Bishop Chris: Taxation (Bright-line Test for Residential Land) Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBishop Chris: Taxation (Bright-line Test for Residential Land) Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 03 November 2015. Volume:709;Page:7603. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CHRIS BISHOP (National): Look it is a pleasure to take a call on this important bill as part of the Government’s suite of measures to improve compliance with taxation law but also to deal with the issue of housing generally and Auckland housing in particular. I was not on the Finance and Expenditure Committee much to my chagrin for the consideration of this important bill. I was doing other things at the various meetings we had on it but I understand there was a robust discussion about this bill at the select committee I think it would be fair to say. I think that as a committee we have landed generally in the right place on this bill and I think that this is going to make a difference to the things that it is trying to do.I want to briefly mention a couple of things in my remarks. The first is about one of the points of contention that came out during the select committee process and it was adverted to by Mr Robertson in his remarks and then again by Mr Nash just a few moments ago. This is around the definition in the bill of the “main home”.We heard some cantankerous and wild claims from Stuart Nash that MPs who come to Wellington and rent an apartment buy an apartment or buy a flat to be in Wellington while the House sits could classify this as the main home—that it was all about where you had the greatest connection to and MPs could simply say “Oh well I have got a great connection to my little Kelburn villa or my little Pētone cottage.” or something like that. Then we also heard from Stuart Nash that MPs’ baches or the baches generally of people—or cribs as I understand they call them down south—could be classified as the main home. But actually if Mr Nash had bothered to read the bill or had bothered to read the piece of legislation he would know that the main home is defined as the residence mainly used by the person as a residence and with which the person has the greatest connection.I would suggest to the House that for MPs who come to Wellington for 9 days every month for 10 months of the year that is not the main residence that people have in a city and they do not have the greatest connection so it fails both limbs of the test. Likewise in terms of a bach that someone might go to—as I am looking forward to doing at the end of year; heading away for the summer heading away for a couple of weeks—that is not the main residence that people have and indeed that is not I would venture to suggest the place that people have the greatest connection to.There was a lot of hot air from Mr Nash as is often the case and a lot of hot air from Grant Robertson who is a somewhat witty and good speaker. But actually when you look beneath the hot air beneath the surface there was not a lot of substance to that argument. It is true to say—Clare Curran: So where’s the substance? Give us the substance.CHRIS BISHOP: I have just given you 3 minutes of substance Clare Curran which is more than I think we have had from Clare Curran in 11 months of this year I think it is fair to say. Anyway I do want to address the issue of whether or not the test to do with “main home” is actually defined in the law at the moment and it is true to say that it is not but that is not unusual. We are making new law. That is what Parliament does. It makes new law. Oftentimes it will refer back to existing definitions and sometimes it will not but I have actually taken the trouble to talk to the officials about this and actually the phrase “with which the person has the greatest connection” has been carefully chosen. Why? Because it reflects existing case law. So although it is true to say that this bill does not reflect existing statutory law because it is a new piece of legislation—it is like going back to Law 101 dealing with members opposite sometimes—it is true to say that this reflects existing case law. Judges in the courts will be applying this law and obviously they will have reference to the existing case law that exists on this particular issue. So I think that deals with the issue of the “main home” definition.Just in closing what did Labour members say on this bill? What did Grant Robertson say? They said it was token. They said it was political to go into Parliament and advance a piece of legislation to make it political. Gee what a shocker! They said it was half-hearted. They said it was half-measured. They said that we needed to go further and that something more must be done.The only conclusion to draw from all of this from Grant Robertson’s speech and from Stuart Nash’s speech is that that Labour Party has yet to recant on its promises around a capital gains tax. The problem for the Labour Party is that Andrew Little won the leadership of the Labour Party supported by three or four of his colleagues only on the promise of getting rid of Labour’s capital gains tax policy. But now we find his colleagues Grant and Stuart—and no doubt Clare to come and Kris Faafoi and Megan Woods and Rino Tirikatene and maybe even the future Mayor of Auckland Phil Goff—are going to turn up and they are going to say: “This is a half-measure. We need to go further. We need to tax capital properly. We need to tax property. We need to attack speculators.” That is what they are going to say. They have not learnt the lessons of the last election or indeed the lessons of the 2011 election.This is a good bill. It is a sensible bill and I commend it to the House.