Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. Can I acknowledge the chair of the Privileges Committee who did a good job chairing what was actually—it's been a busy committee—quite a tricky issue that we had to deal with. I think that the chair has done a pretty good job actually of traversing the facts which are actually not that contested—including by the member concerned—and in the public domain as it played out over many days and weeks. Feels like it was last year but it was actually only a few weeks ago. So he's done a good job.I just wanted to pick up on a couple of points. The first is just to make the obvious one which is that it was and is a serious breach. Members are required to take their obligations to disclose their interests through the pecuniary interests seriously and there's a whole lot of guidance from the registrar but also Standing Orders about that. I think the relevant paragraph is at page 7 of the committee report: It is difficult to conclude that he made a genuine attempt to identify his interests or that he sufficiently turned his mind to them when making his annual return over this five-year period. We therefore find that Mr Wood was neglectful of his duties over significant period of time." It's just worth highlighting that as I think Mr Wood himself concedes there was essentially a negligence over quite a long period of time and the appropriate punishment as recommended by the committee is an apology. It's not contempt. Members do make mistakes when they are submitting their returns. I think almost every pecuniary interest return has had late filings and subsequent amendments. But in this case Mr Wood did not make—or it's difficult to conclude he made a genuine attempt to identify his interests. So I think that's the first point.If I could just comment on the second point that Mr Parker raised which is what became known in the committee as the "trust" issue which was this quite vexing issue of when do you have to disclose interests in trusts? I hated trust law at law school and I thought when I became an MP I'd never have to deal with it ever again. Then I found myself on the Justice Committee doing the Trust Act review for about three years and now I'm on the Privileges Committee. We dealt with that so anyway here we are.But I think I will freely admit I—like many members I suspect—assumed that shares held in trusts had to be disclosed. I think actually there's a bit of a widespread assumption around that: that if you were a beneficiary of a trust that had listed shares in it that they would have to be disclosed. As it transpires as Mr Parker has pointed out that is not the case. We actually went through each of the guidance documents issued by the registrar and Form 4 is the relevant form as Mr Parker says. It explicitly says "Do not include the pecuniary interests that the trust itself may have (e.g. the assets of the trust). The exception to this is real property held on a trust which you should declare on Form 6." So I think the assumption that many hold—and I suspect many members have up until now held—in the House is actually incorrect.The Privileges Committee has recommended—and rightly so—that this is an issue that needs some more work. This Privileges Committee is very busy but it's clearly going to be an issue for the Standing Orders Committee of the next Parliament and we'll wait and see who's on that. But as page 9 notes "It is crucial the rules are clear and members have a consistent understanding of their obligations." It's a fundamental rule of law issue for members of Parliament: we need to know what the rules are so that we can comply with them. So no doubt the Standing Orders Committee of the next Parliament will be having a look at that.Can I just conclude by saying that we were slightly—perturbed is perhaps too strong a word but we were we were a little bit alarmed at some of the tenor of the language mentioned by the registrar in his report to us. I think the general consensus of the committee—and this is reflected in the report of the committee to the House—is that it's for the committee and then the House to determine the gravity of the offending and decide upon the way in which the issue of privilege will be dealt with. Some of the commentary in the registrar's report to us—well it was expansive shall we say in its commentary on what had happened. Actually it's a pretty fundamentally simple matter. Mr Wood was required to disclose a series of shares that he held for quite a long time. He didn't disclose them. The facts are actually relatively uncontested. There's a niche issue around the trusts aspect of it but the actual facts are relatively uncontested and that's perhaps not apparent from the quite lengthy discursive commentary that was provided to the committee from the registrar.So anyway with those remarks the National Party and myself endorse the report of the Privileges Committee."