Russell DeborahHon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour): Doctor. Ordinarily in the second reading of a bill we would be coming to this House having gone through a select committee process where we would've heard submissions from all sorts of actors in the community where we would've teased out some of the nuance of the bill where we would've understood the implications and having been so informed we would've come back to this debating chamber to present a variety of views. And ordinarily there would have been some amendments to the bill. That's a pretty standard practice as a bill comes back from a select committee.However we haven't had a select committee process on this bill—not even a truncated select committee process not even maybe a week to hear from people who could've been invited in to talk to us about this bill. As has been pointed out by other speakers in this debate the bill itself is not complicated or long. There are only a few clauses which actually perform something that actually make something happen. So we could have perhaps managed a truncated process on this and at least gotten some feedback from other players in the economy and that would've introduced some nuance into this debate—and I think it needs nuance. As it turns out I have contacted a number of people who I know are concerned about this bill and I will be bringing their views to the committee of the whole House in an effort to at least get some nuance into it.But I do want to talk about some of the nuance that is found in the material that has been placed in front of us already. I'm going to start with the letter that the Minister of Finance has already spoken about the letter that she received from the chair of the Reserve Bank and the Governor of the Reserve Bank which she has quoted and tabled in the House. Now I have a copy of it here. It's a bit hard: my eyes are getting a bit older; I have to expand the text to see it properly but one of the words that is put in there is the word priority"—not "exclusive" not "sole" not "only" but the word "priority".So the chair of the Reserve Bank and the Governor of the Reserve Bank have quite a nuanced view in this letter. They don't say the intended focus is exactly what we recommend; instead they say the intended focus of this bill is consistent with the views we expressed. Now that's not an out and out endorsement; it's saying it's consistent—it can sit alongside; it can work with. So it's consistent with their recent monetary policy committee remit review which was published in June 2023.So they said—and they did say—that giving the inflation objective priority will assist with the credibility of the inflation target and so on. And they said it will simplify bits of the remit context etc. etc. and so on. But I do want to draw attention to that word "priority". It means that several things can be done at once even if you put priority on one of them.I want to turn to that other piece of nuanced advice that has been given to us and this time it comes to us from the Treasury and it's sitting in the regulatory impact statement. And again it talks about ensuring a primary focus on price stability and then offers options as to what the Government could do. So the Government could introduce legislation to amend the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act to remove the economic objective of supporting maximum sustainable employment or it could issue a new monetary policy committee remit only which would require the monetary policy committee to place greater weight on price stability relative to maximum sustainable employment. But that would have left the Act unchanged—so going to the remit the letter that sets out what the Reserve Bank monetary policy committee should focus on. So that was the other thing it could do or it could have used section 125 of the Act to give the Reserve Bank a temporary focus on one priority only on one objective only.So sitting in that regulatory impact statement is a lot of nuance about what the Government could have chosen to do and all along what is very clear in this nuance is that it is entirely possible to retain an objective of maximum sustainable employment. Perhaps the Government could have said "Actually let's keep that. We'll just prioritise price stability." but no the Government has got rid of the objective of having maximum sustainable employment altogether and that is a great shame. I think that is the kind of nuance we could have heard through the select committee process and more to the point it is the kind of nuance that might have resulted in a better bill. I want to talk about something here that the Minister of Finance said. She said in her speech at the start of the second reading in talking about why the National Party have opted to go for a single objective "Perception does matter."—perception does matter. Well how's this for a perception: that Government is saying that people in employment don't matter. That Government is saying that jobs don't matter. That Government is saying that people getting a decent wage in their back pocket doesn't matter.Now here on this side of the House as a proud Labour Party we know that jobs matter that for ordinary people the dignity of having a job that earns a decent wage matters that the dignity of knowing that your labour is valued matters that the dignity of knowing that employers can't just toss you out on the street matters. You see the wonderful thing about full maximum sustainable employment is it means that employers need to compete a bit for labour. They need to offer a decent wage so that the working person gets up in the morning and knows that as she or he goes to work it is not a matter of desperation but of a decent wage for decent day's work because there is maximum sustainable employment.So when we say that perception does matter I put it to the committee that the perception that this Government is creating is that employment doesn't matter. But it especially matters for Māori for Pacific people for rural people and for young people. Employment makes a huge difference in those communities. So when the Minister of Finance says perception does matter I suggest that she might like to take those words to heart and think about the perception that is out there that this National Party does not care about employment.On this side of the House we know that in the past few years we have managed an economy with very low unemployment the lowest unemployment in 30 years. We know that when he was the Minister of Finance Grant Robertson managed to produce this even though we were dealing with a global pandemic. In the hardest time that has hit New Zealand since I guess the world wars or before we nevertheless had the lowest unemployment for 30 years. And at the same time yes inflation went up as part of a whole worldwide phenomenon but it is coming down. Why? Because both those objectives could be managed.As I said this is the sort of nuance that would have come through. The National Party has chosen to avoid nuance. The Government doesn't care about employment. That's what this bill is telling us. This House should reject this ridiculous bill."