Woodhouse Michael; Robertson GrantHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you Mr Chair. Part 3 is very important. In fact Part 2 was important as well and the fact that we seem to gloss over a number of parts in less than an hour for a reformation bill that is 30 years in the making I think is an interesting approach—[Acting Minister for Emergency Management's phone beeps] Is that something we need to be aware of? Do we need to evacuate the building? Is that a civil defence notification from the Minister?Hon Kris Faafoi: You're OK.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: I'm glad to hear that.I'm not sure I heard the Minister correctly but it seemed to me in his introductory comments that he was sort of downplaying the significance or importance of the monetary policy remit. One of the concerns I have had with the framework of this bill and the degree to which we are moving away from the principles of statutory independence of the Reserve Bank from the Minister is that we seem to be going in two directions that are both sort of counter to that. One is the Minister is having a quiet step-by-step level of influence over the Reserve Bank that I and my party are uncomfortable with and yet a distancing of this House from that scrutiny as well.So my first question as we discuss the process of the monetary policy remit and why he doesn't feel that this place has any role to play—I think Mr Bayly's Supplementary Order Paper requires it to be a confirmable instrument which I think is an underused form of scrutiny in our democracy. Does the Minister agree that a monetary policy remit is a significant instrument and does have potentially quite far-reaching implications for the bank and for the way our economy runs? And if so is it not appropriate for this place to have some oversight and potentially confirm it in the public interest?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): To repeat some of the comments I made in my introductory remarks the issue we've got here is the initial and most regular way in which a monetary policy remit will be created—it will be created by the Minister signing that issuing that negotiating and discussing it obviously with the Reserve Bank at the same time. The issue is that when the monetary policy remit was first created the issue of how to update it the decision was made that well perhaps an Order in Council could be used for that.As I said in my earlier remarks you then create two ways in which a monetary policy remit is created. It's not a question of the oversight of the House per se because in fact in the normal course of events the way in which a monetary policy remit is created does not have that. It has to be aligned with the rules on how to create and what it contains but in terms of the oversight of the House per se it was in fact an anomaly to have the Order in Council process for when you know there needed to be an amendment to it.There is plenty of opportunity for oversight and the member both as a Minister but also as a member of the Finance and Expenditure Committee is well aware of the many opportunities that members have to ask questions about monetary policy. But the truth of the matter is that the monetary policy remit is an agreement between the Government of the day and the Reserve Bank on the way in which the Reserve Bank does its job in terms of monetary policy as outlined in this bill. So I think there's a confusion about what the concern is here. If the concern here is around the way in which remits are created actually the normal course of events is not for the House to be involved.