Street Maryan: Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Street Maryan: Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
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Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour) 
: 
 I am pleased to speak in the Committee stage of the Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Bill. Without wishing to try the Committee’s patience I want to take my few minutes in this call to describe the bill in terms of what it is not because sometimes describing something in the negative is as beneficial as describing it in the positive. We will see how we go and how much I try members’ patience in the process. 
Clearly Labour supports this bill. Our main concern was to ensure that it benefited insurance policyholders through ensuring the security the transparency and the fairness of a supervision scheme. Of course we are in agreement with that. We also support the Minister of Finance’s Supplementary Order Paper Supplementary Order Paper 155. There is a 200-page bill and a 10-page Supplementary Order Paper and both of them reflect what the bill could have been but did not go into. 
We support the bill and we support the Supplementary Order Paper but the question arises from the Supplementary Order Paper as to whether this bill seizes the opportunity that was before the Government—and before the Finance and Expenditure Committee but at the direction of the Government. In doing something essential which this bill does it achieves what it sets out to do and that is to encourage by its own purpose the maintenance of a sound and efficient insurance sector that can promote confidence amongst policyholders and the general public. 
However these are extraordinary times. To improve the insurance sector and the transparency and security of it is good in these extraordinary and uncertain times. But in fact the Government could have taken the opportunity to do something even more substantial. Here in this bill a portion of our economic structures are being given into the hands of the Reserve Bank in order for that monitoring and supervisory function to be performed. That is a good thing. 
But what the Government could have done was to take another look at the functions of the Reserve Bank and to expand its functions in a way that addresses— 
Craig Foss 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: There is a point of order. I think I can anticipate what it is and without even hearing it I will uphold it. The member needs to clarify the argument she is putting in relation to the bill before us. 
Hon MARYAN STREET 
: Speaking to the point of order. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: No. I have spoken. I have just said that the member must talk about the bill. You can make a comparative example but you must draw it into the bill. 
Hon MARYAN STREET 
: The treatment of the insurance sector as I have already said is a valid important and justifiable thing to do. But why do we not accompany that with some additional measures that relate to comparable sectors in the financial structures that we have and deal with a comprehensive range of the financial tools that are available to this Government—or that could be available to the Government with some imagination and boldness? 
In this bill we have a cringing timidity on the part of this Government that restricts it from looking at the creation of other financial and economic institutions or powers within the Reserve Bank and limits it only to the purpose of this bill which is in fact to encourage the maintenance of a sound and efficient insurance sector. We do not disagree with that but it cannot go unnoticed in the context of describing what this bill does that the Government could have done more. 
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 155 in the name of the Hon Bill English be agreed to. 
Amendments agreed to. 
Parts 1 to 5 schedules 1 to 3 and clauses 1 and 2 as amended agreed to. 
Bill reported with amendment. 
Report adopted.