Graham Kennedy: International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Graham Kennedy: International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 21 February 2013. Volume:687;Page:8137. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green) 
: 
 I do not intend to take up too much of the time of the House because the Green Party has in fact made its views quite clear. I do appreciate the constructive tone and spirit that my predecessor here Trevor Mallard has just offered in his intervention. He was concerned earlier in the course of the debate during the Committee stage about Green policy and he was quite in order to challenge the Green Party to advance its views as to why it is voting against this bill the International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill. Just to correct his colleague to his left David Clark who with respect— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Well he’s actually on my right but— 
Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM 
: Ha ha! He took it upon himself to suggest that the Green Party had not engaged in debate on the passage of this bill. That is factually incorrect. We have taken every call that we have been allotted—Russel Norman and I have both had two in the first reading and two in the second reading—and also in the Committee stage as well. So we have indeed— 
Hon Member 
: Very late call in the Committee stage. 
Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM 
: Well the Green Party chooses not to engage in excessive repetition unlike a few others. We make our points. We respectfully listen to others. We point out with courtesy where we think they are incorrect. We then wind up with a conclusion and the conclusion is that National and Labour are both wrong in voting for this bill. We have already made the reasons clear—on 8 May last year in the first reading; on 25 September last year in the second reading; and on 18 February this year. 
Just for those who are still struggling to understand it Russel Norman did say at the time the reasons we think the democratic reform of the IMF has a long way to go. It still is in some ways enshrined in the post - World War II order and does not represent the modern world—something incidentally that Shane Jones had pretty much touched on. Dr Norman said we would like the democratic reforms that this bill implements which are very very minor to go much further—much further—so that the IMF represents the world much better. Even if we adjust to represent the economic world it would be progress but it certainly does not represent the world populations in any respect whatsoever so those are very minor reforms. It is because of those minor reforms that we have taken the decision to vote against the bill both in terms of the limited nature of the changes to the voting power and because of the regulatory provision that Dr Norman spoke about and so did I earlier. 
In the second reading I offered the political reason or the political reasoning by which the Green Party came to decide to oppose the bill. Where there is inadequate reform of an organisation a political party has a choice. You can support the bill while criticising it because it does not go far enough and then vote for it as Labour is doing or you can take a different approach and say: “The bill does not go far enough in reforming it and because of that we will oppose it.” We have chosen that latter path. 
I think it is good open season when one party takes a stand on its own and votes against a bill. This is essentially a political Chamber it is a political process and there is political criticism. But it is nothing more than political criticism because the politics can at times overwhelm the true economic argumentation. I think there is scope for understanding the arguments both for and against this and I think there is a certain amount of respect for arguments for and against. 
We have listened to both National MPs and Labour MPs advancing their views as to why they are voting for the bill and we have actually consciously reflected on it as we have heard that. We have discussed it at some length and we have found no reason—no convincing reason—in the argumentation put forward to change our view. If we were prepared to agree that there is a sufficient reason we would change our vote. We have changed our vote in the past we are quite capable of doing it again and we would do it today. That is not the case. The argumentation put forward has not been convincing gentlemen and ladies—it is only gentlemen I think in the Chamber at the moment. So colleagues with respect we have listened to you we have reflected we are not convinced we think our position is right and we are voting against the bill.