Urgent Debates Declined — Transpower Financing Deal—Tax Significance

I have received a letter from John Key seeking to debate under Standing Order 373 reports that Transpower has entered into a $732.7 million financing deal. The financing deal was entered into in 2002. It is not clear from the latest media reports whether the deal was known of before now. However, the recent reports relate to speculation about the tax significance of the deal rather than to the deal itself. Regardless of the matter of ministerial responsibility—that is, whether the financing deal is a particular case of recent occurrence—I do not consider that the taxation implications of it require the immediate attention of the House. The application is declined.

I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. You raised an interesting question when you said “regardless of the matter of ministerial responsibility”. I think that should be something on which you might like to reflect and give a considered opinion to the House. This clearly is a State-owned enterprise entering into very significant financial transactions that could mean that the New Zealand tax base is deprived of rightful revenue. The question could arise as to whom, in that event, is responsible. That is the sharp point in all of this.

A further point, Madam Speaker, is that you will have noticed in question time today that the Minister of Finance was completely unable to give the House any information about the possibility of New Zealand - based tax entities avoiding their responsibilities by entering into this deal. I think that is the public concern here. It is the reason why we sought the debate. This Government has steadfastly said that it will not sell State assets, yet this is a transaction that, on the face of it, because of the long term involved, is the sale of a State asset. Further to that, it is a transaction that will deprive some tax base of its rightful revenue. The question that has just come into the public arena now is whether the New Zealand tax base is being deprived. The Opposition has used parliamentary questions to ask questions of the Minister, and, as we suspected this morning, he is unable or unwilling to give us an answer to those questions. Therefore, it seems that a debate would be a way in which the Minister may be brought to account.

We accept, Madam Speaker, that you have made a ruling for today, but I do not think that this will be the end of this particular matter. We would like you to consider the question I raised at the start of the point of order about who is responsible in this case. Surely it should not be at the discretion of a Minister to say that an issue is operational and that, therefore, he has nothing to do with it. We do know that this matter went to Cabinet.

💬 Madam SPEAKER: The member may have misunderstood me when I was reading the ruling, so I will repeat it. I said: “Regardless of the matter of ministerial responsibility—that is, whether the financing deal is a particular case of recent occurrence—I do not consider that the taxation implications of it require the immediate attention of the House.” It was the latter point upon which the ruling was made. I thank the member for his comments.

I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I think it is important to clarify an answer that was given in the House earlier, and I seek some indulgence of the House to do that. The Minister of Finance made it clear that he would expect, in his role as an ownership Minister for a State-owned enterprise, if such a State-owned enterprise was placing at risk the revenue of New Zealand, to be informed as part of the no-surprises policy. He made that clear to the House earlier.

💬 Gerry Brownlee: Madam Speaker—

💬 Madam SPEAKER: I do not want any further discussion on this. That was a clarification of what the Minister said. We are now getting into debating matters.

I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I ask you to consider what the Opposition is expected to do. The Minister did not, in his answer to a parliamentary question—a legitimate way for us to pursue this particular issue—tell us that he made the appropriate enquiries. It is pretty clear to us that a transaction has taken place, of which the Minister has been largely unaware. I think it is appropriate that Parliament discuss a matter such as this so that the public can come to its own conclusions about the appropriateness of the transaction.

You have said, Madam Speaker, that you do not consider it important for Parliament to consider the tax-base issues just at the moment. I think there is a big question here, considering that we are currently discussing the Budget. You may have ruled that we can bring up this matter during that process, but that simply cuts our opportunities to discuss the issues that were put on the table in the Budget. We do not know how much the Budget was deprived of because of that particular transaction.

💬 Madam SPEAKER: I thank the member. He was getting close to challenging the ruling. As he said, there are opportunities to debate this matter, but it is not for the Speaker to advise members of Parliament on what tactics they use. My ruling was that the immediate attention of the House was not required at this time.