Xu-Nan LawrenceDr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green): Thank you Mr Speaker. I'm speaking on this particular bill which amends the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Act 2001 and this is the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income (Controlling Interests) Amendment Bill second reading. And in this particular case the Green Party supports this bill. I don't know if I can ever get over just how much of a mouthful some of these amendment bills can be!In terms of this particular bill when we were looking at this bill as the previous speakers have stated this was something that the Green Party supported through first reading and this is something that was spoken on by our previous spokesperson for senior citizens Ricardo Menéndez March. As this was going through the Finance and Expenditure Committee—and again the previous speaker the honourable Minister Nicola Willis has already mentioned in terms of some of the considerations that the select committee has taken. This is particularly around some of the risks and the benefits and risks of removing the restrictions on these particular controlling interests and in terms of constraining the guardian investment mandate in the legislation as well as the Guardians' capacity to use controlling interests effectively and responsibly.In this particular case I think one of the things I would like to address again like the previous speakers have spoken on is that it is essentially amending something—it is amending section 59 of the principal Act allowing it to be a broader scope in terms of the way that the Guardians are able to manage some of these funds. But as the previous speaker the Hon Barbara Edmonds spoke on the Guardians' present use of the fund investment vehicles—and this is something that I would like to kind of point out in particular—currently the Guardians are able to use the FIVs the fund investment vehicles as a tool as well as being able to acquire controlling interests in assets such as rural lands and real estate. I think this is something that the Green Party is really really interested in. One of the things we would like to see—a missed opportunity when it was going through select committee—is that we're able to divest more towards productive investments as opposed to speculation investments. I think that is something that will be beneficial to Aotearoa's economy on the whole.In particular in this case we noticed that the Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation could have a substantial and greater influence over our economy and given that it's such a large potential investor we really would encourage the particular fund to be guided in their activities into funds such as statutory directives to divest from fossil fuels and the requirement for a portion of the fund to be targeted towards social impact investments including emissions reduction as well as aligning with the Government's goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.I think one of the other things I would like to point out in this particular case when we're looking at the Superannuation Fund is that although it was established in 2001—led by Sir Michael Cullen in this particular case. Although there are several exclusions that the New Zealand Superannuation Fund (NZSF) does not invest in—such as tobacco such as any sort of cluster munitions and anti-personnel mines some of the Grasberg mines in Papua whale meat etc. etc. We would like to just point out that although this is something that is mentioned in the 2009 Willis Towers Watson report—that yes there were positive findings on the Guardians' governance model. But we would like to point out that previously this particular NZSF has been seen and has faced criticism from investing into a series of companies—actually 24 companies—at the cost of $100 million that has supplied combat aircraft to the Myanmar junta which is currently a very hot topic and also a topic that's very close to Myanmar communities in Aotearoa. And this is again something to be cautionary about when we're looking at how the fund is used and particularly as we expand the scope of that fund through the amendment to section 59.I think one other thing that I would like to point out in this particular case—and this is again one of those opportunities where Aotearoa is really looking ahead and then thinking about the future of Aotearoa and particularly the future of our senior citizens and in this particular case by having something like this particular fund. One of the things I would also like to mention is the broader vision of this fund and of superannuation in Aotearoa to support our senior people as they're heading into retirement.This is something that we would like to see by opening up funding opportunities as a controlling investment that we're able to continue as Te Ara Ahunga Ora the Retirement Commission said—that we would like to see the superannuation age being kept at 65 as opposed to being increased to 67. Because to be perfectly honest the people who will be harmed by this particular increase as we see will be people such as myself—the millennials who are already burdened by the cost of living; by the lack of ability to afford a warm dry safe home that we can call our own; and also by student debt. So in this particular case we will see that my generation will be the generation that suffers if we see that age being increased in terms of our superannuation.On top of that another thing to also consider is as we're looking at the model of the Superannuation Fund and particularly being able to invest and have greater returns as the Minister of Finance suggested we're also looking at opening up that possibility and also addressing the fact that there are sections of our communities—particularly those with significant and recorded and evidence-based lower life expectancy—that may never enjoy the superannuation at the age of 65 like our Māori like our Pasifika communities. And the fact that when we're looking at—particularly women in general are also more likely going to get lower superannuation as a result because of the fact that we do see things like the gender pay gap we do see that a lot of our women are in unpaid care work.So I think a lot of these just state that the importance of something like the New Zealand Superannuation Fund and what it could achieve and how it could provide for our people in Aotearoa. And with that the Green Party commends this bill to the House.SPEAKER: This debate is interrupted and set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until Tuesday—sorry I'll just turn the page over—30 April 2 p.m.Debate interrupted.The House adjourned at 6.01 p.m.