Power Simon: Third Readings — 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Power Simon: Third Readings — 
[Sitting date: 17 November 2009. Volume:659;Page:7707. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon SIMON POWER (Minister of Commerce) 
: 
 I move  
That the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Amendment Bill the Securities Markets Amendment Bill the Personal Property Securities Amendment Bill and the Securities Amendment Bill be now read a third time 
. These four bills were formerly part of the Settlement Systems Futures and Emissions Units Bill. Together they address three policy changes. First the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Amendment Bill provides settlement systems operating in New Zealand with the option of applying for designation. Designation will provide additional legal protections to support the integrity of the system in the case of a participant’s insolvency or default. Specifically it will provide the operators of a designated settlement system with priority under the Personal Property Securities Act 1999. At present New Zealand’s legislation provides for the designation of payment systems under Part 5C of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act 1989. Settlement systems could also be designated under this part but without this bill designation would protect only the payment component of the transaction and importantly would not protect the settlement of the property component of the transaction. Second the Securities Markets Amendment Bill aligns the regulation of exchanges seeking to operate in both the securities and futures markets. The Securities Markets Act 1988 currently provides one process for registering a securities exchange and a separate process for authorising a futures exchange. This bill amends the Act so that an exchange registered under Part 2B of the Securities Markets Act may be registered either in respect of securities markets or futures markets only or in respect of both securities markets and futures markets. 
Currently only the Securities Commission may authorise futures dealers although there are class authorisations for the Sydney Futures Exchange and for the NZX. The Securities Markets Amendment Bill provides that market participants who have been approved by an authorised futures exchange under its operating rules are authorised to deal in futures contracts. This does not affect the ability of the Securities Commission to authorise futures dealers more generally but codifies the existing class authorisations granted by the Securities Commission and makes them available to any authorised futures exchange. 
Finally the Personal Property Securities Amendment Bill and the Securities Amendment Bill clarify the regulatory treatment of emissions units. This applies both to units issued as part of a statutory scheme such as the Kyoto Protocol and to units issued in the voluntary market. These bills give effect to this policy through several technical amendments to existing legislation such as clarifying that emissions units will be treated like other forms of property under the Securities Act 1978. As a result trading in emissions units will not need to meet the requirements of the regulatory regime for offers of securities or the relevant provisions of the Securities Markets Act unless they are part of an investment scheme. 
It is also worth noting that the Personal Property Securities Amendment Bill amends the Personal Property Securities Act to enable persons to take possession of and security interests over emissions units. 
I record my appreciation for the input from the members of the financial sector who made submissions on this legislation and for the members of the Commerce Committee for their contribution not to mention the work of the former Minister of Commerce the Hon Lianne Dalziel who introduced the legislation. I commend these bills to the House.