Fairbrother Russell: Securities Legislation Bill — Second Reading 
Fairbrother Russell: Securities Legislation Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:629;Page:1337] 
RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER (Labour) 
: 
 I can only welcome back Brian Connell and ask him where he was during the select committee process. There were 29 submissions. The committee had good advisers it was well-chaired by Mark Peck and there was a unanimous report but suddenly the member has woken up and said he has some other ideas he wants to table. He was not prepared to speak up in the committee but perhaps that was because Mark Peck was such a good chairman. I must say before I go any further that it may well be testament to Mark Peck’s fine chairmanship that he got this bill through while Brian Connell was asleep. It certainly was a difficult bill and it went through with the committee unanimous in its conclusions. The committee made some quite sensible changes to enable the securities market regulators to work together better by trying to impose some objective standards that allow for reasonable conduct and that penalise gross misconduct. I heard that example of the person with binoculars—hiding in bushes with binoculars seems to be a subject that obsesses Mr Connell—as he made that very example in the select committee. He received an answer to his query from one of the submitters and from the advisers but it still has not sunk home with him. I say to Mr Connell that if he is in the bushes with the glasses at night-time and they are not night-time glasses he is not a danger to any securities market at all. 
I have to say Mr Connell is not a danger to Mr Don Brash at this stage in what must be Mr Connell’s new leadership bid because I note that he has come to Parliament now with a new hairstyle. The hairstyle is slightly retro but it probably celebrates Mozart’s recent bicentennial birthday. So I welcome him back to the House with his new zeal and just wish that during his time in the select committee he could have put some of those positive suggestions for the bill which he is going to table sometime in the future into the report so that we could all have considered them. 
I note as I browse through this fine report which did not have any dissenting opinion— 
Brian Connell 
: What happened in Napier? This Labour member did what no other Labour member did in 50 years—he lost a safe seat. 
RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER 
: This bill is exactly the reason why we need to legislate against shady practice so that mistakes like Napier will never happen again if we can organise ourselves to keep shady practice out of things such as the security market and the election market. That is the end of that for now but I will come back to it later I tell Mr Connell. 
As I was saying before I was so seriously interrupted I do not think Mr Connell was very happy with the removal of the serious penalty for minor offences as we find in clause 11. It was one of those things he was pontificating on at the time as I recall with regard to his huge experience in New Zealand before his return to Australia not realising that it was the other way around. He at the time thought that any bad person should be penalised but the committee thought that minor infringements which in fact were cases of strict liability should not lead to penalty by way of management banning orders. It is generally accepted that most managers in this country are competent and mistakes for which there is no mens rea—that is mental intent—should not lead to a banning from their livelihood or from the contribution they can give to a company. 
This is an omnibus bill so it amends three or four areas of legislation. It also does the remarkably simple thing of bringing the Securities Commission the Takeovers Panel and the Commerce Commission to the table to talk together as regulators in the area when they are looking at matters that arise. So I have much pleasure in endorsing the changes to this bill from a very industrious select committee—well chaired by Mark Peck—and I await with some eagerness the suggestions by the Hon Brian Connell that will be tabled many months after this report has slipped through the minefield of his scrutiny. I endorse the bill.