Hide Rodney: Westpac New Zealand Bill — Second Reading 
Hide Rodney: Westpac New Zealand Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:633;Page:4800] 
RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 It will not be me who refers to the fact that the Westpac New Zealand Bill is a private bill. It is not common in our Parliament that an MP brings such a bill to the House. I observe that this bill is a big bill in terms of its implications. I will not point out that the member whose name is on the bill is not even here. I will not do that not at all not once. I should also point out that the ACT party will be sadly and unfortunately opposing this bill and I will set out why. 
I was interested to hear my colleague Mr Craig Foss speak on this bill and raise some concerns and then say he will vote for it anyway because the Reserve Bank and Westpac have given him assurances that everything is OK. The difficulty with that is that the Reserve Bank does not guarantee any bank in New Zealand and the Government does not guarantee any bank in New Zealand; people are out there on their own as customers. I must say that when I see a bill with Marian Hobbs’ name on it experience has taught me to look most carefully at what is going on. There is a reason she is no longer a Minister and is able to bring forward a private bill—it is because she was not very good at it. So Marian Hobbs who—and I do not think this is unparliamentary given what has gone on here today—has been referred to in the media as “Boo Boo” because of her constant screw-ups while a Minister now has a bill that affects 1.3 million customers and involves a transaction of $35 billion to $40 billion. Would one put that bill in the charge of someone whose nickname became “Boo Boo” who never rose above Minister of Broadcasting and who got fired from that job? 
National members are quite happy to vote for the bill because they have had an assurance from the Reserve Bank that everything will be OK. Let us examine this. When people go and put money into a bank it is no longer their money. All they have is a credit against that bank. If that bank falls over which would be a terrible thing they lose their money and the Government ain’t going to bail them out the Reserve Bank ain’t going to bail them out and Marian Hobbs is not going to reach into her back pocket and bail them out. No they lose their money. I am amazed that this House is going along so casually with this. So let us just think what happens. Right now if you are a Westpac customer you have a claim against Westpac which is a large bank across Australia and New Zealand. You know through the disclosure regime the assets and liabilities of that bank and you know it is a large bank. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member keeps on bringing in the Speaker. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: Why? 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: You know that you cannot bring the Speaker into the debate. Please continue. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: I would not do that Mr Assistant Speaker but I can talk about customers—and that is what I am talking about Mr Assistant Speaker. I know that you do not bank with Westpac but I can talk about a person going and putting his or her money into the bank. Right now customers have a claim against Westpac including its operations in Australia and New Zealand. But when this bill comes into effect on 1 November suddenly their claim will be against another legal entity. Is that not true Mr Foss? It is now a much smaller entity is it not—it no longer represents the bank in Australia and New Zealand; it represents the bank in New Zealand. So what customers are banking with has changed. The legal entity has fundamentally changed. Customers did not agree to that; Parliament is doing it. 
Craig Foss 
: Yes but they’re ranked higher. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: Oh well Mr Foss says they are ranked higher. He actually does not know that because the next kicker is that that has been done before in the 1970s. Of course Parliament then when it drafted the bill included in the bill the assets and liabilities that were being transferred across. What do we discover in this bill? There is no description of the assets and liabilities that will be in Westpac New Zealand. I defy anyone to tell me what the assets and liabilities of Westpac New Zealand will be. So that is interesting—we are setting up this legislation but who will decide that? 
Chris Tremain 
: The Reserve Bank. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: Oh well that is a worry—Mr Tremain yells out that he thinks it will be the Reserve Bank. I tell him that no it is not; it will be the Minister by Order in Council. Is that not correct? 
Shane Jones 
: Yes. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: Shane Jones is on to it; at least he kept awake during the hearings. So now we will have Michael Cullen that economic wizard—it goes from Marian Hobbs who is the author of this legislation to Michael Cullen—and we all know to trust him do we not? Here is the National Party now saying; “Don’t worry you 1.3 million customers; you can trust Michael Cullen.”—Yeah right! So for those 1.3 million people by Order in Council—Mr Jones has confirmed that; a very good chairman he has become I might add and that will sink his career—Michael Cullen will decide what the assets and liabilities of Westpac New Zealand are. Well bloody hell as they say! So people go to bed one night with their money in Westpac but they wake up next day and because of what we are passing here today in part it is a new legal entity. The assets and liabilities of that entity have been decided by the Minister of Finance Michael Cullen with no parliamentary scrutiny or check. 
It might have escaped members’ attention but there is a dispute on between the New Zealand Government and Westpac over a small tax bill totalling $750 million not including penalties. If we put the penalties in the sum goes to a billion dollars. The question has to be asked: “Oh I wonder who’s going to end up carrying that?” The Reserve Bank advised us not to worry; it would not be Westpac New Zealand. If we ask why not the bank says that it would never advise the Minister to sign that. That is how shonky this is. And I say to the House that if we are to agree to something that Marian Hobbs having been fired as a Minister because she was a booboo has come up with; if we let her come along here with a private bill for which she cannot even sit in Parliament and listen to the debate on; if we are just to rubber stamp the bill for 1.3 million people—the bill that involves a transaction forced by compulsion by this Parliament with no customers agreeing to this they do not have a say—if we are going to be doing all that then we do need to worry. 
Let us imagine that everything is kosher and absolutely as the officials have advised. Let us imagine that Craig Foss is right—that we can trust everyone who comes before a committee and says not to worry because everything will be OK Michael Cullen will do a great job and Marian Hobbs knows what she is doing. Let us imagine all that is true which is hard then even if all that is true I still think the process is wrong. I am not criticising Westpac here; I am actually criticising Parliament. I do not believe that we have given this bill proper scrutiny we have not considered it properly we are not following a correct process on behalf of 1.3 million customers and we are not actually considering the gravity of a $35 billion forced transaction. So the ACT party proudly on its own stands opposed to what is a shonky process.