Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): I just have a few comments to make and maybe put some propositions to the Minister about the title and commencement of this bill. First of all the Taxation (COVID-19 Support Payments and Working for Families Tax Credits) Bill really should be amended to mention inflation being out of control because that's the real reason for the Working for Families tax credits bill and only tangentially related to COVID-19. But in fact actually now maybe the relationship was a bit stronger than we thought. You see the problem is that we have had a Government that has relied on cheap money to hide a multitude of sins in its COVID-19 response. Its hesitation its failure to order vaccines you name the failing and it has been covered and subsidised by cheap money that has suddenly run out. And the reason it's running out is that the Reserve Bank is having to raise interest rates. We saw that today—mortgage rates going up 25 basis points and the speculation was it could have been 50. It has a big effect on people paying their mortgages. And the reason that's happening is that that ocean of cheap credit that the Government has used is now pushing up the prices that people pay at the pump at the supermarket checkout on their rents when they go to Mitre 10 to buy building supplies you name it—wherever you go prices are going up and people are feeling it and that's this is necessary.I think it would be a real shame it would be remiss of this committee not to put something about out of control inflation as a result of the Government's lackadaisical COVID response into the title of the bill. That would more accurately reflect what is going on here. And it hasn't just been monetary policy that has led to that inflation. Ironically it's very much connected with the intention of this bill which is of course to splash more cash by making adjustments to the amount of money that is able to be paid out. It's also the fiscal stimulus that's been going on. You know we've had a bigger fiscal stimulus the Government borrowing taxing spending spending more than it takes in to try and stimulate the economy. Well the Secretary to the Treasury Caralee McLiesh is on record as saying that New Zealand had the second-biggest taxpayer funded stimulus in the OECD behind the United States. And old Sleepy Joe" he may not get up early in the morning but he sure knows how to deficit spend I tell you. He is getting out there; $1.3 trillion. I don't even know I mean—Hon Louise Upston: How many zeros is that?DAVID SEYMOUR: Well Louise Upston from Taupō asks "How many zeros?" Well it's less than a billion. You don't need a billion zeros to make a trillion but it's pretty close. So I can tell Louise Upston that it's a lot of zeros. And old "Sleepy Joe" up there he's got the printing press going. So they spent more money in terms of taxpayer stimulus getting through COVID than New Zealand compared with GDP. But of course that speech by Caralee McLiesh was given prior to the latest lockdown so it's quite possible that New Zealand now has the largest fiscal stimulus as a percentage of GDP to get through COVID. So we've been protected or at least the Government so far has been protected by these oceans—the literal oceans the Pacific Ocean the Southern Ocean and the Tasman Sea have kept COVID out of New Zealand or at least helped to a large extent.Then there's oceans of monetary policy stimulus and oceans of fiscal stimulus. But unfortunately they are now washing away New Zealand's quality of life and standards of living with massive increases in the cost of life in New Zealand—the cost of COVID catching up with people making it necessary for the Government to splash even more cash putting in place a bill like this. So in terms of the Taxation (COVID-19 Support Payments and Working for Families Tax Credits) Bill I say that it might have been smarter to put something about managing the inflation caused by the Government's mismanagement of COVID in the bill. I also think it is somewhat offensive that the word "taxation" is in there because while taxation may well be used along with borrowing and money printing to fund the provisions in this bill a much better way to give relief to people who are really struggling with the cost of life would have been to reduce the amount of tax people pay in the first place rather than robbing Peter to pay Paul and giving it back. But that's not what this bill does. And so I think the title by including taxation is actually quite offensive to hardworking taxpaying New Zealanders who get up make the kids lunch go to work and have a third of their income taken away throughout the year by tax. There's no relief for them as such in this legislation and that's why I'm not sure it's—CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order. I call on the honourable—DAVID SEYMOUR: Anyone but me! Madam Chair thank you. Well that's an unexpected but not unwelcome development. As I was saying when it comes to taxation it's important that New Zealand is a place if we're going to recover from COVID that is tax-competitive. The tax measure that really matters for New Zealand is how we compare with our Pacific neighbours. Often when people do comparisons of taxation they try to compare New Zealand with a lot of stagnant Western European welfare States which haven't really had a lot of growth and aren't really going anywhere. In fact when you go to Europe you understand why so many people move to the New World—wonderful places such as New Zealand.Again this legislation is not going to give any kind of relief against the inflation that taxpayers are feeling. Funnily enough while this legislation is going to adjust the brackets for people entitled to get tax credits—people who need to be given money transferred money—it's not going to do anything for people who are going to find the main effect of inflation is that their purchasing power is eroded to the extent that their wages also adjust to keep up with the increased money supply. They're not going to find that they're in a position where they get more money after they pay their taxes. The reason for that we all know it is that fiscal drag fiscal drift fiscal creep—call it whatever you will—means that as inflation comes along in order to buy the same stuff people need to earn a larger amount of cash and with tax brackets being what they are a higher portion of their tax is paid at higher tax rates.Now you know this is called a taxation bill and I think that's inappropriate and arguably offensive to people who actually work hard to pay tax because there's no real change to taxation in the bill. It's all about transfers and those are a totally different concept. I think we need if we're to succeed to first agree and understand what we mean with the terms that we use. When we have a bill that says it's about taxation but it's really about handing out money that's being taxed but to a large extent under the current Government through COVID borrowed and printed that's not actually very helpful for the New Zealand public who want to have clarity and understanding of what this Parliament is up to.So I would suggest that rather than calling it the Taxation (COVID-19 Support Payments and Working for Families Tax Credits) Bill it perhaps should be called the "Transfer (COVID-19 Support Payments and Working for Families Tax Credits) Bill." If we were to call it that we would be giving people a much clearer understanding of what this legislation is really being put in place to do. It's not to give relief to taxpayers. It's to actually transfer money to deal with the cost of living even though ironically a lot of the current cost of living pressure is being created by inflationary pressure which of course today is now resulting in the Reserve Bank raising the official cash rate. That of course is what has come out of the Government's very slow dealing with COVID-19 cushioned by cheap monetary supply.So you're starting to see what a more accurate description of this bill might look like in the title. It wouldn't have "taxation"; it would say "transfer". So it would be the "Transfer (Out of Control Inflation Compensation COVID-19 Support Payments and Working for Families Tax Credit) Bill". That would certainly go a long way.But there's another element to this which is the really poor management of COVID. So it could be the "Transfer (Out of Control Inflation Caused by Printing Money to Deal with Lackadaisical Response to COVID-19 by the Government of the Day COVID-19 Support Payments and Working for Families Tax Credits) Bill".Hon Michael Wood: This is Churchillian.DAVID SEYMOUR: That would start to get a lot closer. There's the great relief of young Napoleon from Mt Roskill calling it Churchillian. He's finally come out to play. It's a shame there's only eight seconds left but I have to say it's a great relief to hear young Napoleon from Mt Roskill—[Time expired]"