Allan KiritapuKIRITAPU ALLAN (Labour): It is always a delight to follow the previous speaker David Bennett when I get to listen to claims about ordinary New Zealanders. Ordinary New Zealanders in my electorate for example—I've got one particular ordinary New Zealander who's acquiring so many properties—in surplus of 50 actually—who really loves ring-fencing. It's prohibited a whole range of people—pretty much anyone—from being able to buy into that particular area. I've got homelessness on the rise and so I just want to acknowledge the Minister who's in this House the Hon Phil Twyford who is working very hard alongside my senior colleagues to fix perverse behaviours that have been allowed to run rampant under the previous Government.But I turn now to the bill and it is a delight to be able to speak in respect—and I want to actually just acknowledge the camaraderie that we do show within our particular select committee the Finance and Expenditure Committee. We do have enjoyable debates. I too want to acknowledge our new independent adviser Professor Lisa Marriott. This is the first particular bill I think that she's advised us on all the way through. To our colleagues from IRD they tolerate a lot of sometimes probably very ignorant questions—ignorant or insightful; perhaps just the ignorant ones are from me—but I do thank them for their contributions.There are a couple of areas I particularly want to speak to this afternoon. For me one of the key aspects in this bill for small regions like mine has been the application of GST to low-value goods. So for small local retailers in areas like mine—I'm thinking of Muirs bookshop up in Gisborne or whitegold down in Whakatāne. Small-business owners—there's about 26000 of these throughout the country. They employ about 62000 people through New Zealand. Now those companies in this new era of economic commerce argued to say that they've been at a disadvantage and this bill brings about some equity and equality. We received substantive submissions and I want to acknowledge the submitters and we've made a number of amendments. But this particular provision I just think is absolutely fantastic and it brings us up to speed with the rest of the world. Australia brought in legislation like this last year; the EU are about to do it pretty soon. For a lot of those small businesses within our regions—and all of us have them—who've felt like they've been operating at a 15 percent disadvantage this will hopefully restore some of those shops that we've seen close down in our front windows. The GST system was introduced in 1986. It's been around most of my lifetime and e-commerce wasn't really anticipated in any big form when I was a young 'un so it's good to see the modernisation of this bill. The other particular thing I wanted to highlight was the—and I want to acknowledge the Hon Stuart Nash for responding to the exemption for child support payments as a consequence of sexual violations. I'm thinking of a woman in particular. She was 15 years old when she conceived a child as a consequence of sexual violation. Very shortly after the child was born that child went to her mother and that woman was then sent letters from IRD requiring her to pay child support—17 bucks a week by the time that she was 17 years old. She commenced her adult life with a relative noose around her neck and she went through a process. But it's a relatively consequential matter that the Minister has picked up and I do really want to acknowledge him for his foresight and his empathy and I'm very proud to see that go through in this bill. Madam Assistant Speaker I'm pleased to commend this bill to the House.