Collins JudithHon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Revenue): What a pleasure to be able to speak to particularly the financial side of the appropriations debate. It is great to see—when I think back to some of the challenges that this Government has had to deal with over the years whether they have been natural disasters or the global financial crisis I actually think the Government has done extremely well and so have the people of New Zealand by working hard by paying their taxes and by in most cases being really good citizens of this country. We are very lucky in New Zealand to have such decent people.I think one of the interesting things when I have been looking at this going forward for the appropriations is to think about the fact that—I think we all remember what happened when we said as a Government that we were going to float 49 percent of some of the big State-owned enterprises (SOEs) particularly in the electricity sector. Of course this is absolutely crucial to our economy the electricity sector as South Australia is finding out. What was going to happen? Well there were marches on the streets there was all sorts of talk from the Opposition—it was going to be the end of the world we were selling out New Zealand. Well actually what has happened is in some cases you might expect that we would have got a reduction of about half of the dividends from these SOEs. I think it is important just to note that part of the reason we are actually in a much better position as a Government and as a country is that now for instance just as an example Genesis is now paying us not half the dividends it used to pay us when we owned the entire number of shares—the 100 percent of the shares—but it is now actually paying us twice as much as it ever used to do. Actually I think that is one of the great things out of this Government and if I look at it I think that really we have put a tremendous amount of taxpayer money and thought and effort into asking how we can make Government work better how we can make Government-owned assets work better and how we can do better for people.If I look at the Inland Revenue Department area—and I just need to do this because revenue does not get enough points for trying so hard and as I said to the Inland Revenue Department when I became its Minister: It is all right I just want to turn you into the most popular of all Government departments." I am going to read to the Committee today a little skite note an email received yesterday. This is your new reporting system. This is not my email; this is to the Inland Revenue Department: "I cannot believe how you keep improving this service." Oh is that not lovely? "This is the most simplest"—I think they meant most simple but you know—"and effective way of reporting GST. Congratulations to those who implemented it." This is a genuine email from a genuine person although the Inland Revenue Department did delete all of the details so I did not know exactly who it was but it assured me it was none of its staff and it was not me or anyone connected to me—that I am aware of. I actually think that is part of the Business Transformation project that we have invested—last year we put $1 billion essentially into making the Inland Revenue Department work more simply and better for New Zealand taxpayers.So GST came online on this new system on Waitangi weekend this year. Next year we will have in place sometime during that year a new system to allow businesses small businesses that currently pay provisional and terminal tax—which I have to say as a former business owner is a complete bane of any small-business owner's life. We are going to turn that around so that it can be paid on a monthly basis just like a PAYE-type system. So every month on the new accounting systems that so many of us have we will be moving into basically a pay-as-you-go type system for small businesses.This will take out one of the major reasons that many small businesses fail in their first 2 years and actually this is about using technology in a smart way to help New Zealand. One of the big complaints I have had from big businesses is: "When can we have it too?". Well we are working on that. Let us get the small businesses done first. Let us move down that process. So this is what we are trying to do: make Government work better for New Zealanders. That is what we are after. Also along the way we are putting in a bit of effort around the multinationals and how they could also help add to the tax pool and I am very pleased with the great support I have had around the House for that."