O'Connor Simon: Taxation (Annual Rates Employee Allowances and Remedial Matters) Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Connor Simon: Taxation (Annual Rates Employee Allowances and Remedial Matters) Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 19 June 2014. Volume:699;Page:18731. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki):Mr Assistant Speaker thank you for the chance to take this call. Particularly after that Green speaker Gareth Hughes there are a few things that need to be put on the record to get them straight. The first is actually around the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act. The intergovernmental agreement has been signed so when the Opposition the Greens included say that it has not been that is just patently untrue. The intergovernmental agreement for the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act has been signed.We heard too just a bit earlier about the iron sands decision by the Environmental Protection Authority and how this is a defeat for the Government. This is a win for the Government in so far as we are the ones—in fact it was my ministerial colleague sitting here in front Amy Adams—who put in the system unique for New Zealand and for the first time these very decisions have to go through the Environmental Protection Authority.We are thrilled that this decision is going through and that there has actually been a process to review this. Again let us not shy away from realising that before the National Government there were no protections of this sort. So when people think about the environment they can rightly think about the National Party and its incredibly proud record here.We are also hearing this discussion around clean green energy. Well there is good news for the Greens here as well. Since 2008 when only about 65 percent of New Zealand’s energy was clean and green under a National Government that has risen to 75 percent. It has increased under a National Government because we too believe in smart green technology and have been happy to embrace that.We heard about the dolphins of course—the Māui’s dolphins. For those who read the scientific journals the debate continues about the different subspecies of Hector’s and Māui’s dolphins but we heard yesterday from Nick Smith that it has been something like 30 years since there has been a specified sighting in the area that has been discussed so we need to get to the facts.Finally particularly in relation to the Greens there is this constant belief that you can drive the economy on the fuel of slogans—that if we just keep walking around saying “clean green technology” somehow everything will be fine. The trouble we have is that when we turn to the Greens and ask them what an example of this smart green economy is there are not really any answers. Again it seems that the Greens believe that you drive the economy on the fuel of slogans and that is unfortunate because ultimately—Julie Anne Genter: Ha!SIMON O’CONNOR: We just heard again a scoff but of course no answer to what that is though I did see there was a plan the other day to have 3D printing. I suppose it has something to do with Russel Norman’s desire to print cash—if you do it in three dimensions you can triplicate the process. Of course the oddity of the release of the plan is that the plan was to create a plan to create a plan to look at 3D printing—very very odd.The Taxation (Annual Rates Employee Allowances and Remedial Matters) Bill is about taxation and annual rates. The National Government is continuing its tax approach. I think it is useful to point out for the House because there has been a lot of debate over recent days that 50 percent of the tax in this country is paid by the top 12 percent of earners so I think it is important to put it into context. The corollary to that of course is that more often than not families—say mum and dad and two kids earning the average wage—are almost tax neutral. In other words they pay ultimately no tax because of the array of support that is in place and I think it is important to note that to fill out the picture. This is a good bill. It is a necessary bill. It makes some minor changes around some things like employee allowances and as the title notes also around remedial matters. I will not go into those details but I commend the bill to the House.