Taxation (Annual Rates, Trans-Tasman Savings Portability, KiwiSaver, and Remedial Matters) Bill

Hon PETER DUNNE (Minister of Revenue) Link to this

I move, That the Taxation (Annual Rates, Trans-Tasman Savings Portability, KiwiSaver, and Remedial Matters) Bill be now read a third time. We have heard a lot, over the last few hours, about the contents of the bill as introduced and reported back from the Finance and Expenditure Committee; and one or two other things besides. The main feature of the bill is that it allows New Zealanders who return home permanently from Australia to bring with them the compulsory superannuation contributions they have made while working in Australia. This will include New Zealanders who have already returned from working in Australia and who will be able to retrieve their compulsory contributions and continue to save for their retirement through KiwiSaver. In the same way, the reciprocal arrangement that the bill introduces or gives support to will allow KiwiSaver members who move to Australia to transfer all their savings in that scheme to an Australian-complying superannuation scheme, including contributions from the Crown and any member tax credits.

These are very positive developments for all concerned. For New Zealanders who live in Australia it can make the decision to return home easier, knowing that they can bring their compulsory superannuation contributions with them and continue to build up their retirement savings. From the Government’s point of view it recognises the benefits that a skilled, mobile labour force can bring to both countries. Once these measures pass through our own legislative process we look forward to Australia passing its legislation, although the timing of that may have become a little bit more ambiguous, given the turn of recent events in that country. Perhaps we should say we look forward to Australia having a Government, first, and then being able to introduce and pass the relevant legislation.

The remainder of the bill, as reported back to the House, sets the annual tax rates for 2010-11 and takes into account the significant reduction to personal income tax rates that come into effect on 1 October this year. It also introduces a number of technical and remedial measures to improve the way the tax rules work and to reduce compliance costs for taxpayers. For example, the KiwiSaver enrolment rules for those under 18 years of age are being clarified to give young people, and guardians, greater certainty about their obligations under the scheme. Similarly, the rules around gifting amenities and artwork to local or central government now make it clear that these items are exempt from gift duty. Later this year the Government will be looking towards repealing gift duty altogether, if concerns about creditor protection and social assistance targeting can be addressed. But, in the meantime, the provisions in this bill will give greater certainty to people who wish to gift items for public benefit.

The bill now incorporates two recently tabled Supplementary Order Papers, 156 and 157, which cover the GST transitional issues for 1 October 2010 and a number of other technical changes. The GST transitional measures focus on contracts that span 1 October. Certain successive supplies, such as insurance, finance leases, and lay-by contracts that span the 1 October date, are now able to continue at the 12.5 percent GST rate, to reduce compliance costs. There is also a range of measures to better align the GST time-of-supply rules with business practices. A further provision extends the remission of late-payment penalties and the associated interest for GST returns to cover the period immediately before 1 October.

Other measures in those Supplementary Order Papers include measures to assist bank liquidity, to remove overreach from what are colloquially known as the “imputation credit shopping rules”, and changes to the tax treatment of certain optional convertible notes to ensure they are not inappropriately taxed by a change in the tax rules. A number of arrangements involving these notes are subject to a dispute between the taxpayer and the Inland Revenue Department and, as a result, we have been very careful with this amending legislation so as not to prejudice these particular disputes as they go through due process. The remaining matters in the Supplementary Order Papers are more detailed and generally remedial in nature. Although I concede that the use of Supplementary Order Papers in this fashion is not ideal, all of the items in these particular Supplementary Order Papers are time-sensitive and are either taxpayer friendly or remedial in nature.

Finally, in bringing the bill to its third reading may I place on record my thanks to the organisations and the individuals who have made submissions on the bill; to the officials who have developed the policy and worked their way through it with us as it has gone through its stages since its introduction last November; to the drafters of the bill who shaped the policy into the legislation we now have before us; and to the Finance and Expenditure Committee, which scrutinised the measures in the bill to achieve their purpose clearly and accurately and which, as usual, has done a particularly good job in that regard. With those few comments it is now my great pleasure to commend this bill to the House.

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) Link to this

The Labour Opposition rises to support, in principle, the Taxation (Annual Rates, Trans-Tasman Savings Portability, KiwiSaver, and Remedial Matters) Bill and to acknowledge the need for a range of remedial measures and changes driven by the rush to implement the increase to GST. Before going through the substantive matters in the bill and summarising the discussion during the Committee stage debate, may I join the Minister of Revenue in acknowledging the work of officials, his staff, the Finance and Expenditure Committee, and its chairman and staff as well. A great deal of work has gone into this bill under a very compressed time frame. I should say perhaps that it has not been the easiest of processes. The Minister has acknowledged that it has not been ideal, and I cannot blame officials for that because they, like the rest of us, saw the Prime Minister on television saying that he would not raise GST, and, no doubt, they were as surprised as we were when the Government did a U-turn and decided to do that. That has left Minister Dunne, hitherto known as the “Minister for Remedial Measures”, to bring to the House 28 pages of Supplementary Order Papers that have not had the benefit of a select committee process, let alone the benefit of the normal generic tax policy process. It would be my prediction and that of the Labour Opposition that we will be “remediate-ing” the remedials before the 3-year triennium is out.

The debate at the Committee stage was disappointing from the point of view of the Labour Opposition: Government members, like the chief whip, Mr Tremain, rather than engaging on the substance of the issues seemed determined to use it as an opportunity to spread misinformation about Labour’s record. For example, he alleged in debate that the previous Government had not reduced Government debt as a percentage of GDP, and I ask him which Government he was referring to, because the outgoing Labour Government reduced gross debt as a percent of GDP from 35 percent to 17 percent. We cut it in half, and reduced net debt, including the assets of the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, to zero, making New Zealand a net-creditor nation for the first time in over a century. That was quite an achievement, I would have thought. At the same time, in particular, we achieved the world’s lowest unemployment and the longest post-war economic expansion. Ask any New Zealander who is waiting for the so-called aggressive recovery. My goodness, how good do those golden days seem now! Then, of course, we have had to endure the misrepresentations from the Minister of Finance, who talked about a so-called 8.7 percent real increase in post-tax income, under this Government, in which he conveniently included the benefit of tax cuts brought down by the previous Labour Government in its 2008 Budget, which he voted against. So when is a policy not a policy? It is when one votes against the other team’s policy and then includes it in one’s own total. Further in his speech at the end of the Committee stage, Mr English misrepresented the Labour amendment, which, of course, does not remove all GST from rates, and was never intended to do that. It is a small token of recognition that people who are paying GST on rates should not retrospectively face a higher rates bill during the year of transition, and thereby this amendment defers the increase for this year, as is appropriate.

It is inevitable and proper that in the debate on a bill that seeks to impose a higher goods and services tax on all New Zealanders, the debate should turn to the substance of why that is happening. The stark contrast between this Government and the Opposition has been borne out. The Government is ignoring the real world costs for real Kiwis. It is ignoring the needs of real households that simply cannot afford another $20, $30, or $40 a week, because they cannot pay the bills. They cannot pay their power bills in the winter. They cannot pay their rents. They are sharing houses. They are living in garages. Those people do not need a lecture about saving more, spending less, or being imprudent, because they are doing the very best they can just to survive. If there was ever a statement that showed that the Government was out of touch, it was from our colleague Mr Gilmore, who said that $20 did not matter. Well, it matters to too many of our constituents, not to mention the real businesses—the ones that are facing the risk, the cost, and the hassle of having to change all their prices and are bearing the risk of the GST flow-through in the middle of the year. They have been crying out, nay pleading, for these 28 pages of Supplementary Order Papers that protect a few of them from unintended consequences. But if it is good enough for the Government to bring in remedial Supplementary Order Papers that protect financiers from the cost of finance leases, I ask why it was not good enough to protect ratepayers from retrospective increases in rates. I ask why it took the Labour Opposition to protect those Kiwi householders. I commend my colleague Stuart Nash for his far-sighted amendment, which is but a small token of the fact that Labour is in touch with heartland New Zealand and it has taken only 2 years for the National Government to get out of touch.

The same arrogance was shown in the savings component of this bill. The Government is supporting an ACT Supplementary Order Paper—and so are we; it is OK as far as it goes—that introduces more choice in KiwiSaver by allowing individuals to contribute at a higher rate. But it is interesting that in the week that the Government has finally lurched towards setting up a committee to advise it on savings, after 9 years in Opposition, 2 years in Government, two Budgets, and not a single new idea of its own, there is no mention of employer contributions. The Minister of Finance has specifically ruled out any net increase in Government contributions, because it has to be “fiscally neutral”. That means, I say to members and New Zealanders, that Kiwis will pay for all their own savings. But I ask why they would do that if they are already stretched. The answer is because the Government intends to compel them to. The Government will not provide them with the ability to save through higher wages, nor with incentives through a balanced set of contributions by employers and the Crown, nor with better tools like easy save savings options; the Government will simply force them. Well, the full flowering of the nanny State, one might say, is the granny State. When nanny State meets savings and superannuation it becomes the granny State, and it is apparently here to stay.

New Zealanders all around the country are asking why they voted for National again. They have already forgotten. They thought that National was going to give them everything they enjoyed under Labour, that National would maintain social benefits, that National would catch us up with Australia, and that they could have everything they liked under Labour, and with a nice smiley man to help them do it. His name is “Captain Panic Pants”, according to the National Business Review. “Captain Panic Pants” is a man who has poll-driven his Government to a standstill. The National Business Review is no friend in particular, it might be said, of Labour. We have come to accept over time the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune from that august journal. But when the National Business Review, amongst thousands of New Zealand business people, says that the Government has not just lost its bottle but that it has never even found the bottle, then I ask what the game plan is to get this Government out of the stagnant pool, and to stop it from losing its way. I ask where the game plan is to bring real jobs, real incomes, and real hope to real Kiwis. Unfortunately, necessary and appropriate as this bill is, the game plan is clearly not in this bill. There is nothing here to sweeten savings for Kiwis. There is nothing here to bring relief for higher GST. The bottom line is that in 2011, 5.9 percent inflation will eat away any gain people thought they had. This Government said that people would have 20 bucks a week in their pockets when they turned up at Countdown. Yes, but they will not be able to pay for the same trolley load of groceries, they will be 30 bucks short at the end, because the price of everything in the trolley, just like the price of rents, rates, power, and everything else, will have gone up by 2.5 percent on GST and 5.9 percent inflation, and ordinary Kiwis will be worse off until at least 2014.

CRAIG FOSS (National—Tukituki) Link to this

We are in the third reading of the Taxation (Annual Rates, Trans-Tasman Savings Portability, KiwiSaver, and Remedial Matters) Bill, and I acknowledge the Minister of Revenue for the work he has done to get the bill to this stage. It has been a somewhat wide-ranging debate.

I will make a couple of points. Speakers on the other side of the House keeping talking about a 28-page Supplementary Order Paper. Well, like the pamphlet that they gave out that miscalculated the GST increase, Supplementary Order Paper 105 has five pages, Supplementary Order Paper 156 has 15 pages, and Supplementary Order Paper 157 in the name of the Minister has 13 pages. Not one of them is 28 pages long. Those Supplementary Order Papers do not even add up to 28 pages. Maybe the devil is in the detail. Once again, it just proves that members on the other side do not really have a grasp on the core issue, at all.

The previous speaker, the Hon David Cunliffe, also spoke about National voting against a Supplementary Order Paper in the name of one of the members. If Mr Cunliffe was paying attention, he would note that that Supplementary Order Paper never even came to the vote. But perhaps I am being a bit picky.

When Mr Cunliffe started speaking, he conveniently forgot, as he often does, about the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update in 2008, which sadly revealed for our economy the decade of deficits, a terrible growing debt, the revelations in accident compensation, and the revaluation of KiwiRail. You name it, it was there. He also touched on the growth in real wages under this Government of 8.7 percent. He is quite right in that some tax changes were announced in the dying days of the previous administration. As we all know, and the records will show, they were poll-driven, and when National announced its tax plan after 9 years of waiting, suddenly Dr Cullen and the previous Government found themselves able to give out income tax cuts.

Very quickly, I say that the previous speaker also talked a lot about GST. He said that there was nothing in this legislation about GST or administration, and he is quite right. Very little about GST is in this legislation, because this is the Taxation (Annual Rates, Trans-Tasman Savings Portability, KiwiSaver, and Remedial Matters) Bill. GST provisions are in another bill. There is a lot in this legislation to deal with GST, because this legislation includes the new tax schedules under which we will see the income tax cuts announced by this Government in the Budget. They kick in on 1 October this year and will see about two-thirds of New Zealanders face a highest marginal income tax rate of 17.5 percent, which is half of what it was 3 years ago.

I acknowledge other speakers and assistants, and I commend the Finance and Expenditure Committee members and officials for getting the bill through the Committee stage, in spite of the rhetoric over the last few hours. I acknowledge that Opposition members are voting for the bill. Sure, they have some reservations and some political points to make, but, overall, good tax policy is coming through here. I thought the process was pretty good.

I will quickly touch on something that I did not really have a chance to talk about in the in-depth select committee deliberations. I congratulate the committee, the officials, and the private sector advisers involved in the branch equivalent tax account debits changes. In terms of the bill that came into the House initially and was referred to the select committee, the committee’s work brought a lot of fairness and clarity. Some quite substantial numbers are involved as far as obligation, potential losses and/or gains for the taxpayer, and some entities are concerned, and we see in the commentary on the bill that we start to touch on those particular issues. I thought this was a great example of the committee’s cross-party work towards good tax policy.

I have one final point. I know that a Green member will speak after me, but in an earlier speech the co-leader of the Greens Mr Norman talked about the illegal behaviour of banks being prosecuted for tax issues, etc. I do not think that the Taranaki savings bank was prosecuted by anyone. Was Southland Savings Bank? I do not think so. My point is that members should be very, very careful with the generic terms they use when they are talking about matters that have been before the courts. Members need to get their facts right. I know what the member was trying to say, but it would not take much more for him to say that, rather than use the terms he is using, which are somewhat confusing and do not show this House in a good light. Thank you.

STUART NASH (Labour) Link to this

I agree with Mr Foss. I think members should say what they actually mean. I say to Mr Foss that he has made a very good point, and that when John Key was the Leader of the Opposition and he stood up on television and told New Zealanders that National would not raise GST, he should have meant it. He said: “National will not raise GST”, but it did. So I challenge Mr Foss to go and talk to Mr Key and give exactly the same advice to Mr Key—that he should say what he means.

I rise in support of the Taxation (Annual Rates, Trans-Tasman Savings Portability, KiwiSaver, and Remedial Matters) Bill—it is a bit of a mouthful—in its third reading. I also support Supplementary Order Paper 157 put forward by Peter Dunne, which deals with major fixes to the increased GST regime that is about to be implemented on 1 October. I also support Supplementary Order Paper 158 put forward by David Garrett—I never thought I would say that—which adds to the available rates that can be chosen by a worker with regard to KiwiSaver contributions. However, I would like to make three points in my speech on this bill. The first is that Labour did not support an increase in GST. The second point is that this legislation is necessary and proper. The third point is that the implementation of the GST increase has turned into an absolute shambles.

I want to clarify one point in this House, and it comes down to my first point. Even though Mr Dunne’s large Supplementary Order Paper is about remedial action in relation to the GST increase that will take place on 1 October this year, we support his Supplementary Order Paper because it is necessary in order to get this dreadful increase to a stage where it does not bring down the whole economy, even if it will bring down the Government. Labour did not support the increase in GST from 12.5 percent to 15 percent. Like the majority of New Zealanders, Labour has never agreed with an increase in GST, and we would never vote for legislation that was so regressive and so penalised the majority of good hard-working New Zealanders that it gave a tax cut from which 33 percent went to only 5 percent of taxpayers. Labour supports robust legislation that helps New Zealanders to improve business efficiency.

I also introduced an amendment in the Committee stage. It would have gone just a little way towards alleviating the financial stress imposed by the increase in GST. The amendment would have ensured that GST on rates was held at 12.5 percent for the remainder of the financial year.

Hon JOHN BOSCAWEN (Deputy Leader—ACT) Link to this

It is a pleasure to rise and take a call in the debate on the Taxation (Annual Rates, Trans-Tasman Savings Portability, KiwiSaver, and Remedial Matters) Bill. I speak as deputy leader of the ACT Party. The ACT Party will be supporting this bill.

The last comments we heard from the Labour speaker Stuart Nash were that he was astonished and disgusted that the Government increased GST.

HONE HARAWIRA (Māori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) Link to this

I am taking just a short call to advise that the Māori Party will be supporting this bill. Kia ora tātou.

DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) Link to this

I will take just a short call—probably a little bit longer than the Māori Party call—about the Taxation (Annual Rates, Trans-Tasman Savings Portability, KiwiSaver, and Remedial Matters) Bill.

BRENDON BURNS (Labour—Christchurch Central) Link to this

I am very pleased to speak in the third reading of the Taxation (Annual Rates, Trans-Tasman Savings Portability, KiwiSaver, and Remedial Matters) Bill. One of the key elements of this bill—perhaps the major component—relates to the way the bill opens up for New Zealanders who have saved in Australia under that country’s excellent superannuation regime to be able to come back to New Zealand with their nest egg, use it to bring capital back into this country, and ensure they have a long and secure retirement on the basis of the Australian superannuation scheme.

I note the way that scheme has come together to provide the capacity for New Zealanders to now come back home with a very nice golden nest egg. That relates to the fact that the Australian Government over 20 years ago decided to put in place a compulsory superannuation scheme. It is funded by a 9 percent employer contribution. Brian Gaynor in the New Zealand Herald recently commented on the benefits to Australia of that scheme. He said that over the last 10 years “Australia’s total superannuation assets have risen nearly threefold from A$484 billion to A$1257 billion”. That means that New Zealanders who are returning home and bringing their superannuation—as this trans-Tasman portability legislation provides for—will be able to return with an average of around A$56,000. The average Australian has been able to generate A$56,000 in savings through the scheme that their Government, in its wisdom, has put in place.

The good thing about superannuation in Australia is that it has transcended party politics. The scheme was put in place by the Hawke-Keating Government, was accepted by the John Howard Government, and, of course, has endured to whichever Government will take shape in Australia over the next few days and weeks. That is a very important thing. Superannuation has to be durable. The tragedy in this country is that the Labour Government has three times worked to try to provide a platform for enduring savings, and three times a National Government has knocked it around. The first time was, famously, with the Kirk-Rowling scheme in 1975, which was abolished by the Muldoon Government and replaced by a “pay as you go” pension scheme funded by the taxpayer. Brian Gaynor in his article in the New Zealand Herald comments that “This was the worst economic decision by any New Zealand government in the past 50 years”. That is the legacy of a National Government. That is why many New Zealanders went to Australia: because they lost their capacity to save properly in a scheme encouraged, fostered, and supported by a sensible Government policy arrangement.

So now New Zealanders, under this bill, are able to bring their savings back, securely and safely, to the order of an average savings regime of $56,000. But do members know what the savings regime for New Zealanders means? The average savings of New Zealanders are just 10 percent of the average savings of Australian workers. Yes, there is a wage gap and we know that it is growing under this Government, but, none the less, we have a factor of 10 in the difference between the average superannuation savings of New Zealanders and Australians, or New Zealanders resident in Australia, who are now, under the sensible provisions of this bill, able to bring back their superannuation nest egg to New Zealand to allow them to have a long and secure retirement based on that sensible savings regime. Our savings are about 10 percent of the amount of their savings.

One of the other things about this bill is its connections to KiwiSaver. Those New Zealanders who have been resident in Australia are able to bring back their money and park it in KiwiSaver, which is an excellent scheme introduced under the last Labour Government. I go back to my original comments about the need for durability—the need to not play party politics with superannuation. One of the great tragedies—and I think, in future, commentators like Brian Gaynor may note this—is that under this Government, in the first flush of tax cuts, most of the money went to the top third of income earners, and that, in fact, the top 3 percent of earners got about a third of the money from the first round of National Government tax cuts.

How did National fund those tax cuts? It funded them by cutting the KiwiSaver contribution from a 4 percent employer contribution back to a 2 percent employer contribution. But where are we now? In the last few days the Prime Minister has announced that we need to start looking at a compulsory savings option. So where were we less than 2 years ago? We were cutting a KiwiSaver regime that was giving a million New Zealanders the capacity to start building towards the sort of savings regime that under this bill New Zealanders can bring back to this country—those Australian-sourced nest eggs. We were en route to creating our own savings regime, which would have allowed New Zealanders to build their own security in retirement, but what did the National Government do? It cut that savings regime in half in a venal way, simply to guarantee itself some capacity to win the last election. We know that the funding was cut and that 30 percent of it went to the top 3 percent of tax earners. It was payback time for the National Party’s wealthy mates, at the cost of working New Zealanders and their efforts to secure for themselves some form of security in retirement, which the KiwiSaver scheme was providing. It was cut in half in a cynical, exploitative way by the National Party in Opposition when it was seeking the Treasury benches.

Here we are, less than 2 years later, scrambling around trying to forge a new consensus on superannuation and savings. But even as that starts to take effect, even before the task force has been formed, we had the Minister of Finance say today on Morning Report: “Oh, no, we are not going to have any net increase in Government contribution to this new platform for security and superannuation and saving for New Zealanders. That’s off the agenda.” So we have had, first, cuts to KiwiSaver, and, second, an admission that we need to start saving for ourselves so that we are not wholly dependent on New Zealanders going to Australia to lift our savings regime. Under this bill those New Zealanders are able to bring their savings back so that they can retire comfortably and securely in New Zealand. We now have a Government that is precluding some of the sensible options that, at the very least, need to be considered if we are to have any prospect whatsoever of an enduring superannuation and savings regime for this country. This Government stands indicted on those points.

It was interesting to note the comments in a recent Trans Tasman about why that has happened. Why has the Prime Minister indicated that we will now have a task force to look at compulsory superannuation? Here is what Trans Tasman had to say: “John Key sniffs a shift in opinion since 92 percent of voters rejected compulsory superannuation at a referendum in 1997, and a growing public awareness of the implications of living longer. But his case for compulsory saving is not yet compelling enough for hard decisions. The Government will wait until it considers recommendations from a panel of experts who will examine all the issues around retirement savings.”

Well, yes, Trans Tasman is right. The Prime Minister has sniffed a change in a public opinion. It is a change in public opinion that reflects the fact that a million New Zealanders have voted with their feet for KiwiSaver. They have opted into the scheme and acknowledged the value of having a scheme that allows an employee contribution, yes; an employer contribution, yes; and a Government contribution, yes. It is a three-legged stool that gives a superannuation scheme some prospect of endurance, of stability, of being able to be drawn on into the future. But why would the Minister of Finance, within days of the Prime Minister indicating that he wants to see a regime on compulsory superannuation given a look over by a task force, effectively undermine that and say: “Well, you can have that review all right, but don’t think there will be any prospect of Government contribution to superannuation and savings. Don’t even think about that.”? Why would that be? Why would he want to pull one of the three legs away from the only way in which we can build an enduring, sustainable superannuation scheme that can give New Zealanders the sorts of savings in retirement that this bill provides for? This bill provides for New Zealanders who have opted to spend a portion of their working lives in Australia and who have built up nest eggs 10 times what this nation is able to generate by way of savings. We have a Government with a track record in history that dates back more than 30 years, which is that it will play politics on savings.

AARON GILMORE (National) Link to this

One would think from listening to the rhetoric from the member Brendon Burns that the Labour Party was not supporting the Taxation (Annual Rates, Trans-Tasman Savings Portability, KiwiSaver, and Remedial Matters) Bill, but it is. This is a great bill in terms of putting in place some incentives for those people who have come home since the election to bring their savings that have been in Australia to New Zealand. Thousands of people have decided they want to come to New Zealand under a John Key - led Government. This bill is a little step in the right direction to help enhance that for those people, and we think it is a neat thing.

I will touch on some of the rhetoric from Labour members. They read out a press statement espousing the views of Ernst and Young. I used to work at Ernst and Young. Those views were not the views of Ernst and Young; they were the views of one partner within Ernst and Young. There is a disclaimer at the bottom that says they are not the views of Ernst and Young, they are the views of Jo Doolan. I am surprised that that was not mentioned.

This bill takes some wonderful steps in the right direction. The Minister of Revenue talked about the great provisions in relation to gift duty. People who donate artworks to local authorities can do so free of gift duty, and that is a good thing. It is a good thing for wealthy people who want to donate bits of valuable artwork to local authorities, because the paperwork and the taxation will be less, and that is a step in the right direction.

The other good thing we talked about was the imputation credit pooling that has been put in place in Supplementary Order Paper 157. That was a good Supplementary Order Paper, it was put forward and voted on, and I am very supportive of it because it helps some of the financial sector restructuring that is necessary post the recession. Those are all good steps in the right direction.

Finally I will touch on one thing that seems to be the mantra from Opposition members in relation to KiwiSaver. The Minister of Finance talked about this earlier. KiwiSaver has not actually increased national savings. All that it has led to is a switch in the mixture of national savings. This bill has nothing to do with that. It will help our national savings to increase in terms of the volume of investment that comes from Australia into New Zealand, and that has to be a good thing to help our economy grow a little bit better. Thank you.

Hon SHANE JONES (Labour) Link to this

Kia ora nō tātou. Naturally, we support the third reading of the Taxation (Annual Rates, Trans-Tasman Savings Portability, KiwiSaver, and Remedial Matters) Bill. I would like to acknowledge the new Minister in the House, Mr Boscawen. I have not had the chance to personally or professionally acknowledge his elevation. Although there is an adversarial spirit in our politics, in the context of our overall parliamentary mission I wish him good luck and I look forward to many a partisan bout. Very few of us make the status of being Ministers and I acknowledge his new status.