by Rob Hosking
Recommendations from the Task Force on Financial Intermediaries will be before Cabinet within a month.
Incoming Commerce Minister Lianne Dalziel says she wants to see the recommendations pushed along as soon as possible, and she supports the co-regulatory approach put forward by the task force.
“There has to be some policy decisions made now about the direction this is going to move in, and I’m still hoping to take that to Cabinet before Christmas,” she told Good Returns.
"Now because of the work programme we’ve got it’s obviously a very busy period-post election, and I’m not giving a cast-iron guarantee. But it is ready to go.
“I want to make it clear I’m supportive of the co-regulatory model proposed by the task force. I think it’s important to get to the point where the sector has some knowledge of the pathway we’re going down.”
If not Cabinet before Christmas it would probably be the first Cabinet of the New Year, she says.
“We all get frustrated with how long these things take but I would rather do something well than put the speed of change as a priority over the quality of it.”
And one guarantor of the quality of the final result, as well as a factor in how long it is likely to take, is the level of consultation going on with the various interest groups, she says.
At the same time as all this, work on the much more wide ranging review of financial products and providers has started, with the establishment of eight working groups with the various sectors last month.
Policy decisions on that should be made towards the end of next year.
Dalziel says she expects work on the co-regulatory model to be completed by the end of 2006, with legislation being introduced early in 2007.
“If we can improve the timetable for the financial products and providers’ review we could be looking at the 2007-08 year rather than calendar year 2008. But as I say, I’m not too concerned about the timetable."
Rob Hosking is a Wellington-based freelance writer specialising in political, economic and IT related issues.
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