Curran Clare: Accounting Infrastructure Reform Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCurran Clare: Accounting Infrastructure Reform Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 28 October 2014. Volume:701;Page:322. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South):I just reiterate the support that Labour has for this bill. What we have done throughout this discussion and throughout the debates on the first reading through to the select committee hearings is that we heard from a broad spectrum of voices from the accountancy audit and professional services on this Accounting Infrastructure Reform Bill. It appears to be quite straightforward and in a lot of ways it is. It does make some general changes with the intent of making the accounting and audit industry more efficient and effective. I think it is part of a spectrum of measures that the Commerce Committee worked quite cooperatively around to take a common-sense approach to the way that our financial systems operate and to try to bring some accord between particularly the New Zealand and Australian ways that this operates.Five particular law changes are included in this bill to reduce restrictions on the legal form for audit firms to provide that charities assurance which I know that my colleague Mr Nash has reservations about. There was quite a degree of consideration around the changes to charities audits in the bill. The bill requires charities over a certain size to have their financial statements assured by a qualified auditor. Many charities of the large size already obtain assurance and these provisions make that compulsory. What is actually happening is that it is being made compulsory and ensuring that the quality of the assurance of those charities of that size are brought about by requiring them to be performed by a qualified auditor using the correct audit standards.The third thing it does is that it means that members of accredited bodies perform statutory audits. From my perspective one of the most significant parts of this bill is that members of accredited professional bodies be allowed to perform most statutory audits if they are recognised by their professional body to be qualified to do so. I think what that does is bring about that efficiency.The only rider to that is that there is an exemption. There is an exemption on religious grounds which is most unusual. We do not see that in most legislation—or any legislation in my experience—that has come before the House. As to how that will actually play out and what the implications of that are especially given that we are talking about auditing an auditing function which is a position of great trust I am yet to be fully convinced that the legislation is actually going to provide the protections that are necessary to those bodies being audited and to the general public having confidence in the system. I am not saying that we should not do it; I am just expressing some unease still around that.Fourthly in respect of qualified accountants performing statutory accounting roles references to “chartered accountant” in various Acts will be replaced with “qualified accountant” where the context relates to specifying who can perform those accounting-related statutory roles in order to include the qualified members of the accredited bodies.Then there were the changes to the New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants Act 1996 which are necessary to ensure that agreement to join the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia in a combined new trans-Tasman institute. I suppose in relation to that it makes sense and there is no doubt about that. There was wide agreement—not complete agreement.