Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of the ACT Party in opposition to this bill and in opposition to this Budget. For as long as New Zealand has been a country the economy has been cyclical. It goes up and it tops out and it goes down and it bottoms out. The previous Government took power at the bottom of an economic cycle and—surprise surprise—for their term in Government things mostly got better. This Government has inherited power at the top of an economic cycle and unfortunately for them almost whatever they do things will get worse. But that doesn't mean that Government policy is irrelevant or that there are not good economic policy choices and bad economic policy choices that make a difference to the wellbeing the welfare the income and the future of New Zealanders and I oppose this Budget on behalf of the ACT Party because it is a series of poor-quality choices. In fact this Government's two years in office has been characterised by poor public policy decisions. What would this Government do to prepare for an economic downturn that would safeguard the welfare of New Zealanders? Well it would do three things: first it would stop beating the proverbial out of business and New Zealanders who want to get ahead and make a buck. It's not difficult to see examples of where this Government has not only failed to help grow productivity but has actively attacked it: the unconsulted surprise ban on oil and gas exploration; the threatened fair-pay agreements which would take labour relations back to the 1970s; the ban on foreign buyers of residential property when this country for all of its history has struggled to attract capital and foreign investment; and while not directly under control of this Government the Reserve Bank's threatened capital ratio adjustments which could put down returns on savings and put up interest on borrowings and which risks putting this country over the edge. The market studies into sectors of the economy that have done nothing wrong where the Commerce Commission tries to decide how much a particular business should pay to get petrol to one of the most remote areas on Earth—these are examples of things that this Government threatens or actually does all the time that beat the proverbial out of business and the best thing that this Government could do is simply stop stopping New Zealanders from being productive and getting ahead. But we could not only stop doing bad things to business; we could actually start doing good things. This Parliament could choose to have the fairest most competitive most aspirational tax system in the world. We could have a 17.5 percent single rate of company and income tax. That would be simpler to administer it would be fairer because everybody would pay the same rate and it would be competitive because it would attract investment and innovation activity to New Zealand. What would be the impact of that on the Government's coffers? Nine billion dollars—an amount of money that could be saved by stopping the Shane Jones corporate welfare machine the middle-class vote-buying machine and the current surpluses. The Government waste that saps the productivity of New Zealand could be reduced to achieve a single tax rate of 17.5 percent. That is an example of the kind of policy that this Government could have introduced in this Budget. It could have stopped constantly characterising New Zealanders as vulnerable and in need of help and somehow a client of the Government that must come along and solve all of their problems. It could have said We are going to stop attacking business and we are going to put in place tax policy that doesn't triple the tax rate of people who go along and work save invest and upskill themselves but charges the same rate of income tax and a low 17.5 percent of company tax too for every $1 of personal and company income in New Zealand." That would be a way to prepare for the coming economic downturn. But sadly the Government has done nothing remotely like it."