Williams Andrew: Taxation (Annual Rates Returns Filing and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Williams Andrew: Taxation (Annual Rates Returns Filing and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 16 October 2012. Volume:684;Page:5860. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First) 
: 
 I am taking a call on behalf of New Zealand First on the Taxation (Annual Rates Returns Filing and Remedial Matters) Bill. We also will be supporting this bill and now that we are on to Part 5 of the bill we certainly also support the whole new structure in terms of the employer contributions for KiwiSaver returning to 3 percent from 2 percent having been reduced from 4 percent a year or two ago by the National Government. It is somewhat ironic that having halved them the Government is now increasing them by 1 percent back up to 3 percent and one wonders why it dabbled with the KiwiSaver scheme in the first place when it was working so well. 
There is a little bit at the moment of a feeling of rearranging of the deckchairs on the  
Titanic 
 when it comes to this Government at the present time. There seems to be an awful lot of tinkering around the edges when it comes to some of these taxation things as we have heard earlier in the evening on other taxation matters where the Government seems to be intent on just tinkering with the trivial in taxation while leaving the big-picture stuff aside. 
In that respect I have already spoken in the House tonight about the several billion dollars in tax deductions for the wealthy in this country that resulted in us in an earlier bill having to look at the CPI adjustments to do with the cigarette excise and here we are looking at putting up the percentages again. Again there is an awful lot of tinkering without solid results. In fact here is a situation where the Government is having to basically concede that it was wrong on the KiwiSaver deductions. So hopefully this will help increase the savings of Kiwis with the contributions from employers increasing to 3 percent and it will help the ongoing savings of New Zealanders for their retirement in the future. 
But it is interesting looking at some of the other clauses in this bill. The previous Labour speaker Chris Hipkins also mentioned about the software deductions and that if you have failed software then you can have the appropriate tax deductions. Presumably this will not apply to the likes of Work and Income and to other Government departments that have had some colossal software failures obviously in recent weeks under this Government and where there have been some huge huge holes found in the software and in the access of our computer systems in some of the Government departments. So it is somewhat ironic that if you have failed software you will be able to get deductions under this new taxation. Perhaps they could foresee that there were going to be some of these problems with some of these Government departments. 
But it is also interesting when it comes to clause 172(1) under “Fees” that in terms of departmental consultation the fees are going to be increased from $50 to $150 in terms of deductions for consultants such as valuers engineers and architects in obtaining advice as to the estimated useful life or estimated residual value of the property to which the application relates. And is it not interesting that we have a Government that often complains about the rising cost for instance of charges by local government and that local government has been exceeding its charges exorbitantly according to some of the National Party members and increasing the charges colossally. And here this Government is increasing the fees in relation to this regulation from $50 threefold to $150. That is a pretty jolly good increase by anyone’s standard to put forward a threefold—300 percent—increase in fees. So again it is a little bit like the bull in the china shop or throwing stones in glasshouses. This Government is quite happy to put up fees by three times but then criticises other parts of local government and other parts of all sorts of things that simply are doing their job and this Government sees no problem at all. 
So New Zealand First will be supporting this bill but it is very mindful of the fact that once again a lot of this is overdue a lot of it is tinkering a lot of it should never have happened in the first place in the case of the KiwiSaver changes. Basically as I said before the deckchairs of the  
Titanic 
 continue to be rearranged. We hope that finally one day this Government will get things on an even course so we do not have to have these sorts of bills coming to the House.