Wood MichaelMICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): Look I'm really delighted to be able to take a call on this bill. I followed it very closely during its passage in the House and spoke on it during its second reading only in the last session of the House. I have some personal interest in the bill. It's been mentioned that one of the Auckland regional facilities is situated in the electorate of Mt Roskill which I very proudly represent—that's the Auckland Stardome; wonderful facility and I recommend that anyone who has the opportunity come and visit it.The important thing about Auckland regional facilities and its governing piece of legislation is that even though some of those facilities are located in particular parts of the city the parent legislation creates a regime where people from across the region who benefit from them all contribute on an equitable basis. That's really important to understand.In this contribution I want to touch on one of the points in the preamble that's referenced in a very very good submission from one Julia Durkin. I want to come back to this in later contributions when we really get to the meat of the legislation—there's a lot in there. But I just want to head this up in the preamble because recital (2) of the preamble—I'll read it out for the benefit of the committee—says that Section 39 of the principal Act requires that the specified amenities prepare financial statements that contain a statement of financial position prepared in accordance with New Zealand International Financial Reporting Standards"—that's the NZ IFRS that we've been hearing about a lot over the last hour or so—"and that contain the other statements and information set out in section 39(2)(b)".Where I want to come to in this is quite an important point that Julia Durkin made and I want to spend some time on Julia Durkin's submission in this call but also in others and there's an important reason for that. Most of the submissions that were received by the Governance and Administration Committee were of a pro forma nature and I don't say that to diminish them in any way. Most of them came from some of the specified entities themselves and they largely said "We support this legislation." That's fine and well and we should take note of that. Ms Julia Durkin's was probably the one submission you can identify that was to some degree critical of the framework of this piece of legislation and of the parent legislation as well. So I do think in terms of the scrutiny function of the committee it is important that we give some weight to her submission.Here's a point that Julia Durkin makes that relates to recital (2) of the preamble in respect of section 39. Again I'll read out what she said just so that I am very very clear about the intentions of Julia Durkin. She says "The proposed Bill provides reduction in reporting requirements of the chosen amenity and that of the Funding Board under section 40 must be viewed against the backdrop of perceived lowering the level and layers of reporting and accountability of the chosen organisations who are the net recipients of $14602000 [in] (2018-2019) of Auckland ratepayers money." That's an important point that last one actually. The money that funds these entities that this bill is dealing with actually isn't appropriated by this House. There's a levy on Auckland ratepayers that gets funnelled and it's important that people understand that and I don't know that everyone necessarily will.The point that Ms Durkin is making here and it's relevant to recitals (2) and (3) in fact of the preamble is that there are actually some substantive changes and we'll get to this later on in the debate when we get to the guts of the bill—there are actually quite significant changes to section 39(2)(b) that do actually change some of the reporting standards. I'm not just talking about the accounting standards themselves; the text of the bill actually changes what must be reported on and publicly disclosed and that's going to be really important. I'll come back to that.But what I'm coming to in terms of the preamble is really a question for the member in the chair Ms Parmar: really her reflection and response to that point that Julia Durkin has made in her submission and in relation to recitals (2) and (3) of the preamble. That is just to ensure that she has a level of comfort as the member who is overseeing this legislation that ultimately provides accountability for over $14 million of public money that's provided by the Auckland ratepayer—that she has confidence that the direction that's set out in this preamble is not in fact lowering the reporting standards and therefore the transparency that applies to quite significant amounts of ratepayers' money.So I really would like it if before we finish the debate on the preamble which has been very engaging so far we could hear from the member in the chair about that point and about whether she's satisfied that recitals (2) and (3) in the preamble don't set us up for a bill and a subsequent piece of legislation that actually lower the reporting standards when we would all I know in this House want to ensure that the reporting standards are fit for purpose. Thank you Madam Chair."