Beaumont Carol:Inquiries Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBeaumont Carol:Inquiries Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 21 August 2013. Volume:692;Page:12734. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour):It is a great pleasure standing to speak on Part 2 of the Inquiries Bill. As others have talked about the bill’s long gestation I do not really intend to cover that but I intend to look particularly at the matters contained in Part 2 “Establishment and membership of inquiry”. That includes the type of inquiry the matters to be specified in the instrument establishing the inquiry and then various matters to do with the removal and vacancies of membership.It interests me because I have to say that I have had very little experience of parliamentary inquiries that what this part says is that there will be three kinds of inquiry: a royal commission established under the authorities of the letters patent; public inquiries which are established by Order in Council—the bill states that “The Governor-General may by Order in Council establish a public inquiry …”—and Government inquiries which would be established by a Minister by notice in theGazette . One of the things that I am quite interested in and I am sure that many others in this Chamber who have much more experience with inquiries would be able to tell me is the difference between the last two: a public inquiry established by the Governor-General by Order in Council and a Government inquiry established by notice in theGazette by a Minister.But in both cases those latter two—a public inquiry and a Government inquiry—are established “for the purpose of inquiring into and reporting on any matter of public importance.” We all know that there are many matters of public importance that the public of New Zealand would be very interested in having inquiries into because the behaviour of this Government has been little short of shonky it has been underhand and it has been failing to take account of the views of New Zealanders. We have had many pieces of rushed legislation and many matters have been ignored.That leads me to look at whether a public inquiry established by the Governor-General by Order in Council or a Government inquiry established by notice inGazette by a Minister would be important in relation to a matter that I think is of great public importance. That is the issue of fringe lenders those people who prey on vulnerable New Zealanders and their families. I want to say why I think that is a matter of public importance. I think it is a matter of public importance because we have an issue that every member of this Committee knows is a problem. We all know there is a problem with fringe lenders. We all know that there are predatory lenders preying on vulnerable New Zealanders and their families. We all know there is a problem. The community knows there is a problem. The issue has been a live one.There was a review commenced in 2007 which continued with the change of Government but was then delayed by that new Government and put on the back-burner because another piece of legislation was seen as more important. That other piece of legislation the Consumer Law Reform Bill still languishes on the Order Paper. Meanwhile every day in this country more and more people are being hurt by predatory lenders. This is why I think that either a public inquiry or a Government inquiry is needed here. We are seeing people in spiralling cycles of debt we are seeing families lose property we are seeing people under enormous financial stress and this is all something that the Government could and should have done something about. This is why it is a matter of great public importance.The Government not only delayed the review that the last Labour Government set up and deprioritised legislative reform but also then went into the last election cynically saying that it was going to get tough on loan sharks. In November 2011 Simon Powersaid: “We’re getting tough on loan sharks.” There was a constant stream of National Party backbenchers referring to that in their speeches after that election. Not a single thing has been done to get tough on loan sharks as yet—not a single thing. That is an outrage and surely must be a matter that should be inquired into through either a public inquiry or a Government inquiry.Let me tell you that budget services throughout New Zealand are saying that the overwhelming majority of people they see—in the 90 percents—are burdened by high-interest debt. They are saying that the level of debt of those people is more significant now. They are saying that the complexity of those cases is much more difficult for them to deal with yet nothing is being done. There must be an inquiry into why the Government is allowing some of the most vulnerable New Zealanders to get into this spiral of financial hardship and debt. It is just unbelievable that a party could allow that to happen.