Eckhoff Gerrard: Taxation (Disaster Relief) Bill — Procedure First Reading Second Reading Third Reading 
Eckhoff Gerrard: Taxation (Disaster Relief) Bill — Procedure First Reading Second Reading Third Reading 
[Volume:616;Page:11678] 
GERRARD ECKHOFF (ACT) 
: 
 In the quiet moments I have in Parliament—they are few but occasionally they happen—I sometimes reflect on whether one can have some impact or make some sort of difference or on why one comes to Parliament. Thinking to myself about this after talking and listening to the very wise words of all the speakers I have heard so far I realise it is important that we make a contribution. 
Certainly as a rural person I believe that the voice of rural New Zealand is not heard as much as it should be so it is very gratifying to hear members from all parties speak with real understanding of the issues that are out there for so many who have been affected by this rather catastrophic event in the lower North Island. 
As a farmer of 30-odd years thinking closely about the impact the floods have had on the communities in the lower North Island I start to think back on my own experience of going through one in 200-year floods a year apart in Southland. We have gone through numerous droughts and many of us in Roxburgh would say that the last drought was probably the worst in living memory. Now it has all changed and the grass is growing again which is fantastic. 
I cannot help but reflect on a neighbour whose property was totally burnt out back in 1999 and the impact it had on just a handful of farmers. It was not a disaster in a regional sense—although it could have been—but it affected those farming families immensely and one particular family no longer farms because of that fire. I also think of those in isolated areas who lost 200 to 300 cows smothered in snowfalls. That does not make the headlines in the  
New Zealand Herald 
 or in the North Island newspapers but the impact on individual farmers and families is huge.  
If I might come back to the bill—which is perhaps rather unusual—the impact of taxation over the next few years on affected farmers in the North Island and those who have gone through significant capital loss and expenditure is very profound. I know for example that when stock that has been lost is replaced—whether it be cows sheep or a market garden—the costs are huge. The impact of the Inland Revenue Department and its legitimate—nobody doubts that—requirements can be very deleterious. I say to Dr Cullen and the Labour Government: thank you for hearing the pleas of so many.  
Not just rural or provincial New Zealand but the whole of the New Zealand community recognised the devastating impact of the floods on so many of our families and knew full well that they could be next. That is why some of us—I donated a cow or cow equivalent—helped just in a small way to make things a little easier especially for sharemilkers who have all their capital tied up in a breeding herd.  
Doug Woolerton and Ian Ewen-Street have referred to the enormous loss caused by the floods—not just in a financial sense but in a personal sense. Farmers do not just lose a source of income when they lose stock but almost part of the family. I guess one needs to be a rural person to understand that in any very real way.  
I wrote to Dr Cullen today and expressed some concern that the bill as it stands does not go far enough. I do not want to sound churlish or ungrateful but there are other elements that we need to think about. I suggest that the Inland Revenue Department—and indeed the Minister—needs to think about the anomalies that those sorts of situations throw up when cash donations are made or in kind such as hay. We need to think about whether those sorts of deductions are tax deductible. 
I hasten to add that my comments do not relate to my personal contribution but more to the longer-term impacts on those who generously give very substantial sums of money in some cases. We need to understand exactly what the implications are. We know of situations where culverts sheds etc. that are depreciating on an annual basis over a 20-year period have been washed down the river and totally lost and we need a system that allows people to write those off immediately and start again. 
There are some real issues there and I am very grateful to the Minister Dr Cullen for his indication that there will be legislation addressing that issue—in the not too distant future one would hope. I fully accept that the immediacy of this bill in terms of payments to the Inland Revenue Department—whether it be GST provisional tax or whatever—is necessary. Hence the House I am delighted to say has set aside a time in which to address this very important issue. 
It would also be fair and reasonable for me to say “Thank you” on behalf of Federated Farmers who have been hoping for almost 10 years that a Government no matter whether that Government be National Labour or ACT—and an ACT Government is not too far away—will address that issue. We appreciate the fact that that is now being done. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: It is a one-in-100-year event. 
GERRARD ECKHOFF 
: I will just carry on. Sadly it does sometimes take catastrophic events to get the Government to hear the pleas of the people out there in the provinces. The catastrophe of the last flood has been so grievous for so many. Mr Woolerton referred to the “scarring of the hillsides”. The reality of that is brought into stark focus whether one is flying over the area or driving through it. We know it will take some time for the country to recover—but recover it will as will our families. 
I believe it was Mr Woolerton again who pointed out that after the immediacy of the event—with the television cameras the Iroquois helicopters flying over and everybody saying: “Gosh isn’t this dreadful? Look at all this silt on the flats”—it will be over the next 3 to 7 months or even the next year that understanding of the situation and help will be needed. I also pay homage to the job that Federated Farmers have done over this time. 
If members will forgive me I would like to finish on what I think is quite a nice note. I have no wish at all to be flippant but this is a nice little story of a dairy farmer who woke to find 80 bucket-reared heifers marooned. He did not know how to get them across the water so he tapped the bucket and started calling to them and one by one they leapt into the water and came to him. He got them on to some high ground and thought he had saved them. 
A couple of hours later the farmer was mortified to see an Iroquois coming down—the pilot had apparently thought the group of heifers was a group of people huddled together—and the heifers plunging straight into the river again. He thought: “Oh my God I’ve gone from saving them to losing them again.” Two hours later he got a ring from a fellow down on the coast who said: “I think I’ve got some heifers of yours. They’ve got your earmark on them. There’s a dozen or 15—hang on there might be 20—no looks like about 40 actually.” He rang the farmer back about half an hour later to say that there were 80 of his heifers on the farm right on the beachfront. The whole lot were safe. 
If I might be forgiven for adding a positive note some positive elements have come out of these disasters and rather than dwelling on the huge difficulties I thought that was quite a nice little story for members to think about—which is certainly not to undermine the huge difficulties that have grievously affected not just farmers but so many people in small provincial towns. I thank the Government and my colleagues for their contributions and I look forward to the passage of this bill.