Brownlee Gerry: Companies (Minority Buy-out Rights) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Brownlee Gerry: Companies (Minority Buy-out Rights) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 02 September 2008. Volume:649;Page:18536. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam) 
: 
 The member who has just resumed his seat Paul Swain probably should not have highlighted the fact that he was the Minister of Commerce in the Labour Government for a very long time. It has not escaped the attention of those of us on the Opposition side of the House that it is only in very very recent times that a new Minister of Commerce the Hon Lianne Dalziel has very rapidly picked up off the desk the piles of unattended work of the previous Minister and rattled it into some shape that the House has been able to deal with.  
I know that the previous Minister is now touting his credentials around the business community as he contemplates a career beyond this particular Chamber. I find it a little strange that he makes speeches in the House that totally contradict some of the outrageous claims he makes in his CV. As a recipient of that CV I have been incredibly impressed by the writings in it. He is unable of course to line up the events as described in the CV with the actual events inside the House. But none the less this afternoon I will not destroy the claims of extraordinary leadership in the commerce field made by the previous Minister.  
It probably would have been better for Paul Swain to say that a previous Minister had slaved over the matters included in the Companies (Minority Buy-out Rights) Amendment Bill for some 6 years and then handed the current Minister on a plate the opportunity to take the glory as the tape came up. He could have likened it perhaps to a pursuit cycle race where he was the guy who went out to the front and made all the running but who in the end had to hope that the Olympic Committee would give him a fifth bronze medal. The bill is definitely a bronze medal effort from the current Government as far as attention to commercial law in this country is concerned.  
I think we have gone through the exercise on this bill quite diligently in the Commerce Committee with the full cooperation of all members there. The previous Minister was particularly helpful in that matter particularly during his more wakeful moments. There were not very many of those but when they occurred they were most useful to the committee in its deliberations. 
Dr Richard Worth 
: They were very fleeting though. 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: His ability to direct us albeit fleetingly as my colleague behind me says in a particular direction was very much appreciated.  
Quite seriously this bill talks about minority buy-out rights. The bill ensures that minority shareholders have a right to sell their shares in circumstances where the shape of the company they originally invested in has changed by virtue of a takeover or a buy-out. This legislation represents one of the many bills that go through the House every year where a lot of good work has been done by members of Parliament on all sides of the House. We continue to support the bill through this reading.