Robertson GrantGRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): I was waiting for that Mr Assistant Speaker. Labour is supporting this legislation but with some significant reservations which I will come to shortly. As with many taxation bills that come before this House there is an element of tidying up making the incredibly arcane and intricate measures of the Income Tax Act and the Tax Administration Act a little more usable for those who have to work with them. Elements of the bill do useful things towards that particularly around the simplification of tax for business.I want to thank and credit the National Government with picking up Labour's excellent flexible tax for business policy which we announced earlier in the year after seeing the wisdom of that great piece of work put together by Clayton Cosgrove and Jacinda Ardern at the time—an excellent piece of work. I am pleased to see the Government members—it took them a little while—come on board with that tax simplification process and also the implementation of the automatic exchange of financial information. Again these are issues that New Zealand has been involved in discussing at the OECD finding their way into New Zealand law which is entirely appropriate.On those elements of the legislation Labour is happy to support what has come in front of the House. The area that I want to devote most of my speech to though is the final element that the Minister of Revenue mentioned and that is that this is the piece of legislation that implements the new disclosure requirements for foreign trusts. Indeed as the commentary to the bill says this is as recommended by the Government Inquiry into Foreign Trusts Disclosure Rules otherwise known as the Shewan report—John Shewan having undertaken that for the Government.It is worth taking a step back because this is actually one of the most grubby parts of the former Prime Minister's time in office and one that does not reflect well upon him or indeed upon the Government. If we rewind the clock to August 2013 the hard-working officials in the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) were telling the Government that it was time to tighten up New Zealand's foreign trust disclosure regime. They were concerned about the impact on New Zealand's reputation the fact that there was a mismatch between what New Zealand did with its lax rules around foreign trusts and what was happening in the rest of the world—that we were becoming a safe harbour for money that people wanted to hide not as we were told occasionally during the select committee for the money of the many people being persecuted around the world. For sure there may be one or two of those people who look to shift their money to a jurisdiction like New Zealand but by far and away those who are misusing our foreign trust regime who are taking New Zealand's good and hard-earned reputation and trashing it were the target of the rules that John Shewan suggested and the target of the IRD in 2013.The Government rejected that approach but by the end of 2013 it was on the IRD's work programme to tighten up foreign trust rules and that set alarm bells ringing in the foreign trust industry. As we now famously know the Prime Minister's then lawyer and close confidante Ken Whitney got on the phone or actually approached the Prime Minister and spoke to him. The Prime Minister said: Don't worry about it. Talk to Todd McClay. Nothing will happen here." And do you know what happened? The IRD backed off. Based on the inside lobbying of the Prime Minister's lawyer on behalf of the foreign trust industry 3 years have been wasted not tightening up our laws—3 years of opening up a loophole for people who wanted to hide money in New Zealand.It was a disgraceful response initially from the Government and it was only the arrival of the Panama Papers that meant that the Government was forced to act. And even then the Prime Minister's first reaction was to defend the foreign trust industry not to support or enhance New Zealand's reputation and not to tighten the rules to make sure that New Zealand taxpayers who do the right thing can have confidence in their system. No the Prime Minister's first response was to defend his old mates. Then when the pressure went on he said "Right we've got to do something." and so John Shewan was appointed to do the inquiry.Mr Shewan did a very good report. In that report there were a number of recommendations that have been taken up in this bill and they include much clearer disclosure requirements. We need to know who the trustees are who the beneficiaries of the trust are where they live and what their tax status is. All of that information will now be provided to the IRD as it always should have been and as Opposition parties have been proposing for some time. But critically this legislation misses out two things from John Shewan's report. The one I want to focus on now is the fact that he proposed an immediate implementation of phase 2 of the anti - money-laundering rules. These are the rules that would bring real estate agents and lawyers and accountants into the same regime that banks and insurance advisers and even casinos currently have to obey which would bring us just up to the standard of the rest of the world. "This was meant to be done immediately." John Shewan said. "We need to safeguard our reputation. We need to tighten the rules." The Government has not put that in this legislation and it is a deep weakness of this legislation because we know it is through the real estate agents the lawyers and the accountants that most of that money-laundering activity is taking place. I saw Suzanne Snively from Transparency International on TV just this week say that anyone involved in the real estate industry in Auckland knows that money-laundering is taking place through that industry. The Government knows that and it is dragging its feet—it is dragging its feet. We had Amy Adams tell us that the Government would get this in—it would get legislation into Parliament this year. There is 1 day to go; it is not happening. There will be no legislation this year which Amy Adams promised. John Key said in May that the Government would be accelerating implementation of the anti - money-laundering thing and no he just applied the brakes. What we know is that Amy Adams was doing her job. She was taking papers to the Cabinet committees saying: "We need to get this done." And it was John Key and Steven Joyce who sat at that Cabinet committee and said: "You know what? The heat's gone off the Panama Papers. We don't really need to get into this now." Steven Joyce was no doubt worried about the donors to the National Party whom he might be offending if he actually did the right thing here so the work was not done. So we stand here today with a piece of legislation that is missing its crucial element. If we were really serious in this House about cracking down on the misuse of trusts about making sure that New Zealanders can have confidence in their own tax system and about making sure that our hard-earned reputation in the world as a fair place where the transparent and accountable tax system is upheld then this bill would have the extension of those anti - money-laundering rules. But it does not because the Government is still more interested in looking after its mates than it is in looking after New Zealand's reputation.Just this week—just this week—we learnt that Jose Mourinho the manager of the Manchester United football team stands accused—David Bennett: Oh don't swear. Don't swear in this House. GRANT ROBERTSON: I knew this would upset David Bennett. Nothing would upset David Bennett more than his beloved Manchester United getting dragged into this. Well Mr Bennett there is nothing to be proud of here. This is a man who stands accused of hiding his money in a trust in New Zealand. Headlines around the world again—"New Zealand is the place to hide your money".It is time for this Government to do the right thing—to get these rules in place. We have had discussion documents endlessly and now another one is being released to delay this one more time. It is my strong prediction that if we are even lucky enough in this House to see a bill come forward from the Government there is no hope that it will be passed before the 2017 election. That is another broken promise from the Government.There are things in this bill that are useful and important for our taxation system but there is a blot on this Government and on New Zealand for the fact that we have been a destination for dirty money—for people who want to hide what they are doing in the world. The Government had the chance in this bill to do the right thing and bring into force these rules and it has completely failed. I want to thank the Greens and New Zealand First for joining in the minority view that stands in this piece of legislation. In that report we call on the Government and say to it do the right thing. Implement the anti - money-laundering rules so that New Zealanders can once again have confidence in their taxation system."