White HelenHELEN WHITE (Labour): I have been listening very carefully to the speeches on the other side of the House and waiting for some interesting information. So far it seems to be a regurgitation of a very outdated ideology.This is an Act that comes to the Finance and Expenditure Committee every year and I will be on that committee this year and I will be looking and welcoming the detail of it. But the first thing that I notice about the Act is that the tax rates don't change; they're exactly what they were. What was promised to be held was the status quo and that's what's happening.What the Opposition seems to be doing is putting up a proposal that they say they would go through with which would in fact give the members of this House and people on high incomes quite large tax cuts. It would in fact give very very little to most New Zealanders. It would give far less than the things that this Government has given that same income bracket in different ways: targeted responses to actually a pretty hard time out there.So it's no joking a matter that in fact the alternative proposal is one that involves people on $200000 etc. getting thousands—$20000 or thereabouts—in their pocket while the New Zealanders who are on under $70000 get very very little. It does actually starkly contrast one party with the other.What this bill also does is it gathers information and that seems to get the ire of the National Party as well. It gathers information about the gig economy. What would you have us do? Ignore close our eyes and our ears to the fact that we have an evolving economy? We have an economy where a whole lot of people now trade services and goods on platforms that they didn't used to use. Instead the National Party seems to want us to not know what's going on in that economy. Well I put it to you that that would be a completely incompetent way to run a Government.We absolutely need to know. What we are doing is we are actually joining the OECD countries in an effort to make sure that we modernise our tax system so it is fair; so people cannot subvert their incomes. So we are part of a group.I think I was most surprised to hear there was a criticism that we were at what was called the bleeding edge" of that by Mr Bayly. We are actually I think number four going into that regime. We are not the first but I am actually proud of us being ahead of the game and doing these things in a timely manner. That is our job. That is what Governments do. The first thing that a Government has to do is make sure that it is taxing effectively and fairly. And that is what this does.So I am very interested and keen on seeing the rules of the OECD countries applied here. It means we will gather the right information we will know who's paying tax and we will manage the tax system accordingly. And that means that hard-working New Zealanders who work every day and pay their tax are actually only paying their fair share and not a great burden of it because that is what a system that goes wrong does. When we have those systems they are totally undermined and they undermine the trust of New Zealanders.Whereas I think most New Zealanders know that in New Zealand the system is pretty fair. Top earners actually pay a bit more because they can afford to and lower-income earners pay a bit less for the same reason—because they can't afford to. That's the New Zealanders I want to see this Act target and it does.We are also looking at GST in the gig economy and making that even. And I think that's only fair. Let's just take an example of the Uber drivers. The Uber drivers are all shattered little groups. So now the platform that is producing that new kind of business will pay the GST. And that's fair on our taxi drivers who've been doing so all along. It's actually really really important that we get that economy in proportion to other parts of our economy and we don't encourage one over the other. That's an even playing field and it's a damn good idea.The other thing I want to talk about is build-to-rent because again it shows a situation where we have a strong sense of common sense because build-to-rents will be exempt from the interest deductibility—changes made last year so that build-to-rents will be encouraged and that will encourage investment in the right places in this economy. I commend this bill to the House."