Hudson BrettBRETT HUDSON (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. It's a pleasure to rise on this Taxation (Annual Rates for 2017-18 Employment and Investment Income and Remedial Matters) Bill a bill of which a great deal could be supported but for one egregious anti-democratic action by this new Government which means that in all good principle we cannot support this bill in its third reading.Before I get on to the substance of the bill I just want to remark on a previous speaker's Duncan Webb quote of Einstein. I believe his quote was actually accurate. There is enough evidence or anecdote to suggest that Einstein may well have said that but I'd just like to remind members: always be careful and bear in mind that great sagacious American President Abraham Lincoln who noted that 80 percent of the quotes you get off the internet are false. So the bill itself has much to commend it.Hon Christopher Finlayson: Speaking of Einstein here's Tracey Martin.BRETT HUDSON: Keeping the tax—well indeed! Who briefed Miss—so the tax rates remain the same. That's a good measure but really the single thing about the bill which is something we could all commend is the work it does to help smooth the pathway for the Business Transformation programme at the Inland Revenue Department. That programme will enable the tax system in New Zealand to run so much more efficiently for all manner of income earners or for personal income earners for businesses for investors and for Government itself.So what we can do as a Parliament to help to ease the processes the information elements and sharing around that are very important steps to helping to ensure that New Zealanders and New Zealand businesses can operate more effectively and in compliance with their taxation obligations into the future. It is something we can commend. Unfortunately though after the bill was returned to the House from the Finance and Expenditure Committee the Government I would say—my perception is—very cynically a day or two later introduced this idea of a five-year test for the brightline test. It is something that because they would certainly have already determined that they wanted to do this could have been introduced in the select committee process either prior to or as a Supplementary Order Paper and it could have been debated in select committee. New Zealanders individuals and businesses from across the country could have had their say—could have had their say—just like officials did.Well officials did have their say and the officials noted that it came with risks of locking people into investments which may prove suboptimal for them. It might also result in fewer house builds particularly rentals. It may end up having overreach that means it actually ends up taxing people who are not speculators but merely are in circumstances where maintaining or retaining that investment property or properties does not make good sense for them for a full five-year period. Their call was when they first advised our previous Government that two years was an arbitrary measure but a good measure where you could have a high level of confidence that you would capture the speculators at that threshold but shifting the threshold to five years would instead just mean that you're taxing so many people for whom their motives are as pure as this Government believes itself to be—even though it is not in our view.So they've introduced the thing which is quite frankly in my view anti-democratic because they could have put it in earlier they could have allowed the public to have their say but instead they ran from what they expected I believe the response to be and instead waited till that moment when they could introduce it and subvert our democratic processes.We find ourselves now here in this third reading with a bill which was actually the bill that the previous Government introduced except for that one element the one element which makes it impossible for us to support the bill and where we are prepared to take this principled stand. It is normally a bill we would support and support without too much debate but we will take this principled stand so that New Zealanders know that we stand here backing hard-working Kiwis who are just looking to succeed and who deserve a Parliament that backs them to be successful deserve a Parliament that actually has confidence in them and is helping them to get ahead instead of a Government who treats all success as bad and they've never met a tax they didn't like and they just see an opportunity to take more money from hard-working New Zealanders. We oppose this bill.