McClay Todd: Financial Reporting Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
McClay Todd: Financial Reporting Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 28 November 2012. Volume:686;Page:6911. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua) 
: 
 This legislation the Financial Reporting Bill is an extremely important piece of legislation that continues a great job this Government has been doing over the last 4 years. You see the bill cuts compliance costs faced by many small and medium sized businesses in New Zealand and in particular these changes will mean that medium-sized businesses gain great advantage to get on and do the things that this Government wants them to do and that the country wants them to do which is their business. I am a firm believer that Governments should do less but what they do they should do better. The last Government over 9 years could not work that out. 
Under Labour the Government wanted to do more and it wanted businesses to do less. I can say it was unmitigatedly successful in that over the 9 years because what we found after 9 years of a Labour Government was in fact that the business sector had shrunk—the business sector had shrunk. Labour members come to this House and still talk about how wonderful it was all the extra money and all the great things they were doing taxing hard-working New Zealanders and then spending their money on their behalf. But what they will not come here and tell us is how the business sector in New Zealand shrank over that period of time and how devastating that was for everyday New Zealanders and how much hard hard work this Government through our leader John Key and the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Bill English had to do in the early days of what is coming down and will be known in history as one of the most successful Governments that this country has seen in such a long period of time. 
Here we are today when all around us in New Zealand New Zealanders are celebrating the day of  
The Hobbit 
. To my two colleagues opposite whom I am very happy to share a select committee—the Finance and Expenditure Committee—with Clayton Cosgrove and David Clark I say that this is the day of  
The Hobbit 
 not  
The Two Ronnies 
. They are the “Two Ronnies” of the Labour Party when it comes to bills like this in this Parliament. This is the day of  
The Hobbit 
 when all New Zealanders are rejoicing that one of the best films that will be released anywhere in the world this year has been filmed and has been made in New Zealand. We know that Opposition members—the Labour Party—were not in favour of that. Others have called them  
Hobbit 
 haters. They did not want the film made here. And do you know what damage would have been done to our country and economy should  
The Hobbit  
movie not have been made in this country? Small and medium sized enterprises so many thousands of them which have been involved in the manufacturing the making and the construction of this movie would not have had work. 
The Opposition probably is unhappy that small and medium sized enterprises have had these jobs because it did not want the Government to support this wonderful industry for those films to be made here. Why is that important? Small to medium sized enterprises that employ fewer than 20 people make up 97 percent of the enterprises in New Zealand. And shame on the members opposite for not wanting to support so many hard-working New Zealanders. Many of these enterprises are family-built businesses—mums and dads who work hard together. These are enterprises that make up 60 percent of all enterprises. Small to medium sized enterprises make up 40 percent of the economy’s total output by value-added basis and 31 percent of employees in New Zealand are in small to medium sized enterprises. The members of the party opposite should be supporting small and medium sized enterprises much more than they have. They come here and pay lip service to them. 
I mentioned at the beginning of this speech that this bill is a continuation of the work this Government has done over 4 years. I want to touch on a couple of those things that are an integral part of supporting small to medium sized enterprises more and this bill is a part of that. The new tax rate for small businesses in New Zealand is 28 percent helping local small firms get on and invest more. ACC rates have been reduced levies have come down and half a billion dollars extra a year is now going into the New Zealand economy helping individual employees and small businesses in New Zealand. Levies on businesses have been reduced by 22 percent. That is a saving of $247 million a year for small and medium sized enterprises in New Zealand. The 90-day trial period for small businesses won 13000 new jobs created in small businesses as a result of this giving hard-working New Zealanders a chance to get into the workforce. 
We have amended the Resource Management Act so that consents for medium-sized developments now need to go through in 6 months. That was a commitment we made to the electorate in 2011. We have reformed the personal grievance system—96 percent of all employment mediations are now resolved without being escalated to an Employment Court. Many of those are in small and medium sized enterprises. Unnecessary red tape for small businesses has been reduced and the Government is on track with these measures to cut compliance costs for businesses and consumers by an additional $200 million a year—across-the-board savings reductions in compliance costs and reductions in red tape. 
This is a Government that over 4 years has more than proven how committed we are to making it easier for small and medium sized businesses and shame on the Opposition for going against almost every measure we put in place to help everyday New Zealanders with their companies. Thank you very much.