Faafoi Kris: Accounting Infrastructure Reform Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFaafoi Kris: Accounting Infrastructure Reform Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 22 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19283. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana):Yes but it will be a shortish call. Thank you very much for the opportunity to talk to the second reading of the Accounting Infrastructure Reform Bill. As a number of my colleagues have already stated in their contributions to this debate this was one of the more interesting bills that we have seen traverse this Parliament for the reason of the exemption for a particular group which both Clare Curran and Clayton Cosgrove have mentioned.Before I get to that issue I do want to say that obviously this side of the House supports this bill. We understand that with the merging of the accounting body on this side of the Tasman with the one in Australia there will be some effectiveness and efficiencies gained and then hopefully some opportunities for businesses in our country on this side of the Tasman which we all want. If you believe the National Government this side of the House is not business friendly but that is absolutely not the case. Policies that we have already released such as our research and development tax credits and accelerated depreciation of I think the forestry and manufacturing sectors and some exciting policy that we are yet to see around apprenticeships will I think be greatly attractive to small to medium sized enterprise as we head into the decision-making period of the electoral cycle.Meka Whaitiri: $200 million.KRIS FAAFOI: That is right; $200 million—quite a big push for regional New Zealand.This brings me to a local story of a graduation I attended in Porirua on Friday where there were graduates from a money management and small business management course who are keen to see some real practical policies from the political parties that are advancing their causes at the election this year. I think that a number of the policies from our side of the House that I have already spoken of will certainly help them advance their cause to have profitable efficient and effective businesses which is what this bill does for accountancy systems.This is an interesting bill as I said before because of this exemption we have within it essentially for a particular religious group. It came and submitted to the select committee. Before I talk to that can I thank the officials who worked on this bill because it was one particular clause and one particular submission that took up quite a lot of time and debate within the very hard-working Commerce Committee. Essentially there is an amendment within the bill in clause 31 which inserts new section 36M which asks that a chartered accountancy body that would grant membership to its organisation exempt a person in a religious body from being a member because of their religious beliefs.It was a submission from—and I do not think they will mind me mentioning their names—Brian Prestidge and Michael Powell who are two people acting as auditors and accountants already and who are members of the Exclusive Brethren. I know there has been some controversy about that particular religion. That is not why I am bringing it up; I am bringing it up because it was a very interesting debate we had within the select committee as to whether or not that particular group making a submission or any group that holds particular religious beliefs should be exempted from membership of a body that we are asking all other people of a certain profession to be part of so they can be held to a code of ethics or particular standards or any disciplinary action that that body may put on any of its members.There was some concern from this side of the House as to who was going to be the arbiter of what we would consider to be the appropriate religious beliefs or the particular religious groups. Again as Clayton Cosgrove said we did not think that should be up to the officials. I think that during the Committee debate it will be an interesting part of the debate—if we do get to that stage of the debate before this House rises.In terms of granting that exemption to a particular religious group the accountancy organisation has to have an agreement with that religious group. It is apparent that the religious group has to abide by all the rules and regulations of the accountancy group. I believe personally that there was a case to maybe grant the exemption. I think we came to a relatively good position within the select committee that for particular religious reasons there should be an exemption because essentially the religious groups are practising accountancy now. They do not I believe hold memberships in a body now but this legislation compels them to do so. They agreed they would be accountable to such a body if there was to be disciplinary action for breaches of the code of ethics or particular things they had to adhere to in order to make sure that their standards were as good as others who had to become members. I know they are a relatively controversial group but I thought they made a relatively sound submission to the select committee. They did believe that under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act they had the freedom to non-association. I think that this debate is not necessarily over as this bill is still traversing the House. I would like to again thank the officials because this was not an easy part.It certainly was not the main thrust of the bill. The main thrust of the bill was about those entities on this side of the Tasman and the other side of the Tasman coming together and ensuring that there could be effective and efficient business between our side of the Tasman and theirs but exemption was one issue that I think we need to thank the officials for their work on. It was a tricky one that I think as Clayton Cosgrove said has only one precedent in another piece of labour legislation.