Foss Craig: Taxation (Annual Rates Trans-Tasman Savings Portability KiwiSaver and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Foss Craig: Taxation (Annual Rates Trans-Tasman Savings Portability KiwiSaver and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:666;Page:13500] 
CRAIG FOSS (National—Tukituki) 
: 
 We are in the third reading of the Taxation (Annual Rates Trans-Tasman Savings Portability KiwiSaver and Remedial Matters) Bill and I acknowledge the Minister of Revenue for the work he has done to get the bill to this stage. It has been a somewhat wide-ranging debate. 
I will make a couple of points. Speakers on the other side of the House keeping talking about a 28-page Supplementary Order Paper. Well like the pamphlet that they gave out that miscalculated the GST increase Supplementary Order Paper 105 has five pages Supplementary Order Paper 156 has 15 pages and Supplementary Order Paper 157 in the name of the Minister has 13 pages. Not one of them is 28 pages long. Those Supplementary Order Papers do not even add up to 28 pages. Maybe the devil is in the detail. Once again it just proves that members on the other side do not really have a grasp on the core issue at all. 
The previous speaker the Hon David Cunliffe also spoke about National voting against a Supplementary Order Paper in the name of one of the members. If Mr Cunliffe was paying attention he would note that that Supplementary Order Paper never even came to the vote. But perhaps I am being a bit picky. 
When Mr Cunliffe started speaking he conveniently forgot as he often does about the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update in 2008 which sadly revealed for our economy the decade of deficits a terrible growing debt the revelations in accident compensation and the revaluation of KiwiRail. You name it it was there. He also touched on the growth in real wages under this Government of 8.7 percent. He is quite right in that some tax changes were announced in the dying days of the previous administration. As we all know and the records will show they were poll-driven and when National announced its tax plan after 9 years of waiting suddenly Dr Cullen and the previous Government found themselves able to give out income tax cuts. 
Very quickly I say that the previous speaker also talked a lot about GST. He said that there was nothing in this legislation about GST or administration and he is quite right. Very little about GST is in this legislation because this is the Taxation (Annual Rates Trans-Tasman Savings Portability KiwiSaver and Remedial Matters) Bill. GST provisions are in another bill. There is a lot in this legislation to deal with GST because this legislation includes the new tax schedules under which we will see the income tax cuts announced by this Government in the Budget. They kick in on 1 October this year and will see about two-thirds of New Zealanders face a highest marginal income tax rate of 17.5 percent which is half of what it was 3 years ago. 
I acknowledge other speakers and assistants and I commend the Finance and Expenditure Committee members and officials for getting the bill through the Committee stage in spite of the rhetoric over the last few hours. I acknowledge that Opposition members are voting for the bill. Sure they have some reservations and some political points to make but overall good tax policy is coming through here. I thought the process was pretty good. 
I will quickly touch on something that I did not really have a chance to talk about in the in-depth select committee deliberations. I congratulate the committee the officials and the private sector advisers involved in the branch equivalent tax account debits changes. In terms of the bill that came into the House initially and was referred to the select committee the committee’s work brought a lot of fairness and clarity. Some quite substantial numbers are involved as far as obligation potential losses and/or gains for the taxpayer and some entities are concerned and we see in the commentary on the bill that we start to touch on those particular issues. I thought this was a great example of the committee’s cross-party work towards good tax policy. 
I have one final point. I know that a Green member will speak after me but in an earlier speech the co-leader of the Greens Mr Norman talked about the illegal behaviour of banks being prosecuted for tax issues etc. I do not think that the Taranaki savings bank was prosecuted by anyone. Was Southland Savings Bank? I do not think so. My point is that members should be very very careful with the generic terms they use when they are talking about matters that have been before the courts. Members need to get their facts right. I know what the member was trying to say but it would not take much more for him to say that rather than use the terms he is using which are somewhat confusing and do not show this House in a good light. Thank you.