Carter David; Rurawhe AdrianRt Hon DAVID CARTER (National): Committee stage is normally a chance for the Opposition to ask questions of the Minister but when you've got a Minister as weak as this that he's got—I keep asking questions of the Opposition. Let me take a chance to respond to his questions answer them for him before I put six very specific questions to him. First of all on this side of the House we're not advocating to put tax rates up at all. They don't need to be. What we are saying is stop wasting money. The second question he asked is around Hawke's Bay and the recent announcements of the slush fund of Shane Jones. Might I point out that in amongst those announcements was money for water irrigation infrastructure water storage. We had a perfectly good scheme which the Labour Government immediately disbanded as soon as they came in on the basis it was a subsidy to farmers. I don't think many farmers in the Hawke's Bay will miss the inconsistency there.Now let me get to the very specific questions I want to ask of the Minister because I see he's got some beavering eager officials there to help him with these questions. I want to know how many taxpayers now are in the bracket of $70000 or more paying the top tax rate. A simple question to ask: how many are there? I then want to know how many he predicts will be there in 2020—how many more taxpayers will move into the tax bracket between 2019 and 2020 when tax revenue goes from $84.7 billion to $89.2 billion? My third question then is how many more are they budgeting will move into the top tax rate in the year 2020 to 2021 when the tax revenue goes from $89.2 billion to $95.1 billion? My fourth question is how many then taxpayers move into the top tax bracket of $70000 between 2021 and 2022? I point out to the Minister because he won't be familiar with his own figures the tax income core tax revenue in 2021 is $95.1 billion going to $102 billion in forecast 2020. My I think fifth question then or sixth takes us to the next financial year. What is the additional number of taxpayers who move in the 2022/23 year into the top tax bracket of $70000 when the tax revenue increases from $100.2 billion to $105.6 billion? For the Minister to now start to realise the extent of this bracket creep that's occurring—when you can look at their own Budget Economic and Fiscal Update figures and see that Crown tax revenue increases by around 25 percent from the 2022/23 year as compared to the 2017/18 years. So there are some quite specific questions from the Minister that we expect an answer to. This is the opportunity where we as Opposition normally use committee stages to ask questions of a Minister to ascertain the Minister's proficiency his capability. He can use it if he likes to ask questions of the National Party as to what our tax policy will be when we become Government after election 2020. If he's that worried I can give him some hints now but it certainly won't be maintaining the tax rates that this Government's maintaining because we won't need the sort of income that this Government needs because we won't be wasting money around the regions like Mr Shane Jones is at the moment. So some quite specific questions. I'm looking forward to the answer the Hon Stuart Nash.Andrew Bayly: Oh you're going to answer the question?Rt Hon David Carter: Yeah he's on his feet.Andrew Bayly: Mr Chair?CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Are you seeking a call?Andrew Bayly: Yes please.CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): I call Andrew Bayly.