Mallard Trevor: Taxation (GST and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Procedure Third Reading 
Mallard Trevor: Taxation (GST and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Procedure Third Reading 
[Volume:669;Page:16173] 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 It might be slightly unusual but I would like to work backwards through the clauses in Part 7. Starting off with clause 109 I say that on its own we probably would not vote against it but there is a mis-description in the header. It is all very well to blame parliamentary counsel but I do not think that that is very fair; the Minister in charge of the bill should take responsibility for that. Otherwise it is clear that it is tidying up things that should have been cleaned up years ago when the primary Act was amended. It is consequential on that rather than on this. 
Sandra Goudie 
: They had 9 long years and did nothing. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I am sorry. Did the woman with the brain of Paul Quinn and the voice of Judy Keall just comment? Working backwards I am seeking from the Minister an assurance on clause 108 with regard to the Health Entitlement Cards Regulations 1993 and it is an assurance in two parts. First of all I seek an assurance that this regulation needs to be changed by primary legislation and cannot be changed within the regulation itself; normally when we change a regulation that is the case. Normally if we go back to primary legislation then there is something serious going on and that gets to the second question I have. I am very concerned about clause 108(2) which makes the change to the health entitlement cards regulations retrospective. Again I do not mind whether the Minister nods or winks at me to indicate whether there is an actual change here. She winked and nodded at me. I wonder what the implication of that is. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: It’s Friday night. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: We will be here Saturday night as well! The point I am making—and it is a serious point—is to ask whether there is a reduction in the entitlement as a result of the redefinition of income that has occurred in this clause and if there is a reduction in entitlement whether it should be backdated to 2008-09. If people have their community service cards and they have their entitlements is it on for them now to be getting bills for health care that occurred in July 2008? If there are changes people who took their community service card to the doctor and used it then are now losing their entitlements for that time. We are told that this applies for that year and the later income years and we want to know what the revenue effect of this is—what the change is that flows from that. That is question No. 1 to do with that.  
Working backwards I would like to ask Mr Flavell whether he has any comments on clause 107 because it has to do with the renaming of Volunteer Service Abroad and that is changing within the regulations. The organisation has adopted a new name a named based on te reo and it is a question of whether that is appropriate. Again I ask whether he thinks it is a suitable name because he will no doubt be able to give his view on that. But more important I ask whether primary legislation should be used for this. All we are doing is changing the student loan scheme regulations. People who are offshore doing what my generation knows as volunteer service abroad have some special student loan arrangements and as this change of name occurs I want to ensure that we have to use the primary legislation as opposed to the Minister using the other legislation.  
I have two more clauses to which I would like to refer. Unlike my colleagues I have a relatively simple question on clause 106. I am certainly not an expert on the Auckland local government legislation particularly the taxation parts of it but if one looks at new subsections (19) and (20) of section 83 which go in the transitional provisions part of the legislation after section 83(18) section 83(19) states that if “Watercare Services Limited is liable for a debt to the Auckland Council … for the purposes of the financial arrangements rules as defined in section YA 1 of the Income Tax Act 2007 the Auckland Council is treated as paying to Watercare Services Limited … consideration equal to the debt.” The question I have is whether that is the right way round. If the money is owned by Watercare Services to the council might we have that the wrong way round? I am sure the Minister in charge of the legislation currently Georgina te Heuheu is right on top that; I am pleased that she is seeking answers.  
Similarly and I think it is fair to say that this is one of those clauses put together by a word processor there is section 83(20) which relates not to Watercare Services but to council-controlled organisations. It is not quite the same but I have a similar question as to whether the debt is the right way round. The money is owned by a council-controlled organisation to the council but the council is treated as paying an amount equal to the debt to the organisation. I am not sure. I am happy to defer to my colleagues if they tell me that they have carefully examined this part of Part 7 of the bill and that they are satisfied it is not as it appears at first glance. I would not want to describe complicated tax legislation as arse about face but it looks as though it has the debits and the credits mixed up and who owes whom and which way it is being paid. I know very well as a Minister who sat on committees in the office of the Minister of Finance far too often that every now and again in taxation legislation things are got wrong and we end up coming back to correct them. I am just trying to save the Government a bit of time by checking to see whether this one is the right way round.  
I do not want to make any comment about clause 104 but I want to talk about the Gaming Duties Act 1971 and the deduction of duty from payments due to defaulters. I cannot remember whether you Mr Chairman Tisch were in the Chair at the time I raised concern over a parallel arrangement to do with the Taxation (Tax Administration and Remedial Matters) Bill but I am very concerned at the idea that the Inland Revenue Department can dip into a bank account just because it has someone’s name on it and they are a signatory of it. They might not have dealt with the account for 20 years. The money in it might belong to someone else completely. It has nothing to do with gaming money. Just because someone has their name on a bank account and is a signatory as I am for a few of my relatives and which has worked and was there for purposes in the past—maybe I was a guarantor or some other similar arrangement; for example it might have been used as a trust arrangement but is not any longer—it does not mean that they own the money in the account.  
The idea is that the Inland Revenue Department can go to what is effectively a third party and take the third party’s money out of a bank account in settlement of a debt. I do not want to show any sympathy at all to people involved in the gaming industry who do not pay their debts to the Inland Revenue Department but that we should go to the point of saying that if they happen to have an arrangement with someone else where the debtor’s name happens to be on the bank account holding money that is not theirs and that the Inland Revenue Department can take that third party’s money out of the account without any notice whatsoever—no pleases no thankyous—I think is something that is not right.