Parker David: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeParker David: General Debate[Sitting date: 06 April 2016. Volume:712;Page:10254. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): We did not hear from the prior speaker Andrew Bayly that we have got youth unemployment of 15 percent. Actually youth unemployment in parts of South Auckland in respect of minority groups is close to 50 percent. The underemployment of youth is even worse. We have got the lowest homeownership rate that we have had in New Zealand since 1951 and the highest ever house prices in Auckland—averaging now around $900000 which most people cannot afford. What is this? Why do we not hear that from the National Government?This week’s events more than any in recent weeks have shown that this Government is of the 1 percent for the 1 percent. What are the advantages that the 1 percent in New Zealand get? Every time that there is a tax cut in New Zealand under this Government it gives it disproportionately to the 1 percent. Actually the last tax cuts went 40 percent to the top 10 percent of income earners—even more disproportionately to the top 1 percent.Overseas websites and New Zealand service firms’ websites advertise New Zealand as being a haven for big money. What do they say the advantages are for “1 percenters” investing in New Zealand? They say we have no stamp duty no land tax no other capital tax no tax on capital gains no minimum capitalisation rate for their property purchases and no charges for water if they are going to use it even if they are bottling it like has been proposed down in Ashburton and is happening up north near Napier. So all of those things you do not pay in New Zealand if you are investing here. Effectively overseas investors in New Zealand come and if they are buying land assets they pay no tax.That is bad enough. What happens if you are a multinational and coming into New Zealand to invest? Well again you pay virtually no tax; you bludge off other taxpayers. Those companies are owned by the 1 percenters overseas and again they bludge off other taxpayers in New Zealand. They come here and they pay no tax. The examples are legion. Bunnings is an Australian-owned company with shops up and down the country competing with Mitre 10 which is New Zealand - owned. Bunnings pays no tax; Mitre 10 which competes against it has to carry the cost of paying tax because it does. Apple Google—these companies pretend that their transaction is in an overseas jurisdiction when in actual fact it is New Zealanders who are buying their services in New Zealand. The Government refuses to plug these loopholes because it is of the 1 percent and for the 1 percent. The Prime Minister’s instincts because he is of the 1 percent for the 1 percent is to introduce the ethics of Wall Street to New Zealand and occasionally he comes unstuck like he has this week because he sticks up for these terrible practices.Those things that I have spoken of until now are bad enough but even worse is what has been disclosed in the Panama Papers where we have got money-laundering we have got stolen assets and we have got tax evasion—not tax avoidance but tax evasion—by rich “1 percenters” overseas using New Zealand to do it. And what does the Prime Minister say? Well he says all his normal things—the normal things that have been listed by Gordon Campbell. His first defence is always: “There is nothing to see here.” He says that there is no problem. He pretends that we have got full disclosure when in actual fact no one knows what they do not know. They do not know who the beneficiaries of these trusts are who are laundering money hiding stolen assets or evading tax because they do not know they are the beneficiary of the trust. They do not they are the settlor of the trust. All that is public is the name of the trust deed—the Inland Revenue Department gets that—and the name of the trust. But it could be “Fictitious Trust No. 1 Ltd” and the trustee could be “John Smith of Auckland” acting in a professional capacity. And what does the Prime Minister say? He says that is full disclosure. It is not. It is New Zealand being used for “1 percenters” in this case for nefarious purposes.The Government allows “1 percenters” to drive up the value of our land prices so that houses and farms are no longer affordable for New Zealanders. This Government acts in the interests of the 1 percent not in the interest of those in the middle who end up having to pay more tax than otherwise and who end up having to pay higher asset prices than they would otherwise have to. This Government is for the 1 percent of the 1 percent—bringing Wall Street ethics to New Zealand.I think that New Zealanders are waking up to that. They do not like that. That is not the New Zealand they want to live in. That is why you see the media saying the five excuses of John Key: “There is no problem here—move on.” muddy the pool with irrelevancies blame Labour because it passed the legislation in the 1950s or whenever it was—The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.