Bayly AndrewANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Thank you Mr Chair. I thought my colleague Mr Watts was going to get the call but anyway. Hey I just want to respond to Minister Parker and I thank the Minister for standing up just before we had our dinner break. I suppose the first question is we were talking about the tax take and how this year the Government's going to rake in—oh I should acknowledge the members on the other side of the Chamber as well. I've got the Hon Kris Faafoi here. I hope he's going to make a strong contribution to this tax debate. The Hon Willie Jackson—he's here. I'm sure we're going to have an enlivened tax debate because these guys are expert at these matters and I'm looking forward to—Ginny Anderson of course. So hopefully we will have a good conversation tonight.Anyway the Minister—Hon Kris Faafoi: While you talk someone's doing the numbers.ANDREW BAYLY: Yeah we're doing our numbers. The thing about tax Mr Faafoi is that this year the Government's going to take in $100 billion of tax. In four years' time it will take in about $124 billion of tax: an extra $24 billion in one year. And of course under current scenarios that is going to increase. The Hon David Parker spoke about the Government saying we've got a reasonable tax base and therefore—I think his argument was—Hey that's fine because we seem like we're OK compared to most other people." I suppose the first question is: at what point do you think the Government should tax its population? At what point is it reasonable to say "Gee that's enough. We shouldn't take the money off hard-working New Zealanders because it's better that they keep it."? That is the issue. I think from the comments the Minister said before my inference was "Look we're OK—we're reasonably OK compared with the rest of the world and therefore we can continue to tax a whole lot of New Zealanders a whole lot more tax." And of course we've seen all of the new tax that the Government's trying to do. Obviously we're talking about them tonight: the imposition of the new 39 percent tax rate. We've seen the brightline tax rate. We've seen the loss of interest deductibility. We've seen a fuel tax. All these new taxes of the Government have come into play. I would say to Mr Parker I think it's really important that the Government is—Hon David Parker: The fuel tax just came off.ANDREW BAYLY: Sorry the Minister's saying the fuel tax has come off. Yeah that's right: it's come off. That's because there was a poll last week. That's the only reason that tax has come off. The Labour Party are reacting to what Kiwis are finally saying to them which is "We've got a cost of living crisis." That's why we need to remove the fuel tax Mr Parker—and I note it's only for three months. And of course what I've heard a number of people say to me today: "What about my diesel tax?" Haven't seen any changes to the diesel tax. I understand there's regulations that have to be followed—45 days' notice—before anyone who drives a diesel car's going to get any relief. Wow that's a fast-moving Government! So yes the fuel tax is coming off but only for a matter of three months. This huge increase in tax raises a much more significant issue and I think you need to see it in the context that over the last 22 months Mr Grant Robertson has doubled the debt in New Zealand to $60 billion to over $120 billion. That has got to be some record over 22 months—less than two years—and that is why the Government is keen to keep taxing people. That's why it's keen to take another $24 billion of additional tax in four years' time. That's why Mr Robertson keeps going on a spend-up. I think we heard from Mr David Seymour before talking about trying to keep tax to a minimum. We all understand the requirement to make sure we've got good health services good education all that sort of stuff. What we don't want to hear from the Government is the wasteful spending that's been going on—the huge amount of wasteful spending and of course the $6 billion that Mr Robertson's set aside in his Budget over atop of all the other allowances. So we need to make sure that we've got reasonable tax. This is why we need to change the tax rates because Mr Seymour is correct: the top 12 percent of tax earners pay roughly about 48 percent of all tax. And of course if you have a family Working for Families many people who are on the lower income rates don't pay any tax at all after you net off the benefits. That's why we need to—Hon David Parker: That's not correct. What about GST?ANDREW BAYLY: They pay tax in stores but after you deduct benefits—[Time expired]"