Companies (Levies) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Companies (Levies) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. This bill—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Is the Minister going to move a legislative statement, or is—

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: No.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): OK. Thank you.

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: Madam Chair, I move—sorry, let me just check on that. I apologise—no, I don’t apologise, because that’s in relation to the next bill. So I will stick with what I’ve got there.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): We’ll just start over.

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I don’t want a legislative statement.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): We’ll start over.

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I move that the Companies (Levies) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. The bill sets the framework for the future funding model for the New Zealand Companies Office and it’s great to see the progress through this House so that we can get on with implementing it. I want to thank all of the members who have contributed to the debate this evening. Whether the points were agreed or not, I think it’s good to air these issues because the principles of how we charge for these services deserve the debate of this House.

Before I go on, I want to thank again the Finance and Expenditure Committee for their work on the bill, and the suggested amendments. I think the bill is better for it. As I’ve explained to the House over a number of times over the last few months, the Companies Office runs 16 different registers presently, all benefiting New Zealand society and economy in different ways. At the moment, the legislation requires that those registers be funded separately from fees collected on each register. But that just doesn’t make sense anymore in the modern world. The bill is designed to provide a better future funding model for the Companies Office. The bill will help support the good work that the Companies Office does and will allow some flexibility to meet future challenges. The passage of this bill through the House is not the end of the work. The next stage is a full public consultation with levy proposals set out in detail. I am looking forward to hearing people’s views on the levy proposals once the detail and related analysis is available to them. Once the new levies are in place, the Companies Office will be carefully monitoring how the new funding model is working.

So my thanks to the committee for their work, and I’d reiterate the point I made in the committee of the whole House stage that New Zealanders search these registers for information that helps them do business and make decisions. This new fit for purpose funding model reflects modern realities, and it simply doesn’t make sense for each register to be maintained separately from other registers that function behind the scenes in a very similar way. And so in aligning them through this law, it creates a system where the maintenance of each register costs less than it otherwise would if each register was freestanding and operationally independent. That saves the taxpayer money, and we think that’s a good thing. It also draws on expertise that can be shared across the different registers. The bill enables a funding model that reflects how the Companies Office is best and most efficiently run, to deliver services for the benefit of New Zealanders. So I thank members for the debate and I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Yeah, we are drawing to a close on this bill. This bill came about as a result of a discovery a few months ago that a number of registers had been incorrectly costed and there was, in effect, cross-subsidisation across a whole stack of registers. The House came together to address that issue, which was a retrospective issue, which is pretty unusual to do that; that was a wrong that was corrected. This bill is a further enshrinement of that incorrect principle that took place—and we amended only a few months ago—that is namely about cross-subsidisation. And that’s the principal reason why we oppose it.

As the Minister has said on a number of occasions, he believes there’s going to be cost savings. Obviously, we heard in the debate before, it’s pretty unclear how that’s going to be achieved. They are anticipated. But there’s obviously no clear plan how they might be achieved. And secondly, if cost savings had been achieved, they should have already been captured in the lower costs, because the costs should reflect the costs of delivery and no more—no profit.

So we just think it’s wrong to be enshrining a principle of cross-subsidisation, especially when this came about through poor practices over many, many years. And on that basis, we are opposing the bill.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to take a brief call in support of this piece of legislation. I want to acknowledge the Minister for State Owned Enterprises for his leadership in this space, because it’s a bill that relates to the role of the New Zealand Companies Office and, in particular, its oversight over the administration of a number of registers and the approach in collecting levies that are, effectively, attached to that. As I understand it, this bill actually corrects a little bit of a mismatch in previous approaches in that it will enable a move away from a register-to-register funding model to one that permits levies to be applied a little bit more liberally and collected as part of a single operating system. So, on that basis, I’m delighted to be able to commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Madam Speaker.

TONI SEVERIN: Madam Speaker, sorry. Long night—many committees. Sorry, Madam Speaker. The Government introduced the Companies (Levies) Amendment Bill back in June 2022, which was considered by the Finance and Expenditure Committee, which had our own Damien Smith, who sits on that committee. We’re sort of here supporting him with this bill.

Throughout the process, we have been guaranteed that the changes within this bill are going to make things a lot more cost-efficient and a lot more streamlined. So we hope that will be upheld with what has been told to us, so that we will continue to be able to support this bill. We’re all in for making sure that things are working right and money is not wasted, and that, also, things run efficiently, so that people know what is going on. Understanding, if you’re looking after 16 different registries—it is a huge out-take there for things to happen. Having things cross-credited—and it sounds like this problem has been going on for quite a few decades, or close to, and hadn’t been picked up until recently.

So, in general, we will be very happy if the new bill does what it is intended to do to make things a lot more streamlined, and that, also, for the Companies Office to manage the registries as the portfolio with collecting the administration fees. Also, it still has other businesses—like those of us who own our own businesses, and every year we have to file our annual returns. So I will be watching this very carefully myself, because, again, being a business owner and seeing levies go up because something may not be as cost-efficient, or not as streamlined, we would be very disappointed if that doesn’t occur. So ACT supports this bill.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’d just like to say, on behalf of the Green Party, this is an entirely sensible bill. It should pass very quickly, despite the bloviating temporising by the ACT member during the committee of the whole House.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. The call that I was going to take was very quickly taken by Toni Severin. I think I just got told off by my senior whip, sitting in the chair. On this side of the House—

Maureen Pugh: Tough love

MELISSA LEE: Tough love—that’s right. It is almost 11.30—not that I was half asleep, but I was engrossed in a conversation and completely missed it, so my apologies to my team on this side. I would actually like to start off my contribution by saying “exactly what he said”—exactly what Andrew Bayly said. So that will make my speech a little bit shorter—a little bit of a joke there!

National opposes the bill because of the way that Andrew Bayly has laid it down during the committee stages. One of the things that I believe is that fairness is something that we support on this side of the House. One of the reasons why we have passed under urgency a previous bill related to this is that since the 1990s we have been collecting levies and the Government has been doing it wrong, through many different hues of Government. The levies were collected and it was supposed to have been used by the groupings of different collected levy groups that were supposed to spend it and not actually to collect it all as one and cross-subsidise each other.

When we are collecting money, some registrars collect lots of money and others don’t actually do their due diligence and collect as much as they can. When they’re supposed to be collecting two-point-something million dollars and they don’t, I think we should make sure that they do so. That is the reason. The unfairness of it is the reason why we oppose this bill.

It’s really difficult to listen to the Opposition going on and on about this legislation where they are mixing up cross-subsidisation for efficiency. Basically what has happened is there have been 16 registers that have been operating, in effect, and what has been happening is the system itself has actually rationalised and the law is now catching up to say what is happening needs to be lawful. So this is about efficiency; it’s about flexibility. And, as the Minister has quite rightly said, there will be full consultation impending.

Actually, if we were going to split hairs, the most important question on this particular bill is whether it is fees or levies, and there are really good governance reasons for why we need to be very careful about fees or levies. We have taken advice, as a committee, from the Regulations Review Committee to ensure that we got that right. So I think that the Opposition needs to perhaps focus on things that require a bit more scrutiny than this particular bill, which is a very operational, rationalising bill around efficiency; it is not around cross-subsidisation. I recommend it and commend it to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. We oppose this bill, as you’ve heard from my colleagues. Dumping a schedule on here saying that the climate-related disclosures have to be included I think is outrageous, and they should take more care with these sorts of things rather than trying to virtue signal with every bit of legislation that they bring in. We oppose this.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Look, the ACT Party supports this bill, but we do have significant concerns based on new information that the Minister introduced to the House tonight. We’ve got to the third reading, and the ACT Party’s had the opportunity to ask the Minister some questions around how the levies will be collected, how they’ll be determined, and, essentially, what the overhead will be for the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) that will be applied to all of the registers; all the companies; all of the charities like Coastguard, for example, or Surf Life Saving; and, of course, all of the unions who are also registered under this piece of legislation.

So the ACT Party’s raised concerns. Will the money collected as levies actually be correctly and fairly attributed back to the efficient operation of the registers that all of these different organisations, these 21 registers, are intended to administer? So we do have concerns, but the committee of the whole House has been assured—according to that Labour member Ingrid Leary, she’s been assured by officials they’ve had advice.

Of course, the ACT Party does believe that business should be administered efficiently. It was of great concern to me, when I sat in consideration of advice from officials, when I asked them, “Couldn’t you have administered this with a simple system of cost and time allocation, collecting the fees, aggregating the funds, and then allocating the staff time back to each register by using this thing they use in the private sector called a time sheet?” But apparently that was a mystery to the Government officials, this concept of a time sheet.

So then we moved on to the next issue, which is: well, if you don’t use a time sheet, what system will you use? In fact, they said, “Let us get back to you. Oh, by the way, how we collect the levy money will actually be described in the secondary legislation in the regulations under this Act.” So the ACT Party, despite our grave misgivings—at this point in time, we support the bill at the third reading, and we put our trust in the words of Minister David Clark, who assured us that there would be cost savings, that there would be efficiencies, and that there would be value for money.

But then we come to this matter of the new information the Minister introduced around the climate-related disclosures. And, of course, the climate Minister himself is in the House tonight, no doubt to make sure that these climate-related disclosures are included under the administration of the Companies (Levies) Amendment Bill. In fact, we only learnt by asking the Minister under Schedule 14(h), the Financial Markets Conduct Act.

Hon Dr David Clark: It was in a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) tabled a couple of days ago.

SIMON COURT: Well, the Minister says it was in an SOP tabled a couple of days ago. Now, the Minister may not be aware, but he’s part of a Government that put 24 bills into this House under urgency, including bills that, potentially, like the Firearms Amendment Act, had actually two years of firearms licence holders, ranges, and clubs telling the Government and the Minister of Police that they urgently needed law reform. Nothing was done. The ACT Party supports that. But, actually, if you think about some of the other bills forced through under urgency—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Return to the bill.

SIMON COURT: So I asked the Minister: “Climate-related disclosures, where is this mentioned in this piece of legislation, the Companies (Levies) Amendment Bill?” He pointed the ACT Party to the Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013. But, again, I’ll come back to the point. That was never tabled at select committee. That is new information. And to introduce an amendment like that under urgency, where the ACT Party didn’t have an opportunity to review the basis of that need, which clearly officials have told the Minister this would be a good time to just make sure that we can lawfully collect levies from companies which we forced into a climate-related disclosures regime—another piece of woke virtue-signalling by this Government obsessed with climate change when Kiwis are actually concerned about violent crime and the cost of living.

And so the ACT Party, again—we are putting our trust and faith in MBIE, that once-great ministry set up by a doyen of industry Steven Joyce, when he was a Minister. That’s right. For people who’ve only come to politics in Parliament recently and don’t remember how good business was when proper business leaders set up television stations, for example, and when telecommunications companies were privatised, and New Zealanders got the stuff called fibre—back in the good old days. That was when MBIE was set up.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Back to the good old bill.

SIMON COURT: Thank you, Madam Speaker. So if you think about what this bill does—what does this bill do? It’s yet another piece of legislation that makes it easier for Government departments to do their work. But what we didn’t hear was: does it make it easier, more efficient, and more cost-effective for the companies or the charities who are subject to this Companies (Levies) Amendment Bill to get value for money and good service? We don’t know. But the ACT Party, in an act of faith, have put our trust and confidence in the officials at MBIE that they will achieve cost savings and that the move from collecting fees, for example, from union organisations which we assume—we assume—were not one of the organisations that had underpaid fees for all of those years; one of the organisations that had underpaid and therefore money had to be taken, say, from Coastguard or from the Red Cross or one of the actual charities, and used to administer the union accounts. We don’t know that because that wasn’t revealed at select committee. We can only assume that it’s been lost in the mists of time. This has been going on for 15 to 20 years, we’ve heard, this unlawful administration of companies and building societies and charities under the Act.

I think it’s important that we draw the attention of the viewers at home, those people watching Parliament TV at 11.30 p.m. on a Thursday night and want to know what earth is Parliament doing sitting at 11.30 at night—or those listing on AM 882, that radio station. If you don’t live in the city and you can’t get FM—maybe you’re a farmer, maybe you’re driving a tractor and you’re laying down a crop—and you’re listening to this debate at home and you want to know, why we are debating under urgency the Companies (Levies) Amendment Bill. Well, the ACT Party says, look, we believe that it’s important that the administration of Government is carried out in the most cost-effective way possible. That’s why we’re supporting this bill.

But, again, remarkable that the Minister has chosen to lay a Supplementary Order Paper, an amendment to the bill on the Table in the House, apparently just a couple of days ago, which brings the requirement for companies who are subject to the climate-related disclosures legislation, that they’ll actually be forced to pay levies to have their information administered under this amendment to the Companies Act.

For the viewers at home engrossed by this debate; for those—potentially—farmers driving a tractor late at night, with the floodlit fields before them, tuned into AM 882, while they ponder the mysteries of democracy—and the Companies (Levies) Amendment Bill just one of the 24 bills introduced by the Labour Party into this House under urgency on Tuesday. While they ponder whether democracy is really delivering for them and whether they want the current party that has a majority in the House to continue next year or maybe give their vote to another party, I just want them to know that the Association of Consumers and Taxpayers, the ACT Party—the only party that actually stands up for consumers and taxpayers—will support this bill, the Companies (Levies) Amendment Bill, on the basis that the MBIE office administers the companies far more efficiently. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to stand here and speak in favour of the Companies (Levies) Amendment Bill.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: You’ve got to wake up before you speak.

Hon KIERAN McANULTY: That was—not all of us yell every time we communicate, Mr Brownlee. Sometimes, we want to sit and think about the last speech, which was—it takes quite a bit of skill, I think, to deliver a 10-minute speech, which I will point out is only a suggestion; you don’t have to do a full 10 minutes, and speak in favour of the bill but then complain about it for 10 minutes. At least the National Party is standing up for what they believe in.

This bill is very straightforward. It corrects a mismatch in the Companies Office which has existed over successive Governments. It should’ve been fixed, but, you know, in fairness, it might not have been noticed. The point is it has been noticed now; we’re going to fix it. We’re getting on with it. There’s no point mucking around—I commend the bill to the House.

Simon Watts—five-minute call.

Thank you. I rise on behalf of the National Party, as the member of Parliament for North Shore, to speak on the Companies (Levies) Amendment Bill, third reading. National oppose this bill.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. As we’ve said, this bill needs to be done—needs to be fixed. We’re getting on with it. I commend this bill to the House.

Shanan Halbert—five-minute call.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. We’ve traversed this bill in the House this evening, and I’d like to commend it to the House.