Graham Kennedy: International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Graham Kennedy: International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 25 September 2012. Volume:684;Page:5631. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green) 
: 
 I also will not address the issue of Maui’s dolphins tonight in this speech; nor will I talk about New Zealand’s nuclear-free policy which may be under siege the Government’s education policy or the Government’s position at the moment on the Government Communications Security Bureau. None of those issues will I address tonight but rather the issue that is before us which is the International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill which is seeking to amend the articles of the IMF. I would recall the stated reason by my colleague Dr Russel Norman for the opposition of the Green Party to the bill and that is among other reasons that it creates a regulation-making power so that future updates to the articles can be made by regulation. Let me also address the other reasons why the Green Party will be opposing the bill. 
I must say that it is always interesting to come late into the debate and listen to what members have said to date. For example I think we in the Green Party agree with John Hayes—[ 
Interruption 
]—yes. When he said that “we need to be internationally engaged” we agree. And we would even go as far as to agree with Maggie Barry who said that we must not be isolationist. We agree too. Nobody should be isolationist in the 21st century. The point is what the nature of the engagement is and that is what the nub of this debate is about. 
We agree with Shane Jones. We are agreeing with everybody you will understand. Shane Jones said that the debate is over Thatcherism and Reaganomics which has come to influence the IMF and the debate is essentially revolving around monetarism. That is the nub of it and that is the issue of engagement—the debate over the nature of the IMF. Where we diverge from the Labour Party is that having agreed that the debate is about monetarism we would seek to engage with the world in reforming the IMF from that in various ways whereas Labour is disposed to support it none the less. 
We have for some time now called for the fundamental democratic reform of the IMF and this bill essentially invites us to comment on the requirements for the reform of the IMF. Let me give three examples. The first is that the stated intent of the reforms is to move towards a more democratic and equal representation model. There is some critique of the reforms that they are not fulfilling that goal. The reforms for example remove the ability of the US Japan Germany UK and Italy to appoint directors—one-quarter of the total positions—putting them on the same playing field as other nations in voting for directors. But their voting share remains large none the less. There will in fact be little change. The US for example will hold 16.5 percent of total votes and the Group of 77 between them will account for 41.2 percent. How do we reconcile that: one nation gets 16 percent and the better part of 120 nations gets 41 percent? 
Secondly the agreement also would change the voting allocation. There is a 6 percent shift increase in vote of the dynamic countries like Brazil Russia India and China but approximately 2.4 percent of this shift comes from other developing nations losing their voting share. What kind of reform is that? Thirdly the agreement also leaves in place the de facto US unilateral veto over some IMF decisions. Some large developing countries opposed the European proposals to lower the special majority voting threshold to eliminate the US veto because they feared they would lose their ability to block things as a group. 
When there is inadequate reform of an organisation a political party has a choice. You support the bill while criticising the bill because the bill does not go far enough and then you support it or you say that the bill does not go far enough in reforming it and because of that you will oppose the bill. We are taking the latter approach to this and we will continue to oppose the bill notwithstanding the report back from the Finance and Expenditure Committee.