Lees-Galloway Iain: New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLees-Galloway Iain: New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 30 June 2015. Volume:707;Page:4908. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North):It is a wonderful opportunity to speak to the Committee and to those at home listening on their crystal sets to the debate this evening. I think we might have got to the bottom of why the Minister of Finance overruled the Finance and Expenditure Committee and the National MPs on the select committee. I think he thinks the National MPs’ scrutiny of this bill was a bit dodgy. We have heard from Alistair Scott that the bill basically does very little. I was not on the select committee. This is not my area of expertise but after a 30-second conversation with my colleague David Parker I think I understand clause 6 and clause 7 considerably better than Alistair Scott does. It is clear to me that clause 6 does introduce a new subsection stating that section 59 which says that the fund can hold no controlling interests does not apply to the fund investment vehicles referred to in new section 59A and those are new fund investment vehicles that are created by this legislation. That appears to me as a layman in these terms as quite a significant change to the original legislation. So we have been wondering tonight why it is that after a lengthy period of scrutiny by a select committee which I assume has a majority of National MPs on it—Grant Robertson: It does.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: —it does I am told by my colleague—and after the committee unanimously deciding to include new section 59A(1A) and (1B) in clause 7 to give the Minister oversight in certain circumstances the Minister has come in and said not only that he does not agree with the position the National MPs took but that these bills after the select committee has considered them have to go back to the caucus. The National caucus actually said that this was OK when it scrutinised it closely. And I know it scrutinises these bills closely because it certainly looked at the Health and Safety Reform Bill very closely. In fact Mr Scott and his colleague Mr Bayly must be getting a little sick of being overruled by their caucus and their Minister with the work they do at the select committee then being overruled by their caucus colleagues because they have been looking at the Health and Safety Reform Bill as well. We know that the caucuses look at them closely and they would have looked at this bill closely. They agreed with the select committee that new sections 59A(1A) and (1B) should be included in the bill.So where was the Minister for that conversation? Surely that would have been the point at which the Minister if he had concerns should have raised those concerns with his caucus colleagues and sent the National MPs back to the select committee with a flea in their ear. But no obviously the left hand did not know what the right hand was up to which seems to be the usual state of affairs for the National Party at the moment and it was only after the bill was reported back to the House that the Minister decided to overrule his own colleagues on the select committee.We know that the National Party does not have an astonishingly good track record on these matters. Chris Bishop raised some issues around this. He said there was a time when the National Party MPs did not really agree with the Cullen fund but they have grown to love it. In the same way they did not agree with KiwiSaver but they have grown to love that as well. They did not agree with interest-free student loans and they did not agree with paid parental leave—all the ideas that were generated by the Labour Government alongside the Superannuation Fund to secure the financial future of New Zealanders. They were all things that the National Party opposed but that it now says it agree with.I think that just underlines the fact that actually the Labour Party is the party of ideas the party of the future and the party that thinks about the financial security and the future of the people and the citizens of New Zealand and the National Party is just the party of “No”. It is no to superannuation no to KiwiSaver and no to paid parental leave. It is the party that repeatedly says no to the new ideas. But that is OK because being conservatives those MPs eventually come round to the idea and about a decade later they realise that actually Labour was right all along and not just on superannuation and not just on the matters addressed in this bill. Maybe in 10 years’ time the National MPs will look back on tonight and say: “You know what? Labour was right and we were wrong.” Do not do it to yourselves National. Get on the right side of history now and vote against that Supplementary Order Paper.