McKelvie IanIAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Thank you Mr Chair. I was going to say it gives me pleasure to take a call on this bill but it doesn't really. The Taxation (Annual Rates for 2018–19 Modernising Tax Administration and Remedial Matters) Bill—it's a fairly big title for a very small bill. I wanted to make a few comments on the tax rates because I'm certainly a little disappointed that the Government has changed a policy that the previous Government had in place to give every New Zealander approximately $1060 in tax relief. I was thinking to myself that there was a little irony in Minister Jones barracking my former colleague—my present colleague. I was going to say my former colleague" but he's still here. Ha ha! I haven't got rid of him yet. But I thought there was some irony in him barracking my colleague about his comments on the tax rates because actually tax rates have a great incentive on people. I have noticed a lot of comment from this said Minister with respect to having difficulty getting people into work or to go out to work. Of course if you disincentivise people from going out to work by taxing them too much they certainly won't go out to work.I think that people have a much better feel for themselves when they go out to work and they know they've earned the money they're going to get in their pocket and not been given it by the Government. The essence of the changes to the annual rates of taxation brought in by this Government were that they were effectively swapped for a different form of paying a person but using the Government purse to pay them as opposed to letting people earn their own money by operating on a much higher tax rate. I think tax rates are absolutely key to giving people the incentive to get out to work. And certainly in those lower-income areas a little tax break goes a long long way.I don't accept the argument that the Government put up around the tax rates where they talked about people on very high incomes—in fact they used MPs' incomes most of the time—as the opportunity. The MPs of course only got the same tax break as a person on a much smaller tax rate because inevitably with a scaled tax system like we have you're going to have that sort of effect that's going to impact on every taxpayer and you can't do anything about that. That's just how it works. Of course that is the fairest type of tax system to operate under. So because we operate in what I think is a pretty good tax system it does give people incentive to work. It does operate in a manner that—at the lower ends of income—gives everyone the same amount of tax back.So I was a little disappointed when the Government changed those tax rates. I do think that there's a lot of things in this bill that are certainly worth supporting. But of course in Part 1 we're talking about those annual tax rates. I certainly can't find my way clear to support it on that basis. There will be one or two other bits later in the bill that I will find difficulty in supporting too but that's for very different reasons.So I'm very disappointed that we've seen the annual tax rates change. I'm also very nervous about some of the things the Government are looking at with a view to what they call "Making the tax system a fairer system." I think the fairest system we can have with respect to tax is the less taxation we have the better. I'm sure that the ultimate aim of this side of the House is to make sure people take home as many dollars as they possibly can. And it's important that they do because it does incentivise them to get off the couch and go out to work. If we want to get our young people out to work the better we can pay them the more likely we are to get them out to work and particularly when you get to—Chlöe Swarbrick: That's why we're raising the minimum wage.IAN McKELVIE: No problem with that—and particularly when you get to some of the more challenging I suppose work that we do in New Zealand particularly our rugged rural lifestyle because whether we like it or not our environment is pretty rugged. So every incentive we can give those young people to get out to work is most important.So with those few words on the annual tax rates I've probably made my contribution to Part 1 of this bill and later in the discussion I look forward to making some further significant inputs to that discussion. So thank you Mr Chair."