Dunne Peter: Taxation (Depreciation Payment Dates Alignment FBT and Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Dunne Peter: Taxation (Depreciation Payment Dates Alignment FBT and Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:630;Page:2018] 
Hon PETER DUNNE (Minister of Revenue) 
: 
 I want to respond to the matters the previous speaker has just raised. The starting point has to be: what is actually being offered in Australia and how does that compare with what is being promoted in New Zealand? There are some key differences and I think those differences go some way towards explaining the different regimes that are being proposed for the two countries. 
For a start New Zealand’s proposed regime applies to New Zealand citizens who return to this country as well as to people of high net worth from elsewhere. But the Australian regime does not apply to returning Australians. Returning Australians are not caught by the Australian regime. The New Zealand regime basically applies to any person coming back to this country regardless of whether he or she intends to stay here long term. The Australians have the concept of a temporary resident’s visa; we do not: one is either a permanent resident or one is not. One may be here either on a short-term work visa or on a visitor’s visa but the temporary visa notion that the Australians have does not apply here. So someone coming to Australia in the circumstances the member describes would have the exemption for the duration of his or her visa. In New Zealand because such persons would be either permanent residents or returning citizens they would have the duration for the length of time they were in the country. That is their call not the term of their visa. 
As far as the issue of whether the duration is 5 years 10 years or whatever is concerned I note that the Finance and Expenditure Committee in its consideration made a move away from what we had originally—I think it was 3 years and 5 years and it drew the line down the middle at 4 years for everyone. As the Minister of Finance said at the second reading there is no magic about this and I concede that. We took the 10-year figure because we thought initially that the 10-year limitation was a safe period to address. I am not persuaded that we should seek to shorten that at this stage. I am quite happy to see how the regime works in practice then to see whether we ought to adjust it. 
Craig Foss 
: What’s that review time? 
Hon PETER DUNNE 
: I do not have a specific review time in mind but I think that the impacts will become fairly obvious very quickly. 
My next point may help answer the member’s question. Dr Smith rightly draws attention to the fact that Australia is our major market and that in this area as in just about everything competitiveness with Australia is important. Incidentally this is one of the issues we are facing with the business tax review—where do we pitch ourselves vis-à-vis Australia bearing in mind that a move we make today may be overtaken by a move Australia makes tomorrow? To some extent there will always be an element of this. So although the Australians have made some adjustments to what they originally proposed I think we need to be careful not to get trapped into thinking that every time they move we have to move. We need to strike a regime that is fair and effective as far as we are concerned and gives us the benefits we want. I made the point earlier that this regime as it applies to those people coming to New Zealand is in fact more broadly based than the Australian one. It gives us an advantage and I do not think that is widely appreciated. 
So at this stage although I appreciate the tenor and the spirit of the amendments the Opposition has put forward I am not persuaded that we should support them this evening. But this is an area where we will need to keep on our game as the situation unfolds. I make the observation—and I do so not in any churlish sense; I do not want to be misinterpreted—that because these amendments have financial implications and were not lodged within the 24-hour period we could apply a veto. We will not do that because I think it would be counter to the spirit in which the amendments have been put forward. I say that to the member in good faith. We will not support the amendments at this time but the issues he has brought forward will be among those we will want to continue to work our way through as this whole process unfolds. That is something we may well return to at a later date. I do not have much more to say on that point.