Stephenson ToddTODD STEPHENSON (ACT): Thank you Mr Speaker. I rise to talk to the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill. Firstly before I talk about the bill I just do want to congratulate the Hon Nicola Willis on handing down the Budget. This is my first opportunity to speak since the Budget was delivered yesterday. I do want to congratulate her on delivering the Budget and working constructively across the coalition to actually put it together.I also want to acknowledge my leader actually one of the Associate Ministers David Seymour. I know he diligently worked on the Budget particularly around the savings measures. These tax cuts that we're going to talk about have been made possible by actually doing a line-by-line review of Government spending and taking out a lot of waste. So I think that Kiwis wanted us to make sure that the Government is actually spending money on things that can deliver outcomes getting rid of wasteful spending and that's what this coalition has done. I know Mr Seymour has done his part in delivering that.We're very happy in ACT to be supporting these tax changes. As Minister Watts said earlier it's been 14 years since we've delivered any tax relief in this country. There's this handy little brochure here which actually points out that 83 percent of New Zealanders will benefit from the changes that we are going to pass today. Rather than being trickle-down this is actually direct tax relief. People are getting to keep more of the money that they work hard for every day—they're going to keep more of that.It is true that ACT actually had some different tax proposals. We would have probably liked to have seen a simpler tax system. But this is heading in the right direction. I want to also acknowledge the finance Minister did acknowledge that ACT has other proposals and we're going to continue to work constructively in Government to have those proposals worked on and we will be continuing to execute that.I want to refer to a couple of things that have transpired in the debate. Chlöe Swarbrick talked a lot about a few things. One was interest deductibility and unrealised gains. My colleague Andrew Hoggard is an economist and he's very happy to sit down with Ms Swarbrick and talk about what unrealised gains are and why it is inappropriate to actually do a calculation on those and also how interest deductibility works and why that is an appropriate business expense.I also want to address the Hon Deborah Russell. I actually agree with the Hon Deborah Russell on something. A lot of acronyms have been thrown around—FBT PIE the IETC; lots of acronyms. The Hon Deborah Russell is right: our tax system should be simpler. We shouldn't need all these acronyms. We shouldn't need all these carve-outs. There should be a simpler tax system. Again we're happy to work with the Hon Deborah Russell exploring that as ACT's proposals continue to percolate through the Government.In the meantime I just want to finish by saying that this is going to give some relief to the cost of living pressures that Kiwis are facing. It's going to return some money to the back pockets of Kiwis. We're also attacking Government spending which again is going to bring pressure down and we're going to see this economy turned around more people in jobs growth and that's what we're about in ACT. We want to grow the economy so that every Kiwi has a great opportunity to grow up earning the kind of income they want doing the kind of job they want raising the family the way that they want and actually contributing to our society. So I commend this bill to the House.