Adams AmyHon AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn): Madam Assistant Speaker thank you. We come this afternoon to the third and final reading of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (Monetary Policy) Amendment Bill. In the spirit of Christmas I just want to acknowledge that it's the Minister's first piece of legislation that he will have passed as the Minister of Finance and that's always a big occasion for a Minister so I certainly want to acknowledge that.While I'm in a generous frame of mind I will also just sort of comment on the timing of the bill going through the House because it has been quite a quick process. We've moved quite quickly through the readings of the legislation but I know that the Minister wanted to make sure the rules were very clear heading into the next Monetary Policy Statement. So for the side of the House we acknowledge that it's useful for the Reserve Bank going into next year's Monetary Policy Statements to know exactly what the framing is for that.So that's the bouquets; now on to the brickbats. This isn't a piece of legislation that this side of the House can support. We made it very clear to the Minister that we wanted to see if we could find constructive middle grounds because I do think something as important as the Reserve Bank legislation the rules under which our monetary policy is conducted should actually be bipartisan enduring frameworks. I mentioned in the my last contribution on this bill at an earlier reading the words of Sir Michael Cullen who actually made the point himself of how important it is that something like the Reserve Bank legislation should be progressed with bipartisan support because it does need to be enduring and stable. This bill doesn't do that. It doesn't have that support and I think therefore there is an enduring question over the very enduring nature of these reforms.The Minister in his third reading contribution referenced the purpose of the legislation and that's something I wanted to turn to as well because the purpose as amended by this legislation into the Act does include a new framing which actually oddly enough this side of the House thinks is quite a useful representation. Our concern is that that purpose isn't then given effect to in the rest of the bill. So the purpose as the Minister noted talks about the reason for the legislation being to promote the prosperity and well-being of New Zealanders and contribute to a sustainable and productive economy—well all good stuff. We think that's a very useful framing and yet if that is the Minister's intention if he was truly concerned about reforming the Reserve Bank legislation to contribute to a prosperous and successful and productive New Zealand economy why has none of that been picked up in the economic objectives which is where the rubber hits the road in this legislation?The economic objectives—for those playing along at home—is fundamentally the mandate. So when we talk about this new dual mandate it is the economic objectives that set that. That is the riding instructions to the Reserve Bank—this is what we the Parliament of New Zealand want you to achieve. Now you would think what we want the Reserve Bank to achieve should be pretty similar to the purpose of the legislation but unfortunately not. All the mandate or the economic objectives asks the bank to do is not to concern itself with prosperity and well-being of New Zealanders and a successful and productive economy—no no. Instead it pulls out simply one aspect that goes into that basket of economic objectives and says Just focus on employment." I think that is at the nub of our concern on this part of the legislation—that while the bill and the Minister have talked a good game in the purpose clause with framing that we support none of that has been followed through. So again we're seeing more big good-sounding words from this Government but the action being a very very different story.The Minister in his contribution today also tried to tell this House that actually lots of countries have this sort of dual mandate; we're not unusual at all. Actually he left the House with quite an I think incorrect understanding of that position because while it's true to say that some other countries don't have a singular mandate I can tell you that most countries where they have other parts of their mandate don't simply pick out one piece of the economic puzzle. They include a range of things to get that whole flavour of what economic prosperity well-being and a productive and successful economy looks like. The Australian mandate which the Minister referenced is a very good example. It talks specifically about the prosperity of Australians and raising the economic success of that country. They haven't just picked out one single thing and said "While we say we care about the whole economy and prosperity only turn your mind to employment." Therein lies the real nub of the problem. I mean the bank has told us on many occasions that they already consider the wider economic situation and yet the legislation tells them to stop doing that and look at employment—that's the one to care about. And that's why we certainly can't be supporting the legislation.The other part of great concern—and again I have to reference the Minister's contribution because he said the bank will continue to make its decisions independently. Well unfortunately that's simply not the case. What the Minister is doing through this legislation seriously erodes the real independence of the bank because now of course you have the Minister not only determining who the governor and the deputy governors are who make up the majority the committee—not only does the Minister effectively appoint the board of the Reserve Bank; the Minister will now also appoint all the remaining members of the monetary policy committee and those members face the Minister's pleasure as a determinant of whether they stay in their jobs. So I'm sorry but nobody can tell this side of the House that that isn't going to see the Reserve Bank much more closely tethered to the political whims of the Government.I don't care which Government or what sort of Government we have in New Zealand; the Reserve Bank should be free to act independently to criticise the Government of the day and to disagree with Treasury. I can tell you now—mark my words—you'll suddenly see the Reserve Bank being far more in lock step with Treasury. That's what this legislation will do. Not only are you going to have the Secretary to the Treasury sitting in the meetings undoubtedly directing the debate and ensuring that the Reserve Bank pulls in the same direction; you are going to see a lot less of the Reserve Bank coming out and disagreeing with the Government calling the Government out on bad economic policy and calling Treasury out on pandering to the Government and that I have no doubt is what this legislation is really designed to do.There was no problem here for the Government to fix. No one in New Zealand was calling out for an overhaul of the Reserve Bank legislation. Be under no doubt: this is about the Labour-led Government exerting control over one of the few truly independent economic organisations in this country to reduce the risk of the Reserve Bank calling them out for poor badly formed negative policies that are going to hurt the New Zealand economy. I have no doubt at all that that is what we're going to see happen. [Interruption] While we're hearing all sorts of blowhards over there blowing hard the reality is exactly that.Now the Minister said that this has widespread support in the community. He clearly hasn't read the submissions to the Finance and Expenditure Committee because the submissions to the select committee were very clear that they didn't support the dual mandate and they were worried about the lack of independence of the Reserve Bank board. So for Mr Jones who wants to barrack and prevaricate and shoot off from the lip on something he knows absolutely nothing about which is like most of his portfolios the submissions to the select committee made it clear that they do not like this legislation. There is no problem that needs to be solved here and the Minister in saying it had widespread support shows how out of touch he is.A year into the term and we're seeing the sort of arrogance and belief that only those people sitting over there know anything about what needs to happen. It should deeply worry this country. What I'm deeply worried about this afternoon is that we're seeing the eroding of a central plank of the New Zealand system as we're going to continue to see because this Government doesn't want to be held to account. Instead they want to neuter the very organisations whose job it is to hold them to account. We don't support it and I will not be voting in favour of this legislation."