Smith Lockwood: Estimates Debate —  
Smith Lockwood: Estimates Debate —  
[Volume:610;Page:7160] 
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (NZ National—Rodney) 
: 
 I pick up where my honourable colleague Don Brash left off. When we look at the tax revenue figures in this year’s estimates and compare them with what this Government inherited it is interesting to see that when this Government took over it took $32 billion in round figures in tax. This Budget over the next 12 months plans to take $40.5 billion in round figures. That is a huge increase in tax. I want to have a brief look at that. 
We all know that the Government has put up the tax on people earning over $60000. The Government stated that it would be 5 percent of taxpayers only but of course as we now know it is 10 percent of all taxpayers and 20 percent of those are full-time earners. The Government said that it would do that but what about the fringe benefit tax going up? What about the income tax on trusts going up? What about resident withholding tax on interest and dividends? All that is going up. The Government did not talk about that prior to being elected this term. 
We know about the tobacco tax going up we know about the petrol tax and road user charges going up we know about the accident compensation levies going up. On my business alone since this Government renationalised the Accident Compensation Corporation my accident compensation payments have trebled. Dr Cullen frowns. He does not run a business so he would not know. That is all revenue. Even the cost of getting married has gone up. Marriage licences and drivers’ licences have gone up almost 50 percent. Government taxation and revenue is going up and up. 
One lot has come down and that is the tax on Maori businesses; the tax on Maori businesses has come down to 19.5 percent. But the doozy of them all was the sherry tax. Jim Anderton came to this House and said that the Government aimed to put up the tax on the drinks that young people drink—the alcopops. What happened? The alcopops got off scot-free and the Government taxed the old folks’ sherry. One could say that that is a joke but it is actually serious for the reason that clearly the Government did not do its homework. It was a knee-jerk reaction. The Government was concerned about public reaction to young people’s drinking—which is a serious issue there is no doubt about that—and thought that it could do something about the problem by a tax on young people’s drinks. 
I can see some members opposite who know that that is what was supposed to happen. But what happened? Jim Anderton came to the House with a bill that did not do what the Government thought it would do. It did not tax the alcopops. It taxed the old folks’ sherry. 
I want to focus on the latest move by this Government which is the flatulence tax. The Minister in the chair Michael Cullen may claim that it is not a tax but a levy but when it looks sounds moves and smells like a tax and everyone thinks it is a tax it is a tax. 
I want the Minister in the chair to tell the Committee what research he or his advisers have done on this tax. Is it like the alcopops tax? Is it a politically correct move with no basis to it at all? I want the Minister to tell us what study research and advice the Government has had on the half-life of methane in the atmosphere how long methane stays around the stability of the background levels of methane in the atmosphere what causes most methane to be in the atmosphere—which is certainly not ruminant animals—and what advice the Minister has received on the chances on altering through that tax on ruminants in New Zealand the level of methane in the atmosphere by any measurable amount at all. 
I challenge the Minister to tell us what advice he has had on the ability of this tax to alter the level of methane in the atmosphere in a measurable way at all. I suspect that if he talks to some scientists who know something about the chemistry of methane he will find out that first it does not last long in the atmosphere. Methane is very unstable and degrades very quickly to carbon dioxide. It does not produce any more carbon dioxide than the methane that we already have. Secondly there is a background level in the atmosphere that probably is largely the result of forests rotting. It is certainly not the result of eructation from ruminants. I want to know whether it is just another cock-up like the sherry tax.