Simmonds PennyPENNY SIMMONDS (National—Invercargill): Thank you Mr Speaker. Well I rise to speak in opposition to the Taxation Principles Reporting Bill and I apologise in advance that it won't be nearly as animated as my good friend and colleague Andrew Bayly or in fact the Hon David Parker were. I have to say that's the most animated I have seen them. How two men can get so excited over tax is a little difficult for me to see. But we do oppose this bill because it is simply a bureaucratic make-work scheme and National will repeal this bill. Goodness knows this Government with 14000 more bureaucrats in place knows how to make a make-work scheme for bureaucrats although sadly a good number of them are communications staff. But we won't go any further down that track tonight. We all know that a good tax system—at least I did enough in my Accounting 101 to know—should be fair and it should be simple and it should be transparent and administratively easy and adequate to service the country's revenue needs. But this is where it does get a bit sticky: is that adequate to service the country's revenue needs when there is a fiscally disciplined Government or is it adequate to service the country's revenue needs under an addicted-to-spending Government such as this current Labour Government? Politicians don't really need a tax principles Act to tell them that a tax system needs to be fair simple transparent and administratively easy and—as I've already traversed—with the subjectivity of being adequate to service the country's revenue needs tax policy does inherently have value judgments. So National doesn't need a tax principles Act and a bevy of IRD staff running round gathering information. Actually I was very interested in the Minister's description of a high-wealth project. It seems very much more like a high-wealth witch hunt. However National doesn't need a tax principles Act to tell us our principles on tax. Our principles on tax are really simple: New Zealanders should pay less tax and keep more of their own money because they spend it better than a Government does. Quite aside from this bill being unnecessary it's also got some significant flaws. It doesn't provide any details on what the framework is and it doesn't give any real idea as to what this could be. It doesn't indicate any level to what degree of reporting there will be. Let's be very clear on this one: everyone is agreeing that a good tax system—and I will keep repeating it—is fair simple transparent and administratively easy but this bill is a bill that a Government would introduce to make the most of misleading claims found in an IRD report. Some people call it a high-wealth project; many of us call it a high-wealth witch hunt. It allows a Government to introduce taxes on the back of misleading claims found in an IRD report on the 311 wealthy families in New Zealand. It's almost Shame on them! How dare they be wealthy?" So this bill lays the framework for a capital gains tax. The Hon David Parker might have had the capital gains tax rug pulled out from under him at this point but the public should be under no illusion: this bill lays the framework for a resurrection of a capital gains tax. The public know that Labour can't be trusted on tax. It was a very very marginal call for the Hon David Parker to use the IRD funded by taxes from the public of New Zealand to investigate the affairs of wealthy New Zealanders and then use that information to inform the Labour Party tax policy. Changes from the brightline test from two years to 10 and removing the interest deductibility are things that show the public they can't trust a Labour Government on tax. In fact those changes were done in a Supplementary Order Paper—they never went near a select committee. So we know there are fundamental differences between a Labour Government's attitude and a National Government's attitude towards tax. It's very simple: Labour want more tax—they love tax. They want more of hard-working New Zealanders' money. They will tax anything that moves; in fact they'll tax anything that doesn't move. They love tax—it's in their DNA. A National Government wants less tax. A National Government wants hard-working New Zealanders to—[Interruption] You'd like me to? DEPUTY SPEAKER: Stick to the bill. PENNY SIMMONDS: Stick to the bill—thank you very much Mr Speaker. So it's very simple: National doesn't support this bill. We consider it is laying the foundation for simply taking more tax off New Zealanders. It isn't necessary. We oppose it and of course we will repeal it."