Foss Craig: Financial Service Providers (Registration and Dispute Resolution) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Foss Craig: Financial Service Providers (Registration and Dispute Resolution) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 23 September 2008. Volume:650;Page:19048. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CRAIG FOSS (National—Tukituki) 
: 
 This is the third reading and final chapter of a suite of bills: the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Amendment Bill (No 3) the Financial Advisers Bill which we dealt with this morning and this bill the Financial Service Providers (Registration and Dispute Resolution) Bill which has leapfrogged up the Order Paper for reasons we discussed earlier.  
I will pick up on what the Minister said in acknowledging all those who have pulled this bill together. I know we all worked on both financial bills as members of the select committee. It does disturb me just a tad that I do not think we had any speakers from the Labour side of the House who were on the select committee as we considered this bill. It is surprising and I wonder why but there is still time to hear from them. Obviously the Minister was going to speak on it but no members who saw the passage of this bill or listened to the hundreds of submissions on this bill and on the Financial Advisers Bill have spoken. If it is supposed to be a hallmark bill they are proud of I am amazed that they do not talk on it.  
I also note the acknowledgment of goodwill from all parties and particularly from my colleague Simon Power who has had an awful lot to do with the pulling together of this bill and the Financial Advisers Bill. Yes it has suffered a rewrite but at least we got quite good resolution towards the end. As I said earlier this bill always sat on the sidelines a wee bit—it was a bit like the bridesmaid—but it is not too bad in the form in which it has finally arrived in the House. National members have been voting for it all the way through since its first reading and again I acknowledge the cross-party support on this and other issues. I do not think it serves this Parliament very well when members chip in with little niggles and try to make political capital out of this bill given the goodwill that has gone in from all parties to make this bill happen and bring it to the state it is.  
The Minister raised a very good point. This bill brings some confidence back and once it is in place it will along with the other two bills bring some confidence into a sector that is sadly lacking confidence at the moment given the conditions overseas that have washed on to our shores and given some of the issues that have been created within New Zealand itself. I acknowledge that about $5 billion of New Zealand’s funds are frozen or in receivership at the moment in various companies but I reiterate that we have to distinguish between those that have suffered a market loss because market conditions have gone against the investment and those that have allegedly performed potentially illegal or misleading behaviour. Interestingly the kinds of issues that would come up in the disputes sector here would be when someone has given money to a particular institution under whatever prospectus it had at the time but then the company itself has deteriorated on the way through. The person concerned may have inquired about the well-being of that company from an adviser or taken advice that was the same as the original advice but in fact the particular company itself had deteriorated somewhat. That is a very good example there of the need for some kind of disputes resolution process.  
I also acknowledged earlier the foresightedness of not necessarily having to specify financial disputes resolution experts in the bill. I acknowledge that specifying just disputes resolution experts in the bill was very good. Also many existing organisations already follow best practice and best behaviour and have good and solid codes of practice and rightly the Minister acknowledged them. We do too. They are setting the example. Sadly as in so many things in life a few bad apples spoil the whole bunch for a whole sector. There are billions and billions of dollars in New Zealand that are invested and held in trust by various entities that are quite safe robust and fair.  
There is one interesting point that was referred to in one of the earlier speeches. The establishment of this register of all those involved in any financial advisory service in New Zealand forms part of the anti - money-laundering obligations under the Financial Action Task Force which the Minister alluded to in I think her first speech and possibly her second speech. But it is very very wide ranging almost a drift-net to catch each and every person or entity involved in giving some form of financial advice. I go back to my point about how the select committee on this bill and the Financial Advisers Bill spent many many hours with many officials trying to define what that meant. At first cut it sounds easy but when we actually get down to the nitty-gritty it is very difficult. We had examples of the travel agent which Mr Power alluded to earlier and about insurance and I alluded to the buying of foreign exchange when someone goes to a travel agent. Effectively in earlier examples they were deemed to be giving financial advice. But that has been cleared up by the previous bill and if there is a dispute this bill would pick that up under the various tiers.  
Again National has voted for this bill. We are quite confident that it will give some confidence to a very uncertain market. At the moment across the globe other institutions are doing similar work but at the end of the day what we do here is only as strong as regulation and our arrangements with other regulatory bodies overseas and in this very mobile world where capital can flow around all over the place the weakest link is our relationship with other organisations countries and institutions. On that note I do acknowledge work going on with the Minister of Revenue and the Minister of Finance in reviewing our various arrangements treaties pensions and tax arrangements with various entities around the world.  
On that note yes National will be voting for this bill. I have enjoyed speaking to it. I have learnt a lot and again I acknowledge officials the Minister and Mr Power for the way they have worked together to make this good legislation.