Cosgrove Clayton: Taxation (Annual Rates Returns Filing and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Cosgrove Clayton: Taxation (Annual Rates Returns Filing and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 18 September 2012. Volume:684;Page:5347. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour) 
: 
 Thank you Mr Chair and it is great to see you this evening. We have missed you. I would like to turn to another groundbreaking clause within this legislation. It is another huge reform from the National Government which I believe my colleague David Clark in his opening address referred to. This is what we are down to. We are down to minutiae. The Government is out of ideas—have another drink. It is out of ideas and out of strategies. So this is what we are now down to. If you have a look at clause 151B(1)— 
Maggie Barry 
: He’s recycling. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Well if anyone was recycled and close to the old compost in here it would be that member Maggie Barry over there but we will not go there. If we look at clause 151B(1) we see that it states: “In section 75(3D) ‘name address and registration number’ ”—get this—“is replaced by ‘name and address and registration number or tax file number as applicable’.” I am not an accountant. I think Mr David Bennett is an accountant is he or somebody? I am not sure. 
Maggie Barry 
: Ebenezer Scrooge. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Oh Ebenezer Scrooge. Well if anybody would know about that it is the old ginger nut over there. 
When you look at clause 151B(2) we see it again: “In section 75(3E) ‘name address and registration number’ ”—get this—“is replaced by ‘name address and if the principal is a registered person or expects to be a registered person the registration number’.” This is ground-breaking! This is minute-of-silence stuff! This is huge tax reform! Again this is what we are down to now. In fact it would not even meet the status of tinkering. This is changing a word here and there. It would not even reach the high threshold this Government puts on tinkering with legislation. 
I would like to know from the Minister exactly what clause 151B(1) accomplishes. That is for the Minister’s benefit on page 89. What does that accomplish in terms of record-keeping? It is a one-word change—one word. This is almost as dynamic as the small business Minister’s Regulatory Reform Bill which expunged 31 Acts that do not exist. So we have a one-word change in clause 151B(1) and in clause 151B(2) a one-word change as well. There may be a good reason for this. I do not think it was to correct a typographical error. David Clark could help my memory; I am not as bad as Mr Banks but I do not think there were any reports from the drafters as to why this change was put in place or whether it was a drafting error. But could we get some explanation? 
Dr David Clark 
: We didn’t get any explanation. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: We did not get any explanation at all. Could we get any sort of explanation as to why there is a one-word change whether it is germane what it will do and either how it will assist the Inland Revenue Department in terms of its collection registration and recording-keeping procedures or how it will assist clarify make clear or take away ambiguity for those taxpayers small businesses and others that are required to keep records? Could we get an answer to that? Maybe the Minister in the chair is drawing a shopping list of the many questions—perhaps a couple of hundred—that have been put to him and his colleagues throughout this debate and maybe he is going to in sort of a turbo-boosted way towards the end of this debate answer all the questions for us. That would be great to be charitable if that is going to occur. I doubt it because—and Mr Damien O’Connor talked about consistency—the only thing that has been consistent from each Minister who has acted as the Minister in the chair at any time throughout the late stages of today is complete silence. 
I will say this. If the Minister of Revenue is in the chair he does tend to answer generally speaking many of the questions that members raise as we move through the Committee stage of legislation. I do not know whether the Chair can assist. I suspect he cannot assist. I am sure he would if he could if the Standing Orders allowed him to or maybe he could you know keep it between friends elbow the Minister in the ribs and say “Hey why don’t you answer a few questions?”. That might be in the unwritten Standing Orders. I know it is not within the written Standing Orders. But it would be good if we could get some answers to these questions. 
We have already talked about clause 137 and about the GST rating issue. We have had three or four speakers I think on that and still there is no answer to that question nor to questions on clause 151B(1) or (2). We are going to get on in Part 5 to some other—