Yule LawrenceLAWRENCE YULE (National—Tukituki): It's my pleasure to take a short call to support this bill the Credit Contracts Legislation Amendment Bill. In doing so I wish to thank the Hon Kris Faafoi again for bringing a piece of legislation to the House and again this side of the House is happy to support most of it. I come from a community that has had a variety of issues but also faces a variety of poverty. In parts of my community I completely regard these trucks that are selling things as a major scourge on people's ability to get ahead so I am happy to stand here today and support any change to the legislation. We hope through the select committee process that we can find some ground to address the concerns that have been raised including by my friend the Hon Paul Goldsmith. You see what happens is people at their most vulnerable end up getting into lending decisions that actually make them more vulnerable than they were when they started. The phrase that has been used which I concur with: when somebody has a crying baby and can't find food it doesn't actually matter what the interest rate cost is or in fact what the cost of setting up the loan is. They just need the money. Recently I was granted some leave from Parliament to attend a meeting of budget advisers in Hastings and they came from Hastings Napier Wairoa and Central Hawke's Bay. I told them that I supported this bill and I encouraged them to participate at the appropriate time in a select committee. Minister Faafoi I'm not sure whether it's going to the Finance and Expenditure Committee or the Economic Development Science and Innovation Committee—probably my preference is if it went to the Economic Development Science and Innovation Committee because that's what I'm on—that needs to be determined. But there will be submissions from a number of members of the public and people that try to help our most vulnerable. So what I was told at that meeting and what I've heard subsequently—and actually previously when I spent a day in Gisborne—was that there are big big issues about payday lending. In Gisborne an employer was telling me that as soon as somebody was signed up for a job even if it was short-term certain organisations would lend up to $1000 before they'd earned a cent on the fact that they were going to earn income and they would go out and buy televisions and food and other things. Equally I've been told in my own community about what I call interest rate rorts". We are supportive of the 100 percent cap regime which includes interest and fees. However I was reading an article that was in the media today where they talked about the risk of people taking out a loan that being paid back and then taking out another loan and another loan as a way of rorting the system. I think a challenge for the select committee and this Parliament—and it was alluded to by the Hon Paul Goldsmith—is that when we get to select committee and when we get to the next reading of this bill we make sure that we're not in some way making things worse for some people because what I've observed is we can set legislation in this Parliament but some people go out of their way to try and find ways around every single thing we try to do. So I stand here as a National MP with the support of my other colleagues who have agreed to support this on the basis that there is a real issue in my community with this type of lending and any effort that is made to improve it should be supported. We do want to make some suggestions in the select committee process because if we get this wrong we do run the risk of driving some of this lending underground—which can end up in an even worse situation than the one many of these people are currently in. So in supporting this bill this side of the House understands the credit and poverty trap issue. We may not have always agreed as to how it's been resolved but we'd like it to go to select committee. We would like it—Minister Faafoi—to go to a committee that's got some time to resolve this. Then we'd like it to be reported back and for people to have their say in the proper way because it's my view that we can make a real difference to our most vulnerable."