Simpson ScottHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Thank you Madam Speaker. It's deeply ironic and a bit rich frankly to hear from one-term Labour Party backbench MPs about the benefits of not wasting taxpayers' money. Here is a Government that has borrowed printed spent profligately more taxpayer money in the last four years than any Government in the history of our nation—most of it poorly spent. Most of it very poorly directed poorly spent. So to have a one-term backbench Labour MP come to this House and cry crocodile tears about taxpayer money just doesn't ring true.We have a Government that is significantly out of tune with the New Zealand public significantly out of tune with commerce with industry with the productive sector in New Zealand and nothing actually reflects that more so than this bill. Members on this side have supported the bill at first reading. We thought that the Government might want to actually listen to the sector listen to submissions from people who understood the sector who operated in the sector who had long-term interests in the sector but sadly no—there was no attempt. I listened carefully to my colleague Barbara Kuriger who sat on the Economic Development Science and Innovation Committee. I didn't sit on the select committee but I have read some of the submissions. Barbara Kuriger rightly indicates that often a Minister that is open to ideas suggestions and improvement will take into account submissions that are made from industry and sector groups that do know what they're talking about. This has not been one of those cases and this bill is the poorer for it because it is an overreach. It is a bill that goes several steps beyond what is necessary and with all the potential for unintended consequences that come with a Government that doesn't understand commerce business or actually the extractive mineral sector. They have a fundamental ideological opposition to the extractive sector; they just don't like it. But they do like everything that comes from and with the extractive sector. They like to be able to use their cellphones drive their cars they like to be able to turn the lights on they like to be able to heat and warm their homes and they like all the benefits that come from an extractive sector but they like none of the downsides that involve actually getting minerals and resources out of the earth processing them and then turning them into the beneficial aspects of our day-to-day life that we all like. This is a Government that is sort of like that old analogy of you know wanting to go to heaven but not wanting to die. They're full of grand gestures virtue signalling on a grand scale but actually when the nitty-gritty comes down to it it's just a fundamental philosophical objection to the extractive sector but also a fundamental philosophical objection to business and to commerce and to enterprise and to productivity. They don't like profit either.Look nobody in this Chamber would argue that the sector doesn't have obligations to decommission; that's a given. That's understood and completely proper and right. But from time to time things don't happen quite as they should and this bill which is an overreach is a response to one situation of that sort. And yes sadly the taxpayer the long-suffering taxpayer has had to underwrite the decommissioning in this situation. But had this Government gone about putting in place a more practical a more pragmatic and a more sensible solution then we would be able to support this legislation on this side of the House. But we can't because they've introduced into this legislation a new fascinating and quite scary concept of perpetual liability. For anyone that has been in business or ever done a commercial transaction or been a director or a shareholder of a company the concept of perpetual liability is an unknown one but also kind of scary. It will have a chilling effect on the commercial sector without any doubt because what perpetual liability essentially means is that if a business sells their interests in an enterprise to another business and then that business in turn sells it to another business and then so on and the chain of sale and purchase continues through multiple owners of a business over many years and decades indeed the original owners of that business even though they may not have had a financial interest or a day-to-day management interest in the business for decades will remain liable—not just civilly liable but also criminally liable for the misdeeds and the failures of the company or entity that is the one that drops the parcel so to speak.Now that is a fundamental change to commercial law in New Zealand and it has I think the potential for great disquiet amongst those who seek to engage in commercial activity in New Zealand whether it's in the extractive mineral sector or not. The concept that this Government wants to put this in place sends a chill up the spines of I think directors and shareholders and business people all around the countryside.Chapman Tripp are a well-regarded law firm and their corporate and commercial partners put out a paper about this bill and they made some quite poignant I think comments about the failures of this bill. In their paper on this bill they said We expect these provisions will cause significant anxiety in boardrooms." They said the changes expose "sellers to a potential cost double whammy – first in the form of a lower purchase price to reflect the cost exposure created by the Bill and later if the purchaser fails to carry out and fund the decommissioning activities." They go on to say that "At the very least this will make transferring permits or licences more intensive and cumbersome – particularly for the seller who will have to undertake substantial financial due diligence in relation to a purchaser's ability to meet [future] decommissioning costs [into an unknown] future." They go on—and this is the last quote from this piece—"We expect sale and purchase agreements going forward will include indemnities from the purchaser indemnifying the seller for any liability under the Bill. However those indemnities cannot extend to directors of the seller – a point which is explicit in the Bill." Dr Duncan Webb comes to this Parliament with a reputation for being an academic lawyer—a lecturer no less. He should understand the implications of this piece of legislation and he should realise that this is a step too far.There were a number of other submissions made. In fact I think that there were 11 that were actually heard from of the 23 but one organisation that did not have an opportunity to submit has as recently as a week or so ago on 11 November written to the Minister in charge of this bill raising their concerns and that is the Institute of Directors in New Zealand. Their chief executive Kirsten Patterson wrote to Dr Megan Woods in these terms about this legislation and she says "We support the intent of the bill but we're concerned about director liability and potentially unintended consequences such as deterring capable experienced directors from serving." Now that's a real warning to this Government who probably doesn't understand the concept of what directors do.She goes on to say the proposed director liability regime is overly onerous and then says that "When designing a regulatory regime it's important that the director liability settings are proportionate and reasonable to the issues the regime is designed to address. This regime includes wide threshold for criminal liability that holds directors accountable for actions that are potentially totally beyond their control."—potentially totally beyond their control. Now that's not how our commercial law should be based and we think that that is wrong.So if the Institute of Directors in New Zealand thinks there are issues if prominent lawyers from big professional firms such as Chapman Tripp think that there are issues and if there are submissions from industry and sector groups that say there are issues then we've got a problem when the Minister won't listen. That means that this will end up being poor legislation passed by a Government with an absolute majority that doesn't listen and doesn't care."