Robertson Grant: Taxation (Annual Rates for 2015-16 Research and Development and Remedial Matters) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRobertson Grant: Taxation (Annual Rates for 2015-16 Research and Development and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 03 November 2015. Volume:709;Page:7664. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): This is a genuine question and it has been asked not just by me but by other members. I will just finish the point I was making before the end of that last call which is that there is a significant change here in the way in which the Commissioner of Inland Revenue can decide whether there should be some kind of relief from penalties. That in principle sounds fine to those on this side of the Chamber. What we are now trying to endeavour to understand is what the meaning of that is and what the extent of that is.Firstly we have got the change from the question of efficient or inefficient use of resources through to the question of serious hardship. And there is a second part which also requires some clarification: “or that it would be fair and reasonable to grant relief.” That is actually quite a different matter from the question of serious hardship—and this was the concern raised by one of my colleagues—and is that we now have effectively quite a subjective test around what is fair and reasonable and also what is serious hardship. So I would like a member of the Government to be able to get up and describe to this Committee whyfor instance the word “serious” appears in there rather than just the word “hardship” because as I say I do not think any member on either side of this House would be wanting to pass legislation that effectively forced hardship upon children.The second point I want to make around this change is the focus on the role of the commissioner in doing this and what resources and what information the commissioner uses to make these decisions. Bear in mind that we have moved from something that is within the commissioner’s purview—the question of the efficient use of resources—to something that is much more now about the family. It is about the circumstances of that family. I do not think that the Government should necessarily have to put this in the law but what I am not clear on from the lack of response from the Government is what information the commissioner will be using what access to information the commissioner will have and whether they will be enabled to effectively investigate and work with those families.That has actually been one of the criticisms of child support up to now: that just applying very mechanistic criteria has meant that you miss out on a lot of the things. My colleague David Cunliffe was mentioning before what happens when you have got a blended family and that we have not in the past taken into account the change in circumstances. Good—that is good—but what we do not know with such a significant change in the criteria for this is exactly what information will be used and how the commissioner will go about their jobs. I think it is important for this Committee to be able to understand that.We appreciate the idea here that this will help reduce the amount of debt owed from penalties. Of the $3 billion debt 75 percent is penalties. We can all see the penalty regime is not working because people are not actually paying it back. Let us get a fairer system in place. Let us give the Commissioner of Inland Revenue some more tools in order to be able to do that. But I am not clear today as a responsible member of this Parliament about exactly how the Commissioner of Inland Revenue will go about implementing this what information she will have or what tools will be at her disposal and then I am not confident about the definitions that are being put in place.I do not want to stand up in my constituency after this when there are already enough concerns about the child support regime and be so unclear. We are not I predict in a Nostradamus-like way going to get a detailed response to this matter from members opposite and the National Government needs to ask itself: if it is going to bring legislation to this House that makes major changes to the way child support works that its members are not prepared to back what does that mean? Does that mean those members are really committed to these changes? Does that mean they actually want to see a fairer system? Or is it once again another one of those bills papering over the cracks? I offer the opportunity now to National members to stand up and defend this legislation define what these terms mean and reassure New Zealanders that this will still be a fair system.