Tuiono Teanau; Williams ArenaTAXATION (ANNUAL RATES FOR 2023-24 MULTINATIONAL TAX AND REMEDIAL MATTERS) BILLIn CommitteePart 2 Amendments to Income Tax Act 2007 (continued)CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Members the committee is resumed. We are resuming the debate on Part 2. Part 2 is the debate on clauses 4 to 64B Amendments to Income Tax Act 2007" Schedule 1 and also Schedules 1A and 1B and Part A in the new Schedule 1C as proposed by Amendment Paper No. 20.ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Thank you Mr Chair for the opportunity to take a call on Part 2. Before the dinner break there was some good discussion of this part but I would in my contribution now move straight to the amendments that I have for this part so that we can spend some time with the Minister considering those. But I also have questions which I'll come to later about the effect of some of the more specific provisions.I have four amendments here to Part 2. The first of those is around clause 8. What's difficult about these amendments is that the Minister has presented a substantial Amendment Paper to the committee which would seek to amend a number of clauses including clause 8 which I also seek to amend. But what's difficult about this is that clause 8 as it is currently proposes to make quite a simple change to the definition of "settlor" of a trust and makes another consequential amendment around the definition of a settlor of a trust but the Minister's very substantial amendment then introduces a number of new issues into clause 8 which members on this side of the Chamber disagree with which would change the nature of the brightline test and would have big policy implications.So Mr Chair what I am proposing in my amendments tonight is that—you know it is the Government's prerogative to make the sorts of changes in policy which are set out by the Minister in the amendment but what members on this side would object to is it being done in this way when we cannot use the select committee process and use the House's time to consider the policy implications of those changes. So what I have done is propose to delete clause 8 which would essentially mean that no amendment proposed by the Minister to clause 8 would be possible and the effect of that would be that there would be no clause 8 to amend and so the new Amendment Paper proposed by the Minister could be dealt with in a new piece of legislation. That piece of legislation might be called the "Taxation (Change to the Brightline Test) Bill" which would make it nice and easy for this House to engage with. I seek the Minister's comment on that.The two changes that I have proposed then are that if the Minister does want to press ahead with making the changes to the brightline policy in this way it's my position that an amendment to clause 8(2)—I'm referring here to page 14 after line 8—would appropriately be to section CB 6A in the Act that it's amending essentially to clarify that the new rules that the Minister has proposed would still apply but that they would only apply in the case where it was a 10-year brightline test because the Minister has made some useful updates to the way that the brightline test could be applied. He's clarified some of the policy which Inland Revenue Department already uses but is not empowered by legislation but it would be appropriate I think for this House to treat such a big policy change in the ordinary way for a legislative process and to be able to step that through.We've heard I guess on the campaign trail the difference between a two-year and a 10-year brightline test. Both parties have taken very political stances on the effect of that but what hasn't happened is a reasoned debate in this House or at a select committee level about the impact on individual homeowners of the difference between two and 10 years for the brightline test to apply. So this amendment would simply allow this House to do that through another piece of legislation in the future. The kind of difference I'm talking about is that if someone has owned a home for only two years it doesn't avoid this ability and certainly incentive for homeowners to sell their homes over and over again in order to make money from what is an unrealised capital gain on those houses. The 10-year test—you know there is a policy call to be made about the 10 years avoiding that but it certainly does slow it down and make it harder for people to primarily make money on that sort of conduct of the market. We'd say that is the right balance for the policy and it would be good for this House to be able to move through that in a systematic way.I have another amendment that I'll speak to. I'm sorry I didn't get to it in this call."