Katene Rahui: Goods and Services Tax (Exemption of Healthy Food) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Katene Rahui: Goods and Services Tax (Exemption of Healthy Food) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:666;Page:13803] 
RAHUI KATENE (Maori Party—Te Tai Tonga) 
: 
 I move  
That the Goods and Services Tax (Exemption of Healthy Food) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
 At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be considered by the Health Committee. Timing is everything. Just over a year ago I stood to introduce my very first member’s bill—Te Ra o Matariki Bill/Matariki Day Bill. That bill was an opportunity to welcome a new dawn to celebrate our distinctly New Zealand culture and within that to acknowledge the importance of planning and preparing for our future the future that cared for all peoples of this land Aotearoa. Then just 4 days ago a violent earthquake shook my electorate to its very feet striking fear in the hearts of the people of Otautahi and leaving far too many families nervous about their financial outlook in the wake of damage done to business and home. Today this bill is a genuine attempt to make a difference for low-income families to make a difference for the health and well-being of New Zealanders and in doing so to create a new environment of care for the future of our nation. 
I want to extend my heartfelt appreciation to Dr Gay Keating the national executive officer of the Public Health Association; the Maori Women’s Welfare League; the Country Women’s Institutes; the Alliance; the Socialist Unity Party; and the Residents Action Movement. It was the Residents Action Movement that gathered up the support and signatures of some 25000 people and then embarked on a high-profile procession to Parliament in October 2008 rallying support along the way to take GST off food on the grounds that GST hits low-income people disproportionately. I acknowledge the influence of all of these people and organisations in putting together this bill. 
I want to lead off with the words of encouragement from Dr Gay Keating: “These benefits include helping New Zealanders improve their diet particularly families on lower incomes which are likely to be harder hit by any increase in GST. Supporting Ms Katene’s bill would be a great move towards increased fairness. It would also be a great start towards lowering the high rate of avoidable disease hospital admissions and premature deaths that plague lower income families.” 
I find it hard to believe that any politician could fail to be moved by such advice. It is in that spirit that I seek the opportunity across the House to at least enable this bill to benefit from the scrutiny of the select committee process. The Goods and Services Tax (Exemption of Healthy Food) Amendment Bill has emerged out of a growing body of Government and independent research that confirms the persistence of a high level of poverty and associated health and well-being effects in New Zealand particularly in our children. International research including the recent OECD report  
Doing Better for Children 
 has also confirmed the high rates of child poverty poor living conditions and poor health status for children in low-income families in New Zealand. 
Professor Tony Blakely from Otago University’s public health department has made a substantial contribution to this debate through his study surveying the health and nutritional habits of some 1100 shoppers. The study concluded that a 12.5 percent drop in price increased people’s consumption of healthy food by a massive 11 percent. The cold hard facts of life are that food prices have risen more than 20 percent in the last 3 years while real incomes have risen only very slightly and within this the increases for the staples of a nutritious diet such as fruit vegetables and milk have been particularly high. 
As New Zealanders have heard about my bill and written to me with their support I have heard some shocking stories about the mark-up on food prices by retailers. Some retailers have been charging 500 percent more GST to customers than they are paying in GST to the growers. If that is not outright robbery I would like to know what is. I emphasise that although all consumers will benefit from the removal of goods and services tax from healthy food those on lower incomes spend a greater proportion of their income on food and will receive a significant benefit as a result. My bill seeks to address rising food prices and the impact those have on the ability of those in low-income households to purchase healthy food by exempting this food from goods and services tax. 
I have been amused at some of the cynics who have complained that it would be difficult to define what is healthy and what is not. It reminds me of the words of a song: “You say tomahto I say tomayto.” It is all technical detail that could easily be dealt with by administrators and fine-tuning the policy for enactment. In my bill I have been very specific about how “healthy food” will be interpreted. It is fruit and veges including fresh frozen canned and dried; breads and cereal including all bread grains rice and pasta; milk and milk products including cheese yoghurt and plain milk— 
Charles Chauvel 
: Roquefort! 
RAHUI KATENE 
: —but excluding ice cream—sorry Charles—cream products condensed milk and flavoured milk; lean meat poultry seafood eggs nuts seeds and legumes. 
Another issue that some critics have sought to expose has been about costings. Analysis of the Statistics New Zealand household economic survey 2008 estimates that the annual GST on all fruit and vegetables sold in New Zealand households was $167 million. In fact an analysis collated for a Sunday paper in January 2009 showed that in reality the Government earned just under $51 million in GST revenue on fruit and veges in the year to June so it is not likely that this bill would break the bank. Instead it could well create impressive savings in health and well-being. 
There have been some wild allegations that the GST on food is $1267 billion but that figure represents all food and non-alcoholic beverages whereas my bill restricts the meaning of “healthy food” to the definition of healthy food based on the Ministry of Health’s food and nutrition guidelines. 
Finally I want to focus on the long-term savings that taking tax off healthy food could establish for this nation. Organisations such as the Public Health Association of New Zealand and the National Heart Foundation have called for the goods and services tax to be removed from foods that constitute a healthy diet to make them more affordable. Alongside their support I was interested in the views put forward by Fight the Obesity Epidemic spokeswoman Dr Robyn Toomath. Her view was that removing tax on healthy foods and putting high taxes on unhealthy food was ideologically sound. It does not need to be as difficult as some people make out. What we already know is that many countries including Australia and Britain have already removed the GST equivalent on certain healthy foods. In fact with all the talk about how great it would be to have a single Australasian market it would be perfectly appropriate to work with the Australian Taxation Office which has produced a computerised model that makes GST food and beverage compliance extremely easy to manage. 
I want to acknowledge the enthusiastic support of the Labour Party and in particular of Mr Phil Goff who has embraced the opportunity to at least explore the proposal to take the tax off food in an effort to encourage people to eat more healthy food. A GST food exemption is an easy and effective way to foster support for eating nourishing food for protecting families from exorbitant costs and for paving the way for a healthy future for all peoples of Aotearoa. I urge the House to support the Goods and Services Tax (Exemption of Healthy Food) Amendment Bill.