Carter DavidRt Hon DAVID CARTER (National): Thank you Mr Chairman and following the Minister of Revenue it's a little like taking candy from a kid. The Minister asked Where's the money coming from?" The money's coming from the poor overtaxed taxpayer. The second question the Minister asked is "What expenditure would you cut?" I've only got one that'll give us $3 billion: take away the Provincial Growth Fund which is Shane Jones' slush fund. That's $3 billion alone. The Taxation (Annual Rates for 2019–20 GST Offshore Supplier Registration and Remedial Matters) Bill has some good points in it but National will oppose it simply because the tax rates are too high.Mr Nash has just invited me to look at the Budget recently delivered by the Minister of Finance and I am going to refer in some detail to the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update 2019. I doubt whether the Minister's got his head around these figures but on page 26 core Crown tax revenue—it states that by 2022-23 core Crown tax revenue is expected to reach $105.6 billion. That is $25.4 billion higher than in 2017-18 and that's the problem with setting the tax rates where the Government's proposing to do it. Over the next five years we see a massive increase in tax being taken off New Zealanders and most of it is coming from what they call source deductions otherwise known as PAYE and that's forecast to grow by $10.8 billion over the forecast period. That the Hon Stuart Nash is why these rates need to come down.There are two solutions that have been offered. One is the excellent Supplementary Order Paper 250 by Andrew Bayly where he's suggesting a change to tax rates immediately. If that was to be successfully passed in this House then National would be happy to support the bill in total. There is another solution and that was the one advanced by the Hon Simon Bridges earlier this year which is to stop the bracket creep by linking the threshold to the Consumers Price Index. What Mr Nash's just talked about is the very generous pay settlement recently to teachers but what that does is put just every teacher on to the highest tax bracket: at $70000 the tax rate then is 33c in the dollar—that's marginally above the average wage in New Zealand—and that Mr Nash is just stupid. By all means look at Australia look at England and look at other countries where they have a higher tax rate for high earners but don't go round arguing that earning $70000 a year means you're a high-tax income earner and therefore should be on the highest rate. So it is time to look at this huge increase in taxation that's occurring under this Government's plan over the next three years or four years because it simply isn't justified. The only excuse for these extraordinarily high tax revenues over the next five years is that this Government is a tax and spend borrow and hope Government.We will have the chance later to be talking about the expenditure of the Government but a lot of it is shoddy expenditure around things like the Provincial Growth Fund and other measures that are done simply to buy a coalition Government and support from New Zealand First. That's what it's all about. But in the meantime New Zealanders are paying far too much tax. Mr Stuart Nash jumps to his feet tries to justify it asking us as Opposition members to name one item we'd take off the agenda to pay for the tax cuts and I've given him the one that I'd suggest. Take away the Shane Jones slush fund where he travels round the country making announcements looking for photo opportunities largesse to every province in New Zealand but most of it going to Northland where he and the Rt Hon Winston Peters live. And if they think that'll buy them success at the next election I tell Mr Nash now: New Zealanders are not that gullible."