O'Connor SimonSIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Mr Speaker. SPEAKER: I've lost the member's name. SIMON O'CONNOR: That's all right. You don't have to remember my name; you just have to give me the call. SPEAKER: Yes—Simon O'Connor. I apologise. SIMON O'CONNOR: Fantastic. Look thank you very much. I just feel inspired all of a sudden to give a speech in this House. It's sort of a contrarian nature in me perhaps that when those who show a lack of competence and knowing—SPEAKER: Now the member will speak about the bill or he will be terminated. SIMON O'CONNOR: Indeed. Hon Tim Macindoe: He's inspired by the bill. SIMON O'CONNOR: Absolutely he's inspired by the bill which is of course a private bill in the name of Dr Parmjeet Parmar: the Auckland Regional Amenities Funding Amendment Bill. The first critique is it is a rather long title but we'll deal with that in committee stage. I think the key element for me is that the people of Tāmaki who I represent would be very supportive of this for two or actually three reasons. The first as has been highlighted by other speakers—but of course I'll be giving the Tāmaki perspective on this—is that it's around a change of accounting practices. The second reason is that certainly my constituents are always concerned about how rates are spent and so this amendment bill is going to make sure that rates are spent more efficiently as a consequence of tidying up the accounting practices. The third reason is that while a number of these organisations like the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra (APO) and the New Zealand Opera are based outside of Tāmaki I think that if they were to open up their books they would find that those fine fine constituents of that electorate probably put in the most amounts of money aside from the Government. Dr Parmjeet Parmar of course is sponsoring this bill. As a private bill it requires a member of Parliament to do so. I think it's most appropriate that it has been an Auckland MP and—not to belabour the point too much—being an MP in more of this central region is actually quite symbolically important for this bill. What it effectively is doing is aligning two sets of accounting standards or actually more accurately it is removing one of them. As I'm sure you're very much aware the New Zealand International Financial Reporting Standards is the older of the two standards. The other is the generally accepted accounting practice under the acronym GAAP. Effectively they are two different standards and because of an anomaly in the law—malicious intentional a mistake or otherwise—the fund has to apply both. It probably doesn't take much explaining but again I feel very expired because they have to—Hon Chris Hipkins: Expired"? SIMON O'CONNOR: Inspired. Yeah I should have—Hon Chris Hipkins: You should have expired. SIMON O'CONNOR: Well actually to expire is the next bill but that's by intention. The key is that they now have to do two sets of accounts and that's two sets of expenses. When one reflects not only on the nature of the amenities fund but those they fund themselves they need efficiencies and that plays into the second and third points that I was raising. First and foremost this fund only attracts about 2 percent of the total spend of the councils and as such certainly to the fine people of Tāmaki they will want to make sure that of that 2 percent most of it is going to actually fund the likes of the APO the New Zealand Opera and the like and it's not going into a dual set of accounts. One of the questions I actually put to the member when she put forward the bill was well surely they can just present the one copy twice—do it in one format and hand it across to the next. Of course they cannot and hence we now have to move down the private bill. So the first reason is efficiencies within the fund. The second is that it will also reflect I think as a consequence of this bill that if the amenities fund is working more efficiently as one would expect if it's doing so and if it's seen to be accountable—all puns intended—that will in turn play quite happily into the hands of locals who will want to donate more. So the amenities fund is a critical part of New Zealand—well let's not be too dramatic—of Auckland's structures. As I said it's effectively a council body and one that sits within council's purview. As I said—SPEAKER: Order! Order! Back to the bill. SIMON O'CONNOR: Back to the bill. Talking about the amenities fund which sits under the council—SPEAKER: Yes. That's not part of the—that's not the subject of the bill. SIMON O'CONNOR: Fantastic. That's all right—we've chewed up another 10 seconds. So the key is that we've got here a situation where they're going to apply one accounting practice from now on—fortunately the more modern one. Fundamentally what this is going to achieve is that the amenities fund and those they can assist will be fundamentally Mr Speaker able to keep more of that hard-given cash by the ratepayer and to provide more money to those nine entities which I'm sure it's a great relief to you that I will not name. So I'm very pleased Dr Parmjeet Parmar that you have brought this to the House. I look forward to its speedy speedy progress which is somewhat presciently indicated by the speed of the debate in this House and as an act of generosity I leave the last 15 seconds."