Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National): It is a pleasure to take a call on this bill. The Minister of Revenue has outlined in quite some detail for the House the various technical measures that the bill does—and it is a good bill—and I just want to in my remarks address four points to add to what the Minister has said.The first is just to respond to what has just come before from Michael Wood about the volume of tax legislation that the House is considering. This has been I have got to say a puzzling theme of Labour members' remarks on tax bills recently because the New Zealand Parliament does not actually sit that much as Sir Geoffrey Palmer has pointed out most recently. The New Zealand Parliament does not sit that much our select committees do not sit that much and actually the job of the Finance and Expenditure Committee which I have the great privilege to chair is to examine bills put before the Parliament by the Government. Actually there is nothing more constitutionally important than the proper scrutiny by Parliament of the appropriations that the Government wishes to raise and obviously raise through revenue and through the taxation system.So I find the complaints about the volume of legislation a bit strange because the Labour Party called for the Shewan inquiry into the taxation system after the Mossack Fonseca issue was raised. We had the inquiry and then the Government very quickly legislated so it cannot be complaining about that piece of legislation.The Labour Party and the Green Party have spent a lot of time talking about so-called multinational company tax evasion profit shifting and things like that and actually there is a reasonable amount of agreement on that across the House. The Government is acting and there has been legislation or parts of legislation to do with that. So we have legislated in relation to that or at least started the process of it. Then another piece of legislation that has come before the House recently is to do with making it easier for small businesses to pay provisional tax. Actually the Labour Party likes to stand up all the time and claim that that is its policy so when the Government introduced a bill to give effect to that you know it cannot really complain about that. So I am just left puzzling: what is the Labour Party's complaint about the volume of tax legislation other than the fact that it does not want to do any work? So that is the first point—that is the first point. That was my crescendo to that point.The second point is to praise the Minister's Supplementary Order Paper 261 about the effect of the Kaikōura earthquakes making sure that we do not confer any unexpected tax liability on businesses affected by that. So I just want to say that that is a strong move.Stuart Smith: Excellent—it's excellent.CHRIS BISHOP: That is right. My good colleague Stuart Smith the MP for Kaikōura says to me that it is an excellent move and if he takes a call I am sure he will praise it to the ends as well. The third point I want to make is again to just respond to Michael Wood about the idea that this bill is a missed opportunity. The Labour Party members like to say this quite a bit about tax legislation as well. It has been a constant theme running through their speeches most recently. They always say we need a fundamental review of the tax system—OK I do not really agree but fair enough—and it needs to be fairer more progressive and modern. Well we are modernising the tax system and I think there is actually a degree of cross-party consensus on that and we are putting through the Business Transformation programme through the IRD. So what does fair and more progressive mean? Actually what they mean by that is higher taxes and new taxes. That is what they mean—they just do not want to say so. That is what you do when you are in Opposition. When you do not want to promise something that you know will not be popular you do a review—or at least you promise a review—and you say the right things in order to give effect in order to give the indication that you are tilting one way or another. It cannot be capital gains taxes because Grant Robertson and Andrew Little ruled that out and they keep ruling it out so we know that it will mean higher taxes. Actually the Labour Party should be upfront with New Zealanders about its policy. Rather than just saying: We want to do a review to make it fairer and more progressive—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! We are on this bill.CHRIS BISHOP: Very good thank you. I acknowledge that.The fourth point I want to make is—Grant Robertson: What was the third?CHRIS BISHOP: The third point was about the missed opportunity that you claim this bill is. The fourth point is about the bill's addition to the schedule of the Income Tax Act in relation to giving charities tax relief. I have got to say—I do have to say—that it is ridiculous that we have to legislate in order to confer tax benefits on a particular subset of charities. I have said this before in the Parliament: I think there has got to be a simpler way of adding charities that are subject to income tax relief to the list and giving them tax relief and there has got to be an easier way of removing the charities that are not subject to it any more. For example in reading the background to the bill there is a particular trust—I think it is some trust in Auckland—that has been wound up and therefore is no longer eligible to be classed as a charity for the purposes of tax. There has got to be a better way for Parliament to deal with these organisations than the IRD having to every year collate through the system all the charities that should be added to the list and all the charities that should be removed from the list. There has got to be a simpler way whether it is by ministerial fiat or whether it is by the officials doing it or something. I just make that point again that I think we have got to get a better way of doing that. I just think it is silly that we have to keep turning up in Parliament every year to do this. So with those four remarks on this very important piece of legislation I commend it to the House."