Foss Craig: General Debate 
Foss Craig: General Debate 
[Volume:672;Page:18789] 
CRAIG FOSS (National—Tukituki) 
: 
 I must pull up the previous speaker Annette King. The tax changes that this Government brought in have been fiscally neutral. In fact there is one point I will agree on: that is not quite right because they are fiscally positive over the forecast period. They are not fiscally neutral but fiscally positive over the forecast period. On the tax switch which was one of the biggest changes in New Zealand’s taxation system over the last 25 years I have a question to pose to Labour members: which bits will you un-switch? Will you cut GST? Will you hike income tax? Will you hike— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! 
CRAIG FOSS 
: Excuse me Mr Speaker. Will Labour hike business taxes? 
I would talk about the Budget a bit longer but today we have had a very very important announcement from Labour. Today a quite strategic move by the Leader of the Opposition Mr Phil Goff seems to have been missed. Today on the front page of the  
Dominion Post  
he totally shattered and shafted any chance whatsoever that the Labour Party president Andrew Little had of winning the New Plymouth electorate seat. The announcement of the “Taranaki turnover tax” the tax on dairy farmers and farming turnover will absolutely obliterate any chance whatsoever that Mr Little had of even making any gains in New Plymouth or in Taranaki. For that matter any chance whatsoever that Labour had of making gains in any provincial or rural seat has been blown away by what was on the front page of the paper today. 
I thought that the announcement might have been a mistake and that maybe Mr Nash had got a bit ahead of himself as he is wont to do. But at question time today in the House Mr Goff continued with it. I say to Mr Goff that the point is not that the data are wrong; it is the way you interpret the data. That is very revealing of how they— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Although the member might have a point I think he cannot bring you into the debate. If we criticised you in that way we would be in trouble. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: If the member is alleging that the member on his feet was using the word “you” then he is correct; Mr Foss should not do that. But I did not hear Mr Foss use that word. I do apologise. I had already pulled him up. [ 
Interruption 
] The House will come to order. That petty to-ing and fro-ing across the House will stop. The member should be careful about using the word “you” because it refers to the Speaker. Debate across the House should not be in the second person. 
CRAIG FOSS 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. As a clarification I understand that that member Trevor Mallard was not in his regular seat and he was leaving the Chamber when he called the point of order. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member can call a point of order from anywhere in the House. We are not too pedantic about that. But the member Trevor Mallard is now—oh no he is still there. Members should resist interrupting other members’ speeches unless there is good reason to interrupt them. I am not sure that the reason there was quite as strong as that. 
CRAIG FOSS 
: There was a brutal attack with the “Taranaki turnover tax” on Taranaki Hawke’s Bay New Zealand provincial and rural farming families and jobs associated with farming. At least Mr Nash has front-footed it. Perhaps that is how Labour intends to fund some of its $7 billion of unfunded promises so far. 
I guess the rest of Labour’s tax policies will continue. It has the turnover tax a capital gains tax and perhaps a payroll tax coming and perhaps an increase in income tax which it seems to be talking about more and more. OK fair enough Labour has said it will take GST off veges. OK the GST rate is 15 percent—funnily enough veges have gone down by 15 percent in recent months. Mr Nash’s speech was a brutal attack on business and on business confidence but I congratulate him on and thank him for providing certainty about Labour policy about Labour’s tax intentions and about Labour’s ambitions for New Zealand. 
It is interesting that not too long ago the Labour Party was calling the farming industry a sunset industry of New Zealand—in the early 1990s. Today we have the proof of the pudding. As Labour’s tax policy starts to roll out we see that it wants to kill off farming for good. Perhaps some of the Green members might be fans of that but I for one value farming. I value rural New Zealand and I value provincial New Zealand. It is the heartbeat and the engine room of the New Zealand economy. I cannot understand it: I was going to give Mr Goff the benefit of the doubt that this move was a mistake but his question today revealed Labour’s true intentions of a turnover tax a capital gains tax an increase in income tax and perhaps a payroll tax. I posed the question very early on as to which of the National-led Government’s tax switches that we announced earlier and put into place in the last few years would be un-switched if Labour was ever to form a Government. But to be fair to Mr Nash I congratulate him on at least giving us some clarity as to how Labour will fund its promises.