Taxation (Annual Rates, Employee Allowances, and Remedial Matters) Bill

on behalf of the Minister of Revenue: I move, That the Taxation (Annual Rates, Employee Allowances, and Remedial Matters) Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Finance and Expenditure Committee to consider the bill. The Taxation (Annual Rates, Employee Allowances, and Remedial Matters) Bill is a bill that sets out to bring greater clarity to the tax rules and make them easier for businesses and other taxpayers to understand and comply with. The bill proposes clarifications to the tax treatment of employer-provided accommodation, accommodation allowances, and other payments provided by employers to employees to reimburse them for expenditure incurred. Where a person receives remuneration as part of their employment to cover expenses such as accommodation, meals, and clothing, it seems only fair that these items should be treated as the income of the employee, because the employee benefits from them. However, situations arise where the private benefit is minimal or hard to measure and the benefit is clearly not a substitute for salary or wages. The proposals in this bill therefore aim to provide practical rules to help determine where to draw the line between what is taxable and what is not.

The main areas of concern addressed in the bill are employer-provided accommodation, allowances, and payments, particularly when they are linked to business travel, secondments, and projects. There is a range of proposals dealing with accommodation and accommodation payments, but, in particular, the bill proposes that accommodation and accommodation payments provided to employees who are required to work away from their normal workplace on secondment or on capital projects will be exempt from income tax under defined circumstances, including an exemption for up to 5 years for people working on Canterbury earthquake recovery projects, which is a very good initiative. In a similar vein, an exemption is proposed for payments for meals on work-related travel for up to a 3-month period. A specific exemption is proposed for distinctive work clothing, to match the outcome when clothing is provided directly by the employer. Associated with this, an exemption is proposed for plain-clothes allowances when a person has been provided with a uniform as part of their employment but because of the nature of their current duties he or she is required to wear plain clothes instead. The proposal simply confirms current practice, and the Government is keen to bring clarity to this issue.

Turning to another matter, the Government wants to ensure that innovation remains strong amongst New Zealand businesses. An obstacle to innovation is the business expenditure of a capital nature that is not immediately deductible for tax purposes and does not give rise to a depreciable asset so cannot be deducted as tax depreciation over time. Such expenditure is commonly referred to as black hole expenditure. Members might remember that this was first announced as part of Budget 2013, and it contributes to the Government’s aim of providing a more productive and competitive economy—

💬 Dr David Clark: Where’s the Minister of Revenue?

—that supports innovative businesses, investment, jobs, and, of course, growth, which I know that David Clark across the House is always interested in discussing in detail. The two broad areas of the black hole expenditure are focused on, firstly, certain company running costs and, secondly, the cost of applying for patents, resource consents, and plant variety rights.

This bill also proposes changes to maintain the integrity of the tax system to ensure that everyone pays their fair share of tax. To that end, amendments are proposed targeting taxpayers who have a disproportionately high level of debt funding in relation to their worldwide interest expenditure, and taxpayers who can control relative levels of their debt funding and equity funding. These proposed amendments relate to the issue of base erosion and profit shifting by large multinationals, and this is a priority matter. Different aspects of the rules relate to situations in which New Zealand residents have investments in non-resident entities, which are called the outbound rules, and situations in which non-residents have investments in New Zealand residents—namely, the inbound rules. The rules also require taxpayers to determine which related entities are in their New Zealand group and in their worldwide group for the purpose of calculations. Changes are also proposed to the rules about New Zealand groups and worldwide groups, following from the introduction of the concept of non-resident controlling groups.

Also in the international tax area, members may be aware of the United States legislation the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act. This Act is due to take effect on 1 July 2014 and it requires financial institutions in countries outside the US to report on certain US account holders directly to the US’s internal revenue service, or face a 30 percent penalty tax on US-sourced income. The New Zealand Government is happy to contribute to the global effort to eradicate tax avoidance and evasion, but it is also aware of the compliance cost of this requirement for New Zealand financial institutions. Negotiations are therefore under way to enter into an inter-Government agreement with the United States that would significantly reduce these costs. The provisions in this bill will provide the necessary laws allowing financial institutions to comply with the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act and thereby avoid the 30 percent withholding tax on US-sourced payments.

💬 Dr David Clark: What will New Zealand be getting in return?

Well, you can discuss that in your speech.

The bill also addresses the tax treatment of agreements for the sale and purchase of property or services denominated in foreign currency—the foreign currency agreements—in order to reduce complexity, minimise volatility, and reflect economic reality. Amendments are therefore proposed that will require taxpayers using International Financial Reporting Standards to follow their accounting treatment for foreign currency arrangements. This means that the value of the property and the services and any interest included in foreign currency arrangements will follow their accounting treatment. Similar rules will apply to taxpayers not currently using these standards.

Another matter of significance in this bill concerns tax law relating to leases and licences of land. It is necessary to ensure a consistent and coherent tax treatment of land-related lease payments and to remove distortions, thereby improving business efficiency and fairness.

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: How does the member know all this?

This is a comprehensive bill—there is no doubt. The main amendments include tax lease transfer payments that are substitutable for taxable lease surrender payments and lease premiums.

This bill also includes proposed amendments that will help clarify the law so that charities that are removed from the register of charitable entities have a greater level of certainty about the tax consequences of deregistration—an important factor. The tax obligations for some of these entities have not always been so clear. It must be pointed out that the tax rules relating to deregistration have in the past been exploited by some in order to gain a tax advantage. The bill includes proposals to deal with this appropriately. One of the proposed amendments is intended to ensure that assets and income accumulated by charitable entities that are later deregistered are distributed for charitable purposes.

The bill proposes rules to confer tax-exempt status on a small subset of community housing entities that provide housing assistance to low-income households. The amendments will promote homeownership for New Zealanders who would not otherwise be able to afford to buy a home. The new rules also set out that gifts of $5 or more that are made to one of these entities will qualify for donations tax relief. Clarifications are also proposed to the GST rules, including the definitions of “dwelling” and “commercial dwelling” in the Goods and Services Tax Act of 1985. There is an amendment to the apportionment rules so that non-profit bodies can claim all of their GST input deductions other than on inputs that relate to the making of exempt supplies.

Also, a proposed amendment is included that “clarifies the policy relating to subsequent supplies of land or dwellings when input tax has been claimed, requiring a wash-up calculation on the disposal.” There are amendments to clarify the tax treatment of directors’ fees and the zero-rating of land, and proposed amendments relating to residents and non-residents to the meaning of “outside New Zealand” to clarify “that, for a natural person, a minor presence in New Zealand that is not directly connected with the supply does not invalidate the rule.”

As I said, this is a comprehensive bill. It is proposed to give Every Home Global Concern Ltd and the Namibian Educational Trust donee status in schedule 32 of the Income Tax Act 2007. Monetary gifts to them may qualify for tax benefits. The remaining proposals in the bill set the annual rates for income tax for the 2014-15 tax year, and make minor changes to the child support and Working for Families rules to ensure that they work as intended. The Minister of Revenue, Todd McClay, has no doubt been doing outstanding work with the bill. He has pulled this comprehensive bill together to ensure that our laws are routinely maintained in response to changing circumstances or good advice from the business sector, and that efforts are taken to ensure that taxpayers understand exactly what their obligations are. This bill brings further clarity and certainty to our tax system and I am therefore pleased, on behalf of Minister McClay, to commend the Taxation (Annual Rates, Employee Allowances, and Remedial Matters) Bill to the House. Thank you.

Labour will support the Taxation (Annual Rates, Employee Allowances, and Remedial Matters) Bill going to the Finance and Expenditure Committee.

💬 David Bennett: Sit down, then.

Mr Bennett suggests that I sit down at this point, but I will not because I have some reservations that I wish to express straight off the bat. We are supporting it going to the Finance and Expenditure Committee because we think that it is a bill that can be improved. We are hopeful that the Government will be willing to work with us on that, despite the somewhat limp start that it has made here in this bill that we have before us.

We know that many, many areas of the tax law need either improving on or proper policing. Just this week we have heard that there is now a billion dollars in tax that is unpaid by self-employed people, with hundreds—literally hundreds—of self-employed people owing more than $1 million each. [Interruption] I hear David Bennett asking how their debt has got that high. Well, quite frankly, it is because the Inland Revenue Department has not intervened early enough. It has not had either the tools or the resources to stop debt growing and to stop those tax bills rising. As a consequence, that area of unpaid tax is now over $1 billion and rising, which is a quarter of the Government’s asset sales programme. If we look at the complete amount of unpaid tax that sits on the Inland Revenue Department’s books—on the Government’s books—it is now twice the value of the Government’s asset sales programme. I will repeat that. On the Government’s books there is now twice the value of the Government’s asset sales programme in unpaid tax.

This is a Government that has taken its eye off the ball. This is a Government that is not collecting the tax that is due. This is the very point that Mr Tremain raised at the start of his speech when he talked about fair tax payment and fair tax collection. But it also gets to the other point that Mr Tremain raised about growth in the economy. In fact, we have recognised—and it is important to recognise from the start—that this particular Government has the worst growth record of any Government in the last 50 years in New Zealand. That is not helped by this bill. As it stands, this bill is simply not supporting the kind of decisive change that would be needed to transform the economy to make it grow like it ought to in the situation that New Zealand finds itself in, where primary produce prices are at record levels. New Zealand has had all of the opportunities in the world but seems to have lagged behind in growth. The unemployment rate has remained high; it is still higher than when this Government took office. This Government has apparently been sitting on its hands when ordinary New Zealanders have been struggling.

In recent days we have found that a number of other revelations have come out about the Inland Revenue Department and its stresses because it has not been supported by this Government. As I said at the outset, the Government has taken its eye off the ball, and so this is why we have got this tinkering. This is why we do not have a bill that actually addresses the big issues. The Prime Minister said nearly 2 years ago that the computer system in the Inland Revenue Department was holding back tax policy. The Prime Minister said, in his own words, that this computer system in the Inland Revenue Department was holding back the development of tax policy. Two years on—and $50 million spent on international consultants later—we have from the Government an in principle agreement to develop further business cases in order to one day, hopefully, address the computer issues, which are becoming increasingly dire. That is a waste of taxpayers’ money, I have to say—$50 million for an in principle agreement to proceed. This is something that the department was telling this Government 5 long years ago, when it was first elected. Five long years ago—

💬 Andrew Little: Five years?

Five years ago the department was saying that its computer system was on its last legs and that something needed to be done. Two years ago John Key finally caught up and said: “Yes, something must be done, and it is holding tax policy back.” Two years on, and another $50 million later, we have an agreement that, in principle, something should be done about it. And then we have the news this week of $1 billion outstanding in self-employed tax owing. The total amount of tax owed by New Zealanders that has not been collected is $8 billion—twice the Government’s asset sales programme value. That is embarrassing, and those members opposite might well hang their heads in shame, because this is an embarrassment to the Government.

Then we have this bill before us, which attempts to tinker with some of these things and attempts to tinker with the thin capitalisation rules, which clearly and patently are not working. International companies now regard paying tax in New Zealand as something of an amusement. They pay as little as they like. They sometimes pay a little bit for show. But comparable companies with equivalent revenue will pay quite different amounts of tax, whether they are listed on the NZX and there is transparency about their tax affairs and a requirement to pay a dividend and sort out the imputation credits that go with it, or whether their head office is overseas, in which case they tend to pay far, far less tax with equivalent revenue flows. This Government has failed to address the issues of the day in respect of tax avoidance by multinationals, and it seems to have very few ideas about how it is going to do that.

It does not even have an estimate of the size of the tax that it is forgoing. Last week in the financial review of the Inland Revenue Department I asked the commissioner whether the department had an estimate of the tax forgone due to avoidance and evasion behaviour. The commissioner said that the department did not, that it did not have the resources necessary to calculate that amount, and that it has other priorities right now. I bet those other priorities are piecing the computer system together with sellotape and Blu-Tack. With $8 billion outstanding, the department will be doing what it can on its little abacuses to work out how on earth it is going to collect that, and the rebuild, upon which it has spent $50 million on consultants, has reached only the in principle agreement stage. This is disgraceful. This is absolutely disgraceful. More decisive action needs to be taken by this Government than what we find in this bill.

In this bill we also have some legislation that has been very quietly kept out of the public eye up until now: the issues in response to the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act passed in the United States. That Act required all banks abroad to supply information on US persons. We are not clear exactly what the definition of “US persons” is. The banks do not actually yet know. The Inland Revenue Department has not defined exactly what a US person is. On Wikipedia it is defined very much in line with the surveillance legislation. So what we have here is the kind of thing we saw under the Government Communications Security Bureau Act, where the Government is supplying information to the US at its bidding. What is it asking for in return? Nothing. That is what I hear—that is exactly what the Government is asking for in return. This Government is quite happy to hand over information on people with bank accounts in New Zealand, but it is asking nothing, in terms of tax transparency, of the United States—absolutely nothing.

This is a Government that seems to be sitting on its hands as far as protecting the New Zealand tax base is concerned. Tax transparency is something it has started to talk about now, but there is absolutely no action on that front. Multinationals are choosing whether or not to pay tax. The Inland Revenue Department seems to have no real plan for tackling that issue. This Government has made no statements about the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act other than smuggling it through in the innocuously named Taxation (Annual Rates, Employee Allowances, and Remedial Matters) Bill. It will require banks to supply information on anyone who is a US citizen—fair enough—on anyone who might have a US address, on anyone who might have somebody carrying out transactions on their behalf in the US, and also on people who were born in the US. Whether or not it thinks they have any kind of ongoing relationship with the US, the New Zealand Government seems set on supplying their ongoing personal financial information to the United States and asking absolutely nothing in return.

The Inland Revenue Department has at this stage no plans, it seems, to gather information on tax avoidance in New Zealand—that is, being resident in haven situations in the US or abroad, or that the US Government has knowledge about. It is simply rolling over and accepting that it will comply with that US law, that it will demand that the banks conform, without actually giving them proper guidance. The banks themselves are upset about the slow progress of the Inland Revenue Department, the lack of guidance on those issues, and the upset that this will cause to their customers, who will now be giving away personal information they would not previously have expected to give away.

This is a Government that is in turmoil in respect of tax collection. The outstanding amount of $8 billion is ringing in our ears. The Inland Revenue Department’s statistics were due yesterday on its poor performance, on the dropping compliance in the tax system. We learnt in the select committee that the department is expecting to answer three out of four phone calls now, and it is not meeting that target. It is not hitting the target of answering three out of four customer inquiries. That is an absolute disgrace. It is a department under pressure. It is a department that is not performing under a Government that has taken its eye off the ball.

💬 David Bennett: More lies—just lies.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Just at the conclusion of my colleague’s speech, the member from Hamilton East, David Bennett, made an unparliamentary remark as an interjection, and I would ask you to ask him to withdraw and apologise.

Well, I did not hear that; otherwise, I would certainly have intervened if there was an unparliamentary comment made. I will just remind members of Speakers’ rulings 42/1-6.

That speech from Dr David Clark had no discernible theme or coherency, and I was struggling. One moment he was attacking the United States—I thought that that speaker was a friend of the United States—but the next moment everything was disgusting. I think that maybe one thing you could learn is that hyperbole on a regular basis sometimes waters down the effect of the nature of the speech.

Labour’s approach to tax is to squeeze the lemon until the pips squeak, and it showed that over its 9 years, when Michael Cullen was the most rapacious tax-gatherer in the history of New Zealand. We have a different approach from—

💬 Dr David Clark: And we ran surpluses.

That is right. Yes, you just hoovered up every cent and dollar of tax that was possible, whereas this Government aims to raise the revenue it requires not through hiking tax rates but by ensuring that the existing tax bases are applied fairly.

This bill, the Taxation (Annual Rates, Employee Allowances, and Remedial Matters) Bill, is about maintenance of the tax system, and it is ultimately about building a more competitive and productive economy, which is one of the National Government’s key priorities. It is only by lifting our economic performance that we can create jobs, boost incomes, improve living standards, and provide the world-class public services that Kiwi families need.

This bill deals with a large number of issues in relation to employee allowances, thin capitalisation rules, black hole expenditure deductions, foreign account information-sharing agreements, charities deregistration, tax exemption for community housing schemes, and a whole lot of minor matters. I want to touch just briefly on the thin capitalisation rules because this is an area that is of particular interest to the people of Epsom whom I have been talking to recently. Changes to the thin capitalisation rules will help ensure that foreign-owned companies investing in New Zealand pay their fair share of tax. We welcome foreign investors in New Zealand. In fact, this country and this economy have been built on foreign investment, but we expect everybody participating in the New Zealand economy to contribute their fair share. The thin capitalisation rules are designed to address the situation where non-resident investors can artificially load debt into their New Zealand investments to limit their exposure to New Zealand tax—a very old trick. However, they currently apply only where one non-resident owns 50 percent or more of the New Zealand investment. That means that the rules apply to traditional multinational companies but not to other types of non-resident investors, such as private entity investors, and there are a lot of those in Auckland at the moment.

This piece of legislation proposes amendments to extend the thin capitalisation rules so they apply to non-residents who act together when investing in New Zealand. I think that that will go a long way to strengthening the tax system. On that basis I commend this bill to the House. I look forward to it coming to the Finance and Expenditure Committee for a thorough investigation. Thank you.

It is a pleasure to take a call on the very important Taxation (Annual Rates, Employee Allowances, and Remedial Matters) Bill. The speech we have just heard from Mr Goldsmith is the typical old-fashioned National Tory grandee speech that we hear so often—that taxes are somehow evil, dirty, and filthy, and that somehow businesses that thrive in an environment where they get good infrastructure, good governance, and an uncorrupt Government do not need to pay their way.

💬 John Hayes: There’s the old unionist.

John Hayes knows all about it because he is another champion of the old Tory cause—run down the State, lower the taxes, tell businesses the leash is off, but still ply them with the goodies every time they get out. Well, that is not the way a decent tax system runs. It is not the way a modern country runs. It is not the way you build a productive economy.

💬 John Hayes: You’re the communist in this House.

And here comes the catchcry: we are all communists. Yes, well, the last time we heard that was, of course, when we had the Cullen fund. Was the Cullen fund stealth by communism or communism by stealth? National cannot get over it. It cannot get over it when you have a Government, usually under Labour, that functions well, like the last Labour Government, which produced surpluses for 9 years, which built up the Cullen fund, and which allowed ACC to build up its investment fund. It was $11 billion; today it is over $25 billion. Those are State organisations backed by the Government, backed by the State, and they are providing the anchor-stone to this economy.

The Government in office now could not do what it has done without the investments made, the surpluses produced, and the investment funds developed by the last Labour Government. That is the truth about the New Zealand economy today. It is in the shape that it is in and got through the global financial crisis because of the foundation—the firm foundation—laid by the last Labour Government, which had a good, coherent tax policy but, more important, had an Inland Revenue Department focused on tax collection, tax gathering, which is part of the platform of tax fairness. This Government does not care about tax fairness. It does not mind that large overseas-domiciled corporates get away with paying virtually nothing. They are happy to take our infrastructure, happy to take our environment, and happy to take our educated workforce, but they do not want to pay their way, and this Government thinks that that is OK. Well, it is not OK. It is not OK, and we need to make sure that we have a set of tax legislation, some of the most complex and sophisticated that this House ever deals with, that has as its underlying principle fairness—fairness to all taxpayers and fairness to all citizens as well.

So when we look at this bill, notwithstanding our support for it, we want to know that this bill is part of a growing platform of fairness in tax policy and in taxation. I want to comment on a couple of aspects of it. One is about the employee provisions, at least in so far as they relate to accommodation being provided for work to be done. It relates specifically to the growing requirement for the Christchurch rebuild to depend on people who come from outside Christchurch to do their work, many of whom leave for the weekend and then come back—that is, employer-supplied accommodation. The way this bill deals with that is to allow a tax concession, or at least for it not to be regarded as an employee benefit and therefore subject to fringe benefit tax, for a period of 2 years, extendable to 3 years in the right conditions.

I just want to make this point because the debate about employee benefits, or at least benefits that employees get to enable them to do their job, comes up periodically, and the Inland Revenue Department has a funny sort of starting point in this day and age, which is that it says that any provision to an employee that is related to doing their job—whether, as in this case, it is accommodation or, in other cases, it is a tool allowance or a meal allowance—is a private benefit. Well, it is not a private benefit and that should not be the starting point. Once upon a time the starting point for the Inland Revenue Department would be that you are employed to do this job. You are working in unsociable conditions, which is why you are being called to leave your regular home, your family, and the place where you have your roots and your connections to go to work in that location, and you are being provided accommodation. There is no sense of private benefit in that at all, just because you are getting a roof over your head, a bed to sleep in, and maybe a meal provided, that does not make it a private benefit. You are there under the condition that you are an employee, and you are fulfilling your obligations to your employer. That is not a private benefit. That is fulfilment of your employment conditions.

I hope that the Inland Revenue Department starts getting the lesson. It thinks that because you get these things provided by your employer, somehow this is a private benefit. It is not. They are there on fulfilment of your employment obligations. Sure, you might sign up to it. The nature of the labour market is that, increasingly, people in a more mobile workforce are prepared to travel longer distances and to spend time away from home, many more nights a week away from home than perhaps was the case even 20 years ago. That is the nature of the labour market, the dynamic labour market that I think even Paul Goldsmith referred to. But the quid pro quo for that is that when people are in employment arrangements that require them to be away from their home and away from their family, the shelter that they get, the roof over their head that they get, the warm bed that they get to sleep in, is not a private benefit. It is to enable them to do that job that the employer benefits from, that the community in which that work is being done benefits from, and that, ultimately, the New Zealand community benefits from. Let us stop seeing these things that are provided by employers to entice workers in to do work in different locations as somehow a private benefit. That should not be the starting point of the analysis. So we welcome the provision in this bill that allows there to be some tax concession for those people in the construction industry to be able to be accommodated, to be given accommodation provision that is not then subject to taxation. That will be a benefit if not to the employee then certainly to the employer, who would otherwise have to have paid that fringe benefit tax.

The other point that I want to make too—and it really draws upon a point that my learned colleague Dr David Clark was making—is about the vast amount of uncollected taxation, particularly amongst independent contractors. I want to make the point as well that this also reflects the nature of the labour market today, in that a growing number of people are designated independent contractors but the reality is that a growing number of those independent contractors are given that status against their will, not as part of their choice. In some cases they do not know it at all. I am dealing with a case of a worker who was employed as a conventional employee—that is what the employment agreement that he was employed under says—but when he was paid he was paid as an independent contractor. So the employer paid resident withholding tax but did not pay income tax, as provided for under the income tax legislation, as PAYE taxation. He has discovered after many months, and having now received an invoice from the Inland Revenue Department, that he is not the employee that he thought he was; he is an independent contractor. The employer has acted unscrupulously, and I am now corresponding with both that employer, the Inland Revenue Department, and, indeed, ACC, which was also the recipient of deductions—or has not been in this case. The deductions have not been deducted because this chap has been operating under an employment fraud for which there is only one party responsible and that is the employer.

I suspect we will find that a significant chunk of that Inland Revenue Department debt against independent contractors will be against people who have not even known or do not even know that they are independent contractors, and who are receiving invoices for taxes that they did not know that they were liable for. We need to address that issue as well. But it is good to see legislation that takes a sensible, pragmatic, and practical approach to these tax matters, understanding that for a tax system to be credible and efficient, it needs to have integrity as the basis upon which credible Governments in the First World, such as we are and aspire to be, have good tax systems underpinning them.

Kia ora, Mr Assistant Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I rise to offer a dissenting view on this bill, the Taxation (Annual Rates, Employee Allowances, and Remedial Matters) Bill.

It is a complex title for a bill. I do not think that many members could rattle it off. But let us call this bill what it is. It is a fossil fuel subsidy bill. What we see in this legislation are more handouts for one of the most profitable industries in the world. We see more tax breaks for the oil industry and for fossil fuel pollution in this bill. That is why the Greens are quite proud to be opposing this tax bill. We should simply be calling this the “Tax Breaks for Fossil Fuels Bill”. The Greens are opposed to it.

There are many parts in this bill that we can live with and we support. The bill deals with a huge range of tax changes, from police private investigators’ clothing allowance through to accommodation and tax rates paid for by Kiwi workers through to the enforcement costs of the tax regime, many being changes we could support. But what the Government has done is it has snuck in a regressive and wrong economic signal change—that is, to extend the tax breaks to fossil fuel drilling in New Zealand—and that is why the Greens are opposed to it. We cannot support further distorting fossil fuel subsidies that are putting at risk our climate and our environment, but also putting at risk our economy. Our economy depends on a stable climate, and our economy depends on the environment, which is the basis of our prosperity.

The scientific consensus is clear. When you look around the world, extreme weather events are literally killing thousands and millions of people—according to former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan—around the world, we need to take climate change seriously. What we need to do is end distorting subsidies to fossil fuels. What we are doing with laws such as this is sending the wrong message. We are sending the message to the oil industry: “Keep investing capital in further drilling rigs. Do not invest your capital in low-carbon alternatives.” We are sending perverse economic signals and it is disappointing to see some of the parties supporting this in this House, because this is not New Zealand’s future.

For a generation that has grown up watching The Beverly Hillbillies, this is the way the Government thinks about economic development. All it has to do is get lucky like Jed Clampett. I see the member Maggie Barry shaking her head, but where is her vision for a prosperous economy and a richer New Zealand? Because all I hear is that this Government has got to give taxpayer handouts to the oil industry in the hope that it finds something down there and it does not leave too much of a mess.

This Government likes to portray the Greens as not having any ideas, but the fact is that all this Government is about is handouts for its mates—already one of the most profitable industries. It is not just the $5 million in tax exemptions for non-resident drilling ships, as this “Tax Breaks for Oil Bill” contains; it is also $46 million in tax breaks in the last financial year alone, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature. So here is an industry where the Government likes to bring out big numbers about all the GDP benefits we may see from oil drilling—in fact, that is what the Inland Revenue Department advises us in the regulatory impact statement—but it is happening only because of all the taxpayer generosity.

I have never heard a National member stand up and say: “I am the party for big oil. They are only going to come here with more generous taxpayer subsidies.” I do not want to see a New Zealand that subsidises oil drilling. I do not want to see a New Zealand that sends the wrong economic signal. What I want to see is a New Zealand that sends the right economic signals and sends the market the right signals to invest in the future economy, not in a lazy gamble—a Beverly Hillbillies - style approach to economic development—a drill it, mine it, frack it approach, as the former Minister of Energy and Resources Phil Heatley best epitomised.

It is not just the Greens, of course, that are opposed to this bill; in fact, it is Treasury. In the regulatory impact statement, Treasury advises against it because of the precedent the bill sets but also because of the economic signal it is sending. What we want to see is not a Government that picks winners, particularly in the polluting industry, and that puts at risk the actual basis of our economy. What we do not want to be doing is picking winners in the oil and gas sector, because what we do know is that we have got a much brighter, richer future for New Zealand in clean energy. That is where the Government should be putting some of the leadership, some of the attention, and maybe some of the tax thaw, when it comes to things like research and development tax credits. But instead it has got a platter full of $46 million in tax breaks for the oil industry, and $25 million in free seismic survey data handed over. As one of the most profitable industries in the world, which is risking our environment and risking our economy, I do not think this industry, this sector, needs any more tax breaks or taxpayer generosity.

What we need to be doing is orientating our economy towards the clean energy future. When you look around the world, the trends are clear. More net international capital investment was invested in clean energy than in fossil fuels in 2011. At a time when China, Europe, and America are spending vast sums, billions of dollars, on clean energy, the Government and the Inland Revenue Department, through our tax settings, are orientating our economy towards a fossil fuel economy. It is an old-fashioned approach to economic development that does not look at our strengths, which is our innovation—the fact that we are two-thirds renewables, and could easily be 100 percent. This is our brand advantage, these are our strengths, and this is where we need to be using our tax system to promote, to stimulate, and to provide leadership.

This is just a small bill and a large number of supports, subsidies, tax breaks, and laws for the industry, by the industry, that we are seeing by this Government. When you look around the world you see the OECD warning against more tax breaks for fossil fuels and contributing to climate change. It estimates that around the world we could be seeing $610 billion. So this $46 million is only a small component. For a little country struggling with major economic trends, we cannot be orientating ourselves to the past, to destroying the environment, to the old fossil fuel economy. We need to listen to the likes of Treasury on this issue, listen to the likes of the OECD, and listen to our great entrepreneurs, Kiwi businesses, that are doing great work at the moment, despite the lack of Government leadership, despite all the laws and attention going to fossil fuels, and despite the lack of an adequate carbon price.

So this is our future. The Greens are going to keep championing for a fair go for Kiwi taxpayers, a fair go for Kiwi businesses, and a halt to the subsidies and the tax breaks and all the attention lavished on polluters. I think when we go to the electors at the next election, they are going to want people who have actually got a plan—a plan built on innovation, on our country’s strengths, not on a Beverly Hillbillies approach to economic development. Kia ora.

I rise to talk to this Taxation (Annual Rates, Employee Allowances, and Remedial Matters) Bill, which, as with many measures this Government introduces, aims to bring greater clarity and simplicity to a raft of tax measures. It is a comprehensive bill. It is all part of our big plan to build a more productive and competitive economy. It was interesting to listen to the last member who has just resumed his seat, Gareth Hughes from the Green Party. He has finally answered the enduring mystery. Where do the Greens get their knowledge about oil from? At last, we know. Jed Clampett and The Beverly Hillbillies. A popularist television show seems to be the source of all information and knowledge that that member was able to impart to the House, which was not very much. A lack of intellectual rigour would be a very polite and pleasant way of describing that member’s contribution.

I think that when we look at various measures in this bill, we see that it deals with distortions. These are the distortions that have been present in the tax system for a very long time—the current black hole, as it is known, and the tax treatment of certain items of expenditure, which do need to be examined in more detail at select committee level. It is a bill that also makes some changes to New Zealand’s international tax rules, and, again, they need to be gone through very carefully in the engine room that is the select committee. The Finance and Expenditure Committee, which is the select committee that this bill will be referred to, will, I am sure, have some robust debates, if not from the Green Party then certainly from other members.

The second group of changes that are mooted by this bill are changes that are intended to strengthen the thin capitalisation rules, which will really be very useful because they will limit the debt that foreign investors are able to place into New Zealand, and that has far-reaching consequences for the sorts of interest deductions that can be taken. Following consultation earlier this year, because this is an omnibus bill that has been, I suppose, the sum of its parts—it has been consulted on widely—there have been a number of different views that have come into shaping it as it stands now. This bill will be setting out new tax rules for charities that have been removed from the register of charitable entities, and give them greater certainty on their tax deductibility. These are some of the measures that this bill covers in its omnibus state.

As with the chair of the Finance and Expenditure Committee, I look forward to it being referred to the select committee. I commend this bill and its first reading to the House. Thank you.

On behalf of New Zealand First I take a call on the Taxation (Annual Rates, Employee Allowances, and Remedial Matters) Bill. In that respect, New Zealand First, with a great deal of caution, will be supporting this bill to go to the Finance and Expenditure Committee, because of the fact that we believe that it does need the light of day, it does need comprehensive analysis, and it does need widespread public submission on it.

An up-to-date, fair, and effective tax system is fundamental to our democracy. This is a significant and complex bill that covers an extensive range of tax matters. The public must have their say on this legislation. New Zealand First will be closely scrutinising the detailed provisions of the bill. One aspect we will be paying close attention to is the inter-Government agreement with the United States on the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, known as FATCA. We will need to have clear information on what is actually intended through this inter-Government agreement, and how many New Zealanders are also affected as a result. We will be looking for answers to many questions—for instance, has a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis been done on this inter-Government agreement? Just how will New Zealanders with US connections be affected? We will need to know in whose interests such an inter-Government agreement really is. Is it in our interests? Or is it in the real interests of the United States?

We will want to know who has been consulted over the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act aspects of this bill. Will New Zealand’s sovereignty be impacted in any way, as a result of this legislation? Will New Zealand’s privacy and human rights legislation be affected in any way? Will there be snooping on citizens within New Zealand because they have some US connection, and does this therefore open the door for monitoring or surveillance or entering into people’s private lives in New Zealand because they may have some connection with the United States? These will be some of the questions that we will be fleshing out and requiring the Government to answer. There are hosts of questions, and the Minister of Revenue must be accountable for them. We do not want another situation where in years to come we find that there has been undue intrusion into people’s private lives as a result of a foreign country perhaps dabbling in our own internal affairs.

Back in New Zealand, in terms of this bill, there are also implications in terms of employee allowances and employer-provided accommodation. Accommodation allowances and other payments provided by employers to employees in terms of reimbursing them is under scrutiny in this bill. Again, we would question some of the rationale behind that, and, again, this Government says that it is trying to reduce compliance costs and the costs of doing business in this country. But is it reducing compliance costs, and is it providing the right message to businesses and employers and corporate New Zealand if this Government is going to go after staff and executives who are being remunerated or compensated for accommodation while undertaking their business? As we have heard other speakers say, this is not necessarily a perk. It comes with the job. People travel on behalf of their companies, on behalf of their organisations, away from their families, away from their wives, their husbands, their partners. It is not all glamour. Most of it is hard graft.

For companies and employees to start being monitored in terms of whether that is seen as a private benefit, it starts to again move into the area, as the Government did earlier this year, where it looked at bringing in a car-park tax for the Auckland and Wellington central business districts. Again, it was found that the $18 million of revenue that the Government was going to secure from that particular tax was going to cost the companies something in the order of $30 million in costs to provide the $18 million of revenue to the Government. It was a total nonsense, and the Government withdrew on that occasion. Again, if this is going to create undue burden on companies to monitor accommodation and employer-provided accommodation while people are conducting their business, will it be another situation where the costs simply outweigh the value of it to New Zealand business?

There are a lot of aspects to this bill. It is quite complex. We look forward to it going to the Finance and Expenditure Committee and being drilled down into, and all the various facets of it being exposed. Thank you.

It is a pleasure for me to take a short call on the first reading of the Taxation (Annual Rates, Employee Allowances, and Remedial Matters) Bill. This bill is the latest piece of tax legislation that is aimed at making the tax system fairer and simpler, thereby strengthening our economy. An important aspect of that fairness is, of course, that taxpayers must be able to understand and comply with rules, and it is necessary that those rules be cohesive, fair, and applied consistently. This bill will be welcomed by taxpayers and also by accountants.

Speaking of accountants, can I just take this opportunity to acknowledge and pay tribute to my parliamentary colleague and friend Katrina Shanks, who is an accountant by trade. She is retiring from Parliament. Tomorrow will be her last day. She is on another journey. I wish her all the very best with her endeavours. It has been a pleasure working with her throughout her parliamentary career and I think that we, as a Parliament, will miss her.

But back to the bill. I certainly commend the bill to the House and I look forward to its scrutiny at the Finance and Expenditure Committee.

I note the—

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: You can’t get better than that.

No judge of character, Maurice. Labour will support this bill, the Taxation (Annual Rates, Employee Allowances, and Remedial Matters Bill, as we normally do with these annual rates and other matters in respect of taxation legislation, going to the Finance and Expenditure Committee.

As others have noted, much of this bill is uncontroversial. However, there are a number of issues that should be examined in detail. I recall being on the Finance and Expenditure Committee for many years when, like for all tax bills, the Inland Revenue Department would come to us with the classic minor technical amendments. I am sure Mr Williamson’s eyes—with him being both a former Opposition member and also a Minister now—would light up with glee when officials would look at minor technical amendments. They were normally the ones where, if you were smart—and I know that Mr Williamson is exceptionally so—select committee members would concentrate in great detail on those matters. How many tax bills do we normally do a year, Minister? A couple of tax bills a year?

💬 Dr David Clark: Feels like more than that.

As my colleague Mr Clark says, it feels like more than that. The reason we do them is that we have some very smart individuals out in the market place who, the moment you pass tax legislation, find all sorts of wonderful things called loopholes to leap around. That is legitimate. I am not being derisory. That is not illegal tax avoidance; that is working within the rules. Then we need to come back to this Parliament and close loopholes and identify issues that the creative types in the tax and accounting world have come up with to minimise the negative impact on clients and their finances. Governments and Parliaments have to come back and deal with that.

It is interesting that around 300 individuals owe over $1 million in income tax. I am mindful that it is—

💬 Carol Beaumont: Outrageous.

It is an outrageous figure, and I am mindful of this Government in respect of its priorities, because we hear a lot about the small end of town. We hear a lot from Ms Bennett about the small end of town and how the Government is going to get tough with those at the bottom of the heap. There was a time that I recall, when we took over from the previous National administration, when we found that the Inland Revenue Department, under the stewardship of one or other of the National Ministers, was indeed, in tax terms, going after the small end of town because the whitebait—the small fish—were really easy to deal with, and you could rack the numbers up. I recall that where there were small-business folk who had made a mess-up or a stuff-up in their GST or whatever, suddenly all hell would break loose, and the Inland Revenue Department would come around formally like the flying squad. There were penalties and interest, and those business folk could not dig themselves out from under that trap.

By the way, I am not talking about folk who were contriving deliberately to break the law. These were—and I used to have a small business a hundred years ago—people who had made mistakes. There was no ability within the tax framework to actually come up with a solution. The default position from the Inland Revenue Department—as mandated, to be fair to it, by the Government—was to drop the hammer and put those people out of business. In fact, I can recall that there was an individual in my patch who was exactly one of those people. His business had got behind in its tax because he had had a bad year. He got behind and he was subject to penalties. He fronted up, he did not hide, and he got his accountant to come to see me. There were penalties, there was interest, and there was whatnot. The choice that the Inland Revenue Department gave him at that time—and thankfully it has changed—was that, basically, it was going to put him out of business. What that would have done is on the unemployment benefit, and the Inland Revenue Department would have got—I do not know—5c or 6c in the dollar. That was really fiscally smart, because we would have ended up paying out more to those folks who were unemployed.

Well, we managed to get a bit creative and do what is now commonplace, and that is a repayment plan. He wanted to trade out. He wanted to meet his responsibilities as a taxpayer, and he wanted to meet his responsibilities to his employees as a business person and employer, and trade out. The sword of Damocles was hanging over him because if he missed one payment, the interest and penalties would drop on him from a great height. But he was OK with that because he wanted to do the right thing.

The point I make is that he was an easy hit. When we hear Ms Bennett and others going after the small end of town, what we do not hear from this Government, of course, is what it is going to do about the 300 individuals who owe a million bucks each in unpaid tax. Oh no, no! I will tell you why. It is because those guys have the wherewithal to hide it, get around the law, and do a number of creative things, and they are harder to get. It is harder to extract the tax owed from them, from all the labyrinth of elaborate financial instruments at their disposal to minimise their exposure. It is complicated and costly to go after the big end of town. I say to the Government that theft is theft, whether it is a hundred bucks from a beneficiary who screwed the scrum, as it were, or whether it is a million bucks from the guy in the Armani suit down on Queen Street who is illegitimately avoiding his or her obligations. It is theft across the board. I think that is the fairness with which Kiwis would see it. Theft, whether it is a hundred bucks or a million bucks, is theft from the taxpayer, and people should be equally dealt with and made accountable and gone after.

But that crew over there on the Government side have their priorities set on the small end of town and on the most vulnerable. That is not to excuse—and I put this on record, and I might upset a few on my side—people who thieve from the taxpayers’ purse, even if they are down the small end of town. That is not to excuse them. They have obligations in exactly the same way as all Kiwis do. But the priority of this Government is to go after the vulnerable, and the big end of town—the boys in the Zegna suits—well, it will get to them when it can. I would like to see, through legislation like this, some emphasis to be rebalanced—some priorities to be rebalanced. I would like Ms Bennett to get up with the same vim and vigour as she exhibits when she is so proud of herself and her so-called achievements, and make similar speeches about those down on Queen Street, The Terrace, and other places, who may be a part of the 300. That is what I would like to see.

But you do not hear those speeches. You do not hear them. It is too hard, it is too costly, and maybe, just maybe, they are some of the mates of those 300 on the opposite side of the House. I do not know—I will be charitable—but maybe they are. I do not hear too many Tory speeches coming from that side, saying they are going to go after the 300. There is $300 million worth of tax that, if recovered, could make a difference to a lot of people. I do not know whether the Minister of Revenue, to be fair to the Inland Revenue Department, is telling his department to make those 300 a priority, in the same way as Ms Bennett is out there swinging the axe on those at the other end of the street—the less fortunate and the more vulnerable, but those who have an equal responsibility like all Kiwis. I do not hear about too many of those priorities.

So I would ask the Minister, when he takes a call in the next stage of this bill, to tell us what priorities he is demanding of the Inland Revenue Department. Is he focusing on the big game, the big fish, and the big dollars—which could actually make a material difference—in the same way as his colleagues are concentrating on those who are the easy game? But you do not get as much money from them, do you, because they do not earn as much money. That is the big difference.

So I say that we will support this bill going to the select committee, and that there needs to be some real and decisive action about recovering money. I have sat on the Finance and Expenditure Committee—I have been on it for a while—and Dr Clark will rekindle my memory about the student loan bill. An inordinate amount of money was going to be spent by the Inland Revenue Department to put in place the measures in that bill. I know that Mr Hayes, in the privacy of the select committee room, mind you, wrung his hands with frustration—and he knows I am telling the truth about him—and said it was a waste of time. The bill was not going to recover a few million bucks. The Inland Revenue Department was going to spend a lot of money to recover a few million bucks from students. I am not saying that you should not go after that money, but, again, it is an issue of priorities. I know that Mr Hayes wrung his hands—not in public, of course—and said, basically, that the bill was a waste of time. But I will keep his secret from his ministerial colleagues and his mates.

I say to Mr Hayes that it would be good if what happened in private, such lion-like behaviour and such guts, was exhibited in public and in this House. I know he is going to take the next call, so I wait with bated breath.

Liars, bloody liars—and who was it? I just want to make a couple of comments because there is a unanimity of view across this Parliament that this bill, the Taxation (Annual Rates, Employee Allowances, and Remedial Matters) Bill, is a very good piece of legislation. The only people taking exception are those who developed their economic understanding through that programme called The Muppet Show, which was available on television to young people around the time Mr Hughes was a child.

One other little thing I would like to say as an observation as I have been sitting here this afternoon in the House is just how the Labour Party has lurched to the left. It has the “Red Reverend” from Dunedin and it has its trade unionist, Mr Little, and those people—

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. You may anticipate my point of order. All members are referred to as honourable members, by their correct names.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Correct, and I will ask the member to withdraw that comment.

I withdraw that comment. I was not being specific, but, anyway, the point I want to make is this. The sensible end of the Labour Party has been excluded from this debate, and the reason is the left lurch that it has taken because of the support that the unions have given to its leader—

💬 David Bennett: They haven’t got a leader.

—no, he is away at the moment—who is really supported by the union movement, not by the party and his colleagues in this Parliament.

We are concerned about one thing in this legislation, and that is lifting this country’s economic performance. By doing that we create jobs and we help the little end of town, to draw on Mr Cosgrove’s words. We will boost incomes, we will improve living standards, and we will provide world-class services that Kiwi families need.

To answer Mr Cosgrove’s question about whether the Government will go after the big end of town, what I think is very clear in this bill is that it focuses on the aspect of fairness in the tax system. That is, taxpayers must be able to understand and comply with the rules, and it is necessary for the tax rules to be cohesive, to be fair, and to be applied consistently, whether you are at the big or the little end of town. This bill does that and I commend it to the House.

I understand that the next call is a split call. Carol Beaumont—5 minutes.

I do not often get to speak on taxation bills, so it is interesting to speak on the Taxation (Annual Rates, Employee Allowances, and Remedial Matters) Bill. As others have said, this is a bill that we support going to the Finance and Expenditure Committee. We have some reservations, but clearly we can look closely at those matters in that select committee. There have been some very good contributions, I have to say, from this side of the House on this taxation bill.

The previous National speaker, Mr Hayes, talked about fairness in taxation. We would all say that that was a good idea, but, unfortunately, the Government’s practice to date shows no sign of looking at taxation in a fair way. What did we see when this Government was elected? We saw, of course, substantial tax cuts for the very, very wealthy. What we are seeing here is that there are huge amounts of unpaid tax dollars. There is a billion dollars in tax going unpaid. Around 300 individuals owe over $1 million in unpaid income tax. How many wage and salary earners have unpaid tax? I will tell you. Probably zero—because they have to pay. It is taken out of their pay—PAYE. So we do not have a fair taxation system. Those who are on wages and salaries pay every single dollar that they have to.

As others have talked about, small-business people, including, as my colleague Mr Little talked about, some people who do not even know that they are small-business people, the so-called contractors, often find themselves having difficulty with taxation issues and owing comparatively small amounts. That is not to say they should not pay them, but they do not get away with having that sort of money unpaid. However, at the other end of the spectrum we see very substantial amounts owed by a comparatively small number of people—as Mr Cosgrove calls them, the big end of town. Actually, these are matters that should be looked at by the select committee if we are serious about fairness in taxation.

This bill, I believe, relates to matters formerly raised by Peter Dunne, and will tidy up some of the changes, the petty rules, that were implemented under Peter Dunne—namely, the tax on plain-clothes police officers and the accommodation tax on earthquake rebuild workers. So that sounds like a good thing to be doing. Also, apparently, the bill is related to the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act of the United States, something I do not know a great deal about. These are things that clearly the select committee will be able to work on. But I do think it is important to work on the matters that have been raised on this side of the House around where the emphasis is—on fairness in taxation. The Government would rather spend millions of dollars intruding on the privacy of solo parents who are under suspicion of fraud than chasing up people who owe millions of dollars. So let us get that issue on the table at the select committee and look at those things.

I do find it interesting, just to conclude, that we have had a couple of members opposite talk about needing to have taxation reform so we can grow the economy and have more jobs and better incomes. Well, there has been slight evidence of that. Forty percent of New Zealanders got no pay increase last year, and we have just seen important research come out on child poverty in this country. So there are fine words but very little action.

The Green Party stands for a clean, green economy that works for all New Zealanders. We want to look after our land, our water, our air, and our people, and we can do this. In fact, that is the way that we are going to have long-term prosperity—by looking after our national assets and looking after all of our people, not just the ones who currently have all the money and all the power. We cannot support this bill, the Taxation (Annual Rates, Employee Allowances, and Remedial Matters) Bill, because it is extending tax exemptions for offshore oil exploration. The Government is granting tax exemptions to foreign companies to come and explore our waters to make it easier for them to potentially find oil, which is, at the very best, going to make us only a little bit of money for a very short period of time. I think that must be because this National Government is in complete denial about climate change and about the urgent need to transition to clean, green alternatives, which we could do if there was the least bit of Government support for it. But we have seen the National Government cut tax breaks for the development of clean, green alternatives like biodiesel. There has been almost no development in the biofuel area since National has come to power, and instead it is handing exemptions to foreign-owned oil companies.

It is hard to believe that in 2013 the Government does not have a better idea about sustainable, long-term economic prosperity, because we can have that. That is something the Green Party advocates for—smart tax policies that would support clean, green businesses, and businesses that are here in New Zealand. We are not even talking about New Zealand businesses here; we are talking about foreign oil companies while New Zealand businesses, small businesses, do not get any breaks from this Government. Why? Because they do not have the money or power to lobby the Government for special treatment. So time and time again we see the National Government giving breaks to certain big companies, most of which are foreign-owned, so that they do not have to compete and they do not have to innovate. We have seen that happen with Skycity, and now we are seeing it with the oil exploration that is happening, which not only is not smart, because there is no long-term future for fossil fuels on this planet if we want to have a healthy, stable climate for our children and grandchildren, but also there is a very immediate risk to our “clean, green” brand and our beaches. We saw how terrible it was when the Rena was grounded—

💬 Lindsay Tisch: Order!

The Taxation (Annual Rates, Employee Allowances, and Remedial Matters) Bill extends exemptions for foreign-owned oil companies to explore off our shores. I think it is important that the public understands the very high risk of a spill when we are talking about an exploratory well. There was only a tiny amount of oil that was spilled, comparatively, from the Rena on the beaches of Tauranga in 2011. If we had an accident like the one that happened in the Gulf of Mexico, which was an exploratory well that was drilled at 1,500 metres beneath the sea, then that would result in huge economic damage.

Looking at the regulatory impact statement, it is pretty obvious who is dictating this policy to the Government. It states: “Targeted consultation has been undertaken with the [oil and gas] industry representative body.”, which is the Petroleum Exploration and Production Association of New Zealand, which supports making the exemption permanent. Oh, that is a big surprise! The industry body supports making permanent tax exemptions. That is great! The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment also supports it because it does not have any ideas for economic development other than digging up and selling off the family silver. Treasury was consulted and favoured the status quo of letting the exemption lapse, so we see the Government ignoring the advice from Treasury that says “No, you shouldn’t give tax breaks. One shouldn’t give tax breaks to certain industries. It is not consistent with the Government’s broad-based low-rate tax strategy.”

So, once again, the National Government is acting in the interests of a few foreign-owned corporations, risking our clean, green environment and brand, and privileging a few at the expense of sound advice from Treasury. Thank you.

I want to take just a short call on the Taxation (Annual Rates, Employee Allowances, and Remedial Matters) Bill. This bill is a good bill. It is good to see that the Labour Party is supporting it, showing some reason there, unlike the Green Party, which is just in a dream land. For the members of the public who may be listening to this, this is not a bill about oil taxation. It is an omnibus bill. It covers a lot of areas. I bet that every member of that Green Party came here on a plane today or drove here, and they are not willing to walk the talk that they say. It would be lovely to see them actually do what they say instead of thinking they can have their cake and eat it at the same time.

This is a good bill. It is needed. We look forward to it progressing through this House. Thank you.