Bayly Andrew; Salesa JennyANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Thanks Madam Speaker. It's a pleasure to be talking on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2021-22 GST and Remedial Matters) Bill. Of course we will be opposing this bill because the first thing it does is it entrenches the high tax rates that this Labour Government has imposed over the last four years. Secondly it brings in through a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP)—which is rather strangely done under procedure of introducing these new rules around the brightline through an SOP introduced by Mr Parker the Hon David Parker rather than being embedded in the bill. So first of all I'd just like to say there are some elements of this bill that are good and we supported. I think the Minister in reading out his speech just before actually adequately catered for and dealt with the issue of the contribution of the Finance and Expenditure Committee's work on it which—I acknowledge all my colleagues. But I think there were some good things. The first thing was the issue around cryptocurrency—dealing with the GST element on that and ensuring that cryptocurrencies weren't subject to GST rules. Also allowing for GST on the domestic leg of a parcel as an example that has come from internationally—say from Australia—when it gets delivered to the home address in New Zealand. This bill when it's enacted will mean that the GST component of the domestic component is not payable on that transaction. I think there's also things like penalties around sales suppression software and this is software that deals with issues where electronic records are falsified at the time of point of sale and that's very appropriate. The last issue that the Minister mentioned in his speech around the seismic-engineering provisions—you know here we are in Wellington and seismic issues are very paramount. The small changes that were made around seismic issues are a small step in what seems an incredibly long time of this Labour Government wanting to do anything to help people who are in seismically compromised buildings. They've hardly done anything in this regard so this is a small step. But I think first of all this bill comes at a time when we—all New Zealanders—are facing an uncertain time. I think if you're going to introduce a tax bill you have to be mindful about what is actually happening. Of course we've got a Government that is just out there spending money something incredible. Mr Robertson has doubled New Zealand's debt in a mere 22 months. That is some record by any finance Minister's record around the world. Not many people can claim that they've doubled the debt of a country in less than two years. Of course a lot of that is because he's done a whole lot of wasteful spending—wasteful spending—and we heard about that earlier. The $500 million they're going to spend on restructuring the health industry in the middle of a pandemic—what piece of logic ever drives someone to do that? Then all this stuff around those three waters that so many New Zealanders really don't like. But of course as we all know in this House—petrol at three bucks grocery bills going up like crazy. All that Minister who just spoke before—his only response is We've got to regulate it". Well of course a lot of that price increase has come about because of Government policies. We've seen house prices—and I heard the Minister talking about this in reference to the brightline. House prices up $400000 under the Labour Government over the past four years. Rents up $140 dollars a week. Wow what a record. When you look at the context of tax which is what this bill is about what have we seen over the last four years? Well we've seen that Auckland regional fuel tax imposed on Aucklanders. Gee there's a big difference. I got some petrol from Pōkeno the other day which was at least 20c cheaper than what I was paying just inside the Auckland border. The proposed light rail tax—yes that tax is coming not too soon hopefully because we'll stop it. Then we've got the brightline test which I'm going to talk about shortly. The removal of interest deductibility—which of course is just another tax on people mums and dads that own houses and rental accommodation. Then we've got the top 39 tax which this bill enshrines—the 39 percent on anyone earning over $180000. It's the mean tax. It's the tax about imposing it socking it to the high-earning New Zealanders who work hard. And then—Hon Scott Simpson: Envy.ANDREW BAYLY: —envy tax as my colleague says—worst of all probably because of its potential financial consequences is the proposed latest job tax scheme that I think will be the crowning moment of Mr Robertson before he's voted out of office hopefully because that is such a huge cost not only on employers—but of course the Government doesn't worry about employers. They're good. They always believe that business owners are good for it. But it also means that every New Zealander who works will end up paying a tax as well. Of course it's for protecting those so-called people who are going to lose their job and get a guaranteed payment for six months. So Christopher Luxon in the weekend said we are going to repeal all these new taxes and I think that's a pretty good start because what that shows is that National is different from the Labour Government. Of course what the Government has done is it has imposed a whole lot of tax impositions on New Zealanders. When Christopher Luxon talked about removing these taxes everyone said "Oh it's about tax cuts." Well it's not. It's about taking away all those tax increases that have been imposed by the Labour Government over the last few years. That's what it's about. It's not about a tax cut. It's about stopping all those increases being imposed by the Labour Government. Now let's talk about the brightline. The brightline is being imposed on anyone keeping a property up to 10 years and what it will mean is that many New Zealanders will now be caught under these brightline rules. There's been some change in the legislation that we're talking about today which means that if you're building a house or renovating a house if it takes longer than 12 months then that will count towards the 12 months and you won't be penalised. But the bill makes no provision for those New Zealanders who are posted overseas as perhaps part of New Zealand's foreign affairs grouping or ambassadors or even staff in our consulates around the world. It does nothing for our military people who are posted overseas on military assignments on behalf of the New Zealand Government. It does nothing for people who move into retirement villages and want to keep their house for a certain period of time and find they keep it longer than 12 months. Because those people many of them might not be in such a position—they might have health issues—or are not aware or just simply don't have the ability to do that in time. It does nothing for those who go into hospital and who don't know how long they're going to stay for or may not even be in a situation where they can respond to this issue. If they are out of their house for longer than 12 months then they will end up paying this capital gains tax. This capital gains tax is pernicious and we will change this rule. Most people change their houses within five to seven years and this bill does not anticipate the life events that many New Zealanders have. Many people unfortunately divorce. Over 50 percent of people divorce in New Zealand. It is unfortunate but it's a fact of life. Many people have health events. It changes their circumstances. It changes their jobs. It may mean that people get relocated to other areas and therefore they may be captured under these rules. That's why if you're going to apply these rules they need to be very careful. The last thing is around the interest deductibility and I know my colleagues are going to talk about it but there are about 258000 Kiwi mums and dads who own rental properties who earn less than $30000 on them. That means they only own one rental house. This bill is all about socking it to them because they're regarded as investors. They're not. They're just ordinary Kiwis trying to save for their retirement. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The question is that the motion be agreed to."