Williams Andrew: Financial Reporting Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWilliams Andrew: Financial Reporting Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 02 July 2013. Volume:691;Page:11513. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First):Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. Thank you very much for letting me take this call on the Financial Reporting Bill. Is it not interesting hearing from the previous speaker Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga? The Government is obviously under some illusion that this is all new to New Zealand commerce all new to New Zealand companies and all new to this economy and that National has suddenly come up with these bright brilliant ideas. These are the sorts of ideas that have been talked about for many many years by many parties in this House and many administrations in this House: how to reduce compliance costs how to make the economy more efficient and how to reduce the burden on particularly small to medium sized enterprises which do find it very very painful trying to meet the bureaucratic hoops that they have to jump through on a daily basis. In this respect New Zealand First has always said that we want to reduce the cost to business we want to make this economy more efficient we want to help New Zealand business grow the economy and we want the economy itself to be far more competitive.In that respect New Zealand First supports this bill because although it is very much an administrative bill and it tidies up something like 80 other Acts and it tidies up the Financial Reporting Act 1993 to improve those compliance and reporting standards it also is common sense. New Zealand First has said in this House time and time again that if the Government puts up common-sense good policy we will support it; if it does not we will oppose it. In this case there is common-sense good policy throughout and we welcome it particularly as I said for smaller companies. They will not have the same level of complexity of reporting as larger companies have. Many of our small to medium sized enterprises in New Zealand are run by small family operators—husbandsand wives small management teams—and really they do struggle at times to meet all the red tape. In this respect this bill will help. It will help them get on and actually do what they need to do: actually sell their goods sell their services and do business. That in turn will help employ more New Zealanders which in turn will help grow the economy which in turn will result in more revenue coming to the Government in the way of an increasing economy with more money going around rather than those businesses spending so much time filling out forms and filling out bureaucratic nonsense half the time just so that bean counters and bureaucrats sitting back in their offices can justify what they are doing.In this respect I will highlight one particular aspect which is the amendments to the Retirement Villages Act. We are not on the Commerce Committee but it was brought to my attention that the original legislation that the Government had brought before the committee was going to provide a huge burden on the retirement villages throughout New Zealand in terms of their reporting. The time frames that were being laid down were just going to be simply impossible reducing it to 3-monthly reporting. Also I note in new section 35B(2) that originally it was going to be: “The operator of a retirement village must lodge a copy of the financial statements of the operator and each village within 20 working days after the financial statements are required to be signed”. Those 20 working days now under the bill have changed to “5 months after the balance date of the operator”. So is not that interesting Mr Lotu-Iiga? He says what a wonderful job this Government is doing but this Government put up original legislation that was going to put such an incredible burden on retirement villages to report within 20 days of their financial statements. Now they see that a 5-month period is more suitable so that they can actually do the reporting correctly and not try to under an absolutely pressure-cooker situation try to get information into the system.This bill also brings into line the obligations of charities and other such entities. That is a good thing because as we have heard from other speakers today increasingly there is the growing need for more and more charities in this country because often the Government itself is not delivering. Often the Government itself is handing over the needs of our communities the needs of New Zealanders to the charities asking them to perform the functions that previously central government used to provide and now more and more New Zealanders are having to go to charities for their assistance. However it is as a result important that those same charities be required to report in a responsible manner to the same level of reporting as is the case with many other small business enterprises and that is a good thing.I will not go any further but I will say that this 169-page bill does tie things together; it does bring a lot of things together. It refers to a huge number of previous Acts that will also be brought into line with this Financial Reporting Bill. It does help the New Zealand economy be more efficient. It does help with the overall cost of compliance of doing business in this country. Therefore it can only be a good thing and New Zealand First supports the bill.