Peters Winston: Oral Questions — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumePeters Winston: Oral Questions — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 07 April 2016. Volume:712;Page:10312. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]3.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all his statements?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Prime Minister) on behalf of thePrime Minister: Yes.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Why does he stand by his statement about New Zealand’s tax haven status that it is “not an embarrassment” and that “the Government will not change any tax rules until the IRD has looked at the issue.” given the same man—Hon Steven Joyce: Is this a question?Rt Hon Winston Peters: You are getting it sunshine. You just wait.Mr SPEAKER: Order! Just complete the question.Rt Hon Winston Peters: —who found there was nothing to see about the wine box namely John Nash is again in charge of looking at the rules?Hon BILL ENGLISH: New Zealand does not have “tax haven status”. Much as the member might want that to be the case it simply is not. If he is worried about who is looking at the rules the OECD is apparently going to review our rules again next year and I expect it will give a somewhat similar opinion as it did last time which is that our rules—Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am asking this Minister why John Nash is the person looking at the rules. I do not want to hear about anybody else just why John Nash is being relied upon.Mr SPEAKER: That should well have been the supplementary question and I could have helped the member but that was not the supplementary question. It was a very lengthy supplementary question that gave the Minister more opportunity to answer and address the question.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Is John Nash the Inland Revenue Department’s (IRD) international revenue strategy manager the same John Nash who admitted in the 1995 commission of inquiry that the IRD did not begin a serious examination of key wine-box transactions until 1 month after a Minister had assured this House that it had?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I have no idea.Rt Hon Winston Peters: How much confidence does he have in John Nash’s leading an inquiry by IRD into New Zealand’s involvement in the foreign trusts when he never understood the wine-box fraud on the revenue and is now being put up as an expert saying there is no fraud in the Panama Papers transactions in New Zealand; why would you trust that man?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The IRD is a statutorily independent entity. Whatever officials it uses is really its business. But the member can be assured that there are no parallels between the foreign trusts and the Cook Islands thing that he is referring to. In this case the concerns about tax avoidance are concerns held by the Mexican Government and the Maltese Government not by the New Zealand Government. There is no suggestion that these trusts are used to erode New Zealand’s tax base because we cannot tax these people.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Why on earth is the IRD putting up John Nash as some sort of an authority that New Zealand is “a model citizen in respect of trusts and that of the nearly 12000 trusts that have been scrutinised few problems have been found” when his proven lack of expertise is why so many now internationally including the economists think that we are a tax haven?Hon BILL ENGLISH: It is unfortunate that the member is resorting to some of his old habits of attacking public servants in a very personal way under the protection of Parliament. I doubt very much that it will influence the expertise or the focus of the IRD in dealing with any relevant issues with regard to these trusts. But I must stress to the member because he is giving the misleading impression that somehow this discussion about foreign trusts is to do with New Zealand taxes and what people pay here—it is not. It is nothing to do with the New Zealand tax base which is among the most comprehensive and best organised in the developed world.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Why Minister when the growing scandal is about our being a tax haven is he seeking to use every other detour or road block to not answer the question?Hon BILL ENGLISH: We are not a tax haven. It is really only the Opposition parties in New Zealand that are claiming that. And secondly if the member does not understand or respect the constitutional position of the IRD as independent from politicians then he represents a real danger to future governance in New Zealand because if he believes the Government should be fingering individual officials on the basis of what the Opposition thinks about them then this Government has more integrity and principle than that and will not do it.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Seeing as he has put the issue of integrity on the table and the Prime Minister has said that the IRD has informed the Aussie authorities—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Can I have the supplementary question please.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Well you are getting it!Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat. He will stand and apologise for that remark. I want him to ask supplementary questions in line with the Standing Orders.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Point of order—Mr SPEAKER: No the member will stand—[Interruption] Order!Rt Hon Winston Peters: I am apologising.Mr SPEAKER: Thank you.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. With the greatest of respect I have been here longer than you and I know how to ask a question.Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will leave the Chamber.Rt Hon Winston Peterswithdrew from the Chamber.Ron Mark: When the Australian banks are so donkey deep in Panama Papers appearing 8948 times did the IRD share all of those appearances with the Australian tax authorities and has this Government been aware of that?Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Hon Bill English on behalf of the Prime Minister either of those two—does the member want the question again?Hon BILL ENGLISH: A charitable description of that would be that the question was unclear. I am sure that the IRD has met its obligations to any other Government because ultimately this issue is about other Governments’ policing of their tax partners. If they ask anything of the New Zealand Government and the IRD for cooperation then my understanding is that the IRD provides them with information.