Whaitiri Meka: Taxation (Residential Land Withholding Tax GST on Online Services and Student Loans) Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWhaitiri Meka: Taxation (Residential Land Withholding Tax GST on Online Services and Student Loans) Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 31 March 2016. Volume:712;Page:10133. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Greetings to all members of the House. I am honoured to take a call on this second reading of the Taxation (Residential Land Withholding Tax GST on Online Services and Student Loans) Bill. The bill introduces amendments to the Student Loan Scheme Act 2011 the Income Tax Act 2007 the Goods and Services Tax Act 1985 and the Tax Administration Act 1994. If there was a bill that could address those particular taxes to create a fair innovative futureproof piece of legislation this was to be it. But unfortunately the Government has not delivered on that opportunity at all. Unfortunately it has been dragging its feet on applying GST to products bought from overseas and it is failing to back small and medium sized businesses in this country and that goes beyond the reach of a lot of small businesses in achieving the Kiwi Dream.Despite National being in Government for 7 years the best it can come up with is a bill that clearly does not address those critical issues when it could have at the front end of the administration and it does not go deep enough. It does not go to help small businesses in New Zealand which clearly deserve a better deal. Although we should not be surprised at this kind of treatment from the National Government it has completely lost its way. For example charging GST on remote services is only one step in the process. There are not many Kiwi companies competing with iTunes or Netflix. Consequently as an upshot all this starts to look like it is a tax grab by the National Government rather than an attempt again to create a level playing field. The Government needs to stand up for main street businesses especially small family-run businesses and not just those online.Then we come to the residential land withholding tax. Its intent is to ensure that the brightline test tax on residential property sales is paid by overseas buyers and that is yet to be proven. It is something that is a necessary part but again the criticism of this bill is that it does not go deep enough. We do think that it has been a bit half-baked and the opportunity to be innovative has been lost. We on this side believe that addressing the housing crisis through this particular part of the bill will probably not be met and it is unfortunate that for many many Kiwis around the country their dream of homeownership will again be beyond their reach. The criticism that the bill has not been well-thought-through goes to obviously the Minister of Finance himself admitting that he was not quite aware of the impact on that particular part of this bill.But it is to the student loan situation that I want to turn my attention a little bit. As a mother of two teenaged boys who have started their first year at university—and I do not expect them to go overseas when they complete their studies—it prompted me to do a bit of research around the student loan situation that is currently facing this country. What I found from getting some information from the library is that there is a trend of student loans clearly going up in this country. In the year 2010-11 what it has said is the closing balance—that is the total of what is owed at any single point—is just over $12 billion. Fast forward into 2014-15 and the closing balance was $14.8 billion.So there is clearly huge uptake of student loans in this country and we should be investing in our young people—we should be investing in our young people—but the point around the exchange with Australia to ensure that we are sharing information is that our young people are not just going to Australia. They are going to other parts of the world and if we were to make this futureproof to ensure that all students who take out loans enter into a social contract with the Government to pay that money back—they are not just going to Australia; they are going to other parts of the world—it would have been an opportunity for the Government to ensure that we had exchanges with other countries where our students reside.It is on that closing note that we support the second reading of this bill and look forward to when we get into the Committee stage so we can test some of those clauses in the bill. Kia ora tātou.