Shaw James: Border Processing (Arrivals and Departures) Levy Bill — First Reading Second Reading In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeShaw James: Border Processing (Arrivals and Departures) Levy Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee[Sitting date: 21 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3912. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JAMES SHAW (Green):I would like to start by addressing some of the points raised by Craig Foss. He was saying that Labour is voting against $100 million of extra funding which does seem to contradict the press release that was put out saying that the current spend at the border is about $100 million and that this new tax would raise about $100 million. Is he saying that in fact costs are going to inflate to $200 million and that this new tax covers $100 million of that? I am assuming that he misspoke as he did about a number of things during his speech and that this is in fact just covering the additional $100 million that is currently being spent.Secondly related to that as I understand it the $4.7 million operating funding that is going to the Customs Service the $24.9 million over 4 years going to Biosecurity New Zealand and the $2 million capital funding going to Biosecurity New Zealand is on top of the $100 million that is currently being spent. Does that mean therefore that the $100 million revenue that is expected to be raised by this new tax will not actually cover the full costs? The current costs are about $100 million and then if we add that $30 million - odd that means that the spend will go up to just over $130 million and the tax is expected to raise $100 million. So I just wanted to clarify whether this new tax is expected to cover all expenses or just current expenses. Where is the additional funding coming from if it is not?Thirdly I just wanted to gently remind the Labour Party and Annette King—she says that Labour will not be voting with the Government on the bill tonight—that a few weeks back Labour voted with the Government on the Remuneration Authority (Members of Parliament Remuneration) Amendment Act. This is legislation that contained a fairly complex piece of algebra that literally no one who voted for it understood and members completely took it on faith that it would do roughly what the Government said it would despite the Government not actually being able to provide any kind of information about it actually doing what it was intended to do. So this kind of thing it seems happens a fair bit around here but thank you for the point.I wanted to speak particularly—given that we are taking this bill as one question—to clause 1 the title clause: “This Act is the Border Processing (Arrivals and Departures) Levy Act 2015.” Just to pick up a theme from earlier we might want to consider some other options because the dictionary definition of a “tax” is a “compulsory payment to Government to raise revenue levied on income property or goods and services”—and the service may include entering or leaving the country and getting your underwear patted down while you are doing it depending on whether you see that as a service. Some other words that we might want to use here in addition to “tax” or “levy” are “tariff” “toll” “excise” “duty” “fee” “imposition” “impost” “exaction” “assessment” “tithe” or “payment”—the point being I think that the argument about whether to call it a levy or a tax is frankly redundant. In broad category terms it is a tax and we should move on to whether we think this is of any substance.In terms of the argument about no new taxes and whether this is a broken promise and so on I think it is a fair one to have if the Government said going into an election that it would raise no new taxes and then it raised new taxes. Then you could argue that it won the election on false pretences along with things like running a surplus and so on. But the attacks on the Government for raising this additional form of revenue do buy into the narrative that a Government raising revenue to cover its costs is somehow a bad thing. Actually it is not all the time. There are times when we need to do this to cover our costs and as I said in an earlier speech when the Government cut the tax rate for high-income earners it actually meant that revenue was going to be running below costs for many years to come when it could have actually been running a surplus ever since. So in terms of—[Bell rung]The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): James Shaw.JAMES SHAW: I will not take too much of your time Mr Chair. I will just complete the thought on the narrative around whether taxes are good or bad or anything else. The reason the Greens are supporting this one is that we feel it is actually a good one because it locates the cost with the users. It is transparent and it increases accountability because rather than being funded out of general taxation it means that the revenue can rise and fall along with passenger numbers. So the cost is directly related to the activity and it means that transparency around this is greater. So if we are going to be raising new taxes to us this looks like a good one and so we will continue to support it.Aside from the process issues which are shocking—generally the Greens are against pushing things through under urgency that are not urgent and this does not seem in any way urgent—we are in favour of this bill. We have not seen any real substantial arguments as to why we should not pursue this course of action. But we do want some answers to those questions about whether this is $100 million worth of new funding or additional funding and then if the new funding that was announced in those press releases is on top of that $100 million whether that means that this tax itself is not covering the full cost of border security the Customs Service and biosecurity. Thank you.