Tabuteau FletcherFLETCHER TABUTEAU (NZ First): Yes. It will be good thank you Mr Cosgrove. I just have to give full credit to Minister Joyce for his contribution in the House this afternoon. He was magical in his presentation. He managed to make 10 minutes feel like an hour—it was incredible. Then what he also did with the full support of the member Melissa Lee was talk about—and I am trying to quote here; you will forgive me if I am slightly wrong—how legislation like this touches the lives of many New Zealanders. It underpins a highly functioning society. Would it not be nice if the Minister could have just come out and said: Look we got it wrong. We made quite a few mistakes and we need to fix it up."? It would have been very refreshing indeed. But I do have to make a point on behalf of New Zealand First that I am speaking to this today but this piece of legislation was not on the Order Paper on Thursday. The Minister himself spoke quite effusively about the raft—the sheer volume—of minor changes included in this legislation. In terms of order of the House and procedures of Parliament we in New Zealand First get spoken to about not contributing to the functions of Parliament. But this is almost mischievous in nature when a Government hands over legislation of this volume and this magnitude claiming that the changes are minor the day before we are obliged to read it and when as the Opposition we have to try to find the errors and the mistakes in this legislation. This in itself will create and give rise to more errors and subsequent changes to legislation by the very nature of the way it was brought to the House. It is unfortunate and I would suggest it is unacceptable. I would also like to point out that I know that much of the fix-ups have arisen because of the Productivity Commission report in 2014 but even in that context it has taken a very long time to get to this point in the House. There is a lot of work that has needed to be done arising from that but it has just taken too much time. I put it to the House is it not too much to ask that the Minister be a little bit more rapid with his response to known issues? I use only two examples to highlight my concern. Several members have spoken about the Unit Titles Act 2010. I personally was not in the House in 2010 but even when the legislation was passed industries spoke about having concerns with the legislation and it not being fit for purpose. So—what is it 6 years later—here we are with a Government that purports to be the advocates of business. The other example that came to mind was the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act 1987. Today the House seeks to amend section 71K of that Act which unfortunately creates unintended consequences for primary carers of pre-term babies—now after all this time. They are just a couple of examples that highlight my concerns. Because of the nature of the way that the bills were brought to the House I would like to take the opportunity to address the member with several questions that have come to me through reading the legislation as quickly as I possibly can. What I would like is to ask about the Regulatory Systems (Commercial Matters) Amendment Bill Part 1 clause 5 which repeals section 104 of the Building Societies Act 1965 which currently requires certain information about loans or other investments or certain offices or companies to be included in a building society annual return. Why are we taking that away? That is a genuine question. What is the problem that the Government presumes to be solving by repealing that particular provision within that piece of legislation? Another one that is of great concern: clause 19 amends section 202 of the Companies Act 1993 which currently provides that group financial statements are not required if the company is a subsidiary of a New Zealand company and financial statements for the group of that New Zealand company are prepared. The amendment extends the provision to cover situations in which the company is a subsidiary of an overseas company. What is so bad about asking a New Zealand subsidiary of an overseas company to prepare financial statements here in New Zealand? What problem are you trying to solve? So there is a very large concern about that one. They are genuine questions and I acknowledge that they could be raised in the select committee but I raise with the Speaker yet again that this has been brought to us quite precipitously and it may be of benefit to the Government and its staff to be aware of the nature of the questions that we will be bringing to the select committee process. This also highlights another concern that I have. The Minister stood up and told us how much of these are small and minor changes so let us bring them together in one omnibus bill. Yet we are taking it to three select committees. Let us get some consistency. It does not make sense to me. You have got bringing it together as an omnibus bill but then you are sending it to three very distinct select committees because why? Because they are probably important and need to be considered by those select committees that have the expertise and the knowledge in that area. So the inconsistencies are again of concern. I probably will not take more time of the House and I will end with this question here: clause 24 amends section 208 which imposes an obligation to prepare an annual report. The amendment provides that the requirement does not apply to a large company if it is not required by a percentage of the financial shareholders. I know of particular instances where a certain group of shareholders dominate the ownership of a company because of the nature of their stake in that business which is the nature of the shareholdings. But to then say that the majority of the shareholders do not want that report does not seem to fit with having a democracy and clear and transparent operations of business within this country. There are genuine questions. Again we have concerns about the process and about the speed with which the bill has come to the House which undermines our ability to act in good faith as an Opposition party. However we do support it to the select committee stage because at this stage we believe the Minister for Regulatory Reform in his missive that these are minor changes and we will support the bill through the select committee process at this stage. Thank you for your forbearance."