Curran ClareHon CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. Such welcome if grudging support from the other side for this bill the excitingly named Financial Markets (Derivatives Margin and Benchmarking) Reform Amendment Bill otherwise described by me—with apologies to Minister Kris Faafoi—as a boring but bloody important bill! Really though in my short contribution to this debate—and I may be sitting on the select committee but I'm not sure; I'm waiting with bated breath—I say that this is actually pretty important. As Paul Goldsmith the previous member said it is about ensuring that there is access to international capital and a whole lot of other things actually. While this is a technical bill it's critical because it will allow New Zealand's major financial institutions to continue to transact with those overseas parties to manage financial risks to raise capital to continue to engage effectively in international markets and bring us into line with international standards and proactively—as a good Government does—to avoid potentially substantial economic damage. It wasn't magicked up out of thin air. Over the past year the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) the Reserve Bank and the Financial Markets Authority have undertaken a comprehensive review of what's required to bring New Zealand into line with the international reforms and MBIE and the Reserve Bank undertook public consultation on foreign margin requirements for those over-the-counter derivatives in 2017. That consultation identified specific impediments to compliance in New Zealand law and it proposed a number of targeted legislative amendments to address them. So there are two essential main changes that I think this bill makes. It will ensure that our flow of capital and international standards between New Zealand markets and the international markets will ensue and it's pretty important that we're doing this. The second one which I'll just briefly talk about is the introduction of the licensing regime for administrators of financial benchmarks. In June 2016 the European Union responded to concerns about conflicts of interest and the manipulation of financial benchmarks. It published new benchmark regulations and those new regulations set standards around the processes by which the financial benchmarks were set. They apply from 1 January 2020 so I imagine that that is the timetable that this legislation is working to to make sure that we've got that in place. The regulations have got effect outside the EU as third countries and benchmark administrators in those countries must meet the new standards if the benchmarks they administer can be used in financial contracts with parties located in the EU and of course our banks and other large private and public sector organisations such as the Reserve Bank ACC the New Zealand Superannuation Fund and the New Zealand Debt Management Office rely on the contracts with EU counterparties that reference New Zealand benchmarks and access EU financial markets for risk management investment and capital-raising purposes. So this is pretty obvious. It might sound dry to those listening but it's extremely important. It's the hallmark of a responsible Government that we're getting on and doing it and it's great that we have got the support from across the House to do it. So with that I commend the bill to the House.