Brown SimeonSIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you Madam Speaker. It's a pleasure to take a quick call on the regulatory systems amendment bills' second readings which National will be supporting. As the Minister Phil Twyford's very helpfully outlined this is of course an omnibus bill which contains three bills: the Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment (No 2) Bill the Regulatory Systems (Housing) Amendment Bill (No 2) and the Regulatory Systems (Workforce) Amendment Bill (No 2).I just want to make some overview points. Firstly the policy objective of this legislation is to improve regulatory systems by ensuring they are effective and efficient in accord with best regulatory practice. The amendments will do this by clarifying and updating statutory provisions to give effect to the purpose of various Acts and their provisions addressing regulatory duplications gaps errors and inconsistencies within and between different pieces of legislation keeping the regulatory systems up to date and relevant and removing unnecessary compliance costs and costs of doing business. And I think that last point is actually very important because there are so many costs and red tape and other things which get in the way for particularly small businesses. Being able to effectively make the regulatory system a lower burden on small businesses is something which particularly we on the National Party side of the House are very passionate about—and so that is definitely one of the reasons why we'll be supporting these bills tonight.The first bill is the Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment (No 2) Bill. It amends 14 Acts which is quite a large number of pieces of legislation that it makes amendments to. The Minister talked about amendments to the Companies Act. One of the changes that it makes there is to remove unnecessary costs of doing business including allowing documents to be sent by email. How novel—how novel—allowing documents to be sent by email—Hon Member: Really—email?SIMEON BROWN: —to overseas companies and bodies corporate. It's a very new idea absolutely. I hadn't thought of that one! It will allow the notice for a meeting to extend the deadline in which electronic votes and proxies must be received—again bringing some of these requirements under the Companies Act into the 21st century to allow business to get on and make the changes. My favourite has to be the amendment to the Geographical Indications (Wine and Spirits) Registration Act 2006. Normally when that gets referred to the Opposition will whine but obviously I'm in quite low spirits tonight so we'll wait for them to warm up as the night goes on. The second bill is the Regulatory Systems (Housing) Amendment Bill (No 2). I'm sure my colleague Andrew Bayly will have a bit more to talk about with that one particularly in the number of changes that it makes there. It changes the Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Act and also makes some changes to the Retirement Villages Act 2003—of course very important pieces of legislation—and I'm sure that these changes will make a positive difference in those areas. The third bill is of course the Regulatory Systems (Workforce) Amendment Bill (No 2) which changes a number of pieces of legislation: the Holidays Act the Employment Relations Act the Remuneration Authority Act and the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act. And of course the Minister touched on the important changes that it makes around parental leave and some of the unfortunate circumstances that families can find themselves in. Being able to bring some compassion into those circumstances is certainly something which we are supporting.So it's a pleasure to support this piece of legislation tonight. The National Party supports this. As I said at the start it's something which helps to make our legislation our regulatory systems more efficient and more effective and to accord with best regulatory practice—something which we want to see: less regulation not more and where there is regulation that it's efficient and able to be understood and able to be managed properly and easily by New Zealanders. We support this legislation. Thank you.