McClay ToddHon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua): Mr Speaker thank you. As others have said National will be supporting this legislation not because of the great significant changes it makes but because from time to time I suppose things need updating.But before I get into some of the detail of the legislation I've got to say that it is with disappointment. Anybody who's been following process in the House not only this term but let's just focus on this year would see that actually whilst there are so very many things of importance that we could be or should be fixing in this House for New Zealand at the moment all the things that aren't working well from the law and order challenges to more rules and support for the police to be sorting out the gangs to be doing something about ram-raiders—the list goes on and it goes on and it goes on—the most progress this Government is making in the House this week and indeed this year is to amend a number of statutes that are non-controversial. Whilst I suppose they could be seen as important they go nowhere at all to suggest this Government is nimble as the previous speaker said or that anything about what we're doing will make New Zealand a better place or a faster place. So it is with great disappointment that actually we are seeing so many members of the Government take pride in this legislation and bury themselves away and hide behind their desks here in this House when things of importance come up because there is so very little progress on important issues and important areas.If we look at this legislation every single one of these things needs to change. There is no question about that. But actually the problem that we have is we come to the House and take up time to change legislation to change statutes for things like this yet in most pieces of legislation that come before the House the Government and the Ministers give themselves the right to make important decisions by regulation—significant decisions by regulation—as opposed to saying Well actually let's get a regulatory power through many of these small things that are unimportant." They're just modernising a regulatory power to say "Well you no longer have to have a registered letter because they don't really exist any more." We're taking up the House's time to pass legislation on that yet when it comes to other pieces of new legislation the Government gives themselves the ability to pass regulation or even worse for the officials to make decisions in the ministries of things that the Government should be considering because they do have a big impact upon New Zealanders but in this case we're not doing that.An example of this is Part 4 which is around the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act from 2009. The change merely says that a Government agency or an anti - money-laundering (AML) supervisor or officer or regulator may disclose information to each other that they have collected if they think it's important with safeguards. Well that's good and it's a shame they weren't able to do that already with the appropriate safeguards. What it doesn't do is make the system better and it doesn't look to relieve burden upon New Zealand businesses when they have to meet their obligations under the AML. An example of this is the new rules the Government are putting in place that say real estate agents have to do due diligence on the person buying a property and where the money comes from and whether or not there could be money-laundering there. Respectively and responsibly I don't think that's something we should be entrusting to real estate agents but actually the bank who is lending money must also go and do that due diligence to make sure the person that they are lending to is a good citizen they're not breaking AML rules they're not going to be money-laundering or any of these other things and the lawyers involved must also do it. So what we have is this Government has put in place in triplicate the need for checks by everybody rather than saying "Well the lawyer or the bank has to do it and so the others can rely upon that." but they've gone so far to say the poor old real estate agent must do it also.What this legislation here does today this change of statutes is it says information between the Government agencies and AML supervisors could be exchanged. But it doesn't go anywhere towards relieving the burden upon business to do what I suggest in many cases is the Government's job or to make New Zealand safer from people that would seek to use our systems to launder money for ill-gotten gains to avoid tax or for financing terrorism; we're merely saying that it's now OK to swap a bit of information. So that would have been a much better use of the House's time to do that also in this legislation or to do that instead of this legislation but it doesn't do that.Look we support it because we do need to update things from time to time. There is no question. I mean an example of this was a change not so long ago where everything had to be faxed or in fact in many cases—for banks for insurance companies—they needed things to actually be in writing rather than be able to accept online signatures and so on. It is a good thing to update. But rather than the piecemeal approach we often see and the pride that Government members take in that because they believe they're doing a good job and being nimble and making things easier for New Zealanders what about a piece of legislation that actually updates all of that and says "Where it says it must be in writing unless there's good reason not to it can be electronic from now on." and we wouldn't have to keep doing this all of the time. We wouldn't have to take up the House's time or the committee's time or submitters' time to be deciding upon those sorts of things on a case by case basis. One piece of legislation that updates all pieces of legislation would be a great use of the House's time and it would also mean that the members opposite could say without any fear of being ridiculed laughed at or criticised that they are actually being more nimble.Members of the Government have said that this legislation is so very very important. I fear that if I speak any longer I hold up the great progress that they want to rush back to their electorates or the places they are list MPs from and say "We've done a great job of working for you. This week we've earned our salaries." We will be supporting this but I'm not sure that I'd commend it to the House."