Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you Mr Speaker. You know there was one thing missing from the Prime Minister's statement today; it was an answer to a simple question—a question that any Prime Minister should be asking especially one who wants to have a year of delivery—and it's this: where does prosperity where does wealth actually come from? It's not actually complicated but it seems that today we must state and restate the most basic truths just to keep them alive at all. That prosperity—it comes from combining more investment better ideas and more skilful workers to produce products and services that people want to pay more for. That's it. It's not complicated but nowhere in the Prime Minister's statement did we come close to an articulation of how New Zealanders actually get wealthier and generate the prosperity that she seeks whether it be to pay for new cancer drugs whether it be for new roads or better houses; we didn't hear where that prosperity comes from.I predict that instead of having more skilful workers working with more capital many New Zealanders are going to decide that a better idea is moving to Australia just as they did last time Labour was over there on the Treasury benches and that is a great shame. ACT on the other hand will continue standing for freedom and opportunity because those are the values that make us prosperous. But instead we have heard from this Government an endless array of new initiatives that put sand in the gears of prosperity—new red tape and new regulations.Let's just go through a few of the impediments to combining more skilful workers with more investment and better ideas. The minimum wage—we've heard that the minimum wage is going to go to $20 by 2021. We in New Zealand already have the highest minimum wage compared with the average in the developed world. That should be a clue that if the Government pushes it too much further there will be job losses and indeed the officials have told the Government that if they increase the minimum wage to $20 by 2021 there will be 11000 fewer jobs than there would have been otherwise taking people off the ladder of opportunity with less freedom to gain the skills in the workplace that would have given them a more prosperous future.What about fair pay agreements? We've got Jim Bolger somehow seeking to sell his socialist soul by cuddling up to the most left-wing Labour Government—whose leader is effectively elected by the unions—introducing 1970s-style national awards. They call them fair pay agreements. What is fair about being in a workplace where 10 percent or fewer of the people who work there can suddenly engage everybody in a negotiation that means whether you work hard or not you end up getting paid the same? How are professions or industries defined in 2019? It might've been easy in the 70s when there were tinkers tailors soldiers and sailors but today we have such a wide range of employment categories it will be impossible to define industries and ACT predicts that if the Government does go ahead with its fair pay agreements the only people who will prosper from it will be those who are employment lawyers.We heard about the capital gains tax most recently from James Shaw. Winston Peters didn't mention it but we heard about the capital gains tax from James Shaw and it was a really interesting story about Karen and—I think Peter was the guy's name. Karen was going to have a better life if there was a capital gains tax—if Peter who bought a house had to pay a capital gains tax. Well the sad thing for Karen is that nowhere in the world—not in London not in Hong Kong not in Singapore not in LA not in Vancouver not in Sydney or Melbourne—has a capital gains tax prevented house prices going over 10 times income when supply and demand were mismatched. So the capital gains tax is not actually going to help Karen. But here's the thing: a capital gains tax is not about helping anybody; it's about dragging people down. It's not about helping Karen; it's about dragging down the other guy.Here's another simple truth about a capital gains tax: James Shaw said that the Government should tax income from labour or work the same as it taxes capital. Well this Government has a comprehensive tax on income a progressive tax on income and a capital asset is only worth the income that it produces which is taxed. So I've got news for the Government: if they make a capital gain on an asset well it should be producing more income and if it's producing more income under the progressive income tax system that they support it's going to pay more tax. We are already taxed on any gains made on capital in this country. Only a Government fixated on envy and dragging people down—the opposite of the values that make a country prosperous—would want to tax people again. The madness of it in a country that has for almost two centuries been desperately short of capital and paid a premium on capital—we have a Government that now wants to put an extra tax on saving and investing. It is madness.Then we have the welfare reforms. We have a Government that is going to squander years and years of carefully improving the welfare system so that people get off welfare into work. And what are they doing? They're increasing entitlements they're relaxing work tests and they're finding predictably enough that even at a time of record low formal employment a time when people up and down this country are screaming out and desperate for workers we have 300000 people on a main benefit of working age. That's 10 percent of adult New Zealanders. It is a scandal and this Government through relaxing mutual obligation in welfare is going to make it worse.Then we get into the technical stuff. The Commerce Commission has been let loose with the permission of both main parties in this House I might add to go into whole industries—starting with petrol then it will be supermarkets then who knows who's next; whoever's politically unpopular I would guess—and demand information from that industry with greater powers than the police and then decide I don't know I think that profit is too high or too low. We bureaucrats somehow know how much money a particular industry should be making." It is an outrage another bureaucratic impost and another violation of the very principles that make a country prosperous.Then we come to the Provincial Growth Fund—we've heard lots about that. Now I would like to call the Provincial Growth Fund pork-barrel politics but that would be unfair on pigs. I don't want to insult pigs by comparing them with what Shane Jones is doing brazenly and blatantly splashing the cash up and down this country with no robust evidence no public policy case. And of course as we've heard recently from my very able constituent Paul Goldsmith in actual fact he's creating more jobs on Courtenay Place than he's creating anywhere out in the regions. Well I think Shane Jones is going to discover that people in the regions are actually able to work it out. They're going to see through him and it's not even going to work politically in the way that he hoped. Then we have the well-being Budget—the Budget that tells you how you should feel and manages whether or not you have a sense of national identity. Well I can tell you that people in the Epsom electorate and people in Auckland—their well-being would be improved if the Government could provide roads that weren't congested all the time and public transport that actually functioned. They'd be happy if we had a justice system that could rehabilitate people instead of having a revolving door outside every prison. They'd be happy if we had an education system that didn't put out one in six people functionally innumerate and illiterate. There's a whole lot of things the Government could do better before it starts lecturing us on our sense of identity and how we feel. In conclusion we have a Government who believes that prosperity comes from tax and red tape and regulation a Government that has no regard for the real creation of prosperity and the real creators of prosperity. It is a Government that will soon enough find that when the stardust wears off and the prosperity evaporates nobody likes them at all. Thank you Mr Speaker."