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Govt tactics an abuse of Parliament, opposition MPs say

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Fuseworks Media
Fuseworks Media
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Opposition MPs complained tonight that parliamentary process was being abused when the Government inserted a new, 70-page section into a tax bill.

The new section was put into the Taxation (GST and Remedial Matters) Bill while Parliament was sitting under urgency, and was not scrutinised by a select committee.

The bill in its original form contained relatively minor changes to the GST administration but the inserted section is a new regime covering loss-attributing qualifying companies (LAQCs) to make it more difficult to use them to write off tax losses.

Revenue Minister Peter Dunne said the new LAQC regime was announced in the May budget and a discussion paper was released.

Labour MPs said they didn't see the new section until Wednesday and it was being put through under urgency without the opportunity for public submissions to be made to a select committee.

"It contains a number of major changes to tax legislation that impact upon a lot of people and it is simply not right that Peter Dunne can arrogantly introduce it without any consultation," said Labour's revenue spokesman Stuart Nash.

"This is flagrant abuse... he has had seven months since the budget to draw up a bill, get it to select committee and pass good legislating using the proper process."

Green Party co-leader Russel Norman said hardly anyone in Parliament understood the new section but MPs had to vote on it.

"It is a terrible abuse of process, it's actually shocking... this is a pretty ugly day for Parliament," he said.

The bill passed its committee and third reading stages after more than 10 hours of debate and was enacted on a vote of 66 to 47.

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