O'Connor Greg; Robertson GrantClauses 1 to 3 CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): Members we come now to our final debate. This is the debate on clauses 1 to 3: Title" "Commencement" and "Principal Act".Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour): Thank you very much. I am going to speak to a couple of amendments that I have on the commencement clause and this comes to a very important point that has been underlying the entire debate in the committee of the whole House stage and that is the question of whether there is any evidence to support the contention of the Minister that underpins the entire bill: that somehow or other the Reserve Bank of New Zealand having a dual mandate meant that it took its eye off the ball of inflation.Now to recap matters that the Minister didn't respond to over the course of this debate we have heard that there was the potential or the possibility of a conflict between the two objectives. However we were not presented with any evidence that that was true. In fact the only evidence we have is to the contrary which is the statements of the Reserve Bank Governor that in fact they did focus on inflation during that period and were not impacted. Therefore that is why I am proposing to amend the commencement date for the Act to come into force upon the conclusion of an independent expert review on the impacts of the Reserve Bank's maximum sustainable objective on inflation employment and growth outcomes in New Zealand and the establishment of evidence that the maximum sustainable employment objective has had undesirable consequences for the New Zealand economy.This Act should not come into force until such time as we have evidence that it is actually needed. So we've reached this point in the debate—we've been through Part 1; we've been through Part 2. We have not been able to convince the Government in those two parts that they should take on board amendments that acknowledge the question that was being raised in this amendment so now we come to the commencement clause as the only opportunity left for us to say "Let's not go down a path we don't need to and that is not good for the New Zealand economy if we don't have to. Let's actually have independent experts come in and review it." That's actually a very important notion because we never got to hear from independent experts during the process of this piece of legislation. That stands I might say in stark contrast to when the dual mandate provision was put in when we did an independent expert review with public consultation and then a piece of legislation that went to select committee and was open for further public submissions. We haven't had any of that and that's why I believe the commencement clause—clause 2—needs to change so that the Act will come into force only upon that particular day.So I would like to hear from the member in charge of the bill whether or not she believes that this is something that would be sensible. I have for her an alternative which is a further amendment to clause 2 which would say that it comes into force rather than on the day after Royal assent actually on 1 December 2026 provided evidence is found that the maximum sustainable employment objective has had undesirable consequences for the New Zealand economy. Now I offer up this alternative for a commencement date in the interests of providing clarity and certainty which appear to be two concepts close to the heart of the Minister. I know that we were criticised in an earlier part of the bill for providing options—well in this case we're providing options and that is either "1 December 2026" or "at the conclusion of an independent expert review". I'm not sure that the Government is that keen on the views of experts but this is an opportunity for them to take it up.In all seriousness when we are passing legislation in this House we should have evidence presented to us. This is a Government that has told us they believe in evidence-based policy. Well here's the chance to make that real. Support these amendments in my name so that actually we hear from the experts before we let this bill come into force; otherwise it really does show what has been suggested earlier in this debate: that this is all symbolism; it's not substance; it actually isn't going to do the things that the Government has said it's going to do; and they're merely filling up the fact that they don't have any actual positive legislation."