Patterson MarkMARK PATTERSON (NZ First) on behalf of Darroch Ball (NZ First): Mr Assistant Speaker thank you. Look can I start by thanking everyone that has contributed to this debate for the constructive nature of that—you know the criticism and feedback—and for the positive intent recognising the underlying issue and being prepared to back this through to the select committee so that we can iron out any wrinkles that we may have identified.I just would like to pick up on the last comment by Hamish Walker. It was one that I was going to lead off with myself and it was actually one that was brought up to me on the weekend by Barbara Kuriger in a discussion about taking the politics out of this M. bovis situation. This has been a major biosecurity breach. There has been a failing of the National Animal Identification and Tracking system. There have been some elements of our response through the Ministry for Primary Industries that haven't been as good as we would like under pressure in real time. But I don't think it does us any credit actually as a Parliament to be squabbling and bickering over that at this time. Those farmers as those previous members know are under huge pressure. They are looking to us for leadership not for political point-scoring. We will do the background we will do the research and learn the lessons but now is not the time I think to be having this debate.Just a couple of issues—I would like to make a reflection on some of the points that have been made. In terms of this being sort of almost at the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff stage I think there's a pre-emptive nature to this. Just the fact that there is this debt mediation mechanism that will be there actually puts some onus on the banks or the lenders at the start of that process to make sure that they're absolutely doing the right thing. Farmers often have a lot of equity that banks can see as an easy target to get money out there to get it earning interest for them and their shareholders and I think it is just a wee check and balance on them—that this may come back and that in the cold hard light of day when they're under genuine scrutiny from people that actually understand these things if there are practices that aren't appropriate they will be exposed. The other side of things is it actually gives the opportunity for an honourable exit. In the case I made of the family that had been on their farm for 150 years they ended up—I won't even recount it in the House. It was in horrific circumstances with the bailiffs turning up. What has been as I've gotten into this and gotten into the case studies is there is this secondary tier of lenders that are out there. They are genuinely predatory in my view. There may be a place for them but there needs to be some more oversight over them and I think that this bill may prevent people going to that step out of desperation. It might be just that circuit-breaker for them to take a step back and not make another bad decision on the way to those bailiffs turning up and sending them out the door with nothing more than a second-hand car and the clothes on their back. This is not all about saving the farm and exonerating business risk. It's totally not about that. This is about putting in another layer adding some dignity and just putting another mechanism in place that can add some comfort and some peace of mind. I note the level of debt—there was a little bit of a dispute about that on the Opposition benches. The Reserve Bank makes it very clear that the level of farm debt is of concern to New Zealand's financial stability. The fact that Australia has brought in this legislation—they're a country that faces a very similar situation and they have a large agriculture sector as well that is open to a lot of climatic risk commodity risk. They have seen fit to put this legislation in place. Often the same banks are at play so I can't see why we would not provide the same level of protection for our farmers as the Australians have done for theirs. Agriculture is part of that as are forestry fisheries orchards—a whole lot. It's not just pasture agriculture. To the point about the select committee—as a new member I'm taking advice on that but that's where it sits at the moment. But thank you to the House for your support with this bill. Thank you.Bill read a first time. Bill referred to the Economic Development Science and Innovation Committee.