Wood MichaelHon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Transport): Thank you Madam Speaker and at the outset of my contribution can I acknowledge others who have participated in the debate today. I think there was a little bit of doubt expressed in the early days of this debate as to whether members participating would be able to engage in a fully informed way. But I've actually found the debate to be a useful informative—I wouldn't quite go so far as to say interesting—one but I think we all walk away with a little bit more knowledge about why this bill is important and why the issues that we're considering are actually quite significant. Can I acknowledge the select committee who obviously have worked hard to get their heads around this bill. The suite of alterations made to the bill that was sent to the select committee are actually reasonably significant and that's a sign of a select committee that was getting down to its work that was working closely with officials and doing what it's there to do which is to improve legislation which is sent to it. If I can acknowledge the nine submitters I think four of whom were heard in this process as well. I did have a little bit of a look at the submissions as I was sent here and it was pleasing to see that across those submitters there did seem to be generally speaking support for this bill and for its intent. There were a range of useful suggestions and improvements some of which have been picked up but it would appear that for those people who are most involved in these systems there is a widespread recognition that this is an overdue piece of legislation.I also want to as Barbara Edmonds did just start my substantive comments with the purpose statement of the bill which is always a good place to begin. The key point that I want to make here is that I think the change which has been recommended by the select committee is an extremely important one. So if we turn to clause 3 Purposes" the purposes of this Act are "(a) promote the maintenance of a sound and efficient financial system." Now the change that's been made by the select committee adds on the words "including by responding to threats to the stability of or confidence in the whole or a significant part of the financial system". The reason I want to just rest on this point briefly is because to me this is where we get the link between what seems like a highly technical somewhat arcane piece of legislation and how it actually affects things in the real world how real people are actually affected by good legislation and regulatory oversight or lack thereof because we don't have to go that far back in time—it's only to 2007-2008 and the GFC—when inadequate regulatory regimes in a number of countries most particularly the United States but others as well allowed for significant issues to occur in the financial markets that were not just contained to the financial markets.The fallout of those regulatory failures was a crisis across the world economy millions of people losing their jobs having their livelihoods significantly impacted and recessionary conditions that persisted for a number of years across the international community. That is the real world outcome of not having appropriate regulatory oversight through pieces of legislation like this one. That is why that purpose statement and that additional wording that has been brought in by the Finance and Expenditure Committee is so important that focus on the stability of and confidence in the financial system because ultimately what unfolded in that period of 2007 when the GFC was getting under way was a result of frankly unethical behaviour greed writ large across the financial markets then having a systemic impact leading to a total loss of confidence in those markets with impacts on the real world economy. That's why this bill is so important.One of the key things that this bill does is to set up designated financial market infrastructure entities and these are entities which will be determined by the Minister to be more significant within the system. That determination will be made given their size given their interconnectivity given how they fit into the system and the risk that would be created if they were to collapse. The creation of that designated category will allow in the event of some kind of crisis or event for greater steps to be taken by the regulator or regulators being the Financial Markets Authority or the Reserve Bank to step in and stop that kind of contagion and ultimately flow on to the real world economy with all the damage that that can do. I'm disappointed I only have five minutes for this particular call. There is so much good stuff in this bill but other colleagues I'm sure will pick up things from here and round this debate off in style. This is an important bill Madam Speaker and I do commend it to the House. Thank you."