Kuriger Barbara: Annual Review Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeKuriger Barbara: Annual Review Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 28 April 2015. Volume:704;Page:2937. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country):I am pleased to take a call this afternoon in this conversation because I am really proud to be part of a Government that has produced 3.5 percent growth in the economy in the last year. We are growing and we have one of the best results in the current Western World globally. I just want to bring a little bit of reality to the Committee this afternoon because we do hear a lot about falling dairy prices and where they are taking us economically as a country. Well let me tell you that I have been involved in dairy for a very long time and we do live in a volatile world. Prices do go up and they do go down but we are in a country where we have a strong focus on dairy and it does take us through. It got us through the global financial crisis a few years ago. At the moment it is just having a down period. It is in the process of producing the finest protein in the world and prices will go up again. So it is just in a bit of a glitch at the moment.Let me tell you as someone who has just spent the 3-week adjournment out in my electorate of Taranaki - King Country that things are happening in the regions. Taranaki is at one end of my electorate. At the southern end of the electorate oil and gas permits are still being reissued. Let me tell you that that has done a huge favour to the people of Taranaki and New Zealand not only in the last 12 months—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I invite the member to sit down for a second. I have just terminated the member’s speech because she did not make any reference to the required debate. All the member has to do is refer to some decisions of the Government in the year ended 30 June last year or to the report of the committee that we are talking about. It is not too hard and it only has to be a passing reference but the member has to do it.BARBARA KURIGER: Thank you Mr Chair. One of the things I did refer to was oil and gas permits having been issued to help the economy build. I also want to note that money has been spent on infrastructure. There are roads that happen to be going on in my electorate. There is a fantastic roundabout going on in Waitomo at the moment which is actually allowing the traffic—Stuart Nash: Mr Chair she has no idea what the Government did last year.BARBARA KURIGER: Yes I do.Stuart Nash: Tell us about it then. A roundabout in your electorate? Tell us what you’re doing for the regions.BARBARA KURIGER: I am telling you that there is actually—Stuart Nash: Tell us how you’re growing the economy.BARBARA KURIGER: We are talking about some of the 350 initiatives that are in the Business Growth Agenda and one of those is infrastructure. OK infrastructure—roading. We have currently got a whole lot of roading things going on on State Highway 3 that are a result of Government decisions. It is a road that is actually important to the infrastructure and the economy of this country because we have got products and services that are going to the ports and they have to go up and down that road. The Government has also been negotiating trade and export agreements that actually help us to take our product to the world—free trade. And I tell you what—it is currently still negotiating.I will tell you something else that the Government has actually done and the news is out today. This is something that is going to be really really pleasing to the people on the other side of the Chamber. There has just been an announcement today that some of the Government research and development funding over recent years has led to a breakthrough in methane production. And so this just goes to show me that this is about the economy this is about finance and this is about investing in research and development which in the long term will actually help us to get that economic sustainable New Zealand that we have desired for so long.Stuart Nash: Yeah but what are they telling you in your electorate about milk prices?BARBARA KURIGER: What are they telling me about milk prices in my electorate? People in my electorate know that milk prices come and go. So you know to me there are some wonderful innovations that have happened through Government research and development and the funding that has gone into research and development in our financial accounts.I just recently—a few months ago—opened a mānuka health factory. That mānuka health factory is not only about the economy of picking up honey; it is about the economy of taking the unique mānuka factor honey and putting it into bandages and health products that are actually going to hospitals and health services around the world. So I see all of those things happening and we are on the right track. We are actually making progress.We have got a lot of things happening out in our regions. Broadband is another one that the Government has invested in and put money into in the last Budget. I can actually see that the infrastructure of broadband is spreading all the way through our towns and we are getting people more connected so that we have got some wonderful technology businesses out in our region.Stuart Nash: Like what?BARBARA KURIGER: Like what? We have got people actually in Raglan in our electorate who are making drones.