Robertson GrantGRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): Well off the back of that incisive contribution from the chair of the Finance and Expenditure Committee can I reiterate my colleague Stuart Nash's comments that Labour will support this bill on its first reading as we do with all taxation legislation that comer before the House.There is no doubt what this bill is really about. There is the usual attempt to correct the mistakes of the last tax bill that went through and to tidy up the loose ends in the tax system but this bill is the swallowing of a very large dead Panamanian rat for the Government—because that is what this bill is about. This bill is the Government coming to the House and saying to New Zealanders: Three years ago when Inland Revenue Department officials told us that we should be doing something to close the loopholes in our foreign trust regime and when we the National Government ignored them we were wrong and we let New Zealanders down." It would have been nice to have heard from the Minister of Revenue that he acknowledges his Government got it wrong and that the hard-working officials in the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) were the ones who got it right and they were ignored by the Government. And they were ignored by the Government with the influence of the foreign trust industry and in particular the Prime Minister's close adviser Ken Whitney.Let us take ourselves back to when the Panama Papers first exposed issues around New Zealand's foreign trust regime. John Key's first thing to say was that New Zealand has full disclosure of information when it comes to foreign trusts. Well today this legislation actually tries to get us to full disclosure—or some way down that path—so the Prime Minister was just plain wrong about that. He actually knew I am sure that there were things that could be done and today we have legislation that proves that the Prime Minister was wrong. We do not have today full disclosure of information when it comes to foreign trusts. We should be able to get that in New Zealand. This will take some steps but there is more that needs to be done which I will come to shortly.What was really instructive about the Prime Minister's first reaction to concerns about loopholes being exploited in our foreign trust regime was that he decided to stand up for the tax evaders and the tax avoiders. He chose his side. He could have chosen New Zealand taxpayers and the reputation of the New Zealand tax system but he chose the other side. He chose to side with the foreign trust industry and the people around the world the mega-wealthy who decide that they should not pay their fair share of tax. Well on this side of the House we side with New Zealand taxpayers—a fair go and a fair deal for New Zealand taxpayers.Most New Zealanders are prepared to pay their fair share of tax because they want to fulfil a responsibility to a good society—and good on them for doing that. But those who seek to avoid their obligations and who seek to cheat other taxpayers—we should have no time for them whatsoever but the first thing the Prime Minister did was to back those people. And I do not care what country they come from—Bill English stood up in the House and said: "We don't need to care about the Mexican taxpayers." We do actually. We actually need to care about the fact that right around the world we have tax systems that support people paying their fair share because when we go to the OECD and say "We want multinationals to pay their tax."—which we do—how can we stand up there with any credibility and make that claim and ask for the assistance of the rest of the world when we are the ones with a system that is being exploited? We are the ones with a system where somebody from Mexico named the "Duke of Influence" could park his money where discredited Brazilian politicians with $150 million worth of money that seems potentially to have been corruptly found finds it way to New Zealand and where corrupt Maltese politicians file their money in New Zealand. That damages our reputation. So today we have got a piece of legislation that starts to try to deal with that but—make no mistake—this Government did not come here willingly with this legislation. It was dragged here because it was exposed as being on the side of tax evaders and tax avoiders.And it was all so unnecessary because in August 2013 the Inland Revenue Department came to the Government and said: "We need to do something. To protect our international reputation it may be necessary to strengthen our regulatory framework for disclosure and record-keeping." In August 2013—on 15 August which is almost exactly 3 years ago—the Inland Revenue Department said to this Government "You need to close the loopholes." and the Government did nothing about it. So the Inland Revenue Department came back to it in August 2014 in November 2014 and in December 2014. By November 2014 the Inland Revenue Department had already put tightening-up disclosure requirements for foreign trusts on its work programme and that was the signal for those in the foreign trusts industry. Once it made it on to the work programme they used their insider influence. Ken Whitney the Prime Minister's closest adviser writes to the Minister of Revenue Todd McClay and says "I've spoken to the Prime Minister. He's told me to talk to you." and then lo and behold within a month it is all over. It is off the IRD work programme and the foreign trusts industry gets to carry on without even having to take a breath.That is because this Government chose to side with the industry over New Zealand taxpayers and ordinary working people all over the world and that is a shameful record from this Government. It had the chance to stand up for a fair tax system and it decided against it. It went with the insider influence which is so typical of this Government and the Prime Minister said: "Don't worry about it. Ordinary people approach me all the time with ideas and I refer them to the Ministers." Hon Annette King: At the Koru Club.GRANT ROBERTSON: He said "Ordinary people come up to me every day in the Koru Lounge."—that is right. Ordinary people roaming freely about the buffet in the Koru Lounge talking to John Key who is passing details of Ministers hither and yon—what a load of nonsense. This was the Prime Minister's personal lawyer and adviser using his influence and Todd McClay just said: "How much? How high Prime Minister?". This is a shameful episode and this Government needs today to acknowledge to New Zealanders that it got it wrong. The proposals that it is bringing to the House today are inadequate in one specific way and that is the absence of a publicly available register of foreign trusts. This is because in the end if another jurisdiction is looking around the world to see where money might be parked and cannot get easy access to that register it is not going to be able to find out. It is not so much looking for a needle in a haystack; it is whether there is a needle in a series of haystacks and it does not have the information to support that.We have registers of companies in New Zealand. We have publicly available registers of companies; we have publicly available registers of charities. Why are foreign trusts not seen in the same light? So the legislation in front of us today says that it will be the Inland Revenue Department and the police that get to see this. That does not properly advance the interests of transparency and as a country we need to hold on to that reputation around transparency that has been built up over many decades. One of the saddest parts of this whole episode was the fact that during it New Zealand slipped down the Transparency International rankings. I was present when a Government backbencher said: "Well you know our aim is to be in the top five for the Transparency International rankings." Just imagine if Steve Hansen held a press conference and said: "The All Blacks' aim is to be in the top five of rugby-playing nations." He would be sacked—he would be sacked straight away—because when we are the best in the world at something we must stay as the best in the world. We are slipping in Transparency International ratings under this Government and those members do not care because they are too interested in protecting the mega-rich and those who have close influence on them.This piece of legislation will get scrutiny at the select committee. It will get many many submissions I am sure. I want to assure the public of New Zealand that the Labour Party will look closely at this legislation to ensure that we use it to restore the reputation of New Zealand for transparency to restore their faith in the tax system of New Zealand and to give ourselves credibility on the world stage when we ask others to support us when it comes to cracking down on multinational tax avoidance."