Lees-Galloway Iain: Taxation (Livestock Valuation Assets Expenditure and Remedial Matters) Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Lees-Galloway Iain: Taxation (Livestock Valuation Assets Expenditure and Remedial Matters) Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 29 November 2012. Volume:686;Page:6979. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North) 
: 
 I want to reaffirm the statement made by Dr David Clark that Labour will support this bill the Taxation (Livestock Valuation Assets Expenditure and Remedial Matters) Bill. Tinkering bills like this generally do no harm so there is no harm in supporting them. This bill does clear up a few loopholes in the tax system and it will be good to have the discussion at the select committee about exactly which loopholes need to be tidied up. 
But frankly this bill just reflects more muddled thinking from the muddled orcs of “Muddled Earth” over there on the Government benches. On the one hand Government members are saying to their base their core the farmers of New Zealand “You need to pay more tax and stop rorting the tax system farmers. We are going to close the loophole on you.”—on the farmers Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson not on you; I am sure you are not evading any tax. On the other hand multinational corporations like Facebook get to continue their tax rort. Facebook gets an effective tax rate in New Zealand of 2 percent. That is a tax rate that Mitt Romney can only dream of. Google gets to carry on with that tax rort. Facebook is rorting the system as well unabated untouched by this bill. A multinational corporation is left alone and left untouched while the poor farmers of New Zealand whom the National Party claims to be the champion for are getting attacked once again by this disappointment of a National Government. 
They will not be the only group who are going to be disappointed by this bill in the name of the National Government. All those poor doctors and vets and other students who were promised a great deal out of the Voluntary Bonding Scheme from this National Government now learn that the income they earn from the Voluntary Bonding Scheme will not be applied to KiwiSaver thanks to this bill. So their KiwiSaver contributions from their employer are going to drop. They are losing out because this Government cannot keep its promises. It cannot keep its promises so the poor medical students when they graduate and the vet students from Massey University when they graduate are going to go out there and are just going to have one more disappointment from this very disappointing National Government. This is muddled muddled thinking from this Government. 
On GST well we are going to see again that foreign corporations and foreign businesses get to register for GST now. So they can reduce the hit that they have to take on their GST bill. Meanwhile the hard-working people of New Zealand every time they go to the supermarket every time they go to the petrol station every time they go to buy clothes for their kids and every time they go to get the school uniforms are paying more GST. So the citizens of New Zealand are paying more GST whilst the foreign corporations are being given another free ride just like Warner Bros. They get to dictate to us in New Zealand what our laws are and now what our tax laws are as well. I think that this bill really sums up the way this Government thinks. 
It is good to see some loopholes being closed on some major assets—holiday homes for instance. I do not know whether or not this impacts on holiday homes in Hawaii—probably not because this Prime Minister likes to make sure that any additional tax changes do not affect him personally but that would be interesting to know. As for boats and aircraft I wonder whether in order to register your aircraft for this taxation you have to remember whether or not it exists. Even if you sign a document saying that you have one of these aircraft I wonder whether signing it actually matters any more because we know that with John Banks he could not remember the helicopter ride and when he signed his election return that did not mean anything because he had not read it and his signature was not worth anything. So I would like to know what the criteria will be around those assets such as aircraft and holiday homes. 
But of course what this does not do is have a real change in the tax base which would be a real opportunity to make sure that everybody is paying their fair share and have a growth-focused tax regime because there is no mention of a capital gains tax in this legislation. Of course that would be too bold for this Government. That would be too much about economic growth for this Government. That might actually show some signs of a plan which is the last thing that we are going to see from this Government. More muddled thinking from the poor muddled orcs across the other side there. Of course there is no sign of the research and development tax credits that might grow our productive sector. No they are missing from this bill. Nothing about monetary policy and nothing about dealing with our fluctuating exchange rate which makes it so difficult for our exporters to actually budget and plan ahead because this Government does not think or know about planning so that is not an issue for it. Certainly there is nothing as bold as a plan to build 100000 new homes which would actually get our economy moving again and make sure that there is affordable housing for people. No sir none of that. 
This bill symbolises a continuation of what we saw on Budget day with the paper boy tax. It is petty penny-pinching to make up for the unaffordable and ill-conceived income tax cuts that the Government brought in a couple of years ago. It is desperately short of revenue and now Government members are hunting around looking under the couch to see whether there are any coins there and tipping up the paper boys and shaking their pockets out. You know it is good to see that they are even going to try to tip up Kim Dotcom—good luck with that—and shake his pockets out as well. 
This bill just signifies what poor muddled thinking was behind the income tax cuts that this Government gave to the rich and of course offset by increasing the GST on the poorest New Zealanders. It is just another disappointment from John Key. Here is a slogan for you because we know that New Zealanders are not loving this. Here is a slogan for you: “John Key: 100 percent pure disappointment.” That is what this Government has been. It is a 100 percent pure disappointment and this legislation is just another example of what this Government has come to stand for.