Bayly Andrew; Robertson GrantANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Yeah I'm just conscious that the Minister's getting some advice so I appreciate that. I'll just turn to a slightly different topic while the Minister's getting that advice. This refers to clause 233. There's a number of clauses here that deal with the calculation of what is the nature extent of the deposit insurance money that's going to be paid and clause 233 provides for the bank to appoint 1 or more persons as reviewer as soon as is reasonably practicable after (a) a resolution ends … or (b) the Bank pays money out of the fund". So this is a review process and it goes through in clause 233(2) saying "Before appointing the reviewer the Bank must be satisfied that the … [reviewer] has the appropriate knowledge [and] skills"—that's good. In clause 233(3) the reviewer must "(a) assess whether the Bank's calculation of the maximum amount complies with (i) the regulations … [etc. etc. etc.] … (b) prepare a draft report … and (c) consult the Bank on the draft report; and [then] (d) provide a final report to the Bank" after taking account of the bank's comments on the draft. Then there's a very important thing in clause 233(4): "The reviewer may when acting under … [this provision] only take into account information known to the Bank at the time that it makes the calculation". So you can't be hammering people for things you didn't know at the time that payments were made. And clause 233(5): "The Bank must publish the final report on its Internet site." But the bit I want to highlight is in the next subclause. New subclause 233(6) states "The Bank may redact any information from the final report that is published"—remember it's got to be published and it's got to be republished on the Reserve Bank's internet site—"if the Bank considers there would be a good reason for withholding the information under the Official Information Act 1982 if a request for that information were made under that Act."Now that's an extraordinary little clause sitting in this Deposit Takers Bill. And to be honest I hadn't really noticed it until I was reading through this and having a pretty good look at it. So this is meaning that the bank could doctor the report and in some cases make it meaningless if it so felt. So if the Opposition finance member wanted to find out about it if the bank wanted to find out about what was in the final report all of that may be precluded and is allowed for in contravention to the Official Information Act 1982. So maybe the Minister can just help—why this extraordinary power is in this bill and why it is necessary.Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Just to just cover off a few of the questions and comments that have been made—with respect to Mr Bayly's earlier remarks the scheme is designed to cover New Zealand denominated accounts. There is a provision which I think Mr Bayly probably knows about for foreign currency to potentially come into the scheme at some point but at this stage it isn't in the scheme; it's obviously accounts that operate through New Zealand banks or offshore-owned banks where there is a New Zealand subsidiary.In terms of the comments made about the amount of money the $100000 level it is commonplace in these sorts of pieces of legislation to insert a dollar amount. The idea of inflation indexing that would create a great deal of confusion because inflation obviously does go up and down and there would be a need to work out how you would do that on what basis—would you do it on a time basis? You know every few years? In the end as we do with most other bits of legislation we put a dollar amount in. If the occasion arises in the future where we feel that not a sufficient number of depositors are covered by the Act then one could come and amend the Act. But as we would do in others it's pretty difficult to peg it to something that moves around so often that it would make it very confusing and I would imagine probably lower trust in the scheme. So that's why we have the specific dollar amount. In terms of Mr Bayly's final point on clause 233—I mean bear in mind that this is a very specific clause about an independent review of a resolution process under this part of the bill or of the Act. It would be normal I would think when you think about the kinds of entities that will be being discussed the potential for particularly privacy issues—so sections 9(2)(a) and (b) of the Official Information Act cover the privacy of natural persons. And you can imagine when a review has been undertaken in this way that there may be a need to withhold some elements of the report. I think as in a few of the other comments made earlier this evening by the member and one of the other Opposition members we always have to remember that the Reserve Bank is operating here in its independent way. It has a piece of legislation. It has to obey the law. It has to fit within the law but it's also responsible for some really important activities on behalf of New Zealanders: making sure in this case that they've been properly paid out if the deposit compensation scheme is required to be put in place in other clauses around supervision of banking entities. They need the powers that they need in order to be able to give New Zealanders confidence. They also have to obey the law and I think that particular clause is appropriate in this place."