Patterson MarkMARK PATTERSON (NZ First): Thank you Madam Chair. It is a great pleasure for me to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak in this committee stage of what has been a longstanding New Zealand First policy and I do thank the members from across the House that have acknowledged that. Our interest in this legislation goes back to 1999 and I note that at stage there was $11.5 billion of rural debt. The context in which we're debating this is now around $63 billion of rural debt which is a material sum which is even identified by the Reserve Bank as a risk to our economy should it go bad for whatever reason.The wider context and I guess the predictable politics is that the Opposition will try to sheet this home to a particular set of policies but as I say this is a longstanding New Zealand First position. Actually the context that we're actually bringing this in is farming doing exceptionally well. We see Fonterra lifting its forward predictions for payouts in around that $7 region for next year the lamb schedule sitting at $9 a kilo at the moment—unprecedented levels. I was talking to a farmer yesterday that had just sent his cull ewes off to the works. At $6.60 per kilo he got $230 for some cull ewes. Just for those people that are not so familiar with farming four or five years ago they may have been worth $50 or $60. So it is a material lift. And of course we've got generationally low interest rates.So it is within that backdrop that we do bring this in. This is a pre-emptive measure. But when we look at things that can go a little bit pear-shaped we don't have to look too far back. The dairy payout was sitting in the middle part of this decade at around $8.50 and it plummeted to $4.50 putting absolute pressure on our farmers. Of course this is the reason for this bill. So much of what we are dealing with here is outside of individual farmers' control: Psa M. bovis drought fires.Of course with the banks—the banks are putting the squeeze on and we note that the banks have entered into this in good faith. They had preferred a voluntary code; we have decided to go with a formal code. But it's not that long ago that we were dealing with the credit fault swaps scenario that did see the banks have to pay out compensation.So this bill is to redress a power imbalance that exists between powerful multinational—in many cases—lenders and farmers who have got themselves into a degree of financial difficulty. The actual core of the bill is to bring a mediation step in there before farmers get to the bottom of the cliff. So within that in addressing this power imbalance we have this mediation bill come forward. The template is the New South Wales bill that has been so successful.What I wish to bring to Minister Damien O'Connor's attention and seek some clarity on is around clause 57B because I have subsequent to the second reading had some farmers contact me that had been through this process and they were worried about clause 57B and the bank's ability to seek an urgent court order through the High Court. Is the Minister satisfied that this won't be used as a mechanism to circumvent the intention of this bill which is to redress that power imbalance? So the bank with unlimited resources could just go to the High Court and seek this court order to bring forward under urgency a receivership. We know that the reason for that—and as outlined in the bill and as we went through in the Primary Production Committee—is that sometimes there are issues of animal welfare or sometimes there may be crops that need to be harvested to secure income for that year and that's a perfectly reasonable reason why the bank may need that mechanism and that's why we've put it in there as we went through the select committee. But there is some concern that has been reflected back to me that maybe the banks could use that as a bit of a get out of jail" to circumvent the intent of this bill which is to get mediation under way.So just in my final seconds I would actually like to commend the select committee. It was a really good process. I would commend the chairman who did conduct a very thorough cross-party examination of this bill and I think we have tidied it up into a good space. Thank you Madam Chair."