Robertson GrantHon GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour): Thank you very much Mr Chair. I want in this particular call in this debate to refer to the title of the bill the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (Economic Objective) Amendment Bill 2023 and to highlight my concerns as to why that title is not accurate to both what is in the bill and indeed what I believe is the intent of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act that is being amended.The idea that there is a single objective about the economy that the Reserve Bank is looking for is completely false in my view. Members of the House will be aware that there are many many different definitions of what the economy is. For us on this side of the House the economy is not an abstract thing. It is in fact very much about people. So my view is that the title of the bill should actually reflect that it is a narrowing of the objectives of the Reserve Bank beyond or below or whatever word you want the economy as we understand it.It was instructive to note that when Arena Williams was speaking about people losing their jobs and people not being able to pay their bills there was laughing coming from the Minister in the chair during that period of time. From our perspective on this side of the House if you're going to title a bill about the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Economic Objective" it should at the very least somehow or other represent people. Ultimately that has been what's at stake in this debate. Our job when we are in the House is to accurately describe legislation. If I was describing this piece of legislation accurately I would say that this is the "Reserve Bank of New Zealand (Putting At Risk People's Jobs) Bill" because that is essentially what has happened here.Graeme Wheeler the previous Governor of the Reserve Bank in 2013-14 took some decisions and went on a monetary policy tightening cycle when unemployment was up above 5 percent. He did that with the single mandate. So if we were thinking about his actions in relation to the title of this bill we would be very very concerned to make sure that it was accurately titled. It would in fact be something along the lines that I have suggested about the impact that it would have on people's jobs.Also in terms of the title is the concern I have around the idea that a single objective actually reflects the role the Reserve Bank Act provides for. When you're amending a piece of legislation the title needs to ensure that in some way or other it reflects the primary legislation that is being amended. It is quite clear—and this point is one that I did make in a different part so I am acknowledging that to the Chair but it is quite clear to me that the purposes of this Act and the objectives of the Act as it has now been amended are out of sync. So again the title should probably reflect that as well by saying the "Reserve Bank of New Zealand (Economic Objectives—Counter to Purposes) Amendment Bill" because that's now what's been done.Because when we made the change in 2019 we made a change not just to the objective to add the objective of maximum and sustainable employment but also to the purposes of the bill to add in the concepts of sustainability and wellbeing. This brings us right back to my first point. The Reserve Bank's job yes is to set monetary policy but it doesn't do that in a vacuum; it does that when it's focused on the impacts of those decisions on the whole economy. That's what the Reserve Bank Act actually does right now today because the purpose clause still has it in. Yet this bill titled "Economic Objective" runs directly counter to that. It's actually not what the purposes of the Act say. The Minister was asked a couple of times in earlier debates whether or not she could reconcile those two things and just kept saying that she was going to change the remit. Well that may well be the case as to what she's doing. It doesn't stop the fact that we now have legislation that is inconsistent. So that could be another title for this bill: the "Reserve Bank of New Zealand (Economic Objective—Creating Inconsistency) Amendment Bill" because that is precisely what this piece of legislation now does.The Minister in the chair may well laugh but she needs to take a look at the legislation that she's amending and see that the purposes of it very clearly take the Reserve Bank to a place where it has a job to promote the wellbeing of these Zealanders. The title of this bill no longer reflects the rest of the legislation."