Cosgrove Clayton: Financial Reporting Bill Financial Reporting (Amendments to Other Enactments) Bill — Third ReadingsText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCosgrove Clayton: Financial Reporting Bill Financial Reporting (Amendments to Other Enactments) Bill — Third Readings[Sitting date: 19 November 2013. Volume:695;Page:15001. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour): Can I thank the Minister of Commerce. The Financial Reporting Bill and the Financial Reporting (Amendments to Other Enactments) Bill have bipartisan support. In fact I do not believe—maybe there is—there is a party in Parliament that is opposed to them for logical and common-sense reasons. Can I also thank the Minister for the way he has conducted himself in respect of transacting this report. I think that members of the Committee across the House have done a pretty good job to come to grips with it.Labour will support these bills. They are admirable bills and they are necessary in respect of all the things we have debated tonight over and over as we head towards midnight in terms of appropriate accounting and financial reporting standards transparency accountability et al.I want to particularly say that we on this side of the House believe that reducing unnecessary compliance costs for all entities but especially for small entities is appropriate. I well recall being the Minister for Small Business for a time in the last Labour Government. It is a bit like being the Minister for Building and Construction in that there is a decent alumni of small business Ministers past and present in this place. The dilemma for a Minister for Small Business is that when you attempt to reduce compliance costs your colleagues in Cabinet with their own portfolios and with all good intentions are trying to solve other problems and in doing so although they have the best of intentions and are acting in good faith they can often pile those compliance costs back on.But I will say that the Minister of Commerce has acted in a far more effective way than the then Minister for Small Business the honourable—I use that word advisedly—John Archibald Banks whose greatest contribution to the body politic was to stand in this House last year I think or within the last 12 months and promote a piece of legislation that had at its heart getting rid of 31 spent Acts. For the uninitiated—because I was—I had to ask the Clerk and a spent Act is effectively an Act that in all essence has been repealed. In essence it has no effect on anybody—it does not exist. So he was repealing 31 Acts that had no effect on anybody. That was the Hon John Archibald Banks’ great—Hon Member: High point.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: —high point as Minister for Small Business before he got into a high degree of difficulty involving his second court appearance after being convicted in a previous life of a criminal offence elsewhere. So he is rather preoccupied with his own compliance costs and I suspect there might be a few more compliance costs as he heads through the court proceeding trying to defend the indefensible.In terms of transparency and standards I hope that Minister Foss might perhaps give the former Minister John Banks some advice on how to maintain high standards of accountability and transparency possibly in his own personal affairs for which he is now accountable before the courts. That may lead to some lifelong learning for MrBanks as he contemplates doing other things as he perhaps looks through striped sunshine in the next few years.I return to the legislation and I am particularly grateful for the clarification around charities. I do take the point which I think a number of colleagues have made that the more appropriate level of financial reporting and the more openness transparency and accountability a charity can have—though it is somewhat burdensome to make any changes—will promote I do hope as the Minister does further giving from people. They will have a greater confidence that the charitable dollar that they are donating will be used—as it generally is in 99 percent of cases—in an appropriate way and will get to those who are in need either medically or because of their personal circumstances. They will have a greater confidence that the money gets to where it needs to go to assist people.I come back to a couple of points I made previously. I say to the Government again even though we are supporting this legislation that it ought to look to its own conduct in terms of when it is promoting standards accountability and transparency. In a previous speech I touched on the rather shoddy slipshod and totally morally wrong way in which it dealt with the provision for sale and the loss of dividends from the mixed-ownership model. I just say again to the Government that it will be difficult for some as they read this legislation and are required to spend quite a bit of money in many respects to make the relevant changes and then look at the Government’s own record of accounting standards aided and abetted in this case sadly I have to say by Treasury which allowed this behaviour to be got away with. They may look at this Government and say: “Well if it’s good enough for us why isn’t it good enough for you?”—as in the Government not you Mr Deputy Speaker.I think that the behaviour has been reprehensible. It was done simply for political purposes and sadly the Government ought to realise that in some ways you do not actually need a piece of legislation in order to be accountable because New Zealand is a small village. Everybody knows what everybody is doing and the people saw through that act of incompetence and negligence—an act that was completely wrong. They have now seen through that as we have gone through several botched mixed-ownership model sales. People are not silly. This Government ought to work that out. They know when they are being snowed. They know when there is a snow job and they know when one is trying to be put across them. So I say that.That also goes in terms of standards and transparency for some of the other deals—bizarre negotiations like the ones with Rio Tinto done behind closed doors with no explanations and no claims about job security. That is why the Government paid 30 million pieces of silver to Rio Tinto—on a claim that it was securing jobs for Southland. Without bringing the Deputy Speaker into the debate—I know that he is a very parochial Southlander who stands up for his patch very well—Dr Rajen Prasad: He’s a hunter.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: He is a hunter indeed. The commitment was made in this House that $30 million effectively bought job security for those Rio Tinto workers. We now know two things. Before the ink was dry on the cheque on the Tuesday in theSouthland Times Rio Tinto was already announcing the fact that it was laying off maintenance workers. We now know—Hon Anne Tolley: What’s this got to do with the legislation?Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: Anne Tolley asks what this has got to do with the legislation. Well that says it all. A day late and a dollar short from that one over there. Ms Tolley it is about accountability transparency and walking the talk. When you promote a bill that requires a high level of financial reporting accountability and transparency for others one would think that you would do that from a position ofmoral authority where you could stand up and say the Government is going to adhere to the same standard. That Ms Tolley is what it is all about and as I was saying in terms of the Rio Tinto deal $30 million—[Interruption] Well she still does not get it but that is all right. Get Nick Smith to explain it to you out the back over a coffee afterwards. If Ms Tolley does not know what it is about that says a lot to the community does it not? That says a lot. Ignorance for that member is bliss absolute bliss—hear no evil see no evil.The facts are that $30 million—$30 million—was promised to secure jobs and then we find out that the Minister of Finance did not even ask for a jobs guarantee. He may not have got one—fair enough—but he did not even have the brains the gumption or the professionalism to ask for that. There was no transparency with the Chorus deal either—no transparency no accountability. In terms of the Solid Energy deal the Government was asleep at the wheel. There was no accountability and no transparency and there were some pretty dodgy financial reporting standards amongst that. [Interruption] Oh they have woken up.I say to those members opposite that if they are going to apply this sort of legislation which is appropriate to everybody else they might want to look at their own financial conduct their own conduct in respect of State-owned enterprises Chorus the SkyCity deal and the Ruataniwha Dam project which that Minister is involved with in various surreptitious ways and say: “Maybe we should have the same level of openness accountability transparency and standards.” That Ms Tolley is what it is all about: walking the talk practising what you preach and not being—well I cannot use the “h” word of course. It is not about the Government saying one thing—demanding and demanding that people outside this Chamber adhere to high standards of accountability professionalism reporting and transparency—and doing another. It is not about the Government saying: “Oh that’s OK for them the plebs outside here but it’s not OK for us. We’ll set our own standards. We’ll lower the height bar as we see fit and anything will go.”I say in conclusion that we support the tenure of this legislation. We support it. [Interruption] There is a bit of verbal biffo going on across the House between a couple of members but that is OK. We are getting close to the bewitching hour and I am sure there will be a few broomsticks flying out of here from time to time. I say that we support this legislation. It has bipartisan support but I just wish the Government would actually look at it and say: “OK if it’s good enough for them it’s good enough for us.”