Woodhouse MichaelHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): I was fascinated at comments made by the Minister in the chair David Parker in his response to my colleague Chris Penk. I'm paraphrasing but it's close: he said that these changes were not likely to put pressure on the economy because the people who are benefiting from these changes are likely to be spending them on the essentials on the basics. It conjures up some idea that people on higher incomes are somehow dashing to their gilt merchants and their sharebrokers if indeed we were to give them some kind of tax break. Right? Well I've got news for the Minister. They used to be supporters of the Labour Party. They used to be the union members of the teachers and the nurses and the police. They are middle-income New Zealanders and they're getting nothing from this Government certainly not from this Budget. In a previous rebuttal to Mr Brownlee he also implied—rather to Mr Bridges and Mr Brownlee—in refuting his tabled amendment to change the tax threshold changes that he basically admitted that a Labour Government would never adjust the tax threshold changes because I would benefit from it as an upper-income earner. That is the level of jealousy that we see from this Government. They can't possibly help somebody in the middle-income bracket—say from $48000 to $70000.Hon Dr David Clark: It was the National Government that didn't do indexing.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Well this Government reversed those changes actually. He's a bit tricky with history that Dr Clark.Simeon Brown: He likes his bike though.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: He sure does and his beach walks but he cannot bring himself to support tax threshold changes because everybody benefits. Remember the slogan? This was a Government for all New Zealanders only those who earn say more than $70000 don't get diddly—in fact they get punished for their endeavours.It's also worth bearing in mind what the Minister said. Actually who pays the income tax because the Treasury documents from Budget 2020—and I haven't analysed this year's Budget—show unequivocally that the top 21 percent of income earners pay 64 percent of income tax and the bottom 48 percent of income earners pay 8 percent of the income tax base and do you know what? I've said it repeatedly: I think that's fair. It's quite progressive and if it were adjusted for inflation I think that's fair enough. People who earn more should pay a higher proportion of their wages to tax but not in the punitive way that this Government has done. We've punished endeavour. They've increased the top tax rate to 39 percent and my tabled amendment seeks to remove the top tax rate to undo that punishment.Because here's what's going to happen: they're not going to be paying tax; they're going to be paying for their airline tickets to Australia where incomes are higher and the lower thresholds are just that—the lower income thresholds are lower here—and the opportunities are better and the house prices are cheaper. Those doctors and those highly paid professionals will be looking at the job ads and the real estate pages in Australia.I should add that we are going to have another go at improving things for middle-income New Zealanders. I'm aware that there will be tabled amendments in the names of my colleagues Nicola Willis and the Hon Gerry Brownlee.Chris Bishop: Oh they'll be good ones.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: They are very good ones. I've just had a look at the drafts and they're excellent. I think we need to have that discussion. We need more remedial measures in this bill to make it fairer for hard-working middle-income New Zealanders to get ahead.