Collins Judith; Williams PotoHon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. It's a privilege to be able to take a call on the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (Monetary Policy) Amendment Bill. As has been outlined the National Party believes that this bill is somewhat not needed given that the Reserve Bank has done an outstanding job in securing and working to its mandate to actually keep inflation under control and prices stable.Many of us are old enough to remember what happens when inflation gets out of control and particularly can remember back in the days of the 1970s and 1980s when in fact pricing was out of control and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act needed to be brought into play. We are concerned at the say mission creep" that we see for the Reserve Bank. So we are going to need to have some real convincing done for us in the Finance and Expenditure Committee and our caucus before we can bring ourselves to support this bill because now we see the Government saying—the Labour - New Zealand First - Green Government saying—that it would now like to have responsibility for employment moving to the Reserve Bank.I heard some words about well-being so presumably well-being will eventually at some stage creep into the mandate of the Reserve Bank. I heard some comments from the previous speaker Mr Twyford around the housing market becoming more of the preserve of the Reserve Bank. I think one of the issues with this is that just because the Reserve Bank is competent there's no need to give it all the work of the Government. I think one of the reasons that the Reserve Bank has been so successful in bringing about a stable monetary policy and environment is that it has had a single focus. It has not been at all alert to or taking any notice of the whims of politicians or of anything else. They've just done their job and done it exceedingly well.So we on this side of the House are somewhat bemused at the problem that is trying to be solved by the Government. I would have thought that if you have something that is working so well and has done so for 30-odd years—and has a tremendous amount of credibility built up not only in New Zealand but also elsewhere in the world and is often viewed as one of the great examples of a success—why would this Government want to fiddle with the mandate and the obligations of the Reserve Bank?I understand that there may be some tension between Treasury and the Reserve Bank on various issues and I see that part of this bill is to put a Treasury person on a monetary policy committee and that that Treasury representative will not have voting power but will be there. There as what? There as an advisor? There as what? Making the tea? What? And the answer I think has to be that it seems very unclear. So we are going to want to have some pretty clear answers as to exactly what the role of a Treasury official is in those meetings of the monetary policy committee.We know that often the better decisions are made after careful consideration by a group of people in a committee rather than a sole person making a judgment call. That is already the practice at the Reserve Bank so it seems to me somewhat superfluous to have this bill coming through at this stage. So again we're going to need some convincing as to why legislation and legislative time are being spent on remedying something which is not broken.We are concerned at—as I've said before—creep within the mandate of the Reserve Bank and its obligations. New Zealand already has one of the lower unemployment rates in the world at around 4 percent. That is a very good result that has been in place now for some years. I would not like to see that unemployment rate go up and I would certainly not want to see a Government plan to blame a Reserve Bank should that unemployment rate go up because it certainly seems to me that that could be a result should this bill be successful in its way through the House.One of the problems that we had before we had the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act was a lack of focus and certainly political interference in decisions—the monetary policy really needed to be free of that. So having a Treasury official sitting in a meeting; the Treasury official then reports through to the Secretary to the Treasury who then reports through to the Minister of Finance could well actually be seen as possibly bringing in some form of political influence or an attempt to do so when it comes to those monetary policy committee decisions. So these are all very genuine questions that we have and we will be no doubt looking at this very carefully on the Finance and Expenditure Committee.So from our point of view some of the arguments I've heard from Mr Twyford are that essentially this has been a policy of the Green Party it's been a policy of the New Zealand First Party and it's been a policy of the New Zealand Labour Party. I have not heard an argument yet as to what is trying to be remedied I have not yet heard an argument as to why it's happening other than that some political parties went out on the hustings and said there was a problem and that they were going to fix it. The problem is that there doesn't appear to have been a problem and that this could be a situation of considerable butt-covering—to use a very technical term—when it comes to making these promises.So I think this is most likely a bill that the National Party is going to find is superfluous—worse than that most likely going to find that unless we see better evidence and answers to our questions on the Finance and Expenditure Committee it is going to be a bill that we see as actually a bit of the "thin edge of the wedge" type with this very strange acceptance that somehow the Reserve Bank needs to have responsibility for sustainable employment. I'm not sure that anybody quite understands what "sustainable" is in this other than that you like to hope that people can remain employed and perhaps that's what it is.But ultimately when we know as we are told constantly by officials that unemployment has very little to do with monetary policy and has a tremendous amount to do with skills and also confidence in business it seems to me that this is a very strange requirement to put upon the Reserve Bank given that the Reserve Bank has no power whatsoever to influence skills training of people who wish to be employed. It has no ability—no ability—to influence business confidence other than for the Reserve Bank to do an outstanding job in keeping inflation rates at very reasonable levels so that people can plan better for their businesses and make decisions that they believe are in the best interests of not only their business but actually their employees.So we think at this stage that this bill is not needed it is window-dressing—a bit of butt-covering from Labour the Greens and New Zealand First—and seems to us to be not really worth much time at all. Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I call Fletcher Tabuteau.Hon Ruth Dyson: Oh this'll be better."