Nash StuartHon STUART NASH (Minister of Revenue): Thank you very much Madam Chair. What a confused speech—we had a man who used to be the Opposition spokesperson for revenue talk about the fact that there's this massive tax take and yet the economy isn't doing well. When you get more taxes because the economy is actually booming it is doing very well Mr Bayly. The issue that is being faced is the fact that there's record low unemployment record high wages and wages are growing but there are a lot of long-term challenges that this Government is not afraid to tackle. We're going really hard on them we're trying to grow productivity and you know what? It's the ideal situation: interest rates are low full employment—now is the time when companies are investing. The thing about New Zealanders—and I hear this wherever I go—is they know that we can't solve all the problems overnight. They know that it's going to take time but the thing that they respect about this Government and this Prime Minister in Jacinda Ardern is—you know what? We're taking on the hard challenges and we're winning. We're making a difference—we're making a difference. Wages are up unemployment's down and the economy is doing really really well. Let me talk just a little bit about what's happening in the revenue area. It is a time of change. What we have done as a Government is we have said it's about fairness. We want multinationals to pay their fair share and that's what we are doing. So what we've done is we've passed legislation around base erosion and profit shifting. In common English that is multinationals with a presence here they are now paying their fair share. We have gone out and consulted on a digital services tax. This is again about multinationals paying their fair share. We are working with the OECD to come up with a solution because it is not right that New Zealanders are working incredibly hard and paying their fair share and multinationals do not—multinationals do not. This is a challenge that we are working incredibly hard on with the international community. What we are also doing is we are putting GST on low-value goods because what again has happened for far too long is Kiwis that own retail outlets on the main streets of New Zealand towns and cities are paying GST yet the way retail is going globally is that people are buying stuff offshore and if it's below $400 they're not paying any GST. We just do not think it is fair that overseas companies get an immediate 15 percent advantage. We are levelling the playing field and making it fair for those who are running a small business running a retail business in this country. That is about fairness in the tax system. It's coming in on 1 December and I think it's a fantastic initiative. There are some other things we are doing: release three of Business Transformation. Now Business Transformation is the largest project in the State sector. It is being run incredibly well by one of I think the most competent State sector CEOs in Naomi Ferguson. She is doing an absolutely magnificent job. What release three did was it bought income tax in. There's well over a million Kiwis that have automatically into their account got paid on average about $400. We have returned over $570 million of tax owed by Kiwis to their bank accounts. There have been some Kiwis that I admit have had to pay more money but this is again about using the tax system to drive fairness—to drive fairness—which is what the tax system should be about. There's another two tranches to come in Business Transformation. It's a $1.8 billion project and the level of governance and the level of oversight is fantastic. In fact about every six months there's a KPMG team that come over from the UK. These are world-leading experts in managing and reviewing systems of this size—global systems—and they have said to myself and Minister Robertson that this is one of the best-run projects in the world. So I take my hat off to Naomi Ferguson. I take my hat off to her staff they are doing an absolutely fantastic job. I take my hat off to the IRD staff who are working with the OECD to find a solution to digital services taxes. But the last thing I will say is that in the revenue area there are a number of challenges—there's no doubt about that. There are a number of challenges and they are difficult challenges because we want to balance things up. We want to make it fair but we are facing those challenges head on. We're working incredibly hard to make sure that the tax system works for all New Zealanders. Thank you very much.