Woodhouse MichaelHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Oh we were doing so well today. We had the local bill—the New Plymouth District Council (Perpetual Investment Fund) Bill—then we had unanimity on the Employment Relations (Extended Time for Personal Grievance for Sexual Harassment) Amendment Bill then Mr McKelvie successfully negotiated and passed a conscience issue bill and there was a real sense of fraternity breaking out across the House. Then we had this: what I have added to the long list of both Government and member's bills that are coming to this House that are a well-meaning waste of time. And we are going to waste the House's time doing something that frankly is not needed to be done.I note that the bill as it came out of the select committee is a shadow of its former self. And let's just say that there wasn't much of a shadow when it went in. It's a very smaller shadow coming back out. Mr Webb's bill—Simon Court: Dr Webb.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: —Dr Webb I apologise; the Hon Dr Webb these days—had a list an avoidance of doubt list that talks about the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi reducing adverse environmental impacts upholding high standards of ethical behaviour following fair and equitable employment practices and recognising the interests of the wider community—all of which is either in other law or something that companies routinely do. And we came out of the select committee with a single sentence again To avoid doubt in considering the best interests of a company or holding company for the purposes of this section a director may consider matters other than the maximisation of profit." Well who knew that those rapacious directors had to be guided by legislation to consider things other than the maximisation of profit? Because of course that presumes that that is the goal of every single entity covered by the Companies Act.Now I used to be the chief executive of a surgical hospital. A limited liability company was the entity that ran the hospital and was my employer. It was a registered not-for-profit. It did other things. And there are thousands of companies just like that up and down the country who exist to do other things other than profit and will continue to do so if this bill is passed. And even those profit-making companies don't most of them exist to make a profit; they exist to provide a product or a service.Did Peter Beck wake up one day and say "I know what I want to do. I want to make a profit."? No. He woke up one day and said "I want to change the world because I want to change the way we communicate through small loaf-of-bread-sized satellites that we can launch here in New Zealand." Did Rod Drury wake up one day and say "I want to make a profit."? No. He probably woke up and said "I want to disrupt the way in which accounting software is deployed globally."Simon Court: Did Graeme Hart say he wanted to make a profit?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Exactly. We could go through a long list of companies that are for profit and we shouldn't turn profit into a dirty word because it's the profit from those companies and the taxes paid on those profits that pay for our health education and social services. So the very case for this even being necessary has not been made.Now I was going to say congratulate—that's not quite the right word; maybe it was a poisoned chalice that she picked up from her now ministerial colleague. And she has done her very best to put lipstick on this because I don't think that it deserves any other epithet. And it wasn't just me on the select committee who had that kind of derision for the bill. The member talks about the number of people who opposed this bill as if they were part of that rapacious profit-focused business community. Well let me go through who actually opposed the bill. Let's start with the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE)—the very advisers to the member and the select committee. Their big bold statement in Part 2 of the departmental report: "We recommend that the bill not proceed." And they did so not because they were rapacious profit-makers but they were the sensible arbiters of whether or not this was even necessary. No less than the Legislation Design and Advisory Committee whom I think every single member and Minister and select committee should listen very carefully to said in their view that the bill should not proceed on the basis that it is unnecessary legislation with an unclear purpose and uncertain interaction with other legislation. Indeed the Law Society and MBIE actually worried that this would make things worse not better.So why are we putting forward a bill that risks making things more confusing which was a theme of those submissions and actually makes things worse? As an accountant for over 25 years I have been advising small businesses about the way in which they extend their social licence. When I was a student they used to talk about triple bottom line reporting. We now talk about reporting for outcomes—the actual things that people want to deliver and it isn't a profit. Those things exist already. Our obligations to the Treaty of Waitangi our employment obligations to be a good employer are already set out in other legislation. Directors have their specific obligations in law to be good at these things and if they're not there are consequences not the least of which in our social media world where there is a quite appropriate but very risky cancel culture for an organisation that gets itself offside with the sorts of stakeholders that they have: customers staff and so on.So there are already significant risks on directors and boards that do not act in the manner in which Dr Webb and now Camilla Belich believe we have to put into black letter law. It's as simple as that. This is a waste of time. I think it's well-meaning albeit that this focus on those rapacious profit-makers is perhaps emblematic of this Government. But it is a waste of time. It shouldn't be here.Anna Lorck: We love business.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: I'm sorry Ms Lorck?Anna Lorck: We love business.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: I like it when you're in the House after dinner—always get a very interesting interjection from across that side when the member for Tukituki is participating in these debates. I'll say no more except this: this should not go through."