Russell DeborahDr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn): Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker and congratulations on your appointment to this role.You know we agree with the members of the Opposition that this is a bill of small matters—matters that perhaps are not very large; matters that can be solved by a little bit of agreement; matters that you might think don't require a debate and don't require a discussion—but I tell the members of the Opposition that they are wrong in that regard. Parliament is not just a chamber for debating for combative ideas; it is a chamber to educate people and to help citizens of New Zealand understand why we are passing the laws we are passing. So that is why we are here in this Chamber tonight talking through these matters taking this bill of small matters very seriously indeed. The members of the Opposition talk about the expense of running Parliament but what price democracy—is what I say. What price democracy? Our democracy is worth spending money and time on and I invite you on the other side of the House to take our democracy seriously.So I turn now to some of the small matters in this bill matters that need a little bit of discussion and little bit of enlightenment so that our fellow citizens understand why we are passing these matters. As so many of my friends and colleagues here tonight have started with I intend to start with Part 1—that is to keep it simple for the Opposition—of this bill which amends the Animal Welfare Act. You see this particular part enables instead of people having to trek up and down hills trek through the bush to check a live trap—instead we can embrace modern technology and use electronic monitoring. Now I know I might look like a simple innocent tax lecturer from Massey University but I tell you I have walked those trap lines. I have been up and down the dissected hill country in Taranaki checking traps making sure that the dead animals are taken out; and that animals that were alive are taken care of. I've done those hard yards and those hard hills in Taranaki and it takes a lot of time and effort.One of the reasons that we are introducing this electronic monitoring of live traps is not just in respect of animal welfare; it's also a simple cost-saving measure. Now the Opposition would have us be concerned about cost-saving measures so I invite them to consider this part very very seriously indeed. By introducing electronic monitoring of these live traps we can ensure that we spend less money and we spend less human time and effort ploughing up and down those wretched hills checking on the traps. It's a simple common-sense and kind measure and I think we should take it. I'd invite the Opposition to consider exactly why we are passing this small matter because I tell you those hills are not exactly small.I want to turn now to another small matter in this bill and it's going to take several pages further on to Part 24 of the bill with the Public Finance Act 1989—a topic dear to my heart. There's a particular clause in the amendments to the Public Finance Act that is to do with reserves boards and the audit requirements for reserves boards. So diligently because I want to help my fellow citizens to understand what this particular amendment is about I searched out what reserve boards are as defined in the Public Finance Act. And the Public Finance Act says that reserves boards are defined in section 2 of the Reserves Act.So in the rather handy website the legislation site for the New Zealand Government I headed off to the Reserves Act to look up the definition of reserves boards. But there is no definition of reserves boards in the Reserves Act so that might be another small matter for another similar Act in a few years. But what there is is a definition of reserves and they are various parcels of land that the Government holds as reserves and that are administered by various boards.So I thought well where are these reserves? What are the particular parcels of land with which we are so concerned? From there using the wonder of modern technology as we're going to use for the live animal traps I headed off to hunt out where these reserves are. They are administered by the Department of Conservation (DOC) with a whole series of other parcels of land. On the DOC website you can find a list of the various parcels of land that DOC administers and various reserves. There are 22 of them. It doesn't exactly say where these reserves are. In fact that's all I could find out—that there are 22 of these reserves. So may I suggest to the Opposition that for their question No. 6001 they ask for a list of these reserves?But it turns out that these reserves actually incur some expenditure each year and because they fall under the Public Finance Act they need to be audited. But auditing costs money. There are only a small number of these reserves. They don't have a lot of revenue associated with them. In fact I rather suggest they have no revenue associated with them. They have some expenditure associated with them but it's a really small amount. So spending large sums auditing them doesn't seem to be worth the effort.So there's an amendment here that suggests that if these reserves have annual expenditure of under $125000 then an audit is not required. Now you may be worried about this. You may think that perhaps we should audit all public entities—that anything that is using public money should be audited down to the nth degree. But I tell you these boards are supervised by DOC so we have accountability for them in that way. And it is also utterly consistent with the changes in auditing practice in the past few years.In the last few years we have changed auditing practice so that large entities—that's entities with revenue over $30 million of revenue—have full-scale audits; not-so-large entities—that's entities with under $30 million of revenue—can have smaller audits; and then there are some very simple rules that apply to tiny entities—entities with under $2 million of assets can have a simple accrual accounting system and a very simple audit. Once you're under $125000 you simply have a set of cash books and a very simple audit indeed. That applies to public entities it applies to charities and this amendment is utterly consistent with that approach to auditing small entities—that where the amount of money concerned is actually quite small then no audit is required. So I think this is a very very sensible amendment.Then there is just one more amendment that I wish to consider this evening and that is Part 27. Now Part 27 amends the State-Owned Enterprises Act. The State-Owned Enterprises Act I think first came into being back in the 1980s—Hon Andrew Little: 1986.Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: Thank you—1986. Thank you Mr Little. But the world has changed since then. And in particular something that's been developed since the 1980s is the internet. So there is a very simple requirement here and again it's a very common-sense one a very small matter. It's a matter that suggests that instead of having annual audited accounts the financial performance the statements of service intention—all the reporting that we associate with Government entities and with State-owned entities—as well as having them published in dead-tree form on paper we embrace the 21st century and they get published on websites as well.Hon Andrew Little: No!Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: Thank you. It's a very common-sense change. It's a small change but it's a change that brings us smack-bang into the 21st century so that accountability for these entities can be extended not just to those of us in the House with the pieces of paper in front of us but to our fellow citizens who through googling through searching through reviewing websites can themselves engage with our State-owned enterprises and whether or not they are being properly conducted. So it's a very simple change that will allow this to happen. That is the reason that I support this amendment.So in closing—very sensible amendments; amendments that we ought to agree to and I urge the members of the Opposition for the sake of our fellow citizens to please stand debate explain and engage with this very sensible bill.Bill read a first time. Bill referred to the Governance and Administration Committee.