Prosser Richard: International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeProsser Richard: International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 12 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:7987. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]RICHARD PROSSER (NZ First): I am pleased to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to take a call in this third reading of the International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill. New Zealand First does not support this bill. Our opposition to this legislation and indeed to New Zealand’s membership of the bank to which it relates was summed up by my colleague Fletcher Tabuteau during the Committee of the whole House which I recall turned into a somewhat livelier debate than one might otherwise expect from what is essentially a fairly pedestrian piece of lawmaking.Our opposition is not actually about the Asian Infrastructure Investment Development Bank itself or even about New Zealand’s involvement in international financial agreements of this type in general. Indeed as the Minister of Finance himself said during the first reading the New Zealand Government already has shareholdings in the World Bank and its various manifestations and the Asian Development Bank. That is well and good and very probably as it should be. Rather our opposition centres on two things.Firstly there is the undeniably questionable worth of New Zealand’s participation in an infrastructure development bank from which the Government openly acknowledges it will gain little to no tangible benefit. The departmental disclosure statement is unambiguous in this regard. It states: “The direct economic consequences of the investment in AIIB for New Zealand are likely to be modest.” It also says: “The practical effect on revenue for New Zealand which will not be borrowing from the Infrastructure Bank or be a destination for investment is likely to be minimal.” So we will neither be benefiting from being able to borrow from the bank nor benefiting from having the bank invest in New Zealand but we are committing nearly half a billion US dollars to it over the next 5 years with almost a hundred million US dollars being the upfront payment. So that is half a billion dollars for membership essentially of a club from which we will derive almost nothing in terms of material benefit.We get what the Government has argued in terms of the fact that there are intangible benefits—and in fact tangible benefits that are not able to be directly or immediately linked to involvement in the international institutions such as this proposed bank. But we struggle to accept that these will be—or even could be in this case—worth anywhere near as much as the investment is costing us let alone that they could come to represent some sort of net return on that investment.We understand that other countries are more ready to deal and trade and treat with nations when there is wider involvement when multiple associations are entered into when nations are able to meet one another in a greater number of forums and when nations demonstrate that they are prepared to commit tangibly to institutions that they rely on and that they regard as having value. We get that. We understand that the projects that this bank will fund are necessary are going to be valuable to nations across the region that it covers and that that will increase economic activity in those countries and that down the track New Zealand firms and businesses will be able to benefit from that. But those things will happen anyway with us or without us. We are such a minuscule contribution to what is such a vast area of the earth and such a vast area of economic activity that these things would go ahead anyway whether we are involved are not.New Zealand First questions whether having a mere 0.66 percent of the voting power within the proposed bank’s governance based on our contribution of just 0.4 percent of the total subscribed capital can be regarded as having any practical worth at all let alone any great value for New Zealand when measured against the need to allocate or commit nearly half a billion dollars to it in real terms.We do get that institutions of this type garner more credibility when they are endorsed by nations that are perceived as being stable and advanced and reliable and largely free from corruption. We are pleased that New Zealand continues to be acknowledged as such a country by the other mostly much larger nations in our region and indeed the wider world. In fact as Minister English said during the first reading: “New Zealand took something of a brave step early on partly with the encouragement and assistance of Singapore to be the first developed country that put up its hand to engage developing countries and that put up its hand to engage in discussion with the Chinese Government about the possibility of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank being a true multilateral institution”.I know these things are calculated according to some differing criteria but I have to ask how much longer China is going to be regarded as a developing country relative to New Zealand. I mean here we have a country that has nearly one and a half billion people and is the second largest economy in the world a nuclear power and an active participant in the space race compared with New Zealand which is essentially a small agrarian economy with a tiny population sitting quietly in an unassuming backwater of world affairs. There is “developing” and there is “developing”.Our second cause for concern—the other grounds on which we primarily oppose this legislation and New Zealand’s participation in the bank—is the source of funds that New Zealand will be putting into it and the disingenuous nature of the Government’s proclamations with regard to that source. The Future Investment Fund was supposed to be about reinvesting in New Zealand and no amount of Government spin can change that fact. It was meant to be about schools and hospitals in New Zealand not schools and hospitals in other countries. It was meant to be about roads and bridges in New Zealand not roads and bridges in Asia and the Pacific.It is bad enough that the power companies and the other assets were sold off against the wishes of the majority of New Zealand voters but completely inexcusable that the proceeds are then to be used for other than their stated purpose. It is bad enough that we lose half the ownership and half the revenue stream from our wealth-generating assets but incomprehensible that we should then lose part of the proceeds as well sending them instead to be locked up in a foreign-focused development bank from which the Government itself admits we will receive little to no benefit.The Government has been completely dishonest about this part of the legislation and it continues to be completely dishonest. For those reasons New Zealand First cannot and does not support this bill. Thank you.