Robertson Grant: Annual Review Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRobertson Grant: Annual Review Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 14 April 2016. Volume:713;Page:10645. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): No choice this time you have to give me the call. The Minister of Revenue the Hon Michael Woodhouse stood up—or at least I think he stood up—and cried a series of crocodile tears for the plumbers and the carpenters and the small-business people who are sitting around doing their tax returns and doing the right thing. He stands there and says that to this Chamber at the same time that he sits on his chuff in his office and fails to do anything about closing the loopholes around tax avoidance and tax evasion in this country. It is all very well to praise the efforts of the hard-working staff of the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) but it is in the mirror that the Minister should be looking when it comes to what is going wrong in the tax system of New Zealand.Have we not had a window on the soul of the National Party in the last 2 weeks when it comes to what has been happening with the Panama Papers? John Key’s very first reaction—his very first reaction—was to leap to the defence of his old mates the mega-rich around the world who hide their money. They were the first people whom John Key thought of. He did not think of the taxpayers of New Zealand who work hard and pay their fair share and he did not think of the taxpayers of countries around the world who work hard and pay their fair share; he leapt to the defence of the greedy. He leapt to the defence of the people who make it their mission not to do the right thing—that is who John Key is on the side of: the mega-rich the people at the very top not the middle New Zealanders working hard every day who do pay their fair share. That is what we have seen from the National Party over the last couple of weeks. And now Bill English decides to add to it: he says that working people in New Zealand are “pretty damned hopeless”. We are hearing from the National Party what it really thinks: Bill English when he is talking to his mates in Federated Farmers and John Key when his first reaction is to defend the people who rip off the system.You know the National Party is very quick to get into people who they say might be bludging somewhere if it is in the welfare system. Well Simon Bridges what about the bludgers at the top? What about the people at the top who go out of their way to make sure that they do not pay their fair share? Michael Woodhouse should have been on his feet today saying: “We won’t stand for that. We are finally going to listen to the advice that the National Party has been given time after time.” What Chapman Tripp said about the changes made in 2010 and 2011 by the National Party that made it tax-free—tax-free—for investment funds in New Zealand that are owned by foreigners was: “This puts us on a par with Luxembourg and the Cayman Islands.” John Key might be a bit disappointed about that because he wanted us to be the Jersey of the South Pacific an ultimate tax haven—it has actually gone bankrupt now—or the Switzerland of the South Pacific because that is all about where those people who are the mega-rich make their money. But the National Government was warned. It was warned that its changes were going to make a big difference. And they have—nearly doubling the number of foreign trusts that we now have operating out of New Zealand—and they do not even want to look at that.It has set up a sham review rather than the full public inquiry that we need because New Zealanders need the multinationals that operate here in New Zealand to pay their tax. We know that there are multinationals that are avoiding that. We are out there on the world stage saying that we want that so that New Zealand working people only have to pay their fair share. But our credibility in going out to the world and saying that we want multinationals to pay their fair share is undermined when we have a Government that will not respond to the huge loopholes in our tax system. The Government was told in 2013 by the Inland Revenue Department that our foreign trust rules continue to attract criticism including claims that New Zealand is now a tax haven in respect of trusts and that to protect our international reputation it may be necessary to strengthen our regulatory framework for disclosure and record-keeping.If Michael Woodhouse wants to respect the officials from the IRD he should listen to their advice. That is what they told Michael Woodhouse in 2013 and he ignored it. His Cabinet colleagues the Prime Minister—they all ignored it. John Key is donkey deep in tax evasion—John Key - deep in tax evasion. That is who he is that is who his friends are and that is whom he stands up for.Well New Zealanders deserve much better than that when it comes to our tax system. We need a fair tax system. We need a tax system that is simple and easy to understand. Fundamentally we need a tax system that allows New Zealand to hold its head up high on the world stage—not a morally bankrupt Government that thinks that those at the very top are those who deserve their support. We need a Government that is for all New Zealanders not the mega-rich.