Woolerton R Doug: Reserve Bank of New Zealand Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Woolerton R Doug: Reserve Bank of New Zealand Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:634;Page:5962] 
R DOUG WOOLERTON (NZ First) 
: 
 I see that I was nearly beaten to the call by the chairman of the Finance and Expenditure Committee. I hope that he gets the call after me because we recognise these little chats from John Key. They are interesting and what makes them signature tunes if you like is that they are exclusively about finance; the fact that people are involved never actually occurs to him. 
New Zealand First is supporting both parts of this Reserve Bank of New Zealand Amendment Bill. We think they are necessary and should be passed and I do not think that anybody thinks any differently. When Mr Key talks about his nice little speculation of what might or might not have happened between Peter Costello and Michael Cullen and of whatever sort of wine they were drinking it makes a good little story but it is sort of like watching  
Holmes  
on TV. It is more infotainment than anything else but very good infotainment and it connects up a whole lot of speculation. 
I think that this bill is important and whatever it is that has brought Michael Cullen to the realisation—whether or not he was ever of any other view is beside the point—that we in New Zealand would like some control over our finance industry our banks exchange rate and those sorts of things I think is to be welcomed. We in New Zealand First do not and are certainly not ready to accept that New Zealand either partially or totally will be run by Australia. We certainly do not accept that our financial markets and our banks should be run from there. It is bad enough that our banks are being bought by Australians or being taken over by Australians—mainly through compulsory superannuation funds I might say—but Dr Cullen would certainly not be popular if he were to subsume our finance industry into that of the Australians. But we are not doing that. We are lining up with Australia; that is true. We are lining up taxation and we are lining up a lot of things. That is a very different thing from being told what to do and having decisions made in Canberra rather than Wellington. We will certainly oppose any moves of that sort. 
Part 2 of the bill—which will become another bill I understand if Dr Cullen’s Supplementary Order Paper comes into play—is the business of getting rid of the 5c coin. The Reserve Bank is calling in 5c coins and the bill provides for the Racing Board to have the authority to set its payouts and round down its dividends and to make those sorts of changes come under the purview of the board rather than of Parliament in future years. We also agree with that because we think that it would be nonsense for the board to keep coming back to Parliament to change things like that. It is far better to give that body itself the power to do that and we are sure that the board will do it responsibly and properly as it should. If the board does not of course then it will be up to Parliament to make sure that it does. 
So New Zealand First supports both parts of this bill. We will indeed support both bills when the bill is split.