Adams AmyHon AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. Well this House should be in no doubt that this is a Government that wants to tax New Zealanders more. This is a Government that promised New Zealand no new taxes and here we are with a second tax bill that is imposing more taxes on New Zealanders. In fact $2.4 billion in additional taxes in the first year of this Government—$2.4 billion that this Labour-led Government thinks that it can spend better than New Zealanders. This bill absolutely shows the real spots of this particular leopard. The first thing this bill does of course is confirm the annual tax rates. Well I can tell this House and New Zealand that this bill confirms that every New Zealand taxpayer is paying more tax now than they should be and than they need to be. In 2017 the National Government legislated that the income tax thresholds should go up recognising that they hadn't been increased since 2010 because if you're not increasing tax thresholds in keeping with how the cost of living is going up and the Consumers Price Index is going up you're taking more money every single year by stealth. So National made it very clear that the bottom threshold of $14000 at which New Zealanders paid only 10.5 percent should go to $22000. Then we made it clear that the next threshold should go from $48000 to $52000. Now those changes—which should be in place right now but were repealed by this Government and have been confirmed by this legislation—made it clear that the average taxpayer is paying over $1000 a year more tax than they need to and than they should. This legislation confirms those rates. Those rates are out of date they are unfair and they only remain because Labour cancelled those changes to fund the New Zealand First slush fund the fees-free tertiary policy and a raft of other wasteful expenditure. I can tell this House that passing this bill locks New Zealanders in to another year of outdated tax threshold changes that they shouldn't be paying and that this Government frankly is too focused on how much money they can spend and they assume every New Zealander is a personal ATM for them to help themselves to their pockets. One of the matters in this bill that I particularly want to focus on other than the annual rates which are egregious and are too high is of course the ring-fencing of losses on residential rental properties. Now again this is one of the new taxes that this Government have brought in helping themselves to more of New Zealanders' money. By the way we all know there's a whole lot more coming because they've got Michael Cullen and his band of merry men beavering away coming up to recommend a capital gains tax so that they can have another dive into the pockets of hard-working New Zealanders. This is a group of people who think that hard-working Kiwis get up and go to work every day just to fund their spending—just to fund the Government's spending—because in the view of this Labour - Greens - New Zealand First Government Government should have more of your money and you should have less. Well on this side of the House we think New Zealanders deserve to keep what they earn and we want to see that money in their pocket because they know how to do more with it and better. You want to talk about well-being? Let people keep more of what they earn. The best way you're going to do that is to keep tax rates low but not this Government—no no. They're putting them up hand over fist because they assume anyone who makes a profit is a filthy capitalist and should be punished. Well actually people who work hard in this country deserve to keep those taxes. Now let's just look at this ring-fencing of losses on residential rental properties. We have been telling this Government over many months that the changes they are putting in place are going to lift rents because it's pretty simple. For anyone who knows even Economics 101 if you put more costs into a sector and if you make the return on that sector less attractive you will reduce supply and you will increase costs. We said that to the Government. We said If you ban letting fees you'll see rents go up." We said "If you bring in a five-year brightline test you'll see rents go up." We said "If you bring in a whole raft of new expensive regulations for landlords you'll see rents go up." And do you know what's happened over the last 12 months? Hon Members: Rents have gone up. Hon AMY ADAMS: Rents have gone up $30 a week on average because this is a Government that has no idea how this sector works and they've just assumed landlords are just another group of people you can punish at will because it's all about fairness to tenants. Well how are the tenants better off when they're paying higher rents than they have paid before? How are the tenants better off when they are having to pay more and more on the cost of living because this Government keeps loading up costs? Well this is interesting because you've got Treasury and the IRD both telling the Government that this is what will happen. They've said to the Government in the regulatory impact statement as they have on other changes that rents will go up and what's happened? Rents have gone up. So what have we got from the Government today? "Well let's put more costs on landlords. That'll help. So let's put $190 million a year on the landlords of New Zealand."—who by the way are mums and dads. They're mums and dads who have worked hard and are trying to put a bit of money aside for their retirement—$190 million. Now if that's spread over every rental property in New Zealand just for an example that's about $300 a year more that tenants are going to pay. But interestingly enough if you just look at the 40 percent of rental properties which the IRD say are loss-making that's about $750 a year that will pass through to the tenants of those properties. If anybody on the Government benches seriously thinks this is just going to evaporate in thin air and not be passed through to tenants I'm sorry but they're in lala land. I would love to see the Minister have the bravery to stand in this House and be very clear that if rents go up he will cancel this tax but he won't. He will simply deny of course that it will ever happen and then when rents invariably go up either he will duck and dive and dodge or he will come up with some other explanation. But let's be really clear: putting $190 million of extra tax every year on landlords is going to put rents up and it will lift the cost of living further. Now here's what really interesting: no other asset class in New Zealand has its losses ring-fenced. So the Hon Stuart Nash in his contribution—all he could say in defence of ring-fencing losses was "Well it's about bringing fairness to the tax system." Has anyone noticed in this House that when the Government starts talking about fairness it's because they don't have one single logical reason for doing it—so "Let's just talk about fairness." Well if it's fair to ring-fence losses on residential rental properties why is it perfectly fair not to ring-fence them everywhere else? Why is it perfectly fair for example that you'll soon be able to buy a good-looking racehorse which doesn't make any income and which creates losses and you can set that off against your income as an orthopaedic surgeon—that's absolutely fine. That's fair. But you buy a rental property and somehow you're an evil speculator to be punished and that must be ring-fenced. So if Mr Nash this is about fairness why only residential rental properties? I can tell you the answer. The answer is because this is a Government that hates landlords. They hate landlords. They think that anybody who owns a second property is wrong and should be punished but what they miss is that this is going to hurt tenants. It is the tenants who will suffer the costs as their rents go up further. The cost of living is already under pressure thanks to the increased taxes of this Government. They've got less money in their pocket already thanks to the extra taxes of this Government. And now as a result of this legislation $190 million every year is going to go into the Government coffers at the expense of the tenants in New Zealand. That is not fairness. That is not looking after tenants. That is a cash grab from a power-hungry cash-hungry big-spending Government that can't control itself and wants to punish the hard-working New Zealanders as a result. This bill is a travesty and we won't be supporting it."