Yule LawrenceLAWRENCE YULE (National—Tukituki): Madam Chair I wish to thank you for the call and I wish to speak to clause 17 of the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2018–19 Modernising Tax Administration and Remedial Matters) Bill which is around the commissioner's ability to obtain information by accessing properties and documents. This is a pretty amazing clause because as my learned friend Mr McKelvie has just said you do not actually want to get into trouble with the Inland Revenue and the last thing you want is them coming on to your property to access information or data or documents.If you go to clause 17(2) where it says The Commissioner must not enter a private dwelling to access any property or documents except with the consent of an occupier or under a warrant issued under section 17D." you understand that there are two courses of action here: one where agents of the Inland Revenue can turn up have a conversation and ask to access various documents. I do notice that under clause 17(5) in this clause—and under clause 16 16B and 17D—"property or documents includes—(a) all lands buildings places or other premises:" and "(b) a document whether in the custody or under the control of a public officer or a body corporate or any other person". A private dwelling goes on to be defined as "a building or part of a building occupied as residential accommodation and includes—(a) a garage shed and other buildings used in connection with a private dwelling; and (b) any business premises that are or are within a private dwelling."The reason I spelt that out is that that is a pretty significant ability for officers of Inland Revenue to go into somebody's private property or business interests. I think we need to be really clear that in many of the cases that we're going after here—and I think our side of the Chamber supports the Government's wish for this transformation project and the things we want under this section to make sure the taxation collection system is fair and reasonable. If we go there then we have two options. First the person is going to agree. Inland Revenue turns up; they have a warrant. They're going to agree: come have a look and take whichever documents or copies of the documents you wish. Or what is more likely is on legal or other advice they are going to say "Where's your warrant? What right have you got to be here?"That is where we get into clause 17D(1)(a): "an application [needs to be] made for a search warrant under Part 4 subpart 3 of the Search and Surveillance Act … for [the] warrant to enter a private dwelling [and] to remove and retain a document from this place". I'll remind this committee of the conversations we had late last year in terms of some of the biosecurity changes in New Zealand brought about by M. bovis. While I'm generally supportive of these provisions I think we need to make sure that whatever those warrants are issued for and the process that's being followed is fair and reasonable. I remind members of this House that in many cases people will not be compliant. They won't want this to happen.So I'm seeking some clarification from the Minister as to how easy it's going to be for these warrants to be obtained because I read under 17D(1)(b) that "an issuing officer [needs to be] satisfied that the issue of the warrant is required for the exercise of a function lawfully conferred on the Commissioner." So what is the requirement and what does satisfaction mean? I think that is a very high threshold. I'll ask the Minister if he would—and Minister Faafoi is generally very obliging in these cases—to answer the question: what do they mean that "an issuing officer is satisfied" and what is the test for that? Because in my view entering someone's home shed property farm whatever is a high threshold. If a warrant's to be issued I need to understand what needs to be satisfied before that occurs."