Penk ChrisCHRIS PENK (National—Helensville): Thank you Madam Chair. I appreciate the chance to speak to this intended insertion of Part 3 proposed by Andrew Bayly's tabled amendment following various colleagues who have done so. I also acknowledge the Minister in the chair Stuart Nash for his comments in relation to some points made so far. I think his remarks have been made in good faith—intelligible and intelligent but none the less not perhaps picking up on the very specific purpose of this particular amendment.The Minister commented that tax law has to keep up with the changing world and of course that is perfectly true so far as it goes. The point of the amendment however is to require not only that the usual practice of New Zealand in relation to tax law is followed but in fact that will be our policy—so not merely something that is customary but is in fact required moving forward.The Minister has commented in relation to that that it might well be that reviews of our taxation legislation in general might well take place more regularly than every five years. However this is encapsulated well—contemplated even—in the wording of the amendment such that proposed new clause 55 named Review" specifies that the review would need to take place—and I quote—"no later than five years after this Act receives Royal Assent." The point of me emphasising that is that the review might well take place before the five years are up. That means that we would have a situation whereby we don't duplicate existing review-type focus such as the Minister has highlighted but at the same time we will meet the legislative intent should the amendment pass that a review will take place at least within the five years.Further to that adding to the strength and the weight and hence the necessity of this provision the language is very clear that the Minister responsible must commission a review. So the mandatory language is really important; this is not merely as I say a matter of custom or perhaps something that is a "nice to have". It will be a "need to have" captured in our statute book as such.Another aspect of this mandatory review provision on a quinquennial basis is that it will be the Minister responsible for the Inland Revenue Department that will be commissioning the review. The wording of the provision makes it clear that the administration of the review would be by his department but it's significant that it will be the Minister himself—or herself; obviously "himself" in current terms—who will be commissioning the review. This means that there is an element of responsibility in the sense of ministerial responsibility Cabinet responsibility and therefore accountability in the way that Ministers are kept accountable and are responsible to the Parliament from which they have been elected. So while it might well be the case that the Inland Revenue Department would of its own volition undertake a review if we did not have the specific requirement to do so the fact that it is a requirement or at least will be a requirement if we pass it and the fact that the Minister himself or herself as the case may be at the time would be held accountable for a failure to instigate such a review is constitutionally significant.The nature of the review is something that perhaps other colleagues might have more to say on but if I could emphasise before completing this contribution the point about the requirement to be up to date really tying in with our desire to be at exactly the right pace in terms of international practices. The point was well-made by my colleague Alastair Scott that we do not wish to be either behind or indeed too far ahead. The point about that if I might take the liberty of adding to my colleague's comments is that if we are out of sync out of whack with other comparable jurisdictions then we will create a situation in which it may be desirable for international entities of which there is a New Zealand operation to be more or less involved in this country in terms of the operation of their businesses than they would otherwise have been. Thus we would have created an artificial situation that we are trying to avoid by the passage of this legislation in the first place."