Dr. Miche?l Collins:

I enjoyed the opportunity of meeting with the current commission as it sat. One of the points I made to it, as both a lesson from the previous commission and a view I held as part of it, is that these reports are for the medium term. They are not for overnight introduction. They provide a set of signposts for where we should go and how we should think about these matters. I hope that is where this is going. It is unlikely that the report we are discussing this evening will be introduced over the next two or three years but I hope it will be over the next decade or two. I see the report of the previous commission in a similar way. I see it as a slow burner. It pointed towards, for example, the need to begin to engage with, discuss and think about tax expenditure. That took a few years to happen. To go back to my earlier comments, that is why I personally welcome the engagement of this committee on that issue because it brings it to the fore. Those discussions are ongoing and the issue is on the radar. In a similar way, the report considered the design of a carbon tax and the design of a local property tax, both of which have come in, and other reforms. Slowly but surely, reports get implemented. In reading this report, it is very clear that a lot of thought has gone into it and so, when these issues come to the fore in the years to come, it will be somewhere to be pointed to the overall changes that will occur. When we look back on this report in ten or 15 years' time, a number of the recommendations will have been achieved. That will be significant. That is how I see the last commission as well.