Swarbrick Chlöe; Watts SimonCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): E te Māngai tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. As the previous speaker's just alluded to what we're in now with Part 2 is the operative part of the legislation and to that effect I have a few questions for the Minister albeit referring to what was referenced in Part 1 but it was actually about the substance of this legislation that being the taxation principles reporting repealment.The Minister said in the debate on Part 1 that there is no report and that he has not seen any draft version of a report which again just for the sake of the record under the status quo of the laws currently on our statute book should be done at least in draft form because it is due to be published as the law currently sits—until it is repealed and this Government rams through under urgency the third reading of this bill. As it currently sits the IRD should still be functioning towards publication on 31 December.So I just really wanted to drill into that point as made by the Minister. Is it the case that he has been offered absolutely no evidence data briefing to the incoming Minister memorandum correspondence or otherwise on where this work programme was at under the IRD's work programme? So that's the first question: where is this work programme currently at given where we are at in this stage of the development of that report under status quo legislation as required because that legislation still right now sits on our statute book?To the second point the Minister has made the point that he still expects that there is going to be transparency of reporting from the IRD. This is an interesting one because it's also referenced within the regulatory impact statement here and I quote: Inland Revenue intends to consider means of improving its current reporting under the Tax Administration Act 1994"—good year that was—"subject to internal resourcing and government policies." To that effect what I'm hearing is that the IRD is asking this incoming Minister to actually continue to allow them the resources to continue something along the lines of the reporting as is required under the status quo legislation which they are rushing under urgency to repeal. And in needing that resource I have a secondary flow-on question which is: what kind of resource does he expect or anticipate allocating the IRD so that they can do that form of reporting which at this point is ambiguous? We have no idea what that might look like.So just to be really clear to the Minister who I hope is writing these questions down so that he can answer them—that first question there or the first part of that second round of questions was on the engagement that he has had with IRD around the fact that they intend to still do more transparent reporting for the sake of accountability on the tax system. The second tranche of that second question is: therefore what resourcing is he anticipating giving the IRD to undertake this new ambiguous work programme of potentially reporting against tax principles? We're not quite sure. Because we know again under the status quo per his own advice that we're looking at 2.5 fulltime-equivalents (FTEs) being allocated to this work programme—again for the sake of the House 0.06 percent of the entire workforce within the IRD. This is minuscule and it feels as though this is very much a matter of throwing out the baby with the bath water.This kind of leads to the follow-on question of why not just allow this report to come out for the sake of having a more informed public debate on what it is that the National Party is so vehemently opposed to as opposed to just trying to get rid of this before it comes out into the public light based on a bogeyman that we can't really all conceive of in any meaningful way because we don't know what the shape of that potential report might look like.So just to really re-emphasise that point to the Minister is it the case that he has had absolutely no engagement with his officials from IRD given that he is saying that he's seen no report or no draft report that no report exists—he's had no engagement with them on where they're at in that work programme as is due out in six ostensible working days? Is it the case that he has had no meaningful engagement with the IRD on what kind of comes next given his own regulatory impact statement says that they want to shake their reporting up even more so? And thirdly what resources are necessary to give to the IRD to do that next iteration of reporting? Because all of us are kind of in the dark here about what that might look like and it's really difficult to get a coherent understanding of whether that will be any different to the 2.5 FTEs currently allocated under status quo legislation.Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Revenue): So just responding to the member's questions—as I said before I have not seen a copy of the report nor do I have a copy of a report or a draft report or any aspect of the report. The reality is that with this Act being repealed following the work which we're undertaking at the moment I will not receive a copy of that report and I expect that IRD will handle any work that they've undertaken to date in the normal way in which they would do so in line with their policies. In regards to where we're at that's where we are on the report. I acknowledge the member's feedback and frustration around that but the reality is we are undertaking a piece of work with the IRD—as we are doing with all Government departments with the new Government to ensure that the Government departments' workload and their focus is aligned with Government and coalition priorities. That is our priority. That is the direction and conversation that I'm having with my relevant people within the relevant ministries that I am responsible for. As I have said clearly and as our Government has said clearly this piece of work is not a priority for this Government and hence we're repealing this legislation."