Lees-Galloway Iain: Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Amendment Bill Financial Service Providers (Registration and Dispute Resolution) Amendment Bill — Third ReadingsText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLees-Galloway Iain: Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Amendment Bill Financial Service Providers (Registration and Dispute Resolution) Amendment Bill — Third Readings[Sitting date: 27 May 2014. Volume:699;Page:18366. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): Labour is happy to support the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Amendment Bill and the Financial Service Providers (Registration and Dispute Resolution) Amendment Bill. It is legislation that goes a small way towards achieving some of the improvements to credit finance law that my colleague Carol Beaumont has been calling for for some time. Although we can all pat each other on the back this evening and can be pleased with a job reasonably well done this legislation is a pale imitation of what Carol Beaumont has been calling for and what Labour thinks needs to be achieved.What we are really disappointed in is just how long it has actually taken for the Government to take this issue seriously and to progress this legislation through the House. Chris Tremain mentioned that for a period of time he was in charge of this legislation as the Minister of Consumer Affairs. I do not know how many Ministers have held the consumer affairs portfolio whilst this legislation has crawled through the House.Hon Maryan Street: Lost count.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Well we have lost count actually but what we know is that this has not been a significant enough priority for this National Government because the people whom we are talking about here the people who suffer from this kind of predatory lending are the most vulnerable in society and they have never been a priority for that party on the other side of the House.Instead of supporting the Credit Reforms (Responsible Lending) Bill that Carol Beaumont brought to the House the National members voted against it. At the time National said that it was going to bring in comprehensive legislation. That was its reason for voting against Carol Beaumont’s bill—because it was going to do the same thing and it was going to do it much more comprehensively than what Labour was proposing. That was close to the beginning of the last term of Parliament. What we saw instead was a focus on a whole range of other things that have made life more difficult for the most vulnerable in society whilst this type of legislation has languished on the Order Paper for far too long.Many vulnerable consumers and many vulnerable citizens of New Zealand get trapped in cycles of debt and despair. A lot of people have been trapped in those cycles for far too long whilst this type of legislation has stayed on the backburner for the National Party. What we are seeing is that people who are on low incomes people whose real wages have gone backwards under this Government are unable now to afford what many of us take for granted as basics in life. Those things have become luxuries for a number of people and the only option available for them to enjoy those luxuries is often to go to a loan shark or to purchase from one of those awful things which I get an absolutely visceral reaction to every time I see them—Andrew Little: What Chris Finlayson?IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: No no—the house trucks. I see them prowling around our most vulnerable communities. They are prowling around seeking out the most vulnerable consumers and offering them a pipe dream that really seems too good to be true. Frankly what they offer is too good to be true. This legislation goes the tiniest little way towards reigning in some of those predatory practices but it is not enough. When Labour is in Government we will be addressing this issue properly. We will be dealing with these issues because we do care about our vulnerable communities. We do care about vulnerable families. We care about children growing up in poverty in families that are trapped in never-ending cycles of debt. We will make it a priority unlike the party opposite.