Curran Clare: Accounting Infrastructure Reform Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCurran Clare: Accounting Infrastructure Reform Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 03 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19249. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South):I am pleased to take a call in the second reading of the Accounting Infrastructure Reform Bill. This is an example of the Commerce Committee doing pretty good work—Andrew Little: Its job.CLARE CURRAN: —pretty solid work and doing its job on what might seem to the listening public to be a fairly stolid subject but a subject that is actually quite important. It shows that there is an important synergy across the Tasman between New Zealand and Australia around how the business of commerce and the regulatory environment is actually being worked out and established. This is very important and we are in support of it. We had some very good discussions in the select committee and good advice from the officials and I think what we have come out with is quite a professional piece of legislation to put before this House. It shows the ability of that select committee to get on and do the job within a wider stable of work that has been worked on over the last few years.There were some very interesting components and pieces of discussion on this bill. In fact I have to say that the vast majority of the discussion in the select committee concerned an exception to the accounting body—the trans-Tasman converged accounting body that is being established as part of this bill. It was an interesting conundrum because it was essentially on the grounds of conscientious objection that the submitters who came before us were asking for an exemption and therefore that did exercise the committee. It took us quite some hours to determine the rights and wrongs and the ethical issues that might result from a body or a group of individuals who wanted to exempt themselves from being recognised under a particular part of this bill on the grounds of their religious affiliation.I refer to a pair of submitters. It is important because I think the House does need to be aware of this exemption. I think it is clause 31 which inserts a new section 36M—I think that is the part of the bill—that allows for an exemption. The pair of submitters who came before us contended that the changes in the bill requiring auditors and qualified statutory accountants to belong to professional bodies was a limitation on the right of freedom of association under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. They said that their religious beliefs prevented them from joining groups with non-believers. In particular the extension of the requirement to those assuring large and medium-sized charities meant that those submitters could no longer perform this work. They recommended that the Financial Markets Authority be empowered to directly approve auditors so that they would be accountable under a wider regime rather than accountable to a body to which they would have to belong.Hon Simon Bridges: Take us to the bell.CLARE CURRAN: The member across the House may laugh about this but it was quite a serious issue which did as I said exercise the minds of the committee members. I am sure the two submitters would not mind their names being used because they were actually publicly submitting to the select committee. They were Brian Prestidge and Michael Powell and their group was the Exclusive Brethren.It was a very substantial discussion that occurred because ultimately the discussion came back to a principle. Essentially there we were as a select committee referring back to the House a piece of legislation that related to all of New Zealand. It will be the law of the land and it will create a new updated regulatory regime. Here was a pair of submitters who wanted to be exempt from having to belong to the professional authority which would be accountable on the grounds of their religious beliefs. How we came to accommodate them is going to be heard in the next instalment of my speech on this bill I would presume.In summary though before I get to that next instalment we do support this bill because it is an important upgrade to the accounting infrastructure in New Zealand. It is solid and I guess modern.Debate interrupted.