Coffey Tamati; Williams PotoTAMATI COFFEY (Labour—Waiariki): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. Painful that's what that was—painful—and it was just as painful on the day when the member Dr Parmjeet Parmar was sitting in there barking in the Finance and Expenditure Committee trying to tell everybody what she believed was the right thing to do. It was a tough moment and I do have to address this because it was a time when the member was sitting there and we had to have a discussion about what was fact and what exactly was fiction.There was a discussion about whether or not the wording should be this way or that way. The member was unrelenting in her consideration of what we were trying to suggest to her. We didn't want to change any wording from it but actually what happened was that she was so determined to not listen to anything that we were saying that actually we were within our rights to vote it down. We have no interest in supressing Opposition view. If you look back at the nine years that we were in Opposition we were very keen to submit a minority view to any bill that was going through Parliament and that one was going to be one where we were very happy to do it but because of that one issue it didn't happen. So unfortunately that didn't happen. The member had her moment to vent her anger at the process and let everybody know just how put out she was about what happened in the select committee on that particular day.So as far as I'm concerned we can put that to the side and concentrate on just how good this piece of legislation is. The Government is in fact committed to building a productive a sustainable and an inclusive economy and research and development is going to play a huge part in that. Currently we're spending $3.9 billion which only equates to 1.37 percent of our GDP this year and that's what this Government is focused on: high goals achieving well above what the previous Government were having us wallow in. So we have set this very ambitious target to increase expenditure on R & D to 2 percent of GDP by 2027. That's right: we're aiming high when it comes to research and development and who will benefit from this? All of New Zealand because when businesses invest in research and development they can help to solve a lot of problems that we have as a country. They can help to push their own businesses forward.We did have 32 submissions from businesses from a variety of places across the employment spectrum. They came they presented to us and they were very supportive of this. There were a few things that we had to tweak and earlier my colleague the Hon Aupito William Sio outlined some of those changes that we are intending to make as a result of listening to those submissions in the select committee meetings.Just to run over a couple of them the one part that we talked about was just first off the blocks the changes to the eligibility criteria for the credit. Now the original proposal was that the controlling rights requirement—and this might sound a bit technical to people who don't understand—in the bill as introduced was to ensure that R & D contractors weren't able to claim for R & D activities that they performed for other people. But as a result of the submissions the committee recommended that we make several amendments to ensure that joint ventures undertaking R & D are eligible for the tax credit which would be otherwise excluded. We had that that we dealt with. There have been a few considerations around claiming the credit for a contractor's profit margin also around software development too.Members you can be very happy that this is the second reading of this bill. It represents the next step in ensuring that New Zealand increases its levels of business R & D investment with the aim of bringing us closer to the international average. The R & D tax incentive is going to be a significant addition to New Zealand's research to New Zealand's science and innovation ecosystem as part of our wider Government support to support the commercialisation of New Zealand's excellent service and research base. This is going to help us to develop as I said that innovative and resilient domestic economy. Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Just before I call the honourable member Andrew Bayly I just want to point out to the House that the time clock above the Noes door is malfunctioning. However above the Ayes it is still reading correctly. I will advise members when they have got a minute or two minutes to go in their speeches.