Cosgrove Clayton: International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Cosgrove Clayton: International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 19 February 2013. Volume:687;Page:7950. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour) 
: 
 I will just follow up on some of the comments that my colleague David Parker made. I note that there is a bit of a trend in this Parliament—and I will not digress on to other legislation apart from a passing mention—where this Government tends to kick critical decisions as the saying goes “to kick the can down the road to others”. I agree with my colleague David Parker that although we support the International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill these are critical decisions that should be dealt with by Parliament not by simply allowing a delegation to the executive by regulation. 
It is interesting that the executive wants to empower itself through regulation to take this decision yet a week ago we dealt with covered bonds legislation where the Government felt that it was appropriate to kick that can down the road to the Governor of the Reserve Bank and to allow the Governor of the Reserve Bank to deal with issues in respect of an increase or decrease in the proposed 10 percent covered bond limit. So in that case there was another critical decision the Government was happy to take out of the hands not only of this Parliament but also of the executive—the decision makers or Cabinet as the executive. Now we find that in respect of this legislation the Government wants to take it out of the hands of Parliament and wants to have it done by the executive again not allowing parliamentary scrutiny through this Chamber. 
We think this is a trend that is not appropriate. Normally decisions are wrapped up as in the case of covered bonds with the need to provide flexibility. Given that that issue would be dealt with infrequently and a decision-making body such as Cabinet could make decisions at any time that argument does not stack up. Equally given the fact that this happens as my colleague said very infrequently—in fact the last time was many years ago or every 10 years I think my parliamentary colleague said—I would have thought that there would not be a strong motivation to take that ratification out of the hands of Parliament and to simply do it by regulation. 
As I understand it from my memory as a Minister regulation is for when things are required quite frequently and also quite rapidly are of a pretty benign and generic nature and implement legislation— 
Hon David Parker 
: These proposed changes were agreed in 2008 so there’s no rush. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: As my colleague has just pointed out in my ear these proposals were agreed to in 2008 and it has taken almost 4 years for this Government to bring this legislation to Parliament to ratify it so that proves there is not a great rush. You know the horse is not bolting out of the paddock. There is not a great urgency on this especially when I think equivalent legislation was passed in Australia in 2009 and 2010. It sort of shows the priorities in the management of legislation through the House. So you cannot make an argument that suddenly we need to do this by regulation because we have to do it rapidly. 
I will make a couple of other points. We support this legislation. There are those in this Chamber who believe that we should be almost isolationist in our international obligations. I for one and the Labour Party disagree with that. We have obligations through the IMF. The IMF has proved I think to be relatively effective with some deficiencies but we sign up to that collective international responsibility as a global player—one that is not insignificant but one that is not a major global dominator given our size—and we should meet our obligations and our responsibilities and be part of a global village. 
I do not subscribe to some sort of ancient theory that we should put a bubble over New Zealand—whether it be for trade whether it be for foreign affairs or whether it be for international economic policy—and say to hell with the rest of the world. We have obligations and we have responsibilities. Goodness gracious the way this Government is going it may be that we require the assistance of the IMF as we almost did I think 6 days after Muldoon lost the 1984 election. Someone in Treasury said that had we not been English speaking and given the fact that we had lost $600 million through Muldoon not devaluing the IMF would have come in and taken over to assist us. So it may be that given the economy that this crowd over the aisle is running we may indeed need the IMF to help us out. 
As evidence of that it is noteworthy to point out that our contribution to the IMF has been sort of static or decreasing over many years—over the last 4 years—and that is a reflection of the state of our economy given that it has been contracting to the point where as we know our current account deficit is second to Greece’s. Mr English has the silver medal and is about to take the gold medal because his own department—Treasury—the Reserve Bank and the IMF funnily enough predict that we will be No. 1 sometime this year in terms of the worst current account deficit on this God’s Earth in the developed world. That will be an interesting achievement. At least Mr English will be able to point to one achievement: the worst economic record in the developed world according to the IMF in terms of the current account deficit. We will not go into unemployment $380 million per week in borrowing at its peak or any of that stuff. We will just leave it at the economic Olympics. Mr English will be able to mount the dais and collect the gold medal for the worst current account deficit in the developed global community. 
It may well be—I hope it never comes to it—that we require as I say the IMF’s assistance to help us out given the economic mismanagement of this crowd. We will support this legislation. It is appropriate that we do continue to meet our international economic obligations. But I agree with Mr Parker when he says that given the lack of urgency this Government has put on this legislation—4 years of dragging the chain to have it ratified—there is no excuse for future changes in these articles not to be ratified by the New Zealand Parliament and for the proposal that is on the table now which is that the executive will just flick them through through regulation without due parliamentary scrutiny. After all we may well be called upon as a guarantor or to provide real money. That is a taxpayer obligation and taxpayers’ money and the taxpayers’ representatives through this parliamentary Chamber have an obligation and a right to scrutinise those decisions prior to ratification.