Russell DeborahDr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn): Mr Assistant Speaker I wonder if you'd just excuse me for one particular aspect of my speaking tonight. I got back to my office earlier on this evening to get a call from someone who rang me up specifically for the purpose of criticising me for speaking with my hand on my hip. So I'm doubling down on that. It probably won't last; maybe I'll adopt the David Carter posture.There is a particular aspect of this bill I wish to speak to and I want to start with the whole ethos of credit unions. I had this ethos taught to me actually very early on in my time as a member of Parliament before I was even on the Finance and Expenditure Committee. Credit Union Auckland contacted me and asked whether I would come out for a meeting. That was my first real introduction to what credit unions are about and they told me the ethos of a credit union: it was people helping people. It was about the small guys the little people helping each other.Kieran McAnulty: Just like Labour.Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: That's right. Just like Labour. Thank you very much Mr McAnulty. So I thought this a really interesting ethos but then as he talked to me a little bit more I found out about some of the things that credit unions do. Credit unions will open bank accounts for people with virtually no money. Credit unions will open bank accounts for beneficiaries. They will open them for people who are coming out of prison. They will open accounts that operate like bank accounts for people that the banks won't go near. So they fill a very real niche in our communities. They are genuinely there for the little people. I think that is why we want to look after credit unions to enable them to survive and to flourish in the modern world because they do have that core of helping people at their heart.This was reiterated to me by the Westforce Credit Union. I listened to Victor Martick from the Westforce Credit Union with particular care because the Westforce Credit Union is right next door to my office in Avondale so they are my near neighbours. I've had a long talk to Victor and he had one particular concern about this legislation and it was the issue on which many of the people who submitted were divided. Now as Mr Carter told us there are 13 credit unions in this country and they seemed almost evenly divided on this bill in some aspects it sought and some that didn't. The issue was around mutuality. They felt that being incorporated would take them away from the idea of mutuality—the idea that they were a group of people looking after each other and assisting each other. So as a committee we listened really hard to that because we could see the real merits of this legislation we could see what the changes were trying to achieve and we didn't want it to get stopped by this one problem that was being raised by so many of the credit unions themselves. So as a committee we agreed—mutually—to put in place a new clause a new object of credit unions and it is there to reassure the credit unions who raised this very issue with us who were actually concerned that they might lose mutuality.Now technically according to law they wouldn't have but we could see they wanted that assurance that credit unions were about people helping people they were about the members helping each other and they were about mutuality. So it's sitting there now in clause 15 of the bill which amends section 101 of the Act. New section 101(1AA) states A credit union is to operate on the basis of this Act for the mutual benefit and assistance of its members." It's right there for their reassurance.A final thought: the select committee operated with great mutuality as well with members helping members. May I commend Stuart Smith and also my colleague Duncan Webb who engaged in quite a bit of mutuality helping each other there to sort out some of the aspects of this bill. It was for me a very enjoyable experience working on this bill. So often we're fractious; this time we weren't. It was a tremendous experience. I'd also like to commend the officials from the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment who I think are very attached to their credit union legislation and they took great care with getting it right for the sake of credit unions. I commend this bill to the House."