Burns Brendon: Non-bank Deposit Takers Bill — First Reading 
Burns Brendon: Non-bank Deposit Takers Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:674;Page:20538] 
BRENDON BURNS (Labour—Christchurch Central) 
: 
 Like all members of this House I am pleased to support the Non-bank Deposit Takers Bill. It is another leg in the reform process to end some of the rorts that have gone on across the financial services sector over the last few years. It has been a very sorry toll for many New Zealanders—an $8.6 billion toll—which has seen a lot of people lose their life-savings because of the lack of regulation around some of the people operating in the less-regulated part if you like of the financial market. 
It is a roll-call of shame when we consider companies like Blue Chip and Lombard Finance. Hanover Finance is one that particularly resonated for me because I always had some distaste about the way it advertised on our State-owned television channel. “Hanover Finance—the name you can trust” traded I thought upon the reputation of Television New Zealand and of course that turned out to be absolutely the opposite of what the case was. It was not a company one could trust. There was no real regulation of it. It was taking the deposits of mum and dad investors and simply siphoning them into the speculative investments and ventures of the two principals of that company Mark Hotchin and Eric Watson two men who I believe stand condemned for what they have done to many thousands of New Zealanders. Therefore I am very pleased to see this bill which is another step in the right direction and is hopefully another nail in the coffin of those who fleeced many thousands of New Zealanders of their life-savings. 
We can consider that there is sometimes debate in this House over the costs of regulation. Looking through the excellent regulatory impact statement that was prepared for the House tonight I noted that it states that “the cost of licensing all the expected applicants [under this bill] will be approximately $160000.” That is $160000 to regulate a portion of an industry. Those non-bank deposit takers make up a large portion of those who have taken $8.6 billion from sometimes naive New Zealanders and also from New Zealanders who put their faith and trust into flash advertisements—style over substance—and who have paid a very very high price for doing that. It is good to see that we as a Parliament agree that those charlatans and rogues deserve to be subject to regulation. 
That is what this bill is about: licensing those non-bank deposit takers requiring their directors and senior officers to be vetted by the Reserve Bank empowering the Reserve Bank to delicense the non-bank deposit takers in prescribed situations requiring the consent of the Reserve Bank where there are changes in the ownership of these organisations bolstering the powers of the Reserve Bank to obtain information about these non-bank deposit takers—or “NBDTs” as the acronym goes—and empowering the Reserve Bank to remove directors of non-bank deposit takers in the appropriate circumstances. It is great to see the Reserve Bank getting these powers. Like most members if not all members of this House I commend this bill to the House.