Williams Andrew: Reserve Bank of New Zealand (Covered Bonds) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWilliams Andrew: Reserve Bank of New Zealand (Covered Bonds) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 19 November 2013. Volume:695;Page:15025. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First): It is a great pleasure to take a call following the member for the North Shore Maggie Barry and the amazing amount of information she provided to the House in that once again very short speech from the member for the North Shore.We still have not heard the answer—despite it being asked in the Committee stage and by speakers in this third reading we do not have the answer—as to why the 10 percent figure was chosen while Australia has 8 percent for the covered bonds market. In the likes of Canada it is 4 percent and other jurisdictions around the world range between that figure of 4 and 8 percent. We still have not had the answer. We have had members of the Finance and Expenditure Committee including Paul Goldsmith the current chair and other members of the committee including Maggie Barry and yet not one of them has answered the question. It is somewhat surprising that in the House of Representatives where quite clearly it is a pretty black and white situation—why has New Zealand adopted a 10 percent ceiling? The officials are sitting over there. I am surethey know the answer. I am sure they would love to give us the answer. It is probably a very sound and solid answer. It is probably a justifiable answer but we still have not been given the answer.Now we have got the Hon Gerry Brownlee in the House. Perhaps the Hon Gerry Brownlee has come along with the answer. Maybe he has been researching it all morning working out why it is 10 percent. He has probably been sitting up there on about the sixth floor of the Beehive—Hon Gerry Brownlee: Oh seventh.ANDREW WILLIAMS: Oh you are on the seventh floor Gerry? And he has been ringing through to Bill English’s office saying: “Bill why is it 10 percent?”. And Bill says: “I don’t know Gerry. I wouldn’t have a clue why is 10 percent. It is 10 percent.” And Gerry says: “Well I am going down to the House shortly and I should know why it is 10 percent because I hate going the House and not being able to answer the question.”With Gerry Brownlee being the Leader of the House I would have thought that he would have done his homework. He would have been up there on the seventh floor and he would have heard this debate. He would have been riveted to the television all morning and he would have said: “I am going to go down there and I am going to go explain all. I am going to explain all. I am going to tell New Zealand and I am going to tell the large viewing public out there in New Zealand why the Government has selected 10 percent while Australia is 8 percent. I am going to explain why when in so many other legal areas and financial areas where we try to harmonise with our big cousin over the Tasman we have selected 10 percent rather than 8 percent.” Why are we giving preference to international investors to get 10 percent—get their claws on 10 percent—of the funds of any financial institutions in New Zealand should they heaven forbid go belly up unlike in Australia where they would get their claws on only 8 percent or in Canada where it is only 4 percent?I think it would be a great shame if this bill does pass—and it is going to pass because it has unanimous support from parties in this House—and if the very learned Gerry Brownlee was not able to answer that simple question and this goes into the annals of history as being a mysterious figure that was plucked from the air and put into an Act of Parliament but it was never answered and it was never actually determined as to how the figure came to be. But like so much legislation put through by this Government it was probably done with a dartboard or you know with a flick of a coin. The Government probably tossed a coin and said: “Oh shall we make it 6 percent? Shall we make it 8 percent? Shall we make it 10 percent? Oh let’s toss a coin.” So much of the legislation that is brought before this House by this Government often does not have the facts behind it.You know the Government told us that the sale of the shares in the mixed-ownership model would mean we would end up with all these New Zealanders owning the power companies and Air New Zealand. And how many—was it 2.5 percent of New Zealanders who now own those shares whereas before it was 100 percent of all New Zealanders? Everyone in this room and every New Zealander out there had 100 percent ownership of those power companies. Now half of those power companies or 49 percent of them are owned by a miserable 2.5 percent of the elite people who can afford to go out and buy the shares in those power companies. The same has happened with Air New Zealand—David Bennett: Winston bought some.ANDREW WILLIAMS: The same has happened with Air New Zealand this week Mr Bennett. Again we all have pride in our national airline. We get on the national airline and we say: “It’s ours. It’s great.” You know we owned over three-quarters of it.It is our airline. Now you get on it and say: “Oh well we own 53 percent.” The other 47 percent could be owned by anyone—could be owned by anyone. It is a bit like the power companies now. BNY Mellon bought 8 percent of Meridian Energy. Is that not shocking? Suddenly they are in New York—probably an old mate of John Key’s who was a banker in New York I would say. He probably got a phone call and said: “Hey there’s a good deal coming up here in New Zealand.” and the banker said: “Oh thanks very much John. Here—we’ll be into 8 percent of that. That’ll be great. Thanks for the tip. Thanks mate. Next time you’re in New York I’ll buy you a bottle of ‘Bolly’.” I am sure that is probably how the conversation went.This is what happens with all these deals with the National Government. It is happening all the time because people—the favoured few the ones who get tapped on the shoulder by the National Government—benefit while the rest of good old average Kiwi New Zealand suffers. Good old Kiwi New Zealand suffers. As a fifth-generation New Zealander on both sides—on my father’s side and my mother’s side—can I just say that I am getting heartily sick and tired of seeing our country being sold down the river. Quite frankly you know my parents my grandparents and their parents going right back to the 1840s in New Zealand did not spend all their time helping to develop this country over many generations for this one generation—this one generation with Gerry Brownlee Steven Joyce John Key Bill English and their ilk—to sell off all the hard work of my parents my grandparents and their parents and parents before them. It is disgraceful and this generation will always go down as the one that sold the wealth of New Zealand down the river for the benefit of the 2 or 3 percent who could afford to be participants in it.In closing this speech New Zealand First will support the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (Covered Bonds) Amendment Bill because New Zealand First supports any legislation that has merit to it in terms of improving our financial systems. We have been strong opponents of the loose financial arrangements that saw 61 institutions in this country go belly up in recent years which saw the likes of South Canterbury Finance taking more deposits in 6 to 12 months without the Minister of Finance or Treasury or anyone keeping an eye that it was taking more and more deposits and it could not cover them. That situation cannot be allowed to continue.So this piece of legislation is a small part of the overall framework to try to improve the financial securities in this country to ensure that we do not operate a cowboy Wild West financial system and to ensure that as a result there is more security for those investors including international investors coming to New Zealand and that we are not seen as a Third World financial place. So New Zealand First will be supporting the bill.