Webb DuncanDr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Thank you Mr Chair. Well that was the Hoola from Hunua". What a lot of rubbish—loud rubbish I'll give him that.CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! No nicknames. Proper names OK? Kia ora.Dr DUNCAN WEBB: Thank you Mr Chair. That was a lot of hot air from the member from Hunua Mr Andrew Bayly. I must say that it was highly inaccurate as well and in that it's deeply disappointing as he well knows because he sat on the committee opposite me and heard those figures monthly and quarterly. Employment is higher; unemployment is lower than it has ever been. So to say that jobs are falling is simply wrong and I am disappointed in the member in scaremongering in that way. To say that less has been spent on health is simply false. Whilst the National Government didn't settle the claim of the care workers and we have had to make up for their dilatoriness in that respect—that's not proper accounting. The fact of the matter is there's more being spent on health now than there ever has been. And do you know what? The fact of the matter is we're not scaring off foreign investment; what we're doing is we're setting our house in order. We are saying that investment in residential houses in New Zealand is for New Zealanders and at the very same time as the member well knows we are making sure that investment into forestry in New Zealand is encouraged and engendered and that's a great thing.So look after all that hot air what I want to do is turn to some of the great things that we're doing. I just do want to say one thing for Christchurch because we did look at Vote Prime Minister and Cabinet where the budget for the Earthquake Commission inquiry is coming from and I know that the people of Christchurch are impatient for this and one of the reason this hasn't happened yet is because of this very debate—that we need to pass this legislation and this appropriation so that this can happen. But it's very clear that it will happen. The appropriation is there over $2 million for that inquiry—an inquiry that is desperately needed because things have gone wrong there and we need to know what and for the people of Wellington and the rest of New Zealand we need to make sure that that very important entity is in shape. So that inquiry is happening. The appropriations are there. The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet are managing the process of appointment and I was very heartened to hear that.One of the other great joys of the select committee was the Estimates for Vote Revenue which might seem unusual but in fact what it does show is how important revenue gathering is. I was very heartened to see that there is effort there are funds there are resources being put into making sure that everyone pays their fair share of tax including in fact funds to make sure that debts that haven't been paid where assessments have been made but there hasn't been the resources within IRD to go back and collect those funds—that the resources are there now. That is expected to reap $183 million in additional revenue and I'm very glad to see that.Of course we know about GST collection in offshore retailers; that's a great initiative. It's one that's had a bit of a rocky road in Australia with the Amazon reaction but I'm very confident that the Minister of Revenue is managing that well and that in fact we will see not only proper revenue gathering for offshore sales in terms of GST but equal treatment for our retailers. I think that's very important because we don't want someone to be getting things tax-free offshore and giving offshore retailers the edge over our own domestic retailers who are doing the decent thing and paying their GST on time and appropriately.As has been mentioned already I must mention the removal of secondary tax. This is really important because what we do know is that people who pay secondary tax are frequently low-income people who are having to work more than one job. There are two really good things here—firstly it means that people will get their entire after-tax pay in their pocket at the right time and the second thing is this: the tax agents out there who are making easy money on the churn of tax returns won't be making that money any more because the tax system will make them redundant. That's in fact a good thing. What is means is that people will simply get their pay and they won't have to pay for getting their tax return done. So to the Minister of Revenue: well done for one of many great initiatives."