Shaw James: Keep Kiwibank Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeShaw James: Keep Kiwibank Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 14 October 2015. Volume:709;Page:7270. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green): I rise on this first reading of Clayton Cosgrove’s Keep Kiwibank Bill. I just wanted to commend the last speaker Jami-Lee Ross for what was actually a fascinating history lesson on the career of Winston Peters. I am not sure how relevant it was to the substance of the bill but nevertheless it was absolutely fascinating.I would also just like to pick up on some of the comments made by the member Chris Bishop as well where he started off by saying that there are two types of bills that are entered into the House by members on members’ days which generally are one public interest bills—bills that are genuinely designed to advance an interest perhaps in small ways sometimes in grand ways—and two other bills that are really just political statements and so on. He categorised this bill as a political statement rather than as a bill in the public interest.I would like to say why I am voting for this bill which is because Kiwibank is an incredibly important strategic asset to New Zealand. In the darkest days of the great financial crisis the main banks owned by other banks in Australia the Australian-owned banks repatriated most of their cash and stopped lending into the New Zealand market. That threatened the ongoing existence of most of New Zealand’s businesses especially those small and medium enterprises that make up so much of our economy.Kiwibank being a publicly owned bank stepped into that void and continued to make loans particularly into the small to medium sized enterprise end of the market. In fact part of the reason why it is a successful bank today is because during that period time when the Australian-owned banks had stopped lending into the New Zealand market it significantly expanded its loan book supported the New Zealand economy and supported all of those small and medium enterprises to keep going. If it had not done that New Zealand’s version of the crisis would have been a great deal worse than it was.Our businesses were able to continue trading they were continually able to have access to credit they continued to operate and they continued to buy and sell from each other and to each other throughout that period of time. So the presence of Kiwibank in the New Zealand economy was absolutely critical during that financial crisis. It is not inconceivable that such a crisis will happen again in the not too distant future.Structurally its ownership by the public was critical to its decision to continue to do that to continue to make those loans not just because it was a bank owned in New Zealand—its shareholding was held in New Zealand—but because it was a publicly owned bank. It has a mission above and beyond profit to its own shareholders. It actually sees itself as a bank in the service of the New Zealand economy and of New Zealanders above and beyond the dividend that it needs to provide to New Zealand Post and thereby to the Crown. So it is an incredibly important strategic asset and it is critically important that we hold on to it.This is not a perfect bill. There are a number of provisions in it that are a little clunky and there are things that I think can be worked through but that is why we have the select committee process. So I think for those members opposite who are criticising the provisions of the bill I would then suggest to them that if they are criticising the provisions of the bill rather than the principle of the bill which is that we hold on to Kiwibank—then they should vote for the bill to move into the select committee so that together we can clean up those provisions and make it work and so that we can make it work to the satisfaction of both sides of the House.To me it seems a perfectly rational response to say: “Well look the bill isn’t perfect but if we agree with it in principle then we should move it forward into the select committee process and in so doing make sure that what comes out the other side is a much better bill and that it will be workable and that it will preserve that principle—that we hold on to this incredibly important strategic asset to the New Zealand economy.”I think my colleague Julie Anne Genter when she spoke on this bill earlier described the experience that New Zealanders have of Kiwibank. I have spoken mostly about its strategic importance to the New Zealand economy to our small to medium sized enterprise sector and so on but it is also a greatly loved institution in New Zealand. I think that New Zealanders as a whole would want to make sure that it is retained in public hands—in the hands of New Zealand and the Government.With that I believe that we should keep Kiwibank we should support this bill through to the select committee and the Green Party is delighted to be voting for it to move to the select committee. Thank you.