Leary IngridINGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): It's a real privilege to get the final word on this small mighty and I believe really important bill because it is not a brainwave from Dr Duncan Webb as has been described; it's actually something that the business sector and social enterprise sector have called for for years. What it does is it bridges the gap between the current business models of profit and not-for-profit because the world as we understand it now is quite different from when the Companies Act was introduced in 1993. To suggest that there is no problem is to suggest that we have infinite resources and that we have no issues around inequality.Social enterprise is a word that I would use instead of B companies". It is companies that look at social profit as one of their considerations. There's a whole spectrum from socially motivated companies through to those that simply take that into account. What this legislation does mean is that instead of those companies then being forced to be a not-for-profit they can continue to operate with the savvy and the fiscal discipline of a profit-making company but taking into account things that exist in the circular economy taking into account environmental social and governance considerations. I think we have a duty as a Government in this environment of climate change and of inequality to provide incentives and nudges and certainly this bill does this but not in a way that requires companies to take these matters into account. It certainly isn't mandatory and I would never go so far as to suggest that. I think the Greens are dreaming if they think that is able to be achieved because that really does open a Pandora's box; the not-for-profit sector is better for that. What it does as many of my colleagues have said is it means that company directors are no longer in the straitjacket of having to put profit maximisation first. We can see that regardless of what the Opposition say that does come into account sometimes in the risk mitigations that companies take where they take shortcuts—we've seen that with oil spills with all sorts of issues where the profit has come at the cost of the environment—but also there's an assumption from Andrew Bayly that consumers always do the right thing. They may want to but many of our people are struggling with the cost of living and they will go for the cheapest option regardless of what they think is the right thing to do so I think it's inaccurate to say that consumers are always motivated and act on those motivations.There are also assumptions from people around the role of the law in this that the law is somehow devoid of politics—that's a different jurisprudence than I follow; that's why I left the law. Everything is political and to suggest that there are unintended consequences that haven't been thought through by the law firms I have to look at who their clients are and who pays their bills. What this law does as Angela Roberts said is it's an enabler. Currently companies are in a straitjacket and where there is profit and social profit—these are no mutually exclusive so yes companies can take that into account. But where they are mutually exclusive what this does is it enables company directors to actually have regard for these other very important factors that were not appreciated as being so important back in 1993.It is a great bill; it is a game-changer. I commend it to the House."