Willis NicolaNICOLA WILLIS (National): My colleague's Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 47 sets out very specifically the skill sets that in National's view a person appointed to the board of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand should have. I first want to refer to the Minister's comments earlier in which he said No no. There's no need to specify all of that because what I've done in the Act is I've simply required that in the Minister's opinion the people appointed should have appropriate knowledge skills and experience to carry out the functions of the Act." and then he's referred us to clause 10 which sets out the bank's functions. Now this is very important. I want to put this into the Hansard because I want us as a Parliament to be able to refer back to this in future when one day potentially a Minister makes an appointment to the board of someone who does not actually in the view of many have the appropriate knowledge or skills or experience to exercise the functions of the Reserve Bank who hasn't had a career in which they've developed a strong understanding of what financial stability is or how to do prudential regulation who can't demonstrate experience in macro-prudential policy or who hasn't been involved in crisis management and resolution because if that happens—if it is the view of many that an appointment has been made that doesn't meet those skills—what the Minister is encouraging us to do is to read into what the Minister is required to do back into clause 10 the bank's functions. This could potentially be an issue that the courts would review. So my question for the Minister is: is it his view that the courts in judging whether the Minister has appropriately exercised his power should therefore treat clause 10 as a checklist of the skills that an appointee to the board should be able to demonstrate? If that is not the case then it is very broad as to what the Minister's opinion may or may not be so I would ask the Minister to clarify that. I think it's an important matter of interpretation and it is exactly why we have the committee stage—so that if this were ever to be an issue in the future learned people of the court and lawyers could refer back to the Hansard and get a very clear sense of what the Minister's expectation was in the drafting of these words. I do want to point out why this is particularly important in the context of this bill and that is that this bill replaces the single decision-maker the Governor of the Reserve Bank with a governance board an executive board. That is a significant change that this bill makes. It gives that board responsibility for all financial policy decisions of the Reserve Bank. What that in effect means is that this board will be expected to have the sorts of judgment skills and experience that we have previously had captured in the person of the Governor of the Reserve Bank. So this board is to have significant power and it is our view on the National side that it is very important that the people appointed to these roles are appropriately skilled. The current criteria for recommendations set out at clause 28 as my learned colleague Andrew Bayly has highlighted do highlight lots of things that would disqualify someone from the role in huge detail—undischarged bankrupts dishonesty offences people who are directors or employees of regulated entities—but are quite vague on what skills they are required to have. It is our view that in exercising the functions of the Reserve Bank board members will need to have technical competence not just governance skill. We have put forward a SOP which would set that out. I don't think the Minister has anything to fear from it but I would as I said earlier invite him to comment on how he would expect a Minister—who of course could in the future be not this Minister but a much much better finance Minister from the National side. That Minister could choose to exercise their opinion and would he expect them to exercise their opinion as to whether appropriate knowledge and skills were held by reading into clause 10. If he could set that out for the Hansard it would be very helpful."