Scott AlastairALASTAIR SCOTT (National—Wairarapa): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. It's with pleasure that I stand and oppose this bill. This bill should be called the Increasing the Cost of Living Bill"—increasing the cost of living for all New Zealanders—because that's what it does.I just want to point to a couple of points. First point: it increases the taxes that Kiwis pay. That's what it does. It sets the tax rates and as we've heard before if National was in Government the tax rates would be lower. The tax rates would be lower enabling taxpayers to have more money—their money—in their pockets to do as they wish to spend as they see fit. By implementing this bill by supporting it what we're doing is endorsing an increase in the rate of tax. We're endorsing money to be taken out of taxpayers' pockets for the purposes of this tax and spend Government. We know that it goes on wasteful projects and I'd be here all night if I started but obviously the most obvious and blinding one is the free tertiary education fees—total total waste of money.Now the Government doesn't understand how investors and property investors particularly think. What this bill does is it disincentivises investment in housing. It punishes people who wish to build a house for the purposes of rental. They say they're speculators—that's a bad word—but we are short of capital in the housing market. We need more capital in the housing market not less. We need more international capital into the housing market. I grant the Government that they do allow foreigners to buy apartments off the plans. They've realised finally that we do need international capital in the housing market—or in the apartment market specifically—which of course increases supply which is of course what we want to occur.This bill taxes the landlord. It treats the landlord differently from any other investor. It does not allow the landlord to deduct costs against income across any number of investments. So if we're going to ring-fence landlords and their rental properties why not ring-fence farmers or orchardists or any other investments? What we're doing here is we're picking on—Andrew Bayly: It's coming.ALASTAIR SCOTT: Well it is coming actually in the form of a capital gains tax—again a tax that will tax capital—and that's exactly the thing that we do not want to have. We want to incentivise capital investment in New Zealand. We want to incentivise capital investment in the residential property market and by ring-fencing it's only going to increase the cost to the investor to participate in that market. They will demand a higher rental to compensate them for the negative cash-flow that this bill is going to give and it's estimated to be 300 bucks per household—another $300 per household just because this Government does not understand the investor's thinking the way they think. We've seen it already—they've banned letting fees not understanding that that directly increases the cost of rent to the tenant. They say they support tenants they want to support the housing market but all they're doing is setting up barriers and regulations and disincentives and taxes to create a lesser smaller housing market.I mean here's another example showing you how little they understand about the housing market. The Government builds houses in Wānaka that no one wants to bid for. They don't even want to ballot. No one wants to put a name in a ballot. There are four houses sold out of 20 in Wānaka built by that Government that no one wants. So it demonstrates that this Government does not understand how an investor thinks does not understand what will drive increased housing supply and that is why I will be voting against this bill."