Smith Lockwood: Reserve Bank of New Zealand Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Smith Lockwood: Reserve Bank of New Zealand Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:610;Page:7887] 
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (NZ National—Rodney) 
: 
 At first examination the title of the bill looks reasonable. Quite clearly this legislation amends the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act which is the principal Act. So at first sight the title looks reasonable. However this House has come to expect in terms of titles rather more than just that type of bland amendment title. We all know that legislation that amends one Act is called an amendment bill and that when it amends more than one Act it is usually referred to as a reform bill. The problem with those bland titles though is that they do not help anyone who is subsequently trying to find legislation in our statutes. 
This title does not give any guidance as to the issues covered in this legislation. It would be instructional to look at exactly what the bill covers to see whether the title gives any inkling of that. When we do that we note that Part 1 contains amendments to the composition of the board of directors of the Reserve Bank. In fact the governor will no longer be the chair of the board and the deputy governor will be removed from the board. That is quite a significant change to our Reserve Bank legislation. So it would have made sense to include in the title some reference to the fact that the bill amends the composition of the membership of the board of the Reserve Bank. It would have made some sense to do that. 
Another thing that this legislation does is to impose some constraints on the use of the words “bank” “banker” and “banking”. Yet the bland title of this bill gives no inkling that this is the legislation that people should look at if they are interested in the constraints around the words “bank” “banker” and “banking”. Members may say that that is being a bit pedantic and that we do not really need to mention those things in the title. But if we look at other legislation we see that the way that income tax amendment bills refer to the issues covered in a particular amendment has been very helpful. That has become a very helpful practice enabling members when they are interested in pursuing a particular issue to find the appropriate piece of legislation because its title covers the issues. 
So it would have made some sense if the Government had actually given the bill the title: “The Reserve Bank of New Zealand (Membership of the Board and Restricted Banking Terms) Amendment Bill” because we would have had at a glance knowledge of what is in the bill. That does matter because when members of this Parliament go and look on the wall outside this debating chamber seeking to quickly find the statutes covering certain issues if the titles do not cover what is in the Acts it is very hard to find the right Act. I think the Government should give some thought to changing the title of this bill to make it clearer exactly what the bill covers. Those using our statutes would then be guided more accurately as to exactly what is covered. 
If there were only minor issues in the bill maybe it would not matter what the title is but I think that the membership of the board of the Reserve Bank is actually a really important issue and is one that is worthy of mention in the title. The bill covers some things that maybe are not as critically important and are more technical in nature. Maybe those things do not need to be covered in the title but I believe that a major change to the membership of the board of the Reserve Bank is worthy of mention. One does not remove the governor as chair and remove the deputy governor altogether from the board of directors of the bank without that being a major change. What is more if we are to put constraints around the use of terms like “bank” “banker” and “banking” that will have a major impact on our building societies and on a number of our financial services institutions and that should be mentioned in the title.