Swarbrick Chlöe; Kuriger BarbaraCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): E te Māngai tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. It'll come as no surprise to members opposite that of course the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand opposes this bill. We oppose this bill for three really really simple reasons and we've got five minutes to lay it out for the members opposite. The first as was elucidated by the former Minister: this actually makes absolutely no difference whatsoever. The second is that it is unnecessary to change the law to actually get this outcome as the Minister says that she wants to achieve as reflected in the regulatory impact statement. And the third is that the Government still seem to want to have the monetary policy committee (MPC) have regard to maximum sustainable employment. This is unnecessary. It is unnecessary to change the law it makes no difference and they still want the monetary policy committee to have regard to maximum sustainable employment.What that means is that what we are currently debating is largely as far as I can kind of ascertain something which oftentimes those who are sitting on the Government benches allege us of which is empty virtue-signalling. Virtue signalling is defined basically as saying that you deeply care about something and then engaging in an action to ostensibly achieve that thing oftentimes knowing full well that the evidence is not on your side.I think it's worthwhile to just unpack a bit of those three points given that we've got the time to do so and given that we're in urgency. I'm looking forward to the committee of the whole House where I'll be able to put a number of these questions to the Minister but also hopefully by which point in time we'll have that letter as referenced earlier disseminated for all of us to be able to debate fulsomely. Just on the point of this making absolutely no difference the Minister of Finance—congratulations—will be aware that when we were sitting in the Finance and Expenditure Committee oftentimes actually working together to try and get more information out of the Government of the time we had a hearing from Adrian Orr and obviously the Reserve Bank of New Zealand on 24 November 2022 where I put to the Governor the question of whether that dual mandate had made any discernible difference in their decision making with regard to monetary policy. He said on the record No is the answer." I quote: "We haven't come across any trade-offs of employment versus inflation. There is no conflict." Therein lies the first premise: this is unnecessary because it makes absolutely no difference whatsoever to how the monetary policy committee is approaching its inflation-taming mandate.The second thing is that it is unnecessary to change the law to achieve this outcome that the Government apparently wants and that is outlined very clearly in the regulatory impact statement which has just been tabled and is therefore available to any members of the public who may be punishing themselves tuned into Parliament tonight. It says—and I quote; this is obviously from Treasury—"Owing to the value of an enduring and stable legislative regime for the Reserve Bank the Treasury's preference is for a new MPC Remit (only) to be issued although it is recognised that issuing a new MPC Remit without amending the Act cannot fully meet the Government's commitment to remove the dual mandate." What is laid out there in public service workers' language is basically that the Government cannot achieve its commitment which is relatively nonsensical in the first place unless it passes this legislation but it can achieve the ends that it is trying to achieve without the means of needing this legislation and wasting hours of the House's time in passing that legislation.The third point is that we just heard outlined in the Minister's own speech that she and the Government still want the monetary policy committee to have an eye on maximum sustainable employment which I think by the way it's worthwhile unpacking that we still don't have a meaningful kind of definition for—but none the less the Government still want the MPC to have regard to that point.So therefore the question really remains what the point is of this law that we are now debating in the House tonight and that we will spend hours working through and wasting time on to do something that could simply be achieved by the Minister putting forward that new MPC remit based on her own advice. Madam Speaker this is a waste of time and the Greens oppose it.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Just before I call the next speaker I just want to clarify for those that have been in the House for a while that under the Standing Orders the first reading is now five-minute calls apart from the first call—just if there are some people that haven't been aware of that."