proportion of that offshore to protect those people who've invested in it. So that's the superannuation issue.I want to talk briefly about the Inland Revenue Department too because we're obviously looking at reviewing the way New Zealand operates its tax system. It's gone through a Business Transformation programme in recent times. Like every Government department it's been challenged by what I think is a very big challenge particularly for rural New Zealand and that's around the adoption of technology and the way we provide our Government services. I think that will be challenging for some years to come as we get through developing better systems—and also get through that age bracket because people like myself are sometimes challenged by the use of technology. We need to get through that and we will get through it in due course but it will take some time so I urge people like the Inland Revenue Department to have tolerance for that sort of thing.The other thing I want to briefly mention about Inland Revenue is that I think it's essential that we retain a simple tax system in New Zealand. It's the absolute—because we're such a small country we have got such a small range of taxpayers. Whatever we do with the tax system it's got to remain simple because anything other than that will create huge cost for business huge cost for the Government and huge cost for Inland Revenue unravelling the schemes and other things that are put in place to deal with the tax system. So whatever happens in the future I urge simplicity in this area. It's absolutely essential.I just want to move on now to the review of Treasury and some of the issues that Treasury raised. I've always had difficulty with the way Government values their assets. I think if you look at KiwiRail it's a hugely challenging thing for anyone to value. It's a hugely challenging thing for us to run as a country and I think it's essential that in the future running of the likes of KiwiRail we're cautious and we put it in places where it will get the best bang for our dollar as a country. I'm not sure we're always doing that.The other thing I want to briefly touch on that came out of the Treasury review was the estimate that Auckland Transport is some $4 billion to $6 billion short of cash. I thought it was somewhat ironic that $5 billion is being plucked out of provincial New Zealand in the transport review and put into urban transport—pretty much the same figure that Treasury felt Auckland Transport was short of.So that is also I think pretty challenging for us as a country and I think it's particularly challenging for provincial New Zealand because I heard the Hon Shane Jones earlier in this debate talking about getting our exports to the port. The roads of national significance were of course all about getting our exports to the port and for anyone who lives in the Rangitīkei or Manawatū area just see the massive transformation that's taken place as a result of the Kapiti Expressway will take place as a result of Transmission Gully being finished and will certainly take place as a result of the Ōtaki to north of Levin bypass. It makes a massive difference to our ability to get our exports to port and to the market very quickly. That's one of the keys to any good Government policy and I urge us to continue on with those projects in provincial New Zealand.