Hudson BrettBRETT HUDSON (National): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. I rise in support of the Insolvency Practitioners Bill in this consideration of a select committee report. As the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs has pointed out we find ourselves in a not unique but rather remarkably rare situation in Parliament where we are debating simply a select committee report because we are debating a bill that has in fact already received a second reading some years ago. The bill has had a long gestation period in the House which I'm sure has allowed for some very deep contemplation. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of those specialists in the House who are so proficient at deep contemplation. I'm sure they have added something to what we are talking about today. Specifically what we'll be talking about is the current Minister's Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 45 and in particular the commentary and the scrutiny it received by the Economic Development Science and Innovation Committee. In simple terms the SOP as it amends the bill as it has existed for some time creates a co-regulatory licensing regime for insolvency practitioners. The bill in its very first form had a negative licensing regime which was a very low-touch but arguably effective regime where anyone could be an insolvency practitioner but there were expectations and rules applied to that and if they were contravened or not complied with those practitioners could be effectively struck off—to use that term. It then went through a process of looking at a potentially very positive licensing regime where they are listed and if you're not on the list you can't be an insolvency practitioner. Now we're looking at a co-licensing regime where we have a Government entity as a regulatory body but also with some industry bodies having a very strong role to play in both the effective registration but also management of practitioners in our commercial market space. What I would like to talk about in this contribution—at least on the report—are just a couple of points that were discussed and amended in looking at the SOP. The first is a duty to report serious problems. New Part 5 of the bill would impose duties and restrictions on licensed insolvency practitioners and they were to report things that were out of order or potentially unlawful or items perhaps of oversight or negligence. We looked at the duties that were placed on practitioners and felt it was very reasonable that if in the course of discharging their duties either directly or through information they received indirectly practitioners should be required to bring that to light. But we were a little bit cautious that we had to be clear that it was what they discovered not what it might be assumed that they might have learnt. So there was an amendment proposed in the report just to clarify that to make sure that it was things that the practitioner learns about or discovers either directly in the work they're doing or indirectly through information provided to them in the course of that work. But it does certainly place that duty on them to report those serious problems. The other area was on solvent liquidations and particularly directors' declarations. Previously the situation has been that under a solvent liquidation directors could declare a liquidation was solvent and therefore appoint a liquidator that was not licensed and they would have to provide no proof and they would face no consequences if they actually did not reasonably consider that the company could pay its debts. There's a pretty obvious potential loophole there so in the report we recommended strengthening those existing requirements by requiring that the company's board of directors declare that the company is able to meet all of its obligations to creditors within 12 months and by adding an offence provision and that just tightens things up. It does mean that if you are fundamentally looking at a solvent liquidation which is the expectation that all creditors can be paid—certainly all secured creditors—then there is no need to have or there should not necessarily be a need to have that licensed practitioner. There is a very different approach taken to it because it is considered that the company will have the means to pay its debts. But we do need to make sure that where such a situation is permitted it can't be misused perhaps even fraudulently so. So the recommendations the committee have made just help to strengthen that and make sure that there is both a compliance requirement but also a suitable penalty if that compliance requirement is not met. That pretty much I would argue reflects the committee's consideration of the SOP in general. We supported the bill of course. It was originally our bill. We supported the SOP and we continue to do so but the committee went through some extensive consideration of that SOP and offered some very sound recommendations for improvement. It's those recommendations that we are discussing tonight and which the Minister has clearly signalled that the Government are going to adopt in full. So on that basis we have no problem in continuing to support this bill as it progresses and I commend it to the House.