Norman Russel William: Taxation (GST and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Procedure Third Reading 
Norman Russel William: Taxation (GST and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Procedure Third Reading 
[Volume:669;Page:16196] 
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 I rise to speak on the third reading of the Taxation (GST and Remedial Matters) Bill. This has been a pretty ugly day for Parliament if the truth be told. It has been pretty ugly for two reasons. Firstly Parliament has basically been bumped. Secondly someone has dumped a 70-page Supplementary Order Paper into Parliament this week. It is bigger than the bill that we are actually supposed to be addressing. They dumped it on Parliament.  
We are not dealing with just the regular kind of bill. Anyone who has been on a Finance and Expenditure Committee for tax bills knows how complicated tax bills are and how much we rely on our expert advisers whether from the Inland Revenue Department or the independent expert adviser in order to understand tax bills. They are really really complicated law. People probably do not know that generally it is the Parliamentary Counsel Office that writes law. The tax office has its own ability to write law; tax law is so complicated that there have to be people in the Inland Revenue Department who can write tax law.  
The problem for Parliament is that we are supposed to be voting on this giant amendment and the truth is that hardly anyone in Parliament understands it. We may have a rough idea about what it means but given that we have only just got this 70-page Supplementary Order Paper I doubt that anyone on the Government side of the House actually understands it because they have just had it dumped on them. I think it is fair enough to say that most people in this House would struggle in the very short time that we have had this amendment to understand what it actually does.  
Parliament is being asked to vote on a very complicated law that it has only just received and has really had very little opportunity to understand. That is where we are today. That has resulted of course in Labour stringing the debate out no end. To those who have been listening—goodness knows how they could bear it—I say that Labour has strung it out as a protest essentially against the process. I think it has been pretty ugly but I totally understand why Labour has done that.  
The Government has made a terrible abuse of process with this bill. I think of all the times when National was in Opposition and complained about process. This is a disgraceful process for making law in our country. It is actually shocking that at 8.30 on a Friday night we are sitting in this House dealing with a law that almost nobody in this room understands yet a majority are about to vote in favour of. They have no idea what the bill will do because they have never seen it before. The Supplementary Order Paper got dumped on them just now.  
In some ways it reminds me of making trade deals. Trade deals are a little like this. When trade deals are negotiated they are basically dumped on the public of New Zealand and the supposedly elected democrats have to rubber-stamp trade deals before they have any idea what they mean. It seems that the governing parties have learnt something from trade deal negotiations and have now applied it to tax law.  
The other thing is that apparently the big accounting firms have been consulted about this tax law. The public’s representatives have not been consulted about this tax law and therefore the people of New Zealand have not but National’s favoured friends perhaps Chapman Tripp and perhaps some of the other big accounting firms have been consulted about this— 
Aaron Gilmore 
: Chapman Tripp’s a law firm. 
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN 
: My apologies to Mr Gilmore. Some of the big accounting firms like Deloitte have been consulted about this legislation. Possibly Chapman Tripp has been consulted; the law firms have probably been consulted as well. National is very close to the big accounting firms the big law firms and basically anyone who has a lot of money and might give it to National. Those big firms have been consulted no doubt about the content of this bill. The people who have not been consulted are the publicly elected representatives who have to vote on this bill tonight. They are the ones who have not had a chance to read what is in it and fully comprehend it.  
I find it most peculiar when we think about the coercive powers that the State exercises. One of the coercive powers is the police power to detain people and so forth. But the other coercive power is to take people’s money off them. That is one of the things that this Parliament has the power to do: it has the power through taxation to take people’s money off them. One would think that the laws governing the taking of people’s money would deserve special scrutiny. One would think that even for someone on the right-wing side of politics the process of taking people’s money off them through taxation—a highly coercive process; if one does not give over the money one gets thrown in jail—would be especially deserving of close attention. 
We have seen the depth of the cynicism in the National Party the ACT Party and presumably the Maori Party although I do not know if the Maori Party will vote for the terrible legislation that is being hammered through the House tonight. It is disgraceful that the right-wing side of politics would vote for tax legislation that was dumped on Parliament and is being hammered through Parliament at 8.30 p.m. on a Friday before pretty much everyone in the House has had a chance to really get their heads around the whole thing.  
I see Mr Boscawen from the ACT Party sitting there. He has complained bitterly and at some length about parliamentary process the Electoral Finance Act and all sorts of stuff. Presumably he will vote tonight for a change to tax legislation that will coercively take people’s money off them in a bill that he himself will have hardly understood or had a chance to read but that has just been dumped on Parliament. How on earth is this good democratic process? It cannot be proper process for this Parliament to agree to vote for this bill tonight when almost nobody in the House understands what it means. Minister Paula Bennett claims she know what it means but very few people have had a proper chance to have a good look at this legislation because it was dumped on the House.  
The Green Party will not vote for the Taxation (GST and Remedial Matters) Bill. Had we had a chance to look at it further we may have but it is being hammered through the House. I will also say that one of the great things about MMP is that the select committee process became much better than it used to be. That was one of the advantages of MMP. The Finance and Expenditure Committee has gone nowhere near the substantial contents of the bill as inserted by the Supplementary Order Paper because it was not allowed to look at it. It was kept secret by the Government and now the bill is being hammered through the House tonight before anyone in the Finance and Expenditure Committee has had a chance to look at the Supplementary Order Paper. Perhaps some Government members of the Finance and Expenditure Committee will look at it but the select committee as a whole has had absolutely no chance to see this giant Supplementary Order Paper.  
I strongly urge anyone on the political right who has any concern about the way tax law is made to vote against a bill that is being hammered through the House in the middle of the night to make tax law.