Prime Willow-JeanWILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. Thank you for the opportunity to take a short call tonight on the Companies (Clarification of Dividend Rules in Companies) Amendment Bill. Can I start by saying when the member who sponsored this bill Todd Muller said that he doubted it would make the front page of the newspaper tomorrow—ye of little faith—Judith Collins the honourable member made a similar comment about derivatives and said that if it made it to the newspaper one single article she would bake for the Finance and Expenditure Committee and guess what! It did and we got her baking so I wonder if I could put a similar challenge across the House to that member that if it does in fact make the news tomorrow—and it won't be the front page given earlier legislation this evening but just putting that challenge out there. You don't want to be upstaged by the Hon Judith Collins and her wonderful baking—Louise cake it was. I do want to in all seriousness commend the member for his identification of an issue and using of the member's bill process to be able to address an issue.I want to say that this is my first call on the bill although when I was reading through the Hansards of the earlier debates I came across a quote in there by the member Kieran McAnulty. He said It is with delight and some amount of surprise that I am standing here to speak on this bill." and the Deputy Speaker said "You certainly don't look like Willow-Jean Prime." So I believe I was probably down to speak on this bill in an earlier reading would've been given leave and Kieran filled in my spot at that time. But this is my first opportunity to speak on the bill. I am not a member of the Primary Production Committee which this bill went to so I want to commend that committee for giving some time to go through this process. Actually when I read previous debates the member Rino Tirikatene really did give it a thorough examination and play the devil's advocate in terms of this and whether it was really necessary whether there were some unintended consequences of what we did whether there were other ways in which the issue could be addressed but ultimately we have got support across the House for this piece that's been put forward.I wanted to reflect on the earlier contribution by Gareth Hughes where he was sort of suggesting that it doesn't do any harm but as two former lawyers over here we may not actually find favour with our colleagues in the legal profession because when in all seriousness I heard the example given about Zespri the amount of time the number of years that it took and no doubt the legal advice that they had to obtain as a company of their size and the importance of their structure there would have been money that could have been a dividend actually spent on lawyers' fees to try and clarify some ambiguity in the law.I reflected on some previous debate notes and it was pointed out by Gareth Hughes that figures in 2018 actually stated that the top 30 cooperatives in New Zealand had a revenue of $42 billion. So these are not small amounts of money that we are talking about. It is substantial and the potential for debate and disputes to arise within these organisations is very real when they are having to go to lawyers for advice for clarity and for interpretation around the law. Then the contribution from Kiritapu Allan was that at the time this was probably not foreseen when the Companies Act was debated and there potentially were not Hansards to rely on. Did they intend for us to be able to have the difference between dry shares and wet shares or not? So in the absence of all of that and with the difficulty that we have had a real-life experience of the suggested amendments—there being two main sections section 36 and section 53—do help clarify the law. Yes we'll potentially reduce the workload of lawyers and the potential to charge there but it gives certainty and clarity to the cooperatives in this country. I just do want to reflect that this has been a structure that we have used in New Zealand since 1871 so they are long-established corporate structures in our Companies Act—Dr Duncan Webb: Socialist structures. WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: —socialist structures and Ian McKelvie would have got into a bit of trouble over on that side of the House for supporting such things—but our Companies Act should be there to support all of those types of arrangements. I commend this bill to the House."