Adams Amy: Securities Disclosure and Financial Advisers Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Adams Amy: Securities Disclosure and Financial Advisers Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:655;Page:4992] 
AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn) 
: 
 I will make a short contribution on Part 2 of the Securities Disclosure and Financial Advisers Amendment Bill this evening. As I look through the bill and the revision-tracked version that has come back from the Commerce Committee one thing jumps out about Part 2 which is the tremendous amount of work that the select committee did on amending it. We can certainly see as we look through the revision-tracked version that the select committee has worked hard and has contributed significantly to Part 2. 
I know that when the bill first came before the House for its first reading Part 2 was much shorter. It was designed just to catch one or two small technical drafting errors. But in all seriousness I think the select committee is to be commended for taking the time to pick up address and deal with other errors that came to light. 
The Financial Advisers Act 2008 which Part 2 amends is a new Act but notwithstanding that clearly some errors slipped through the original consideration of it through whatever means. It is incumbent on this House not to just charge ahead and make new laws; we need to take the time to look back reflect make improvements and correct errors when we find them. 
The speakers before me have touched on a few of the provisions of the bill and there are just one or two more that I want to come back to. We have heard about a retirement village’s disclosure statement and we have made it quite clear that that is not financial advice. The bill clarifies the liabilities of employees of qualified financial entities employees agents and the like. 
It sounds like pretty dry stuff but when one is working with companies in this space that are trying to sort out their liability any confusion around the wording of the legislation and any lack of clarity through an insufficient process on our part in this House has very serious consequences for those companies. It creates huge amounts of doubt and it costs them consultant time and lawyers bills to try to address the issues. It is really incumbent upon this House to make sure we go back and make our intentions very clear in order to remove doubt so that those companies do not have to live under the fear that they are somehow committing an offence that was not intended. The natural meaning of the legislation’s wording as interpreted by the court could well make someone liable for something that was not intended. That was certainly potentially the case for employees and agents of qualified financial entities. Now we have clarifications in Part 2 that address that side of things. 
In this regard I will touch on some of the earlier contributions. A lot of the discussion has been based on whether the bill is about protection or about toughening up and about what we are doing with the bill. It is not a case of good and bad. It is not just about whether we should be tough or weak. It is as much about saying that here is a particular issue that we should address on its merits. We are not taking a broad-brush approach. We are not just cracking down on everything or loosening up on everything. Part 2 shows us specific situations of where what is there now in the legislation is not quite right. Whether those situations have come about as a result of policy change or circumstances change or whether the bill is simply picking up oversights it does not matter. If something is not right it needs to be addressed. 
When the Minister of Commerce introduced this bill and then in his second reading speech he made it clear that this bill was put together quite quickly in response to severe and urgent financial times and that it is part of a more comprehensive overview. So let us not look at this bill and wonder about what it is not doing; let us recognise that it is highlighting deficiencies and seeking to address them quickly. It is ensuring that the people who work in this space can do so with a very clear understanding of what this House intended in the legislation and of the liabilities it sought to impose where they have to comply when they had to be registered and when they did not. 
In particular one of the oversights or loopholes that has been corrected and clarified was the change to the Financial Service Providers (Registration and Dispute Resolution) Act which would have meant people were exempt from the obligation to register as financial advisers. That was a loophole that was not intended. With the correction that has been put in place in Part 2 we can be sure that a more comprehensive regime is in place that will ensure that financial advisers who are to be registered properly under the intent of the Act now will be when they would not have been before. 
I know I have made this point in respect of other bills and this bill might not change the face of business in New Zealand as we know it but for the people who are affected by this legislation once again I say that it is important. It is significant. We should not measure the worth of our legislation by the thousands of people who are affected by it. To those people whom the legislation affects it is real it is serious and it deserves our consideration. For that reason I am very happy to support the Part 2 amendments that have been reported back to us in the Committee stage. I have gone through them and I think the Commerce Committee should be commended for its work and for picking up the additional errors and addressing them. In doing so the committee has saved a huge amount of time cost concern confusion and compliance time that would otherwise have resulted. 
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 30 in the name of the Hon Simon Power to Part 2 be agreed to. 
Amendments agreed to. 
Part 2 as amended agreed to.