Cosgrove Clayton; Mallard TrevorHon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour): This Taxation (Business Tax Exchange of Information and Remedial Matters) Bill has had a fairly robust airing over many many months since it was first proposed by the Government and put to the Finance and Expenditure Committee. In the brief call that I have available I am going to touch on three points that other members have touched on because they are important and secondly because there has been no explanation given from the Government as to why it acted in such a way.Other members have mentioned that the bill fails completely to implement phase two of the anti - money-laundering provisions in respect of lawyers real estate agents and accountants. They have waxed eloquent for many many hours in this place in respect of how good this legislation is and what a great job it will do but those particular three sectors of our economy are exposed in terms of their transactions and should have been catered for in this legislation.I was the Associate Minister of Justice when the then Government implemented the anti -money-laundering provisions the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering provisions in respect of banking and others. We did it because of international obligations. It was appropriate to do. We called those interest groups in and we explained what we were going to do. We worked with them to minimise cost and we implemented them.No one from the new Minister the previous Minister or the Minister before that has explained to us why those provisions are not catered for in here. If there was a reason—there may be a logical reason—it would be helpful to know. No one in Government has managed to tell us when phase two of the anti - money-laundering rules and regulations will be implemented in any way shape or form as far as we know. So given that it is an international obligation it would be appropriate for somebody in the Government to provide some sort of direction on that.The Government has made much of the so-called register. But again there is no explanation from the Minister or the previous Minister who initiated this legislation as to why that register is not public. It is limited to IRD the Department of Internal Affairs and the Police. It is in no way public and no one has been able to—I have asked the question I think three times as have other colleagues as to where the mischief lies in having an open public register for the trustees for the beneficiaries or for anybody else in that space.We have had Government speaker after Government speaker say as I have said that it is such a wonderful thing. Well could they answer that simple question? Because this register does not meet the test of an open and transparent public register. If you are a foreign Government and you are concerned about the nefarious activity in this space you will not be able as a Government or as an international authority to get access to this register. You will not be able to look at it. You will have to go through other Government agencies but you will not be able to penetrate it in a transparent way and gain that information. The question I have for this Government is: if it is so concerned about transparency if it believes that this is world-class best-in-class legislation why did it not make that public?There may not be an explanation. I suspect there is but they do not want to talk about it. I challenge the next National Government speaker to take up the challenge on those two points. Mr Ross—he might given that he is on the Financial and Expenditure Committee—be able to answer those two questions: why no public register?Jami-Lee Ross: I'm not as smart as you Clayton.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: Well no no. The member says he is not as smart as me. I am smart enough to ask the question; he is not smart enough to provide an answer to the question. That is the difficulty we have. If you are such a smart guy—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I regret to say it is time for us to have some kai. Someone will resume the Chair at 7.30 p.m.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.