Wood MichaelMICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. There was a day when I thought that my parliamentary career had peaked after listening to the submissions and the consideration and the deliberations about this bill in the Finance and Expenditure Committee but the eight speeches in the Chamber today have well and truly scaled that mountain. Can I thank all of those members for their very learned and very precise contributions on this very important bill.I think this bill has a great deal of momentum so I'm not going to go on and on but in the comments I do make today I just want to give a little bit of background in respect of the OECD process from which this bill arose and just make a couple of comments that I don't think have been picked up in debate so far. Can I also acknowledge the two Ministers who have led the development of this bill.It's fair to say that these issues in respect of multinational tax avoidance have been on the radar for some time. First there was quite a formal report from the Inland Revenue Department in 2012 to the Government of the day. It's my view that it did take longer than it should have to get on to this process—as late as 2016 the previous Minister Michael Woodhouse was basically saying There's not a big problem here." But this was a piece of work that was significantly picked up by the previous Minister Hon Judith Collins last year. There was a substantial process of public engagement through the middle of last year and it was one of the top priorities of Hon Stuart Nash when he came into the portfolio under the new Government. Between those two we've made great progress on this bill.As I said this bill came out of the OECD base erosion and profit shifting project and the Multilateral Convention to Implement Tax Treaty Related Measures to Prevent Base Erosion and Profit Shifting more succinctly known as the "multilateral instrument". Here's the really important thing about the multilateral instrument: at the moment there is a profusion of tax arrangements between different countries. We have double tax treaties with I can't remember quite how many countries but many many other jurisdictions and all of those jurisdictions have double tax agreements with other countries as well. So effectively you have hundreds if not thousands of these arrangements between jurisdictions around the world. If you want to rationalise the rules in some way to deal with a multilateral problem like multinational tax avoidance how do you do that when you've got literally thousands of agreements sitting out there? It would take for ever and a day to amend every single one of them. So the multilateral instrument is the way in which we lever into making changes across all of those agreements. That is why it is so very important.We should also not undersell our commitment in this area and just sort of say "Oh well we've gone along with the multilateral process like everyone else." I actually think we've been a bit of a leader in this area. One of the quite important points to note is that in respect of the multilateral instrument although many countries have signed up to it not every country has actually progressed in terms of implementing all of the particular provisions of the instrument in the same way that we have. In fact we did have some submissions from people who had relationships with multinational companies operating in New Zealand who sort of said "You're rushing ahead too fast. You shouldn't be signing up to all of the provisions in this bill." But actually the direction from the Minister and certainly the view of the select committee which I was very pleased to be a part of is that this is an area we should be leading in.As the Minister and other speakers have pointed out this is fundamentally an issue about fairness and about the social contract. A member of this House from some years ago Laila Harré used to say that multinational companies are very welcome in our country but when they are here they are guests and they should play by the rules. I think as the Hon Judith Collins said before every small business in New Zealand has to pay its tax every wage and salary earner in New Zealand has to pay their tax and that tax is important. It funds the operation of this place. It funds the fact that we have a legal system that businesses can rely upon. It funds our infrastructure our education system which provides the workers. In a society you all put in to those things and that is fundamentally the ethical the moral and the political issue that we are dealing with here.So I'm very pleased to commend this bill to the House. We've heard about the key areas in which it takes action. I just want to finish my remarks by thanking everyone who's been involved: the two Ministers the Hon Judith Collins and the Hon Stuart Nash; my fellow select committee members who went through a long and detailed process to try to get to grips with this bill; all of the submitters; and our very very good officials from the Inland Revenue Department.I want to leave my final thanks to the people out there in civil society including the journalists who over many years have been driving this issue up and putting it into the light to say that we have to do something to make sure that multinationals are paying their fair share of tax. Well the work's not finished but with the passing of this bill we are on our way. Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker."