Wood MichaelMICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): I'm very pleased to stand in support of the bill at this its third reading but I have to say after that last address I'm a little bit confused. You see throughout the course of the debate that's proceeded through the House the main objection that the National Party has fired away at this bill is that it would be too hard to have a dual mandate. It would be too hard for the Reserve Bank and the highly qualified men and women who make it up to consider two things at any one time! Yet what we had from Amy Adams and her comments today was a suggestion actually that there isn't enough in there. Actually we if we go to the purpose of the bill her main criticism of it is that we don't have an expansive enough approach to the factors that we are going to be asking the Reserve Bank to consider.One of the things that I think has been very difficult for the Government to grapple with in terms of its engagement with the Opposition on this bill is what it is that they actually want. So my question for Amy Adams is: if she supports the purpose of the bill but she is critical that the subsequent provisions do not include enough factors from the purpose statement of the bill where was the Supplementary Order Paper statement on the Table during the committee of the whole House stage? What actually are the factors in the purpose that are missing that she would like to see in there? We haven't heard a single constructive critique that actually gives us some direction on that from the National Party. In fact what we have had from the National Party on this bill is absolute Chicken Little catastrophism and that came through very strongly in the absurd statements that we heard today and throughout the course of this debate about Reserve Bank independence.The fact of the matter—and this is reflected very clearly in virtually all of the submissions that the Finance and Expenditure Committee heard—is that this is a moderate and balanced piece of legislation that seeks to strike a good balance in terms of ensuring that we have the ongoing objective of price stability while ensuring that the real economy concerns particularly around sustaining employment are considered by the Reserve Bank. Members who are familiar with the operations of the Reserve Bank will actually know that the key changes which are formalised and put in legislation in a transparent fashion through the course of this bill are things that the Reserve Bank is actually moving on already.So what this bill does is confirm that we will have a monetary policy committee. This is a good idea because what we know is that in all institutional settings it is better to have a number of people feeding in with different perspectives before you make major decisions than to leave all the power in one person's hand. In an informal way the Reserve Bank confirmed to us at the Finance and Expenditure Committee that this is in fact the way that they have been informally operating for a number of years so doesn't it make sense to actually have legislation that (a) reflects that and (b) actually sets that up in a transparent fashion?In the same sense we have had policy targets agreements under this Government and also the Government of 1999 to 2008 which asked the Reserve Bank to consider the factor of maximum sustainable employment. That's because on this side of the House we actually do believe that that is one of the most important things in our economic architecture. It is not the contention of members on this side of the House that the Reserve Bank has sole preserve over determining the rate of employment within the economy. Clearly that is a function of a number of economic factors. But what we do know—what we do know—is that the Reserve Bank at the extreme ends of the economic cycle does have the power to influence that. Why else was it that after the global financial crisis the Reserve Bank dramatically cut interest rates? It was because they wanted to stimulate aggregate demand in the economy to try and keep growth going and to try and keep employment going.So the changes that are made in the course of this bill are moderate and they are balanced. This bill preserves Reserve Bank operational independence and there is not a single serious non-partisan independent commentator that the Opposition can cite who says anything other than that. One of the messages I have for the Opposition in the course of this bill is that they can't just sort of stand up and say It has to be bipartisan or you shouldn't be doing it." when they don't actually engage in the debate in a constructive and informed way and simply act as a block. As I say there's not a single independent non-partisan commentator who actually seriously contends that Reserve Bank operational independence is changed through the course of this legislation. The monetary policy committee still has a complete remit—a complete remit—to set the official cash rate and make the other important decisions that it has to make. People like Adrian Orr the Governor of the Reserve Bank are not shrinking violets and the suggestion that we just heard in the speech from Amy Adams that somehow they are going to be cowed and not carry out their duties independently is simply absurd.Once again this is a moderate and a balanced piece of legislation. It is in the mainstream of legislation for central banks around the world. It makes the operations of the Reserve Bank more transparent to the people of New Zealand and to this Parliament and for all of those reasons I commend it to the House. Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker."