Parliament’s sitting calendar sometimes looks a little random, but the calendar can be forced into odd shapes by legislative deadlines. This week’s sitting began with two bills with such deadlines attached.
First up was the second reading of the bill that contains the final tally of government spending from the financial year that ended eight months ago (July 2023).
The Appropriation (2022/23 Confirmation and Validation) Bill is one of the harbingers of a new budget about to arrive.
Photo: VNP / Daniela Maoate-Cox
Deadline bill 1: A wrap on past spending
Tuesday saw the second reading (with no debate, as always), of the spending wrap-up. The House keeps its powder dry for the next stage, the committee stage, when it spends 10 hours grilling a roster of ministers over their department’s performances in what is called the Annual Review Debate. (Note that the grilling will not necessarily relate to the 2022/23 year, and the ministers under fire won’t have been in charge for that spending).
The Annual Review Debate must be completed before the new budget is announced, so it kinda needs to start soon.
Deadline bill 2: Tax law just in time for the year’s end
The second bill to begin this week - and this one is always debated - is even more urgent. It needs to pass by the end of the week. Now that’s a real deadline.
That is presumably also why Parliament is sitting this week and not the week after Easter. That would be too late.
This bill needs to complete the committee stage and third reading. Committee stages have no fixed time limit so the government has set aside an extra Wednesday morning sitting - just in case. (Just as well, as it turns out - the bill filled out both Tuesday night and Wednesday morning).
The Taxation (Annual Rates… etc) bill is an annual event, and is always left until pretty close to the deadline. It is the setting of the tax rates for the financial year about to end. Which is pretty momentous by itself, but it is also always a huge list of other tweaks and fixes and adjustments to dozens of tax measures.
This year’s version of the bill is called the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023-24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill. It includes measures on flood payouts, on disability beneficiary trusts, on multinationals and on and on. It’s an omnibus bill, meaning it will amend more than one existing law. In this case, it’s tinkering with eight of them, with over 90 sections of details.
It makes you realise that to be a good tax lawyer must be to live inside an almost permanent professional refresher course, as you try to chase an endlessly moving target.
It’s probably a good thing that the Parliament includes a number of tax experts and former tax lawyers.
Of course the fact that tax-oriented MPs are debating in the House means they won’t have enjoyed what I like to imagine might be an annual revenue-aficionado shindig: the annual Tax Rate Bill debate viewing party - where tax lawyers and accountants chomp on popcorn, engage in tax-themed drinking games (e.g. skull if an MP mentions ‘horizontal equity’), make excise and duty puns, and probably shout at the TV.
The tax rates bill passed late in the Thursday morning session, but the Opposition made the Government really work for it. Despite the debate and while oppositions may niggle over the details, it would be new for the Parliament to prevent a tax bill from passing. The upside for an opposition would be the collapse of a government (the failure of a tax bill would be the failure of a Supply Motion). The downside would be revenue chaos until a new government could be formed. In New Zealand MPs normally do want the underlying government system to function regardless of their opinion of its details.
