Russell DeborahDr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn): Thank you Mr Chair. I do just want to clarify one minor point that my colleague across the House raised. I am not a lawyer either so I approach this as someone who is not a lawyer and is not reading it as a lawyer but rather looking at some of the power relationships in this. There's a particular issue that I want to raise that I did raise in respect of Part 1 and it was satisfactorily answered there to my knowledge last night but I want to raise it again here. That is to do with the secretary and the powers that the Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Trade has in respect of this bill.Last night when we were debating Part 1 I raised an issue in respect of—they're called—equivalent overseas regimes: why was the secretary judging them not the Minister. I got a very good answer: it's to do with the technical nature of an equivalent overseas regime and how that's assessed. So when I came to Part 2 of the bill and I found that again the secretary is involved in making various decisions and in signing off on them I actually thought that the same issue raised its head—the same worry as to why it was the secretary who was vested with this power.It seems to me that when we're looking at someone who is going to be registered as a broker this is not so much a technical matter of assessing an equivalent regime or assessing the nature of particular goods; we're actually looking at the character of a person. Now that's a different sort of thought and ordinarily I would have thought that if we were making assessments of someone's character we might expect that responsibility to rest with the Minister. The reason for having it rest with the Minister is because the Minister of course is subject to review every three years through the power of our triennual elections and the Minister of course is much more subject to public scrutiny in her or his actions than the Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Trade who acts as one removed as it were from the Minister.Now I would expect that the Minister when she or he is making those decisions would be making them based on the advice of the secretary but nevertheless the responsibility would rest with the Minister. But in the Act we've got that the person who registers someone as a broker is in fact the secretary. I'm sure there is a good reason for that. I'm sure there's a particular reason why it rests with the secretary but I would very much like to understand exactly what that reason is and I am sure that it is something that other people would like to understand as well.So that's all in clause 15 but if we go on to clause 16 there's another power that the secretary has. As the corollary of registering a broker she or he can also refuse to register someone as a broker. Now they've got to give written notice of that refusal but I would like to know if that written notice is going to include the reasons for the refusal. It just strikes me that as a matter of natural justice it in fact would be good to have those reasons as well—that someone might like to understand why they were not able to carry on in their chosen trade. So it would be good to have those reasons set out for them.Again carrying on with the secretary who does have all these powers—I just notice in clause 18A that brokers must provide an annual report. Now that's well and good. I think that's great to have that kind of scrutiny. But the annual report must be provided in the prescribed form and manner and contain these prescribed particulars. I did have a hunt through the bill to see what that prescribed form and manner and prescribed particulars might be but they're not actually specified in the bill as far as I can tell. So I'd like to know what the secretary thinks a broker might be required to report on—now obviously there'll be a particular form but just the sorts of things that a broker might need to report to the secretary in this case so that the secretary understands what the broker has been doing—and in exactly what sorts of details. Again we are supervising someone's business—someone's livelihood—and I think we should be entitled to know a little bit about exactly what details that person must provide to the secretary.As I said I feel as though the secretary does have a lot of powers under this Act. I'm sure it's entirely appropriate. I would like to know why they rest with the secretary in some cases rather than with the Minister and I'd like to know a little more detail around some of those powers that the secretary has.