Mallard Trevor: Taxation (Livestock Valuation Assets Expenditure and Remedial Matters) Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Mallard Trevor: Taxation (Livestock Valuation Assets Expenditure and Remedial Matters) Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 29 November 2012. Volume:686;Page:6985. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 It give me a lot of pleasure to follow the new questioner for the Maori Party John Hayes known as Hone Kuti Taru these days but it is a pity that he could not have applied some of his experience in kuti taru lifting to thinking about this bill. [ 
Interruption 
] It is cut grass or hay. 
There are a number of points that have to be made here and the first from my perspective is that the Government was very quick to hammer the paper boys in the Budget—very very quick to hammer the paper boys—but is taking its time to close what is a much bigger rort. 
I will say to my colleague Andrew Williams from the New Zealand First Party that I think he does have it wrong here. The ability of people to switch their tax systems to pick and choose to say one day that they are dairy farmers and the next day that they are fattening their beasts and to switch back again the next year because their stock numbers are different or the valuations are different is just wrong. It is a rort. It has been a rort for far too long. Frankly it should have been closed off when we were in Government and if the Minister of Revenue had been more active back in those days it would have happened then. But we all know that he is a lazy Minister. He does not work very hard. It should have been fixed at that stage. But I do say to New Zealand First members that I think they are wrong on that. 
I actually agree with John Hayes’ advice on this. On tax matters where there are not enormous principles at stake it would be better to get the bill off to the select committee to hear the submissions to get it tidied up and then if a party is still against it to vote against it at a later stage especially where there is clearly revenue to the Crown involved. 
The point that I would like to make is that there are a lot of areas that should be in here that are not. What we are seeing is a massive reduction in the potential GST revenue as a result of the way the world is changing with internet trading and with the loss of GST that is occurring on transactions of under $400. I will use as an example the importation of bicycles. People are importing a frame valued at $395—[ 
Interruption 
] Well not me. I would not know how to put them together. Wheels are valued at $395 each braking systems are valued at $300 and gearing systems are valued at $300. They are importing them as separate items all under the threshold but avoiding GST and at the same time causing New Zealand wholesalers and retailers to go out of business. All over the country there are retailers going out of business in a variety of areas because the way that commerce is done these days people are avoiding the retailer not only for a matter of convenience but also for a way of avoiding the GST that would otherwise be applicable if they went to their local shop. 
It is a matter of fairness that we get this issue sorted out. Australia is getting it sorted out. Australia is getting a number of areas sorted out. It is for example working on the Google problem and the Facebook problem. The massive companies that come to New Zealand use all of our services but do not pay their tax in New Zealand. Companies that are paying under one-tenth of 1 percent of their New Zealand profits in tax are wrong—companies that do not recognise the revenue in New Zealand. People who take a Facebook ad out in New Zealand take it out with an Irish company in order to avoid tax. Facebook does it completely it does it deliberately it does it for the vast majority of its New Zealand revenue and it does it in order to avoid paying tax in New Zealand and that is wrong. It cannot use our resources without paying its tax. 
I tell the lazy Minister of Revenue not to take as long fixing that one up as he did fixing up the fat cow tax.