The Prime Minister was quizzed repeatedly in Parliament today about New Zealand's status as a tax-haven. His response? Pure denial. According to John Key, a requirement for NZ foreign trusts to keep records but not tell anyone about them is "disclosure", and refusing to turn over information on tax cheats to foreign governments unless they specifically ask for it is "transparency". In addition, they refused leave for Parliament to debate the Greens' bill to impose a beneficial ownership register, then called the idea of transparency to prevent money laundering and corruption "barking mad".
And then we find out that the Revenue Minister has never bothered to ask IRD to estimate the extent of multinational tax cheating and its effects on the government's books.
This is the National Party. They support money laundering, and the tax cheating, corruption, and terrorism it enables, because it benefits their rich mates. And that makes them complicit in those crimes.