Gilmore Aaron: Westpac New Zealand Bill — Second Reading 
Gilmore Aaron: Westpac New Zealand Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:672;Page:18375] 
AARON GILMORE (National) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to rise and talk on the Westpac New Zealand Bill. In particular I will talk about a couple of things about Westpac and this bill’s application particularly for Christchurch. Not many people know that the Westpac building in Christchurch was one of the most heavily damaged buildings in the recent earthquake. Many of the staff were very much traumatised and worried about the result of that in terms of what it meant for their jobs. This bill has some really interesting things in it related to those people’s employment. All the people who were previously employed by Westpac Banking Corporation will be transferred through to Westpac New Zealand. That might not seem to be a big deal but I was talking to somebody who was in the Westpac building during the earthquake. That person knew about this bill and asked me that question so it was a pleasure to know a little bit about what this bill will mean for that person and to know that that person’s job will be retained. 
This is one of those neat little bills that tidy up things and put in place improvements to the fiduciary management of our assets in New Zealand. In New Zealand Westpac has been around for a very long time. It is a good corporate citizen. In my community on the east coast of Christchurch it does a very good job. It put in place a thing called the Care for our Coasts programme and it has to be a good thing to help clean up our beaches particularly given what we have been through. 
There has been a little bit of comment on the changes made by the Finance and Expenditure Committee during the select committee process. We received only one submission at the select committee and that was from the promoter of the bill. That seems to be a bit of a surprise. Given the number of customers that Westpac has there might have been thousands of submissions and worries for people but there were not. There was just the one submission from the promoter. That is a very strange circumstance I am told. That submission led to two very small technical changes to the bill which improved things a little bit I think. 
Westpac has a very long and proud tradition as I have pointed out. It is my own personal bank and it is the one I have had since I was 5 years old. 
Grant Robertson 
: Did you set it up? 
AARON GILMORE 
: I was very pleased when I was 5 years old to open my first bank account with Westpac. I must admit that—unlike Mr Robertson—this bill does not deal just with personal retail banking; it also deals with corporate banking on a large scale. 
In terms of people’s assets they are completely protected and large assets are being transferred through. A cap of $15 billion is being put in place. That has to be a really good thing. It will make sure that no concerns or worries exist. 
Given the lack of real interest in this bill—which I was surprised about—and the uncontroversial nature of this bill before Parliament it just shows us what a good job people have done on it. That also shows us what a good job Craig Foss the member who brought this bill to the House has done as well. It shows us that he is very good as a select committee chair as is the deputy chair Ms Adams who also does a good job. Our whole select committee has done a wonderful job in bringing this bill through the select committee process. From many perspectives we have made a good team effort and that does not happen very often in our select committee. We are often at loggerheads when debating some of the technicalities of finance. Here is a good finance bill that everybody was in agreement on and that does not happen very often. I think we should be commended for that. I will sit down. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.