Bayly Andrew; Parker DavidANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Thank you Madam Chair. That was a very interesting line of questioning from the Hon Michael Woodhouse and I think it was very pertinent. I suppose it goes back to: what are you trying to achieve as a Government? We've already heard earlier tonight that even though the Government was quite clear it wasn't going to increase taxes it's going to raise $44 billion from some of the proposals we talked about before and here's another example with the GST on roaming services. The telco companies thought it was a real imposition to be able to put this in place and for the reality of it I think the estimate was actually $6 million to $7 million of GST revenue before of course COVID. Of course we're now in a situation where the world has changed and actually most people are not travelling. With the advent of Zoom or the discovery of Zoom and other such media it's unlikely they're going to have the same level of international travel. In fact some of the predictions of international travel show a dramatic drop not just because we don't have people flying due to health restrictions but because of a reset of the way people will conduct their businesses. We've already seen that domestically where we don't have the same level of domestic travel in New Zealand because people are just choosing not to fly on planes because they don't need to. They've now got just as good a mechanism with Zoom and as to the implication around roaming services and the GST first of all I think we all now will recognise—unless we're living under a stone—that the likelihood we're going to get the $6 million to $7 million of gross revenue from GST that was estimated before COVID is one heck of an assumption that that's going to continue. So it could easily foresee that the revenue we're talking about may be as little as $3 million—halved easily. First of all I suppose the question is: has the Minister actually sought any update on recent revenue estimates given the changes in business practices and certainly the impact of COVID? But I think it gives rise to a much more principled discussion which is: how mean will you be as a Government? How mean do you want to be as the Minister of Revenue? Do you really want to go after businesses for three million bucks when it's going to cost the telcos to actually put in place the software which will have an ongoing cost—I note that the Minister tried to imply it was all a one-off cost. It will be an administrative requirement to provide that advice and so the Government can rapaciously continue to tax these people and achieve the GST returns. But how much more do you want to impose on business people who legitimately want to go overseas so that they can actually go and create new export markets grow the economy? Isn't that what we need to do in a post-COVID world particularly when we've lost $16 billion of international tourism and $5 billion of international students coming to New Zealand? Don't we actually want to promote and help? Isn't it time to actually look at a policy initiative like that and say Oops!"? Actually just as the Minister can slap on the Table today Supplementary Order Paper 23 which is like 50 60 pages long and which leads to a massive amount of people texting in concern it's just as easy if we just picked up the Hon Michael Woodhouse's amendment and go "That's right—the world has changed." Why don't we just get rid of this clause because it basically is not going to bring any new income? It's just an imposition on business people and on businesses. It's a waste of time so why don't we be practical? Why don't we look at how we're going to grow the economy and gee every day we're borrowing about $110 million on the bond markets—so that's about a minute's worth. In the last five minutes I've spoken I've probably blown the three million bucks that you hoped to get as revenue Minister. Don't be so mean Minister. Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister of Revenue): The member is correct that the Estimates were prepared pre-COVID and obviously the short-term GST collected on this will be less and actually the benefits to people roaming in New Zealand from overseas will also commensurately be less from this change. None the less we expect that the short to medium term impact will be overcome as we return to international travel which is expected to rebound after a successful COVID-19 vaccine. Andrew Bayly: Not fully. Hon DAVID PARKER: Well time will tell. Andrew Bayly: No one is even predicting that at the moment. Hon DAVID PARKER: Well we'll see. I think the member's probably right that in the next few years it will be less than was previously predicted. But as I said the compliance cost is still thought to be a one-off cost of $1 million and we think that overall it's wise to proceed."