Robertson Grant; Kuriger BarbaraHon GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour): Well welcome to episode one of the new Government's version of Back to the Future. Here we are taking us back at warp speed to 1989. In 1989 I was in seventh form Ronald Reagan was still in the White House the Berlin Wall was coming down the thing called the World Wide Web was in Tim Berners-Lee's mind and it was also a period of time in New Zealand where indeed we had seen periods of extraordinary inflation. I remember growing up in the 1980s and seeing inflation at levels in double digits consistently and seeing the impact that that had on society. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act of 1989 was a direct response to that. It was also in large part a response to the actions of the then just-departed National Party Prime Minister Sir Robert Muldoon who ran riot as both the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance and put New Zealand in a position where we almost went broke where the Reserve Bank was required to make sure that it went to ambassadors overseas and asked them to draw down foreign currency on their credit cards because New Zealand's foreign reserves had been drawn down so badly. So in 1989 the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act was indeed world leading but 30-odd years later without a review of any substance it was no longer world leading. It had slipped behind and that is why the previous Government announced a review of the Reserve Bank Act on coming into office.I think it's very telling that the first two bills that this Government brings to the House are actually focused deliberately focused on taking away the focus on jobs and wages. They're the two things—the first actions of this Government are to take us back to 1989 and to take the focus off jobs and wages because that is what this legislation and indeed the next bill that is to come do.This is an unnecessary short-sighted bill. It is not evidence based. It won't do the things that the National Party are telling New Zealanders it will do. They tell them it will reduce the cost of living and we will find as we go through this debate today that that is in fact not the case. This is a bill that is designed simply to take us backwards to a time that has long since passed in New Zealand.The other point I'd like to make at this point in the debate is to indicate that obviously the Labour Party will be opposing the bill but also our very very deep concern about the fact that this bill is not being referred to a select committee at this point. When we made the change to go the other way we had a full public consultation process run by an independent panel and then we came back and then we put it through the House and put it through a select committee. That is what should be happening in this piece of legislation and members opposite who have often called for bills to go to select committee might actually want to reflect on that.The issue here is that this is not evidence-based policy and to pick up just one of many of the comments that the Minister made in introducing it there actually has not been a relationship between a country's inflationary trajectory and its central bank mandate over the last couple of years. Let's just look at it. For New Zealand and Australia who both have dual mandates our inflation peaked at either 7.2 percent or 7.8 percent but in the UK which has got a central bank with a primary price stability mandate inflation peaked at 11.1 percent. So there's no correlation there as the member opposite might like to say.It is important in the economy to make sure that people can do two things at once. I know it's hard for the Government but it is important. Mary Daly who was a member of the US Federal Reserve put it this way: The enduring lesson of my childhood is that people need both jobs and stable prices. That is why a dual mandate is not a choice between two desirable things. It is a balance meant to deliver on a singular goal—a sustainable and expanding economy that works for everyone. That is the foundation of economic security." That's what the Reserve Bank should be doing: contributing to the overall economic wellbeing of New Zealanders. We changed the purpose of this Act we changed the objectives of this Act to do two things: keep prices under control and keep people in work and that is a laudable goal—DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member's time has expired."