Tremain Chris: Financial Advisers Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Tremain Chris: Financial Advisers Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 23 September 2008. Volume:650;Page:18984. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CHRIS TREMAIN (National—Napier) 
: 
 I want to pick up on what the Minister was speaking about during the commencement of her speech. She felt that the process she had undertaken had been a good one in terms of spreading quite a large net in a catch-all situation and then expecting people to put their hands up to say: “No leave us out of this process.” I want to discuss it in terms of the danger of bureaucracy which is something National bangs on about in terms of bureaucracy creep and getting down to people who should not be involved in unnecessary regulation. I guess no more can it be said for the budget advisory community which is referred to quite well in clause 12(k) whereby budget advisers are exempt under the auspices of this legislation. I think it is important to understand that initially budget advisers clearly came within the catch-all of the Act. As the Minister has quite rightly said these are the people in our communities who deal with people who do not have a lot of money such as beneficiaries who might have only a couple of hundred dollars week in week out to work with. I am talking about citizens advice bureaus and in my own electorate of Napier the Napier budget advisory service that is run by two or three volunteers who sit up there in Community House. I am talking about the Napier Family Centre budgeting service which has a number of volunteer budgetary advisory people.  
They deal with members of our community who do not have a lot of money to rub together. We are not talking about the investment of life-savings of $20000 $300000 or $400000 into different investment categories. We are talking about people who have had a pretty tough life and are struggling to make the best of $200 or $300. This bill initially looked to encapsulate the budget advisers within the legislation and to put regulation around them. Funnily enough one of the first submissions that came to the table was from the budget advisory association. This association supported the legislation and said that its members should be a part of the additional regulation. I could not believe it but that is what it said. But back in our electorate offices we were getting visits from budget adviser volunteers saying: “Crikey we don’t need this sort of regulation. If we have to be accredited it’s going to mean that we will need continuing professional development and there will be costs involved.” Quite frankly a whole lot of volunteers will leave this service and it will not be available to some of these hard-working Kiwis.  
Then the Minister said she was keen to get rid of it. But actually I say to the Minister one of the first amendments to the clause that came back from the officials was that budget advisory services would be exempt but only those funded by the Ministry of Social Development. I do not know whether the Minister remembers that particular clause but that is what came back from the officials in the first instance. It was the National members of the committee I have to say who put up their hands and said: “Look this will get rid of all the people who are involved in the voluntary sector.” As long as it is not for profit that clause has to change. We felt it was important that the voluntary sector was exempted totally and I am pleased to see that happen.  
People often bang on about National going on about bureaucracy but this is the type of bureaucratic creep that we get through this type of legislation and that is just crazy. Certainly it is not necessary for volunteers in the voluntary sector.  
I will give another good example. I was up in Mahia the other day with the volunteer firefighters. Volunteer firefighters are now required to have New Zealand Qualifications Authority qualifications for goodness’ sake! We are almost getting rid of the good Samaritan opportunities in our community and that is just crazy. We have to make sure that we allow volunteers whether they be budget advisers or firefighters to continue to do their work without massive bureaucratic creep and without additional costs. It is important that the officials consider those volunteers out there and the work they are doing and that they do not unduly bring a whole lot of additional bureaucracy into it. I saw that happening firstly with the budget advisers. We are not axing them. We will take out only the budget advisers who are funded by the Ministry of Social Development and then finally all budget advisers will be totally exempt. Thank you Mr Chair. 
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 253 in the name of the Hon Lianne Dalziel to Part 2 be agreed to. 
Amendments agreed to. 
Part 2 as amended agreed to.