Twyford Phil: Governor-General Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Twyford Phil: Governor-General Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:668;Page:14807] 
PHIL TWYFORD (Labour) 
: 
 I cannot help feeling that this side of the House is doing a lot of the heavy lifting. 
Hon Phil Heatley 
: First time for everything! 
PHIL TWYFORD 
: I am thrilled to hear some words emerge from the mouth of the Minister in the chair and I invite the Minister to show us that there is more to him than fish and flogging off our public housing stock. I really would welcome some comment from the Minister particularly on clauses 19 20 22 and 24 of Part 2. I think it would be great. I was hoping we would hear from the member for North Shore who used to teach constitutional law and I thought he would have a lot of good things to tell the House about Part 2. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: He never quite made it to being a senior lecturer. 
PHIL TWYFORD 
: No but just like many of our Governors-General he has gone on to bigger and better things and that is one of the points we have been covering in terms of the need for an annuity. One of my colleagues Chris Hipkins made the point earlier that it is necessary because being Governor-General is not exactly good for someone’s employment prospects. I question that. I look at people like Dame Silvia Cartwright who has gone on to provide fantastic service on the tribunal in Cambodia and also Sir Paul Reeves who has provided distinguished service in Fiji and academic life in New Zealand in the years following his tenure as Governor-General. 
Part 2 has some important clauses. Firstly it amends the Civil List Act 1979—it repeals Part 1 of that Act which provides for the funding of the Governor-General; and it allows the establishment of a stand-alone piece of legislation that reflects the importance of the office of Governor-General. I think the symbolism of that is very clear. Clauses 22 to 24 provide for the amendment of the Income Tax Act 2007 to remove the Governor-General’s tax-exempt status. But of course as we know it retains tax-exempt status for the allowance. 
The significance of this group of clauses in Part 2 cannot be underestimated. The motivation behind these clauses is the very reason why Labour has called for the beginning of a conversation about the future of our constitutional arrangements. We believe that the very reasons we are taking away the Governor-General’s tax-exempt status and establishing these arrangements and stand-alone legislation are why it is time for our country to start having a conversation about our future constitutional status. 
Many New Zealanders say they are perfectly happy with this Queen that she has provided many years of wonderful service as our head of State and that it would be impolite to begin a conversation about constitutional change while she is still on the throne. We take the view that our future constitutional status is too important to be left to a mad scramble on the death or abdication of the current Queen and that we must begin now as a country to discuss not just these important practical details around annuities and so on but also the nature of the office of our head of State the way in which the head of State is selected and whether the head of State should be a New Zealander and not a member of the British royal family. 
That is why we support these provisions. We think they are important and necessary. The nature of the office of Governor-General demonstrates the fact that New Zealand is a constitutional monarchy. There is a very real and important symbolism in having these provisions which provide the core of the second part of this bill in separate legislation. There is simply no longer any justification for the tax-exempt status of the Governor-General’s income.