Bishop Chris: Taxation (Bright-line Test for Residential Land) Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBishop Chris: Taxation (Bright-line Test for Residential Land) Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 08 September 2015. Volume:708;Page:6333. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CHRIS BISHOP (National): This is an important bill. It seeks to improve compliance with current land sales rules in the Income Tax Act by supplementing the intention test—that we all know exists as Grant Robertson has pointed out—with an objective brightline land sales test. This will require income tax to be paid on any gains from the sale of residential property within 2 years of purchase but with some exceptions—the main one of course being when it is a person’s main home.In my short contribution to this House this afternoon I want to just run through some points in rebuttal of what we have heard from members opposite. First is the point made by Dr Clark which was repeated by Grant Robertson that this bill is all about appearances—that it is not actually about doing anything about housing affordability. We reject that on this side of the House. This is a serious proposal that supplements the test that is already in the law. It does not go so far as to introduce a comprehensive capital gains tax but it is a serious proposal that will make a difference to New Zealand.The more laughable claim that we heard from members opposite was that Labour Party policy is clear on this. Members opposite have been very careful to dance around any commitment to introduce what their policy was at the 2014 election and their policy at the 2011 election which was a comprehensive capital gains tax. Who knows what Labour Party policy is on this? It is certainly not as Dr Clark said very clear. Labour members know that that policy was put to the electorate in 2011 and 2014 and rejected comprehensively every time. In fact the current leader of the Labour Party won the leadership by promising not to introduce a comprehensive capital gains tax as Labour Party policy. So who knows where the Labour Party stands on this issue?The second assertion made by Dr Clark that is wrong and which was repeated by Mr Robertson as well I think is that there are loopholes in this piece of legislation and in the companion piece of legislation which is the bill that we were just considering. This is the brightline test bill—the name of the previous bill escapes me.Hon Member: Land information.CHRIS BISHOP: The land information bill—thank you very much.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): And offshore persons information.CHRIS BISHOP: The offshore persons information bill—that is the companion piece of legislation. The assertion was made that there were loopholes in this because neither piece of legislation requires all New Zealanders to supply IRD numbers when they transact property. In the debate on the previous bill I pointed out the very clear reason for this. It is that there is an exception in both pieces of legislation for a person’s main home. So it is the view of the Government that it would be needlessly bureaucratic to ask New Zealanders to supply their inland revenue information to the Inland Revenue Department and to Land Information New Zealand when they are going to be exempt from the legislation. The people who are not exempt from the legislation have to supply their information but the people who are exempt should not have to. That seems fairly logical.Then we hear that this bill and its companion piece of legislation are all about—in the words of the Opposition—preserving entrenched interests. Mr Twyford right at the very tail end of his speech almost went so far as to impute all sorts of nefarious allegations as to the motives of this side of the House. We reject those. This is a Government that in Budget 2010 cracked down on investment property. It has put millions of dollars into enforcing current tax law with significant pay-offs. Budget 2014 put more money into cracking down on current tax law.Finally and just briefly to close off my contribution we hear the assertion from members opposite that this is a Government that has done nothing about housing affordability. That is absolutely incorrect. Look at what we are doing in Auckland with special housing areas and the improvement in building consent rates which we are hearing about at the moment. Look at the HomeStart scheme that the Government has introduced which I know is very popular in the Hutt Valley. Look at what we are doing to develop Crown-owned land.Phil Twyford: It’s made matters worse.CHRIS BISHOP: Here we go. Phil Twyford who spends most of his time rampaging around Auckland demonising Chinese migrants to New Zealand will soon stand up and give a typically incoherent contribution to the debate which will mainly be more about personal point-scoring and demonising a particular ethnic minority than being a useful contribution.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I am now going to ask the member to come back to the bill. He did mention it earlier.CHRIS BISHOP: I will just close by saying that this bill is part of a suite of measures that the Government is taking to improve housing affordability. I commend the bill to the House.