Parker DavidHon DAVID PARKER (Minister of Revenue): Thank you Mr Speaker. Can I add my support to the original motion put to the House and oppose the National Party amendments. The Finance Minister the Hon Grant Robertson has delivered a Budget which decreases Government spending as a percentage of the economy as a percentage of GDP which is now coming off the heights that were necessary during COVID notwithstanding the fact that additional expenditure has been necessary this year to meet the costs of the storm events that we have seen have so devastated some of our communities. The Budget forecasts show that the Government finances are in good shape. New Zealand's debt remains very low relative to our peers much lower than Australia Great Britain the United States of America as a percentage of GDP and below the ceiling that we have set for ourselves. We returned to Budget surplus in the same amount of time that the last National Government took to return to surplus after the Canterbury earthquakes.You can already see one of the essential debates at the next election will be whether you have tax cuts as promoted by the National Party allied with service cuts or the alternative proposition that will be coming from the Labour Party by the time we get to the election. Of course the last time National announced their tax cuts they gave something like a dollar a week to someone on the minimum wage and hundreds of dollars a week to a higher salary earner. It's against that background that I want to spend the rest of my time talking about some reports that were released by the Government through Inland Revenue and the Treasury in respect of an inquiry as to the effect of tax rates paid by high-wealth individuals.This work has been done over the last year and a half by Inland Revenue with cooperation of around 311 families who each—and a family is essentially an individual their life partner and dependent children—had an average wealth: their net assets were $276 million each. Their effective tax rate including their income tax the tax paid by their trusts the tax they paid through company structures all of the GST that they pay on their personal expenditure—their effective tax rate was 9.5 percent. That was a much lower rate than I was expecting. We know that the super wealthy construct their financial affairs so that most of their income is on capital account rather than taxable income but none the less I was surprised how low that tax rate was. No wonder why we've had rising inequality in New Zealand at the top end. This is a world-leading study because it's based on actual data it's not modelled data and it has shown that inequality of wealth in New Zealand is worse than we had previously understood it in part because of the very low rate of tax that is paid by the super wealthy on their income.At the same time a report was released by the Treasury called Tax and Transfer Progressivity in New Zealand and it showed the tax paid by other New Zealanders by ventile—which is 20 groups of 5 percent—showed that a middle income New Zealander generally pays tax at more than 20 percent including all of their economic income their wages and if they own a property their capital gains and the imputed rent on their property if you're into that sort of thing. For someone who has only salary income and they were being paid $80000 a year they would be paying an average PAYE tax rate of 22 percent plus they would be spending about two thirds of their income on GST inclusive goods and services equivalent to about 8 or 9 percent of their income spent on GST. That 8 or 9 percent added to the 22 percent average tax rate means that that sort of person is paying 30 percent of their income in tax every year compared with the super wealthy paying only 9 percent.As a consequence in part of that legislation has now had its first reading through the Budget process on the tax principles bill so that we can report against sound principles for the tax system like progressivity efficiency horizontal equity—people in the same position should pay the same amount of tax but wealthier people should pay higher rates of tax than less wealthy lower income people.Returning to the Budget we are on track back to surplus. We have had these cost of living adjustments the likes of prescriptions. It's a good Budget and I commend the Minister of Finance's motion to the House.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan five minutes.