Coming soon ... Roger at Large

Press, 29 January 1988, Page 16

Coming soon ... Roger at Large

By

A. K. GRANT

The 1976 Supreme Court case of Fitzgerald v. Muldoon had no bearing on the actions of the Minister of Finance, Mr Douglas, in abolishing statutory tax deductions through the newspapers, according to a spokesperson for the Minister. (Mr Douglas is in London, as well he might be.) A senior lecturer in law at the University of Canterbury, Mr Philip Joseph, suggested in “The Press” yesterday that Mr Douglas’s action in purporting to end tax deductions for superannuation and life insurance by way of press and television was akin to the then Minister of Finance, Mr Muldoon, purporting to suspend an Act of Parliament through the newspapers, an action which the Chief Justice of the time, Sir Richard Wild, held to be contrary to the Bill of Rights. “There is no connection between the two cases,” Mr Douglas’s spokesperson told me over an expensive lunch at Wellington’s Deregulator’s Arms. “Mr Muldoon, as he then was, purported to amend an Act of Parliament by suspending superannuation deductions, with a promise that validating legislation — retrospective legislation, in other words — would be passed when he got around to it. That is quite different from what Roger has done.” "How?” was my pertinent query. “Well, in the first place Roger was on telly as well as in the papers,” the spokesperson said, deftly eviscerating an avocado. “So was Muldoon,” I said. (Those who do not remember History are condemned to forget bits of it. That has always been I

my motto.) “In the second place,” said the spokesperson, pouring me a glass of Chardonn-eh?, “we aren’t going to make Muldoon’s mistake and pass any retrospective validating legislation.” “Why not?” I asked, tossing a shrimp in the air and catching it in my mouth as though it were a peanut. “We can’t,” said the spokesperson. “Geoffrey Palmer gave Muldoon beans over the Fitzgerald case, and was very harsh about people who try to cover up acts of illegality by retrospective legislation, particularly where taxation rights are involved. So a Government with Geoffrey as its Deputy Prime Minister can hardly turn around and do the very thing that Geoffrey condemned, in words that will ring down the ages, in his book ‘Unbridled Power’.” "Good point,” I said, dropping a cherry stone into my beef consomme and watching the ripples spread outward. “So what are you going to do?” “Well,” said the spokesperson, “everybody in the country has got 3D video glasses now, because of that gorilla film that was on the other night. “So here’s the plan. When he gets back from London, Roger goes on telly and legalises the end of the life insurance and superannuation deductions in 3D television. What do you think about that? Are we brilliant, or are we brilliant?” "But how is that different from what Muldoon did?” I loudly pondered. “Muldoon only did it through the papers and on ordinary telly,” said the spokesperson, ordering as he did so a bottle Of A 7

Conscience Blanc. “He didn’t do what he did in 3D. The technology was available but he never thought of it. That whole Depres-sion-World War Two generation were very hidebound in their thinking.” “But does doing something illegal in 3D make it all right with the Bill of Rights?” I noisily mused. “Nothing about 3D in the Bill of Rights,” said the spokesperson, sending, back the Con-

science Blanc and ordering a bottle of Cabinet Sauve-qui-peut. “Doesn’t say you can, doesn’t say you can’t. “So — no precedent. So — no way for the High Court to get in the act. Game, set and match to us, I think. “Now, here’s a deal for you. You pay for lunch and I’ll leak you details of the capital gains tax we’re going to impose through an announcement on ‘What Now’?”