Shaw JamesJAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green): It is a pleasure to rise and offer the Green Party's support for the Taxation (Business Tax Exchange of Information and Remedial Matters) Bill. I would like to start by paying tribute to my predecessor Dr Russel Norman because in many ways this bill is a vindication of much of his work since 2012 when he first started calling attention to the issue of the foreign trust disclosure regime in New Zealand. That was brought to his attention initially by concerns that were made public under the Official Information Act from the Inland Revenue Department which had in 2012 started alerting the Government that our foreign trust disclosure regime was inadequate and that it posed at the very least a reputational risk to New Zealand.The fact is that it has taken some 4 years for that issue to work its way through the system from at first quiet warnings from the Government's own agency up through what was a reasonably spectacular media event last year—huge amounts of public concern—eventually to an inquiry followed by legislation introduced to the House by the Government.There has been some history to this and I think it is a tribute to his work to the work of the Inland Revenue Department which has persisted in spite of resistance from the Government and to the media. Journalists like Matt Nippert from the New Zealand Herald and others have done a huge amount of fantastic investigative journalism raising what is a very complex issue in the public mind to the point that public pressure built and the Government had to respond and try to politically kill this off by bringing in John Shewan—the Shewan report—which has led to this legislation. So thank you to all of those people who through all of those years have done all of that work that has led to this piece of legislation that we see passing through tonight.As a number of other speakers have said this is not a perfect piece of legislation. It does not actually accept all of the recommendations of the Shewan report; it goes only part of the way. So we would hope to have the opportunity to amend it so that all of the recommendations of the Shewan report are actually brought into legislation as soon as possible.The other thing of course is that it is an extremely complex piece of work. Having sat through part of the select committee stage on it working through with the officials how it was going to work having heard some of the submissions and some of the concerns of submitters it does worry me like any very complex piece of legislation that it may not have the effect that is intended. Of course obviously the officials who have drawn it up have worked very hard to make sure that it will but I would like to get some assurance from the Minister of Revenue that there will be some very close monitoring over the course of the next 12 to 24 months to make sure that the bill does actually have the effect that it is intended to address because of the complexity of it and many of the unknowns around this. So I think I would like to hear yet from the Minister some assurance around that.I also just wanted to reflect on the risk that leaving it unaddressed does pose or has posed to New Zealand's reputation. I do find it quite ironic that only 5 days ago Bloomberg—that fairly well-known multinational news corporation—did carry a story the headline of which was New Zealand a destination for ultra-rich to park their wealth has a murky trust issue". That is only 5 days ago despite the assurances that the Government and the Prime Minister at the time kept saying: that there was no problem in New Zealand that we have got full disclosure and that there is no reputational risk whatsoever. We actually see in the international business media now that some of the issues that we were concerned about last year and the year before that and the year before that are actually starting to come up to the surface. So it is timely that we are introducing this piece of legislation now and like I said I do hope that it has the effect that is intended.I would like to also call attention to the tax simplification for small and medium enterprises because again this does represent a significant win and it is great to see parties all claiming credit for having introduced that notion into the House. I fought for this when I was the candidate for Wellington Central in 2011 and again in 2014. I have been a small business person myself and the way that we manage tax for small businesses does make it very difficult to manage cash flow. If you're in a situation like I was in where cash flow is extremely lumpy it is never certain what is going to happen in the future and yet you are required to set aside amounts based on previous years' revenue that may have very little bearing on this year's revenue. It does make it very difficult for small businesses to operate and to manage their cash flow. Because of that that is an incentive for small businesses to do things to manage their cash flow that actually run up against the law and we do not want that. We do not want to make it so hard for people that they are essentially forced into breaking the law or operating in violation of regulations.I am really pleased that the House has coalesced around this idea over a number of years from a number of different sources and I think that it is great that we are able to do that. I also just wanted to acknowledge the point that Chris Bishop made in his speech where he was talking about the requirement for essentially an inland revenue computer system that is up to the task and the huge amount of work that is required in order for some of these changes to actually be able to take effect in reality; that we have actually got to have an inland revenue computer system that does the job. And so I recognise that part of the reason for the delay particularly around the accounting income method and some of the other measures contained in this bill is that they have essentially been held up by the fact that New Zealand's systems have not yet been adequate to be able to do it.So it is great to see some progress on that. But I think that that is in the small business world one of those things that I think really does stick in the craw of a lot of people. I think it is one of those things that is a pretty dry subject—not a lot of people will notice it at first—but I do think that that is one of those things that we can with some pleasure say: that we are doing a lot of people a lot of good through this piece of legislation.I also would like to say that it is important that we continue to monitor the effect of the legislation around some of those issues as well—for example this bill does include some changes around fringe benefit tax. I have a concern based on some of the submissions that I heard that some of those changes produce some quite odd incentives for behaviour and therefore that means we need to make sure that we are not distorting the market in any way—or in any way that is kind of daft—as a result of some of those changes. So again I think that I would like to hear from the Minister about how it is that we intend to monitor the effect of this bill as it goes through.In conclusion we will be supporting this bill again in its third reading. It is a pleasure to see that it passed through the House. It is great to see finally after many years of campaigning by many people some progress at least on the issue of changes to the disclosure regime around foreign trusts. It is disappointing that the Government's own review did not actually make it fully into the legislation and we will be looking for ways to improve on it in the future. But for the most part we are greatly relieved that this bill is here that it is making its way through the House and we wish it all the best. Thank you."