Cunliffe David: Westpac New Zealand Bill — In Committee 
Cunliffe David: Westpac New Zealand Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:672;Page:18833] 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
: 
 In addressing clauses 1 and 2 of the Westpac New Zealand Bill which of course the Labour Opposition will support let me recount a small homily in the nature of the contribution of the previous member Mr Jones. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Oh nothing could be quite like— 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: Well perhaps not with the same panache but the content bears upon something that Mr Jones just recounted. It was a cold wild and windy night in Wellington and I was a junior Minister in the Beehive. My phone rang and there on the other end I heard the dulcet tones of she who must be obeyed—not God but the next best thing: Prime Minister Helen Clark. “Can you come up to the ninth floor?” she said. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Oh I thought you were talking about Ann Sherry again! 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: No no—it was worse than that. When I got in the door of the Prime Minister’s office I saw the Minister of Finance sitting ashen-faced at one end of the room and at the other a bloke whom I could not instantly recognise with a strong Australian drawl. I thought he was undertaking a very high-risk exercise as he was wagging his finger at Helen Clark and Michael Cullen and telling them what to do. I had not actually seen someone do that for a long time and live to tell the tale. I said more out of kindness than in anger “Who the hell are you and what do you think you’re doing?”. He said “I’m David Morgan and I’m the chairman of Westpac and I object to this new regulation you’re putting in around the Reserve Bank.” He was the chairman of Westpac Banking Corporation from Australia. He had come across the ditch to wag his finger at Auntie Helen and to tell her that she was not—not—to regulate the banking industry and not to tie these silly performance and asset regulations around the neck of Westpac. Well we did. All banks were treated equally and all banks complied. New Zealand today is a safer and better economy because we have more assets domiciled in this country. I am actually quite proud that the last Labour Government put those regulations through despite the wagging finger of that rather charming Aussie bloke from across the Ditch. 
Today we come full circle. Today we are discussing the Westpac New Zealand Bill which vests in Westpac New Zealand those parts of the of the Australian-owned institutional bank’s asset book that better fit within the cap instituted under that policy. So there we are and we are doing this for good reason. As we go to the title and the commencement of the bill we note that the words “Westpac” and “New Zealand” appear in the same sentence. That has to tell us something. It is a New Zealand bank it is subject to New Zealand law and it is subject to a full-service regulator the Reserve Bank of New Zealand. Lest we forget and lest we take it for granted there were those and I think more than a few on the other side—on the dark side—who suggested that we did not need our own Reserve Bank that we did not need our own prudential regulations and that we could just let Canberra do it. We could have our entire banking system regulated out of Canberra. How patriotic is that? It would not be called the Westpac New Zealand Bill then would it? It would be called the “Westpac Australia (New Zealand Bit) Bill 2010”. But it is not because the good old Labour Government stood up for New Zealand. It said “We want to own our own future—own our own future. We want a banking system we can rely on and we want decent asset-backing locked into this market because when the rainy day comes we don’t want all that capital taking flight back to Sydney and leaving us all on our own poverty-stricken lonesome.” 
Here we are today passing through the Committee stage what is universally regarded thanks to the Maori Party’s clarification—I tautoko that—as unanimous in this House. All parties including the Government have seen the merit in putting the words “New Zealand” in the title alongside the words “Westpac” and “Bill 2010”. It is a statement of our sovereignty as New Zealanders. We are proud Kiwis and we want to own our future. We want to own a bigger not a smaller slice of our own financial system. This may not be great news for Westpac but we plan to empower Kiwibank to be an even more vigorous competitor by infusing its balance sheet with a little extra capital so it can go charging into the marketplace and do battle with our friends across the Ditch like we do on the footy field. 
Shane Ardern 
: How come the member didn’t give it to Government banking last time? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: What was that? 
Shane Ardern 
: How come you didn’t give it to Government banking when you were in power? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: Well now the member has provoked me. In the nick of time the member has provoked me for one further short 5-minute drawl. What was the question again? 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: I think he was asking us why we set up Kiwibank. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: Oh that is a long story. That might require— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Clauses 1 and 2. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: But I will have to bring it back to the title and the commencement. The commencement date of this bill is a very good question because I assume it is not the same date as it is in the title—the title of course is 2010. The commencement date comes into force when the legislation receives the Royal assent and that could not possibly be 2010 because we are in 2011. 
This brings me to a very important point: when making law it should be made with a mandate. If one is making law in 2010 and 2011 the mandate should come from the 2008 election not the 2011 election. Does that sound familiar? Does it sound just a weenie bit familiar? There are other matters where the Government is saying it will seek a mandate from the public on 26 November for matters it intends to pass through the House in the next 3 days—just a mere “Rip Van Winkle” of 6 months in advance. Well that defies logic and it defies gravity and that is why it is important that this bill is called the Westpac New Zealand Bill 2010. The mandate was achieved in 2008—it happens to be bipartisan—and on this occasion the Government got it the right way round unlike KiwiSaver unlike Working for Families and unlike cutting back on student loans where National says it will go to the people in November to do something it will legislate for in May. That is not a mandate; that is a broken promise. I am glad the member opposite Shane Ardern provoked that slight peroration into the chronology of legislation—provoked as it is by the title and commencement clauses of the Westpac New Zealand Bill 2010. 
Let us sum up briefly. This bill is perhaps not the most complex bill we have seen in the House. It is certainly not the longest. This bill may not be the most important bill we have ever passed but it is very important to Westpac and it speaks to some principles that actually matter. It is called the Westpac New Zealand Bill for a reason: it is in New Zealand. It is in New Zealand because it is required to be in New Zealand by law. The assets and liabilities of the bank have to be to a substantial extent under New Zealand law subject to the regulation of the full-service Reserve Bank of New Zealand. In this House we are sovereign and that brings with it enormous responsibilities to our people and their kids because we want them to grow up with sovereignty. We want them to own their own future. That is not just a phrase; it is a matter that is dear to all our hearts. The day we lose control of our financial system is the day we will not own that future and we have come perilously close to that already. With those words of caution for the future I commend the bill to the Committee.