Robertson Grant: Border Processing (Arrivals and Departures) Levy Bill — First Reading Second Reading In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRobertson Grant: Border Processing (Arrivals and Departures) Levy Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee[Sitting date: 21 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3899. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central):There is hope for Stuart Smith because before the dinner break he got up and he told New Zealand what we all know: tonight we are debating a new tax that National brought in. We on this side of the House were discussing over dinner what a tragic end this was to Stuart Smith’s political career—so short burnt bright and out on one night. But Nicky Wagner has saved him. Stuart Smith could be the next Nicky Wagner—that is what we are finding out tonight—because she has just told us that the promise has been broken: “No new taxes.” That was the promise and Nicky Wagner has just told us right now that it is a tax. Every single New Zealander knows that Nicky Wagner.John Key went on the television last night and invited New Zealanders to google the difference between “tax” and “levy”. So I have done that and I can tell you that a tax is a compulsory contribution to State revenue levied by the Government on workers’ income and business profits or added to the cost of some goods services and transactions—something that we understand a tax to be. If we google “a levy” we see it is “a tax” or in fact both—the verb to impose a tax and the act of levying a tax. In fact some dictionaries go on to say “Use the word ‘levy’ as you would use the word ‘tax’.” So there we go—it is all there right here for you. We are happy to table it for you John. It is one with pictures so you will be fine; you will be good with that.So what we now have is a levy that is a tax and a tax that is a levy except that the Prime Minister does not think that they are the same. We are through the looking glass. This is what Humpty Dumpty told us: “When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” John Key is through the looking glass with Humpty Dumpty breaking the promise breaking the—Hon Craig Foss: Come on give us some poetry.GRANT ROBERTSON: Poetry? You would not know a poem if you fell over it Mr Foss.This is a broken promise. That is what this is. It is not just a broken promise to the voters of New Zealand who were told at the election by all the National candidates over there that there would be no new taxes; it is a broken promise to the airline industry. The board and airline representatives have made it quite clear that “National’s new tax”—they understand that—“breaches the understanding reached in 2003. Airlines already met the full costs of aviation safety and in return the Government met the costs of Customs. Under the deal the Government was to bear the costs of agricultural screening which is deemed to be for the benefit of the primary industries.” It is a broken promise to New Zealanders; a broken promise to the airline industry.But of course we all know that John Key is a straight-talking guy. If he went to a conference of a sector that was going to be deeply affected by something that was happening in the Budget—oh I do not know—2 days after his speech he might mention it to them. John Key goes to the Tourism Industry Association conference last week and it slips his mind. Obviously there are a lot of things on his mind but he fails to even mention it.Carmel Sepuloni: Slippery mind—that is why.GRANT ROBERTSON: That is right—because he is indeed Carmel Sepuloni very very slippery. It is a sneaky tax it is a broken promise and that is all that New Zealanders will see it as.But it gets worse. As we look through the department disclosure statement—and I hate to break this to the Minister Nicky Wagner who got up to give us the numbers before; we had 16 20 and 22. Do I have any advance on 22—no apparently not according to the Minister. When we look at the department disclosure statement it says as it goes through about the model of the levy: “[All of] this work will inform the final levy design including the level of the levy.” So the level of the levy—which is a tax—will still now be part of the consultation process.This is a bizarre situation. Here we are at 20 past 7 on a Saturday night apparently urgently passing this legislation to enable the imposition of this tax and the final design of the tax—the level of the tax—is not even going to be worked out. It is off for consultation. It is like going to the city council to get a building consent and saying “We are pretty sure the house is going to have some walls and we might put a roof on it and there could be a floor but look we’ll work it out later. Just give us the consent now.” That is what the National Party is doing tonight. There are all sorts of questions about whom it will apply to and will there be exemptions?Here is a question for the National members: will there be exemptions? Will it apply to every person who crosses the border? There is silence—absolute silence. They have not got a clue whether this tax will apply to every person who comes across the border. Here is a question for you: would it have applied to Prince Harry? No one—no one; they have not got a clue. They do not know what this is about. They have come to this House with an ill-thought-out tax—Carmel Sepuloni: Will it apply to Gerry Brownlee?GRANT ROBERTSON: Will it apply to Gerry Brownlee? He will sneak through so it will not apply to him. Actually someone called Gerry—his phone is on the desk so I am not sure what happened there. He may have been a bit angry earlier on and ripped it off. Ring up Gerry Brownlee and find out whether this tax will apply to him. At the moment what we are being asked to pass in this Parliament is a piece of legislation to impose a tax that the Government does not know how much it is going to be to whom it will apply how much it is going to cost to administer and exactly who is going to administer it. It is a shambles.Chris Hipkins: But it is very urgent.GRANT ROBERTSON: It is extremely urgent but it is a complete shambles and it is a total broken promise which symbolises everything about this Budget—a tax on travellers that is a broken promise a property tax about which Bill English said today that he did not even know whether it would work; he is not too sure about that. These are broken promises and a shambolic Budget. On this side of the House in a second reading debate we really should be debating now the contributions of all of the people who submitted at the select committee—the tourism industry the airline industry travellers—and we do not have their voices here today. For all of those reasons we cannot support this bill.