Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you Madam Speaker and thank you for that introduction to this debate. It is right and proper that New Zealand has in its Parliament each year a debate on the rates of tax—how much of people's money does this Parliament allow that Government to take out of people's income? The ACT Party—the Association of Consumers and Taxpayers in its full name—says that that the Government is taking too much tax out of hard-working families' incomes and in particular it is taking highly progressive taxation that means that some people pay too much tax and many pay none at all or very little.Even putting that aside the overall amount of tax has increased dramatically under this Government. How much? Well if we take the amount of tax that the Government was collecting at the start of its term in October 2017 and we ask ourselves how much more tax it's taking for every person—and there are no tricks here. We're adjusting for the growth in population. There are more people now and that's good. We're adjusting for inflation—that's been rapid. The price of everything is going up—we know that. But if we adjust for population growth and if we adjust for inflation then this Government is taxing $2138 more off every man woman and child every human in this country—even babies just being born. On their behalf—the average New Zealander—this Government is taxing more than ever before and $2138 more for every person than it did when it took office in October 2017.The other problem is: who it's being taken off. I want to put a thought in the minds of people at home: how much of the income tax should be paid by the 12 percent who pay the most income tax? Should it be 12 percent? Should they pay as much as they earn in proportion? Should they pay 24 percent? Should they pay twice as much tax as the number of people? Should it be 36 percent? How many people at home think Let's soak the rich people. They can pay three times more tax than the number of people."? How many think they should pay three times as much? Well now many people would be surprised to know that the top 12 percent of income tax payers in this country according to the Inland Revenue Department are paying 48 percent of all the income tax—12 percent of the taxpayers are paying half of all the income tax. So if people think that there is some sort of system where the rich get richer and aren't paying their share and get away well that just is not supported by the facts. And you go to the other side—and I think every party in this Parliament including ACT wants to help people who maybe have had a tough time or are at a stage of their life when they need more help. Maybe they're very young or they're older and they don't pay as much tax and they get more. But let me ask you this question: how much tax do the 48 percent who pay the least—how much of the income tax do they pay? Well do 48 percent of people pay 38 percent of the tax? Do they pay 24 percent of the tax? No; 48 percent of taxpayers are paying only 8 percent of total tax. That is the system we have today.So there's two things here so far. Number one: the amount of tax that this Government is taking across all the different taxes has gone up $2138 under this Government. Adjusted for population adjusted for inflation they're taking more money than ever and it's very unclear what results they're getting for it. The second thing is that when we look at who's paying the tax we have a very small group of people 12 percent paying half of all the income tax and we've got a very large group of people half of all the taxpayers paying only 8 percent. What that looks like is a small group of people being picked on by a large group of people and that is what brings division.Now I would like to talk to a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that I've put on the Table that I think would go some way to improving the situation. Supplementary Order Paper 140 would go a long way to making our tax system fairer and flatter and giving people back the opportunity to earn money and keep more of it. And that's what I'm urging my colleagues on the National Party side to support. This is where you get down to the nitty-gritty of tax policy. You see my good friend from down in South Auckland Andrew Bayly has an amendment that would adjust the tax thresholds. But do you know what that really means? I like the fact that it gives some money back but here's the problem with it: if he adjusts the tax thresholds for inflation the way he's proposing what he is doing is he's making sure that more of the tax burden falls on higher incomes and less of it falls on lower incomes. What he's really saying is that he wants to perpetuate the idea that half the people pay 8 percent of the income tax and 12 percent of the people pay half the income tax. The ACT Party says that if we want a culture of aspiration and a united country then we cannot have a tax system that is filled with tall poppy syndrome where the majority of people vote at the ballot box to take money off the minority where they're less concerned about the quality of Government spending—because hey it's only this little group that we're taking all the money off. And we have fundamentally division and exploitation and tall poppy syndrome in our tax code. That's why ACT can't support Andrew Bayly's amendment to adjust those thresholds. It's one way of giving money back to people—or letting them keep it to put it more accurately—but it is not the best way because it perpetuates that tall poppy syndrome in the tax code. What the ACT Party is proposing—and we hope that our colleagues around the House will join us—is a fairer flatter more consistent tax policy that will allow people to keep on the average wage around about $2000 more of their own money.How does that work? Well we're going to get rid of the 39c envy tax that this Government has put in place. Why? Are they going to get more money? No they're not. They'll be lucky if they get a few hundred million dollars more when this Government has already started spending tens of billions more than when it came into office. So the amount of tax it gets by putting on this 39c rate is immaterial. It makes no difference in the context of this Government's taxing and spending. But what it does do is it just sends a little message. It sends a little message to every child in this country: "If you work hard listen to your teacher get good grades turn those into skills that turn into qualifications that turn into jobs and careers and put a little money away and invest it carefully you know if you do all that and it works out for you guess what! We're going to take it. Not because it makes a big difference to how much money the Government has to spend; just because we can because there's not many of you and there's lots of us and in democracy you're outvoted and we're going to take your money." And that is wrong. It is morally wrong to pick on small groups of people and take their stuff just because you can. Just because a Minister has a chip on his shoulder for whatever reason it is wrong to go and take people's money just because it's possible to do it. So we'll get rid of that 39c rate. It needs to go for the culture of aspiration and unity in this society and in this country.Then the Government says "What'll we do with the middle income tax rate the rate that you pay between $48000 and $70000?" Well you know if someone on the minimum wage put in a few extra hours half an extra shift 44 hours a week they can find themselves paying the 30c tax rate on their next dollar. We think that 30c in the dollar on an average wage is too high. So the next thing that these amendments on SOP 140 do is they drop that 30c tax rate down to 17.5. So from $14000 the 17½ kicks in. You pay that all the way to 70 then you pay 33c after that—there's no 39 rate.It's good we have a debate about taxation in our Parliament because there's no proper taxation without representation and the ACT Party speaks for those who are tired of having their money taken away just because this Government thinks it can. We stand for fairer flatter tax rates where we don't have one group of people picking on another and taking their money because they can. We stand for giving genuine relief around $2000 to the average earner back on their tax bill with a generous middle-income tax reduction and if people think that that sounds like a good future for our country they should vote for ACT's amendments."