Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you Mr Speaker. It's always a great pleasure and sometimes a great amusement to speak after the Green Party on a piece of legislation. And they're speech number six and we're speech number seven so happily it happens very often. We've just heard Chlöe Swarbrick get up and say Isn't it terrible that $1 trillion of wealth was added to property values because of cheap money?". I don't want to start beating the Green Party up with history but which party voted for the Reserve Bank to have a dual mandate that led to the low interest rates that led to the money printing that led to the inflation of house values that transferred so much money away from younger New Zealanders?Hon Paul Goldsmith: The Labour Party!DAVID SEYMOUR: Do we hear anything? Yes! The Labour Party and the Green Party. That's right. So when we talk about hyperinflation of housing they are absolutely guilty. And then the Green Party says "The economy's not a deity that we should bow down and make sacrifices to." Well I know that this is no longer a pagan world but the ACT Party is not in favour of bowing down and making sacrifices to any deity—we're trying to separate politics and religion in this country. We're trying to have rational economic debate about how we create opportunity for the next generation of New Zealanders.And that is why the ACT Party stands wholly opposed to this Taxation (Annual Rates for 2021-22 GST and Remedial Matters) Bill. You see Parliament does this every year. And I'll give you one thing: it's good that we live in a country where the Government can't take your money in taxes unless this Parliament that everyone can vote for actually has a debate and a vote and agrees—in quite a few pages; 137 pages—that this is what the law says. No taxation without representation. That is a very good thing; perhaps the best of things in a free society.The problem the ACT Party has is that there's too much taxation and not enough representation in this particular bill. Where to start? Well it starts off by selecting the tax rates that people pay. It says that if you earn over $180000 that income gets taxed at 39c in the dollar. I know what people will say: "Stuff them they earn too much money. They've got it we're going to take it." That's what they like to say and I just ask the Labour Party: where is the future for a country where it is acceptable to take stuff because they've got it and we can? We've got to stop thinking that way because we're not going to become a wealthier country if we say "39c in the dollar. You worked hard at school you studied you got qualifications you worked hard at work you saved your money you invested carefully what you've put away you have an income over $180000. Well stuff you we're going to put an extra tax just to take a bit more because we can." That is the wrong values for any country.Then it says 33c from $70000 to $180000. Then it says from $48000 to $70000: 30c. So you're on $48000 and you add an extra dollar of income—you work hard you earn it—and you get to keep 70c. Well the ACT Party says that's wrong. And we put up amendments that no other party voted for that would have given a generous middle-income tax cut: dropping that 30c down to 17-and-a-half. All the way from $14000 to $70000 you pay 17.50c under ACT's generous middle-income tax policy. And it is a representative democracy. We put that up for every other party to vote on and none of them did. None of them wanted to give $2000—a real tax cut for middle-income earners—back to Kiwis.The funny thing about it is that the Government has increased the amount of tax it takes off the average person in the last four years by about $2000—adjusted for inflation which is significant now. We wanted to give it back; no one else did and that's a good reason to vote ACT—because taxpayers have had enough.We had Barbara Edmonds get up and say "This is not the time of tax cuts." Well let me just give you a fact into the debate. You know the Government's tax take in the last two years has gone from $85 billion up to $103 billion this year forecast. So when the Government takes an extra $15 billion in two years—you know if the Government's just taken $15 billion extra in two years and people are struggling to pay their bills that's not the time to let people keep more of their own money? What that tells you is that Barbara Edmonds and the Labour Party will never ever leave you "Sure to Rise" because they don't want anybody to ever get any of their taxes back I can tell you.What else does this bill do? It introduces the brightline test. How many stories have we heard of people who now have to change their plans? Can't move for work because if they leave their house when they sell it after 10 years they're eligible to pay income tax. Tens sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars of tax people will have to pay just for doing what New Zealanders ordinarily do: living in their home. But if they live outside their home for a year over 10 years—perhaps they moved for a job or whatever—then all of a sudden they're liable for tax. How disruptive is that?And I say to the National Party—the National Party say "Look a brightline test's OK so long as it's only two years." I say to them what I said in 2015: "Don't do it. Because if you introduce a brightline tax at two years guess what! Taxes are like acorns. They grow." You put it there at two years then it's five years then it's 10 soon it'll be 15. It's a de facto capital gains tax on your house right now because National introduced it Labour expanded it what do you expect? The ACT Party's the only party that said "no" to a brightline test and we predicted it would expand at the time. And Mr Speaker's looking there wisely because he knows he remembers it well too. Then what else does it do? It takes mortgage interest deductibility away from landlords. Now this is probably the dumbest of all. And I just go back a step: ACT put up legislation saying "Let's get rid of the brightline test." Every other party had an opportunity to vote to get rid of the brightline test. No other party did. The National Party said "As long as it's only two years it's OK." Labour Party said "We want it to be forever." The Green Party probably wants you to be taxed indefinitely. The ACT Party says "Let's get rid of it."Then there's the mortgage interest deductibility. Now here's the thing when this policy was introduced by the Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern she said "We're going to tilt the playing field towards first-home buyers." Well this is a case study in somebody who doesn't know how to separate intentions from outcomes when it comes to setting policy. Here's how it works. We have a tight rental market; that's why rents have gone up like a rocket for New Zealanders up and down this country. And when extra costs go on to landlords in a tight rental market what do they do? They increase the cost of rent. And if you put an extra tax on landlords what is that going to do to tenants? They're going to have to pay more rent to help the landlord cover the tax.Now here's the next question. What sort of people are tenants? If they're renting they probably don't own a home—most of the time. And if they don't own a home but they'd like to own one then they are first-home buyers. So the Prime Minister—trying to tilt the playing field towards first-home buyers—has put extra taxes on first-home buyers made it harder for them to save a deposit and actually sabotaged her own policy. I mean it's incredible how big the gulf is between great Instagram and good intentions on the one hand and actual policy that works and does what it says on the tin on the other hand. But that sadly is our first ever Instagram Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. And people are hurting because of bad policy that she makes and promotes and it's not the first time she's done it.The ACT Party of course put up an amendment to this bill where we said "Let's get rid of the mortgage interest deductibility removal." Or "Let's keep mortgage interest deductibility for landlords because actually it's the right thing to do." Every party had the opportunity to vote for it; none of them did. So what comes out of this is that if you believe in lower taxes if you believe that people should be able to keep more of their own money and if you believe that people that get up and try to make a difference in their own lives and the lives of people they care about then of course there's only one party in this Parliament through the passage of this bill—the annual rates bill setting the taxes for New Zealand this year—that has stood up for lower taxes and people making a difference in their own lives and that is the ACT Party that proudly opposes this bill which puts tall poppy syndrome in the tax code holds us down and hurts the very people the Prime Minister said she was trying to help. Thank you Mr Speaker.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): Members the time has come for me to leave the Chair. This fascinating debate will resume at 7 p.m.Sitting suspended from 5.58 p.m. to 7 p.m."