Williams Andrew: Financial Markets Conduct Bill — First Reading 
Williams Andrew: Financial Markets Conduct Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:678;Page:882] 
ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First) 
: 
 I rise to speak on behalf of New Zealand First in relation to the Financial Markets Conduct Bill. I think it is very appropriate that the word “conduct” is in this bill because this is all about how our financial markets conduct themselves in the future. New Zealand First of all parties in this House is well known for exposing many indiscretions in the past in terms of the financial markets and those of us who are old enough will remember the likes of the wine-box inquiry and other dealings around the world. I know that some of the National people are smirking from the other side of the House because they were a little bit young at the time and do not recall it but had they been old enough to be around when the likes of the wine-box inquiry was on when the Rt Hon Winston Peters was exposing much of the sorts of shenanigans that were going on in terms of some of our financial markets and our taxation system and various other things around the world in terms of doing New Zealand itself out of its own taxes then this certainly does reflect well in terms of this bill. 
It is very appropriate also that the National Government would be bringing this bill forward to sort out those financial markets because it is very very well aware of the shenanigans that went on in the past in relation to many of the financial dealings around the world. Therefore it is more than appropriate that the National Government is now rectifying many of those wrongs of the past and putting the financial markets in correct order as they should have been—and then we would not have had half of the shenanigans that went on in the 1980s and 1990s. 
The Financial Markets Conduct Bill replaces a number of former Acts such as the Securities Markets Act 1988 and the Securities Transfer Act 1991 and it also replaces Part 2 of the Securities Act 1978. So this bill is replacing quite a lot of old legislation and brings it up into the new millennium. It also allows New Zealand to align itself more with Australia and other markets and therefore will certainly assist in terms of this Government’s and this nation’s dealings in international finances and it will help corporate New Zealand and “Kiwi Incorporated” to perform. 
I am particularly delighted to look at parts of the bill particularly in reference to dealing in financial products on markets. The bill mentions in the explanatory note that Subpart 2 of Part 5 deals with insider trading particularly the derivatives market and insider trading on the derivatives market. Certainly New Zealand First would support this. The last thing we would want to see is some of the insider trading that has been known to occur in terms of the derivatives trading. We do not want the likes of people who are working out of various money markets around the world manipulating the New Zealand market and taking New Zealand for granted in terms of what we are doing in trying to run a strong stable financial market here in this country. 
I am particularly pleased to read the explanatory note under “Subpart 3—Market manipulation” which states: “This subpart prohibits market manipulation. This prohibition takes the following 3 forms: prohibiting a person from engaging in conduct that is misleading or deceptive or likely to mislead or deceive in relation to any dealings in quoted financial products. This new provision applies whether or not the dealings are in trade: prohibiting a person from making a materially false or misleading statement that is likely to induce a person to trade in quoted financial products or have the effect of increasing reducing maintaining or stabilising the price for trading in those financial products. …” and it goes on. 
There are penalties involved in this too and I see that the penalties for those sorts of offences can be a term of imprisonment not exceeding 5 years or fine not exceeding $500000 for an individual or a fine not exceeding $2.5 million. This is the sort of thing that we want to see in this Parliament—coming down on some of the shonky trading and coming down on some of the financial institutions that have done good New Zealanders out of their savings and out of their investments. 
New Zealand First very strongly supports this very voluminous edition. A number of trees have obviously been chopped down for it to be published. We welcome this bill because we think it is overdue. It is overdue in terms of bringing New Zealand into the First World financial market and not allowing it to be a cowboy financial market as it operated in the past which saw New Zealand being seen as a bit of an out-west South Pacific trading nation in the financial markets area and where there have certainly been some less than desirable activities going on. We have seen so many financial companies go under in the last 3 or 4 years. We have seen so much in the way of questionable activities by some of those involved in the financial markets. Therefore to have a Financial Markets Conduct Bill certainly is the right direction to go to bring New Zealand into a First World financial markets situation. We certainly support this. We think this is the right direction to go. We think it is overdue however. New Zealand First will be supporting this bill through its first reading.