Nash Stuart: Taxation (GST and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Procedure Third Reading 
Nash Stuart: Taxation (GST and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Procedure Third Reading 
[Volume:669;Page:16182] 
STUART NASH (Labour) 
: 
 I would like to reiterate some of the comments my colleagues have made on the Taxation (GST and Remedial Matters) Bill. 
My colleague David Cunliffe looked at the 71-page Supplementary Order Paper 187 which was tabled on Tuesday and went through some of the commencement dates there. If we have a look at the actual bill itself we see that clause 2(1) states that “This Act comes into force on the day after the date on which it receives the Royal assent except as provided in this section.” Section 104 is treated as coming into force on 1 January 2005 and sections 88 89 90 92 and 93 are treated as coming into force on 1 April 2005. Those dates have passed so it is obviously retrospective legislation. Section 92B is treated as coming into force on 1 April 2006. Sections 90B and 91 are treated as coming into force on 1 October 2007. Section 11 is treated as coming into force on 30 November 2007. A whole lot of sections from section 23—in the 20s the 30s and the 40s section 58 in the 60s the 70s and 80s and section 108—are treated as coming into force on 1 April 2008. Section 64 is treated as coming into force on 1 October 2008. Section 82 is treated as coming into force on 6 October 2009. A whole lot of sections are treated as coming into force on 1 April 2010 more on 1 July 2010 a few more on 1 August 2010 one section on 5 August 2010 one section on 31 October 2010 and a whole lot more sections on 1 April 2011. Then as Mr Cunliffe mentioned the Supplementary Order Paper runs out the commencement date as far as April 2013. I think it would have been easier to list the sections that did receive the Royal assent rather than the ones that did not. There are so many dates here that it is confusing. 
To tell the truth I do not think a date is needed. I do not think the Minister of Revenue cares. The only reason there is a date is he has to have one by law. But he does not care. If he did care then he would not throw down a 71-page Supplementary Order Paper a day before the bill was debated in the Chamber a week before we break for Christmas and tell Labour members to go for it. In fact the Minister said to us that his officials had given Labour members a briefing. He gave us a briefing on Wednesday at our request for about 40 minutes on one small part of the bill. We had no idea the Supplementary Order Paper was coming. So the commencement date is a bit of a mystery. 
As my colleague the Hon David Cunliffe mentioned there is no transparency and no accountability. The problem I have with that is that as a member of the Finance and Expenditure Committee as well as a member of Parliament I am accountable for this bill. This bill will go through the House and it will be stated that it went through the Finance and Expenditure Committee. Well the truth is that less than half the bill as it will end up went through the Finance and Expenditure Committee. The majority of the bill did not go through the Finance and Expenditure Committee and it should have. We have made that point and I think it is a very valid point. I have had a couple of emails saying: “Good on you guys because this isn’t right.” One of them was from a tax lawyer. I can tell members that he will be rubbing his hands all the way to the bank. 
But there is another point to make. This legislation will come before the Finance and Expenditure Committee—I know that it will. Do members know how it will come there? It will come as a remedial matters bill and we will have to go through and make a whole lot of changes that the select committee would have made anyway. 
Let us look at the title. The bill could be called the “Taxation (Been Dunne Over) Bill.” The reason I say that is the initial bill was introduced on 5 August and it received its first reading on I think 19 August. Minister Dunne told us that he needed a Supplementary Order Paper because there was not enough time to introduce a proper bill. But Mr Dunne also told us that these changes were signalled in January when the Tax Working Group came back and outlined what it wanted to do. These changes were signalled when the Inland Revenue Department the Minister’s ministry put out a consultation document. These changes were signalled in the Budget. The changes were signalled three times about 6 months ago. The Budget came out on 20 May. Since then there has been June July August September October November and we are in December. 
The Minister said that the bill had to be taken for consultation. Well he had 6 months. In fact he could have done that in 3 months. He has asked Labour MPs to look at it in just 2 days. Why could he not have asked high-paid consultants to look at it in 2 months? How about 10 weeks of consultation? That is enough time. We ask people who are submitting to the Finance and Expenditure Committee to have their submissions in within 5 weeks—that is what we ask them—but we now suggest 10 weeks. That is enough time for highly paid tax consultants. That would have meant the bill was brought back in June or July. The Minister could have had something drafted with all their recommendations in it and given it to the Finance and Expenditure Committee in August when the initial bill was introduced. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Democracy is paying the price for his incompetence. 
STUART NASH 
: It very much is. I wonder what the Minister has been doing. Is he a lazy Minister? I have heard from my colleagues who know Peter Dunne a lot better than I do because they have worked with him that he was a stickler for process. This is not a bill from a Minister who is a stickler for process. Let us talk about this. If the consultants had had 3 months to look at it that would have given the select committee another 3 months to look at it. But of course as I mentioned we asked for submissions. We could have given the submissioners 4 weeks. They would have given their submissions changes would have been made to the bill and 2 months later the bill could have been reported back to the House—about 6 weeks ago. That is why I call this bill the “Taxation (Been Dunne Over) Bill”. It could be called the “Taxation by SOP Bill” because this is taxation legislation by Supplementary Order Paper. That means that this— 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: No taxation without representation. 
STUART NASH 
: No taxation without representation. What this means is that the Minister has put a huge substantial part of tax legislation on the Table with just 2 days for us to look at it. I personally do not think that is right and it certainly does not show any measure of accountability nor any measure of transparency. 
It could be called the “Taxation (Law Society Appreciation) Bill” because a lot of this legislation will be decided in the courts. I will say why: because it has not gone through due process which would have really tightened it up. I can say as a member of the Finance and Expenditure Committee that the drafters do a fantastic job. They draft some very good bills and I am sure the Supplementary Order Paper was well drafted. But the select committee process allows us to go through legislation almost line by line which Mr Mallard said used to happen in the Committee stage. The select committee does that these days clause by clause. The drafters sit down and say they think they have made a mistake. They cross-reference everything. Even on the third report back they say they have some changes to make. That could have happened this time. There is no excuse in my mind for this legislation to be passed under urgency through a Supplementary Order Paper. It is not good process. There will be lawyers and tax consultants who make a lot of money out of this. 
We have a small problem the problem being that the banks—and I am not bringing the banks into this—had to pay back about $2 billion in tax. They had to do that because they had interpreted tax legislation one way and the Commissioner of Inland Revenue had interpreted tax legislation another way. There was confusion and this is what happens when there is confusion: taxpayers do not get it right and the liability can be huge. Knowing the lawyers that the banks used I can image their bill was huge. 
There are a number of names that this bill could have been called that are so much more appropriate than the Taxation (GST and Remedial Matters) Bill. Let us be honest: “Remedial Matters” suggests that it is a tweaking a tidy-up or a correction—not substantial legislation that wipes away 130000 legal entities. This legislation removes loss attributing qualifying companies and that is done in a Supplementary Order Paper. There is no transparency there. That is why I have real concerns about this bill and that is why the name of the bill does not accurately reflect the substantive quantity of it. 
With “GST” in the title we get the inference that there is something to do with GST in the bill. It is a headline act and it was.