Woodhouse MichaelHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National):Thank you Madam Speaker. That gave me at least 45 seconds to get ready. I think Dr Russell made the very point that concerns me about this bill. She talked about the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act when it was passed by the fourth Labour Government in 1989 and that this is some kind of a tidying up of a dusty old piece of legislation—32 years old—that as she said as a sort of a by the way" gives the Minister a bit more influence over the Reserve Bank.Well I remind the House that the 1989 legislation was designed to do quite the opposite. It was actually designed to place the Reserve Bank in a more independent and arm's length distance from the potential of an interfering Government. Now it took a while to frame up and it was in year five of the six years of the fourth Labour Government and it was part of a raft of amendments to legislation that were specifically designed to do two things. One was to free up a controlled economy and the other was to reduce the influence not so much of Parliament but of the executive on the decisions of so-called independent institutions. My concern right throughout this process was that the creeping hand of the influence of any Minister of Finance not just this Minister of Finance becomes more likely.In earlier readings I talked about what the Hon David Caygill the then Minister of Finance had as his goal for the Reserve Bank Act and it was simply this: the Act when it was passed placed the bank on a more independent but also more accountable legislative basis than at present. The National Party would love to be able to support it. It is a Reserve Bank bill for goodness' sake. It is one of those things that we should have bipartisan support for because it's lasted 32 years; we hope it will last 32 years more and as a consequence it's going to traverse the oversight of successive numbers of Governments on both sides of the aisle.So the deeply disappointing part of this actually started with the fact that no other political party who has to consider and then vote on this bill was consulted with at any stage prior to the introduction of the legislation. The Minister says "Oh well you know the parties can have their say at select committee." and they did and we had very good submissions. We had good support and good advice from the officials and we made what we believe were constructive suggestions to improve the bill and to go back to its original purpose or to remind the committee of the original purpose which was that independence and accountability. None of them were successful and that I think reflects the attitude that this was: the Government knew best; the Minister knew best. He had a particular vision of what the Reserve Bank Act should do and he was going to pass it and that is the prerogative of the executive but I am disappointed that there was zero consultation prior to it being brought in. It may have been a much more smooth passage had he done that. So we're now faced with the situation—there will be a future centre-right Government in this country. It will be led by National and supported by ACT and we'll be back here changing this and we won't take as long as this lot did. [Interruption] There's the arrogance. There's the socialist arrogance that that's not going to happen. Simply pointing out that Government's change got them chuckling.Barbara Kuriger: They do. They do and they will.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Exactly. I won't be laughing then—Anna Lorck: Led by who?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: —because we'll have a job to do. Oh there's Ms Lorck the very reason it will happen sooner rather than later I think. I think whoever stands for National in Tukituki—there will be a scramble in Tukituki in 2023 to get that candidacy. The campaign strategy will be simply to replay her Parliament speeches.But we will be back here and we will have to amend this to maintain the integrity of the independence of the Reserve Bank and we will be doing so consulting with all parties. That's what we'll be doing. It's something that didn't happen in this bill and it's deeply disappointing. It's the reason the National Party hasn't supported it so far and cannot support it now."