Bishop Chris: Keep Kiwibank Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBishop Chris: Keep Kiwibank Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 14 October 2015. Volume:709;Page:7265. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CHRIS BISHOP (National): Well the National Party is not voting for this bill. We do not support it. So that was a challenge that was laid down and a challenge that was accepted. We are not voting for the bill because it is not a good bill.There are generally two types of members’ bills that come before Parliament on a Wednesday. There are genuine bills that are advanced in good faith by members to make generally small changes but consequential amendments to Acts that actually make a difference to the lives of people. I have got to say that usually it is the Green Party that advances those sorts of bills. So the bill that is next on the Order Paper the Electricity Industry (Small-Scale Renewable Distributed Generation) Amendment Bill I do not necessarily agree with but it is a bill advanced in good faith by Gareth Hughes to deal with the interesting and important issue for the future of the New Zealand electricity industry about solar electricity. There are other bills in the ballot as well. My colleague Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi has a bill to authorise the use of kirpans or the carrying of kirpans on flights and of course David Bennett has the interestingly titled Private International Law (Choice of Law in Tort) Bill which is a very important bill. I for one am looking forward to that being drawn from the ballot and considering that on the Justice and Electoral Committee.So there are genuine bills and then there is a second type of bill. That is what I would classify this bill as falling into.Paul Foster-Bell: The showboating bills.CHRIS BISHOP: Those are the sorts of bills as my colleague says that are the showboating bills—the more political bills ones that are advanced for symbolic value only. They are highly political and often actually the only real point of the bill is to get the name of the bill into the ballot—for example Jacinda Ardern’s Child Poverty Reduction and Eradication Bill. I know for a fact that that bill does not do that but I mean who would be opposed to that name? I mean who is in favour of child poverty? No one right? Who wants to reduce it? Everyone. Who wants to eradicate it? Everyone. So the name is the point there and that is the point with this bill the Keep Kiwibank Bill. It is interestingly titled. It has got a good name.Kris Faafoi: It’s pretty simple.CHRIS BISHOP: It is nice and simple. That is right Kris. It is nice and simple. Let us all get behind the Keep Kiwibank Bill except and this is where the bill falls down what this bill would do—let us be very clear—is place Kiwibank a State-owned enterprise into the same constitutional realm as the entrenched provisions of the Electoral Act 1993. Section 268 of the Electoral Act says you cannot alter the term of Parliament—so from 3 to 4 or 5 years say—which is one of those fundamental constitutional provisions or for example the fact that the voting age is 18 which is of fundamental critical importance to the democracy that we have in New Zealand. Apparently the future of Kiwibank is so important that it is equivalent to about five provisions in the New Zealand constitution in the Electoral Act that are entrenched and it is on par with that according to Clayton Cosgrove.Paul Foster-Bell: Ludicrous.CHRIS BISHOP: Well sorry that cannot be the case. As my colleague Paul Foster-Bell says that is ludicrous. Mr Cosgrove in his opening remarks made reference to Sir Michael Cullen as the chair of Kiwibank. He is a scholar of epic proportions.Paul Foster-Bell: A knight of the realm.CHRIS BISHOP: He is a knight of the realm as Paul Foster-Bell says—he loves knights of the realm. Sir Michael Cullen is a historian. He is a very learned man. I am going to venture to suggest that a man like Sir Michael Cullen although he may well believe in the importance of Kiwibank I highly doubt he thinks that Kiwibank is so important it should be basically entrenched in the New Zealand constitution—I highly doubt that.The National Party will not be supporting this bill for the reasons that I have advanced and that my colleague David Bennett has advanced. The Labour Party forgets its history of Kiwibank on this bill it really does. It is a little bit like paid parental leave—forced into it by the Alliance Party after the 1999 election. It was not a policy that the Labour Party advanced and then all of a sudden it is the greatest thing since sliced bread. And of course it forgets the 1980s when the Labour Party advanced important macroeconomic and microeconomic reforms that made a difference to this country when it sold off vast swathes of the New Zealand public sector for the benefit of New Zealanders.Kris Faafoi: You’re starting to sound like Bennett sit down! You’re entering the Bennett zone sit!CHRIS BISHOP: It forgets that history but I think I have said enough at this point. We will not be supporting this bill.