Graham Kennedy: International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGraham Kennedy: International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 05 November 2015. Volume:709;Page:7762. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green): The Green Party tends to agree in general terms with what the previous speaker Jami-Lee Ross has just said. There is on balance a net reason to join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. The reasons that have been identified both by our Labour colleagues and National are essentially twofold: one is that it is in our interest to get engaged with Asia’s future and secondly if that is the case then it makes sense for New Zealand to get involved early on and have some influence in the creation and early development of the bank. So those are the reasons that the Green Party agrees with and is prepared to support the International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill accordingly.That said there are caveats that we need to have regard to. Jami-Lee Ross and I think others identified the primary objective of the bank as increasing growth in Asia and said that is in New Zealand’s interests. Yes and no. It depends on what we mean by growth in Asia because we tend—and it is there is the articles of agreement of the bank—to throw these words around with fair gay abandon without a really deep understanding of what these words mean. The essential purpose of the bank under article 1 is to “foster sustainable economic development create wealth and improve infrastructure connectivity in Asia”—three subsidiary purposes in the one. We can tick each of those but the critical phrase is “sustainable economic development”. If that economic development is not sustainable it is not in Asia’s interest it is not in New Zealand’s interest and it is not in the world’s interests. And yet we tack on and we throw in that adjective “sustainable” as if it is the veil for anything that we wish to do.The enthusiasm with which some of our colleagues here in this House today have struck up on Asian growth and Asian economic development gives us pause here in the Green Party. We support it but only on the very strict understanding that that growth is sustainable economic development. The faith in the ability of the bank or even of New Zealand to encourage the bank to achieve that goal is not increased when you look at the preamble in the way it was drafted. The first preambular paragraph talks about “to sustain growth”. It does not say “sustainable economic development”; it says “sustain growth”. Sustained growth is not necessarily and may well not be sustainable economic development. Yet we identify it in the first preambular. We think in the first preambular that sustained growth will help us contribute to “regional resilience against potential financial crises and other external shocks in the context of globalisation.” The biggest external shock for Asia New Zealand and the world is going to be the hit back from the ecological deficit and the global ecological crisis if we do not engage in sustainable growth.We are prepared New Zealand to contribute US$92.3 million to this—US$92.3 million. What are we prepared to do for the UN Green Climate Fund? That is $2.6 million—$92 million versus $2.6 million. How much are we contributing to the Green Climate Fund per capita? Sixty cents. How much is Luxembourg contributing? It is contributing $6.70 Norway—this is per capita—$50.60 Denmark $12.80 and Australia $7.90 per capita. New Zealand is contributing 60 cents—US$2.6 million. The Green Party’s enthusiasm for membership of this bank would increase proportionally to the way in which we divided our contribution of $92 million to the bank and to the Green Climate Fund. If it was $46 million each then we would have sustainable growth. Thank you.