Peters Winston: Reserve Bank of New Zealand (Amending Primary Function of Bank) Amendment Bill (No 2) — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumePeters Winston: Reserve Bank of New Zealand (Amending Primary Function of Bank) Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading[Sitting date: 13 November 2013. Volume:694;Page:14672. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): I moveThat the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (Amending Primary Function of Bank) Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a first time. I nominate the Finance and Expenditure Committee to consider the bill.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Is the member going to speak?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I most certainly am. I was just making sure that you had the time to write down my proposal. This is a critical piece of legislation. Indeed no other single economic policy initiative could deliver so much in terms of benefits to the New Zealand economy. In fact there is no more important piece of legislation that would benefit the rank and file provincial voters who hitherto have been voting for the National Party. That will surely wipe the smiles off those members’ faces tonight.The intention of the bill is clear and compelling. The bill’s purpose is to give the Reserve Bank the flexibility it needs to promote growth exports and employment as well as price stability. The reasons why an amended Act is urgently needed are straightforward. As we predicted the NZ$1 is now nudging upwards again way above US80c and New Zealand is not paying its way. No amount of flimflam written by theNational Party’s research unit and given out every Wednesday afternoon for National members to repeat will alter these fundamental facts.In 2013 the fundamental economic problem we face is a deep current account deficit. For the year ended June 2013 the current account deficit totalled $9 billion—equivalent to 4.3 percent of GDP. As at 30 June 2013 New Zealand’s international liability position was—listen to this—$151.3 billion. That is a whopping 71.1 percent of GDP. Those figures used to frighten the PIGS of Europe—that is Portugal Italy Greece and Spain—and they should be frightening us. As a nation we are simply not earning enough and not saving enough. Instead we are getting deeper and deeper into debt and again resorting to selling assets to foreigners because of a persistent current account deficit. We are persistently pursuing policies that will not work and shortly there is a bill coming up after this bill that seeks to change industrial legislation in this country. My message to all those exporters out there in New Zealand who are watching tonight’s speech—because they will be watching it to see whether there is some glimmer of hope of getting the National Party backbencher’s member’s bill up—if they are a farmer and a dairy farmer at that they will know that they will be possibly losing $125000 to $130000 a year because of a massively overvalued dollar. My message to those people in “Export New Zealand” is when will they ever learn that the very people whom they are voting for and giving praise to are their worst economic enemies.There was a time when the National Party would never have contemplated this. In the time of Hamilton Holland Holyoake Marshall and people like that they would never have contemplated these sorts of measures—that is playing up to the financial markets of downtown Queen Street and the bankers and internationalists and forgetting the people who generate the real wealth of this country. So tonight’s speech is to them as well for it is time for them to wake up.The main factor underlying the current account deficit is a grossly overvalued dollar. We are getting deeper and deeper into debt and again resorting to selling assets to foreigners as some sort of panacea for our problems because of a persistent current account deficit. It is causing serious and deep harm to our export base. Many exporters are going out of business because they cannot compete internationally. Look at the rural towns around New Zealand and now the small rural cities the provincial cities and see how many shops are closed and how much there is a lack of action. National members say in this House: “Oh but we’ve got growth.” Well we had growth for a hundred years but the question is what is the quality of the growth and what is happening to the people who could save this country.Within recent weeks we have seen the closure of the Shannon fellmongery and a Rotorua sawmill with large job losses—more and more closures all the time. Virtually every week a business goes under because of a chronically overvalued dollar. Just recently Independent Fisheries confirmed that it will close its Christchurch processing plant resulting in 200 job losses. This is a colossal loss. No—what does the Government do? It prefers that overseas fishermen catch New Zealand fish take it off overseas and can it and sell it in New Zealand supermarkets. And the Government calls this sound economics!Denis O’Rourke: It’s a tragedy.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: It is a tragedy—an absolute tragedy. The former National Party which used to believe in great conservative principles would never have contemplated it. But this crowd today are just obsessed with one thing: power at all costs. And whoever gets the money to finance the National Party’s campaign the party is on that person’s side. It is high time that provincial “Export New Zealand” simply woke up to where their real friends in this Parliament lie.A sensible rational authentic exchange rate—and I say “authentic exchange rate” because everybody says that the current exchange rate is too high but this Government will not do a thing about it. An authentic exchange rate would have given those businesses a real chance of survival. The result of an overvalued dollar is persistent economic malaise characterised by low growth and high unemployment. Therefore the primary objective for the Reserve Bank bill that we have the Reserve Bank bill that we propose and the Reserve Bank operations that we support should be to put in place policy decisions that will increase export earnings improve our international competitiveness and give us a chance to go back up the world’s competitive record list and not head down to the bottom where we have constantly been going particularly under the National Government.The flow-on impact will be more jobs and a more productive economy. It will give the Reserve Bank the responsibility to frame its monetary policy settings so that the New Zealand dollar can be restored to a competitive level. The Government says that nothing can be done. You know that is just utter humbug and all sorts of economists would tell you that. I just read a recent commentary out of Australia about its problems with the high dollar as well. This commentator said: “The high dollar cannot last forever. But there is a limit to how long companies can go on losing money while waiting for the dollar to fall. We are allowing a temporary over-valuation to shut down economic capacity permanently.”—it will shut down and never open up again—“This is not how the successful Asian economies operate.” And boy how much that man is right. That is not how the successful Asian economies operate.We need to ensure that the Government does something that it stops saying that it cannot do a thing. It is all in the lap of the powerful markets it says. It has its head firmly stuck in the sand. We have got money called international commodity. Europe Japan the UK the United States—under 1 percent home mortgage rates. What are you paying—sorry what are your colleagues paying? What are the constituents paying? Well they are paying 5.5 percent and it is going upwards as I speak. So if it is an international commodity why are we not being charged international prices? [Bell rung] How many more minutes to go Mr Deputy Speaker? Two? Excellent. Even in that short time I should be able to get some sense through to certain members over there particularly the one who competed in Ōhariu last time and pulled all the hoardings down—unbelievable actually. I cannot believe that these people are in the House.The economic consequences of an overvalued exchange rate are being felt by businesses throughout New Zealand. Export businesses lose markets and profitability. Employees pay with their jobs which is why trade unions like the Amalgamated Engineering Printing and Manufacturing Union and exporter groups like New Zealand manufacturing and export associations are supporting amending this Act. All I am asking the National members over there tonight is what is wrong with letting the bill go to a select committee. What is wrong with letting it go to a select committee and letting the exporters and dare I say it Federated Farmers have an epiphany for a change and come along to support what helps their members? What is wrong with having a debate before the select committee rather than just shutting things down so that no light of day occurs in this case?One last message to the National Party is this. A number of you are on your way out of Parliament. And when you are out on that night when you feel dismal and miserable because you thought you might have been able to stay—Dr Paul Hutchison: Ha ha!Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No not Mr Hutchison. Mr Hutchison knows that the game is up. He is jumping out of the ship. He is swimming to shore right now. He is a smart man Mr Hutchison. He should be the Minister of Health. He was the onlyqualified guy there but no no they gave it to somebody who was a bank teller. So I am saying to the rest of them that the day of reckoning is coming and it is very soon. When that night happens and you have lost and you know you should not have think back to nights like this when you ignored common sense and fairness and transparency. But do not ever say that a former National Party person who has been around for a longer time than you and knows a bit about the game did not try to enlighten you and warn you of your terrible fate because of your ignorance stubbornness and taciturn non-political brains. Thank you.