Yule LawrenceLAWRENCE YULE (National—Tukituki): Madam Chair it's—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Madam Assistant Speaker actually. LAWRENCE YULE: Madam Assistant Speaker—my apologies. Tēnā koutou katoa. It's easy to forget while we're here and it is nice to hear the unanimity in this House for the support of this bill because what happened in New Zealand was a whole lot of unsuspecting Kiwis—mum and dad investors as I refer to them Mr Greg O'Connor—got ripped off and $9 billion was lost in the sector during the global financial crisis. So this side of the House when it was in Government decided to do something about it and I congratulate the current Government and the Hon Kris Faafoi for bringing this material back to the House for debate and consideration.There's been a lot of very positive contributions this evening and I think it was also reflected in the Economic Development Science and Innovation Committee—which I'm lucky enough to have joined recently—where we had 74 submitters who spoke to the select committee. Melissa Lee was absolutely accurate. We got an in-depth picture of what had been done what was being recommended and actually for the main where we'd end up now—we've got pretty much agreement across both sides of the select committee as to what needs to happen.There are some new technologies out there which we need to protect New Zealanders from. We shouldn't be scared of them but robo-advice and things like that are going to happen more and more. I'd remind members of this House that even today the purchase of life insurance health insurance contents insurance—the amount of that that's now done online without the intervention of a single human being is actually a thing for the future I believe. So in those sorts of industries and for further financial advice we need to make sure that there are appropriate rules and regulations in place.I specifically come to clauses in the bill which I think are very important. One is new section 431J(2) in clause 27 which is talking about the duty to give priority to a client's interests. We know how advice has often operated in New Zealand whether it's financial advice or other financial products and I acknowledge what Michael Wood said previously about work that's coming to the Finance and Expenditure Committee. But there is an area of risk in this space and that is where a financial adviser seeks income and gains income from some financial products and not others and then seeks to use those products in the advice. But this bill says that actually the client's interest is the first interest and their best interests should be at heart and I think that we as a select committee understood that and supported that.One that still has some work—and I'll be interested when this bill comes back to the committee stage—is around nominated representatives because what we need to be very careful of is that as financial advisers come in and out of institutions where is the liability for that advice several years into the future? What we're basically saying and what this bill says is that there is an onus on the parent body of financial advisers in an organisation to take overall responsibility for that and for the advice of people that are working within that institution or organisation. The intent of the bill is that financial advisers should be ultimately responsible for their conduct and for their nominated representatives.We also looked at this whole question of lawyers and accountants and there are lawyers and accountants in this House. We actually believed that if they were giving the advice as an ancillary to their core function they should not be regulated. I support that provision and I think we will get to that point. I think though it does become clear and it will have to be worked on when we get to the committee stage how the regulations how the rules and—when the Minister is front of this House—how some more of the detail of this will work out. The misuse of financial products and advice has cost a lot of New Zealanders a lot of money. In many other sectors it has happened as well and various things have gone wrong. It is the role of this Parliament and the people that are sitting here tonight and for future readings to make sure that we protect those people and I'm happy to commend this bill to the House.