Leary Ingrid; O'Connor GregINGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): It's a great privilege to stand here and speak about the Cullen fund as somebody who whakapapas politically to that great man Sir Michael Cullen who was the MP for St Kilda electorate which became Dunedin South and then in turn became Taieri. So I'm sure he is smiling upon us today seeing the collaboration across the House and also perhaps giving his nod of approval to the logical next step in the evolution of the fund which has matured and proven its track record.I'd like to speak on three things really. One is about the track record but also the fact that we probably do need to make this move to secure the sustainability of the fund and thirdly that we have mitigated the risks that might have presented in a way that I think we can step forward confidently. The fund was set up and the Act came in in 2001. In the South we are known for our fiscal prudence and certainly Sir Michael was. I think it was very foresighted not only to have the fund but also to have the section 59 caveat to manage the growth of the fund and the risks to ensure that it would reach a state where it could then take that next step which is where we are today. I've also seen having had the privilege of previously being the chair of the Finance and Expenditure Committee in the previous term the excellent stewardship of the Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation which gives me confidence that this is the right way forward.But we do actually need to do this as well. People have talked about our ageing population. That is one pressure on the fund. There was also even talk and in fact campaigning from National and ACT about wanting to raise the superannuation eligibility age to 67. So by taking this step we can at least put that conversation to bed for a while hopefully because certainly out and about in my electorate where 25 percent of the population are over the age of 60 that is the last thing that they want to hear. In fact if we look at Māori life expectancy which has an aggregate gap of seven years that puts that superannuation even further out of reach for some people who will never get to realise it.It is also about deepening our capital markets and I think that the risks around that have been managed. In fact if we look at capital markets we can have the investment lens but can also look geopolitically. The more resilient and self-sustaining we are the less we have to rely on other global big players in getting pulled in different directions. So there are really good resilience reasons why we would want to bolster this fund. The risks around perhaps the difference between public and private elements of investment have been very tidily cleaned up so that there would be no public reporting requirements into private companies and no public obligations.Two things I would like to speak on because they've come up in the debate. One is around ethical investing and certainly it is a growing practice in investing. I do think that having looked at the Superannuation Fund and having also interrogated while sitting on the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee some investment elements around investment into New Zealand—and looking at supply chain issues in particular—it is not always easy to see if ethical investing is occurring and to safeguard against that and that is why the Labour Party was working on modern slavery legislation. I have seen though that the frameworks with guardians of this fund—the Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation—are very robust and when issues come up they do tend to pick up on them very quickly. So there were good management controls over that.There has also been a discussion about what people seem to be perceiving as mutually exclusive ideas about high-return investing and social impact investing. While I agree it is not wise to be prescriptive in investing I do think those things are not necessarily mutually exclusive and I'd like to tip my hat to the man of the night the Hon James Shaw who had his valedictory because he certainly understands this area. It is a growing area where investment can be made that can have really good capital value for domestic markets can also achieve social purposes and can also maximise profit and I think we need to be aspirational but certainly not to legislate around that.So with those words and tipping my hat again to the late Sir Michael Cullen—that fantastic man who has created this visionary fund—it's been a pleasure to speak to it. I look forward to us taking this leap into a high-growth future. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): I call Tom Rutherford. I was looking for David MacLeod actually but he's not here.