Webb DuncanDr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Well thank you very much Madam Speaker and kia ora to the last speaker Harete Hipango who put it really very well I thought. I've really got two things I wanted to say here today. The first is that this is a really good example of when we've got to intervene in people's free choice because obviously these arrangements that are entered into in many cases—well in all of those cases—the people enter into them apparently freely. Both debtor and creditor come together and the creditor is happy to offer loans at a thousand percent interest and it appears that the debtor is happy to take the money. Now that strange arrangement that most of us would think is absolutely you know nonsensical happens for a number of reasons. Probably the first one is the massive imbalance of power. At one end there's simply desperation that if someone can't get their kids to school because their car is broken and they need $300 then they put as anyone would getting that $300 ahead of the disaster that's looking at them down the road in terms of how they're going to repay that. The other thing is that we know that people actually in those kinds of situations strange though it may seem are optimistic. They think Oh well I'm sure I'll be able to work it out. I'll sort that out later. I'll be able to find the $600 in three weeks' time that I have to pay back the interest and the principal and all of the fees that have accumulated." So what we have there is the fact that people make erroneous decisions.As Ginny Andersen said there are predators out there. Some of those people the lenders look at that knowing that things are going to go bad—knowing that a high proportion of those loans are not going to be able to be effectively repaid. Quite apart from that to lend that money as Harete Hipango said is usurious. It is immoral. It is absolutely appalling to do that. So we have the Government stepping in in a number of ways to address that to address the power imbalance to address the poor decision-making that goes on the information asymmetry and all other kinds of market failures that occur in these instances. That's the first point I want to make about the appropriateness of market intervention here.The other real point I want to make is that this is a fantastic example of democracy. Minister Faafoi brought a great bill to the select committee—a bill that did a whole lot of good things in many many ways—but what happened at select committee was that there was a very strong voice from pretty much across the board from all of the consumers all of the consumer advocates. The only people who didn't like it were the profiteers to say that there should be an interest rate cap. To his eternal credit Minister Faafoi listened to that did further work took further advice and came out with a much stronger bill. There have been some reservations expressed across the other side of the House but I must say on this side of the House there's absolutely none. This is absolutely the right thing to do; 0.8 percent per day is still a very very large interest rate. I find it flabbergasting that there are lenders out there that tell us they can't make money at 0.8 percent per day.Simeon Brown: It's not about the money. It becomes a target.Dr DUNCAN WEBB: If they can't make money if they can't run their businesses in that situation then—look Mr Brown I can tell you that I went to a lender. It was a great trip with the Hon David Carter. We sat down for over an hour and they told us that one aspect of their lending their short-term lending they would simply shut down because at these rates they wouldn't be able to make the money they need to make it worthwhile. Now to me that's not a bad thing because what we also heard through the evidence was that in fact—whilst people might desperately need this money in the short term—when one stands back the debt spiral that people get into is absolutely catastrophic. So in the wider scheme of things prohibiting this kind of money at absolutely usurious interest rates is the right thing to do.In terms of the democracy—to come back to my point—it was outstanding to see a well-organised carefully thought-out elegantly presented campaign marshalled by Tim Barnett ex-MP for that fabulous electorate Christchurch Central and a very good advocate for FinCap and a whole lot of other people and it worked. Not some huge lobbyist just a group of passionate people who had something relevant to say and something to say in a well-thought-out way turned it around got a result that's better—better for all of New Zealand. So with those two points that's really all I want to say. This is a bill that makes our finance and lending law stronger for everyone. I commend it to the House.Amendments recommended by the Finance and Expenditure Committee by majority agreed to.Bill read a second time."