Brownlee Gerry; Robertson GrantHon GERRY BROWNLEE (National): Thank you. I'm sure that Minister Robertson will want to respond to Mr Penk's concerns at the appropriate time. In this Part 1 which amends the Crown Entities Act the Minister might like to perhaps elucidate a little bit about where the two months comes from as an extension. The bill talks about in relation to the financial year ending with 30 June 2021 the audit report referred to in that subsection must be provided by the Auditor-General no later than the close of 31 December 2021" which is a six-month extension on that date. Well the Minister's sitting there saying "No no it's not." Anybody from the public will read that the gap between June and December is a much longer gap than two months. Similarly with new section 156(3)(b) "in relation to the financial year ending … 30 June 2022 the audit report referred to in that subsection must be provided by the Auditor-General no later than the close of 31 December 2022." Can the Minister just briefly explain to the committee how that works?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): There are a variety of dates depending on when financial years end when it is appropriate for entities to provide their reports. What this means is that there is a two-month extension for any report on its reporting deadline wherever it falls.Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National): Except that the next part of it is under new section 156(4) "However subsection (3) applies to an entity only if its financial year ends … 30 June". So I still go back and tell me what I'm missing here to where it says that where the financial year ends on 30 June the Auditor-General has a deadline of 31 December of the same year—2021 or the subsequent year 2022—to produce that report. Explain how the Minister keeps saying it's only two months.Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Because Mr Brownlee we wouldn't expect an audit to be completed the moment a financial year ended would we? There is always some time in which an audit is to be completed. This adds two months to that time.Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National): That is the interesting sort of point that the Minister makes. If in fact the auditor only needs an extra two months on top of the time that they have now—in other words they're saying that "We can't report by 30 June 2021 because we need an extra two months"—Hon Grant Robertson: No.Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Well the Minister's shaking his head and saying "No no no." The satisfactory argument has not been made by the Minister. If in fact he's saying that of course there's not a drop-dead date they've got to complete the audit and then they write the report and then they deliver the report—well that's one thing. But the reality is statutorily the dates are moved by a lot more than two months. So is there some other explanation that the Minister might be able to more succinctly give perhaps in the language of a 12-year-old that we're required to use for most communications around this place to explain what it is or how it is that between 30 June 2021 the current requirement for reporting and what the bill proposes 31 December 2021 there's only two months' extension for the Auditor-General.Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I will try to repeat what I just said before. So the 30 June date that the member's referring to refers to the end of the financial year—it refers to the end of the period which the accounts are being audited for. That's not the audit date. The audit date comes after then and what this does is extend that two months from there. So he's misreading the section which I think he might know."