Jones Shane: Reserve Bank of New Zealand Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Jones Shane: Reserve Bank of New Zealand Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:634;Page:5962] 
SHANE JONES (Labour) 
: 
 Kia ora Madam Assistant Speaker. Greetings to the House— 
Lindsay Tisch 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. There is a format to follow when we are looking at— 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Yes—we just got it out of order with New Zealand First taking a call before the Labour speaker. Labour was next on the list. 
Lindsay Tisch 
: Well fourth on the list for speakers is National. If New Zealand First took Labour’s spot then it does not mean that Labour should come in ahead of National. The No. 4 call is a National call and Dr Lockwood Smith is ready to take that call. 
Tim Barnett 
: Madam Assistant Speaker my understanding was that Labour also went for that call and New Zealand First got the call. So now we go back to Labour and then to National. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: No I have called Shane Jones. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. Madam Assistant Speaker the order in which you take speakers in this Parliament is actually quite important. You chose to take New Zealand First second; that does not mean that you then call Labour. I went for the call immediately and you should have called me. It is important because members have engagements they have to attend. If you get the call order wrong you cause considerable difficulty for members. I insist that you give the call correctly to National. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: The position is that the order is a guide only and usually we are able to stick to it. It is a guide only and quite often it gets out of order. That is not uncommon and we try to get it back into order as much as we can for the next speaker. I have given the call; there is nothing that can be done about that unless the House by leave wants to change that. 
Lindsay Tisch 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. The order of calls is determined at the start of the parliamentary session. This is the 48th Parliament and we had earlier determined what the calls would be on the readings. Although calls can be transferred and are tradable between parties when we look at the schedule in front of us we see that National gets the fourth call. In this case New Zealand First took the call—you gave the call to one of its members before giving the next call to a Labour member—but that was not because we were not ready to take the call. Dr Smith was on his feet seeking a call when the fourth call came along and it was our entitlement to take that call. Otherwise he would have jumped up immediately following the previous speaker which was our own speaker John Key and gone for the call then. But we know that there is an order—there is some decorum here—and that is what we have been following. Now we find that you are giving a call out of sequence to another party. Madam Assistant Speaker you have made a ruling; we do not agree with it but I understand your ruling. I seek leave for Dr Lockwood Smith to be able to take the fourth call as determined by the Business Committee. 
Hone Harawira 
: Point of order Madam Speaker— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: I am sorry; leave has been sought and it must now be put then I can deal with your point of order. Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Hone Harawira 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I can suggest a way forward from this situation. To deal with the conflict between the speaker from Labour and the speaker from National you can simply follow the list. The last speaker was from New Zealand First and the Greens are not taking a call so that would make it my call. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: Well it was a good try. However the call has been given. 
SHANE JONES 
: Kia ora ano. I speak as the chairperson of the Finance and Expenditure Committee and I am sure that the deputy chairperson Dr Lockwood Smith will have very interesting things to say. At a time prior to the torrid bout of name-calling etc. we recently endured he might have got to speak before me. However that time is past. 
Firstly I will obviously speak in support of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Amendment Bill. As we heard during the course of our select committee proceedings we should not overlook the importance this bill represents in relation to the infrastructure between our economy our apparatus and that of the Australians. Naturally there was fear that the quality of our governance and our sovereignty might be compromised if our Reserve Bank could not continue to exercise a distinctive and independent level of prudential control and oversight in respect of banking infrastructure. So it was particularly pleasing to receive information and submissions in relation to the bill that that was not to be the case. Who knows what will happen as globalisation gathers pace and as we see the migration of investment further over to Australia. But I think that that trend can be overstated because there are always new shoots and new leaves growing on the tree of capitalism despite the attempts of John Key to deprecate diminish and doubt the quality of our Kiwi entrepreneurialism to replace the companies that are predated upon. 
Why are those companies being predated upon? Because of the surplus pool of funds they have as a consequence of the savings industry they have a bit of a head start on us. Of course the Government has a plan for that and we will soon see a surplus pool of funds arise as a consequence of the KiwiSaver Bill—but I will say more on that at another time. 
In relation to the proposed amendments I say that yes it is important that our regulators take account of their Aussie counterparts. I have to say in this House that we were assured the Australian legislature would not be indulging in its most famous sport which is “Aussie Rules” and that in actual fact we would see a statute come into being in the fullness of time that would be a mirror image—or something remarkably close—to what we are working on today. Of course it is a rather dim and troublesome thought to even utter the words “statutory manager” but coordination was received there. 
The final thing I have to say in relation to the Racing Bill is that we were reassured by officials from the racing industry about the concerns punters may have had in relation to how the rounding policy would be carried out. Firstly those concerns would be taken account of and secondly the punters who participate in the racing industry would not be left in a net negative position. If the rounding policy continued and amounts came down then the cost structure surrounding their industry would also come down so that there would be no net negative impact. I personally as chairperson of the committee along with various other members paid particular attention to those assurances because at the end of the day the committee has some very competent people and experienced parliamentarians—although the deputy chairperson may be in a slightly sour mood—and we have to trust the integrity and the quality of the advice we get. We were given advice from the racing industry that the punters would not be negatively impacted upon as a consequence of its rounding policy so I in particular will watch this space into the future. 
I wholeheartedly support the bill. The committee worked quite well in a collaborative sense—no doubt that was due in some part to the quality of the chairperson. Kia ora tatou.