van Velden BrookeBROOKE VAN VELDEN (Deputy Leader—ACT): Thank you Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the ACT Party to oppose at first reading the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income (Controlling Interests) Amendment Bill. However I do look forward to seeing this bill go through select committee where it will be challenged by my colleague Damien Smith who sits on the Finance and Expenditure Committee.While the ACT Party was in consultation with the Minister of Finance about this particular bill we wrote back to the Minister to suggest that in principle we were not opposed to the fund taking controlling interests in investments and in stocks because it's obviously a new level of sophistication that the Superannuation Fund has managed to mature and reach and in doing so a public entity will need additional oversight. So it's important that the law is changed and it's scrutinised heavily in doing so to allow for the maturity of the Superannuation Fund. But where the ACT Party differs and why we won't be supporting this bill—even though in principle we agree with the changes set out in it—is because we don't believe that the Superannuation Fund should be contributing to investments in New Zealand or internationally. Essentially what the Government is doing by continuing to invest is taking New Zealand taxpayers' money and making a decision about what to do with it and investing on behalf of New Zealanders. Well in the ACT Party we believe that the best decision-making for investment can happen by taxpayers themselves rather than by their Government. And I think the perfect example was made by my Green Party colleague Ricardo Menéndez March standing before and saying Well if we are going to invest in the Superannuation Fund these are the types of investments we would like to see."So if you start to believe that the New Zealand taxpayers should have the Government spending their money to invest in the stock market you then raise the question of well what is a sensible investment? And you start to get a lot of people having their own political ideas of what a good investment would be. I believe the New Zealand taxpayer knows what sort of investments they believe will be best for themselves. And so that's why we believe that we would like to see capital markets in New Zealand grow. That means having a good regulatory system that enables people to be able to make those decisions for themselves and to have the confidence to invest in New Zealand's capital markets. And this is not the correct debate for it but I am very interested in how we can change our regulatory systems to enable more New Zealanders to further invest in our New Zealand capital markets especially a lot of younger people. You know the next generation are investing—Angela Roberts: Sharesies.BROOKE VAN VELDEN: —like my colleague across the House Angela Roberts says in Sharesies. There are a number of other platforms. But we could particularly look at the technology side of these investments in online applications to ensure that younger people coming through have the knowledge and also have the ability with custodian rights under our New Zealand capital markets to make the best decisions and be actively involved in the sharemarkets. But we do not believe that we should be as taxpayers pooling our money through the Government to have this money used for investments. So we do not believe in continuing the contributions to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund. But we do believe in paying down debt. You know this Government spends an awful lot of money on wasteful spending. The Government wastes our money. There's a lot that we could cut back on. But it's also very important that we pay down our debts so the next generation are not facing ongoing taxes and increased taxes down the line. I think it's very important that we keep our spending under check that we stop the contributions to the Superannuation Fund that we pay down our debts and that we also remove wasteful spending where we can see it. That will keep costs of living under control. But it doesn't make sense to take New Zealand's taxpayer money and spend it on a bet. We're betting other people's money and that money could be used better by New Zealanders themselves to invest where they think they can make a good decision rather than where the Government thinks it can make a decision. So we are not supporting this bill. We are in principle supporting the idea of changing the controlling-interests part of the Superannuation Fund and allowing for more accountability through the changes to these laws and we look forward to working through that at the select committee but we are opposed to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund and we believe it would be better for the Government to be paying down its debts rather than borrowing and spending and using New Zealanders' taxpayer money on the stock market."