Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National): The deep irony of hearing Mr Stuart Nash talk about the Labour Party as a friendly society is I am sure not lost on the House. Friendly societies are I think it would be fair to say slightly strange beasts within our financial framework and the regulation of clubs and societies. There are not many of them left—there are about 20—but those that are left have quite significant assets. Actually in my part of the world the Upper Hutt Cosmopolitan Club is a friendly society interestingly enough. I think one in eight people who live in Upper Hutt is a member of the cossie club". I know Chris Hipkins the shadow leader of the House is a long-term member there. It plays a significant role in the Upper Hutt community. That actually is a friendly society.I know from some of my dealings with the "cossie club" that the legislation that governs it is outdated frankly. It is anachronistic it is outmoded and it needs reform. The issue that it has been dealing with is unrelated to the financial oversight that this bill deals with but it is generally true to say of friendly societies generally. So this bill is I think a good step forward.It seems to me that there are basically three types of members' bills. There are the sorts of political bills that are basically put up and have no real prospect of passing. The title of the bill is often the hit that the member is trying to get. There are sort of conscience issues—your classic is marriage equality or something like euthanasia and there is a bill on the ballot for that now and we had marriage equality in the last Parliament.Then there are what I would characterise as the dull but worthy members' bills. I do not mean any disrespect to the member Stuart Smith but they are the sorts of bills that are probably not going to encourage hundreds or thousands of submissions to a select committee; they are the types of bills that encourage learned submissions from people who know what they are talking about. I would put this bill in that category. It is a dull but worthy bill and they make sometimes significant but important improvements to legislation that is important.In giving the speech before Mr Nash talked about how some of these provisions—and I think maybe all of these provisions—were part of a Government bill one of the regulatory improvements bills. Mr Nash seemed to find it "highly concerning" that these measures did not go through as Government legislation. Well I do not have a huge background in the history of that bill or indeed of this bill but I would venture to suggest to Mr Nash that the regulatory improvement bills that we pass in the House are generally for non-controversial tidy-ups of legislation or improvements to legislation—regulatory improvements; it is in the title—that are non-controversial and that everyone can agree on. Actually in the case of this particular bill and these provisions as the member who is in charge of the bill said in his first reading speech there is not actually consensus about it even amongst the friendly societies and credit unions. There are people who are opposed to it and I am sure that when the bill does go to the Finance and Expenditure Committee those credit unions will turn up and say that and they will say why. I am looking forward to hearing why that is.Actually it seems to me to be totally inappropriate for a bill like this to be part of a regulatory improvements bill which is meant to be as I say for non-controversial consensus improvements to legislation. It seems—Fletcher Tabuteau: It was in the bill.CHRIS BISHOP: It was in the bill. That is right Mr Tabuteau and I have just spent a minute explaining why it is now appropriate that it is not in the bill because there does seem to me to be some controversy about the changes.We have already heard from both members who have spoken so far that there are credit unions or friendly societies who are opposed to at least some of the changes. Actually there is quite a degree of complexity to the legislation. For example it allows credit unions to incorporate which brings them into line with other financial institutions. We might want to have a look at that at the select committee. Another change for example is bringing down the number of credit unions required to form an association. The current legislation says that there have to be seven. Well when you have got only 20 in the country that makes life quite difficult. The bill brings it down to two. Well we are going to want to test that in select committee as to whether or not that is an appropriate number. Two is—I suppose you could call it an association. It is not one but it is only one more than one obviously and so we will want to test that at select committee.This is a good bill. It deserves to be on members' day and I look forward to examining it at the Finance and Expenditure Committee."