O'Connor GregGREG O'CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): Thank you Madam Speaker. Tonight there'll be many people sitting at home around New Zealand who will be very worried about getting ripped off. They'll be worried about losing their hard-won money. A lot of their concerns will be focused on what's going on out on the street what's going on downtown because that's what they hear and that's what they'll be watching on telly. But actually they've got more chance of actually losing their money or being dissuaded or persuaded out of their money by what happens during the day during their interactions in business etc.What sort of things are we talking about? One thing in the debate tonight I think there's a general agreement that we've got to do something. But these are the type of things that do happen that do mean that well-meaning people honest people hard-working people that we're all trying to define here in the House at the moment over with various other things are parted from their money. Things like consumers being sold insurance policies that they are ineligible to claim on. Now who hasn't been to buy a new product who hasn't been to a bank who hasn't been to an institution where the person who they're dealing with is incentivised to actually sell them another product a value added where that person's remuneration is quite dependent on them selling? So they sound good they look good and it's only later on when they come to claim that they realise they're actually not eligible. Sales incentives leading to customers being sold products they don't need or that don't suit them. Again quite an advantage on behalf of the seller. Not bad people not criminals in any way but just people who in order to make sure they make a living have got a highly contestable part of their income in actually ensuring that they can get customers to part with their money for products they clearly don't need.Or life insurance companies: being churned from one policy or provider to another which again can result in the loss of cover. The old days of the door-to-door insurance salesmen are relatively a thing of the past. But of course with the advent of these machines—to those that are listening at home I refer to the cellphones and social media—we are metaphorically being door knocked every day for these products.Also and this is probably one where I think this will be welcomed by the industry: poor accountability at senior management and governance level for conduct. Anyone who's sat on a board will know that if you're on a board a commercial board your job is to look after the share price your job is to ensure that you give a return to the shareholders. Well of course if that's the only thing that was governing you—and we've seen a lot of that; we saw that particularly in 1987 we saw it in 2008 we generally see it whenever there's a downturn. People get away with a lot when the market is climbing upwards; it's only when there's a downturn if the swamp drains and the stumps are left exposed—or the monsters some might say are left exposed—that we actually understand what has happened. So this actually gives a protection. If you are board member—which of course 95 percent of our people sitting around boards are decent people trying to do the right thing; legislation like this or guidelines if you like ensures that those people are not going to be dragged down by a rapacious adviser maybe even a CEO whose own salary might be dependent on taking a certain course of action. So this gives the protection that these organisations need.New Zealand—it's no accident that we do measure very highly on all international surveys on honesty on integrity and on corruption. These things don't come by accident. Actually I don't always stand and disagree with my colleagues here but I think we need to be very careful when we do compare ourselves with Australia. They might look like us they might sound like us but anyone who's sat on boards or done a lot of business with the Australians would know they're quite different from us. And even though the behaviour that was exposed during the Australian royal commission was at a level that we would like to think we don't see here there's certainly been hints of it over here. So that's why legislation like this is very good. So I would caution those that would start to compare ourselves too closely with Australia and just know that they can be quite different people governed by different cultures and different rules and of course they are different states very much.So this is I think a very good piece of legislation. I think the people who will welcome this are the very very large numbers of good honest people on boards who are working in the institutions that this will refer to who now know that they won't be punished they won't be disadvantaged for keeping to the rules because those cowboy players out there who may not have been quite as shall we say honest as they were or as determined to keep to the rules as they were won't get the commercial advantage. So I commend this bill to the House.