SpeechDENISE LEE (National—Maungakiekie): Thank you Mr Chair. I appreciate the chance to take a call. I want to congratulate—again as I did in an earlier reading—Dr Parmjeet Parmar for picking the Auckland Regional Amenities Funding Amendment Bill up and for shepherding it through. She's correct when she said earlier that she is currently the list MP for the Stardome Observatory but with boundary changes I hope to be the MP again for Maungakiekie which will take back in Stardome Observatory. I was prior to becoming a member of Parliament an Auckland City councillor where Stardome was. I've been in out in out and hopefully in again.Hon Member: Back in again—that's right.DENISE LEE: That's right. Of course Stardome is one of the amenities that has the privilege of being a beneficiary of the amenity funding regime. It's been going for 10 years. I note that when the bill refers to the principal Act not being amended there is a maximum finding regime of 2 percent of rates revenue. That's interesting. Normally in scenarios where funding is allowed for via Parliament or other entities—local government entities—it's normally a total of operating expenses or total revenue but in this instance it's tagged to rates revenue only and it's a maximum of 2 percent of rates revenue. That's interesting again because we've got a context right now of Auckland Council's emergency budget where revenue in the rates debate is very much to the fore in Aucklanders' minds.What I've appreciated about the amenities listed in this legislation is their very reasonable and considered approach—and their privileged approach I would say and I'm sure they would say—to gaining this funding. For them to look at the fiscal envelope the maximum that they're allowed—according to my figures it's about $34.3 million is the maximum that they could be given according to legislation. But in reality in this last financial year it was a $15.5 million envelope. So we see that while there's a maximum there's actually a reasonable approach that has been taken and I would like to congratulate all the amenities. Knowing that they could go that far they've gone to a more reasonable approach and have adopted what I'd call a great process for how they put their best foot forward.So again just referencing when I was an Auckland councillor we used to have the amenities come before us one at a time and put their best foot forward. It was a very mood-boosting experience I'd say—hearing all the good work that these charities are doing.I would like to again congratulate Dr Parmar for picking this up. We know that the primary reason is to fix up that accounting anomaly. I think the previous speaker Dr Deborah Russell said something along the lines of What are we doing this for?" It's just simply that. They don't want to do twice the accounting practices and find that the New Zealand International Financial Reporting Standards regime is not fit for purpose for them anymore. I'd also like to point out in clause 5(b) it talks about those accounting standards and wanting to go towards the generally accepted accounting practice. But in subclause (c) it's talking about the amenities bringing forward "any other information reasonably necessary". That's been a really warming process for me when I have been there in Auckland Council and have seen them bring their best foot forward and under that clause of "any information reasonably necessary".So look with that Mr Chair and Dr Parmar we very much support this. We think that it's a way that we can get some clarity and some ease of accounting practice and I look forward to more contributions here in this committee stage. Thank you."