Wood MichaelMICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): The Financial Services Legislation Amendment Bill is an important piece of legislation in establishing a good regulatory environment for New Zealanders who are in receipt of financial services. We've had two very comprehensive speeches—from the Minister of Finance who launched the debate and now the chair of the Economic Development Science and Innovation Committee—that have gone into some detail on the provisions of the bill. I thank both of those members for that.My own select committee the Finance and Expenditure Committee will next week be receiving submissions from a number of organisations in respect of the Australian royal commission into banking issues. So it's very much top-of-mind for our select committee while we have not considered this piece of legislation the issues that go to the heart of consumers being able to have confidence in the financial advice that they receive when they go to experts in receipt of advice that is principled and will provide them with good avenues to invest their hard-earned money. As Mr Young outlined we've had issues in New Zealand in the past with that.Perhaps the most pressing issue actually at the moment in New Zealand is the sheer number of New Zealanders who simply don't receive any good advice at all. We have a huge number of New Zealanders who have billions of dollars in funds—some in KiwiSaver some in other forms of investment—who simply don't have the right avenues to go and receive information. Some of that's about access but also I think some of it is about a lack of confidence given some of the issues that have occurred in New Zealand in recent years.So this piece of legislation to me at its heart is about trying to re-establish that confidence for consumers for people who need financial services advice by ensuring that we have a transparent system and by ensuring that we have for example a good code of conduct in place so that people know there is a place to go if something goes wrong. I doubt that there are many New Zealanders who if they walk into a financial institution know the difference between an authorised financial adviser and a registered financial adviser for example and this piece of legislation amongst other things is about making that kind of thing simpler.Just a couple of key matters that I wanted to touch on: one is the level of innovation that comes through in this bill in respect of not requiring natural persons to have to give the advice. That opens up some capacity for robo-advice to be provided. I think it's important that we all keep an eye on that to ensure that the best outcomes arise as possible. It's very important that we do that. The second issue which I know came through in a number of the submissions was a concern around ensuring—and this is one of the objects of the bill—that we have adequate regulation at both the big end of town and the small end of town. The bill has certainly tried to deal with that by ensuring that that applies across the board that the duties are universal to people who are providing advice but I think again that's something that we'll be needing to keep an eye on.It's very much my view that this is a good piece of legislation that brings our regulations up to date that deals with a number of the concerns that the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment and others in the sector have raised but it's probably not the final word on the matter. As the sector continues to grow as our understanding of the issues changes as technology changes it's likely that this House will return to some of these issues in future years as well. But for now I think the House can be well-satisfied through the tabling of this legislation and through the select committee process that we have a good robust piece of legislation to give New Zealand financial consumers confidence in the advice that they will receive and I commend it to the House. Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker.