Russell DeborahDr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn): I rise to speak on this interesting bill. It is a technical bill a tiny bill a teensy bill. However is not a trifling bill or a trivial bill and even though it deals with accounting standards it's not even a tedious bill. It's a trimming bill a tidying bill a bill that sets matters to rights. And as has been said across the House it is a bill that we should all support and indeed I think we are all supporting this evening. As this bill has gone through an absolutely standard process of going to a select committee and of hearing submissions from entities that are concerned with the particular bill I just want to report back on some of those particular submissions that came in from the entities that are concerned. The Auckland Theatre Co. said that they support the intent of the Auckland Regional Amenities Funding Amendment (ARAFA) Bill and that they've reviewed the submission of the Amenities Board and they support that particular submission. The coastguard said that they have reviewed the ARAFA Bill and that they support the bill and that they support the submission put in by the Amenities Board. Drowning Prevention Auckland says that they support the bill the ARAFA Bill the Auckland Regional Amenities Funding Amendment Bill. They support the intent of the bill. They have reviewed the submission of the Amenities Board and they support the Amenities Board submission. There is a theme here. New Zealand Opera likewise says that they have reviewed the bill that they have reviewed the submission from the Amenities Board and they support that submission. This will get to a point in a moment. Surf Life Saving Northern Region—exactly the same submission: they support the intent of the ARAFA Bill and they support and adopt the submission of the Amenities Board. Mr Assistant Speaker as I am sure has been your experience and the experience of many of our colleagues across the House often when there are identical submissions coming in to a select committee we become a little wary of them. We wonder who is running a campaign; if there is a particular purpose. Sometimes because the submissions are all identical we count them up but we place perhaps less weight on them individually just because they are clearly all identical. But I submit that this is in fact an exception to this particular case and that even though all these submissions are virtually identical they are pointing to something very important: that there is in fact solid agreement from the entities that are affected by this bill that the bill is a good bill and it should be passed. So carrying on from there the arts festival—the same submission supporting the intent of the bill supporting the Amenities Board submission. The same from Mr Michael Woods' favourite psychedelic place to go: the Auckland Observatory and Planetarium Trust Board supporting the bill supporting the intent.There were however two exceptions two submissions that were exceptions to this virtually—and this why I have to say the word virtually"—unanimous support for the Amenities Board submission. One which I do want to read out but I won't read out the submitter's name because perhaps it's a point and we should listen to it says "Personally I think the government spends way too much money. Too much money on Auckland too much money on tourism too much money on traveling and too much money on trying to fix things that weren't broken! … Stop increasing taxes and give money back to the people you stole it from; kiwis. And if you want to spend millions on something unnecessary then take it out of your personal bank accounts!" Well what an interesting submission. We do from time to time get submissions where it's clear that people have sat down with their mates late at night had a bit of a yarn and found something to do and put in a submission. Perhaps that was one of those.Rather more seriously Julia Durkin submitted on this particular bill and she is a professional senior cultural producer and the longest-serving female festival director of an Auckland regional arts cultural and community organisation. She says that actually there needs to be a "broader investigation of the overall purpose of the [2008] Act itself." In fact she doesn't really submit on the bill itself but she does point to a need for some kind of review needed for that Amenities Board so perhaps that is something that could be considered at some stage in the future by people in Auckland.So coming to the Amenities Board submission—and that of course is the point of all of this—the Amenities Board clearly supports the intent of the bill and it explains very carefully why it is important. It is straightforwardly because the Act as it was written and along with the development of accounting standards alongside it has imposed an extra compliance burden on the entities that are affected by the bill. Now these entities are all charitable organisations; like many charitable organisations they are comparatively small in scale. And so it is important to try to reduce the compliance burden where possible with respect to that. So that is a good reason to support the bill. So as I've said a lot of unanimous support for the bill. I do want to speak as a former accountant just a little bit about the difference between generally accepted accounting practice (GAAP) and IFRS for us. So that's G-A-A-P—GAAP as it's normally referred to—and IFRS the International Financial Reporting Standards. Perhaps this will be the tedious bit of the evening but I promise you that to accountants it's very very exciting. GAAP are the common set of accepted accounting principles standards and procedures that companies and accountants must follow when they compile their financial statements. One of the interesting things about having been trained in accountancy is having developed that understanding as a set of shared ideas as to how transactions ought to be reported how accounts ought to be prepared so much so that for me when I'm trying to understand a particular way or the particular economic impact of a transaction one of the easiest ways for me to do it is to write out a journal entry because I understand it through that accounting framework. Having done that I can grasp the substance of what is going on and of course that's what generally accepted accounting principles are trying to do. They're trying to develop a set of rules that enable people who read financial statements to get a grasp of what is going on whereas IFRS the International Financial Reporting Standards they're an international set of standards and they talk about how particular types of transactions should be recorded. The problem that is fixed by this bill is that many of these boards the charitable entities that were affected by the particular Act ended up having to prepare two sets of financial statements. They were supposed to prepare two sets of financial statements. Now it's not that difficult. It doesn't take a lot to translate from one to the other but it was unnecessary. More to the point it turned out that many of these entities weren't actually even doing the two sets of financial statements. Now they were prudent. They were managing their money well. They were accounting for it properly. There is no suggestion anywhere of any impropriety or anything like that. Nevertheless just because of the way things had fallen out they weren't actually complying with the law and they weren't actually preparing those two sets of financial statements. Perhaps ordinarily you might think that was possibly something that should be sanctioned and there should be a sanction associated with it but that would be a sledgehammer to crack a walnut—not worth the effort. So this bill actually turns it around and says no rather than imposing that unreasonable compliance burden let's fix the problem. And that is of course the job of the Parliament: to fix the problem to make it the best we can for our constituents and the entities that are affected. That is our job as parliamentarians: where we see a problem to do our best to make sure that we if can put it right—that we make things better and easier for the people we work for.So as I said a small bill—a small bill—but it has some interesting aspects to it and it's a bill that I think will make a difference to the Auckland Philharmonia the Rescue Helicopter Trust the coastguard the theatre company Drowning Prevention Auckland New Zealand Opera—all good organisations all worthy organisations all organisations that of course add to the cultural and social and sporting life of Auckland. I support this bill."