Genter Julie AnneHon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): Tēnā koe Madam Speaker. The Green Party will be supporting this bill continuing to support the bill at second reading. I've found the debate tonight actually quite interesting. I think that although it sounds incredibly boring monetary policy—and what does it have to do with anything the Reserve Bank?—ultimately the way that we approach our financial system has impacts on everyone in the country. Although for many decades it's been treated as though it's some value-free institution that must be tended to by absolute experts the reality is that the financial system just like our society has the potential to affect everyone and we need some sort of broad and democratic oversight over it. I just think that's fundamental to a democratic society. Obviously the financial system is one part of our economic system which is just a subset of our society which is entirely reliant on the ecosystem for its existence. That's something that Green Party founder and first co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons often spoke about how you can't balance the economy against society or the environment; fundamentally the economy is a subset of society which is a subset of the ecosystem.Particularly as we face some of the bigger challenges the biggest challenge—climate change—alongside a kind of crisis in inequality which has been getting worse over the past few decades due in large part to a certain economic policy dogma that needs to change it is really important that we update the approach to the Reserve Bank and we make sure that it is fit for purpose. For a very very long time the Green Party was calling for broader governance a more broad-based approach than just one single governor. Of course even though prior to these changes it was the responsibility of the governor in fact my understanding is that the way it was operating was more of a board approach but what is really important is that we're able to take into account different perspectives on how monetary policy and other policies impact different sectors of society and the economy. It's important that you have those perspectives.I wasn't on the select committee so I can't comment on all of the submissions that were heard—that was my colleague Chlöe Swarbrick who was sitting in the Finance and Expenditure Committee—but basically from my understanding of the report-back from the select committee and my discussions with her this is still very much in line with Green Party policy and commentary for the last decade. We want the bank to be able to consider inflation employment external balance of trade issues adoption of alternative targets for monetary policy and looking at changes to encourage the financial sector to take responsible long-term financial decisions and avoid excessive risk to economic stability.I think post - global financial crisis one thing that has come out really clearly is that the financialisation of many developed economies has not been a good thing for most people. It's been a great thing for people working in the finance sector mostly and when it's run into problems it's been particularly bad for broader society as a whole and has relied on bailouts from Government and from democratic societies. So I think as we face this new reality post-COVID—still facing climate change still trying to address inequality—it's going to be particularly important that we take a new approach and a much more democratic approach to the institutions that govern the financial sector. We do want a stable financial system but we don't want the financial system to be able to take over create its own little reality over here that's generating a lot of GDP and a lot of churn but no real value for society. And definitely the number of billionaires is not a sign of success of your society; it's how many people you have living in poverty or how few preferably—how few people you have living in poverty and how many people have enough to live a decent life to make ends meet and for us as a society to tackle our collective challenges like climate change.That is another aspect which I think is really good about this bill that the bank's decision-making principles will include longer-term risks like climate change and also expected to consider short- to medium-term impacts associated with climate change as part of meeting its financial stability objectives.Some of the other changes that have come about not as a direct result of this bill but of the overall review of monetary policy and governance of the Reserve Bank have been the requirements around deposit insurance. That was something the Green Party was campaigning on for quite a long time and was recently announced—really good outcome I think. So all in all the Green Party is supportive.