Russell DeborahDr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn): This is an interesting bill and as my esteemed colleague the Hon Stuart Nash has said we will be supporting it through to select committee. And that's for good reason. It's an interesting idea and it's one that's worth having a very good look at—and a good-faith look at. We do think there are some concerns with the bill but we are engaging with the process in good faith. We do really want to examine what is going on with it whether we can make it better and whether we can make it work.It's an interesting thing with KiwiSaver. It's not just a retirement saving any more. We know that many young people use KiwiSaver as a way to save for a deposit on a first home and it's one of the ways that we can help people to get some security in their lives as Mr Hamish Walker did talk about in his opening speech. For my husband and I it was easy for us to opt in for our daughters—to opt in to KiwiSaver to give them that basis of savings to start saving for them and with them. And it does seem to be a shame that it is much much more difficult for foster parents who take on the role of parents as much as possible not to have the same fairly easy access to help their foster children. And of course foster parents do so out of love. It's an extraordinary thing that foster parents do and I think they would do this out of good faith for their foster children. So I commend the idea of making it easier for foster parents to opt in to KiwiSaver with their foster children.I'm particularly interested in some of the clauses in the bill which talk about 16- and 17-year-old children who cannot opt in directly by themselves but can do it in conjunction with one of their foster parents. To me that gives a degree of autonomy to 16- and 17-year-olds. It recognises that they are on their way to adulthood. So that's a very interesting provision and I'm delighted to see it in the bill.For someone who is less than 16 years old they need to get their foster parent and one of the carers from Child Young Persons and their Families Act or guardians or so on to sign in for them and that does seem to me to be appropriate as well—that people who are still really children do need to get two adults to sign in for them. So I find that an interesting way of structuring it.What worries me is changing circumstances. Look it may be the case that foster parents—one set of foster parents—may sign a young person into KiwiSaver but circumstances change. Perhaps the foster parents lose jobs. Perhaps sadly the relationship comes apart. We know that foster caring relationships come to an end. And then they might be committed to a KiwiSaver fund that they can no longer fund themselves. But of course the same thing happens with ordinary parents anyway—so those circumstances would be the same.But I think the more pressing worry is the extent to which fees on KiwiSaver accounts could erode savings that have been made in the name of the young person. Now there are of course low-fee providers and there is this generous offer from Simplicity KiwiSaver to charge no fees. I wonder if other KiwiSaver funds might also make the same offer especially with respect to foster children.Debate interrupted.Sitting suspended from 10 p.m. to 9 a.m. (Thursday)