Nash Stuart: Taxation (GST and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Procedure Third Reading 
Nash Stuart: Taxation (GST and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Procedure Third Reading 
[Volume:669;Page:16090] 
STUART NASH (Labour) 
: 
 This is a very interesting bill as my colleague Trevor Mallard said. Ever single tax bill except the increases in GST and the drop in income tax that has come before the Finance and Expenditure Committee has been approved and supported by the Labour Party. Let me run through the process that happens. We get a bill and it is normally non-controversial like the original bill was. We did not oppose it at all and it was referred to the Finance and Expenditure Committee. At the select committee we called for submissions and we allowed about 6 or 7 weeks for submissions to come in. We ended up with about 27 submissions—I ask Amy Adams to correct me if I am wrong—and we heard from a whole range of experts. These were tax consultants legal eagles and ordinary New Zealanders who wanted to have a say on tax legislation. As we know tax legislation affects a whole lot of people.  
We have our own technical adviser on the Finance and Expenditure Committee because no one on the committee is a tax expert. No one on the committee comes from a legal or a tax consultancy background. So we have our own tax expert and this is par for the course. We do this for every single tax bill that comes before the Finance and Expenditure Committee. Our adviser’s name is Therese Turner and she is acknowledged as one of New Zealand’s pre-eminent tax experts. So what happens is that the Inland Revenue Department officials sit down and give us briefings on the bill. We go through it clause by clause bit by bit and change by change. Then Therese has a look at it. We ask a whole lot of questions and there are questions from all members.  
National members have a lot of questions and Labour members have a lot of questions. Roger Douglas is on the committee and he asks a lot of questions and Russel Norman is on the committee and he asks a lot of questions. It is a very very robust process. Then we all start to support this stuff. After this process Therese comes in and says that she does or does not agree or that she has been talking to officials and they suggest this or that and she agrees or she puts a proposal to officials and they agree with her point of view. We end up with very robust legislation that we all agree with. It is a great process because everyone has their say.  
That is what happened with the original bill. It was a technical bill but it had some very important provisions in it. It got rid of something called phoenix fraud. It was leeching revenue out of the Government accounts and we needed to close it down. Everyone agreed that this was important legislation. There were other bits remedial matters in the bill and we all agreed they were good provisions but they needed tweaking. There has not been a remedial matters bill that has come before the select committee that all parties have not agreed on. However they have been made better by the select committee process. Every single bit of tax legislation that has come before the select committee has been improved by the process. There is not an example outside of this.  
Labour members agreed with this tax legislation through the first reading and the second reading because it was good legislation. The select committee made it even better. Then Supplementary Order Paper 187 was put in front of us. It was tabled last night. We had a briefing but we talked about only loss attributing qualifying companies in that briefing. There was a general discussion organised by David Cunliffe’s office on changes to loss attributing qualifying companies. We did not know that this Supplementary Order Paper was going to be put on the Table.  
When I look at this Supplementary Order Paper I think that there are some not bad ideas in it. In fact there are some very common-sense ideas that would get the support of the Labour Party and probably the vast majority of New Zealanders. But I cannot say that without listening to Ms Turner listening to officials and listening to a whole lot of New Zealanders out there whom this affects. There are 130000 active loss attributing qualifying companies. This affects Maori trusts and a whole lot of stuff. I think New Zealanders deserve the right to have their say on this. The bill would have got support from the select committee. I have no doubt about that. However we needed to make sure that it was very robust legislation. That is what the select committee would have done and a great piece of tax legislation would have been brought before the House and we would have agreed on it.  
As my colleague the Hon Trevor Mallard mentioned the bill probably would have been passed if necessary even under urgency—after the select committee process—within an hour. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Not under urgency. 
STUART NASH 
: Urgency is not a good way to pass tax legislation but the bill would have been passed within the hour. I know that the Minister wants to get this out there for 1 April 2011 and it would not have been a problem if we had followed a robust process. But this process is not robust.  
As Labour’s revenue spokesperson I cannot comment on the 70-page Supplementary Order Paper because I have not time to read through it. I have been at a prize-giving at Napier Girls High School. It was a fantastic prize-giving last night at the high school and I congratulate the headmistress Mary Dixon and the rest of the crew there. But I cannot say that I support this Supplementary Order Paper. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Was Chris Tremain there? 
STUART NASH 
: No Chris Tremain was not there. He does not care about the people of Napier.  
I come now to the issue of zero rating. As my colleague Trevor Mallard mentioned this bill proposes to zero-rate land transactions between two parties that are registered for GST. But now that we have this Supplementary Order Paper it has opened the door for a whole lot of other amendments.  
The amendment I have tabled recommends zero-rating fresh fruit and vegetables. The Minister of Revenue and members of Parliament cannot say that they did not know this was coming. We have discussed this in open forum for a number of months. We have spoken to tax experts and we have spoken to supermarkets. This is a very robust provision. New Zealand is the third fattest nation in the OECD and this measure will address that. We have to do something; we have to send a signal. We have to say to the people of New Zealand that we care about their health and welfare. This is not hard to do. It is a very easy amendment. It is not 70 pages; it is not even 70 words. But if it becomes part of this bill it will make a difference to New Zealanders.  
There are over 130000 active loss attributing qualifying companies and the amendment that has been introduced will affect more than 130000 people. But my amendment will affect 4 million people and I urge the Minister to take it on board and support it. It is a very good provision. It will allow all New Zealanders to buy fresh fruit and vegetables cheaper. Our calculations show that people on the median wage will get more in their back pockets from this amendment than they did from the Government’s tax cuts. This amendment is fair.  
Minister Dunne used to be a Labour member of Parliament. He was elected as a Labour member of Parliament so deep down somewhere there still must bubble the philosophies and the principles of social democracy which are about working for all New Zealanders working for everyone— 
Iain Lees-Galloway 
: I wouldn’t be so sure. 
STUART NASH 
: Well I have my doubts as well. But I am hoping that somewhere there might be the flicker of social democracy. I urge the Minister to take heed of what New Zealanders have said. Our polling shows that about 80 percent of New Zealanders think this is a great idea. Eighty percent of New Zealanders want to be able to buy apples pears and bananas.  
Let me give members an example of good policy: Fruit in Schools. That Labour policy allowed all decile 1 and decile 2 schools to have fresh fruit and if members talk to some of the teachers and the headmasters about the impact of fresh fruit on children they will see that it is amazing. One principal said to me: “I can’t quantify this but I can see the difference in the skin colour of the children.” That was from children eating one or two pieces of fruit a day.  
Another school said it had to roll the bananas in icing sugar for the first week so the kids actually liked them. Now the children are going home and telling mum not to buy chips but to buy fresh fruit. But how can they afford to buy fresh fruit when chips are cheaper? This amendment allows parents to act on their children’s advice. This allows parents to go to the supermarket and buy fruit instead of chips. They can buy apples bananas and pears. They can buy any fresh fruit and vegetables.