McLellan TraceyDr TRACEY McLELLAN (Labour): Thank you Madam Speaker and thank you for the opportunity to make a few words and some observations about the District Court (Protecting Judgment Debtors on Main Benefit) Amendment Bill.I'd like to first acknowledge my colleague Dr Duncan Webb whose name this bill is under; and also acknowledge all of the work that my previous colleague Anahila Kanongata'a did as part of her suite of measures that she put in place through a couple of bills that she was very successful in with the theme of alleviating the pressures and the undue hardships that various people faced through no fault of their own often. She came up with these quite simple and quite functional ways of helping that reality.So it's very upsetting and quite disconcerting to hear that the Opposition aren't going to support this member's bill. I've listened to the debate and heard them talk about things like personal responsibility and incentivisation and Why would we do this?" The intention's good—everybody acknowledges the intentionality—but no one wants to necessarily take that further step and do something practical that helps someone.We heard my colleague from New Zealand First emphasise over and over again "What about the victims of crime?" Although that as Dr Deborah Russell acknowledged could make up part of some of these judgments or some of these attachment orders it's in the minority. It's worth a conversation though and that's why this should be supported to select committee—so that the Justice Committee can hear from people and can make those considerations about how to take this bill and perhaps turn it into something that adds some heft to it.While we're talking about personal responsibility we've heard from contributors today talking about "Well what about the responsibility for responsible lending?" Sometimes it's just one of those things where the quickest and easiest thing is always to blame the person at the bottom of the pile. What about their responsibility to make sure that people don't get into that debt? It's not saying that those debts are forgiven. It's not saying that those debts don't matter. It's just saying when we're dealing with people who by definition are already almost certainly receiving the least amount of money that you can possibly live on why would you take any more than 5 percent? Because vulnerability begets more vulnerability and there are numerous examples of how that works—it's something that spins out of control. Through no fault of someone—as my colleague Dr Webb when he opened his first contribution to this bill said—people can take out loans for instance under totally different circumstances. Maybe they had a job maybe they had circumstances in their lives that for all intents and purposes they fully intended to be able to service this debt. But sometimes bad things happen to good people and it's up to us to be able to put measures in place to provide those safety nets for people—of which this bill is one.So I'm very disappointed—this bill harms no one it's a step forward to making a positive contribution towards the livelihoods and the lives of people who often are the ones that are most vulnerable in our society—that the Opposition won't be supporting this through.However I think the previous speaker Rima Nakhle spoke of three reasons and tried to assume a catalogue of reasons as to why this wasn't being supported. But the theme that I've noticed through the Opposition's contributions today has been searching for excuses. None of it was particularly logical; none of it really stood out. The first contributor Mr Garcia spoke for about eight minutes before I realised he wasn't going to support the bill because he outlaid what was a pretty logical sort of argument in support. But even then they couldn't quite cross that threshold to do the right thing.So it's very disappointing but hopefully we will be able to continue this work and that the people on the other side of the House feel a little bit sad about the fact that they haven't been able to provide this support. Thank you."