Williams Arena; Genter Julie Anne; Watts SimonARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Thank you Mr Chair. In the nature of engaging in questions with the Minister—and I thank him for his answer—was the trade-off to provide a tax cut of $2.9 billion for landlords the trade-off that he's talking about when he didn't consider an accommodation supplement for some of the most vulnerable New Zealanders who cannot access housing because of those decisions?Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green—Rongotai): Thank you Mr Chair and I thank the Minister for his answer earlier. So I'll just restate the other question which he has not yet—James Meager: Oh repetition.Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: —addressed which is—well the Minister hasn't yet addressed the question so I think it's fine to restate it since he hasn't addressed it—how can the Minister continue to claim that these tax changes are geared towards low and middle income New Zealanders or the squeezed middle when the distributional analysis in the regulatory impact statement makes it very clear that the largest gains go to the highest income households and it's substantially more than the lowest income but even the second to lowest quintile. So for the benefit of the members opposite who I know sometimes find me very intimidating so I'll be very careful here in how I present my information: there's a document that members opposite can get from the Table there. I know they're new. It's called regulatory impact statement personal income tax relief. On page 21 of the regulatory impact statement which is annexed to distributional analysis of options this means looking at the different options that they've considered and saying how they impact different people in society.So when the Government makes claims about these tax changes benefiting the squeezed middle that is a claim about a certain group in society. If you break down households by their household income into quintiles which means divided by five then there's the lowest fifth the next lowest fifth the middle fifth and the top two-fifths. It says very clearly—and I'll just read this for the members because they can't read it when I hold it up—that the largest weekly gain goes to the fifth quintile. That's the highest fifth of income earners reflecting the fact that the maximum gain from the personal income tax threshold adjustments occurs at a relatively high individual income level. So what this means is higher income households benefit more relative to median income households. So my question for the Minister is: how can he keep saying this when clearly the impact of the tax changes in clause 7(1) is to give more cash back to those on the highest incomes who really probably need it the least? Of course these are just the personal income tax changes. I don't believe this analysis—and maybe the Minister could answer this question: does this analysis include the changes to interest deductibility and basically the benefits to landlords?Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Revenue): Thanks to the member for the questions. I'll reiterate that the reductions in personal income tax rates are on the three lowest income bands—the three lowest. So by virtue of targeting that aspect of low-income New Zealanders those are the individuals that will get that benefit.The member is referencing some of the distributional impact analysis around that. In addition to those changes in the bottom three income brackets we're also making some changes in regards to Working for Families and the eligibility banding within that as well. That specifically again will target low to middle income New Zealanders. So I think the member can have a degree of assurance that what we are doing is targeting that area and the nature in which we're achieving that is both through the personal income tax threshold changes—again targeted at the lowest and middle income New Zealanders—and broadening the eligibility criteria and thresholds from the other aspects of the taxation initiatives that do benefit those groups as well. In combination with that we are doing significantly more for that population group than the status quo. By voting against this you're in effect supporting the status quo.