Woolerton R Doug: Income Tax Bill — First Reading 
Woolerton R Doug: Income Tax Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:635;Page:6799] 
R DOUG WOOLERTON (NZ First) 
: 
 Likewise New Zealand First supports the Income Tax Bill. As previous speakers have mentioned the only thing small about this bill is the title. I think these things come in inverse proportion. Often we have bills that are only a few pages long with huge titles; this bill reaches to four volumes and 2704 pages—if I heard the Minister right—and has a very very short title. I do not personally know Sir Ivor Richardson but if he was able to shepherd this thing through to make sense of our tax law and bring it into modern-day language he must be a mighty man indeed and I commend him for the work he has done. 
It is important that tax law in New Zealand is in simple plain language that is reasonably easy to understand. We pride ourselves in this country on the high proportion of tax compliance and the fact that it is voluntary tax compliance. I think most people in New Zealand understand that tax is fair. They can see where the money goes; it goes into our roads our education system our health system and many other things that at some point in our lives—and that is the important thing—we participate in to quite a heavy degree. When we are younger we participate in the education system and we know that in the last years of our lives it will be the health system that we draw down on quite heavily. 
It makes me annoyed sometimes when such an emphasis is put on avoiding tax. I think people should not exactly rejoice in the fact that they pay tax but they should recognise that in a fair and moderated society that wants to see a reasonable amount of egalitarianism we will have to pay our fair share of tax. If one person does not pay tax another will have to make up the difference. So it is very important that the taxation system is understood and that people have a will to comply with it. Otherwise it becomes a hugely expensive burden on people. 
In saying that I commend Mr David Butler a man who has come to our shores and run the Inland Revenue Department for a number of years and is now heading off to Paris. As a member of the Finance and Expenditure Committee—and I am sure Dr Lockwood Smith would agree with me—I have felt that Mr Butler understands more than anything else the nature of taxation in New Zealand and that we should in all circumstances resort to such things as law courts only at the last hurdle. I am sure that Mr Butler would have some sympathy with Dr Lockwood Smith in his desire for such things as simple tax; we have talked to Mr Butler about these issues. But at the end of the day we do want other things in society as well. Taxation must be a part of our lives because in this country we are not prepared to see such things as beggars in the streets. We take care of this through a far more caring society than perhaps is the case in other countries that do not pay so much. 
New Zealand First also makes no bones about the fact that we agree with the policy of incentives in the tax system. I know that runs against some other parties. But I worry when we talk about extremes. It is true that previous regimes went to extraordinary lengths and that we had an overly complicated system of carrot and stick shall we say. In the reforms of the 1980s post these extremes in my opinion we went far too far the other way. This has cost the taxpayers in various ways. I can think of Air New Zealand the railways and many other things where we reacted too strongly and the reforms went too far and too fast—certainly in my opinion and I suggest in the opinion of New Zealand First. 
So New Zealand First is in favour of tax incentives. We welcome them because we believe that if they are used moderately and they are modest in what they want to achieve they provide very very good signals to the population of New Zealand. We believe that the signals in the taxation system can be read more readily and reacted to faster than almost any other signal that is put into the system. In this society we cannot get into the business of paying people to act in a certain way but we can certainly incentivise their behaviour through the tax system. New Zealand First believes that it is right that we do and the current Government of the day is moving in that direction. Like I said before—and to agree with Dr Lockwood Smith to some degree—we do not believe that tax incentives should be as extreme as those of the past. 
 But to mention one extreme behaviour as far as finances are concerned and not to mention the other extreme is I think putting a wrong picture on it. Certainly with MMP as we have it today we have less opportunity to go to extremes because consultation with a number of parties is always required to get legislation to this House let alone through the House. To us the fact that many parties must be involved is one of the safety valves of the MMP system. 
I was explaining to somebody the other day that if the Government needs to pass legislation—and we all know this of course—obviously it will consult the biggest Opposition party first. If it gets the numbers there that is great it can just move ahead with confidence and that is the case in this bill. If the Government has to involve other parties—if the main Opposition party is not keen to comply—then it has to go further and so on and so forth. It is that very important process that makes it far harder for extreme Government behaviour that may have manifested itself in past years or decades to occur today. Thank heaven for that.