Sio Hon Aupito WilliamSTATUTES AMENDMENT BILL (NO 2)Second ReadingHon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO (Associate Minister of Justice): I move That the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a second time. As the House will be aware statutes amendment bills are legislative vehicles that make minor technical and non-controversial amendments to a number of Acts. These bills allow amendments to be made that would not usually receive sufficient priority to be progressed individually. This is achieved with the support of all parties in Parliament.The bill as reported back amends 28 Acts administered by 11 different Government agencies. Each of the amendments in the bill has received unanimous cross-party support. This bill is a good demonstration of all parties working together. The bill was reported back by the Governance and Administration Committee on 28 May and I want to thank the committee and the chair the honourable member Brett Hudson for the careful consideration of the bill by members of that committee. The committee's report recommended a number of changes to amendments in the bill as it was introduced. The committee also recommended including urgent amendments to the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009. Finally the committee received and considered one submission from an interested member of the public. This submission was to repeal redundant local Acts and private Acts. The committee did not recommend making any changes to the bill following the submission and I support these recommendations.I will now turn to detail some of the changes made to the bill. Possibly the most substantial change to the bill is the inclusion of new amendments to the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009. The need for these amendments was identified after this bill was introduced to the House and they are urgently required. I consulted all parties on these urgent amendments and all parties supported their inclusion. The amendments ensure that the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009 regime works for reporting entities structured as partnerships. As some of you may be aware the regime was amended last year to progressively include lawyers conveyancers accountants real estate agents and high-value dealers. Many of these new sectors practise in partnerships and lawyers and conveyancers will come into the regime from 1 July this year. There are two key changes these amendments make which are now included in the bill. The first change is to allow reporting entities structured as partnerships to appoint a partner as a compliance officer irrespective of whether that reporting entity has employees. Without this amendment a reporting entity could only appoint a partner as a compliance officer if the reporting entity did not have employees. The second change is to clarify that a partnership is liable for the same penalties as bodies corporate for criminal offending or a civil liability act. As the partnership has the compliance obligations in the regime it is common sense that the partnership also faces the consequences for failing to comply. This amendment clarifies how the regime will operate as these sectors come on board. The other key change that I'd like to highlight is the inclusion of a new amendment to the Parole Act. The amendments to the Parole Act that were in the bill when it was introduced were aimed at ensuring that interim supervision orders are treated in the same way as extended supervision orders. All parties were consulted on these proposed amendments in 2016 and supported their inclusion. Interim supervision orders were established through a Supplementary Order Paper in 2014. They were developed to enable courts to impose electronic monitoring and intensive monitoring special conditions on an offender while an application for an extended supervision order is being considered. Due to the way interim supervision orders were created a series of small legislative changes was required to ensure consistency between interim and extended supervision orders. Most of them were included in the bill as introduced. However one further amendment was recently identified. This amendment will allow arrest without warrant for breaches of interim supervision orders. Breaches of interim supervision orders are currently enforced as breaches of bail conditions which allow for arrest without warrant. However this approach does not necessarily allow corrections and police to seek arrest and act in a swift and timely manner proportionate to the risk these offenders pose. In addition the power to arrest without warrant already exists for breaches of extended supervision orders. The committee has recommended that an additional amendment be included in the bill to also allow for arrest without warrant for breaches of an interim supervision order. I want to thank them for those recommendations.The other changes that the committee recommended are important but relatively minor. For example the committee has recommended changes to the Animal Welfare Act 1999 and the Biosecurity Act 1993 that will improve the clarity of those amendments. Other changes include removing the amendment to the Public Records Act 2005 as it is not considered necessary at this time. The committee has also recommended that an amendment to the Public Finance Act 1989 be removed to allow for it to be progressed through conservation legislation which is currently under development. I endorse the recommendations of the committee.In summary this bill will provide much-needed changes to the statute book. While the amendments are technical and non-controversial in nature they will ensure that New Zealand's legislation operates efficiently and effectively. I look forward to the passage of this bill through its remaining stages and to working constructively with all parties as other such bills are put together in the future. I commend this bill to the House.