Huo RaymondRAYMOND HUO (Labour): It is a great pleasure for me to rise to confirm Labour's support for this great bill. Rarely would we have a piece of legislation that would catch the attention of almost everybody—yes almost everybody. Buying and selling properties mortgaging and leasing land getting the relevant instrument registered and duly becoming a legal owner would affect almost everybody in New Zealand. In the 21st century we need a new land transfer Act to support this largely electronic system. We need an Act that is accessible and written in plain and modern English. The Law Commission with the assistance of Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) has drafted such a kind of Act.Some provisions in the 1952 Act have remained and changed from the first Act that was passed to implement the so-called Torrens title system which is well over 100 years old. A comprehensive review of the Land Transfer Act 1952 is long overdue. The result is a mix of hopelessly outdated and obscure provisions alongside more effective and modern provisions some reflecting only the paper registration system and others focused on electronic registration with considerable duplication and lack of clarity.This is not a simple amendment bill. It will become the new principal Act in this area. It will replace the Land Transfer Act 1952 and the Statutory Land Charges Registration Act 1928 both of which will be repealed by this bill. Most of the content is uncontroversial. It is a major piece of legislation in this policy area so deserves proper scrutiny by the Committee.It is a big day not only for lawyers not only for financial institutes—banks mortgagees property owners and probably real estate agents; it is a big day for everybody. As the newest new old member it is the first time for me to have the opportunity to have a look at the bill itself.Phil Twyford: Welcome back Raymond.RAYMOND HUO: Ha! Thank you very much. Immediately I decided that I like the bill. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Law Commission for such great work to shape and reshape this bill in this current form. When I flick through the bill itself lots of familiar names emerge so it gives us a great opportunity for me to say a thankyou to the law commissioner Professor John Burrows QC; his predecessor Professor Geoffrey Palmer; the Hon Simon Power; the Hon Maurice Williamson; and the Hon David Cunliffe for their contributions. Over the last two terms as Labour's spokesperson for building and construction I did work very closely with the Hon Maurice Williamson especially on the Building Amendment Bill (No 3) and Building Amendment Bill (No 4) which duly became the Building Amendment Act 2012 and Building Amendment Act 2013.Back to the bill—Part 1 clause 6 Meaning of fraud"—I believe it is the first time for us to give a legal definition as to what constitutes fraud.Paul Foster-Bell: Mortgage fraud specifically.RAYMOND HUO: Mortgage fraud? Well I am sure my colleague Phil Twyford will cover that part later on when we come to the specific clauses—[Interruption] Well if the National members are really passionate about that specific clause I believe my colleague together with colleagues from New Zealand First will contribute more. We will come to that part later on.Coming to "fraud"—specifically of interest to the National backbenchers—this is the first time for us to have a legal definition but one thing we need to take note of is submissions from relevant stakeholders such as the New Zealand Law Society the Auckland District Law Society and the Bankers' Association. For instance the New Zealand Law Society and the Auckland District Law Society submissions assumed that mortgagors would have to do more than is currently required under the LINZ e-dealing certification identity verification standards and that would in turn mean increased costs for mortgagors which would be passed on to consumers. We are talking about compliance costs and probably more complicated due process for the relevant parties including lawyers and conveyancers to fulfil the requirements under the proposed changes.The New Zealand Law Society in its submission showed that it is particularly concerned that where a mortgage is executed under power of attorney the mortgagee would be required to verify the identity of the donor mortgagee rather than the attorney. This would defeat the purpose of giving someone power of attorney in the first place.What I am talking about is really the balance between the way we are proposing to impose on the relevant parties—as I said including the conveyancers and the lawyers—to fulfil the requirement under this bill and also the compliance costs that may be incurred under the strengthened regime.One thing I am particularly interested in asking the Minister in the chair Scott Simpson is what kind of ramifications there would be in the current-day modern 21st century electronic system—for instance the balance between social media and electronic commerce law. Can a videoconference or FaceTime made available through smartphones be used to assist with identification verification for the purpose under this bill? Another matter that some conveyancers and lawyers may report would include something like—for instance in China its notary public system is different from that in New Zealand. For instance if we do have a certain piece of form or instrument that needs to be certified under the notary public system there they simply cannot verify that sort of ID system—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Keep on what is in the bill on Part 1.RAYMOND HUO: —thank you Mr Chair—by getting the necessary signature presented in the form rather than in a separate attachment. So this is something quite relevant to Part 1 which is as I said the first time we do give a legal definition as to what constitutes "fraud". I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the officials because the departmental report is probably the very source of information and it addressed those kinds of issues.Back to the submissions made by the New Zealand Law Society and Auckland District Law Society. All the above submitters agreed that the provisions if retained would benefit from amendments to clarify that mortgagees can rely on the existing level of identity verification/authorisation including records retention carried out by their lawyer or conveyancer."