Shaw James; Williams PotoHon JAMES SHAW (Minister for Climate Change): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. I'm pleased to be able to take a call in support of the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2019–20 GST Offshore Supplier Registration and Remedial Matters) Bill—one of the most snappily titled bills I've had the chance to speak on yet this year! I'd like to just focus on five of the really primo parts of the bill some of which haven't had a lot of air time and to kind of focus on some of those areas that haven't gotten a lot of attention. But I will come back to some of the points that have been a matter for debate in the House such as the ring-fencing deductions on rental properties and also the online GST issue.But I just wanted to start with one of the provisions of the bill allowing tax records to be kept in Te Reo which I think—you know not a lot of people know that about this bill—is a fantastic innovation. It's one of those frankly quite small things that we can do that I think sends a really big signal both in terms of ensuring that the Government is living up to its Te Tiriti o Waitangi obligations but actually just to say to people Look tangata whenua should be able to conduct their business with the Government in their own language." To me that's just a basic right that you're able to do that and I'm really pleased that this bill has enabled that. It just shows that we are slowly edging towards a more inclusive and responsible society through measures like that.The second measure in this bill that I just wanted to focus on that again don't think has had a lot of debate today is around allowing the Commissioner of Inland Revenue to consider other information when exempting victims of sex offences from paying child support for children born as a result of sexual violence. I think again particularly given the programme of work that we've got in this Government on domestic and sexual violence that this is particularly important because at the moment the way that the system is set up is that it looks like we're penalising a victim of sexual assault simply because the perpetrator hasn't been convicted and that's obviously a perverse outcome that's really at odds with the culture shift that we're trying to generate in this.If you think about those two provisions the ability to hold your tax records in Te Reo and making it easier for the Commissioner of Inland Revenue to exempt victims of sex offences from paying child support for children born as a result of sexual violence those are kind of deep social issues that you don't normally see come up through tax law and it is great to see this bill extending those out.There's also a great little provision in this bill which allows Inland Revenue to collect student loan deductions from things like people who are working casually on election day or from casual agricultural work and so on. That will reduce end-of-year obligations paid by student loan borrowers. So again it's just one of those small provisions making life a little bit easier for people who are often in pretty tight financial conditions—making life easier for them. Those are three of the smaller provisions that I don't think have had a lot of air time which I just did want to bring to the surface and to people's attention.I know there has been a lot of debate in the House today around the ring-fencing of rental properties so that they can't be used to reduce tax on other income. I just want to pick up on one of the comments that was made by Judith Collins before because she talked about how people may have been burnt by the 1987 stock market crash and are therefore wary about investing in the stock market because of the 1987 stock market crash. I do know that the stock market does have its ups and downs and that there are members present who may have had their fingers burnt in the 1987 stock market crash. The logic that Ms Collins is applying is saying that because people have been burnt on investments in the stock market we should therefore maintain preferential tax treatment for investment properties over investments in the other parts—particularly in the more productive parts—of the economy. Pretty much every economist agrees on this point that we have a massive over-investment in investment properties and not in the productive parts of the economy. It's a huge imbalance in our economy.The idea that because people might be worried about the stock market going up and down we should therefore continue to tilt the playing field away from productive investments and towards property is completely absurd. It is utterly absurd. So I just think that this provision which in the grand scheme of things isn't actually all that big goes some small way to trying to create a more level playing field between investment property on the one hand and the productive parts of the economy on the other. So to me it's an absurd proposition that because there was a stock market crash in 1987 and previously in 1929 we should therefore have this massive over-investment in property because somehow that kind of makes sense.I think the other point to make on this point is that when you look across the investment categories there are persistent tax losses that are being declared by property investors on their properties—like persistently—which suggests that they hold those for capital gain which of course they don't pay tax on rather than actually the rental income right? So they're not actually renting these houses out for rental income; they're renting them out and declaring losses in order to maximise their capital gain which of course they don't pay tax on. So to me it's completely absurd that you would maintain those kinds of existing settings. I do really strongly support the loss ring-fencing because I do think in some small way it will help to level the playing field between the productive part of the economy and investment properties.The last piece that I just wanted to pick up on which my colleague Fletcher Tabuteau spoke fairly extensively on before is about the requirement that offshore suppliers of low-value goods register for collect and return GST when their sales exceed $60000. This has been a long time coming. Deborah Russell has made a point of this before which is that this is a really pragmatic response to a changing world in which it is at least as easy if not actually easier to buy goods online than from your local retailer outlet. So at the moment we've actually got this quite absurd situation where we're actually encouraging people to buy small goods overseas from internet giants that generally don't pay any tax in New Zealand anyway or pay very little tax in New Zealand anyway rather than from small New Zealand businesses. As Mr Tabuteau pointed out we have 26000 small businesses in this country that employ something in the order of 62000 employees and the idea at the moment is that actually there's an advantage going to the likes of Amazon and so on which last time I checked is not short of cash. So I think that this does go some way towards levelling the playing field and to me this provision isn't really about collecting revenue; it's much more about ensuring that there's a level playing field between small retailers in New Zealand and some of the big offshore internet giants overseas.I know that retailers and small businesses in New Zealand will be delighted with this and I think that they will probably be scratching their heads at why the National Party which likes to talk about itself as the champion of business and in particular small business would be voting against a bill that actually explicitly creates a more level playing field for New Zealand small businesses rather than these big offshore businesses that don't pay a lot of tax domestically. If I was a retailer in New Zealand I would be really wondering what on earth the Opposition was doing voting against that provision. If I was Māori and wanted to be able to conduct my business with the Government I would be scratching my head at why the Opposition is voting against a bill that allows me to keep my tax records in Te Reo. If I was a victim of domestic and sexual violence and I felt that the current set-up was discriminating against me I would be scratching my head about why it is the Opposition is voting against a bill that explicitly changes that requirement there. If I was someone who wanted to buy my first home and to be able to have that Kiwi Dream—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! I apologise to the honourable member; your time has expired.Hon James Shaw: I commend this bill to the House.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Thank you."