Wong Pansy: Reserve Bank of New Zealand Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Wong Pansy: Reserve Bank of New Zealand Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:634;Page:5970] 
PANSY WONG (National) 
: 
 I am quite sure that the chairman of the Finance and Expenditure Committee Shane Jones must have breathed a sigh of relief in deliberating on the passage of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Amendment Bill because I note that there were only five submissions and one oral submitter and all parties were in total agreement in supporting the passage of this bill. That must be a great relief in contrast to another piece of legislation going through that select committee that relates to the taxation of unrealised dividends on overseas investments of New Zealand residents. That bill has attracted 3000 submissions and it is now being opened up for a second round of limited submissions relating to the last-minute U-turn which was made by the Minister of Finance for political reasons examining an alternative method called a deemed dividend taxation regime. The reason I am contrasting these two pieces of legislation is to demonstrate that there might be within New Zealand’s financial or commercial sectors a lot more agreement and less nervousness around aligning the financial systems of New Zealand and Australia because those people involved have by now gained enough interaction between our two countries to be confident about that. I want to encourage the Minister of Finance and the Labour Government to take that on board and reflect on it. The people of New Zealand in effect are a lot more confident and understand the benefits when there is alignment between Australia and New Zealand. That is actually good for them in terms of business interaction. After all in most areas Australia is one of our biggest export markets and it is our largest inbound tourist source. 
Before I go on to define the changes to the Reserve Bank bill I want to raise quite an interesting little issue that arose during the speech by the chairman of the Finance and Expenditure Committee Shane Jones when he was trying to explain something to punters. Mr Shane Jones and Labour Government members pride themselves on being ordinary New Zealanders who speak in plain English but I was constantly bemused by Mr Jones assuring punters that because of the changes to the Racing Act and the rounding up of bets caused by the withdrawal of the 5c piece they would not end up in a net negative position. Next time I go to a race meeting I will just ask those punters how many of them understood what he meant by their not ending up in a net negative position. Apparently he is going to be personally accountable to make sure that they will not end up in a net negative position. 
Although National supported this legislation particularly its intent to enable both regulators of the banking system to be operated in a seamless system I do have feelings of nervousness. I hope that during the Committee stage the Minister will enlighten us further—firstly on the issue of compliance costs. Certainly most members of Parliament by now will have come to the observation that we are always assured that somehow a piece of legislation will reduce compliance costs or will not lead to a significant increase in those costs. Well we had a recent experience 2 weeks ago when the legislation called the Standards and Conformance Bill was passed. There is now a joint New Zealand - Australia accreditation agency and in future all certification bodies in New Zealand can seek accreditation only from that body. 
 There is nothing wrong with that if the intention is to simplify procedures and cause less confusion by having only one certifying body. The problem with that is illustrated by the very good example of an organisation called Health and Disability Auditing New Zealand Ltd. This organisation is accredited by the Director-General of Health to audit certain health service providers—that is it is recognised by our Director-General of Health to be competent. Previously it was certified by a different accreditation agent. By a single piece of legislation removing that choice that organisation’s fees will increase by 9.2 percent. Let us examine this. A mere $10000 fee for example will suddenly become something like $92000. No one will be convinced that overnight somehow this health and disability audit service should have to front up with $80000 or more in fees just to get itself re-certified. If that organisation is not competent and credible why would the Director-General of Health who already recognises it authorise it to carry out audit services on various New Zealand health service providers? 
During the Committee stage I would like the chairman of the Finance and Expenditure Committee—because he seems to like taking personal responsibilities very seriously—to ensure that what his Government has promised will in fact eventuate. We all know that with regulators passing on increasing costs to organisations eventually it is the consumers the New Zealand public who end up paying. That is an aspect on which we will seek further assurance and clarification during the Committee stage. 
Another issue I would also like the Minister to enlighten us on during the Committee stage is why if the Government is so confident that this legislation will enable the banking regulators to carry out their functions properly it is necessary to include a provision in the bill stating in section 68A(4) inserted by clause 6: “No performance of a function or duty or exercise of a power is invalid by reason only of a failure to comply with the provisions of this section.” This is a very short bill. It comprises only 6 pages but that qualification appears twice. Even if we the New Zealand Parliament go to all the trouble of examining the bill and approving its passage the bill actually states that if any bank has not carried out the performance of a function then its action cannot be ruled to be invalid just because it failed to comply. Well if we do not actually care about whether these people comply with the provisions of this bill why should we go to the trouble of deliberating on it and examining it in detail? I am very much looking forward to the Minister and the chairman— 
Shane Jones 
: Read the bill. 
PANSY WONG 
: I read all six of the bill’s pages and I am surprised that the chairman of the Finance and Expenditure Committee on a little bill like this has not detected the existence of this issue.