Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT in opposition to this Taxation (Income Tax Rate and Other Amendments) Bill. But I have to say I thought that was a very fine speech from Chlöe Swarbrick and I greatly enjoyed listening to her gradually discovering how tax policy impacts behaviour and why introducing distortion isn't always a particularly good idea. Although I should just say to Chlöe Swarbrick that the Tax Working Group report amongst its many findings said it didn't think that introducing a capital gains tax would actually do much for house prices. Sometimes it pays to read the whole thing.I think one of the many reasons to object to this bill is the total lack of imagination. Imagine 21 years and going nowhere because that's what this bill is about. In 1999 at a time when I was so interested in politics I got confused between Michael Cullen and Christian Cullen the Minister of Finance new elected came in and said We won. You lost. Eat that etc. The rich pricks have had it too good too long." and introduced—wait for it—a 39c tax rate for what were then called higher earners.Hon David Parker: At what threshold?DAVID SEYMOUR: At that time at a threshold of $60000 as David Parker asks. And today 21 years later how far have they got? Well now they're just going to introduce it on people earning over $180000. Imagine being so short of imagination that that was your big idea upon being elected?Here's another problem with this piece of legislation: the fact that it's being done under urgency. Now there are sometimes good practical reasons to put things through under urgency. The temporary bill to deregulate party pill testing for one summer with an expiry date on the legislation—that was a good use of urgency because it actually is urgent because the problem is right before us. The reason for urgency that was given by the Leader of the House on this legislation is "Well we campaigned on it and we want to do it really quickly." So forget checks and balances. Forget the right of the public to have a say; it's another case of "We won. You lost. Eat that." Maybe the Labour Party think that's kind of fun for now but they should reflect on what sort of contribution that is to our democracy—what sort of leadership what sort of kindness dare I say it are they bringing by putting a bill through under urgency for purely political purposes? I think that that is a great shame.Another reason why you might oppose this bill is the unintended consequences. We heard a bit about that perhaps inadvertently from the previous speaker from the Green Party. One of them is that of course once people find that they are going to be liable to pay more tax it's in their interest to structure their affairs to avoid it. And of course there's already speculation that the fringe benefit rate will have to be raised to disincentivise people to be paid more in benefits in kind rather than cash. There's already speculation that the trust rate will have to be moved and it's already in this legislation that the trust regime will have to have greater powers for the IRD to request revenue information off people to make sure that they're not using trusts to avoid this top tax rate.Now people have been quoting all sorts of intellectuals and it's kind of cute. So let me give you a bit of Adam Smith. The levying of an income tax would be an intolerable intrusion into the affairs of men—and I'm sure he meant women too. One of the implications of a complex tax regime is a greater incursion into privacy. What a great irony. Just as we've had a new Privacy Act with more teeth to protect people's privacy come into effect this Government under urgency is rushing through legislation that will further impinge upon people's privacy.But then there's another reason why someone might be opposed to this legislation and that is the morality of it. What I find really interesting is the constant reminder—subtle and not so subtle—from the Labour Party members on the hustings and the campaign trail and in this House: don't worry; it'll only affect a small number of people OK? Just 2 percent. You know the message is: it's OK to go after people if they're a minority. You know that's what they're saying. It won't affect many people. It won't affect you; we're just going to take it off someone else and there's not many of them. It's OK to beat on a small group of people just so long as they're people that are successful.That's the problem here. It's the morality of it. It's the old-fashioned bully-boy tactics. In fact it's tall poppy syndrome in the tax code. That's what this is. It's OK to go after a small group of people and take their money off them. That's the message that comes through and again the Labour Party should reflect on the values in the leadership and dare I say it the kindness that they're showing with such a message behind this legislation. You see the values that we try to teach our kids and hope that they'll receive at school are very different. The values are: go to school listen to your teacher do your homework get good grades that turn into qualifications that turn into jobs that turn into a career. And when you earn money put a little bit of it aside—save it invest it carefully. If you do all those things right you might be comfortable and make a bit more money. Those are the values we try to teach our kids and hope they learn at school. Then the Labour Party comes along and says "If you do all those things if you do it too well then we're going to not just tax you more proportionally we're going to put in place an extra tax for that small number of people; we're going to hit them disproportionally hard with this top tax rate." I think that on a moral basis that is absolutely shameful and the opposite of the values of aspiration thrift and achievement that we should be celebrating in this country and in this Parliament.This legislation is rushed. It lacks imagination. It will have unintended consequences. It doesn't have a clear problem to be solved and it is immoral in that it's premised on it being OK to beat on a small group of people so long as they're successful. Now maybe that would be justified if there was a problem to be solved if there was a need for revenue that could be solved by this legislation. But what do the documents—the regulatory impact statement and the departmental disclosure statement and the analysis that we've seen—tell us about this legislation? It says it's going to raise about half a billion dollars. Now once upon a time that was a lot of money but we've got a Government that just committed to borrow $140 billion. It's not going to make any noticeable impact on the Government's balance sheet. If the Government was truly worried about balancing its Budget and having money to spend here's a question: could they have found anywhere in the $100 billion - plus they spend each year just half a billion dollars' worth of savings to avoid all this? Of course they could have but this tax is a solution looking for a problem.This can't be as good as it gets. Imagine if we actually had a better way. Imagine if the objective of this country was to grow its productivity and its wealth by having the best public policy that was the most efficient and was based on and encouraged the best values of the Kiwi spirit instead of putting tall poppy syndrome in the tax code. Imagine if we strove to have low flat taxes that were efficient to administer that did not encourage distorted behaviour that were efficient to comply with that did not have people running off to their tax accountants and tax lawyers to set up new schemes to avoid paying them and most importantly sent a message that this country values success—this country thinks that if you do all those things we encourage our kids to do and you end up earning more than $180000 we don't say "We're going to take it off you."; we say "Good on you!" That would be the values of a country that I would like to see not the values of a country that thinks it's OK to beat on a minority so long as they're successful not a country that rushes through ineffective legislation that makes the tax system more complicated to solve no defined problem. We can do so much better than this but sadly the Labour Party is stuck legislating like it's 1999. What a shame."