Dean JacquiHon JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. The National Party support the R & D tax credit bill to select committee because while we support the principles behind the bill we have some serious questions to ask of the Government and we will be doing that through the select committee process and in the House here. My colleague who spoke on this side of the House Andrew Bayly has given a very good summary of our concerns around this R & D tax credit bill and what is just in and what is just out so I'll just start there with my brief contribution.The first thing to do is go to the schedules in the bill and see what is excluded and what is not. I don't have time—and probably it's not a good way to spend my time—to go through each and every one of those things but there are a number of matters which are excluded from the definition of core research. So there's things like routine software and computer maintenance—well of course that should be excluded from claim as an R & D tax credit line item; management studies—yep that's fine; activities relating to organisational design—and on it goes. There are 24 of those exclusions and then in Part B there are 11 activities that are excluded from the definition of supporting research and development activity and on it goes.Through the schedules there are a lot of inclusions and exclusions and I would expect that a number of the submissions on this bill will relate to these inclusions and exclusions. That always is the weakness and the pressure point and the soft point if you like in drafting legislation which has to be so prescriptive because it won't just be parliamentarians and the submitters who are scrutinising these inclusions and exclusions; it will be accountants who—as they did back in 2006 2007 I believe when Labour when it was previously in Government did introduce an R & D tax credit scheme. Accountants were gearing their clients up so that they understood fully those items that they could claim. There is a concern and I think it is valid that rorting could be—I mean this kind of expenditure is prone to rorting. So it's good to see that this bill is prescriptive but there are weaknesses within the regime.My concern and qualified support for this bill centres around the fact that small business—which comprises 97 percent of business activity in New Zealand and ranges from anything from a tech start-up in Wellington where the directors and managers of that start-up are so enthusiastically falling over themselves with enthusiasm and great ideas—and that's fantastic. Will they be eligible for R & D grants? Start-ups go from that to rural New Zealand where a farmer is using the woolshed to develop a new product to diversify their agricultural offering as happens all around rural New Zealand. As a threshold for R & D investment $50000 is high for someone who is literally developing a new idea developing a new technology or developing a new product out of their back bedroom or their shed or their woolshed. Those of us who talk to small business—and constituency MPs talk to people like that every day who are just as excited about the opportunities presented with their new product or idea as anyone else. But will they be entitled to claim the R & D tax credit because of the $50000 threshold of investment? I would really like and appreciate—particularly in the committee stage when this bill is returned in due course—the select committee to examine that because if this is an R & D tax credit system which will benefit some business in New Zealand why then is such a large sector potentially excluded particularly when there is no certainty around other measures that National brought in when we were in Government around providing tax relief and stimulation for small business.My final point is that the one thing that small business and business in New Zealand needs is stability of Government policy. That is one of the factors why the National Party is supporting this R & D tax credit bill through to select committee. But having said that certainty is what they haven't got because the contents of this bill are not sufficiently clear. Having said that there are a number of very prescriptive schedules in the back of the bill but that actually doesn't advance their certainty any further and that is yet another matter I would like to see addressed in select committee. Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker.