Nash StuartSTUART NASH (Labour—Napier): There are just a couple of points I would like to make. First and foremost Mr Andrew Bayly stood up and said that this bill is about four parts—four changes. Well I actually think that that is belittling the bill. There are a whole lot of provisions in this piece of tax legislation. Some have wide consequences some less so but they are all important and they all have consequences for business. To say this carries only four parts is quite untrue.Alastair Scott: So how many parts are there? How many bits? How many bits would you like to say?STUART NASH: Well there is a 190-page regulatory impact statement. There is a 91-page bill which contains over 100 clauses and there is a 250-page officials report. I read them all as our revenue spokesperson; I am sure that member of the Finance and Expenditure Committee did as well so he will be well aware that this is quite complex.There is one thing that Andrew Bayly talked about that I do not necessarily agree with and I would like to challenge him based on what the IRD has said. He said that the system was not broken but that it could be improved. Well what the IRD has actually said is—the IRD proposed three options around foreign trusts. (1) was the status quo (2) was the one we have found here and (3) was to repeal the tax exemption for foreign trusts. What it said is and this is in the regulatory impact statement: We do not recommend option 1 (the status quo) as that does not meet the stated objective to reduce the potential for misuse of foreign trusts in New Zealand (both actual and perceived) in respect of foreign tax avoidance or evasion and money laundering and other illicit purposes."The IRD in that sentence there acknowledged that there was the ability to engage in avoidance or evasion and money laundering and therefore that is why they recommended moving to option 2. But the interesting thing about option 2—what we are debating at the moment—is that the IRD has actually said: "It may partially address the concerns relating to money-laundering and other illicit purposes. Accordingly the recommended option … will meet the objective to reduce the potential for misuse". It has not said "to eliminate the potential for misuse" only "to reduce the potential for misuse".Option 3 which was considered by the IRD which obviously is not being debated was to repeal tax exemption for foreign trusts. The one thing I would perhaps disagree with the IRD on here is that there were five tests that they use: New Zealand's reputation open economy fairness and integrity coherency of the tax system and compliance and administration which is—there were five tests anyway. New Zealand's reputation normally sits outside the tax tests. It said that option 2 met the objective of upholding New Zealand's reputation. I am not too sure whether that is the case. I would actually say that the only one of these three options that would actually enshrine New Zealand's reputation as a country of integrity is option 3 and that is to repeal the exemption for foreign trusts. By just reducing the ability to engage in nefarious behaviour it does not in fact address the problem that I think came to the House in the first place.The second point I would like to make briefly is something that my colleague Meka Whaitiri talked about and this was clause 104. This is actually quite important because what this is about is a disclosure—it is really a change in business practice. It is about the disclosure of information to approved credit reporting agencies. That is this is the IRD giving—Dun & Bradstreet or whatever—an outside organisation details about a company's tax affairs. We did debate this a lot and we had concerns about this because we think that fundamentally a business has got to be able to trust the IRD to keep its affairs confidential but on the balance of things we thought that the benefits probably outweighed the minuses.What happened is that the bill initially proposed a series of conditions that would have to be met before the commissioner could disclose information to credit agencies. Included in that was a dollar threshold so it provided a level of certainty to business. What the committee did against the Labour Party's—and I think the Green Party's—recommendations and advice is that it removed that dollar figure. What it did is it actually failed we believe to provide any indication and therefore any certainty or guidance to taxpayers as to when their information would be shared or may be shared—it is not a must—with an approved credit reporting agency. What happened is it retained the "Henry VIII" provision. What the "Henry VIII" provision is is when a statutory instrument—i.e. a secondary piece of legislation—actually changes the primary legislation. The reason why I have concerns about a "Henry VIII" provision and—give me 2 seconds: this was a quote from a Lord Judge who spoke strongly against such clauses while he was Lord Chief Justice so quite a learned figure. He was probably even more learned than the Attorney-General but anyway. He said: "You can be sure that when these "Henry VIII" clauses are introduced they will always be said to be necessary. William Pitt warned us how to treat such a plea with disdain. Necessity is the justification for every infringement of human liberty: 'It is the argument of tyrants and the creed of slaves.' " Thank you very much.The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 258 in the name of the Hon Judith Collins to Part 1 be agreed to.Amendments agreed to.Part 1 as amended agreed to.Part 2 agreed to.The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 258 in the name of the Hon Judith Collins to Part 3 be agreed to.Amendments agreed to.Part 3 as amended agreed to.Schedule agreed to.Clause 1 agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 258 in the name of the Hon Judith Collins to clause 2 be agreed to.Amendment agreed to.Clause 2 as amended agreed to.House resumed.Bill reported with amendment.Report adopted."