Swarbrick ChlöeCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Co-Leader—Green): E te Māngai tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I wish this was the audience that we had for every single tax debate. As Rawiri Waititi the co-leader of Te Pāti Māori has just outlined we have a fundamental problem in this country when it comes to the way that our tax system presently operates. That is as he was alluding to that report from the Inland Revenue Department with subsidiary papers from Treasury released at the beginning of last year which showed us—which showed this House and the whole of the country—that we have a tax system that sees the top 311 families pay an effective tax rate less than half of that of the average New Zealander. That's not an accident but a consequence of the way that our tax system has been designed.So let's get into the content of this legislation. Firstly I just want to commend our colleagues and our friends in Te Pāti Māori for as the Hon Barbara Edmonds said bringing a bill to this House which does speak to values and also for the luck of the draw in having it put forward to us in the House today.The call to action from Rawiri Waititi was asking this House whether we had the guts to do what was necessary to eliminate poverty. That's where I'm afraid I must be up front and straight up with Rawiri Waititi and our friends in Te Pāti Māori. I called him and said this earlier today that we in the Greens could not support this legislation because unfortunately it will not do what it says on the tin.Hon Member: Oh you agree with us.CHLÖE SWARBRICK: So let's get into precisely that. It is fundamental Green Party policy and one that we've said multiple times throughout the campaign Carl. So the question is: what does this bill do? The proposition that we've had is that this bill will eliminate poverty. Unfortunately it won't do that. The reasons for that are manifold. The first is that we know that there is nothing that will stop the supermarket duopoly from filling the gap. We have seen similar moves from corporates when we've seen targeted taxes removed à la the regional fuel tax. We know this because it's reflected in the Tax Working Group's report which the Minister of Revenue alluded to just before.We also know as a result of that independent advice that a policy like this unfortunately will disproportionately benefit the wealthy who will buy more of those goods at the supermarket. We also know that it comes with an approximate $3 billion price tag and therefore the proposition from the Greens is that that money can be better spent elsewhere. If indeed our priority is to eliminate poverty we can do that through the likes of what we campaigned on in the Greens—our evidence-based policy to tax wealth and pay for a guaranteed minimum income to eliminate poverty. We also know that there is immense complexity in administration of a policy like this. We've seen that reflected in Australia where they have a similar policy. I just want to call out the Minister of Revenue the Hon Simon Watts who previously was speaking to some of these points in the Tax Working Group report because he loves to cherry-pick the fact that the Tax Working Group went through this policy and said that it wouldn't work and it wouldn't do what it said on the tin but what he doesn't want to put the microscope on is the fact that the Tax Working Group recommended a comprehensive capital gains tax which would have gone some way to fixing our tax system and some of those fundamental inequities that I opened my speech with.I also want to say thank you to our colleagues and friends in Te Pāti Māori for expanding the tax debate from the austerity trickle-down nonsense that we have heard thus far from the three-headed taniwha that is this coalition Government.So in summation let me be very clear: the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand wants to eliminate poverty—those are our values. We will follow the evidence to see that happen as is reflected in our policies for a wealth tax and for a guaranteed minimum income least of all and also helping to fund our public infrastructure that we know is in colossal—hundreds of billions of dollars of deficit because successive Governments have preferred to stick their heads in the sand than fix our tax system. Ultimately I might add that comes at the cost of our productivity. I put these questions once again to Treasury when they were in front of us at Finance and Expenditure Committee the week before last. The point that they have consistently made is that a lack of a capital gains tax pushes up house prices and robs us of that productivity.So in conclusion the values behind this bill are correct but the evidence shows it will not do what the member says it will and we look forward to working with them to see more evidence-based policy implemented. Thank you.Debate interrupted.