Bayly Andrew; Watts SimonANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): I'm just giving the Minister time to reflect and hopefully get an answer from his good officials over there.Just continuing on the same thought or line of questioning I'm talking about clause 145A Effect of Proceedings". My question is let's say that the bank has started to undertake an investigation and during the course of it the bank comes to a view that the investigation is not warranted or there's issues with the way it's being conducted or whatever. Can the Minister just help identify: is the only recompense for the entity concerned clause 145 where they have to issue proceedings or is there any interim step where there can be another outcome that doesn't necessarily end up going to court? Because I'm not sure what happens with the court case. Is there a lengthy delay between the filing of the proceedings and until the judgment or court case occurs? And in the intervening time the Reserve Bank carries on its merry way doing the investigation—which may or may not be proved in hindsight to be wrong or incorrect or actually doesn't arise in anything—and in fact the Reserve Bank was wrong in undertaking the investigation.The reason I'm just highlighting this is it's like a market study. It's like the banking study that the Government's just kicked off or the fuel study—they're very expensive for the entities concerned. We know the Commerce Commission cost for the grocery study was roughly three million bucks but from the other side of it I understand the grocery industry has spent probably close to $20 million defending themselves. So these things have bad or significant impacts on entities' brands it has impacts on people's reputation. And so having safeguards to ensure that only legitimate and well-researched and bona fide situations where investigations are undertaken are undertaken and they're not used as a fishing trip or whatever.Because as my colleague Mr Simon Watts identified market rumours—it's a very small market—start to seep out into the market that someone's under investigation by the Reserve Bank. That in itself can be poor—in terms of stiltifying people who might want to engage with that business new customers not wanting to engage with those types of entities. So that's why I think it's very important that there is some form of mechanism to make sure that entities are protected and have the ability to protect themselves if they think especially if they're proved subsequently to be warranted exercise of power by the Reserve Bank.SIMON WATTS (National—North Shore): Well I'm enjoying this interaction between myself and Andrew Bayly. It would be good with the Minister I'm looking forward to his contribution—Shanan Halbert: Take it easy Wattsy—take it easy.SIMON WATTS: —into this but in the interim we'll continue to have a dialogue between ourselves. Maybe Mr Halbert from Northcote could step up.But related actually to the points you're raising Mr Bayly in regards to that—my questions relate to clause 126(3) which is around the aspect of instances which you've referred to where the bank can appoint an investigator. I think that's all reasonable and people would expect that that be the case. So clause 126(3) refers to: "The investigator must be an employee of the Bank"—yep that makes sense; no issues there—"or any other person who the Bank is satisfied is suitably qualified." Any other person. And why that potentially—and the question for the Minister in regards to this is around what is that criteria? Because "any other person who is suitably qualified" is reasonably broad. But the reality is when you move into clause 127 that individual—who in this case may be any other person not an employee of the Reserve Bank any other person just they need to meet a threshold of being "suitably qualified"—has the power to obtain quite significant information under clauses 127(1) (2) and (3). But I guess the risk is always there that that individual may not carry the same level of appropriateness as a member of the Reserve Bank and therefore that information that they have the power to obtain could potentially be used in a manner which isn't appropriate.I guess my question is in regards to clause 126(3): why did the Minister feel it was appropriate to broaden that out in such a broad way? And can the Minister assure the House that the risk that I've just outlined is something that is unlikely to occur; but if it does what protections or mechanisms are in place to be able to in effect monitor that investigator and ensure that that investigator's actions do not bring the Reserve Bank into disrepute? Because the Reserve Bank would in effect have a role in that process but more broadly not bring into disrepute this aspect because they will also be interacting with the deposit takers in a broader sense and the access to power of information and the access to request. When one has that degree of power there is always a risk that the power may be used inappropriately. And so I am seeking reassurance that there will be processes and procedures in place that will mitigate that risk sufficiently."