Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National): I know that the member who has just resumed his seat Michael Wood is a new member—Grant Robertson: Ha! Listen to him!CHRIS BISHOP: —a relatively new member—but I think Mr Wood really needs to talk to the Opposition finance spokesperson. That was quite a good speech but it was actually a speech largely not about the bill as my colleagues have pointed out. It was largely a speech in favour of a capital gains tax. I know that the Labour Party and their activists—Mr Wood comes from that venerable tradition—are hankering for a capital gains tax. But actually the official Labour Party policy—Hon Michael Woodhouse: Is that the policy this week?CHRIS BISHOP: —well this week as my colleague Michael Woodhouse points out—is that we are not going to have a capital gains tax but it will be subject to a comprehensive taxation review in the unlikely event they get into Government. So it was a good speech but not really about the bill.The other thing that Mr Wood mentioned in the speech was multinational tax avoidance and again this is something that the Labour Party activists are very worked up about. But actually all New Zealanders—and I think there is a bit of cross-party unity in the House on this—want everyone to pay their fair share of tax. The Government is in no disagreement with that objective and the member will have seen the Minister of Revenue Judith Collins' discussion documents that came out recently. But the thing about multinational tax avoidance and base erosion and profit shifting—BEPS which is the technical term for it—is that it is a multinational problem. It is in the name. It is not something that New Zealand could do unilaterally even if we wanted to; it is something that requires concerted action on the international level. That is exactly what the Government is doing and that is exactly what other countries such as Australia are doing and I think members will see that roll out in good time.I want to mention a couple of points in relation to the bill. The first is about employee share schemes and Mr Wood gave a good introduction into some of the changes that the bill makes around employee share schemes. I think this is an area that we are really going to have to have a good look at in the Finance and Expenditure Committee. I see the ranking Opposition member nodding—I was going to say furiously but it is not quite furiously.Grant Robertson: I wouldn't call that furious.CHRIS BISHOP: He is nodding away. And we are going to have to take a look at this—Grant Robertson: Sagely.CHRIS BISHOP: Sagely. OK—sure. This is an extremely complex area of the law and also we are dealing with individual taxpayers and we have got to make sure we have got this right. I have had some commentary from people in the professions already that this is something that we are really going to have to take a good look at. So I am looking forward to doing that on the hard-working Finance and Expenditure Committee.The other thing I want to make mention of is the changes it makes around basically employee income information. You could really summarise it by saying the Government is essentially going to collect more information from taxpayers and it is going to do it more quickly. That is all through the business transformation process that the Government is spending considerable sums of money on investing in. For people listening out there at 5 minutes to 10 on Tuesday night—they may be sitting there listening to the radio or watching a bit of Parliament TV thinking why would the Government want more information about employee income information such as monthly updates from employers to the IRD. There are a few reasons for this: one is actually an honourable aim which is to help stop individuals incurring debt and also to reduce compliance costs for big companies. I think that is a laudable aim. And also—and I know the Opposition will be very interested in this—it is to give the Government essentially greater flexibility around redesigning social policies. One of the problems we have with the current IRD system is that it is creaking. It is ancient. It is old. It is on its last legs and that is why—Richard Prosser: Don't be ageist.CHRIS BISHOP: —the Government is spending a lot of money on investing. Ha ha! The Government is investing into this system to allow Governments of whatever political stripe whether they be a blue yellow and mauve one or a red green stripe to allow Governments of whatever persuasion to more quickly adapt the system to carry out social policies tax policy and also welfare policies. And that is going to be good in the future. Actually that is probably I think the biggest benefit of the transformation programme as it will allow Governments to be far more agile and innovative in their policy responses to particular situations than they are at the moment. It is a good bill. It needs some consideration and I know we will be looking at it closely at the Finance and Expenditure Committee.