Wood MichaelClause 2 CommencementMICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): This is quite an interesting little clause in the bill and it's something that the Governance and Administration Committee—who obviously did a really good job of working through this bill hearing from submitters and addressing a number of issues—did comment on in its report actually. What was very very unusual about the bill that passed its first reading and was sent to the select committee is that it didn't actually have clarity around the commencement date.I'll just refer here to the select committee report. The committee here notes that The bill as introduced does not state when the proposed changes would come into effect. We think it is important to make these transitional provisions clear. We propose that the changes would apply for a financial year that was in progress or recently completed when the legislation commenced as well as for future reporting periods. We therefore recommend adding clause 4A"—which we'll get to later—"which would insert new section 4A setting out the transitional provisions in Schedule 1AA." I think it is worthwhile given that we're having a good debate and really getting into the details of this bill to hear from the member in the chair Parmjeet Parmar about what the rationale was in the first instance for there not being a commencement date. It is very unusual.Generally speaking when a piece of legislation whether it's a Government bill a member's bill a private bill or whatever heads off to a select committee—when it's drafted in fact—it'll have a commencement date. You want to know that your legislation's actually going to take effect at a point. I do remember one debate in this House going back to the last Parliament where there was actually a piece of legislation that I don't think had a clear commencement date and as a result it never took effect and we actually had to remove it off the statute book. Obviously no one wants their piece of legislation to fall into that trap so it will be good to know from the member if there was a particular reason at the outset why there wasn't a commencement date put in the legislation that was originally passed and sent off to select committee. I really would appreciate hearing from the member around that. It might be that there was a very good reason and I think the committee of the whole House would want to satisfy itself—and this isn't to cast aspersions on the select committee and its competence at all—that the member who proposed the legislation in the first instance is happy with what the select committee has done in terms of the change that it's made there.Secondly in respect of this issue I said before it's unusual that there wasn't a commencement date in the initial bill but actually what the select committee itself has done is a little bit unusual as well. Here again I'll just go back to the report to remind people. The select committee says this: "We propose that the changes would apply for a financial year that was in progress or recently completed". Now the "recently completed"—OK. But "We propose that the changes would apply for a financial year that was in progress"—that actually is quite unusual if you know a little bit about how organisations run their financial affairs and the importance of having year-to-year systems in place. So we're actually proposing that for some of the entities that this bill covers the rules will effectively be changed via legislation in the middle of a current financial year within which they're operating. That is unusual. So again I'd like to hear from the member in the chair about her views on that how she sees that operating. I would like to have some assurance that we have received some advice during the passage of this legislation particularly at select committee—and I know the member herself sat on there which was good—if we received advice from officials to assure us that that's not going to create any problems in terms of the financial cycles of these organisations and that it's not going to create confusion.I do note here that the whole purpose of this bill is to ensure that we effectively end a situation in which there was confusion and a bit of a mismatch in terms of how organisations covered by the Auckland regional amenities funding legislation conduct their financial reporting. So let's make sure as we pass this legislation that we're not creating another set of confusion by having as I say just going back changes that would apply for a financial year that was in progress coming in. That's what this bill does—very unusual noted in the select committee report.So again I'll just very briefly repeat those two questions. The first one is just understanding why there wasn't a commencement date put in the original bill that was sent off to select committee; secondly—well it's actually three questions—the member's comfort that there now has been a change made to that; and thirdly comfort and confidence from the member that that quite unusual change to allow these changes to come into effect during a financial year not when one is completed and before the next one starts is not going to create any additional problems for these organisations that we're trying to assist. Thank you Madam Chair."