Martin TraceyHon TRACEY MARTIN (Minister for Seniors): Kia ora Madam Assistant Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on the Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment (No 2) Bill the Regulatory Systems (Housing) Amendment Bill (No 2) and the Regulatory Systems (Workforce) Amendment Bill (No 2).So what I'd like to speak to—again I take on board the Opposition's comments with regard to their support and how they see that the bills are necessary and that it is good to move along. I take on board Mr Brown's comments about removing red tape and making sure that small business particularly can manage. It's a shame they didn't do this while they were in Government. So it's nice to say that this Government is moving along and tidying up these little pieces that need—they're technical. There's like 14 technical amendments if I'm right among the three bills that we're talking about here. It was an omnibus bill originally. Some of it was set around by circumstances.If I were to direct my comments in the first instance to the Regulatory Systems (Housing) Amendment Bill (No 2) it increases the maximum penalty for breaches of the Retirement Villages Act 2003. As the Minister for Seniors I can say that there's actually a lot more that needs to be done around the Retirement Villages Act 2003 to protect—Alastair Scott: Get on with it.Hon TRACEY MARTIN: Unfortunately the Government that was in for nine years did nothing. So this Government has quite a lot of work to do. While the Opposition members shout out consistently this Government gets on and does the actual job.We'll get round to that for greater protection for the residents of retirement villages but this is one of those protections that we're bringing forward at this stage where an operator or promoter of a retirement village did not take all the practical steps to ensure an advertisement was not misleading or deceptive or where an operator of a retirement village contravenes their obligations relating to the code of practice of operating a retirement village. As more and more of our seniors—750000 seniors we have in this country at the moment heading towards 1.1 million seniors by 2036—enter into agreements with retirement village owners this Act becomes more and more important. So while I as the Minister for Seniors believe there's more work that needs to be done this is a start on setting some of those protections.The other piece that I'd like to talk about is in the Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment (No 2) Bill. It's around the two key changes there: the adding of tax evasion and conspiring aiding abetting or inciting a person to commit tax evasion to the offences section of the Companies Act. Now we all know and will remember the conversations about the difference between tax evasion and tax avoidance. Actually if we're very lucky Deborah Russell will get up and talk to us more about tax because there's not a person in this House that isn't worth listening to on taxation if it isn't—what she doesn't know about tax basically isn't worth talking about. So I'm very much looking forward to the opportunity if Ms Russell is going to take a call because it's always enlightening when she speaks on these topics.The other one is people found guilty will be automatically prohibited from directing or managing a company for five years and the bill prohibits a bankrupt person from working for no pay for a relative. I'm going to make an assumption that that relative can also be a spouse. So it's not directly written in the notes that I have here but having lived through the 1980s and the 1990s when we had companies falling over and over and over due to the policies of what I believe was a National Government—anyway there was a rolling of companies just going into receivership and into liquidation. At that stage we had to do quite a lot of work around the insolvency laws. There was the situation where at that time business owners would transfer the business for a dollar value or whatever into the hands of their spouse. We closed some of those loopholes but this loophole obviously had remained.So the Insolvency Act prohibits an undischarged bankrupt from either directly or indirectly managing or controlling a business being employed by a relative or being employed by an entity such as a company or trust owned or controlled by a relative. However bankrupts could work for companies in the name of a relative for no pay and continue to manage the businesses despite the ban. That is what we are trying to address here. That is what the bill does address.Having been a debt collector prior to becoming a stay-at-home mum I'm very aware of the number of rules and regulations and laws we have and the ways that we can punish the average Joe citizen if they get into debt to a business. I think it's appropriate that we start to make sure that those business owners who therefore go out of their way or are bad business owners are made to follow the rules and regulations without having loopholes available to them.New Zealand First commends the legislation to the House.