Foss Craig: Budget Measures (Miscellaneous Fiscal Matters) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFoss Craig: Budget Measures (Miscellaneous Fiscal Matters) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee[Sitting date: 15 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:18035. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon CRAIG FOSS (Minister of Commerce) on behalf of theMinister of Finance: I moveThat the Budget Measures (Miscellaneous Fiscal Matters) Bill be now read a second time. Part 1 of this bill repeals cheque duty from 1 July 2014. Cheque duty no longer raises substantial revenue largely due to the decline in popularity of cheques as a method of payment. Cheque duty raised about $17 million in 1991-92 and about $10 million in 2001-02 but now raises only about $4 million per annum. Cheque duty is a relic of a previous age and the bill proposes to consign it to history.Part 2 of the bill corrects an unintended consequence in the operation of the New Zealand emissions trading scheme. The bill limits participants to surrendering New Zealand Units only when they are deregistering an area of forest from the emissions trading scheme. Participants can still use Kyoto units for emissions from deforesting or harvesting to repay overallocation and they can still sell Kyoto units on either domestic or international markets. The bill will come into force on 16 May 2014 and the amendments will not affect deregistration applications received by the Ministry for Primary Industries on or before 15 May 2014.Part 3 of this bill suspends for 3 years the application of anti-dumping duties to residential building materials. This means that the anti-dumping duties currently in place on standard plasterboard from Thailand on reinforcing steel bar and coil from Thailand and on wire nails from China will be suspended for 3 years from 1 June 2014. It also means that no new anti-dumping duties can be imposed on a wide range of residential materials over the 3-year suspension period.The purpose of suspending anti-dumping duties is to reduce the cost of constructing houses and is intended particularly to benefit the Christchurch rebuild but also increased house construction in Auckland and other parts of the country. For the purpose of determining the types of residential building materials covered by the suspension the bill broadly defines building material and residential building material. It also includes a range of specific building materials that fall within these definitions.For clarity the bill lists some items that do not fall within the core market for residential construction material and are therefore excluded from the scope of the suspension. The 3-year period over which the anti-dumping duties are suspended is defined as the period from 1 June 2014 to 31 May 2017.The bill also provides that any decision by the responsible Minister to impose an anti-dumping duty on residential building material or to reassess the rate of anti-dumping duties on a residential building material will not take effect until 1 June 2017. This means that New Zealand manufacturers can still apply for a dumping investigation into residential building material. Any decision to impose a new anti-dumping duty on a residential building material would however not take effect until the end of the suspension period on 31 May 2017 and would apply only after that date.New Zealand manufacturers also retain the right to apply for a review of a suspended duty to determine whether it should remain in place for a further 5 years. If a review finds that the duty should remain in place it would continue to be suspended until the end of the suspension period on 31 May 2017 and would be reapplied only after that date.The bill also contains some minor technical provisions relating to the definitions of “ministry” “Minister” and “secretary” to bring these definitions into conformity with current drafting practice. I believe that the combined effect of these measures will in the longer term have a significant impact on housing affordability and allow more New Zealanders to own their own home. Although the combined effect of these measures will have a significant impact on housing affordability in the longer term the suspension of anti-dumping duties as proposed in this bill will provide an immediate benefit by reducing the cost of building materials which will particularly benefit the Christchurch rebuild. I commend the bill to the House and move that it now be read a second time.