Wong Pansy: Business Law Reform Bill — Second Reading 
Wong Pansy: Business Law Reform Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:634;Page:6148] 
PANSY WONG (National) 
: 
 That passionate delivery by the Minister of Commerce just shows the excitement and big dreams she has for the business community. Actually the Minister’s delivery reflected very fairly the way she treated the recommendations that came from the Small Business Advisory Group. It asked for courageous bold steps such as relief for small business from the terrible employment situation where employers are too scared to employ inexperienced workers and give them a chance. It asked for a 3-month trial period for new employees but what did this Minister deliver? Nothing. Instead she announced in the bill today just small incremental steps to improve the business environment. Even though the Commerce Committee is a hard-working committee I must admit that its members felt a bit underwhelmed by this legislation. None the less any improvement for the business environment will be welcomed by National and we fully support this bill. 
I want to touch on two subjects that are quite interesting. The first subject is in regard to the provision that allows the Accounting Standards Review Board to make an exemption for certain entities not to comply with a financial reporting standard. Some of the submitters particularly chartered accounting firms put up objections to that. I was not surprised because the accounting profession has a high degree of integrity. It is very nervous about making exemptions; it wants one standard for all. 
Our recent champion with a high profile was the Auditor-General Mr Kevin Brady who believed absolutely that there should be one standard. He should be “Sir Kevin Brady” and we should bring back the honours system for him for insisting on one high standard for Labour. No political party should use parliamentary funding for electioneering purposes. 
Arguments about the same type of standard were put to the Commerce Committee by submitters from chartered accounting firms. They were very nervous and said they did not believe that exemptions should be granted in that case. The Commerce Committee took their concerns to heart. We debated long and hard and ultimately accepted that the risk was really small so we went along with the provision. But I want to acknowledge the high integrity of the chartered accountants who in their submissions said that a standard should be set at a high level and that compliance should be enforced at all times. 
The second subject is in regard to the relaxation of the rules governing credit unions. This is another interesting story. The Minister was right; these amendments are long overdue. In fact relaxation of the rules governing credit unions was promised by one Hon Jim Anderton before Kiwibank was established. The credit unions met with the Hon Jim Anderton and he actually hinted that the rules would be relaxed for them and that they could in fact take on banking functions. The credit unions were promised but it did not happen. They were very disappointed when they brought their concerns to me which was about 2 years ago. So we are happy to see these amendments at long last but I am afraid to inform the Hon Jim Anderton that that is another broken promise. He raised the expectation of the credit unions many years ago that there would be a relaxation in their operation but it was not delivered. The whole package has not been delivered even today. Labour Ministers do not aim for a huge improvement so National has now learnt that it is obliged to support any small concession that Labour is prepared to make towards improvements for the business community.