Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Well thank you very much Mr Speaker. I rise to join with other members of the Privileges Committee who have spoken so far to endorse this report back from the committee. I think that the chair and other members worked very constructively through what turned out to be more complex and technical matters than perhaps we might have thought at first. I agree with the comments that have been made so far. If I could put a bit more context around it because people watching this may wonder what the matter actually is members of Parliament are required to declare their interests employment and things that they own that might be seen to somehow influence their decision making as MPs and I completely endorse that idea. I think it's important in an open democracy that people can see where political parties get their donations from if members of Parliament are receiving benefits from any individual or if members of Parliament have specific pecuniary or other interests in a particular thing or person that might influence the decisions they have made or at least be seen to. I think that's really important.I think it's also important to distinguish for people who may look at this and recognise that it's actually quite a separate matter from the declaration made by Ministers in the Beehive. That's a totally different thing where Ministers have to declare their conflicts of interest. That got a lot of publicity in the guise of Michael Wood—actually for the same shares. But so much for that. I just think it's important to put the purpose and the exact matter in a bit of context here.I agree with what's been said that it's pretty much cut and dried. Michael Wood owned shares in Contact Energy and Auckland Airport. Some of us remarked that he was much more of a capitalist than we would have guessed and some of us admire him for that to some extent but nevertheless he had an obligation to report those shares in as much as he owned them personally. That's what the Standing Orders require. He did do so from about 2021 onwards but he failed to follow one of the rules which is that if you do that you've got to actually update all previous returns while you're a member of Parliament so you've got to correct everything. I've done that. For interest I'd forgotten to declare—I suspect there wouldn't be a lot of people here who haven't either done it or would be foolish to throw stones from glass houses in case they one day discover they have to as well. But Michael Wood once he became aware of these shares he started reporting them in his subsequent returns but didn't update his previous ones. So that's the first issue.The second issue that arose was perhaps the one that's been discussed the most is was he also obliged to report on shares that were held in trust. I think this gets us to quite an interesting point particularly with regard to the way the registrar has conducted himself through this inquiry. You see it turns out and it's quite clear from reading the Standing Orders although as Chris Bishop has said one could easily be confused. It's quite clear that you do not have to declare shares that are held in a trust. It's clear because the Standing Orders explicitly say you must declare physical property or land or buildings or houses that you hold in a trust—real property—but it makes no such reference to shares in a company. Of course the Standing Orders Committee in the past has tried to be clear that you don't have to share everything in in a chain of ownership for example. You know a farmer might own a farm which might have attached to it co-op shares in a farm supply business. Now would that for example be something they had to report and what about the land the business is on? So clearly there has to be a stoppage at some point. They've said that you don't have to declare an interest in shares that you held in a trust and yet that would seem to be at odds with the purpose of the register which is to show what sort of entities a person might have an interest in. They could certainly know that they had the interest it's just the ownership structure that exempts them from reporting it and of course the same exemption is not made for real property so there does seem to be quite an inconsistency here.None the less Michael Wood was not in any way guilty because he was not obliged to report shares that he held in a trust and he was backed up by the notes that are circulated to MPs that say that you don't have to report shares issued in a trust. However that was actually contradicted by the registrar the guy who's supposed to be responsible for overseeing all of this who said that members must under circumstances declare shareholdings in trust and as the committee has found says that we disagree with that.I think that points to something I'd like to close my remarks with which is a certain zealousness on the part of the registrar where in my view he's really overstepped the mark. Chris Bishop mentioned the report into his investigation into Michael Wood and I just found it was incredibly unprofessional. It for example gave blow by blow accounts of playing Michael Wood a video and asking if he could remember saying that. You know if we want drama we can go to the cinema; we don't need it in reports to the Privileges Committee. The Privileges Committee and I'd like to read this in says By way of guidance for future inquiries we suggest that our committee would benefit from reports on inquiries that contain a clear summary of the facts as the Registrar has determined them without passing judgement on them beyond the prima facie test of whether a question of privilege is involved. This would be more consistent with the approach taken by the Speaker in determining whether a question of privilege arises under Standing Order 412. The Registrar's report contained comments passing judgement on Mr Wood's actions in critical terms. We consider that passing judgement on members' actions is a matter for this committee rather than for inquiries conducted by the Registrar." I thought that the committee was incredibly reserved and polite in making those comments. I think the committee could have justified going further given the report we were given given the I guess overzealous assumption that something must be reported when actually the Standing Orders and the registrar's own guidance show that it doesn't need to be reported. I think it raises a question about the accountability of that person in this process that perhaps some future Standing Orders Committee or Privileges Committee might like to consider. Because while it's clear that accountability is important it's clear that Michael Wood has done wrong in this instance I don't think that that process was becoming of the office of the registrar or of this House and I'd like that to be recorded.Without any more to say on that you know Michael Woods has made a mistake. He has been asked to apologise to the House having already apologised to the registrar and I think that is about where the matter should lie. Thank you Mr Speaker."