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Associate Health Minister Peter Dunne wants to push the Psychoactive Substances Bill through Parliament faster than planned when it returns from the select committee in mid-June, with the aim of having the legislation in place in July.

“As I have said, we need to get this law right. It is about the health of young New Zealanders using legal highs, and it is world-leading legislation. No one else has done anything like it,” Mr Dunne said.

Internal Affairs Minister Chris Tremain and Associate Health Minister Peter Dunne today released details of the Government’s $55.3 million, three-year gambling harm strategy to be funded and implemented by the Health Ministry, and recouped from the gambling industry through the problem gambling levy.

“Essentially the problem gambling levy is a mechanism to recover the costs from the gambling industry as part of the Government’s continuing commitment to addressing the important issue of gambling harm,” Mr Tremain says.

Proposals to reform the tax treatment of foreign superannuation and bring the tax treatment of gold, silver and ironsands mining into line with other economic activities are the centrepieces of a tax bill introduced in Parliament today, Revenue Minister Peter Dunne has announced.

Associate Health Minister Peter Dunne today announced the make-up of the interim expert advisory committee that will help set the safety testing regime for legal highs under the incoming Psychoactive Substances Bill.

‘Budget 2013: Delivering progress and optimism’

Good morning.

There has been a lot of talk since Budget 2013 was handed down yesterday about the new initiative where seriously defaulting student loan borrowers will be stopped at the border.

Good. I am not unhappy with that because this is fundamentally an issue of fairness.

New Zealand-based borrowers take an average of three to five years to repay their loans; overseas-based borrowers closer to 15 years.

Small, innovative businesses are set to benefit from proposed changes that will allow them to claim tax losses on research and development, Revenue Minister Peter Dunne says.

A public consultation paper will be released in June on a proposal to allow tax losses arising from R&D expenditure to be refunded up to a certain limit. It will be targeted at R&D-intensive start-up firms.

“Small, innovative businesses that invest heavily in research and development are doing the right thing and we want more of them.

Changes to the thin capitalisation rules will help ensure multinational companies investing in New Zealand pay their fair share of tax, Revenue Minister Peter Dunne says.

The changes flow from an issues paper released earlier this year.

“New Zealand welcomes foreign investors, but we expect everyone participating in the New Zealand economy to contribute their share of tax,” Mr Dunne says.

Budget 2013 provides a permanent $6.65 million increase in annual funding for Inland Revenue to pursue property investment tax compliance, which is expected to return about $45 million a year, Revenue Minister Peter Dunne says.

The extra funding will begin in the 2014/15 financial year.

“This continues the Government’s focus on ensuring that everyone pays their fair share of tax,” Mr Dunne says.

Budget 2013 will target overseas-based student loan borrowers with new initiatives to increase repayments and reduce defaulting, Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Steven Joyce and Revenue Minister Peter Dunne say.

“Overseas-based borrowers are continuing to let the side down with slow repayments and high levels of loan defaults, compared to those who stay in New Zealand and pay off their loans,” Mr Joyce says.

Budget 2013 will provide relief for six areas of ‘black hole’ business expenditure, bringing in tax deductibility on items where it previously has not applied, Revenue Minister Peter Dunne says.

“Some of it will be deductible immediately, and other items over time, but it all continues the Government’s focus on providing an environment that supports business,” Mr Dunne says.

A number of situations where black-hole expenditure may occur had been raised by businesses, and as a result, the six proposed changes are:

The Government is aware of financial institutions’ compliance concerns about the FATCA tax information exchange agreement being negotiated with the United States and is looking at options to help alleviate some of these concerns, Revenue Minister Peter Dunne said today.

FATCA – the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act – is US legislation requiring non-US financial institutions, such as banks, life insurers or managed funds, to provide the US Internal Revenue Service and US Treasury with information on their dealings with US clients.

Associate Health Ministers Jo Goodhew and Peter Dunne are welcoming the Health Promotion Agency’s (HPA) new campaign aimed at supporting New Zealanders who want to ‘Ease up on the drink’.

“‘Yeah Nah’ is a uniquely Kiwi expression and enables us to promote messages in an engaging way instead of preaching to Kiwis to drink less,” says Mrs Goodhew, who has delegated responsibility for the HPA.

Samples of the new K2 synthetic cannabis products that hit the market today to replace products banned yesterday have already been purchased for testing, Associate Health Minister Peter Dunne said today.

“It is a cat-and-mouse game for now and if the industry wants to play it, we will play it too until we get the Psychoactive Substances Bill into law in August to fix this situation,” he said.

Mr Dunne said he had instructed officials this morning to secure samples of the new K2 products for testing immediately they showed up in stores.

The latest student loan statistics show that the gap between the repayment rates of New Zealand-based borrowers and overseas-based borrowers continues to grow, despite overall lifts in the number of people paying off their loans.

Overseas-based borrowers make up 60 per cent of the 84,562 borrowers in default as at March 31 this year, despite comprising only 15 per cent of the borrowing population. They are responsible for 82 per cent of the $520 million currently in default.

Associate Conservation Minister Peter Dunne has welcomed a High Court judgement dismissing a claim that he was biased in his approach to heli-hunting.

“While no Minister ever wants a judicial review of their decisions, I was always confident that the integrity and reasonableness of the decisions I made would stand up to scrutiny.

“The judgement is very clear-cut and my decisions were vindicated by Justice Kos on every point,” Mr Dunne said.

Kia ora tātou. Good morning.

Thank you, Judi, for your warm welcome.

It is a pleasure to be here with you today to reflect on something that we all value – social inclusion and the recognition of its importance in addressing stigma and discrimination for those who are affected by mental illness.

First, however, I would like to acknowledge Dr Helen Hamer who is here to present the emerging findings from her work in Like Minds research.

Cabinet has told Inland Revenue to work on the next stage of major, long-term systems changes that will deliver new, streamlined services for New Zealand individuals and businesses, Revenue Minister Peter Dunne said today.

He said Cabinet has approved in principle the case for major change at Inland Revenue and asked officials continue with the work.

“It will be a substantial and complex project on a very large scale.

Associate Health Minister Peter Dunne today announced a Temporary Class Drug Notice banning more substances found in tested samples of K2 synthetic cannabis.

The ban on two substances, which will come into effect on Thursday, 9 May, brings to 35 the number of substances banned under temporary notices and more than 50 products containing those substances are now off the market.

Revenue Minister Peter Dunne has welcomed the release today of a tax policy officials’ issues paper exploring options to reform the rules around land-related lease payments such as lease transfer payments and ‘key money’ payments.

The paper, The taxation of land-related lease payments suggests rationalising the current rules by introducing generic income, deduction and timing rules for all land-related lease payments.

A tax penalty implemented as part of the company tax rate change is likely to be repealed, Revenue Minister Peter Dunne announced today.

Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Select Committee is considering repealing the transitional imputation penalty as part of the Taxation (Livestock Valuation, Assets Expenditure, and Remedial Matters) Bill, Mr Dunne said.

The penalty, which applied as at 31 March 2013, is designed to stop deliberate over-imputing of dividends at 30% (instead of 28%) during the two-year transitional period.

The latest report on international progress in reviewing the taxation of multinationals shows New Zealand is well placed on the issue, Revenue Minister Peter Dunne said today.

The Treasury and Inland Revenue officials’ report on the OECD’s base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) work takes stock of New Zealand’s rules and provides an update on its continuing work.

Inland Revenue successfully pursued 1170 cases for just short of $200 million in evaded taxes in the two years to June 2012, Revenue Minister Peter Dunne said today.

“I trust these figures will end the bizarre fiction from Labour that the Government is tough on welfare fraud, but soft on tax evasion,” Mr Dunne said.

There are promising indications that fewer people are drinking and younger people are drinking more responsibly, Associate Health Minister Peter Dunne said today.

A Ministry of Health survey, undertaken in 2011/12, shows 80% of the population report consuming alcohol, down from 84% in the 2006/07 health survey.

All age groups reported falls in the numbers drinking in the past year, but it was particularly notable in under-age drinkers from 15 to 17 years old.

The purchase and use of kava will be completely unaffected by the Psychoactive Substances Bill currently going through Parliament, confirmed Associate Minister of Health Peter Dunne.

The Bill makes a number of exclusions for products already regulated by other pieces of legislation such as alcohol, medicines and tobacco. There is also an exclusion for food.

When used traditionally kava is regulated as a food under the Food Standards Code and the NZ Food (Supplemented Food) Standard 2010 when it is a drink.