Taxation (Annual Rates for 2024–25, Emergency Response, and Remedial Measures) Bill

I seek leave to present a legislative statement on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2024–25, Emergency Response, and Remedial Measures) Bill.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Leave has been sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is none. That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

Hon SIMON WATTS: I move, That the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2024–25, Emergency Response, and Remedial Measures) Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Finance and Expenditure Committee to consider the bill.

This is a bill that deals with the 21st century issues and the reality of life in New Zealand today. It recognises the role that the tax system and Inland Revenue play in the lives of our citizens and the economy. The bill also recognises the role of New Zealand on the world stage. The Government and I, as revenue Minister, have been focused on ensuring we continue to strengthen and rebuild the economy to ensure New Zealand businesses and individuals have a secure future. We know times have been challenging for New Zealanders, which is why this bill includes a number and a range of proposals aimed at enhancing the tax system to make life easier.

I want to highlight some of the key features of the bill. First, the bill proposes that certain tax relief measures be activated through an Order in Council so people affected by an emergency event can receive relief sooner. In recent times, New Zealand has suffered a series of emergency events, ranging from the Canterbury earthquakes to M. bovis outbreaks, to devastating floods, and, of course, the COVID-19 pandemic. Each time, the tax system has played its role by providing tax relief to those affected, and each time that relief was provided, the Government had to make changes by way of parliamentary Acts to allow aspects of that relief to flow to affected parties. Working through primary legislation is far more speedy and we need to make the necessary changes to provide greater certainty and get affected people relief faster. That’s why the Government is making this proposal for certain tax relief measures to be activated through an Order in Council instead. This would not be automatic because Ministers would retain the discretion to determine which measures should apply, and when, for any given future emergency event.

The bill also proposes to allow Inland Revenue to share information with other agencies upon request, to help them carry out their roles in providing emergency assistance, such as the Ministry of Health. Overall, this set of proposals would help streamline the Government-wide emergency response to ensure that we are more prepared to deal with the impacts of climate change and other emergency events.

The bill also proposes to address issues with KiwiSaver so that it can better support New Zealanders trying to secure their economic future. Future Kiwis, or people moving to New Zealand, who are wanting to bring their overseas pension funds with them often face a financial obstacle. They may incur New Zealand tax on the transfer. This causes problems for people who have relocated to New Zealand and are unable to pay New Zealand tax. If they can withdraw these funds from their scheme, this can also result in tax charges from their home country. This Government wants future Kiwis to invest here, which is why we are proposing a “schemes pay” option. This would allow a migrant to elect for their New Zealand provider to pay the New Zealand tax due on the transfer at a flat rate of 28 percent directly to Inland Revenue.

The bill also proposes to address another issue relating to the transfer of pension funds. In 2015, a change in UK legislation meant that KiwiSaver schemes ceased to meet certain requirements. Some migrants who transferred their pensions from the UK to KiwiSaver schemes in New Zealand prior to that change cannot now transfer them from KiwiSaver to another scheme without incurring UK tax charges—this locks the funds into those KiwiSaver schemes. To simplify this, this bill proposes to allow KiwiSaver providers and individuals to be able to move locked-in funds from their scheme into one that meets the UK criteria, meaning that there will be no ongoing UK tax implications.

Young New Zealanders who are wanting to secure their economic future here in New Zealand should be able to do so. At present, a person aged under 16 who wishes to join KiwiSaver requires the consent of all guardians or parents. This means that a sole parent wishing to enrol a child under the age of 16 in KiwiSaver may face difficulty getting agreement from a former partner. In today’s society, there are many more sole parents than there were when the scheme was introduced in 2007, and our tax system must reflect the modern reality of our country. We are proposing that people under the age of 16 be allowed to enrol in KiwiSaver with the agreement of just one parent or guardian.

New Zealand needs its tax system to be able to deal with the issues of the 21st century, including the emergence of crypto-assets. Since the first crypto-asset, Bitcoin, was introduced in 2009, the market for crypto-assets worldwide has grown significantly. Between 6 percent and 10 percent of New Zealanders own some of the cryptocurrency, with most of their transactions undertaken through offshore exchanges. The current market capitalisation for crypto-assets worldwide is in the region of NZ$4 trillion. That figure will only grow as more people enter the trade, attracted in part because tax authorities have limited visibility of income derived through crypto-assets. This means that people trading in crypto may not be paying their fair share of tax. The OECD therefore developed a reporting framework to address this data gap, ensuring an automatic exchange of this tax-relevant information on crypto-assets between countries. This bill will incorporate the OECD’s framework proposal into New Zealand law and be effective from the 2026-27 tax year. This is a sensible measure, as it supports the integrity of our tax system; people must pay their fair share of tax even as they invest and grow their wealth.

Growth is something that this Government wants to encourage, and we are committed to supporting the tech sector and start-ups. An existing way to be able to do that is through encouraging the use of employee share schemes, which makes it easier for companies to attract and retain that talent. We recognise these schemes are an important way for paying employees in New Zealand. We want to make sure that the exempt scheme, which allows employers to provide tax-exempt benefits, remains fit for purpose. The bill proposes that thresholds relating to exempt employee share schemes are increased to recognise the effect of past inflation but also to buffer against future inflation. The proposal would apply to offers of shares made under exempt employee share schemes on or after 1 April 2025.

To round off, these are only some of the features of this taxation bill today at first reading. All proposed changes in the bill, whether outlined today or not, will play an important role in ensuring our tax system strengthens the economy, with businesses and individuals having a secure future ahead. This is important now more than ever, as although we have seen positive impacts to the economy, there is still more work to be done. I therefore commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

I wish to make a few comments on this tax bill and some of the issues that the Minister has outlined. First up, I wish to speak to the annual rates. As the Minister said, this is an annual bill that has to go through the House. The tax rates have to be confirmed. It’s a constitutional matter. If they are not confirmed by 31 March, then tax can’t be charged and the Government has an issue, so it’s an important thing that we do.

However, notably, this particular bill does not make any changes to the actual rates of tax, although there are some very minor amendments to Schedule 1 of the Income Tax Act. In terms of the tax rates that have been set for this current year, they were actually changed in the Budget night legislation. There’s no particular debate on the tax rates themselves in this bill, and the constitutional requirement is sitting there for the annual tax rates. I just wish to make it clear that, although Labour is supporting this bill at the first reading, that is not to do with the tax rates themselves per se; it is just to do with the fact that by and large, these are pretty sensible tax measures and the actual debate on the tax rates will come in the committee stage of this bill. We do have some issues with them; it’s just not worth debating in the context of this particular bill.

I want to talk about the crypto-assets legislation and, in particular, the way that is being incorporated into the Income Tax Act. Now, in the previous year, in 2023, one of the pieces of tax legislation that went through the House was the legislation incorporating the Global Anti-Base Erosion Model rules, which are to do with minimum tax rates for large multinationals and so on, incorporating them into our tax legislation. At the time, it was chosen to do that by reference to the OECD rules rather than by incorporating those rules directly into our own legislation. It was for the reasons of the complexity of the rules.

At that time, the members of the National Party had a tremendous sort of alarm around talking about how we were surrendering our sovereignty and it was terrible that we were outsourcing our tax legislation to a foreign entity, and lo and behold, it’s happening again. I want to examine the extent to which that is happening at the select committee stage to have a look at the exact way that these new rules for crypto-assets are incorporated into our legislation. Tax legislation is a little complex. We’ve had this bill in front of us for just a few days, so this is not going to be a reason to speak against the bill or for it or whatever; I just want to understand that particular bit of the legislation, how those rules are going to be incorporated into our Income Tax Act, so that will be, I’m sure, an exciting part of the select committee process.

I also want to refer to the off-the-shelf measures that have been put in place for dealing with emergencies. This was something that was discussed under the previous Government, and indeed it is a sensible thing to do. I know that as we were dealing with Cyclone Gabrielle and the Auckland anniversary weekend floods that around those was proposed a set of tax measures that gave sort of some short-term temporary relief to individuals and businesses that were affected by those events. At the time we said, “Hang on a second. We’re just recreating some of the stuff we had in place during COVID-19, during the pandemic.” We reached the conclusion that it would be pretty helpful to have a set of off-the-shelf measures that were pretty standard that could be put in place when emergencies occurred, so it’s good to see that that set of measures is sitting in this legislation.

Again, we’ll want to look at the exact measures and whether they do achieve the end they are supposed to. I am particularly concerned about the information sharing which is put in place as a measure that the commissioner can put into place, so I want to have a look at how that is going to work and whether, again, it is worth having that as something that can be done at the commissioner’s discretion rather than, say, at a Minister’s discretion. Again, let’s see how that goes.

There is a number of things to work through on this bill. Of course, that is what the select committee process is for. I’m looking forward to working through it with my colleagues from the other side of the House and of course with the experts who will come in to advise us, and we’ll see where this bill goes. In the meantime, as I said, the Labour Party at this stage will be voting in favour of sending this bill to select committee.

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I’m rising to speak, on behalf of the Green Party, on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2024–2025, Emergency Response, and Remedial Measures) Bill.

Now, just referring to the Minister’s speech, there were a number of things he said that I agree with in terms of it being incredibly important that we have a tax system that’s fit for the 21st century, that it’s really important that we address the issues facing our country right now, and the difficulty and hardship being faced by so many New Zealanders, particularly all those plunged into unemployment now that the Government has taken a series of steps that has resulted in a lot of job losses and a massive recession, because that’s the reality of what we’re facing right now. Of course, changing the tax thresholds and rates doesn’t benefit anyone who’s lost their job, especially not when the Government is also, in other parts of the system, making it harder to access the social safety net for unemployment by kicking people off benefits and bragging about how they’re kicking people off benefits.

The Minister referred, in his speech, to tax relief, almost like a bumper sticker that the Government uses all the time. Government MPs use this term “tax relief”. I just want to speak to what that is really referring to. It’s a type of framing that is trying to imply that tiny changes to the tax system that give very small benefits to the average New Zealander—like in the order of $2 a week, for many of them, or even less if they’re on low incomes; maybe up to $20 a week if you’re on a high income—are somehow massively improving the life and the wellbeing of people in New Zealand, when, in reality, the cost of these sorts of tax changes is enormous in terms of pressure on our incredibly important public services. The Green Party cannot agree with the tax changes, obviously, that we voted against in the Budget—that were signalled in the Budget—some of which are legislatively brought into by this bill, but this is like an administrative process, as the previous speaker referred to.

The reality is, we do need a tax system for the 20th century. We need a tax system that ensures that the wealthiest New Zealanders are paying their fair share, that everyone in New Zealand has access to a decent, livable income, and that we have the revenue we need as a country to pool together our resources to invest in the infrastructure and social services that benefit all New Zealanders. The reality is that we can’t, as individuals, pay for certain things. That’s why we have Government. That’s how we work together to pay for things that we can’t buy on our own, and we are all in this together. I know that goes against the dominant ideology of the 1980s and 1990s, which many of these members currently in the Government are totally stuck in—the 1980s and 1990s. We have enough information to know now that letting the rich get richer and accumulate wealth doesn’t make everyone else wealthier. It doesn’t make us richer as a country. It doesn’t lead to economic prosperity.

We only have to look to the economic conditions that ordinary New Zealanders are facing right now—increased precarity. In fact, I was at the infrastructure conference Building Nations last night and people in the infrastructure sector, many of whom probably voted for this Government, were suddenly realising what these policies mean—huge amounts of public infrastructure like public housing and other projects put on hold, no longer being invested in, resulting in the construction sector laying off people, massively laying off people. [Interruption]

The members opposite are getting very irate because they know that I’m speaking the truth. It doesn’t match their little version of reality, but that’s OK, because ordinary New Zealanders at home know, and they’ve been talking about what an incredible disappointment it is, how the National Party basically, you know, through their campaign implying that people would receive hundreds of dollars a week when the vast majority are barely receiving anything and are having to pay more in terms of higher public transport costs, higher prescription fees, no longer able to access health services, and many, many people out of a job now—and that’s going to continue to have ongoing detrimental consequences for this Government.

That’s why the Green Party is not voting for this bill. We do have a positive story to tell about what New Zealanders could achieve as a country when we leave behind the failed ideology of the 1980s and 1990s, which only benefits the very wealthy.

Thank you. Just before I call the next speaker, there were a lot of calls from one side of the House asking what this has got to do with the bill. It does say Taxation (Annual Rates for 2024–25, Emergency Response, Remedial Measures) Bill. It’s very broad—generally broader at a first reading because it hasn’t been through select committee. I did hear a lot about the annual rates of tax, so I deem that to be in scope.

Well, thank you, Madam Speaker, and thank you for that clarification, because I’m actually going to make a few comments in response to our friend from the Greens as we discuss the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2024–25, Emergency Response, and Remedial Measures) Bill.

I’m happy to stand here on behalf of ACT. Obviously, we will be supporting this to select committee. While the Hon Deborah Russell is correct that this constitutionally locks in the tax relief that we have delivered to New Zealanders, I do want to talk about that briefly, because what this Government has done, this side of the House, is actually deliver tax relief for New Zealanders after a number of years of not having more money in their pockets. That is what we’re doing.

In parallel to that—and this is really what I want to say to my colleague Julie Anne Genter—what we’re actually doing is also interrogating Government spending, making sure that every dollar that this Government spends is actually worthwhile so you actually can ensure that public services are being delivered and that the tax money that a bill like this is collecting is actually being done effectively. So, yes, we do have a totally different view of the world, where we think the Government actually can be responsible, not increase spending—some 80 percent, actually, we saw, increase in spending with no increase in services actually delivered.

I am pleased that we will be supporting this bill to the select committee, where it will get a rigorous going over. I’m a member of the Finance and Expenditure Committee, and I know people like the Hon Deborah Russell, who’s got a lot of experience in taxation, will be very thorough in her examination of this bill, and I welcome that. Also, this does make a number of other small changes which will actually be useful, as the Minister of Revenue outlined.

I also quite like, on the explanatory note—it says that some of the proposals are “aimed at improving [the] current settings within a broad-base, low-rate framework. This framework helps … ensure the tax system is fair and efficient” and, really, is trying to not impede economic growth. Obviously, in ACT, we would like a much lower, flatter tax rate, but we’re happy to work within the Government to try and deliver that over time, because, obviously—

Cameron Brewer: Under your leadership—under your leadership.

TODD STEPHENSON: Ha! Thank you, Mr Brewer. But, you know, we are very happy to support this bill, and we will continue to work constructively as we actually work towards a lower, simpler tax system for New Zealand. So, with that, I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Look, I rise for New Zealand First to support this bill. Actually, it was an interesting read. A lot of people might see it as a dry read, but I thought it was actually quite interesting, and also to see how it fits into the—[Interruption] The Minister’s feeling offended, but it was also very interesting to reflect both on the Minister’s speech and the Hon Deborah Russell’s speech just on where this fits in the legislative framework but also the tax framework in terms of legitimising the tax regime.

Basically, it’s a regular housekeeping bill. As an omnibus bill, it amends some 10 Acts. There’s actually a lot in there, and the first part of that is it embeds the tax rates for the 2024-2025 tax year. We had the Hon Julie Anne Genter complaining about those tax rates and saying, “It’s only $2. It’s only $20.”—whatever it might be—“Those things matter.”, and talking about the incredible pressure on public services, but I’d like you to look later on in the bill. There’s some reference to the exempt employee share schemes. What’s done there is that not only is this a scheme that supports startups—it incentivises employees and says to employees they’re part of it and it gives a sense of ownership in those start-ups—it also changes the dollar numbers there. It says that inflation’s happened since 2018, the last time that those numbers were set in place, and it moves those up. And that’s a good thing.

I guess the question I would say is: why don’t we do that every year? Why do we have to legislate on the odd occasion when we get round to it? Why do we legislate to change those numbers? Then you go back to the argument that Julie Anne Genter was having. That is: how long is it since the tax thresholds will move for income tax? It’s not five or six years; it’s 14 years. As a matter of course—as a matter of course—those numbers should have been changed year after year. They should be automatically changed, because otherwise the Government is putting its hand deeper and deeper into people’s pockets, because the amount of money they have got left, the value of that money they’ve got left, goes down and down and down with inflation. I think it’s a very important response to those issues there. Of course, on this side of the House, we’re saying to people they should be rewarded for their hard work, not the Government be rewarded for the hard work of other people all the time.

The second thing I wanted to mention is that also this bill gives us a much better way of responding to emergencies. Of course, during an emergency, if you are under pressure—and I look at Catherine Wedd over there, at the areas that were affected by the cyclone damage—if you’re under pressure or your business is under pressure, the last thing you want to do is say, “Well, I’m not quite sure where I’m going to be at. I’ve got to wait for the Government to pass some legislation to give me some certainty that maybe I’m not going to be in quite as dire a situation from the tax system on top of the damage being done by the weather or by the earthquake or whatever it might be.” This gives the ability for Orders in Council to be able to respond to those kind of emergencies, and that makes absolute sense.

It’s good to hear the Hon Dr Deborah Russell also saying that work was being done by the last Government. It kind of makes sense because we’ve had a rather large number of very large emergencies over the last, what, 15 years or so since the Canterbury earthquakes. That’s a very common-sense response, as most of this bill—or all of this bill—is.

The other thing I wanted just to mention is just the response to the Crypto-asset Reporting Framework, which is an international framework, as the Minister said. The idea here is it just simply brings us in line with all of our OECD partners before this regime is to be brought into place, which is going to be in 2026-27. That is a very sensible move, and this is just reflective of this bill as a whole, a sensible common-sense bill. It might be a bit dry. There’ll be a lot of work to be done in looking through this. I think the other thing to say is there’ll be some real benefit in going through the process with submitters who know things about tax and those sorts of issues that will provide a lot of value, I’m sure, to the process. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s always good to talk about tax, particularly when you’re not, at that moment, contemplating your tax bill. Everyone wants to minimise their taxes and only pay what they need to, but we do need to pay tax. I take the Minister of Revenue’s point about recognising the very important role that Inland Revenue play in New Zealand. This bill is an attempt to make life easier for New Zealanders to meet their tax obligations. That’s a very good thing.

The previous member spoke about the emergency provisions in this for emergency events. I wasn’t here in Parliament in 2011, after the Christchurch earthquake, but then in 2016 I was, when we passed a lot of the legislation that had been passed in 2011 in response to the Canterbury earthquake all over again for that emergency in 2016. It was late-2016, 2017 that that legislation went through. And then, again, we had to react with the Cyclone Gabrielle event. It seems nonsensical to keep doing these over and over again. While we won’t get it right with this framework for every event, we’re giving so much discretion to the Minister, but with good guardrails around that to make sure that it is responsible and meets the need of the moment. It’s really important that we do respond quickly and appropriately. That is a very good piece in this bill.

The KiwiSaver changes that are going to be made, I think, are fantastic. I’ve had a few complaints about that from constituents both ways—those coming into New Zealand and those trying to transfer out. It is overly complicated and very difficult at a stressful time for people, anyway, to make it much more simple. To have that flat rate of 28 percent, I think, is a fair result. They have to pay something on it, and let’s get it all out there so people know what they’re doing. Goodness knows, we need good, skilled people coming into New Zealand, and we don’t want to discourage that as well.

I do also want to talk about cryptocurrency. Actually, Madam Speaker, as you’d be aware, I hosted Binance, a crypto-trading platform, in Parliament on Tuesday night. They are very keen to get regulation in this area. While these tax provisions are for entities trading in and platforms providing services into the crypto-area, I think that a misconception about cryptocurrencies is that it’s the place for illegal transactions, and so on.

I’d like to point out that cryptocurrencies are based on a public ledger. Let’s say that someone did misrepresent their tax return, the Inland Revenue actually can go all the way back to your very first transaction in the public ledger and assess the liability for the tax you should have paid—much easier than it would be otherwise. Cryptocurrency is going to play an important part in the global economy at some point over time. It’s important that we get our legislation right and in a fit and proper state for that.

I look forward to working with Dr Deborah Russell on the Finance and Expenditure Committee on this. Deborah always has very thoughtful contributions to make about tax. I’m very pleased that they are supporting the bill through first reading. I think that’s a great sign of cooperation and collaboration on the other side of the House. I welcome this bill. I look very much forward to the submissions and going through select committee. I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m pleased to take a very short call on this. My colleague the Hon Dr Deborah Russell has already set out Labour’s position on this. We are supporting this bill to select committee. It is largely an administrative bill. Obviously, the debate has been had around some of the tax rates that are contained in the bill, and that was a debate that happened immediately post-Budget, and clearly we didn’t support those measures. But, in terms of this bill, what we are debating here, there’s a largely administrative set of measures that have been through a tax policy consultation process.

I do want to pick up on one of those measures and one of the things that we are very keen to see progress on. The speaker who’s just taken his seat, Stuart Smith, referred to some of this in his contribution, and that is work that Labour started when in Government around having that off-the-shelf set of tax measures that we put in place post-disaster. We had seen a series of events after the Canterbury earthquake sequence, then another earthquake, and then a cyclone, that we had to come back for each event and, basically, reinvent the wheel and put in place the kinds of tax measures that would allow businesses to get through a period of time where they simply in many cases weren’t either able to trade or were trading under very diminished circumstances.

What are the things that through the tax system, in a package of measures, you can wrap around communities, and in this part the business community, to ensure they can get through? Is it around a deferral of when tax needs to be paid and a whole raft of measures to, basically, smooth the way? I think that us having a more centralised approach to that—something that after an event like this we can just pull off the shelf. Actually, it also then gives businesses some sense that after a disaster they can know what to expect. It’s not a “Will they or won’t they legislate a bespoke set of measures to help my region or to help our area?” What they can do is they can have a sense of what the expectation would be when something really interrupted the ability of a business to trade, and when assistance was needed.

As we’ve indicated, there is much that we need to discuss at select committee, and we look forward to that discussion. There are many things that we need to go over, but on that note, I am happy to commend this bill to the House.

Look, thank you for this opportunity to rise in support of this bill, because on this side of the House we were always about less tax and ensuring that hard-working New Zealanders can keep more of what they earn. Of course, after 14 years, finally we have a Government which will be providing hard-working New Zealanders with tax relief.

The area of this bill that I’m really interested in talking about, in this short call and contribution that I will make today, is those clauses in relation to emergency responses and providing tax relief really quickly and efficiently in an emergency. Of course, we saw this over a year ago with Cyclone Gabrielle, where my region was absolutely devastated. In a situation where we have a natural disaster like that, it is really important that we get support out quickly and efficiently. We don’t want to have to keep on coming back to the House here to legislate to ensure that we’re getting that relief out. This will ensure that we have tax relief quickly for businesses in an emergency. Of course, whether it is the Christchurch earthquakes or Kaikōura or Cyclone Gabrielle, I think it is good that we are acting now to ensure that we do have a piece of legislation that can work so that we can act quickly in these situations.

I commend the Minister of Revenue for his quick moves to ensure that, within just 10 months, our Government is putting this tax legislation through and ensuring that we do have these mechanisms in place to enable tax relief quickly in an emergency. Well done to the Hon Simon Watts for identifying that.

So, without any further ado, I would like to commend this bill to the House, and I look forward to the select committee process where we will be able to deep dive into some of these issues a little further. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a short call on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2024–25, Emergency Response, and Remedial Measures) Bill. Before I begin my contribution, can I just indulge the House by welcoming to Parliament this afternoon the Avondale College gospel choir and their director, Seumanu Simon Matāfai. They are here for this weekend’s Big Sing Finale choral competition. It is the first time they have made it to the finale, one of 24 choirs from 250 who entered across Aotearoa, and they have just sung for us in the west gallery. Welcome to Parliament to all of you today.

Now I’ll talk to the bill. Thank you, Madam Speaker, for indulging me briefly. This bill is very important because it does clarify our taxation arrangements for the country as they currently stand. We have noted through a number of speeches today that it is at its first reading and so this will go to select committee. There will be a number of things for the select committee to work through, but as many speakers have noted today, the piece that I am most interested in is that part around emergency response. We in Nelson, where I am the MP, have also had a number of civil defence emergencies in terms of fires, in terms of floods, where people’s lives and livelihoods have been significantly disrupted.

One of the things that occurred during the last Parliament following the cyclones was in the Governance and Administration Committee, which I now have the pleasure of chairing. We did do a lot of emergency legislation. Now, that wasn’t specifically related to tax—not all of it—but one of the things that we have acknowledged in this Parliament, I think, is that every time we have a disaster, we need to do bespoke legislation, whether it be about tax, whether it be about environmental measures or resource management measures. We do need to move to a system where we have legislation that is already sitting there that doesn’t need to go through a select committee process every single time we have an actual disaster.

In terms of taxation measures, for small businesses, for sole traders, for people who are interacting with the IRD who have tax obligations throughout that time, it can be an incredibly stressful time when your business may have suffered a loss in revenue, your business may have been flooded, your business may have suffered from some other form of loss or disruption—so to have measures in place to ensure that the Government doesn’t add to that stress, essentially. What Government needs to do during that time is support and enable people, organisations, businesses to be able to continue operating and to have as much normalcy in what is a chaotic and stressful time.

We started that work as a Labour Government. It’s really good to see it continue in this bill. I think that the select committee will obviously take a good look at the bill and make the necessary changes. Labour is supporting it at this point to select committee, and I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s my absolute privilege to stand this afternoon and speak to the first reading of the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2024–25, Emergency Response, and Remedial Measures) Bill.

Not only did we campaign hard to ensure that we were in a position here this afternoon to be able to introduce this legislation to the House, and ensure that after 14 long years New Zealanders get the tax relief that they deserve, as a chartered accountant myself I’m particularly pleased that we are addressing this fundamental issue following the last opportunity we had to provide tax relief to New Zealanders that the Opposition got rid of a couple of years ago.

This bill also allows the opportunity for under-16-year-olds to enrol in KiwiSaver with a single guardian’s consent. Now, when I started working at McDonald’s, a few years back, I must say—probably more than it looks like—back then we started when we were 15, and to have started saving at that point would have been of benefit. We need to create the opportunity for more New Zealanders to plan for their future, provide for their superannuation through building their KiwiSaver, building those habits early on, and we support them to do that through this component of the bill.

Finally, I’d just like to note the opportunity the bill provides around emergency response. It was just Friday a week ago in the wonderful Whanganui electorate that I did my civil defence training with Tim Crowe, the local manager in Whanganui, just looking at how we respond in those emergency moments. This bill supports part of that activity that we as a country need to have as part of our legislative arrangements, to ensure we can respond effectively in emergencies. I commend this bill to the House.

Point of order. They clearly said 13 votes, and we’re sort of going, “Well, why 14?”

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Fourteen.

Hon Member: Darleen Tana.

ANDY FOSTER: She said 13.

Hon Kieran McAnulty: Obviously 13 plus one is 14, mate. Come on.

ANDY FOSTER: Yeah, well, it’s actually 14 plus one, which is 15.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’m satisfied that the voting has been counted. If the member has any other concerns, we’ll have a look at it.

Andy Foster: Oh, I just think you should check the Hansard.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yeah.

I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I just wanted to clarify that I do think the member voted 13 twice, so I just wonder if there’s reason they’re voting 13—that it’s not a mistake, that’s maybe what she wants recorded.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, that’s up to the Green Party.

SUZE REDMAYNE: But that’s what they said, but you’ve recorded 14.

No—the Green Party voted 13, and Darleen Tana voted; that’s where the 14 comes from. OK, so the Clerk has announced—[Interruption] OK; silence please! The Clerk has announced the bill’s first reading, so the question now is that the—[Interruption] Quiet, please!

The question is, That The Taxation (Annual Rates for 2024–25, Emergency Response, and Remedial Measures) Bill be considered by the Finance and Expenditure Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Finance and Expenditure Committee.