Williams ArenaARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Madam Speaker thank you for the opportunity to take a call on this bill. It's a good bill. It's a good bill from my colleague the Hon Dr Deborah Russell; it is a good policy intention from Laura Trask who has spoken on her very similar bill; and that's why we should support it around the House tonight and enjoy the opportunity that we have—we still have—to break out in a round of Kumbaya" about this cross-partisan thing that we can all do. If Labour and ACT can agree surely we can agree that this is indeed sticking up for the little guy. This is about making small-business owners' lives easier.Because it is not about the big-business owners. Big-business owners have options to set themselves up with the kind of corporate structuring that allows them to already do this to choose whether or not they want their directors' details to be on the corporate register or not. They can use things that already enjoy the protections of limited liability but still allow directors to not have their addresses published—things like limited partnerships which allow them to have all of their address details withheld from public view. That's not available to the hairdressers and the tradies that Laura Trask spoke about tonight and that's why we should make this urgent change even if there is further change coming later which I welcome.It was good to hear the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs down here saying he's going to review the Companies Act. So if you'll indulge me I want to talk just briefly in this reflective mood that Grant Robertson has set for the House tonight about the corporate veil and about why we give people the ability to set themselves up to limit their liability when they're trading through a company—that's usually the way that we do it although there are other entities like limited partnerships where you can do that. The corporate veil and limited liability allow commerce to happen between people because we say in this very special set of rules that only your liability in your trading relationships in your business will apply to this particular circumstance where you are complying with the Companies Office rules.One of those particular circumstances is that people need to be able to find you. They need to be able to tell you if you owe them money or if they owe you money—that sounds reasonably right. The problem here is that because of successive amendments to the way that our corporate structuring rules work in New Zealand some people can avoid those rules through limited partnerships through trust structures which avoid the disclosure of details and some people can't—and that's the little guy and it's often women who are then subject to the kind of abuse online the kind of abuse in real life that we want to avoid for them. So there is no reason to delay this. Some people already have the ability to do this. We want to make sure that small-business owners who make up the majority of business owners in New Zealand have the ability to enjoy the same kinds of protections that their big-business - owning counterparts have. I think it's a good fair approach to take immediately tonight.Now what I was saying about the commerce Minister coming down here and telling us he's reviewing the Companies Act—that is good news. I'm really interested in that. When? When will the Companies Act be reviewed? Because the reason he gave tonight is that you know he's got a few minor concerns that it could be aired out at select committee. We've had a number of really good members of the select committees tonight making contributions about not only their personal experience but their professional experience with the Companies Register and the Companies Office rules so we know we have expertise in this House to be able to iron out these problems.He's identified privacy concerns. He's identified the fact that we need to double these provisions up and make them apply to shareholders—all sensible stuff that members of this House can get their heads around. So the primary reason that we heard from him is "Well I'm reviewing the Companies Act." But there's no reason why that review of the Companies Act can't go ahead at the same time as this provision would come in. This is a sensible thing. I hope members in all parties can listen to this debate and change their minds here and now because there is nothing in this bill which would create harm there is nothing in this bill which would put the directors in a worse position than they were before and there's certainly nothing in this bill that would put shareholders in a worse position than they were before. In fact it would just allow a small protection for the large number of small-business owners who are affected by this and who have been asking about this for a long time.My colleagues made the point that the Institute of Directors have been asking for this for some time that it is a stand-out thing that comes up for women in directors' positions about why they would not become directors. So if we are committed in this House to making sure that small-business owners medium-sized business owners are treated in the same way as large-business owners then we should do this tonight. It makes sense.The other concerns are around the fees. That is interesting. I will hold this Minister to account when he says that he does not think fees should be charged for Companies Office changes which are about safety. We will make sure that that is followed through if the Minister does in fact revise the Companies Act."