Rurawhe AdrianHon Julie Anne Genter: Madam Speaker?ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Point of order the Hon Julie Anne Genter.Hon Julie Anne Genter: It's not a point of order; I'm rising to take a call.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Oh I see—the Hon Julie Anne Genter.Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): Thank you very much Madam Speaker. Congratulations on your appointment and Mr Speaker who is taking the Chair congratulations on your appointment.Look I absolutely agree with the goals of this legislation and I think we all would agree that we want New Zealand to be a fairer place. It's absolutely fair to have progressive income taxation and to put up the top tax rate. The Green Party campaigned on two new top thresholds. Of course that revenue buys us stuff that benefits us all. If it weren't for tax we wouldn't have the amazing services that we have delivered by ACC if we have some sort of accident and have to go to the hospital—if we didn't have the health services that have been able to keep us safe during a global pandemic. Tax pays for our teachers our doctors—many of our doctors and nurses. It pays for infrastructure that we all share collectively that we couldn't buy on our own whether that is roads footpaths cycleways or railways. There's all manner of infrastructure and services that we buy collectively with our tax dollars and it's fair for those who have the most to give a little bit more. The Green Party is abstaining on this bill because we cannot in good conscience vote for this bill without it taking the steps that are needed and have been recommended by experts for decades now to fix some of the holes in our tax system that lead to imbalances that mean that there is a perverse incentive for the highest income earners and the wealthiest to put more and more of their money into property particularly at this moment in time when we've seen house prices increase by nearly 20 percent in one year and at a time when the country is entering a recession and facing increasing unemployment—that is almost unprecedented. We have good reason to believe that putting up the top tax rate increasing the gap between that top tax rate and the rate of tax on assets and property—which is you know zero at the moment—will have the perverse outcome of increasing inequality. We cannot in good conscience vote for that. It's really important I think that we raise this in this debate. I have to speak now to some of the ridiculous arguments raised by the National Party spokesperson Andrew Bayly earlier in this debate about people being motivated by trying to minimise their tax—that people would literally move to other countries to pay less tax. If that is true good luck to them in this global pandemic. Try moving to a country where the Government doesn't have the resources it needs to respond to the global pandemic. I would say that people want to come to a country like New Zealand which is well run and particularly the billionaires—some of whom do their part and try to campaign for progressive tax change in the United States. But the billionaires who have benefited personally from an extremely unequal and unfair tax system in the United States are trying to flee that country because it is a disaster because it is a mess because there is a lack of public infrastructure and there's actually a breakdown in the social fabric. Frankly the slogans repeated by the National Party tonight and all the time on the campaign trail remind me so much of that country where I was born and grew up because it went down an even more extreme route of creating inequality through cutting personal taxes demonising the idea of tax and that results in—David Seymour: What's the top federal and state rate if you live in California?Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Well actually California's doing quite well but at a federal level inequality is quite bad. What you find even in the United States since we're talking about this is that people don't move to the countries that have the lowest personal tax rate—at least the majority of them don't. You know why? Because most people aren't selfish. Most people are generous. And in New Zealand in particular we have a cultural value of manaakitanga. That is sharing. That is giving. When we are in a position to give we are happy to give and we are proud to make a contribution to our community and to our country. The idea that our competitive advantage is lowering tax is absurd because the small countries that have high productivity and high standards of living that we would aspire to be like have more progressive taxation they have a higher share of GDP as Government spending and they benefit from that—everyone in those societies benefits from a more productive and inclusive economy. I know that New Zealanders are generous and do want that but I do have to mention that I think the role the National Party has played in this political debate to stop the types of tax reform that are desperately needed in New Zealand is irresponsible. Continually getting up and talking about rising house prices and how house prices are rising faster in New Zealand than in most other—all other—OECD countries this year—that is true and there is no doubt our lack of any sort of capital gains tax or deemed income from capital and wealth is part of the reason why house prices have consistently risen faster here than any other country in the OECD. So no one is saying that it's a silver bullet or it's going to solve the housing crisis to have a capital gains tax but there is no doubt that it would take the edge off and remove the perverse incentive to constantly put more money into property and importantly it is a fair thing to do. In the past three years the owners of property and other assets made over $250 billion of tax-free capital gains—just in the last three years. Applying a pretty reasonable low tax rate to that would have easily covered the Government's $50 billion COVID recovery fund and it would have been fair. The wealthiest people many of them know this and are begging Governments to tax them because they know they can't on their own with their personal wealth—they might be able to buy another personal jet or a few more houses or whatnot. One that doesn't buy you happiness and two that doesn't buy you a country where you can look around and see that your fellow country people have the same opportunities that you and your children do. Most people who value fairness and equality want to see that and want to contribute to that and they know they can't do it by themselves. It's a systemic fix. It needs to happen and we need our political debate in New Zealand to confront that. And it won't as long as this tiny minority of people on the right go out there and demonise and scaremonger about tax so that it stops us from having a reasonable debate—like the capital gains tax that was recommended by the Tax Working Group. Eighty percent of New Zealanders would have been better off as a result of the tax changes that were recommended by that group. That's the vast majority. The 20 percent who would pay a little bit more are the 20 percent who can most afford it. Fundamentally I think we all want to live in a country where the child of poor parents has every opportunity the same opportunity as the child of rich parents. That is no longer the case in New Zealand and it will get worse if we don't confront these issues with rapidly rising house prices. Some of the issue is supply and of course the Government is doing what it can on that but the Government does need more revenue in order to provide the infrastructure in order to provide the services and in order to play a proactive role in actually building houses and supporting community housing providers to have affordable rent.So there are many opportunities and I think there are many shared values within this House right now—obviously just ignoring the extremists to my right but—they're just confused about—[Interruption] I know that 1980s economic ideology was so appealing to them that they've never had to confront the reality that the empirical evidence doesn't support their ideological positions.But the Green Party will be here to work constructively with and also challenge the Labour Government. I know we have many shared values and I think that we have a really important role to play in raising the importance and urgency of addressing both the demand side and the supply side issues that are causing our current ramp-up in house prices. We don't want this concentration of wealth to get even more extreme. Ultimately if we believe in democracy if we believe in fairness then our tax system and our Government has to even up the playing field by taxing those untaxed capital gains just like income and using the revenue to pay for the public services and infrastructure that benefit us all.DEPUTY SPEAKER: I call Damien Smith—hope I've got the right name.