Williams Andrew: Budget Measures (Miscellaneous Fiscal Matters) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWilliams Andrew: Budget Measures (Miscellaneous Fiscal Matters) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee[Sitting date: 15 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:18027. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First): I take a call on behalf of New Zealand First on the omnibus Budget Measures (Miscellaneous Fiscal Matters) Bill covering cheque duty climate change and building supplies. Firstly cheque duty—it is too late to really comment on this. This should have been done years ago. Again it is a little trifling matter that the Government has pulled out in this particular Budget. It is just another way of it padding the Budget out to make it look better than it actually is. Cheque duty should have been done away with years ago not 6 years into this Government given the number of cheques that are issued. I was told this morning that the largest issuer of cheques in this country is the Inland Revenue Department and it is exempt from paying cheque duty. So is it not ironic that the Government the single biggest writer of cheques does not have to pay duty on them? That was a bit of nonsense. The fact thatNew Zealanders have not been paying duty on electronic transactions and other forms of transactions has made it quite an anomaly and it is time that that went.However moving on to climate change New Zealand First wants the New Zealand Government to have a serious response to climate change and this provision is not it. What is now apparent is that a great majority of countries see climate change as a result of increasing greenhouse gases and as a major global challenge. New Zealand First does not argue with that. Climate change is a reality. New Zealand First is opposed to New Zealand’s emissions trading scheme the ETS. We consider it far too complex and far too impractical. It was concocted by financial theorists for the benefit it would seem of the financial sector—a Merrill Lynch solution or really a non-solution from the likes of Merrill Lynch.As a serious response to climate change the emissions trading scheme has been as we foresaw a dismal failure—window dressing. It has failed to deliver significant emissions reductions. In addition there is little evidence that it is actually helping industry to change to a lower-carbon world. The emissions trading scheme has been systematically rorted. We have seen the unit values go from something like $23 or $24 down to a couple of dollars internationally. What an absolute embarrassment in terms of that scheme. A vast industry has grown around the emissions trading scheme but it has delivered few real results and this bill is part of the mess that has ensued from the emissions trading scheme. The bill is a consequence of the mess confusion and financial game-playing that has come from the emissions trading scheme. The emissions trading scheme was a half-baked scheme and the need for this bill demonstrates that.It is time that New Zealand had a serious policy and plan to address climate change. Climate change is possibly the greatest challenge to our future. Yesterday’s Budget pretended it was not happening at all. That exposes the total lack of vision of the National Government. This Budget fails to deliver any meaningful policy on climate change and for that and other reasons it is a manifest failure.On to the building supplies part of this bill—we have great difficulties with this. New Zealand First really does question this as well. New Zealand First anticipates that there will be all sorts of unintended consequences from this building supplies part of the bill. Removing anti-dumping duties could adversely impact the New Zealand economy. There is a reason for anti-dumping duties being in place. It was to protect local manufacturers. We have seen no evidence that the negative impacts on New Zealand jobs and businesses have been fully considered or taken into account in devising this bill. It smacks of being another of National’s knee-jerk responses to the housing crisis a crisis of its own making. But instead of taking meaningful measures—specifically curbing immigration and foreign buying of New Zealand housing stock—it decided to throw to the wolves the local manufacturers of construction products.In this bill there is no actual mechanism for ensuring that the claimed cost reductions will in fact be translated into lower house prices. It is a hope and a dream that by getting cheaper imported goods into this country for construction the price of houses will go down. It will simply mean that the margins will go up for many of those constructing the houses and putting them up.There may be cost reductions but that remains to be seen and quite frankly we are very sceptical. It is also questionable. Today Elephant Plasterboard a New Zealand manufacturer of plasterboard said that we also need to be very mindful of the products coming in—whether they will have full warranties guarantees and longevity. There will be increased supplies from the likes of China Thailand Korea and Indonesia and questionable quality standards.Many of us have witnessed the leaky homes of the 1990s which came about from the National Government changing the building code and allowing building products and kiln-dried timber to be used during the 1990s. Now in the 2000s we have ended up spending at least an additional $11 billion heading towards $20 billion on leaky homes because of inferior products being used in the construction of our residential houses. We have the potential here by knocking local good-quality manufacturing on the head and allowing increased imports from questionable sources to go through another period where—what will the plasterboard standards be? What will the standard of the nails be? I can assure you that I have built a number of properties and I have used nails. Nails are deteriorating in quality year on year. So what will be the quality of the nails?Recently I was told of trailers being sold in New Zealand that are coming in complete from Asia and they are now being given only 2 years’ warranty when New Zealand manufacturers of similar trailers give you virtually a lifetime guarantee. They will go on and on and on. A good decent trailer will last for ever but the ones that are being brought in now out of China and being sold considerably cheaper are given only 2 years’ warranty.The Government has plucked a figure out of thin air as the cost reduction on a standard house—a nice round figure of $3500 which sounds good but is totally unquantifiable. Where did this figure come from? Answer: the back of some envelope in Treasury. We predict there will be business closures in the building supplies sector. There will be job losses. The cost of building supplies is an important issue but ill-considered legislation is not the answer. Reducing GST on building supplies was another and better option. There is no evidence that that option was considered.It is critically important that we protect the manufacturing base—not just expose it at short notice to unfair competition. But once again the fate of the New Zealand manufacturing base appears not to matter to this Government. This Government has spent much of this year pooh-poohing the Opposition which raised concerns about the state of our manufacturing. Sure our agricultural manufacturing is doing very well and some sectors of manufacturing are surviving in terms of IT and smart manufacture but there are areas of what you would call manufacturing for home products consumer products and building products—products used in everyday life in New Zealand that are produced in this country—that are under real pressure. Those manufacturers which in many cases are also exporters under a very high New Zealand dollar heading towards 90c are in dire straits in many cases.This is yet another nail in the coffin for local manufacturers. Taking away the last of those anti-dumping duties will allow greater imports from many many Asian countries in particular where their cost of production is so much less where their cost of labour is so much less and where their quality of materials is perhaps more questionable. Therefore New Zealand First has great reservations about aspects of this total bill.