Craig Foss MP
National Party Associate Finance Spokesman
15 September 2006

Listen to the professionals, Minister

Commerce Minister Lianne Dalziel is out of line to ignore the advice of experts from the Accounting Standards Review Board on proposed changes to financial reporting standards, says National’s Associate Finance spokesman Craig Foss.

Mr Foss is commenting on the board’s submission to Parliament’s Commerce Select Committee opposing sections of the Business Law Reform Bill that give the board powers to ‘grant exemptions to entities from complying with approved financial reporting standards’.

The board says: ‘We are concerned that granting individual entities exemptions from the requirement to comply with specific standards will seriously undermine…and could well lead to a customized and incoherent set of accounting standards.’

“What could be clearer than that?” says Mr Foss.

“In meetings with the Minister this advice was rejected.

“What does the Minister know that the cumulative experience and collective wisdom of Accounting Standards Review Board does not?

“As New Zealand moves towards adopting the International Financial Reporting Standards, why on earth is the Minister deliberately diluting the very standards the board is charged with maintaining?

“At the select committee hearings, board chairman Warwick Hunt and fellow board member John Spencer were at a total loss to explain why the Minister refused to listen to their advice.

“This is absurd. An Independent Crown Entity is in major dispute with the Crown. The Minister needs to explain why she is ignoring the very board that she recommended and appointed.”

ENDS

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