Shaw JamesHon JAMES SHAW (Leader—Green): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. It is a pleasure to follow on from Todd McClay and that rousing speech. It's not often someone gets to deliver a rousing speech on a tax omnibus bill but Todd somehow managed to pull that off. I'd just like to start my comments by responding to a few of his because Mr McClay gave quite a long sort of history of the passage of this bill through the House and the various stages that it went to and so on but he neglected late in that history to mention one thing: that there was an election and that all of those people that he was saying don't have a say actually did have a say. What they said was that we should change the Government and one of the reasons why they wanted to change the Government was they were absolutely fed up with a National Government that was continuing to offer massive concessions and allow the investment community to continue to inflate New Zealand house prices way beyond the ability of ordinary Kiwis to be able to afford their own home. So the transition from a two-year brightline test to a five-year brightline test was one of the debates of the election campaign. It was one of the policies that we stood on that the Labour Party stood on and I believe that New Zealand First stood on as well and we won the election. Consequently I would argue to Mr McClay's point that actually the public have had a say that they did want to see a further extension of the brightline test and that that is one of the reasons why they voted to change the Government. And so we are I think entirely within our rights as a new Government to change the policy that the last Government had. That's what happens when you have an election and you change the Government. The other thing that Mr McClay mentioned was he was referring to this notion of having a go at mum and dad investors who just want a nest egg for their retirement. What he says is that that is the primary reason why you would leave the brightline test at two years rather than at five years. But if you think about it when people save for their retirement if they're investing or if they're saving they tend to do so for periods of longer than five years right? If you're trying to put something away if you're trying to get an investment that's ready to go for your retirement if that's your nest egg the idea is that actually you would be investing in that over a substantially longer period of time than two years or than five years. So the idea that extending the brightline test from two years to five years is somehow going to punish people who are just making an investment for their retirement is completely fallacious. I reject that notion. What it will do in respect of people who are just trying to make a quick buck through the loophole of not having a comprehensive capital gains tax on property is that it will continue to dampen down that side of the market and that is what we want to do. We actually want to make sure that the people who buy houses do want them for the long term either as owner-occupiers or as actual investors whose intention it is to make their money on that house by renting it to people who want to live in it not by having the house make more money in any given year than the average income. The idea that people should somehow be able to not pay tax on an asset that simply inflates by way of its existence without any improvement and without necessarily anyone even living in it just sitting there—the idea that it's somehow going to destroy people's pension savings by extending the test out from two years to five years I think is ridiculous. So Mr McClay's speech was a fine one. It was delivered with passion. It was also completely incorrect entirely fallacious and we reject all his arguments. One of the other things that Mr McClay pointed out was that the Green Party voted against this bill on its first reading and he suggested that we were somehow corrupt for switching our vote. Of course the National Party's never switched its vote on anything ever and never changed its mind based on the evidence. Obviously continuing to back something regardless of changes in information or regardless of changes in the bill—I also reject that notion. In fact the main reason why we voted against the bill at the first reading was that the then National Government could not or would not give us assurances that the clauses in the bill that related to concessions to the oil industry for the decommissioning of oil platforms at the end of their life didn't somehow constitute a particular concession to the oil and gas industry. Since then—in fact since we came into office—we've been able to assure ourselves that the simplification of the decommissioning rates that applied to the oil and gas platforms are actually exactly the same rates that apply in any industry to any end-of-life remediation activity—Brett Hudson: That's what our Minister said at the time.Hon JAMES SHAW: —and so therefore do not constitute a particular concession to the oil and gas industry above and beyond what applies to any other industry. That was our main concern and I'd like to invite Mr Hudson who clearly doesn't have enough to do to spend a bit of time watching Gareth Hughes' first reading speech in which he spent the entire time talking about that concern that it was a particular concession to the oil and gas industry. The fact that we've been able to clear that up now that we're in Government I'm very pleased to say removes the barrier for us to be able to vote for the bill. In addition the changes to the bill since we became the Government—in particular that extension of the brightline test from two years to five years—give us a more compelling reason to vote for the bill as well. And so because this bill does align with Green Party policy in terms of ensuring that there are no particular concessions to particular industries above and beyond what would apply to any industry and because it does continue to help us with that transition from a sort of overheated investment-based property market to one where people can actually afford to buy and live in their own homes or where investors are encouraged to get into the business of investing in homes in order to provide homes for people to live in and not simply to allow those prices to inflate and trade them back and forwards with each other like some kind of financial instrument that they don't have to pay tax on—because it does those things we're very pleased to support this bill. Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker.