Carter DavidRt Hon DAVID CARTER (National): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. For those who are just tuning in after the dinner break National will oppose the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2019–20 GST Offshore Supplier Registration and Remedial Matters) Bill.I've been here a while and this bill typifies the greedy attitude that this Government has to tax. I want the next Labour member who takes a call to tell me whenever before we've had the tax bill setting the rates for 2019-20 going to a select committee while it's still working on the tax bill for 2018-19. That's how keen this Government is to keep—Hon Dr David Clark: Patience.Rt Hon DAVID CARTER: —taking taxes off the poor New Zealanders so that they can spread them around like confetti. Hon Dr David Clark is laughing at this. But he probably didn't have the chance to watch the TV ONE news tonight where again the Hon Shane Jones has been caught giving millions of dollars to his nephs in Gisborne against Treasury advice. It's mum and dad taxpayers who are paying their legitimate taxes so this Government can spray it around thinking it's about buying votes. I've got a message for the Hon Dr David Clark and for the Hon Shane Jones: if they think New Zealand taxpayers are going to be fooled by the largesse of the Provincial Growth Fund as money is thrown around then I think they've got another thing coming. So the select committee will continue to work on the tax bill for 2018-19. It will then start work on the tax bill for 2019-20.I was very intrigued with the contributions from the Green member Gareth Hughes when he said It's time for a bit of honesty about the tax debate." The very next speaker Dr Duncan Webb said "This is not about any new taxes at all." Well it is about a new tax. It's about an Amazon tax. It's about a tax on GST for online purchases. I support that bit of the bill because it's the work that National did prior to the general election. It is totally unfair on the retailers of New Zealand having to put GST on to their products and then have somebody else being able to go on the net import it from the likes of Amazon or eBay and dodge the GST component putting the New Zealand retailer at a huge disadvantage. So I congratulate the Government for that part of the legislation but I will be interested in the select committee process to hear how it's going to be complied with because I think the concept of a threshold—$60000 turnover—means that these overseas companies must then register for GST purposes. Let's see the compliance. I think that will be a challenge for the work around the select committee.The next thing that Dr Duncan Webb got wrong was around ring-fencing rental property losses. He tries to justify that by saying it's about fairness to the tax system. Why are we ring-fencing losses on rental properties for mum and dad apartment investors mum and dad home investors when at the same time the legislation before the select committee allows this to be opened up for wealthy horse-breeders? Give me an explanation Dr Duncan Webb or in fact the next Labour speaker—I think she's also a doctor—Dr Deborah Russell. Tell me why we close it down for property owners and open it up in the other legislation for wealthy racehorse-breeders. There's no logic at all apart from the fact that some promises were made during the last election campaign by the Rt Hon Winston Peters to his mates in the racing industry and those need to be fulfilled.The final point I want to make is again a comment from Gareth Hughes when he said it was time to be honest about this legislation and then went on to argue that National had proposed cutting taxes for the wealthy. That is not right. It is completely wrong. In fact it's dishonest because what National proposed at the last election campaign was to leave the top tax rate at 33 percent—to leave it there. It was about delivering tax cuts to middle New Zealand—the people who needed it. But what the Government did was abolish National's good tax proposals and instead spend $2.8 billion on buying some student votes with tertiary fees being free. That was going to see more university students enrolling in our tertiary education and there are now fewer enrolled than before the policy change of Labour. So Labour wasted effectively $2.8 billion that if we had managed to secure an election victory we would have delivered to hard-working New Zealanders; not as Gareth Hughes said to wealthy New Zealanders. Their tax rate would not have changed. It would have been delivered to middle New Zealand and that's what it should have been for.So I want to conclude my comments by reminding people of a very good comment that was made by Ian McKelvie that wonderful colleague of ours on the National side who said to me just before the dinner break "Ideology doesn't work in politics."—ideology doesn't work in politics. So for the Labour Government to continue—and I'm pleased that the Hon Grant Robertson has come to listen to this final point—to think they can treat the taxpayer as an ATM machine and then spray money around recklessly as the Hon Shane Jones is doing day after day let me tell the Hon Grant Robertson that it won't work. New Zealanders are sharper than that. They'll pay their tax legitimately if it's fair but they will object to being ripped off by a Government that imposes a higher and higher tax burden on New Zealand taxpayers so that the Hon Shane Jones can chuck it around the country with a huge amount of largesse.National will oppose this legislation going to the select committee. It will work hard to make it better legislation at the select committee but it will certainly be opposing it when it comes back for the second and third readings."