Brownlee Gerry; Robertson GrantHon GERRY BROWNLEE (National): Well it's interesting the Minister essentially concedes there that there is a philosophical difference between those of us who are not in favour of this bill and the Government pushing it. The Minister says he reserves the right—the Government reserves the right—to be able to put through legislation that reflects the position that they take. What is at the heart of this bill though is the question about how much control the Government should have over the Reserve Bank and I think one of the things that is interesting if you look under Part 2 under the bank's objectives they're clearly stated there as the economic objectives the financial stability objective and the central bank objective and each of those has got a clear statement about what the bank should be doing. Of course we're going to have a board now that will be sitting over the bank if this bill is passed making sure that those are the objectives that are covered. However if you go to subclause (2) of clause 9 it states: However if an Order in Council is in force under section 121 the economic objective or objectives that apply under subsection (1)(a) are those that are specified in the order."Now the problem with debating part by part is that we have in the next part Part 3 provisions that give life or cause question around the bank's objectives. So if you go—if you will indulge me Madam Chair—to that in order to make sense of what I'm about to ask the Minister clause 121 says an "Order providing for different economic objective or objectives". So on the one hand we have a bill that sets out in Part 2 very clearly the objectives of the bank but then in Part 3 it makes it very clear that there could be an Order in Council passed which changes those objectives. Then clause 121 goes on to say that "only 1 of the objectives specified in section 9(1)(a) (instead of both);" could be part of that. It goes on to say "1 or more new objectives in addition to or instead of either or both of the economic objectives specified in section 9(1)(a)" could be part of that.So what we've got is a situation where it appears and I'd like the Minister to—he's smiling away there because he thinks that he's got a perfectly reasonable explanation. I hope he does but I hope it's not just "Well we think this is a good idea and we disagree with you."—not you Madam Chair but in fact the Opposition. But the question is: why would we have a part in the bill—Part 2 "Bank's objectives" under clause 9—clearly stating what those objectives are but then we're immediately putting in caveats that say that those objectives may change according to the will of the Minister? If the Minister's got an explanation for that I think it would be useful for the House to know it and I'd also like to know if it is all perfectly reasonable and quite simple why does it need to be there? If there is a board and the Governor-General appoints the board on the recommendation of the Minister or Cabinet then why do we have to have this other provision in there that would turn the bank's head away from the stated objectives in the front part of the bill because that's effectively what it does. I know that we can't at this stage in the debate talk too much about Part 3—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): No—no you can't.Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: —but it is impossible to ignore the fact that the bill is skilfully written to provide the explanation for clause 9(2) in Part 2 in a part of the bill that is much further down some 50-odd pages away from where we are currently supposed to be debating.I think it's a bit of a problem if we can't get some clear explanation at the moment as to what would be expected to go into those Orders in Council that might be brought down. The question is: what is it that the Minister foresees that might make it necessary for any Minister to bring down Orders in Council that would change the objectives of the Reserve Bank? That effectively is what is stated here. It's stated very clearly that "the economic objective or objectives that apply under subsection (1)(a) are those that are specified in the order."—in other words changed.Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): To answer Mr Brownlee's question as to how this ended up here he's going to need to pick up the phone and call David Caygill and Roger Douglas because these effective clauses have been in the Act from the time it began with the odd word change here or there over the years as the way in which for example monetary policy set has been changed. This bill isn't changing that and the clause that he refers to—and Madam Chair given the member did it I'll also do it. The clause that then is part of Part 3 that the member refers to has not been used to my knowledge in the time that the Act has been in place but it has always sat there for the possibility that there might be a set of circumstances that arise that the Government of the day considers it needs to do this: a crisis of some description; an issue that needed to be dealt with be it runaway inflation or whatever it might be. It's not something I as a Minister have proposed; it's been in the Act in one form or another since 1989."