http://www.metromag.co.nz/current-affairs/panama-papers-still-morally-flexible-prime-minister/
Panama Papers: "Are you still morally flexible, Prime Minister?"
By Graham Adams · On May 11, 2016
The fallout from the Panama Papers demonstrates yet again that John
Key doesn't understand that something that is legal may also be
unethical.
It's one of the best lines in Better Call Saul, the television prequel
to drugs drama Breaking Bad: lugubrious fixer Mike Ehrmantraut phones slippery lawyer Jimmy McGill and asks: "Are you still morally
flexible?"
I'm surprised no one has asked this question directly of John Key in Parliament given that every week seems to throw up fresh evidence of
his ethical elasticity.
Key often likes to frustrate his opponents in the House with "yes" or
"no" answers to questions that require a more comprehensive answer
but he would be stymied by this one, because - rather like asking,
"Have you stopped beating your wife?" - it's impossible to answer yes
or no without incriminating yourself.
And the PM's famous and relentless shifting of position on everything
from capital gains taxes to security agency cyber-surveillance to free
speech would take some defending.
The Panama Papers discussion about New Zealand's status as a tax haven
is certainly giving him a chance to show off his manoeuvres, which has
become a predictable pattern in his nearly eight years in office.
First, he denies there's a problem. Then, when he is told by his
pollsters people don't believe him, he concedes things could be
clearer and orders an inquiry that inevitably has narrow parameters.
Then when that fails to appease the critical storm, he appears on
shows such as Paul Henry where he's likely to get a favourable hearing
and can lie by omission.
Early this week, he told Henry that whenever overseas governments ask
for information on trusts the New Zealand government always complies.
The problem with this is that the foreign trusts set up here are
shrouded in secrecy and overseas governments would have to go on a
fishing expedition without knowing exactly what they were looking for.
As Otago law professor Andrew Geddis wrote on the blogsite Dim-Post:
"It is quite difficult for overseas jurisdictions to know that this
money is sitting in a NZ trust (because to find out they have to
specifically ask about a specific trust/LTC [look-through company],
and you can't ask about what you don't know).
"So what we need to do is force such trusts/LTCs to disclose their
beneficial owners and then make that information available to overseas jurisdictions as a matter of course (so they can check to see that
those folk are complying with their domestic tax demands)."
https://youtu.be/baD-bLukSdA
Above: The Prime Minister, John Key, responded to the events,
revelations and accusations of the day, in his post Cabinet media
conference Monday, May 9th, 2016. Source: RNZ YouTube.
It's not rocket science but so far Key appears to be counting on much
of the fuss having died down by the time tax expert John Shewan
presents his report at the end of June, although increasingly critical
public soundings from his pet pollster, David Farrar, could force him
to take more decisive action sooner.
Key's MO faced with a tricky problem is to hammer a couple of points relentlessly, even if they are untrue or only partly true. In this
case, it is that tax havens require secrecy but New Zealand doesn't
qualify because it offers up information easily and automatically if
asked; and that our reputation is not being tarnished anywhere else in
the world because we haven't been widely dubbed a tax haven (and,
anyway, New Zealand is merely a "footnote" to the Panama Papers). This
again is simply untrue: the list of news media, blogs and websites
that have reported on New Zealand's role as a tax haven stretches
around the globe.
Expressing outrage over enabling the setting-up of these foreign
trusts is left to Key's betters who have a conscience and a sense of
right and wrong. It didn't take Barack Obama long to denounce
international tax evasion. Andrew Little, following UK Prime Minister
David Cameron's lead, tabled his tax records in Parliament, as well as
saying a Labour government would end foreigners setting up trusts
here.
And the former Reserve Bank Governor, former National and Act leader,
Don Brash, bluntly told The Standard, "If [New Zealand] were setting
up a system that allows people to evade tax, that would be wrong."
Brash said everyone has to pay their fair share of tax. "I myself
would never attempt to hide anything in a tax haven. There is an
ethical question."
It doesn't matter whether it is New Zealanders or foreigners avoiding
or evading tax by shifting their money to low-tax jurisdictions. We
shouldn't be party to a system that enables it anywhere in the world.
The cost runs into billions of dollars each year of forgone tax that
could pay for better education, infrastructure, hospitals and
everything else that benefits all of society, including the rich who
can pay to hide their loot.
But we, of course, have a Prime Minister - and a very popular one -
with a record of making moral and ethical issues subordinate to
political and electoral advantage (if, indeed, they are considered at
all).
He is clearly out of his depth when matters turn to ethics. Just as he
has a Chief Science Adviser in Professor Peter Gluckman, perhaps he
should get himself a Chief Ethics Adviser to explain how something can
be legal and also unethical.
He thinks New Zealanders don't mind as long as the trusts' behaviour
is all legal. He told reporters: "Unless there's something unlawful
people have done I don't think New Zealanders will have concerns. But
in the end Inland Revenue are now going to have access to all the information, they can go through and look at all that. They can check
that people have done things appropriately and legally."
The question of enabling avoidance or evasion of taxes here or
overseas is not only a legal question or one about tax efficiency,
policy, or the fees lawyers and accountants can earn by organising the paperwork (which is worth around $25 million a year to New Zealand).
It's a question about morality and Key just doesn't seem to get it,
which means he remains unembarrassed by repeated about-faces. In fact,
it took only a week for him to go from insisting there was nothing
wrong with the foreign trust regime, when the papers first came out in
early April, to asking John Shewan to review the disclosure rules.
As Robert Muldoon famously asked David Lange in the leaders'
television debate in 1984 about his shifting position on nuclear ship
visits: "Have you changed your position on a moral question, Mr
Lange?"
Lange replied at length and circuitously while Muldoon kept on
badgering him, reminding him he hadn't answered the question about the morality of his change of position, which made Lange - who was usually unflappable - clearly uncomfortable.
Key knows Paul Henry will never badger him with questions like that,
which I guess is why he's happy to appear on that show and not on
Morning Report, an invitation he declined once he knew he would be
questioned about the Panama Papers.
Instead, he gets an easy ride with his favourites in the media,
fulfilling his anointed role as the National Party's barrow-boy and
allowing New Zealand's good name and reputation to be peddled to the
world for a pittance in fees.
"Rich80105" <rich80105@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:j755jb5tl2lkdurgfgqrlk2nb7ut2qtmru@4ax.com...
http://www.metromag.co.nz/current-affairs/panama-papers-still-morally-flexible-prime-minister/
Panama Papers: "Are you still morally flexible, Prime Minister?"
By Graham Adams · On May 11, 2016
The fallout from the Panama Papers demonstrates yet again that John
Key doesn't understand that something that is legal may also be
unethical.
It's one of the best lines in Better Call Saul, the television prequel
to drugs drama Breaking Bad: lugubrious fixer Mike Ehrmantraut phones slippery lawyer Jimmy McGill and asks: "Are you still morally
flexible?"
I'm surprised no one has asked this question directly of John Key in Parliament given that every week seems to throw up fresh evidence of
his ethical elasticity.
Key often likes to frustrate his opponents in the House with "yes" or
"no" answers to questions that require a more comprehensive answer
but he would be stymied by this one, because - rather like asking,
"Have you stopped beating your wife?" - it's impossible to answer yes
or no without incriminating yourself.
And the PM's famous and relentless shifting of position on everything
from capital gains taxes to security agency cyber-surveillance to free speech would take some defending.
The Panama Papers discussion about New Zealand's status as a tax haven
is certainly giving him a chance to show off his manoeuvres, which has become a predictable pattern in his nearly eight years in office.
First, he denies there's a problem. Then, when he is told by his
pollsters people don't believe him, he concedes things could be
clearer and orders an inquiry that inevitably has narrow parameters.
Then when that fails to appease the critical storm, he appears on
shows such as Paul Henry where he's likely to get a favourable hearing
and can lie by omission.
Early this week, he told Henry that whenever overseas governments ask
for information on trusts the New Zealand government always complies.
The problem with this is that the foreign trusts set up here are
shrouded in secrecy and overseas governments would have to go on a
fishing expedition without knowing exactly what they were looking for.
As Otago law professor Andrew Geddis wrote on the blogsite Dim-Post:
"It is quite difficult for overseas jurisdictions to know that this
money is sitting in a NZ trust (because to find out they have to specifically ask about a specific trust/LTC [look-through company],
and you can't ask about what you don't know).
"So what we need to do is force such trusts/LTCs to disclose their beneficial owners and then make that information available to overseas jurisdictions as a matter of course (so they can check to see that
those folk are complying with their domestic tax demands)."
https://youtu.be/baD-bLukSdA
Above: The Prime Minister, John Key, responded to the events,
revelations and accusations of the day, in his post Cabinet media conference Monday, May 9th, 2016. Source: RNZ YouTube.
It's not rocket science but so far Key appears to be counting on much
of the fuss having died down by the time tax expert John Shewan
presents his report at the end of June, although increasingly critical public soundings from his pet pollster, David Farrar, could force him
to take more decisive action sooner.
Key's MO faced with a tricky problem is to hammer a couple of points relentlessly, even if they are untrue or only partly true. In this
case, it is that tax havens require secrecy but New Zealand doesn't
qualify because it offers up information easily and automatically if
asked; and that our reputation is not being tarnished anywhere else in
the world because we haven't been widely dubbed a tax haven (and,
anyway, New Zealand is merely a "footnote" to the Panama Papers). This again is simply untrue: the list of news media, blogs and websites
that have reported on New Zealand's role as a tax haven stretches
around the globe.
Expressing outrage over enabling the setting-up of these foreign
trusts is left to Key's betters who have a conscience and a sense of
right and wrong. It didn't take Barack Obama long to denounce
international tax evasion. Andrew Little, following UK Prime Minister
David Cameron's lead, tabled his tax records in Parliament, as well as saying a Labour government would end foreigners setting up trusts
here.
And the former Reserve Bank Governor, former National and Act leader,
Don Brash, bluntly told The Standard, "If [New Zealand] were setting
up a system that allows people to evade tax, that would be wrong."
Brash said everyone has to pay their fair share of tax. "I myself
would never attempt to hide anything in a tax haven. There is an
ethical question."
It doesn't matter whether it is New Zealanders or foreigners avoiding
or evading tax by shifting their money to low-tax jurisdictions. We shouldn't be party to a system that enables it anywhere in the world.
The cost runs into billions of dollars each year of forgone tax that
could pay for better education, infrastructure, hospitals and
everything else that benefits all of society, including the rich who
can pay to hide their loot.
But we, of course, have a Prime Minister - and a very popular one -
with a record of making moral and ethical issues subordinate to
political and electoral advantage (if, indeed, they are considered at
all).
He is clearly out of his depth when matters turn to ethics. Just as he
has a Chief Science Adviser in Professor Peter Gluckman, perhaps he
should get himself a Chief Ethics Adviser to explain how something can
be legal and also unethical.
He thinks New Zealanders don't mind as long as the trusts' behaviour
is all legal. He told reporters: "Unless there's something unlawful
people have done I don't think New Zealanders will have concerns. But
in the end Inland Revenue are now going to have access to all the information, they can go through and look at all that. They can check
that people have done things appropriately and legally."
The question of enabling avoidance or evasion of taxes here or
overseas is not only a legal question or one about tax efficiency,
policy, or the fees lawyers and accountants can earn by organising the paperwork (which is worth around $25 million a year to New Zealand).
It's a question about morality and Key just doesn't seem to get it,
which means he remains unembarrassed by repeated about-faces. In fact,
it took only a week for him to go from insisting there was nothing
wrong with the foreign trust regime, when the papers first came out in early April, to asking John Shewan to review the disclosure rules.
As Robert Muldoon famously asked David Lange in the leaders'
television debate in 1984 about his shifting position on nuclear ship visits: "Have you changed your position on a moral question, Mr
Lange?"
Lange replied at length and circuitously while Muldoon kept on
badgering him, reminding him he hadn't answered the question about the morality of his change of position, which made Lange - who was usually unflappable - clearly uncomfortable.
Key knows Paul Henry will never badger him with questions like that,
which I guess is why he's happy to appear on that show and not on
Morning Report, an invitation he declined once he knew he would be questioned about the Panama Papers.
Instead, he gets an easy ride with his favourites in the media,
fulfilling his anointed role as the National Party's barrow-boy and allowing New Zealand's good name and reputation to be peddled to the
world for a pittance in fees.
The desperation of you and Labour/Green and the msm to pin dirt on Key has gone from being laughable to being just bloody pathetic. not to mention politics of the filthiest kind Rich.
Still it's good for a laugh:)
Pooh
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