Graham Kennedy: International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Graham Kennedy: International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 08 May 2012. Volume:679;Page:2016. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green) 
: 
 The International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill seeks to do three things. It seeks to amend the articles of agreement of the IMF to do two substantive things: to improve the representation of fast-growing emerging-market countries of the IMF—that is to say with a view presumably to making it more democratic—and secondly to double the quota which is the IMF’s main means of raising funds. In addition within New Zealand’s parliamentary procedural terms the bill also seeks to provide for regulation-making power so that future updates can be made by regulation. It has been an interesting debate today. I think we have actually heard some insights from experienced and seasoned colleagues from all sides of the House although I do suggest that Labour in the form of David Cunliffe and no doubt all his colleagues cease and desist from ensuring or insisting that the debate is cast in “bipartisan terms”. It is for over 15 years that we have had an MMP system. It is not a bipartisan issue—foreign policy defence trade and international finance—it is a multiplicity of ideas from a multiplicity of parties. It is about time that National and Labour recognised that and actually paid respect to it.  
Following the debate it seems to me that there has emerged a theme that essentially divides the House on this bill. The Green Party as my colleague Russel Norman has indicated will oppose the bill and therefore there are two views to be brought to bear on this. If you follow the path of reasoning so to speak between National Labour and New Zealand First on the one side and the Green Party on the other side it is interesting to see what we have in common and where we actually diverge. It seems to me there are three propositions you might say and I think we are agreed on the first two. The difference is that the Green Party diverges on the third. So let us look at that.  
I think we are all agreed on the first proposition which is that the IMF along with other major global institutions such as obviously the United Nations and the Bretton Woods international financial institutions is necessary. Nobody is disputing that. Those who claim the other party is anti-global are engaging in shallow rhetoric. We are all recognising the need for sound and legitimate global institutions. Secondly—we are all agreed on this I think—the IMF along with those other institutions has done good work in the past. The Green Party agrees with that too; I think Russel Norman made that clear. So where do we diverge? We diverge on the third point. And what is that? Let me look at National Labour and the Greens separately.  
National has the following idea: that the IMF still does totally good and sound work that it is therefore still adequately legitimate and that the neo-liberal agenda that was brought in during the 1980s and since is sound. There is therefore nothing to dispute and therefore National will continue to support any changes to it. Look at Labour. It goes down the same critical path it seems to me—pretty much. It says the IMF still does good work and that it is still legitimate. David Cunliffe denies that the Labour Party adopts a neo-liberal agenda. But when in Government Labour effectively indicated to the IMF that it agreed with pretty much all its policies through the 1980s and 2000s. It opposes the Order in Council—and David Parker talked about a lack of transparency—but none the less Labour will support the bill.  
The Green Party takes a different turn. It believes that in the 1980s and since—in the 1990s—the IMF took a wrong turn with its neo-liberal agenda that although it still does good analytical work it is losing its democratic legitimacy now in terms of 21st century global democratic expectations and that the proposed changes are inadequate to the purpose of democratic reform. Therefore the Green Party will oppose the bill. If you go back to the 1940s—it depends on your frame of reference—in the mid-1940s it was adequately democratic. In the early 21st century it is not sufficiently democratic. The democratic reforms do not go far enough ergo the Green Party will oppose the bill. Thank you.