Annual Reporting and Audit Time Frames Extensions Legislation Bill

Members, we now come to our final debate: clauses 1 and 2, which is the debate on title and commencement.

It’s not my style, generally, to propose silly alternative names for legislation, but I think it does behove us to reflect on what we are doing here and actually propose names of this bill that more closely align with what’s actually happening here.

I did actually brainstorm with some of my policy staff about what they thought would be appropriate alternative titles for the Annual Reporting and Audit Time Frames Extensions Legislation Bill, and they were pretty good at coming up with, I think, more appropriate names. One said the bill should be the “Skill-shortage Solution Grant Robertson’s Magic Wand Act 2021”, and, oh, that DHBs could have the same magic wand so that they could magic up either staff or extensions of time. I wonder how it would go if—in fact, we know that it’s happening every single day that the DHB entities that are the subject of the extended reporting requirements in this bill are actually telling their patients they’ve got an extension of time. It’s not an extension of time that they look for if they wanted to have their cancer treatment in a more timely manner or cardiac surgery. So it is a magic wand that Mr Robertson is providing for himself but for no one else.

I think that actually is a nice segue into the second alternative title that we have seen: the “Helpful Government But Not for Business Act 2021”, because we have implored the Government to give relief to business who have severe staffing shortages of their own and the answer has been “No, no, no.”, and yet, when it comes to giving financial reporting and audit relief, it’s a “Yes, yes, yes.” from this Government.

So that, again, would suggest a title that is “We Don’t Have Solutions for Actual Kiwis Act 2021”. I don’t know about that. I think they do have solutions. They’re staring the Government in the face, but they are so blind to the need and the opportunity to maintain and increase economic growth in this country that they simply will not see where the need and the opportunity is.

So we could go on at some length on alternative titles for this, but what it really is—however it’s framed, whatever the bill and the Act is going to be called—is a deeply disappointing outcome and a terrible, terrible process. I think it’s very significant to reflect on the number of times we have been in urgency in the last 3½ or 4 years passing legislation either to fix a mess or to tidy up stuff that had been passed wrongly. This is a mess and the Government is taking the easy way out to fix it, and that, frankly, should be reflected in the title.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I know Mr Woodhouse was pointing out some of the issues around the title, and I think there’s two core tenets of what we have been debating over the last 24 hours under urgency. I think the first one is that we could change the title, actually, just simply to say “Fund the Audit Office So That It Can Pay Its Staff Sufficient To Make Sure They Stay Being Employed at Audit New Zealand Bill”, because that is one of the issues that, obviously, the Audit Office is facing. It has an issue with staff being poached by the private sector. Not all of it will be related to pay, but I think we need to make sure that the Audit Office are in a position that they can compete in the market for highly talented accountants and auditors. That’s a pretty crucial thing, especially when we have heard that they’ve lost 41 staff over this year, although they’ve been able to attract 14 back.

So we just need to make sure that the Audit Office is seen to be able and is—and I know that it’s a good organisation—able to attract the best talent so that our audits can be completed across the Government sector and across the local government sector to ensure that we are getting our accounts in a timely manner, and, obviously, this bill is about postponing it.

The other one that I think in terms of a title—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! Can I just remind the member that this part of the bill is a tight debate. So can I ask the member to confine his comments around the title and commencement.

OK. The second title change I think we could have applied to this—[Bell rung]

I move, That the question be now put.

I think that the second title change we could have said is “Make Sure that Some of the 2,000 MIQ Rooms that are Currently Empty are Made Available to Allow, as a Special Category, Auditors to come to New Zealand Bill.” I think that is a title change that we could be discussing, because I think this is what this title and what the real issue of this bill is about, which is that there is a shortfall of auditors.

The Government hasn’t allowed or been creative in terms of making sure that we can get the right auditors, and one of the obvious solutions or mitigation factors is to allow auditors to come in. It is one of the solutions; it is not the only solution, of course. But with managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) rooms lying vacant, there could be a special allocation of 20 rooms set aside for auditors to come in from overseas, provided that they can be paid and remunerated and attracted to Audit New Zealand.

So I think in terms of the title, whilst it identifies what the intent of the bill is, I don’t think it actually cuts to the core of the key issue of what this bill is all about.

I move, That the question be now put.

The committee has considered the Annual Reporting and Audit Time Frames Extensions Legislation Bill and reports it without amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

Third Reading