Dalziel Lianne: Financial Markets (Regulators and KiwiSaver) Bill — In Committee 
Dalziel Lianne: Financial Markets (Regulators and KiwiSaver) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:671;Page:17700] 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 I want to focus in on the question of the members of the Financial Markets Authority and indeed the associate membership. The Government has announced today who the members of the Financial Markets Authority are and I would have thought that the Minister of Commerce would take the opportunity to talk about why this particular membership was chosen. 
Clause 10 of the Financial Markets (Regulators and KiwiSaver) Bill states: “The board of the FMA consists of not fewer than 5 and not more than 9 members.” I ask myself whether we got those numbers right given that one member of the establishment board is on the board of the Financial Market Authority now and one member of the establishment board has become an associate member. I cannot remember the discussions that we had on associate members but I am not sure what they will do. That is to be determined by the particular notice of appointment that they are given. So I really would like to see the notice of appointment or get some comment from the Minister as to what the associate members that have been announced will do. 
I want to reflect for a minute on why I think it is important that the Government did look more carefully at the role of the establishment board and took some of those people—a lot more of those people—through into the new Financial Markets Authority. The reason I say that is that the membership of the establishment board was welcomed across the board. There was considerable support for the members of that group not all of whom obviously were going to make themselves available for the Financial Markets Authority. But there were also people in there who were never going to be appointed. 
Obviously Neville Harris is an extraordinary public servant and as the Registrar of Companies he obviously would not be taking up that role but he is a critical element in the establishment board. But apart from him and perhaps Paula Rebstock who perhaps has not seen herself in a role in the Financial Markets Authority but more as an economic consultant coming in for the establishment of it there are people on the list of the establishment board like Frank McLaughlin who is an incredibly well respected corporate lawyer and I would have thought I would see his name on the list. 
Maybe there are things that I do not know. Some people may not have put their names forward and it will be very interesting when all of this is explored further. There is also Andrew Harmos Mariette van Ryn and Scott St John. Shelley Cave is the one person who has come across and is also a member of the Securities Commission which probably is neither here nor there but it does seem a shame that the one person who has made it on to the board from the establishment board is one from the Securities Commission given that this is a whole new ball game as it were. 
There is also Bruce Sheppard. Now Bruce and I have had our moments in the past particularly when I was the Minister of Commerce and he was the head of the New Zealand Shareholders Association. But what I have always enjoyed about Bruce is that one does not die wondering what he thought about an issue. He is somebody who challenges things with incredible integrity and he annoys a lot of people. I know that I probably do too but I really was quite disappointed to see him listed as an associate member rather than as a full member of the board. That is probably the kiss of death for him; I can assure the Committee that he probably would not say very nice things about me from my time as the Minister. But I do respect the fact that he was not afraid to front on issues that were important to his members. 
The Financial Markets Authority board is supposed to be a brave new start and I just feel that the board announcement today—soft announcement that it was—without any comment from the Minister in the chair the Minister of Commerce while we are debating the very bill that brings it into existence was really a missed opportunity. I did want to place that on the record of the House. I am not making any comment about the people who have been selected. I know the media want to speak to me about some conflicts of interest that they have already identified but I will obviously not comment about conflicts of interest until I have done a little bit more homework—better than I did last time.