Zealand's Security Research Articles

Audit Committee Membership ‐ A New Zealand Perspective

This study examines factors related to audit committee membership for a sample of large New Zealand listed companies. This study reveals that non‐executive directors who are independent, and directors with financial expertise, are more likely to be members of audit committees. The results are consistent with the New Zealand Securities Commission’s corporate governance guidelines for audit committees of New Zealand listed companies. However, in the current New Zealand regulatory environment, directors with accounting expertise can include non‐executives affiliated with the firm. In these situations the financial expert is not independent. Remuneration committee members are found more likely to be members of the audit committee. This may be a result of their power and influence or be due to the skills they bring. The number of years that directors serve on the board, the number of other directorships they hold, and the number of shares they own in the company are not related to audit committee membership.

Terrorism by media: Coverage of the Ahmed Zaoui affair

Last year [2003], in a supremely hypocritical editorial, The New Zealand Herald laid into the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service (NZSIS) for its ‘farcical level of research’ on Ahmed Zaoui.1 Zaoui is an Algerian national who turned up at Auckland International Airport in early December 2002, and asked for political asylum. He was immediately imprisoned. Relying on classified NZSIS information, the Minister of Immigration has declared Zaoui a threat to national security and issued a Security Risk Certificate against him, allowing his continued detention. The Herald pointed to the just-released decision of the Refugee Status Appeals Authority 2, which had found no credible evidence that Zaoui was a terrorist.

New Zealand's Security Blanket

New Zealand's Security Blanket

The Case for the Use of International Reporting Standards in New Zealand: A Briefing Paper Prepared on Behalf of the New Zealand Securities Commission

The objective of this paper is to examine the issues pertinent to the consideration of the proposal made by the Accounting Standards Review Board (ASRB) that New Zealand adopt the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) issued by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). The purpose of this examination is to provide input to the New Zealand Securities Commission (the Commission) to assist them in their deliberations on making recommendations on the future development of the financial reporting infrastructure for New Zealand's securities markets. Similar to securities regulators across the world, the Commission has an interest in promoting a strong securities market where the financial reporting framework and its supportive infrastructure results in high quality, transparent and comparable financial reports. There are four identifiable components of the infrastructure that drive the quality of financial reporting in New Zealand.

THIN TRADING AND THE ESTIMATION OF BETAS: THE EFFICACY OF ALTERNATIVE TECHNIQUES

AbstractInfrequent trading induces biased estimates of the beta risk coefficient. This paper reports on the efficacy of approaches that seek to correct for this bias and documents the extent of thin trading among New Zealand securities. Parameter estimates free of the thin‐trading bias are obtained. These are compared with estimates obtained using ordinary least squares (OLS) applied in the conventional manner to nonsynchronous data, with and without bias‐correcting procedures. OLS beta estimates are found to be less biased, more efficient, and as consistent when compared with Dimson or Scholes‐Williams estimators. Lower beta estimates are associated with lower trading frequencies.

New Zealand's Security Policy

New Zealand's Security Policy

Book Review: The S.I.S. - The New Zealand Security Intelligence Service. Michael Parker. Palmerston North: Dunmore Press, 1979, pp. 208, $13.95 (cloth).

"Book Review: The S.I.S. - The New Zealand Security Intelligence Service. Michael Parker. Palmerston North: Dunmore Press, 1979, pp. 208, $13.95 (cloth).." Political Science, 32(2), pp. 183–184

Discussion: Another View of the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service

(1979). Discussion: Another View of the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service. Political Science: Vol. 31, No. 1, pp. 65-68.

Changing Perspectives of New Zealand's Foreign Policy

THE APPARENTLY IRREVERSIBLE PROCESS of withdrawal of British forces from the South East Asian region opens once again the whole question of Australian and New Zealand security in the South West Pacific. The basic defence problem derives from the geographic contiguity of a people alien to the area. The dilemma has exercised the leaders of both countries for half a century and has presented itself in an increasingly acute form for about half that period. During that time, a number of constants have appeared in the security equation-as for example the South East Asian region from which aggression might most reasonably be expected to come. As a possible source of aggression Communist China has almost entirely replaced the former Japanese menace in Australian and New Zealand thinking. Leaving aside for the moment the dramatic changes in the Asian balance of power that have taken place, and the proliferation of new sovereign states that have followed the withdrawal of the colonial powers, one might remark the shift of responsibility for the security of the area from these powers to the United States. We are now at the last phase of the British recession-a trend of which there was already some indication in the prewar challenge of South and South East Asia. This shift has been accompanied by the hesitant assumption by the United States of a global role and the slow recognition of the Eurasian balance of power as a vital factor in the post-war restatement of her national interest. Not less disturbing than these changes, particularly in the present context of New Zealand's defence policy, are the changed attitudes on the part of New Zealand's policy-planners themselves in response to the revolutionary developments in the world and in the Asian region. It would seem that the planners, in reaching conclusions at these two situation-levels, tend to follow the American propensity whereby frighteningly complex patterns and moving forces are resolved in terms of the reassuringly familiar imagery of the nursery or football field. The strategic rationale of both countries is based on the behaviour of dominoes and the facile conclusions of containment. In regard to the ebb of British and the rise of American influence, New Zealand appears to be involved at present in a policy of mistaken expediency based on the comfortable and uncomplicated transference from the old

New Zealand's Security

New Zealand's Security

New Zealand's Security

New Zealand's Security