McKelvie IanIAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. It's a privilege for me to speak on a bill that's come to the House the Friendly Societies and Credit Unions (Regulatory Improvements) Amendment Bill brought the House by Stuart Smith. I think he's fortunate to have drawn a bill out of the ballot really but it's also actually quite a complicated bill for a member's bill and I congratulate him on the work he's done on it. It was an interesting process for me as I knew little about credit unions going into this and I have to say I wasn't part of the committee at the time the submissions were taken so I've had to do a little study on my way through that. So I came into the deliberations a little later than most but none the less it was a very interesting process.I want to comment on a couple of comments that Jacqui Dean made earlier in her speech on this. When you think about New Zealand mutuals cooperatives credit unions building societies and that sort of organisation are hugely important to New Zealand. I think our isolation from the rest of the world and probably our lack of ability to protect ourselves from the wider corporate world probably makes them even more important. When you think about Jacqui Dean's speech about the deep South—well I don't think she termed it like that; I would call it the deep dark South. But if you think about the great cooperatives in New Zealand most of them originated in the deep South. You think about some of the bigger cooperatives like Ravensdown; Primary Producers Cooperative Society which is now Silver Fern Farms of course; the Alliance Group; the Farmers' Mutual Group; Farmlands which Lawrence Yule mightn't like also originated in the Outram Hotel although it did originate also in Hawke's Bay in Eskdale.So it's an interesting history that we have in New Zealand where we have this history of protecting ourselves. I think the great thing about mutuals cooperatives and credit unions and things like that is it protects the members. I think it was Gareth Hughes that mentioned the profits that the international banks make out of New Zealand every year. When you think about a credit union it retains all of that profit for the good of its members. That's the critical fact about those credit unions and the thing that I think is so important.I heard David Carter earlier mentioning the demutualisation of many of the big Australian mutuals and there was some fear among the submitters that that was a possibility that could happen as a result of this bill. When you think of the companies like AMP in its old days it was a mutual which held insurance policies basically for the good of its members. When it demutualised all of that—well not all of it but a good deal of the money that originally was for the benefit of those policyholders went to the shareholders who in some cases of course were the policyholders. But none the less it was very destructive and I think that we've learnt the lesson. History teaches a lot of lessons and that's a particular lesson that I think we learnt the hard way. I suppose if you think about many of our lines companies and smaller power companies in New Zealand which primarily were owned by local cooperatives they were then effectively demutualised their shares were paid out and they were sold to big corporates and we no longer own them either.These organisations are most important to New Zealand and hugely important to New Zealand's history and I also think they have a very real place to play in New Zealand society. So to see these credit unions effectively given the full powers of the banking community to act—within reason and of course for the good of their members—as a bank acts it certainly gives them the opportunity to grow the services that they provide to those members and this bill also I think effectively gives the credit unions a personality which then enables them probably in a lot of cases to attract better people to operate them and perhaps even better governance. So I think that will also improve the service to those members and obviously all the profit from the activities of those associations goes back to the members. So that's really important for the members of these credit unions as well.As I said I came into this process late. It was very interesting to follow the process of the bill and to understand exactly where it's got the credit unions to. I congratulate Stuart Smith and the select committee which I found—as Deborah Russell said—quite collegial. I thought the discussions on this bill were very collegial and it certainly worked well.So with those few words I was pleased to be part of the process. I look forward to the bill progressing through the House and congratulations Stuart Smith because I'm sure it's going to get there unanimously. Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker—very good.