Dean JacquiHon JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): Thank you Mr Speaker. National cannot support this bill. National vehemently opposes most aspects of the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2019-20 GST Offshore Supplier Registration and Remedial Matters) Bill in its third reading. This is an omnibus bill and as I said there are one or two aspects of the bill that we can support. In Government we began the work on introducing GST on low-value imports—sometimes known as the Amazon tax. But in the past the compliance and the administration of raising the tax on low-value imports was simply not worth the revenue gained and if we are to have a good solid taxation system then—the Government doesn't levy taxes just because they can—there needs to be a benefit from those taxes. Sure now that the technology in Inland Revenue has improved—the systems have been upgraded; work which commenced under our Government—it has made the collection part of it less costly and complex. So it does make sense now to close that loophole and yes it will support small businesses. National of course is the party who does support small businesses and quite clearly Labour is failing to deliver on its promises to support this economy and in particular in terms of those of us in New Zealand who rent. I would venture to say that everyone in this room has rented—perhaps now but certainly earlier in their lives when they were students or just starting out in work.The measure that the Labour-led Government are bringing into this taxation bill is ironic. It is ironic because the measure of ring-fencing tax losses on rental properties won't benefit anyone. It's not bringing in much revenue into the Government. It may bring in $190 million extra in tax from landlords but that is chicken feed if one considers then what the impact of raising this tax on landlords to the tune of $190 million will mean. What it means is very clear and the Government has heard advice from Treasury to this effect. Who will suffer? Tenants will suffer. Those very people those renters who cannot or have not yet bought their first home and who are in a rental situation are the very ones the very people that will pay the price for this taxation which is based on the politics and the policies of envy. It is the member who just resumed her seat Kiritapu Allan who proudly in her intervention mentioned speculators and of course in the context that the member mentioned it can only be that speculators are those people in our society—i.e. landlords—who are there to fleece people. Well the only ones who are being fleeced are the renters and they are doing so at the hands of this Government.The impact of raising—Hon Andrew Little: Stupid speech. What a stupid speech.Hon JACQUI DEAN: Stupid speech—there we are. They are completely in denial about the advice from Treasury. So maybe I will turn to that now and with indulgence from the Speaker I will quote from Treasury. Rental loss ring-fencing will reduce after tax rental returns for some landlords. This could encourage the transfer of housing stock from investment housing"—which is of course rental housing—"to owner-occupier housing putting pressure on the remaining rental stock." Argue against that. On average owner-occupied housing tends to have fewer people per house. "This suggests that a transfer of housing stock from rental to owner-occupied may reduce the amount of housing available [to renters]" and so it goes on. I was speaking to a to a real estate agent just this afternoon as I was preparing for this speech. In small-town New Zealand where this real estate agent works he was saying that not only has the market certainly been suppressed by the prospect of ring-fencing of rental losses—and also the prospect of the now defunct capital gains tax proposal—but also the housing stock available for renters has reduced significantly even in an environment where there isn't particular pressure on housing.So senior Ministers of the Government do not seem to realise the very very basic fact that if you increase costs on landlords by way of ring-fencing losses for rental properties that loss is going to go somewhere. Those landlords are going to exit the rental market. We see that happening. There will be less housing stock available for those very people who that Government purports to support. How can that be good taxation policy? Yes the Minister is right on one point and that is that it will be easier for say a young couple to get into their first home—which can even be ex-housing stock—but there may be five other people. Two people go into a house and five other people are now on the rental market looking in a shrinking market of rental properties. How can that make sense?This Government seems to be very blinded by the politics of envy and there will only be one group of people who suffer for that—SPEAKER: Order! Order! Back to the bill please.Hon JACQUI DEAN: —and that will be the renters."