Rutherford Tom; Willis NicolaTOM RUTHERFORD (National—Bay of Plenty): Thank you very much Mr Chair. I was privileged to take part in the debate last week as the final speaker for the Government side. I pointed out the irony at that time of being the youngest member of the Government talking about superannuation.Arena Williams: Yes you said it then. It's repetitive.TOM RUTHERFORD: It's repetitive but it was from last week so I was just reminding the committee just in case they didn't remember. Good to see members on the opposite side being so engaged and involved with the debate. I'm looking forward to seeing them making some meaningful contributions—Hon Member: I'd like to know what you want to know about it.TOM RUTHERFORD: —meaningful contributions. You want to know what I want to know about this bill? Oh that's a good question.Having looked through the department disclosure statement I'm keen for the Minister to flesh out a little bit further for us around how the bill distinguishes between the Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation as a Crown entity and the guardians as a manager and administrator of the New Zealand Superannuation Fund. The reason that I'm keen to know about that is because the laws that apply to public sector organisations are not intended to apply to entities that the Guardians control as managers and administrators of the fund. I'm keen to understand from the Minister the intention behind that direction but also around why the bill is clearly distinguishing needing the Guardians as a Crown entity but also the Guardians as managers and administrators of the New Zealand Superannuation Fund. So if the Minister wouldn't mind just providing some clarity for me on that I'd really appreciate it.Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): The member does raise quite an important point because there could be the scenario in which controlled entities if they were treated as having the same requirements as typical Crown entities would therefore become subject to all of the usual expectations that the law places on those Crown entities. That is what has given rise to some of the technical and consequential amendments in the bill which include amending sections of the Income Tax Act and the Ombudsmen Act to make it very clear that any controlled entities are not subject to the same requirements as Crown entities. I think this is actually quite an important limitation because that could actually both prevent the super fund from making some investments if it thought that in making that investment it would be subject to the same expectations as a Crown entity it could also complicate the nature of those investments create obligations in fact for the Crown.It's also relevant though that we distinguish here what would be the legal duties from this other question which is: could there be a greater expectation because of the nature of a controlling interest investment that the public that stakeholders would look back to the Crown to say in the event of a failure of an entity that the Crown would be expected to bail it out? I think it's really important that the way that the Act is set up that the policies are set up that the independence is set up that we don't create that expectation. The super fund if it is to be free to make investments also has to be free to make investments that fail without the expectation that the Crown would be bailing it out. That is very much the way that this Act has been written with that very clear so that the super fund in entering those investments it can be clear that there is absolutely no expectation that the Crown would become the funder of last resort.