Cunliffe David: International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCunliffe David: International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 15 September 2015. Volume:708;Page:6615. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn): I rise to take a call to join with my colleagues in opposing the truncated report-back time for the International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill. The proposal has been made by the Government that the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee should have only 5 weeks until 22 October to report this bill back. This is a bill that the Government negotiated back in May and it has taken months to get to this House. The Government is now proposing that the difference be made up by denying the New Zealand public the opportunity to make considered submissions on the bill and to have those submissions considered in the normal way. I wish to refer firstly to the type of work that confronts the select committee and why it is important to have adequate consultation and deliberation and secondly to the broader picture of the threats to democratic process and good governance which this move is yet another small part of.The job in front of the select committee is to complement the work that the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee has done. We have a 3-page report from that committee. That is about $40 million worth of capital investment per page—assuming that the 500 and something million dollars of call facility is never called. But as Bill English would say—I see Bill over there doing urgent negotiations with the Māori Party—$500 million here $500 million there and pretty soon you are talking real money. Well for New Zealanders that is already real money and that is why we deserve more than 5 weeks to consider how it is being spent—more so because the Government is pinching from Peter to pay Paul. It is pinching from the Future Investment Fund—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! That is not part of this.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: —to provide this capital. We covered that in the earlier debate.The Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee has looked at a very broad and general level at the work the New Zealand officials did—which we have earlier acknowledged was good work—on progressing this treaty. What it has not done is a comprehensive national interest analysis. In Appendix B it has done what I think would be called a qualitative national interest analysis. It goes through the provisions of the bank. It goes through the purposes of the bank. It notes in the Treasury documents some of the safeguards the protocols the purposes—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! When we are doing an instruction to the select committee on a truncated report-back period you cannot refer to the contents of the bill as you are doing. I refer the member to Standing Order 290(3): “Any debate on the question for a motion under this Standing Order is restricted to the special powers or instruction set out in the motion. It may not extend to the principles objects or provisions of the bill to which the motion relates.” I will ask the member to come back to talk about why this process is being truncated and the reasons that the member wishes to express.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: Thank you for your clarification and guidance on that. The agreement was negotiated on 22 May. New Zealand signed the agreement on 29 June. It was considered by the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee on 28 July and 2 August—only two meetings to produce a pretty thin report. The bill has come to the House now to be debated at first reading on 15 September and we are being asked to require the Finance and Expenditure Committee to report it back to the House in fewer than 5 weeks. That is an inadequate time. It denies the public the proper opportunity to consider what is a large and complex set of documents for a large and significant amount of capital. We think the New Zealand public deserves better than that. I do not think it is out of scope to say that as part of that compressed time frame there are risks that the proper financial economic and legislative analysis that would normally be done for such a complex instrument could well be compromised. It is that which is our immediate concern.Moving on can I also say in respect of this truncated time frame proposal from the Government that there has been a habit of coming to this House with requests for compressed select committee timetables. For members of the public who may be watching or listening a normal select committee process as you well know Mr Assistant Speaker Tisch would expect to take about 6 months. That would give a committee adequate time to advertise to wait for the public to prepare their submissions to receive an analysis of those submissions to consider that analysis to prepare a report and to get it back to the House. Under our Standing Orders which you are of course the master of Mr Assistant Speaker the House would then consider the bill at second reading clause by clause in the Committee of the whole House and at third reading. It is just not possible to do that in 5 weeks and something will be compromised by that time frame.Finally I do think it is worth noting that this habit the Government has of compressing select committee considerations does appear to be part of a tendency towards the slow erosion of some of the guarantors of our Westminster tradition. Around Wellington you hear public servants saying how little the current Government cares for the convention of free and frank advice how much Ministers are expecting officials to tell them what they want to hear and how the Government is railroading through proposals—sometimes involving close associates. The tradition of free and frank advice is there for good reason. For any Government whatever its stripes it is much better to find out the bugs and problems in legislation before decisions are made rather than afterwards and find out the hard way. In protecting the select committee timetable for this bill we also wish to make a nod to the broader conventions that underlie good governance in our Westminster system.Finally of course that other guarantor of good governance is the free and independent press. I guess many watchers of the media are watching with some concern the impact of new technologies on traditional broadcasting models and the importance that that places on a strong public broadcasting system with a reputation for independence and integrity which can ensure proper public debate of issues like this—complex issues international issues issues that are not the product of reality TV or flag consideration panels or other matters that seem to clog up the news websites. Five weeks is not enough time to consider a matter that has a contingent liability for the New Zealand taxpayer of over $600 million. The bill has been months in the production in which New Zealand officials have played a proud role and in principle we are happy to support it. But this timetable is not appropriate. It does not do justice to the best traditions of this House. We are opposed to the motion that the select committee process be truncated to a mere 5 weeks.