Watts SimonSIMON WATTS (National—North Shore): Well thank you very much Mr Speaker for the opportunity to talk on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2022-23 Platform Economy and Remedial Matters) Bill (No 2). It is (No 2)" because as we know not everything that comes out of this Government in terms of the first pass actually has any degree of consideration or review in terms of the detail. What we know from this Government is that the first aspect of this bill—why this bill is called "(No 2)"—included an absolutely shambolic idea about increasing the taxation on KiwiSaver provisions for fund managers' fees and all of the like and that implication in terms of increasing of that tax was going to in effect bring in for the Government $225 million in a year.What is surprising is that you'd think when they're sitting around that table that they'd be going "OK let's just keep an eye on you know maybe the things that will get our attention." But for some reason that is unknown to anyone I think that piece of legislation that element of this bill—why this bill is "(No 2)" when we were talking about bill No. 1—was going to bring that degree of taxation. The only ones that didn't seem to know that that was going to land like a cup of cold sick was the Labour Cabinet. Every single Kiwi picked up within 24 hours that that was an absolutely dumb idea. But the ones that missed it were that side of the House and that raises some bigger concerns I think in terms of the Government because how could you miss something so big—how could you miss something so big? How could you miss the fact that this change to the legislation is going to bring in particularly $109 billion?Hon Mark Mitchell: How much?SIMON WATTS: $109 billion by 2070—you cannot miss that. But the reality is the Minister in charge of this bill the Hon Mr Parker missed that element as did his colleagues in the Cabinet of the Labour Government. That goes to the heart of why Kiwis across this country believe this country is heading in the wrong direction. They do not trust that side of the House in order to be able to fiscally manage the challenges that we have in this country of which there are a huge number. They do not trust the capability or competence of those members on that side of the House to do what is required for this country.National strongly opposes the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2022-23 Platform Economy and Remedial Matters) Bill (No 2) that's on the Table today. The prior speaker Andrew Bayly has articulated some of the reasons why but I want to go into a few other elements because at its heart this bill is missing an opportunity. It is not listening to the feedback of hard-working Kiwis across this country who are struggling day after day week after week because of the poor decisions that that Government are making. This bill is an opportunity or could have been an opportunity in order to remediate and to start doing something positive about that. But they have failed and that is a great shame in terms of the opportunities that this could have come and addressed. Part of this bill introduces the concept around the annual setting of income taxes and National have been very strongly opposed around these tax rates. The reason why is that we have got significant degrees of inflation in this country: 7.3 percent with wage inflation going at 3.4 percent. Take one after the other. We're going backwards at 3.9 percent every single day every week every month every year. The opportunity that this Government had in regards to this bill was actually making some adjustments to the way in which that tax bracket or that fiscal tax bracket—changing that to take into account the impacts of inflation. That is such a simple thing to do. Do you know what? By simply doing that you rapidly put that benefit into the paycheque of that hard-working person driving a concrete truck at Atlas Concrete in my electorate working on the front line in terms of hospitality our front-line police our nurses—they would see the benefit of that pretty much in their next pay straight away. The compliance cost is very little but they'd get that benefit. But instead this Government believes the solution to the cost of living crisis which is now becoming a social crisis is doing a cost of living payment and not actually adjusting within this bill the tax rates which it should be. That is a great shame and that is why I believe Kiwis can see this Government are not in touch with the key issues that Kiwis are facing at the moment. The other aspect I want to get into is in regards to—and Andrew Bayly articulated it well—the information gathering and taxing the digital economy. Well when I see statements around information gathering coming from that side of the House from Government you start to go "Oh well we know what they are up to don't we?" because every time they start going on a fishing expedition in order to gather information we know what they are up to because they cannot be trusted on taxation. They are up to no good as usual. They are looking for ways in which they can fund their addiction to spending—and gee what an addiction it is. The problem with that addiction is it has consequences and will have intergenerational consequences on every single Kiwi because of decisions they make. So let's get into the information-gathering aspect of this bill because it is quite apparent to me that there are a number of unintended consequences which only come quite simply of the reality that this has been poorly thought-out poorly planned poorly executed and poorly led by an ineffective Minister. But the elements within it are quite simple. How much do you think this will cost to implement this element of the legislation and do you think the cost to implement will exceed the revenue gained? Well you don't have to do fifth form accounting—as it was in my day or a little bit earlier—you sort of work out well maybe the benefits are going to exceed the cost. I don't want to get too simplistic but I think most people would get the fact that surely the benefit will exceed the cost. But no no no; have a look at page 14 and page 15. In order to implement this wonderful ideological change—which no one else in the world in terms of benchmarking is at yet—it will cost $19.3 million. So what will the tax gain be from that? Well surely it will be more than $19.3 million. The Hon Michael Woodhouse what do you reckon? Do you reckon it will be a bit more? Hon Michael Woodhouse: It'll be a hell of a lot more.SIMON WATTS: No. It's actually $8 million less than the cost that it'll take to implement it—$11 million. So quite at its fundamental level it's peanuts in the scheme of the total big picture but the compliance costs that these guys just seem to ram through in terms of trying to do some ideological change—it absolutely has no consequence on hard-working Kiwis who need to see the benefit of smart Government decision-making today; not in the future. They've missed another opportunity and they've missed it in regards to this. They have put in effect that cost of implementation—it has to be funded by someone as well and guess who funds it! The taxpayer funds it. So the additional cost of the compliance in regards to that ideological element of this bill will fall on hard-working Kiwis and as a result they have missed another opportunity to turn this country around. This country needs to be rebuilt and this bill provided the basis or could have provided the basis to start us on this journey. But that opportunity has been wasted that opportunity has been missed that opportunity has been foregone and that is a grave shame and a disappointment. I want to lastly get back to the element in regards to what is going on that such poor legislation can get to this point where we are today. What are the failures within the system within the Government of the moment that are allowing such sloppy legislation to get through? Well it is a failure to in effect adequately plan and a failure to actually have a plan in terms of where we're going in the future. If these guys knew where we wanted to be in 12 18 two or three years from now this would be a mechanical process but it's not. It's reactive it's thinking off the cuff and as a result we're seeing legislation like this which is absolute failure and will turn this country in the wrong direction. Thank you Mr Speaker."