Swarbrick ChlöeCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green): E Te Māngai tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. It is a pleasure to rise and speak on behalf of the Green Party after the previous Minister in charge of moving this through Cabinet under the previous Government and particularly to tautoko her point about love and peace. It's not necessarily what I saw coming from the lips of one the Hon Judith Collins but I am very proud of the fact that we're standing in the House today or rather sitting and standing in the House today—Marja Lubeck: On this special day!CHLÖE SWARBRICK: —unanimously supporting this piece of legislation. Yes to echo the sentiments of one Marja Lubeck my colleague from Labour on this special day—on my birthday—I wanted nothing more than to be debating a tax bill!This is a very complicated piece of legislation as many speakers before me have noted and as I was fortunate enough to note in my speech on this piece of legislation in the second reading. It was traversed I think incredibly well by the Minister Stuart Nash. There are four I believe operative tools in the legislation which a lot of very smart and very fancy people involved in the sector have submitted on and a lot of people in the IRD and ministerial advisory departments have had their hands in creating. I kind of just want to point out—as was noted I believe in particular by the Hon Judith Collins but so too by Ian McKelvie—that as long as there is tax as long as there are rules there will be people who are likely to try and avoid or skirt around those rules. There are always going to be people who are going to cut corners.I really actually quite enjoyed the quote of Ms Collins that it's only the truly rich and the truly poor who don't pay tax[es]." I kind of wanted to pick up on that point in particular with regard to a campaign run last year 2017 which obviously aligned with what was happening in the political sphere at the time during the election: a campaign by ActionStation who those in this House may be aware of as engaging in stirring up political debate and engaging community members grassroots fund-raising to start the conversation on a number of really important issues. They ran a campaign off the back of a report in the Pacific Accounting Review by Lisa Marriott from Victoria University and Dalice Sim from Otago University who wrote an article called "Tax evasion and welfare fraud: do punishments fit the crime or the perception of the crime?" What they found is that annually tax fraud in this country costs us $1.24 billion but welfare fraud on the other hand costs us $30.6 million. So to put that in perspective there—Tim van de Molen: I raise a point of order Madam Deputy Speaker. I draw your attention to Speaker's ruling 17/4. I believe the slogan on the member's laptop is inappropriate to be displayed in this House. Thank you.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you. I was just actually looking at Speaker's ruling 16/3 in which electronic devices are not to be on the top of the table unless they're being used for speaking notes. CHLÖE SWARBRICK: I'm about to refer to it. Sorry Madam Deputy Speaker I'm about to refer to my laptop.DEPUTY SPEAKER: The difficulty is that you now have advertising on it and a slogan.CHLÖE SWARBRICK: OK. I can put it down here.DEPUTY SPEAKER: So if you put it down that would be fine. Thank you.CHLÖE SWARBRICK: All right. I could cover it—would that work?DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yes.CHLÖE SWARBRICK: So the point—Andrew Bayly: Speak off the cuff!CHLÖE SWARBRICK: Speak off the cuff? Mate I'm about to refer to the white paper by BDO which refers to the base erosion and profit shifting: "What you need to know". Why this is important—DEPUTY SPEAKER: Actually I don't need to know.CHLÖE SWARBRICK: Sorry Madam Deputy Speaker. The title of the article is "BEPS—What you need to know" so if I can just clarify that point. It was published on 8 September 2017. Why I think that this is important to raise is that we've talked a lot about the impact that this is going to have on the tax take for example in Aotearoa New Zealand and so too about levelling the playing field but what this white paper speaks to is the perspective of businesses. They state and I quote "This means you need to be sure that: [firstly] the price for which you are charging related parties for goods or services meets the arm's length principle under each country's respective transfer pricing legislation; [two] your business is appropriately structured and your legal structure aligns with the commercial reality and economic substance of your business; and [thirdly] your measures are well documented and the respective reporting requirements in each jurisdiction fully met." Why I think that that is important to note is because what we're talking about there is essentially transparency and accountability and businesses becoming comfortable with that.We've had a few other speakers point to the fact that this is about a social licence to operate. There is absolutely a demarcation between morals or ethics and laws. What we are trying to do here is ensure that we have a legislative and taxation framework that aligns with our morals and our ethics with regard to fairness and the social contract because what we often see with regard to what I was pointing to earlier about so long as there are rules people will skirt them is that we often see a circumstance where we have privatisation of profit and socialisation of cost. What I mean by that is that with the current situation there are a few cowboys out there. I'd like to acknowledge what previous speakers have as well: that there are many businesses who are playing by the rules. But those who are not are utilising the infrastructure that taxpayers in this country have built whether that be our very physical infrastructure in terms of transport or whether it be the likes of our courts or judicial system. But indeed they are privatising profit by way of selling those goods and services and not paying the requisite tax.So this is indeed about getting the balance right and to get the balance right as the Hon Judith Collins mentioned we need everybody involved. That's what's actually really exciting about this piece of legislation among other things: that New Zealand signed up among 78 other countries to the Multilateral Convention to Implement Tax Treaty Related Measures to Prevent Base Erosion and Profit Shifting—the multilateral instrument which adopts the OECD's recommendations in the base erosion and profit shifting action plan signed in June 2017 to amend multiple thousands of tax treaties around the world. So this is going to be sustainable because it is signed up to by dozens of countries around the world and it is not a unique issue in New Zealand sole so it requires a geopolitical response.So in summation I think to refer back to my excitement this is a really critical piece of legislation that goes some way to pointing towards building a more fair and equitable tax system and it's an admirable piece of work both nationally and indeed internationally. I just want to thank everybody who has been involved in that but also to just quickly if I may point to the remarks of the Hon Paul Goldsmith who spoke about the system needing to be robust but not arbitrary nor hostile but then referred to steps that the Government is making with regard to other policy and legislative decisions. Particularly he referenced oil and gas and I believe in turn the likes of what we are doing in the climate action space. He spoke to a want for bipartisan action and on that point I'd like to say that I welcome his submission and the input of all of the National Party on the zero carbon bill. Kia ora."