Wong Pansy: Business Law Reform Bill — In Committee 
Wong Pansy: Business Law Reform Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:635;Page:6438] 
PANSY WONG (National) 
: 
 Part 1 of the Business Law Reform Bill deals with the Companies Act with regard to reporting changes. I would like to commend the Commerce Committee because overall although the Business Law Reform Bill is meant to make just technical changes and to streamline various legislation it was interesting to see the select committee go through Part 1 with a fine-tooth comb and come up with further substantial amendments to the provisions to make sure that shareholders cannot give up their right automatically to receive financial statements even though publicly available in electronic form but should receive notice for receiving further financial reports or concise limited versions of reports. 
So throughout this bill and also through other legislation the Commerce Committee under the leadership of Katherine Rich has taken great care to ensure that the changes—even though on the surface of it they are technical—are drafted properly. Half of the provisions were amended by the committee thus making them much more concise so I am slightly surprised to see Supplementary Order Paper 72 in the name of the Minister being introduced to this Committee particularly in respect of Part 3 which deals with financial reporting standards. We will take up this procedural issue because I am dismayed to see quite a large Supplementary Order Paper that proposes changes to the latter part of the bill after the select committee had gone through the bill and made a very good effort to clarify it. We will come back to that. 
Part 1 also deals with the qualification of directors whereby people who are convicted of certain offences in other countries will be barred from taking up a directorship in New Zealand. National supports that provision in terms of increasing globalisation whereby companies and directors operate within international environments. It is important that our legislation catches up with these global business operations so the provision is important in updating that.. 
National is supporting Part 1 because now that companies in particular can put their financial statements on websites they can save in their printing and mailing-out costs of large sets of annual reports. Of course one can also see the benefit to shareholders because many of them probably receive the annual report and just file it away without too much reference to it. So we believe that simplifying that procedure is a step in the right direction. One can see that the National Party does support sensible legislation subject to it being brought in front of the House properly and going through the due process of select committee scrutiny. On the face of it the changes are welcome although some of the drafting has been subject to heavy changes to make sure that when the legislation is being implemented no room is left for misunderstanding and confusion. 
At this stage I register our appreciation for the support the officials gave us on this technical bill. At times debate on technical terms can be quite challenging but the officials supported the select committee well and we do welcome this very small step by the Government to streamline companies’ reporting procedures.