Wood MichaelMICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): Thank you Mr Speaker. I'm very pleased to be able to speak on the Auckland Regional Amenities Funding Amendment Bill. It is an important bill. As someone who's a constituency MP in Auckland and he's had a little bit to do with the local government scene in Auckland over a number of years I have an awareness of just how important these institutions are and the governance and legislative arrangements within which they work as well.I'm very pleased as well to be able to speak on the bill because one of the amenities that is covered by the provisions of the bill that is what we colloquially call the Stardome but officially is the Auckland Observatory and Planetarium Trust Board sits within my electorate. It is within Cornwall Park on the eastern edge of my electorate. It's an extremely popular and well-used amenity and it's covered by this piece of legislation.I've got to say one of the best experiences of my life ever was going along to the Stardome with my wife having a couple of glasses of red wine and they put on this marvellous show where they play the two best rock albums of all time which are by Pink Floyd of course: The Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here. Then you sit back and the ceiling of the Stardome is just sort of a psychedelic array of lights colours and all sorts of things. It's a legal buzz I'd have to say. I'd encourage anyone who's in Auckland looking for a good night out to go and do that. So I've got a strong connection to at least one of the amenities that's covered by this piece of legislation.I do want to talk a little bit about some of the background to this because it is important I think to actually understand why it is that we have this piece of legislation that sort of coagulates this big range of cultural and other institutions in Auckland and therefore why we need to ensure that we've got the accounting treatment right as per this private bill which is amending a principal Act from 2008. That piece of legislation that it's amending is the Auckland Regional Amenities Funding Act 2008. It was brought through this House by the Hon Judith Tizard at that time who was the Minister for Auckland Issues as well as a range of other portfolios.I remember from my time in local government during that period of the 2000s there was an absolute mishmash of funding arrangements for all of these different institutions and they include—I've got the list here—the Stardome; the Auckland Observatory and Planetarium Trust Board; the Auckland Philharmonia orchestra; Auckland Regional Rescue Helicopter Trust which is extremely important; the Auckland Theatre Co.; Coast Guard Northern Region; the National Maritime Museum Trust Board—the maritime museum down at the Viaduct Basin; New Zealand Opera Ltd; Surf Life Saving Northern Region Inc.; the Auckland Festival Trust; and WaterSafe Auckland Inc. which does extremely important work in terms of water safety especially with our kids.Now all of these different institutions had different funding arrangements. As it transpired most of them were based in the old Auckland City Council area which is in the middle of Auckland. Now we have one local government authority for all of Auckland; back then we had seven. The issue that arose was that effectively the whole region benefited from the services provided by all of these institutions but because they were physically based in Auckland City the other six territorial local authorities generally didn't contribute to them at all. This created an unfairness but also funding problems for these institutions. So the solution was to develop a piece of legislation which set up a clear transparent and equitable funding stream for them all. Initially it had a formula-based funding system where each of the territorial local authorities from that region basically paid into a common pool which then funded these institutions. Then with the Auckland Council amalgamation in 2010 the arrangement has become somewhat simpler. The Auckland Regional Amenities Funding Board which is the subject of this piece of legislation now levies Auckland Council on an annual basis brings in that money and then distributes it out across these different organisations.The problem that has arisen which this bill rightly attempts to correct is that when the Charities Act was passed in 2005 it provided that charitable institutions should be reporting in accordance with the generally accepted accounting practice otherwise known as GAAP rather than the International Financial Reporting Standards.I'll talk in a bit more detail about these; it'll really light up your night a bit later on. But that was the provision that was set down by the Charities Act 2005 so we're talking about 15 years ago now. All of these institutions by their nature have that charitable purpose. They're not-for-profit private organisations. They're not actually publicly owned council institutions either even though their funding effectively comes from a public source—the Auckland councillors levy—they're effectively all charitable institutions and often also have additional funding coming in from the various ways that charities raise money to support themselves as well: public appeals and the like. So those institutions under the Charities Act are supposed to be reporting along the GAAP lines and that's well accepted.The problem is that the legislation has pointed them in a different direction and that puts them in a very difficult position in that the way in which they're reporting probably isn't in alignment with the core piece of legislation that they're required to adhere to. In fact what we've learnt through the course of this issue is that in fact for about the last five years these institutions have not been reporting in the correct way. I don't think the purpose—I know in fact the purpose of the member or anyone involved is not to criticise those institutions for that or put them in the gun or anything at all; it's actually to try and deal with that problem.But it does I think bring to light a bit of an issue that the House needs to think about with this piece of legislation but also in the future: how do we make sure that when we bring legislation to this House that has an impact on organisations out there in the community we're not having significant oversights like this creep into our legislation again? Because here we have some extremely important institutions in Auckland our largest city—very very venerable and important organisations—who have actually been filing their accounts in a way that isn't in accordance with the legislation that oversees them. That really was through a set of oversights through the legislative process. So I think there's a bit of reflection there for the House and our processes to make sure that that is something that doesn't arise again.It's worthwhile talking a little bit about the two key changes that the Governance and Administration Committee has identified in its report back. The first—and I'm not sure whether this was an oversight in the original bill or whether it was just something that needed to be worked out with a bit more information—was setting in place a commencement date for this piece of legislation which as I understand it will be the day after it receives Royal assent. That seems to be perfectly sensible.The second point is a more interesting one and that is the issue of retrospective validation. It was raised by the member Parmjeet Parmar in her speech. This is a very unusual procedure in that we're effectively saying that these organisations which for the previous five years were not acting in accordance with the Charities Act and the reporting requirements there for that period their actions will be validated. Now that's not something that I think we should ever do in the House lightly or without questioning or looking into; I think there is a well-established principle that pretty much every member in this House would adhere to that we reserve retrospective legislation only for situations that are highly justifiable—there should be quite a high bar for that.Parliaments have a lot of power. They have the power to force people to do things. We have the power to force people to give money to the Government. If you start establishing a precedent that Parliaments can go back in time and make rules up that people didn't know about at the time that's not generally a good thing.So I think one of the things that will be really useful to do in the committee of the whole House stage of this debate assuming that the bill passes through the second reading is just to make sure through that process that the House is really comfortable and that we're doing the right thing there. I'm not necessarily casting doubt on that. It seems to me that in the select committee's report back they've identified that effectively what has been validated is something that does no harm something that wasn't done with any malice or intent or ability to gain anything that these institutions would have otherwise not had and that it's justifiable because there was also effectively an oversight in legislation. None the less I think it is the duty of the House to look into that very closely as this bill progresses to make sure that we are satisfied that this relatively extraordinary step of going back and validating in a retrospective way is something that we are properly comfortable with.This is a bill which I think has pretty wide support across the House. As an Aucklander and someone who knows that these institutions are really important I want to make sure that this legislation does go through in the appropriate way and supports them in the activities that they do on behalf of the people of Auckland. I do look forward to examining some of those issues in the committee of the whole House stage of the debate. But for now I very happily commend the bill to the House. Thank you.