Genter Julie AnneHon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. As already made clear in the House through our speeches the Green Party cannot in good conscience support this bill even though we very much support a progressive tax system and we support a more equal society. Unfortunately just lifting the top tax rate alone without addressing the lack of a tax on capital gains and on wealth will actually result in a less equal situation and exacerbate the current house price crisis that we have where in the past year house prices have increased by nearly 20 percent.This is unprecedented in a time of recession and increasing unemployment. Most if not all of the experts have recommended addressing the issues around taxation to address some of the demand side issues that are leading to a huge number of investors borrowing more money and bidding up house prices. The consequences of that are that it's not just more difficult for first-time homebuyers—which it is and that is a problem no matter how hard you work. If you're paying rent it is extremely difficult to save enough now to get a deposit if you didn't already own property or if you're not inheriting or receiving a gift from your parents who already own property.I note I have a family member in this situation. His in-laws sold their property five or six years ago and have been renting for five or six years in Wellington. Now he's starting a family and they're all looking to buy a home together and it's just completely out of reach. There are people who work hard and who save their money but the reality is that the house price to income ratio has increased right across the country from 6.2 to 6.8 in one year when it used to be 3. In some parts of the country like Wellington and Auckland I've no doubt median house price to median income ratio is much much worse than that.So this is a structural issue that requires taking on tax reform that addresses capital gains and/or deemed income from wealth from property. Of course I hear the National Party and the ACT Party opposing this for completely different reasons because they want to allow the rich and the wealthy to keep getting richer and wealthier and lock out even more people. They might not know that. They might say that they believe in equal opportunity. But the reality is the system we have is not fair and it's not fair and it's not right that people who do some of the most important work for us in our society—the people who were on the front line when we were in the midst of a COVID outbreak—some of them are some of the lowest paid people and the hardest working people in our society.Then we have people who were in the right place at the right time. Maybe they worked for a bank maybe they are a real-estate agent. Look I'm not saying they don't work hard—they work hard too. But they're making many times more money than our front-line workers and that's not right. So it's fair that the people who earn the most—however they earn it—contribute back more to the shared pool of money that we use to pay for public services and infrastructure that we all benefit from. If people in this House say they believe in equal opportunity then they have to believe in redistribution because there's no way that the child of poor parents is going to have the same opportunities as the child of parents who are well off either because they worked hard or because they just happened to be at the right place at the right time and buy a house back when the median house price was only three times the median income.So the Green Party absolutely believes that in this country we have to have a debate. This is a moment where we need leadership and we can no longer put our head in the sand and ignore the fact that we are not taking all of the steps that are needed to address runaway house prices. Because of all of the quantitative easing putting all of that liquidity out there into the market what it's doing is it is driving up house prices and asset wealth for those who already have a lot. And it's fair for those people to pay tax on that income the same way a cleaner pays taxes on their wages the same way our nurses pay taxes our teachers pay taxes—that is fair. If that were included in this bill we would wholeheartedly support that change.This problem is not going away. Every person in this House has to confront this issue. The National Party has to confront the role that they played in scaremongering against totally sensible tax changes that were recommended by the Tax Working Group and causing the political climate to be such that now we have a majority Government who isn't going to take the action that's needed to achieve their aims because of the pollution of the political debate by the National Party who used their money and their voice to mislead and spread absolute disinformation on social media to scare people and make them feel afraid.This is a time in our country where we need everyone to continue coming together. We've confronted the crisis of COVID-19—we've done it really well. We put aside selfishness and fear that comes from the right. When New Zealanders come together they are generous and they are willing to work together to address the issue of inequality in this country. The Green Party will not stop talking about this issue. If we're going to address inequality we need to confront the imbalances in our tax system. We need a tax on capital gains and/or wealth.