Hipkins ChrisCHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): I am very pleased to take my first call on the Regulatory Systems (Commercial Matters) Amendment Bill—Sue Moroney: One of many.CHRIS HIPKINS: —the first of many—and we are on Part 1. I want to express a little concern first of all that within Part 1 we are amending 12 different Acts. Just in terms of drafting—it is a little hobby horse that I have—I hate it when we have these omnibus bills that are all drafted in a single Part that amends multiple different Acts. I think they would get better scrutiny and more concise scrutiny if the debate followed a slightly more structured form—so if we went through each of the parts you know one at a time or with each of the enactments being amended one at a time which is not allowed for in the way that this is drafted.But I also suspect that I have spotted a typo and I would like to get some assurance from the Minister in charge because it is a typo that potentially changes the meaning of a clause within this bill. It is in new section 147A inserted by clause 100 which deals with credit unions and the Friendly Societies and Credit Unions Act. The purpose of this subpart is to allow those societies to meet electronically—so rather than having to have a general meeting in which there is a vote they can do it through online voting and that is a very sensible change. But the rest of the provisions apply only—as I read them—to credit unions rather than to friendly societies.If you look at new section 147A Meetings may be held using audio audio and visual or electronic communication" in clause 100 the wording of this clause is: "The rules of a registered society or branch or of a credit union may [etc. etc.]." I suspect—and I may be wrong—that there is an extra "or" in there and that is actually quite important because it potentially extends the scope of this particular provision beyond what it was intended to cover. My reading of it was that it was supposed to cover only credit unions and not any registered society or branch. If it was covering any registered society or branch the application is potentially significantly wider than one might anticipate. So I guess my question to the Minister in the chair is whether that is an extra "or" that was not intended in which case presumably it is a reasonably easy thing to fix.The second part that I wanted to ask a question on is the changes to the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Act of 2001. This bill inserts new functions for the Retirement Commissioner that I suspect will be most welcome because certainly the role of the Retirement Commissioner has expanded from when that office was first established. The Retirement Commissioner is now taking on a wider role around encouraging New Zealanders to be good with money—basically to save to think of the future to pay back debt and so on—and these are things that were not explicit within the mandate of the Retirement Commissioner.So if we go back to the provisions that we are amending here around what the functions of the commissioner were it was pretty narrowly confined specifically to superannuation and to reporting particularly to the Government on the sustainability of superannuation. I can see the Minister in the chair Nikki Kaye has got a speech that she just cannot wait to get stuck into around superannuation because some of the questions that I am about to ask will I am sure give her plenty of material to work with.Under new section 83(db) in clause 116(1) one of the new functions that the Retirement Commissioner is going to be given is "to advise on financial capability issues when requested to do so by the Minister:" but it does not specify whose financial capability issues the Retirement Commissioner is to report on. So is it the financial capability issues of members of the public or is it the financial capability issues of the Minister and the Government for example? One of the questions for example could be: does the Government have the financial capability to meet its commitments under the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Act of 2001 or is it that they are being asked to advise the Minister on the financial capability of members of the public when it comes to say supporting their own retirement and their own savings for retirement? So really my question there is: when the clause refers to financial capability issues but is not specific about whose financial capability issues are to be reported on how is that section to be interpreted?Also new section 83(da) in clause 116(1) inserts new functions for the Retirement Commissioner "to promote education and publish information about financial matters to assist individuals to make financial decisions confidently and informedly:". One of the very successful programmes that the Retirement Commissioner has been running in recent years is the Sorted.org.nz website which provides a whole range of tools that people can use to assess all sorts of matters relating to their personal finances—whether it is the length of time it is going to take them to repay their mortgage and how they might save that by shortening the period of time and so on. They do that outside effectively the scope that they have within the existing functions in the original Act so updating the Act to reflect that will be very good.One of the things that I would like to see the Retirement Commissioner doing a lot more of and I hope the insertion of this provision will allow them to do so is a lot more work in schools because one of the things that has been raised with me regularly as the Labour Party education spokesperson—and I am sure it has been raised with members all around the House—is financial literacy in schools and the desire of members of the public to see a much greater focus on financial literacy in schools. It seems to me that we cannot expect every school and every teacher to account for every possible thing that we would want children to learn but the Retirement Commissioner could certainly play a role here in supplying to schools the resources that might be able to assist them to ensure that young New Zealanders have a much greater degree of financial literacy than they do now. So my question I guess to the Minister is: is that the type of activity that the Retirement Commissioner might be expected to pick up under these new provisions that are being inserted by this bill?I guess there are three questions—to summarise—because the nature of this debate is that we are sort of chopping and changing around different provisions within Part 1. But my three questions are: is the "or" intended or is it an errant "or" in new section 147A: in clause 100? The second question is when it comes to new section 83(db) in clause 116 whose financial capability issues can the Retirement Commissioner report upon—is that simply anybody? Then when it comes to new section 83(da) in clause 116(1) would things like financial literacy within schools be encapsulated within that broader remit for the Retirement Commissioner? I think that is something that would be very welcome."