Connell Brian: Public Finance (State Sector Management) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Connell Brian: Public Finance (State Sector Management) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Sitting date: 14 December 2004. Volume:622;Page:17893. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
BRIAN CONNELL (National—Rakaia) 
: 
 I have been waiting very patiently to make a contribution on this part. I want to start by commenting on clauses 57 58 and 59. My colleague Lockwood Smith touched on this territory as well. Clause 57 “Core things statutory entities can do” refers to the fact that an entity may do anything authorised by this legislation or by the entity’s Act. That is fine. I wanted to check to see what that meant so I turned to clause 58 which tells me the other things that statutory entities can do: “A statutory entity may do anything that a natural person of full age and capacity may do.” That was not terribly clear so I thought I would take a call and ask the Minister in the chair Mr Mallard to get to his feet and explain to the Committee exactly what it means. But I thought that before I did that I would read on so I looked at clause 59 “Acts must be for purpose of functions” which states: “A statutory entity may do an act …”. 
That is the issue that my colleague Lockwood Smith raised. A natural person is someone who does an act. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: What is an unnatural person? 
BRIAN CONNELL 
: That was the question I was going to pose of the Minister so let me do that. I ask the Minister what an unnatural person is and what acts he or she does. [ 
Interruption 
] That is the natural conclusion is it not? 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: Ask the Minister of Police. 
BRIAN CONNELL 
: Well OK I will ask the Minister of Police. What is an unnatural person and what does such a person do? The Minister in the chair does not want to rise to his feet and take a call. But the question remains. A natural person does an act—and we are meant to take this legislation seriously! I turned over the page to look at some of the other clauses and saw that clauses 61 62 63 and 64 go on to deal with natural acts. I am none the wiser as to what those clauses relate to. I ask the Minister to take a call if he dares—if he can and if he will—to explain to us exactly what is meant by those clauses. 
I now turn to clause 73 “Requirements before appointment”. Mr Key and Mr English talked about that and Mr Key used the word “drivel”. I can only concur with his analysis. The clause states: “Before a person is appointed as a member of a statutory entity the person must—(a) consent in writing to being a member;”—I think that is fair enough—“ and (b) certify that he or she is not disqualified from being a member;”. I wonder whether we have got the order wrong. Surely when this legislation was being drafted the first question that should have been asked was whether a person was qualified or disqualified before we got the person to write stating that he or she consented to being a member. The clause goes on to state: “(c) disclose to the responsible Minister the nature and extent (including monetary value if quantifiable)”—and I am sure Mr Williams would like to tell us what is quantifiable in terms of his money—“of all interests that the person has at that time or is likely to have in matters relating to the statutory entity.” I thought that was reasonable. Then I read on to subclause (2) which states: “The board of the entity must notify the responsible Minister of a failure to comply with subsection (1)(c) …”. 
So what we have is a member of a board who may be disqualified but we find that out only after he or she has consented in writing to becoming a member of the board and then we find out that once appointed if a member has not disclosed the fact that he or she has some conflicts of interest then he or she can no longer be a member of the board. I have been around a bit but I would have thought that sensible reasonable practice would have applied and it would have been ascertained in the first instance whether someone did not qualify to be a member of a board because of some clear disqualification.