Curran Clare: Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Amendment Bill Financial Service Providers (Registration and Dispute Resolution) Amendment Bill — Third ReadingsText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCurran Clare: Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Amendment Bill Financial Service Providers (Registration and Dispute Resolution) Amendment Bill — Third Readings[Sitting date: 27 May 2014. Volume:699;Page:18364. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): Talofa lava Mr Assistant Speaker. Labour stands for opportunity for all New Zealanders. It stands for everybody having a decent job with a decent wage with a house that they can afford to live in where their children can grow up and have opportunities and not live in poverty unlike the 285000 New Zealand children who are currently living in poverty. Sadly this is the country we are living in at the moment and this is the country in which this legislation the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Amendment Bill and the Financial Service Providers (Registration and Dispute Resolution) Amendment Bill is badly needed even though it remains flawed.Last night the co-authors ofThe Spirit Level Professors Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett spoke at a lecture at the university in Dunedin about how health and social ills are linked to economic inequality. They spoke about—it is not rocket science—how the more equal countries consistently fare better in life expectancy imprisonment infant mortality addictions social mobility obesity literacy and other measures. As would be expected their research shows that New Zealand has high levels of both economic inequality and social problems.Sadly I could not be at that lecture last night. Why was that? Because I was meeting with a group that is trying to become the voice for one of the poorest and most unequal parts of our country—that is South Dunedin. Just on the other side of town from where that lecture was being given is one of the poorest parts of our country. If you do not believe me—but I am sure you do believe me Mr Assistant Speaker—the most recent New Zealand deprivation index was released just recently which clearly showed that the area of South Dunedin is one of the poorest parts of our country. It is one of the areas that has the highest density and the lowest income. Certainly it is not the only area like that but it is the area within which I live it is where my office is situated and it is literally minutes away from where I actually live. It is an area that has growing numbers of third-tier lenders popping up and it is an area where we have more debt management services also emerging in that community.We have this legislation before the House today 11 years—11 years—since a review was first done as to what needed to be the next steps around credit management in this country. It has taken 11 years to get to this point where we have got legislation coming before the House that almost all of the House supports. We know that it is flawed but we also know that we need it and it has taken 11 years for it to get before this House.Last week I attended the announcement of a new debt management service in the South Dunedin area. It is called Christians Against Poverty. It is a service that is clearly a Christian-related service and it is offering a whole range of management services thatare already currently being provided in the city but the fact that there is a new service popping up in one of the poorest parts of the city indicates the depth of the issues related to poverty. We heard stories at this announcement last week of people who hide at night when there is a knock at the door or when the telephone rings because either it will be someone trying to sell them something or it will be one of the debt management people coming round to collect the money or to take away their possessions. This is an absolutely unacceptable situation in my city of Dunedin it is an unacceptable situation in New Zealand and we have to address it.This legislation goes some of the way towards addressing this issue. It does not address the whole issue but it goes some of the way towards doing it. It goes some of the way because it introduces the Responsible Lending Code which is an instrument that sets out detailed guidance for lenders to comply with responsible lending principles. This is actually a very important part of this legislation. It is the part of this legislation that we really do support. There was a lot of work put into it and I am sure that we have heard a lot about that tonight.The legislation also recognises unforeseen hardship which means that borrowers can apply to a creditor to change their loan term or to reduce or postpone payments on the grounds of unforeseen hardship. That is also a really important part of the legislation. Again it does not go far enough but it is an important part.I would also like to acknowledge tonight that after concerns were raised in the Commerce Committee by my colleague Clayton Cosgrove the select committee agreed to add a provision requiring credit card statements to include a prescribed warning about minimum repayments. That also seems like a simple thing but it actually is really quite important. That was added due to the hard work being done by members on this side of the House to make provisions that would actually be more effective.Labour also raised concerns at the select committee about those truck shop lenders. As a result the definition of “business premises” was expanded under clause 9 of the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Amendment Bill to include “a vehicle stand or stall from which goods are offered or exposed for sale or from which goods may be ordered if those goods may be sold under a credit sale.”Those measures are really important but as we have heard tonight the big gap in this legislation is the failure to include interest rate caps for third-tier lenders. If we had been able to include that in this legislation we would have made a huge difference in this country tonight to those communities throughout New Zealand that are really struggling and where there is extreme poverty. Unfortunately we could not go that far because on the Government side of the House for whatever ideological reason—or for the reason that those members were captured by some group—we could not actually manage it.I have said in this House previously when speaking on this legislation that I predict we will be back in this House within 2 years and we will be making changes to include interest rate caps. I stand here tonight giving that commitment because I know that we will do whatever we can to get this legislation changed to include a provision that has interest rate caps on it. Just as so many other countries in the world have such a provision we must have that provision in order for this legislation to be truly effective.Tonight I want to acknowledge the work done by Carol Beaumont my colleague on this bill. Without her hard work we would not have the legislation here in the state that it is in tonight. I know that the officials worked very hard. I am very pleased to commend this bill to the House.