Swarbrick ChlöeCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): E te Māngai tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. The Opposition has many times throughout the debating of this legislation invoked Robin Hood. I'm not sure if they recall from their reading of that childhood story that Robin Hood was in fact a good guy. He was the good guy who was pardoned by the king at the end after implementing a fairer tax system. All of that said we've heard a lot from the National Party who have been speaking I think out both sides of their mouth. What I mean by that is that we're hearing on the one side of things that the National Party wants housing treated as any other business when it comes to tax deductibility rules but then when it comes to things like the brightline test—or paying tax on income that you receive from capital sales—that they want housing treated differently to any other form of business. I think that that duplicity or that difference of approach is perfectly indicative of the fact that the National Party very much perceive those so called hard-working New Zealanders that they so frequently invoke not as those who work to earn an income for their living but as those who own assets and earn income as a result of that. This is a huge missed opportunity unfortunately as a piece of legislation addressing our taxation system. It uses a scalpel to address the housing crisis—and ostensibly also the issue of inequality—when what is needed is a saw. What is needed is a far far bigger tool for a far far bigger problem. In fact as all of us well know—and I'm sure you'll hear from other speakers throughout this House—we've seen in the COVID context that the economic response that is the fiscal and monetary policy deployed by both the Reserve Bank and via Treasury by the Minister has seen trickle-up economics that is estimated by economists approximately a trillion dollars' worth of wealth transferred to the wealthiest New Zealanders. To that effect addressing the points that have been raised by National Party speakers thus far around inflation or what they're banging on about with regard to costs of living cost of living is not something that is felt equally across all those of different socio-economic backgrounds. We know for a fact that inflation if you own a house has been pretty all right for you in terms of those capital gains especially obviously on paper. To that effect we know that New Zealanders who are of lower incomes have for a really long time—and Statistics New Zealand has research to bear this out—been paying approximately double the rate of inflation because they of course are paying the majority of their income on those essentials.When I say that this bill is a missed opportunity it's unfortunately a missed opportunity because it doesn't tackle those far more fundamental issues inside of our tax system. Whilst again the National Party has been banging on about the fact that this is really unfair that we're extending this brightline test it is of course the case that of the 35 OECD countries Aotearoa New Zealand is the only one without a capital gains tax. In fact I'd say philosophically that all of us should agree that there should be some form of simplicity inside of our tax system. When we're talking about things like income earned on capital gains it is of course the case that within the Income Tax Act it was intended that those who were earning income on the sale of capital were supposed to be paying for that income tax. That is of course the reason that the former National Government introduced the brightline test in the first place. This is again why I would say to my Labour colleagues on this side of the House that this is a missed opportunity to not just straight up implement that simplicity in a capital gains tax.To the other point as raised by the National Party—because they have in fact been banging on about their policies as announced by their new leader—when they talk about wanting to lower income tax rates when they talk about this trickle-down economics I think that it's important for all of us to recall how they paid for those promises in their former terms of Government. That was of course by increasing GST which again had a disproportionate impact on lower-income New Zealanders.Hon Member: They're growing the economy.CHLÖE SWARBRICK: And I hear across the aisle that Mr Bayly is screeching once again about trickle-down economics.What this bill does is nowhere near enough to meet the scale of what is necessary to tackle the climate crises nor the crises of poverty nor the crises of inequality nor the crises of biodiversity in this country and we need to see far more substantive changes in the Budget as well as the emissions reduction plan coming up.Just finally in summation I'm sure we'll hear over the next few contributions—probably responding to some of my points as already laid out—that the economy is a set of rules that are set in place by human beings about how we are going to organise our economic transactions and the rules about things like distribution the types of spending that we want to do and otherwise. The economy is not a deity that is set in stone nor is it a deity that we have to sacrifice to. It is the set of rules that all of us agree to about how we choose to govern society and we get to make choices about how we want to do that about how just and how fair and how equitable we want that system to be. Whilst this bill again uses a scalpel to address some of the issues around the housing crisis we're gutted as the Greens that it doesn't go anywhere near far enough to address these crises of inequality.The Greens will be abstaining on this bill to that effect noting that it again unfortunately simply does not go far enough.