Wood Michael; Tolley AnneMICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): In response to the pleas of the National speaker just before Mr Carter the Hon Judith Collins for this to be a more positive debate I want to start with an acknowledgement and a thankyou to the National Party for making the central issue in this debate on the second reading of this bill the merits of KiwiSaver. That's something that on this side of the House we're very pleased to be talking about because of course KiwiSaver is one of the legacies of Governments on this side of the House that has been opposed at every single point from its introduction by members on that other side of the House. And of course those were the members who voted in their previous term of Government to reduce entitlements to KiwiSaver as well. So I just want to say that it's such a good thing to hear that they're now so supportive of an enhanced KiwiSaver scheme as is being delivered by this Government through this piece of legislation. I also want to just touch more specifically on the issue of private investor rates. And let's just be really clear about this. This is an issue. This is an issue which has been around since 2006. It's an issue which was around every single term every single year of the previous Government's nine years in office and they did nothing about it. This Government has fixed the issue within two years. Now let's be very clear about the facts on this as well because they are important. The first is that investors prescribe their own rate. That's the way that the system has worked for a number of years. And what is accepted by the Government and I think everyone who's involved in this debate is that that system doesn't work well. There are many people who don't necessarily realise that they're on the wrong rate. Their income might have changed through the course of the year or a number of years and they end up on a rate that is inappropriate for them and taxes them a bit more or a bit less than they should be taxed. And what we know from the figures is that the amounts are not large. There are a large number of New Zealanders who have probably been overtaxed a little in this area; the average amount is around $50 per year. But nonetheless on this side of the House we hold to the principle that you should be paying the correct amount of tax for the income that you're on. The point remains that this Government is doing something about it. We are fixing it within this bill. That Government that previous Government did nothing about it for nine years and we have just heard weak excuses from the former Minister of Revenue the Hon Judith Collins who was actually the best Minister of Revenue under that previous Government. The bar was pretty low but she was very active and she's right when she says that she got Business Transformation under way. But the suggestion that for nine years this issue could not be looked at—not even be looked at—because of the IRD's IT system doesn't bear scrutiny. That previous Government changed income tax rates they changed GST rates and they changed the system for child support. So this idea that policy was just frozen in stasis and no changes could be made in this area doesn't hold water at all. They simply didn't care enough about the issue to do anything about it. And so it is crocodile tears that we see on display here today and I want to acknowledge the Minister of Revenue Stuart Nash for taking action on this because on this side of the House when we say that we believe New Zealanders should pay the right amount of tax the fair amount of tax we do something about it. We don't just talk in Opposition. Finally I want to talk on another really positive point and that is the set of changes made in this bill in respect of people with congenital conditions being able to access their KiwiSaver funds earlier than would be normal. This is an important issue; there's consensus about this. I don't want to be churlish about it but I want to be very clear about the process that unfolded. It started unfolding when I was the chair of the Finance and Expenditure Committee. Mr Fairhall came and gave a very good submission on this issue and there was quite a bit of public interest in it and I think everyone took the point. That was at the time of the previous taxation and remedial matters bill probably about this time last year. The select committee at that time in its report recommended to the Government that work be done on this area. There wasn't time within the scope of that bill to deal with the issue. Minister Faafoi immediately picked that up set up one of those dreaded working groups of experts that that side of the House always criticises to look into how to implement this so that there weren't unforeseen consequences for messing with the KiwiSaver rules. They came up with a set of changes they've been inserted into this bill by Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 293 and we're very pleased with that result. I think what we should be doing is simply commending Mr Fairhall for bringing this issue to the House taking the action that is in this SOP and this bill and making sure that we pass this bill so that we can have the strongest possible KiwiSaver system for all New Zealanders something we're proud of on this side of the House. Thank you.DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is a split call. I call Nicola Willis