Woodhouse Michael: Westpac New Zealand Bill — Third Reading 
Woodhouse Michael: Westpac New Zealand Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:673;Page:19409] 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) 
: 
 For the third reading of the rather uncontroversial Westpac New Zealand Bill which includes fairly straightforward amendments we have had a very wide-ranging debate on a number of issues in relation to our banking system some of which was literally from cloud-cuckoo-land. I did notice also a bit of a rewrite of history so I feel compelled to clear up a couple of misapprehensions that Stuart Nash had about why we have Kiwibank. The rewrite of history is that Kiwibank is a Labour invention and now that it is here we should protect it with every fibre we have. Well that was not really the case was it because from 1999 to 2002 the Labour Government relied very heavily on the Alliance Party and the Deputy Prime Minister Jim Anderton. Were it not for that reliance—the reluctant Dr Michael Cullen was led kicking and screaming—the formation of Kiwibank would not have taken place. Let the Labour Party take the credit for Kiwibank but were it not for Mr Anderton and members long since gone from this House Kiwibank would not exist. 
I note the track record on the asset sales of financial institutions. I should say that in 1984 or so when Westpac was formed it was formed out of two other Australian banks the Bank of New South Wales and the Commercial Bank of Australia. I have vague recollections of that. I worked across the road from a couple of those branches in Dunedin at the National Bank. The National Bank was then owned by Lloyds Bank plc which was a UK-based bank as were a number of other banks in New Zealand. Those committed Labour people in that term in the 1980s not only sold the Development Finance Corporation the Post Office Savings Bank and the Rural Banking and Finance Corporation but also had—wait for it—a mixed-ownership model with the partial float of that iconic then New Zealand - owned institution the Bank of New Zealand. In 1986 the fourth Labour Government floated the Bank of New Zealand. Those members over there should own the history. 
I suggest that the crocodile tears being shed for the New Zealand banking system are just that. I think Mr Finlayson put it very accurately in his general debate speech when he called Labour lions in Opposition and lambs in Government. They are fairly inarticulate lambs if Jacinda Ardern’s call in the general debate is anything to go by. 
It has been nearly a year since Mr Goff announced that Labour would no longer support the monetary policy accord. Who knows where Labour is on its alternative monetary policy. Will it print money? Will it go back to fixing the dollar against an international currency? It is so concerned that the dollar is so high but it is a pity Labour was not that concerned when interest rates were so high and the dollar remained stubbornly high because that was killing our export markets. At least now the New Zealand dollar against the trade-weighted index is lower than it has been since 2007. Were it not for the fact that the United States has twice printed money in that magical thing it calls quantitative easing we would probably be in a better position. But it is not for this economy to control what that economy does. 
I acknowledge that Mr Cunliffe recognises and takes very seriously the issue of New Zealand’s debt position. He also acknowledged in his call with big nods from Mr Parker that the private debt situation is particularly concerning. We on this side of the House do not distinguish as much because the international financers of that debt do not distinguish so much between private and public debt. Nevertheless it was pleasing to hear Mr Cunliffe’s concern about debt levels. So it is really quite perplexing that Labour would go about and campaign on increasing New Zealand’s total debt by billions and billions of dollars not only in its reckless spending but also in a return to the funding of the Government Superannuation Fund and borrowing to put money into KiwiSaver. 
David Shearer 
: What does this have to do with the bill? 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE 
: Well this is a broad-ranging debate and I am just addressing the issues that were raised by Labour members earlier in this debate. Here we have Mr Cunliffe still insisting being the great financial soothsayer that he is that he is so confident that the markets will go up that he would go to the international debt markets and borrow billions and billions of dollars on a financial crapshoot by putting it into the Government Superannuation Fund. Here is my question: if Mr Cunliffe is such a great soothsayer when it comes to picking financial markets why in early 2008 did he not trot along to the office of the good Dr Cullen who was then the Minister of Finance and say: “Doc I think the international financial markets are in trouble. I think we should be moving these equities in the Government’s Superannuation Fund into fixed interest. Let’s preserve the country’s assets.”? If he is really that good at picking the markets he would have done that nearly 4 years ago. He did not. It is rhetoric and if he gets hold of the Treasury benches goodness knows what the debt levels will be and where that money will go. 
Having addressed some of the many broad-based arguments that were raised in the third reading of this bill which makes an otherwise uncontroversial straightforward and structural change to Westpac I commend it to the House. 
Bill read a third time.