Carter DavidRt Hon DAVID CARTER (National): I have only just become aware of this Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 248 that has been tabled today by the Minister and I'm going to tell the committee stage today that we'll be back to correct this because it will not work. What proposed new section 79(5) does I will guarantee is an attempt a time to tidy up people who are finding a way of avoiding the brightline test and they're people who are selling a house and claiming it's a residence. I want people to think quite carefully about what this clause does because I'll give you an example for the Minister in the chair Peeni Henare where he will find he's caught for tax in his own personal house under the brightline test as it's worded here. Consider if he bought his own dwelling his own home a week before he became a Minister. He then works as a diligent hard-working Minister and spends probably three or four nights a week here in Wellington and perhaps one night a week somewhere else in New Zealand. Now that'd be the typical diary for every hard-working Minister of the current Government. He then gets to the end of his tenure when they lose the election in 2020 and he decides to sell that house. He has got to be able to say to IRD that he's lived in that house 50 percent of the time. Now if he's a hard-working Minister he will not be able to do that. He certainly will not be able to honestly do it—Hon Tracey Martin: His wife and children would have been there. Rt Hon DAVID CARTER: —and that's why—the Hon Tracey Martin interjects—legislation like this requires the examination of a select committee. To table it today I will guarantee it will not work as it's been described. I've given a very clear example a very practical example where someone who has a personal dwelling that they use as a personal dwelling—it's in his name in the example I'm giving not in his wife's name—will not be able to fulfil the requirements of this SOP: subclause (5) and the description of what is a main home transfer". Erica Stanford: There's a lot of people in that position. Rt Hon DAVID CARTER: As Erica Stanford correctly says there's a lot of people in that position. That's why tax legislation has to be done properly. I will guarantee that this SOP 248 will not last the test of time and it won't be long before we're back correcting it. The Minister ought to stand to his feet and explain how it will work. He's just got some advice from the officials so there'll be some interpretation that I've made incorrectly. That's possible; I doubt it—I doubt it. But the Hon Peeni Henare with the note that's been given by his officials can stand and satisfy me tonight before we vote on this SOP because the way I read it it will not work. That's why I say to the Minister in charge of this SOP the Hon Stuart Nash to do it properly. As Minister of Revenue put your SOPs before a select committee let them be examined and let them be teased out. That way we get workable tax legislation. This is about trying to close a loophole that they've found with regards to the imposition of the brightline test. If it's the way it's described here and the way I've read it it will not work and before too much longer this Parliament will be back doing retrospective legislation to change an amendment that should have gone before a select committee and that doesn't need to be rushed if a Minister was on top of his portfolio."