Woolerton R Doug: Reserve Bank of New Zealand Amendment Bill (No 3) — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Woolerton R Doug: Reserve Bank of New Zealand Amendment Bill (No 3) — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 02 September 2008. Volume:649;Page:18210. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
R DOUG WOOLERTON (NZ First) 
: 
 As I recall last time when I opened up and had 2 minutes on this bill I talked about why people in New Zealand are far keener on putting their money into property when the move by the Government and other people is to encourage them to put it into shares and businesses. I said that that is because a house or property cannot disappear and turn itself into somebody’s Porsche 911 or something like that.  
This No. 3 amendment bill will go some way towards requiring finance companies to have a credit rating. There is much angst over that in the financial sector not because of the fact that finance companies should have a credit rating—they are happy enough with that—but in fact over how it should be done. People came to the Finance and Expenditure Committee and said to us they were worried that a credit rating would have an overly prescriptive nature when it came to administration and may not give as much credence to the fact that there was a certain amount of asset backing to a particular financial institution; another institution with a lesser asset-backing but with different administration systems could end up with a better credit rating.  
So there were arguments about how that provision would play out. But by and large submitters agreed that the public need more information. They need some sort of a guide as to where to put their money. Only time we think can give any surety to the public when it comes to investing funds. But one thing is that we cannot go on as we are and we have not progressed it seems since the late 1980s when we were held up around the world as the Wild West of the financial world. Although the recent credit crunch and finance meltdown have not been that bad a lot of improvement is certainly needed. This bill goes some way towards that.  
New Zealand First would like to go further and at some time in the next Parliament we will bring legislation to the House that we think will help towards looking after old people— 
Craig Foss 
: Transparency of donations. 
R DOUG WOOLERTON 
: Absolutely I say to Mr Foss; transparency to the nth degree. People can see going through our trusts at the present time how everything is kosher there. There is no fraudulent behaviour. There is no corrupt behaviour. There is nothing wrong there. We feel that if we are happy to have all of those transactions open to the public with the absolute transparency that people are seeing today other parties in this House should join for the benefit of the public and to give everybody surety in opening their trust accounts in the same manner. Whatever the Serious Fraud Office wants of us we believe that in a non-partisan way other parties should front up to open their books thereby giving comfort to the public and the news media who have been throwing a lot of harsh words around.  
So we are in favour of transparency. [ 
Interruption 
] I am pleased to hear the voice of my colleague Dail Jones behind me because he is the member who has been entrusted with the task of giving some surety to retired people in particular as we move forward. I say to Mr Jones that I think he is on that case and we look forward to that in the next Parliament. Is that correct? 
Dail Jones 
: Oh absolutely. 
R DOUG WOOLERTON 
: So we can look forward to that—yet another reason if I may say so why people will vote for us at the coming election. They will have the surety that they will have something done unlike if they vote for the National Party which has thrown stones and done nothing for 9 years. It is even doubtful whether National will be able to do anything post election because sadly for those members they will find themselves back on the Opposition benches.  
But I come back to the point that there is need for this legislation. This bill goes some way towards a solution. It is not the total answer. Risks cannot be taken out of financial transactions. Along with this it is absolutely understood that there is a need for the public of New Zealand to be given more information as well as a need to look at a credit rating system. This bill goes some way to doing that.