Bayly AndrewANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): Thank you Madam Chair. It's nice to have the opportunity to talk on this part. It's interesting. I was talking earlier about my Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 252 which required the Government to look at delaying the start date for that dreadful provision around ring-fencing of tax losses on residential homes where private investors have made a loss out to 1 April 2020 because I was arguing that in fact it shouldn't apply from 1 April 2019 because that's retrospective and poor legislation. So it is with some interest that I now turn my mind to SOP 248 from the Minister of Revenue. I've got to say I am outraged that we have been through a lengthy process in the Finance and Expenditure Committee—and I acknowledge all the members here tonight in the debating chamber. We have looked at this bill in detail. It has many many components some of which we agree with and a couple that we fundamentally disagree with. But at the end of the day all those provisions have been through a high level of scrutiny to make sure that what was proposed has been checked. There were a number of submissions that we listened to and in fact a number of changes to the bill that we are currently debating tonight. So it's with some disappointment that only a matter I think of three hours ago—and I may be generous at that—we saw this SOP slapped on the Table by the Minister. It's already got two key parts about it and I really want to deal with the substantive issue which is amendments to the Land Transfer Act. Just to put this in context Madam Chair—and I know you're an expert on this—the issue around when you sell a property particularly if you're an overseas purchaser or seller is you have to provide a certain level of detail to the conveyancing office and that would be through a lawyer or a property agent. That information is recorded and quite rightly so because that was part of making sure that if people from overseas were coming into New Zealand and buying lots of property we wanted to understand who they were and what they were doing and what sorts of transactions they were doing. That was fine. But this piece of legislation extends that quite significantly. It now virtually requires all—and I'm going to ask a few questions on this—transactions to now have to go through the same rigor as if it's an overseas transaction or sale of a property to an overseas person or by them where all that information is recorded: IRD numbers and all that sort of stuff. That is going to first of all impose a significant imposition on lawyers and conveyancing agents and of course we didn't have any access. Most would not even be aware of this because given it came out late this afternoon many of them would have gone home at the same time that the Minister was releasing this SOP. I think that's wrong. I think that's fundamentally wrong. That's not good business and it's not equitable and it's not something that any Government should be following. This is part of this Labour - New Zealand First tightening of the screws on the property market. We've heard the Rt Hon David Carter talk about all the other changes that have been made that are slowly imposing on people who own property and this is just going to be another reason why they don't want to invest in these types of property. But the first thing SOP 248 does is it says in the explanatory note that Before a transfer of land can be registered the seller and the purchaser must lodge a tax statement (except"—and this is the bit I don't understand—"in some limited circumstances that are not affected by these amendments)." Now I thought the intent was to do all of this. As I say if I'm asking rather obvious questions it is simply because not one person in this committee has had the opportunity to listen to any official or even to listen to the Minister explain this. All we've had is a press release from him. Hopefully the Minister in the chair Peeni Henare might be able to enlighten us tonight. I know he has an interest in property so he might be able to afford some time to stand up and take a call on this. So my first question is: what are the exemptions? What are the exemptions in this SOP? It says "some limited circumstances" but what are they and in respect to those exemptions why are they exempt? That would be the first question I'd have to ask. The second thing is: what constitutes a tax statement? This is the wording used in the explanatory note of this SOP and it goes on to say "The department shares information with other countries for the purpose of preventing tax evasion. Requiring"—and of course we're now talking domestic residential New Zealanders buying and selling between New Zealanders; nothing to do with overseas people—"the provision of information relevant for … the transfer of a home [to] help ensure that data provided to treaty partners is easily able to be matched to the correct person." But I am not sure what constitutes a tax statement and I've been looking through this element of it so what is it? Is it just literally the IRD number the name and presumably the address of the property? What other elements are in a tax statement that the lawyer or the property or real estate agent will now have to capture? Of course I presume there's going to be a certification by the purchaser and the vendor and again that would probably be my third question: what is the certification process? My fourth question is: where and how do you file it within Land Information New Zealand (LINZ)? To date all those foreign transactions I referred to before are all recorded by LINZ which holds the database. That's the one that proved that foreigners were buyers in only less than 3 percent of all sales of property in Auckland. So what are the requirements? How long do they have before they have to file that information? What happens if the information is incorrect? Where does the liability lie—does it lie with the property agent or does the principal responsibility lie with the vendor and the purchaser? Again this is all clarification we need. Then it uses a term Madam Chair—and I can see you showing a lot of interest in this. It uses the term "non-notifiable transfer". I have to ask you what does that mean in simple English? CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): It's him not me. ANDREW BAYLY: A non-transferable—Hon Tracey Martin: A non-notifiable transfer. ANDREW BAYLY: —a non-notifiable transfer—very good Tracey Martin. I'll tell you what—this I find really fascinating—these double negatives are just not great English in my view. I'm sure that the Hon Tracey Martin might be able to enlighten me but currently a transfer is not a non-notifiable transfer in relation to a seller or purchaser who is an offshore person regardless of whether it would otherwise qualify as a non-notifiable transfer. Hon Tracey Martin: Oh that's easy. That's easy—come on. If they're overseas they don't need to be notified. It's simple. ANDREW BAYLY: I've got to say to you—look I may be a little bit slow tonight but I just find that very difficult. Maybe Tracey Martin you'd be the first one from the Government side to stand up on this bill and not seek to close it down but actually tell me what that means. I want to hear from you what that means. I'll just refer you to it: it's on page five and it's the fourth paragraph. Maybe other members of the Finance and Expenditure Committee from the Government side might be able to enlighten us because I find that gobbledygook actually. My next issue—I think that's No. 5—and I'm looking at the officials and certainly looking at the Minister hoping I'm going to get some contribution—Rt Hon David Carter: He ain't looking at you. ANDREW BAYLY: Well that's a disappointment for him! Now the next point and this is item No. 6 on my wish-list—I'm conscious that I've got 28 seconds left. I'm getting worried that I'm going to run out of time. But here we are the timing: the commencement date is 1 January—you guessed it—2020. Now why didn't you do that with the ring-fencing? Why do you have to be retrospective on the ring-fencing? Take it back to 2019. This is the right way to do it so people have the ability to plan for it and know what's going to happen."