English Bill: International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeEnglish Bill: International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 12 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:7979. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): I move That the International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill be now read a third time. Just to remind ourselves what this bill is it amends the International Finance Agreements Act 1961 in order to enable the New Zealand Government to become a founding member of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. The Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee proposed one amendment to the bill and the Government has accepted that amendment. Through a number of amicable discussions about this bill it has become pretty clear that there is broad parliamentary support for it.The New Zealand Government was the first developed country to participate in discussions with the Chinese Government about setting up the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and as has been acknowledged in the debate and in the select committee New Zealand’s role in bringing about what is now a very high-quality multilateral institution is something we should be proud of. It was certainly effective and in that context I want to thank John Whitehead former Secretary to the Treasury who acted as New Zealand’s principal negotiator on this bank. I am sure he found it much more time-consuming than he expected with meetings held all over the globe and the level of intensity that was required to get this Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank up and running in record time.Our interest in it has been largely strategic. We are in the Asia-Pacific region. We have the opportunity now because of our range of free-trade agreements to trade with the faster-growing economies in the world some of which have quite large populations and as yet a relatively small penetration by New Zealand trade—the Philippines Viet Nam and Indonesia. These countries will grow faster if they can finance high-quality infrastructure; this bank is one of the ways by which we can influence that process and we have done so constructively.The form of the bill is that it gives the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank Articles of Agreement the force of law in New Zealand. The bill extends various privileges and immunities to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and its employees exempts it from taxation and provides for permanent legislative authority to meet the capital contributions under the agreement. Our capital contribution will be small relative to others because we are a small economy but it will amount to over $100 million in order for New Zealand to take up its prorated shareholding.I want to thank the Opposition parties and the members of the select committee for the constructive way in which they have dealt with this issue. Increasingly our fortunes are tied to those of the Asia-Pacific region. As free-trade agreements multiply and global supply chains become more normal even for quite small New Zealand businesses and as we increasingly see an Asian flavour to the investment that is coming to New Zealand this is just one more plank in the bridge between us and Asia. That has been I think acknowledged by all the parties in Parliament and by the work of the select committee.The national interest assessment that was done by the select committee showed that it was in the interests of New Zealand so if we get the third reading of this bill done then the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank will be up and running in the first half of next year and I want to thank Parliament for allowing that to occur.