Coffey TamatiTAMATI COFFEY (Labour—Waiariki): Thank you very much Madam Assistant Speaker. To all of the New Zealanders that are out there right now watching us they probably think that this is the ideal Parliament. We're both sides of the House we both agree we're both putting our best into the select committee process and both agreeing with the piece of legislation going forward. And that's exactly what the case is right here.I'm happy to be standing here—the third reading now for the Friendly Societies and Credit Unions (Regulatory Improvements) Amendment Bill. This here is a triumph for the member as has so aptly been talked about this afternoon. Thank you Stuart Smith my colleague for putting this through. It's also a triumph for our select committee the Finance and Expenditure Committee. I also want to acknowledge the work of Duncan Webb one of my colleagues who did a pretty stunning job in terms of carrying the load on this one with his detailed analysis of the bill in his contribution into that too.But this is also a triumph for democracy. This is how it works right? We actually listen to our communities they put forward suggestions we come up with a piece of legislation we invite submissions we go through the select committee process and we get to this point where we're able to put forward a pretty solid piece of legislation as a contribution into the law books. So it's a great piece of legislation. This Government supports the bill. The Opposition supports the bill. This is something that when the—Barbara Kuriger: It is an Opposition bill.TAMATI COFFEY: —the submissions taking—what was that?Barbara Kuriger: It was an Opposition bill.TAMATI COFFEY: An Opposition—Hon Member: It's a member's bill.TAMATI COFFEY: It is a member's bill. And this is a bill that was well needed. The call from a lot of our submitters when they came and presented to the committee was that it was in need of modernisation. Those people that work in the friendly societies and the credit unions out there across the country were very keen and very supportive for us as a select committee to be hearing their concerns and that we did. We sat there through many submissions. We had 20 written submissions 24 that actually presented; 13 of them made oral submissions and most of the submitters actually supported the bill. The majority of the credit unions that submitted also supported the bill. So it was pretty good.I just want to take this opportunity to talk about Supplementary Order Paper 40 that was submitted in the name of one of my colleagues David Seymour. This was something that he put forward because he thought that it was needed. He was wanting to amend the bill to allow unincorporated credit unions to operate. He thought that that was the right way to go. He claimed that the cost of incorporation was going to be a crippling factor to some credit unions. Well during the select committee process we actually canvassed some of the other members who actually disagreed with his point of view too. So his amendments were not agreed to. He was outvoted—just like his dancing career was earlier this week but I digress.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): That's a little uncalled for.TAMATI COFFEY: Apologies Madam Assistant Speaker. Let's drill down into some of the nuts and bolts of this particular piece of legislation. This bill is going to allow friendly societies to offer securities to their members which would allow them to raise additional funds to meet their minimum capital requirements. This bill is also going to put in provision for the incorporation of credit unions. It's going to create requirements for credit unions to retain their mutuality. And I can't say this enough. This was something that a lot of our submitters were very passionate about; making sure that credit unions retain their mutuality it was very important to them for a lot of these organisations. That's where the whole credit union movement started. It was based on this idea of mutuality and they were very keen to ensure that any future incarnation of the legislation retained that mutuality.Also the bill is making sure that we have the ability for High Court powers to be able to do their thing if there was any organisation that was acting contrary to the Act or its rules. One of the biggest parts which I was most excited about too was the credit unions were submitting saying that they really wanted to make loans to enterprises related to their members. They made the point that it was happening anyway; they were just finding a way to kind of circumvent the process. But this actually makes it nice and clear. It creates a process whereby credit unions are indeed able to make loans to enterprises related to members. And that is actually a triumph for the small and medium businesses out there that are linked into credit unions that sometimes find it a bit hard to raise the kind of capital that it takes to be able to operate your small business especially when you're just starting out. So the ability for credit unions to be able to do that is huge needless to say. And it also allows credit unions the ability to provide services to non-members as well.As I say my colleague Stuart Smith from the other side of the House has put this forward as a bill that is going to modernise the friendly societies and credit union sector. There are 194000 people spread out across Aotearoa that belong to either credit unions or building societies. So they will be all very happy I'm sure to hear about the progress of this bill through the House—the fact that we as a committee actually opened our ears we listened to the submissions and we stand here united as a House actually putting this piece of legislation forward. I have no problems in supporting this bill.