Martin Tracey: Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Martin Tracey: Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
[Sitting date: 24 May 2012. Volume:680;Page:2460. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First) 
: 
 Again as with my learned colleague from the Green Party this is my first Budget and I found it fascinating—fascinating for what is not in it; fascinating for how small it is and how little vision there is in this Budget. What an opportunity lost is all I can say to those on the Government benches—what an opportunity lost. You had an opportunity to actually grow the pie.  
But my main question here is for the Minister in the chair the Minister of Revenue and I wonder if you can clarify something for me. Nobody has mentioned it and I can find no regulatory impact statement on the removal of the housekeeper tax credit. Again if I had had this earlier I agree I would have been able to do further research on it. But can you clarify for us please Minister whether the removal of this tax credit has any effect at all and whether anybody has gone to find out whether it has any effect at all on working women today who employ other women to do housekeeping for them. This is an income that some women use. So again I would be interested if the Minister could address that because there is as I say no regulatory impact statement on it. It is almost as if the women whom this may or may not affect do not count. We have regulatory impact statements on animals. We have a regulatory impact statement on a few of the other small little movements inside these taxation bills but there is nothing here that could possibly give me or any other woman here in New Zealand a deeper understanding of how this might affect them. And that is unfortunate Minister. So I do hope that once I have finished we can actually clear that up.  
I do also think that it is a shame Minister that just because times have moved on an Act must be dismissed because it does not serve the purpose of the 1960s and the reason the bill was originally put in place without considering it carefully inside the values that we have here in the 21st century. I think that it is very interesting that the explanatory note of the bill says: “The present approach does not achieve this goal”—the goal of the 1960s which was an administrative goal—“as many children file tax returns solely to gain access to the tax credit—”.  
I noticed that my colleague Mark Mitchell said that he used to do a paper run but he never filed a tax credit. Well that is fine for you Mr Mitchell and I appreciate that but some of us actually have acumen in this sort of area. Some of us who did do these sorts of jobs went through that process and put in our own effort. There was no administrative cost for us and we gained those tax credits. It was part of that understanding that I believe we are asking from our 21st century students around commerce. I believe that is what we are asking when we want our 21st century students to understand about working about taxation and about filling out these forms so that they can fully participate inside government and inside our society. So I think it is a shame that those young people who did go to effort of filing for tax credits—and I think the figure was $240 or something that you mentioned Minister; that was often the return—will no longer get them because apparently what it was set up for in the 1960s does not apply any more. That is it and we will do away with it.  
I also think that the lack of encouragement to earn over $2340 is interesting. I think that is an interesting way to write it into the bill. I do appreciate that the Minister has addressed to a certain extent the reasons for that. But I thought that the National Government was actually about encouraging innovation encouraging people to work and encouraging them to raise their incomes. But if these children earn more than $2340 a new step is suddenly put into place.  
So I appreciate Minister that you have tried to give an explanation for that. I would appreciate an explanation around the housekeeping and I do also appreciate the whip now providing me with the well-hidden regulatory impact statement. Thank you.