Hughes Gareth: Third Readings —Text is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHughes Gareth: Third Readings —[Sitting date: 30 October 2014. Volume:701;Page:468. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GARETH HUGHES (Green):I understand this is a split call. Or am I taking another party’s call?The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): If that is what you want.GARETH HUGHES: Sure. I probably will not take the full 10 minutes even if it is not a split call. Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. My dad worked for the Inland Revenue Department for many many years. I do not know whether anyone else has had the experience where you do not really want to tell people at parties whom you work for. So he would make a joke because he did not really want to say he worked for the Inland Revenue Department and taxed people. He would say: “Oh it’s a taxing job. I don’t want to tell you.” and then he would have to under his breath say: “I work for the IRD.”I wonder whether auditors are the same because it is not a particularly in the words of Minister Bennett sexy job but it is a critical job in our economy. Although maybe they do not get the kudos other sectors have auditors play a critical role in the financial health of our economy—everything from the surety in the stock market and the key role they play there for investors through to avoiding fraud and malpractice in some of our companies through to the critical role they play in our Parliament in advising us on the financial health of some of our State-owned enterprises.We have also seen as James Shaw pointed out in his contribution where auditors have failed. We can see catastrophic consequences as we saw with that absolutely gigantic Enron collapse in the US which you can pin to the failure of auditing requirements. They play a critical role. That is why we were a little bit reluctant in the first reading of this legislation—and in fact voted against it. We did not think the case had been made for why we needed to broaden the scope for auditors and take the risk of a light-handed regulatory approach.We went into the select committee process with an open mind. We would like to acknowledge the chair thank the submitters and thank the officials. What we heard there was unanimous support for the changes adopted. We think they are common-sense changes. For example the merging of the New Zealand and Australian bodies makes some sense with the two bodies supporting it. We think widening the ability of people to become auditors as long as they are accredited within a standardised approach makes sense because ultimately auditors play a critical role in our economy.I know that previous Green speakers in the series of debates on this legislation have talked about the risks of a light-handed regulatory approach. This is something we have learnt from New Zealand’s history when you look at the leaky homes fiasco and the billions of dollars of liability that has accrued to central government and local government. We need to make sure that regulation is appropriate but we cannot have this approach where all regulation is bad by virtue of the fact that it is regulation. Regulation like auditors plays a critical role in our economy and that is why the Green Party will continue to support smart targeted appropriate regulation and auditing. Thank you. Kia ora.