Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT in opposition to this Taxation Principles Reporting Bill at its third reading.Can I make a couple of observations about procedure around the bill? One of them is just the amount of time that members have spoken. We had of course the learned Deborah Russell who I think may have written a book about tax—I guess everyone has their own interests—and she managed to squeeze out a full three minutes as the Minister responsible for the bill. Then David Parker who of course is the brains trust and intellectual architect—he managed to squeeze out four minutes out of the allowable 10.But then there's Andrew Bayly. He almost got to 10 minutes but he didn't actually talk about the bill. Then there was Penny Simmonds—I think she may have got to 10 but I was asleep for the middle eight so I don't know if she talked about the bill but certainly not in the first minute or the last minute.Penny Simmonds: Unkind!DAVID SEYMOUR: Well in fairness the member Penny Simmonds says I'm being unkind. Of course it is possible the middle eight minutes are interesting. I wasn't conscious for it. Why is there so little to be said about this bill?I think the reason is that it is a complete nothing. It's an exercise in bureaucracy that has been poorly conceived poorly put together and actually doesn't achieve any real outcomes. It's a bill for people watching along at home—because no one as far as I'm aware has really summed up what this bill is about—that requires as the name would suggest tax principles reporting. Every year as an interim measure and every three years as a final measure the commissioner of IRD—in practice their staff—is required to produce a report on the tax system commenting on a range of different attributes that people who study these things think are important for a tax system.So every year—and then in a more fulsome way every three years—the Inland Revenue Department is required by Parliament to report on whether there is horizontal equity whether or not there is efficiency whether there is vertical equity whether there is revenue integrity compliance and administrative costs certainty and predictability and flexibility and adaptability. So in other words what Parliament is doing tonight is requiring more paperwork to be produced by the IRD.The question is: what benefit will this bring for people sitting at home who will now as a result of this law have to pay for this particular law? Well they'll be given a report that somewhat measures how New Zealand's tax system at any given time measures up by those parameters but it's of almost no use whatsoever.For one thing it's not actually necessary to pass a law to make it happen. Any Government at any time—so long as they are in charge of IRD which they are—could request that the IRD evaluate the tax system according to these metrics. What's interesting is the current Government's been in place for six years. As far as I'm aware they haven't actually taken the time to produce these metrics in any kind of methodical or regular way. So you have to ask yourself why is it necessary to pass a law for every future Government to do something this Government itself didn't do?There's another interesting thing about how this law came about and it's this. There's a set of rules that are used called the Generic Tax Policy Process. When a Government goes about making tax laws it is supposed to use the generic tax policy process. The reason that it does that is it's nice to think that a Government would actually consult all the people affected in an open and equitable and transparent way; get the information from the community about what people want from a new law; and ultimately produce tax law that is well actually funnily enough all the things listed in this bill.What's interesting—and it's been noted by people such as Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand people that actually do this stuff every day complying with the tax system. Well the Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand point out the enormous irony that the bill that's about how the tax system should be managed—the principles of taxation in New Zealand and reporting on them—did not use the Generic Tax Policy Process in its own formulation. What they did instead was they asked a couple of stakeholders—one of them was CANZ the Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand—to give their view. It was basically inside baseball and the people that were consulted complained that it was just them that were consulted. They said Actually you should have done a more fulsome process."That would have been desirable because actually they wanted—or Labour I assume would like to create a system of tax principles reporting that has broad-based support from parties across Parliament that everyone can sign up to so it somehow lifts good tax policy above politics. I would assume that's what they were trying to do. But the problem is that they didn't even use the correct process for making tax policy in the first place. As a result it has very little subscription from this side of the House.One of the results of that—as I'm sure you like me are lamenting this time of year is the very very trickling end of the Bluff oyster season. Well this bill will last about as long as a Bluff oyster in the sun. Because it's going to be passed tonight—rushed through under urgency by this Government that knows the writing's on the wall—and then it's going to be gone. Because the Government will change and this will be repealed to save the Inland Revenue Department money from not having to produce these reports that have no value. The people on the left know that's going to happen. That's why we're here sitting till midnight because they're rushing as many laws through as possible before they are gone forever as some sort of desperate last gasp monument-building to this failed Government. But don't worry Mr Speaker this—Madam Speaker I see you've changed—this law [Interruption]—nothing wrong with that don't laugh—this law is going to be gone.Another reason why it should be gone is that it doesn't do even really basic things. For example it produces a series of tax principles that it wants reporting on. But as submitters on the bill pointed out it didn't actually give any kind of prioritisation. So if you don't know whether efficiency or vertical equity or horizontal equity is more important than one or the other or which of the seven or eight principles are most important then every report is simply going to say that a tax system has somewhat complied with a bunch of principles but there's trade-offs between them and you can't satisfy them all. So without any sense of framework of what should be prioritised it's not going to provide any useful information; it's just going to be a nothingness. Of course if there were to be values and priorities put into them future Parliaments would reserve the right to ignore those values and priorities because here in a parliamentary democracy people actually—Helen White: Yes that's the point: you get to choose. You just know what you're doing.DAVID SEYMOUR: Helen White's got something to say. What was that?Helen White: You get to choose but the public will know what you're doing.DAVID SEYMOUR: That's what Helen White's saying. But of course as we've already traversed if Helen White had been listening then she would know I've already said any Government at any time could produce a report on these principles. Therefore the law is completely unnecessary. Her own Government hasn't done it for the last six years so they obviously don't think that it's important either. However I'm pleased to see that Helen White has used her short time in Parliament to get no good at heckling whatsoever.The question that people really have is why is Labour doing this? Why are they putting more cost and more money more bureaucracy onto the taxpayers of New Zealand for no good purpose whatsoever that will produce no value that couldn't have been produced otherwise if people wanted it—and people don't want it because Labour aren't doing it. They're here ramming it through under urgency with minimal debate. They can't even be bothered debating it themselves. Three minutes from the Minister in charge four minutes from the intellectual architect of the bill—Hon David Parker: Six! Six.DAVID SEYMOUR: He's now saying six minutes. See inflation is everywhere with this Labour Government. Because just a short time ago he told me it was four minutes; it's now six minutes. It's like a crowd at a Labour Party meeting. It grows in the telling every time it's mentioned.Nevertheless I finish by saying this bill is opposed and it won't last. In fact it won't last as long as a delicious Bluff oyster left out in the in the July sun. It's going to be gone gone gone. A waste of Labour's time but no more waste of IRD's money. Thank you Madam Speaker."