Swarbrick ChlöeCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): E te Māngai tēnā koe tēnā koutou e te Whare. Just in response initially to the points made by the last speaker: if the length of speeches in this place were a determinant of their quality their substance or their meaning we really are in the Upside Down". Back in the 19th century we were told in places like this in Houses of Parliament across the world that the introduction of PAYE and of itemising income was going to result in the sky falling in and those who are wealthy or on high incomes hiding those incomes to do everything that they possibly could to avoid the way that the tax system was going to change. And of course it has become a norm for us now to expect that good tax systems across the world see their citizens and their residents their taxpayers itemising that income and PAYE being a norm.We're hearing exactly the same things from members of the Opposition right now when it comes to the determination of economic income—that doing this itemisation that providing the sunlight on these datasets and this evidence is somehow going to result in the sky falling in. My question for the members of the Opposition is: "What are they so scared of?" Because if as they just themselves said—the member Penny Simmonds and I quote that "This lays the foundation of a capital gains tax." We heard similar intimations in the previous readings of this bill that it's going to lay this foundation for this mystery tax that is going to come out of nowhere. If it's laying the foundations for a tax change then surely they understand that what we are looking at here is an evidence base that would rationalise that necessary change mandated by the New Zealand public who would find the impetus for that change on the basis that things are presently deeply unfair.I just can't understand what we are hearing from members of the Opposition on this because they have not once gone into any level of detail about any of the seven principles that they oppose. In fact the greatest level of opposition and detail that they've provided as did the ACT member is that they are opposed to or somehow don't quite understand how the trade-offs are going to be reported against. And once again I would make it just abundantly clear as the bill itself does that it is not the role of the IRD to point out where those trade-offs should be but to make explicit that there are trade-offs and that that becomes a political decision.Of those seven principles—of horizontal equity the extent to which people with similar levels of economic income—well you'll find that it's defined in the bill if any of the members of the Opposition would like to read it in contributing to the debate tonight. Then we have efficiency we have vertical equity we have revenue integrity which the member Penny Simmonds also somehow seemed to be really in favour of but hadn't read the bill which is actually going to be ensuring that we are reporting against precisely that which she said was really important. We have consideration of compliance and administrative costs. We have certainty and predictability and flexibility and adaptability.New Zealanders have long had a suspicion that our tax system is unfair but as the former Minister of Revenue the Honourable David Parker just laid out prior to the high-wealth individuals report and project by IRD and supplementary papers from Treasury we did not have any meaningful data or insights into the levels of income held at the top end of town and particularly on that economic income. And what we have with those 311 families surveyed in that dataset are families with an average income of $276 million combined. Prior to that—Hon David Parker: Wealth not income.CHLÖE SWARBRICK: —wealth rather; wealth between them. Prior to that we had not previously seen any meaningful data collection of income above or twice I believe above $20 million. Again I would implore members of the Opposition to point us to which of the tax principles they are opposed to because in lieu of being able to do that we can ascertain that they believe that these principles are important which then leaves us with the question of why they are opposed to seeing those tax principles reported against and that information inserted into the public sphere. The only conclusion that you can draw from that is that they want to keep things secret. They don't want New Zealanders to know this stuff because they don't want to see the logical and evidential foundation laid explicitly and clearly for that capital gains tax or that wealth tax that they are so ideologically and dogmatically opposed to regardless of the evidence which evidentially they are intent on suppressing.Then we heard from members of the Opposition that they are going to be repealing this if they manage to be in a position to form the Government. To that effect I just have to reflect on one of the sentiments that's never left my mind since it came out of the mouth of Andrew Bayly in a tax debate that we were having a few years ago when he said and I quote that "There is such a thing as 'legitimate tax avoidance'." end quote. It's the quiet part said out loud. We have a tax system that enables the wealthiest in this country to continue to arrange their affairs their assets and their wealth in such a way that sees them as reflected in the high wealth individuals report paying an effective tax rate less than half of that of the average New Zealander.So those suspicions that New Zealanders have held for a really really long time have been confirmed in that high wealth individuals report and here we have a piece of legislation which will provide us with a reporting framework sustainably into the future to enable us to continue to have that evidence-informed debate and God forbid a long-term dataset for us to continue having that evidence-informed debate into the future.This is precisely the kind of thing that any good lawmaker with integrity and with a willingness to look at the evidence to produce public policy should be in favour of. I don't really think that there's much else to say here but as the member David Seymour was saying before apparently the quality of our contributions are measured by the amount of time that we consume on the clock. But all I've got to say is that I don't know what the National and ACT Party are so afraid of beyond the evidence which makes it crystal clear that tax settings in this country are unfair and the fact that when the majority of New Zealanders see that laid out clearly concretely and tangibly they will demand change and that change will not look like the propositions from the National or the ACT Party.As Jeanette Fitzsimons the founding co-leader of the Green Party once said "Sunlight is the best disinfectant." and I want to applaud the former Minister of Revenue the Hon David Parker for the amount of work that he has done here laying the foundation for institutional change in reporting and in transparency which means that we can have better public policy in this country once and for all. Because I don't know what the point of this place is without that."