Nash Stuart: Taxation (Annual Rates for 2015-16 Research and Development and Remedial Matters) Bill — In CommitteeText is subject to correctionNash Stuart: Taxation (Annual Rates for 2015-16 Research and Development and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 10 February 2016. Volume:711;Page:8890. Text is subject to correction.]STUART NASH (Labour—Napier): If you will indulge me I would just like to point out one thing if I may please. If you go—the Minister of Revenue may like to do this actually—to clause 261B “Section OB 1 amended (Definitions)” subclause (1) and subclause (2) are actually exactly the same. So you may want to remove one or two of those. It is just something that needs to be done. We will not complain if you do it without bringing the bill back to the Finance and Expenditure Committee but it just you know tidies up the legislation.Hon Michael Woodhouse: Section what?STUART NASH: It is in clause 261B. This is called the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2015-16 Research and Development and Remedial Matters) Bill. This is one of those bills where it covers everything but what the Government does is it sneaks things in there. So it sounds really good. It sneaks them in there. I mean we are all into research and development. We all want to see the research and development spend increase—there is no doubt about that. We have one of the lowest levels of research and development in the OECD and we understand that it is imperative that our research and development spend increases if we are going to lift this economy and have a knowledge-based way forward. It is important. This is what our economy is built on.However—and there is always a “however”—this is very very piecemeal. David Clark is probably going to talk about this a little bit later in his 5-minute contribution but we would have gone—Dr David Clark: 10 minutes.STUART NASH: —10 minute contribution—a lot further than this bill does. This is really tinkering around the edges and even in the select committee it was admitted that this is a little bit of: “Suck it and see. Let’s see how this thing goes.” There are a couple of definitions that are not that clear. Are we allowed to claim back employees’ salaries or contractors’ wages etc. etc.? But it just tinkers around the edges.This is not the sort of bill that is going to drive the research and development spend and that is going to allow these little innovative companies to really grow into listed organisations or go global or to be the sort of organisation that we need to drive economic growth in this country. This is tinkering around the edges. And to say “remedial matters”—the dictionary definition of remedial matters is “to remedy or to cure”. We do not agree that this bill does much of that.We certainly do not agree with Part 2 which is about the annual rates for 2015-16. We think they are inequitable. I remember Dr Clark speaking very eloquently about this last year when we talked about the fact that tax needs to be equitable to be able to deliver the sorts of outcomes that society demands right across all our communities. These rates do not do that.There is nothing remedial about the rates that are in Part 2 of this bill. In fact there are a number of tax bills that are coming before the Finance and Expenditure Committee at the moment and Labour is lukewarm on a lot of them. But none of them are really delivering the sort of tax reform that is needed in this country. We have had a whole number of bills—a series of three—that even the submitters became confused about. They started submitting on bills that were not before the committee. We had to gently remind them you know: “If you put your submission in and come back in 3 weeks’ time we’d love to hear what you have to say.” Even the submitters were confused on this let alone the general public. As for this bill it could have been and it should have been so much better.The research and development tax credit is something that is really needed in this country in order to drive the growth that Andrew Bayly has been involved with for a long time. Mr Bayly must read this sort of stuff sort of mop his brow and say “We can do better.” but he is too scared to stand up and let Mr English or whoever is in charge of this sort of stuff know that.It should be better could be better—must do better. This is the difference between the National Government and the next Labour Government. We will do better. We will put out research and development tax policy that will make a difference. And yes there will be another research and development remedial matters tax bill back in this Parliament before 3 years have passed. It will be a Labour bill and it will make a serious difference to the small to medium enterprises. It is not going to be the sort of bill that gives $50 million to Sanford. Well why would you? Well I suppose he is the president of the National Party so it helps.This is going to be the sort of bill that gives meaningful support to those businesses that we want to grow that have a mandate to grow. We are going to give them a mandate to grow. It is not about cheap money; it is not about a handout. It is about a hand up and a help. We understand that this business sector is the backbone of the economy. We understand that research and development must happen. We understand on this side that research and development deserves a hell of a lot better attention than this bill gives it.