Wood MichaelMICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): I just rise to take a brief call. I was planning on taking a call in Part 1 but the speeches on the other side of the House just sort of dropped off very suddenly. I thought they'd go on for a little bit longer. So I missed my opportunity there but I would like to make a contribution to this part.The first thing I'd like to say is that we had a good select committee process around this bill. The ideas were vigorously discussed by members of the Finance and Expenditure Committee on all sides. We were well serviced by officials and I acknowledge and thank them for their support for the committee. We had a wide range of submissions from people in the community some people who thought the bill should actually go further in its reforms a few people who thought it should pull back a bit but actually the vast majority were in favour of the key thrust of the reforms including the establishment of the monetary policy committee.In respect of Part 2 I just wanted to draw the House's attention to one of the changes that is in schedule 3 Part 1 of replaced schedule 2 which is one of the quite important changes that was made at select committee and that is to open up the charter to public consultation. One of the things that I don't think has been commented on too much in this debate is that actually one of the underlying objectives of this bill—and I think one of the really positive things—is that it does somewhat open up the slightly closeted citadel that is the Reserve Bank to greater public input and scrutiny.So we have a process of public consultation around the remit and that is what will effectively replace the current policy targets agreement. So there'll actually have to be public consultation about what should be set out in that remit and we will also have public consultation on the charter—this is the change in schedule 3 Part 1 clause 3. The charter is going to be quite an important part of the whole set of arrangements because the charter will provide rules and guidance for how the monetary policy is going to conduct itself. This will be things like the publishing of minutes and the degree of detail which might be provided in respect of how the committee makes its decisions and this will be really important information that will help the public to better see how the monetary policy committee actually works. Given some of the speeches we heard on the other side of the House earlier on about what an important institution the Reserve Bank is in the economic life of New Zealand isn't it right that we actually give it some greater oversight?The other aspect that I wanted to point out too in this part—in clause 5 of replacement schedule 2 set out in schedule 3 of the bill—is that a copy of the remit will actually be presented to the House of Representatives for debate and discussion as well. So once again what we see coming through in Part 2 of this bill are changes which will actually open up and democratise the workings of the Reserve Bank. I think members would be wise to remember that over the 29 years of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act's existence while it's enjoyed pretty broad support in Parliament and most of the institutional structures actually do remain intact through this bill and pretty wide support in the community there have been concerns about sometimes a lack of oversight a lack of scrutiny a lack of accountability. So once again we have a couple of key measures in this part which do actually open up the bank to that scrutiny and to that democratic accountability. I think that's a good thing. Thank you very much.