McKelvie IanRESERVE BANK OF NEW ZEALAND (MONETARY POLICY) AMENDMENT BILLThird ReadingDebate resumed.IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. I'm sorry it will be a bit of an anticlimax after the last speech but I shall endeavour to do something useful.Kieran McAnulty: Back yourself.IAN McKELVIE: Ha ha! Thank you Kieran—that's kind of you Mr McAnulty. Thank you.It's a pleasure to speak—well I don't know whether it is actually—on the third reading of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (Monetary Policy) Amendment Bill and in the words of Dinah Washington What a Diff'rence a Day Makes". Actually that kind of sums up my attitude to this bill because you can do what you like with monetary policy but monetary policy can only manage us—well it should only manage us—in a stable manner that continues I guess to be the voice of reason when all else fails. And of course with monetary matters all else fails us quite frequently and so I think it's hugely important the monetary policy stuff not so much for what we do with it but for what it does for us.This bill makes some changes that you could see as progressive you could see as destabilising and you could see as slightly worrying and I probably see them as slightly worrying. I think that when there's opportunity for political interference in matters of State or monetary policy or whatever you like to say then it could be of concern. The speech of Grant Robertson earlier on kind of reminded me of a former Labour leader of Britain—I don't think anyone in the House will remember; you won't even remember that Paul Eagle—Harold Wilson who said "I'm an optimist but an optimist who always takes a raincoat." I guess that summed up I thought Grant Robertson's speech really: he might be an optimist but he always wants to take his raincoat with him just in case.The issue I want to talk about really is I guess where they've got to with this bill in respect of what I'd call governance by committee. The board is effectively appointed by the finance Minister; some members of that committee are now appointed by the finance Minister as well. So effectively the finance Minister has a degree of control over the Reserve Bank which wasn't the case under the old system.Under the old system there was a board who then appointed a Reserve Bank manager or "governor" as he or she was known. In recent times of course that governor has tended to use a committee of their own to manage the monetary policy; so I guess you could argue—and I'm sure the finance Minister would—that from that perspective all he's done is change the structure to put in place a formal committee whereas in former days the committee wasn't formalised. And I'm not sure whether that's a good or a bad thing. I don't have a strong view on it—I do think that it's probably a bad thing—but what I do have a strong view on is where we get to the point of there being the potential for political interference in the stability of the Reserve Bank's monetary policy decisions.Stability's an issue. The independence also is an issue and the third thing that I'm particularly concerned about is that with an enlarged group managing effectively the decisions of the Reserve Bank the degree of security around that group must surely be of concern. We've seen already in the last 12 months where effectively leaks from the Reserve Bank have triggered some I guess pretty interesting reaction from the international markets. The decisions that the Reserve Bank makes are hugely critical to our place in the international markets and to our international monetary policy relationships and so security of the decisions that that committee makes is hugely important. I think that's one of the concerns I have with it.I think that this bill is of concern to us. One of the speakers earlier made the point that we may well not change it were we to become the Government. Well he was optimistic we would become the Government—"When we become the Government" he said. That's a matter for future debate but I guess that I don't think we should be playing with something that is frankly not broken. So we're not supporting this bill—probably unusual but none the less that's the position we've taken."