Tisch Lindsay: Third Readings 
Tisch Lindsay: Third Readings 
[Volume:634;Page:5732] 
LINDSAY TISCH (National—Piako) 
: 
 This is important legislation and in the first reading second reading and Committee stage National has had a major input. The legislation has now been divided into four bills. It started as the Securities Legislation Bill— 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: He can read them out. That will take 3 minutes! 
LINDSAY TISCH 
: I hear the Minister in charge of the legislation interjecting. I would have thought she might be prepared to take a call on the third readings of these important bills. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: I did! 
LINDSAY TISCH 
: Oh did you! It was so vague that I do not recall anything the Minister said. Maybe she would like to take another call as other Labour members have not been prepared to take a call. 
Hon Member 
: They never do. 
LINDSAY TISCH 
: They never do even though these are important bills. The Securities Amendment Bill the Securities Markets Amendment Bill the Takeovers Amendment Bill and the Fair Trading Amendment Bill have been split from the original legislation. I want to take a short call to— 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: You can’t do anything else! 
LINDSAY TISCH 
: The Minister says I cannot think of anything else. I tell her that this legislation is about building confidence in the capital markets. It is about the mum and dad investors and small investors along with the institutional investors who need to have confidence in the process and confidence in the capital markets. But this Government has been caught short and in a number of areas. 
As my colleagues John Key Lockwood Smith and Chris Tremain said in their speeches if we look at what happened with Telecom and the unbundling of the local loop we see that $1 billion was wiped off the shares in 1 day! When the Minister of Communications tried to fudge things the following day another $2 billion was wiped off the capital of Telecom. As John Key said that affects every New Zealander because many superannuation funds—and in fact the New Zealand Superannuation Fund—invest in Telecom. So when we are talking about confidence reputation and integrity in the market we see a Government that has fallen short. Air New Zealand was mentioned by Dr Lockwood Smith and the opportunity for offshore investment—an opportunity that was lost. 
I spoke about this legislation in the Committee stage. It was interesting that on the day we were talking about confidence in the markets reputation integrity of the process what did the Government do? It fired the chair of the Electricity Commission Mr Hemmingway. If the Government does not like something it interferes in the process. That is what it does. 
Although we are talking about and supporting the breakdown of this legislation into four bills at the end of the day it is a matter of the public and its perception of whether there is confidence in the Government and whether the reputation of the markets can be sustained. National members would hope so. We have supported this legislation right through and our speakers have crystallised and articulated those arguments that we believe are important for the markets in New Zealand. With that in mind National will be supporting the third reading of this legislation. We want to make sure that the purpose of the legislation to inspire confidence and to encourage investments is its primary purpose. We are happy to support that process because it is important that New Zealand as a trading country has investments that there is some integrity in the market and that there is that transparency so that small investors—be they mums and dads; be they the small investor or the institutional investor—can have confidence in our capital markets. 
Bills read a third time.