Bayly AndrewANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Thank you—I was waiting for my turn. It is a pleasure to be talking on this Taxation (Annual Rates for 2022-23 Platform Economy and Remedial Matters) Bill (No 2) second reading.Well there you have it. There you have it. What do you use taxes for? Well yes you do use them for health and education—that's right. But you also use them for the consultants to advise you on a broadcasting merger three waters disaster—what else are we going to talk about? Even today we had the New Zealand Productivity Commission before the Finance and Expenditure Committee. Small entity $5 million turnover and guess what? They spent $883000—nearly one-fifth of their budget—on consultants. This is the party and now we've got organisations just addicted to this type of stuff.So that comment about Is it great to tax?" yes it is great to tax for the right reasons. But the reason is you've got to have a meaningful purpose and you don't waste other people's money. Unfortunately we've got a Government that never regards other people's money as something you shouldn't waste; they think about inventing new ways of spending it and that's what we've seen.But I'm so glad I had to sit and listen to Dr Deborah Russell because I always enjoy her lectures.Hon Stuart Nash: Did you learn something?ANDREW BAYLY: I did Mr Nash. A thought did cross my mind about her students. I now realise how students benefit from her lofty ideals and good thought-through elucidation of the tax system—I thought it was intriguing. I loved the line about the deputy leader of the National Party using raw numbers. Of course we're starting to talk about proportionality.Of course we had a Minister of Education today talking about proportionality. Now I'm not bad with numbers—I'm not fantastic but I'm not bad—but even I was struggling to understand what the dickens she was talking about. And here we are we've got Dr Deborah Russell talking about—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): You know if the member wouldn't mind—getting slightly carried away. The member will come back to the bill please. Passing reference to some other matter yes. But back to the bill. Thank you.ANDREW BAYLY: Thank you. So the raw data she thought was pretty unsophisticated. Well actually from my recollection the $43 billion that my good colleague Nicola Willis referred to came out of the Budget documents. So I actually think it's not a bad source Mr David Parker. I'm sure you'd even agree with that.But the issue is $43 billion of additional spending—per annum by the way; that's the increase: it's not over the period the increase now is $43 billion this year—the impact of that $17500 per family. New Zealand families on average are sending $17500 more to the Government in terms of paying more tax.And I just had a thought: "I wonder what I could do with $17500?" So I've just been looking here and I thought about "What would Mr Nash want to do with $17500?" So I thought "Well maybe I'll have a look at cars." So the first car I looked at I thought "Maybe Mr Nash would go for a sporty coupe type." I thought "What could you buy for $17500?" I reckon Mr Nash would look really smart with his wife in a 2019 Ford Focus—that's the one that James Bond used to drive. And I thought "How would you feel about 71000 on the clock? That's not a bad little number." It's not a bad offering—if I had $17500 and was a family actually I wouldn't go amiss with that.Hon Michael Woodhouse: Actually he wouldn't be seen dead in a Ford Focus.ANDREW BAYLY: Oh yeah well then I thought "He might be a bit more conservative." So I thought "What would he do if he bought a sedan?" So what about Mr Nash a 2014 Honda hybrid—and it says "Very very good condition." I've just got to get the name here—oh yeah 2014 Honda Grace hybrid. And I thought that would be very good.So when Dr Deborah Russell is saying "It's ordinary facts and don't worry about it; we've all got to pay our fair share of tax." The implication for New Zealand families is that they're now paying the Government $17500 more than what they ought to have and what they would have and what they will have if they elect National in the next coming election because we are going to reverse the thresholds and of course this bill does no such thing.On those grounds alone we oppose this bill. Because we want to make sure New Zealanders are better off and when you think about our tax proposals—to take everyone's tax bill; what they might have been paying back in 2017 when this Labour Government came to power and what they're paying today: that is worth about $1700 per family. Of course following Christopher Luxon's great announcement over the weekend about the early education rebate—it's $75 a week that's $3900. That's $5500 that a family in New Zealand with children will be better off and that's why this bill is wrong—because it's enshrining this avalanche of new taxes.Now talking about avalanches of new taxes: of course we've been talking about the "app tax". It's a bit of a worry this because the context—contrary to what Dr Deborah Russell was talking about—is that this is a very new proposal. Basically it's only come in in about four or five jurisdictions and whilst the EU is also looking at it—that is true to say—New Zealand is at the forefront of bringing in this new piece of legislation. One of the things we kept asking officials is "Why do we have to be at the forefront? Why does New Zealand have to be at the forefront?"Anna Lorck: Why not?ANDREW BAYLY: There we are it's a new piece of legislation and of course one of the quick reasons we shouldn't be at the forefront—just responding to Anna Lorck's question—is that a number of the operators will have problems complying with this requirement. Because little old New Zealand doesn't actually rank highly in terms of all their systems and changes they're going to have to look at around the world. Contrary to what many people in the Labour Party think little old New Zealand's probably 0.1 percent of their turnover and therefore the requirement to do this—but also the rules are very new. And the OECD has been working on this for quite some time and they've only basically come to some conclusions around it. And yet this Government has chosen to just jump ahead with this proposal.And there is some caution about that; there is some caution why we need to be at the forefront because IRD has certain priorities and I know that Mr David Parker the revenue Minister has had them going down blind alleyways to do stuff around their tax policy for the next election cycle around trusts etc. But actually we want the IRD to be focusing on good stuff: compliance hidden economy actually making sure that New Zealanders are paying their fair share of tax. But no what we've ended up has been diverted into this "app tax". And there are real risks around this and of course what my good colleague the Hon Michael Woodhouse continuously tried to point out to Dr Deborah Russell was that there is a rule that you do not have to pay GST below the threshold of $60000—Hon Michael Woodhouse: Don't have to return.ANDREW BAYLY: Don't have to return. Now commonly we heard quotes about taxi drivers. Actually when I rang the New Zealand Taxi Federation in the main they all earn more than $60000 so they have to pay GST. The average value on Airbnb which we heard is $5600. So this is a tax that's going to chase people who want to go away for a holiday in January February or Easter coming up or whatever it might be and they will now have to pay more for their bach or for Uber or whatever they want to do—because of the introduction of this. And it will be a serious increase in the cost; even the officials said that it'd likely lead to a 15 percent increase.Hon David Parker: No they didn't.ANDREW BAYLY: I know there's an argument about the "net off". I understand that but the officials said that and that is what it will ultimately mean for New Zealand families going away—once this comes into play next year Mr Parker that they will be paying more for that bach than they would have this year and that is a problem in a cost of living crisis in New Zealand largely made up of the Labour Government's proliferate spending habits."