McAnulty KieranKIERAN McANULTY (Labour): Thank you Mr Chair. Thank you very much. May I take the opportunity please at this only my second time speaking since my maiden speech to congratulate you in your ascension to this role as an Assistant Speaker. I am not just saying that because in doing so you then allowed me to become your previous role of junior whip. I assure you I am sincere—The CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): And the member needs to come to the bill. Ha ha!KIERAN McANULTY: This is indeed relevant sir. I would like to direct my comments today to Subpart 8. It alarms me how Subpart 8 has been overlooked throughout this debate up to now. This subpart sets out proposed amendments to friendly societies. Friendly society" is not a term that you could place upon the members in the Opposition benches. But of course it is the Friendly Societies and Credit Unions Act 1982. There are those in this House that were not born in 1982. I refer to myself the member for Pakuranga the list member based in Maungakiekie for the Green Party and I will come back to that—Hon Tracey Martin: There's another behind you.KIERAN McANULTY: There's a number behind me. I'll come back to that point later if you'll allow me sir.The Friendly Societies and Credit Unions Act 1982 is administered by the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment. It is an Act that consolidates and amends the law relating to friendly and certain other societies. It makes provisions for the formation and administration of credit unions.When I was elected I had a fear; I feared that I would have to stand in this House and talk at length about things that didn't matter but I'm so pleased to be able to stand here tonight and talk about something as interesting and as relevant as Subpart 8 of this Act. I take particular interest in this as there is a number of friendly societies in Wairarapa where I am based. Members of this House might be interested to know that Subpart 8 amends section 26 of the Friendly Societies and Credit Unions Act 1982.There's a couple of points here within this particularly within clause 66 that I'm interested in and I would like the opportunity to pose a couple of questions to the Minister. I do note that in new section 26(1A) it proposes three parts: "(a) delivering it personally to the society or branch;". I note that this actually makes minimal change to what is currently proposed. Now Mr Chair I note in the look that you are giving in this direction that perhaps you would like the two Ministers in front of me to keep their conversation quiet and perhaps I might take the opportunity to ask them to do so also. [Interruption] The CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Order!KIERAN McANULTY: Excuse me gentlemen you are taking up valuable time here. I'm trying to get through my speech. [Taps Minister on head] Where was I Mr Chair? Perhaps I should start again.New section 66(1A)(b) states "sending it by post to the usual or last known address of the society or branch;". Now I note that this allows for the fact that there might be a change in circumstances. I think that's fair. But let's look at "(c) emailing it to this society or branch at an email address that is used by the society or branch." It does not allow the same flexibility as (b). I note however that in the ministerial comments that were provided it does state that in New Zealand legislation the burden has always been on the intended recipient to prove a failure of delivery when communications were by post or fax and I congratulate the Minister on extending that out to email.I mentioned earlier that there are a number of us in this House that were not born in 1982 and therefore I raise concern around the mention of this fax. The member for Pakuranga and the list member based in Maungakiekie and myself may or may not know what a fax is and I wonder if the Minister would like to take some of the time of this committee to explain to us what a fax is.The point is that I actually congratulate the Minister on including that. Yes there might not be many people in this country that still use faxes but the point is that I come from a rural area and not everyone in rural areas has access to the internet. So I congratulate the Minister on allowing this archaic technology to remain in this bill because it sets a very clear message to people that you're not going to move away from those things that work now."