Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you Mr Speaker—Hon Member: Take your time Paul.Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Sometimes it pays to take the appropriate amount of time to come to the right conclusion. And on this matter I'm glad to say that National supports this bill: the Taxation (KiwiSaver Student Loans and Remedial Matters) Bill.The primary point I'd make first is that there has been a long tradition of parties across the Parliament working together on tax reform in order to maintain the high-class tax system that we have here in New Zealand: low rate - broad based tax system that brings the money in that we need to provide the public services that New Zealanders look forward to and expect. We work constructively together on many of these such bills and we continue that work today.There is one particular point of contention over this bill that my colleague Andrew Bayly alluded to in relation to what can only be described as a slightly sneaky approach taken by the Government in relation to mistakes made by the 550000 people who weren't taxed at the right rate for their KiwiSaver. And we're thinking particularly of young people—young people who've been working hard and have got their little KiwiSaver account. They're not making much money but if they haven't pushed the right button at the right time they end up being taxed at 28 percent which is well above the rate that they might normally be taxed at—it might only be 10.5 percent 10c in the dollar if they're earning a very low income they're doing part-time work they're toiling away at the cafe or working at the Pizza Hut or something like that trying to make some money in order to get themselves through university or trades training or some work and are getting taxed too much on their KiwiSaver contributions.Now the approach that Stuart Nash has taken has been heads you lose tails I win. That's such as to say that if people have paid too little tax he will come and collect it and if they paid too much tax tough luck you're not getting it back. We don't think that's right because we think Kiwis deserve the opportunity to get taxes that they've overpaid by mistake back when that situation has been rectified. So I stand here in support of Andrew Bayly: a very strong and effective member of Parliament based in Hunua who is making a great contribution. So we support him on that.The other broader point I'd make is that we're standing of course at a time when we're talking about tax and the tax system and the wider burden that New Zealanders are feeling around the cost of living and the pressure that they're feeling on their pockets. This is a party—the National Party—that is concerned about that and wanting to put more money in the pockets of New Zealanders and are very open to offering ongoing tax relief. Nothing mentioned in this bill but something that we have indicated that we'd be keen to do is to regularly adjust the tax thresholds for inflation because if you don't do that with inflation people's incomes rise and they're dragged into higher tax rates and they end up paying more tax. If you get away with that for a long period of time then people are paying a lot more tax and you find that somebody on the average wage in New Zealand of around $64000 $65000 is paying 30c in the dollar on a substantial part of their income and is getting very close to the top tax rate at 33 percent. So you've got to adjust those things and that's something we're going to do if we get a chance in Government.The final point I wanted to make is in relation to that that tax relief's more important now than ever. We've got this real economic challenge that we're all facing at the moment with the coronavirus and the impact that it's having on the New Zealand economy and around the world. A lot of people were worried about that. A lot of people are worried about their KiwiSaver investments right now. They've seen the prices come down. They're anxious about it. We'll support the Government in anything that they do to reassure New Zealanders at this time. If they do sensible things we'll absolutely support it. But what we need most clearly right now is a good clear economic plan to show New Zealanders the way to get back to growth and to have a clear set of responses to help those businesses that are struggling through this difficult time. So we're conscious of that this evening but on the details of this bill we support it. Thank you very much.