Anderton Jim: New Zealand Trade and Enterprise Bill — Third Reading 
Anderton Jim: New Zealand Trade and Enterprise Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:609;Page:6400] 
Hon JIM ANDERTON (Minister for Industry and Regional Development) 
: 
 I move  
That the New Zealand Trade and Enterprise Bill be now read a third time 
. In moving that motion I take the opportunity to thank all those who have contributed to this legislation—the people organisations and businesses that made submissions; members of the Commerce Committee particularly the chair Mark Peck for considering the bill in such a short space of time; officials from the Ministry of Economic Development and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade who worked on the bill; my colleague Jim Sutton; and members of the House. 
The bill was referred to the Commerce Committee which presented its report to the House on 23 April. The establishment of a one-stop shop agency with a comprehensive programme of actions for industries regions and businesses is a major achievement for this coalition Government. The legislation creates a new economic development agency that will provide a full range of business assistance and advice in the key areas of investment exports production and marketing. New Zealand Trade and Enterprise will be in operation from 1 July. The Government’s aim in establishing this new agency is to support the growth of internationally competitive New Zealand businesses. 
The decision to merge Trade New Zealand and Industry New Zealand has also been motivated by the need to respond to a strong message from the business community. The business community said and the coalition Government agreed that as there were two agencies that work with the same companies and deal with overlapping business and developmental issues it made absolute sense to streamline them and to have advice delivered from just one; in other words it is a one-stop shop. 
Last night in the House during the Committee stage of the bill John Carter member for the far north asked for evidence that this coalition has had any success in working with businesses regions or industries. He asked whether I could name just one company that we had had success with. When I went back to my office I found a whole page in the  
Dominion Post  
that was interesting because one of our very promising high-growth engineering companies Fraser JJ Engineering Ltd of Lower Hutt had been nominated for a gold award in the business competition for the Wellington region. That company which has recently won contracts worth over $30 million for fire appliances for New Zealand Australia and Fiji as well as being an accredited supplier to General Motors Defense internationally was asked how the Government could specifically assist its industry. The answer in the  
Dominion Post 
 which is not exactly a Progressive party newsletter was: “Continue to fund Industry New Zealand so they can continue to provide advice and assistance which we have found invaluable in the past and keep the Hon Jim Anderton on as Minister of Economic Development.”  
It strikes me as odd that the National Party and other Opposition parties have not figured that out. John Carter was keen to ask about the success we had had in regional development terms. I remind Mr Carter and the National Party that this Government has provided $30 million for fully funded regional roading to be built each year. Interestingly the two regions that were selected for the first tranche of that money were Tairawhiti on the East Coast of the North Island and Northland. I would have thought that John Carter would know that something like $10 million is as we speak being spent without any cost to the northern local authorities on the development of roading that is essential to “the wall of wood” that is coming on stream in Northland.  
If the member for the far north does not know his local community he might be interested in the fact that the Mayor of the Far North District Council Yvonne Sharp has acknowledged the benefits of that funding being able to make John Carter’s region a much better economic proposition for the future than it has ever been. She said: “The announcement that the Far North District would receive $9.7 million totally subsidised regional development roading funding for the current year is amazingly positive for the district. For years there has been stripping of infrastructure from rural areas such as ours and our communities have suffered accordingly. The Government in 1999 gave a commitment to position regional development partnerships and there was no way that Northland could have coped with the forthcoming wall of wood without the direct intervention from the Government.” I repeat: “the direct intervention from the Government”.  
That is the reason the coalition Government has the full support of regional communities in New Zealand. There is not one local authority local community or regional community that does not know of the work that is being done in partnership with the local regions and through the agencies of the Government that this coalition has sponsored and developed. The New Zealand Trade and Enterprise agency will develop and continue that work.  
I am surprised that John Carter did not know that Northland is one of the fastest-growing regions in the country. It certainly was not when Mr Ryall was on this side of the House I can assure members. It was a basket case. As I speak there is not one single region that is in negative growth mode. Is that an accident? Is it something that just happened? No it is not. This Government has worked extraordinarily hard in cooperation and partnership with businesses individual and collective industries and local communities and local authorities to see that every single New Zealander business and region gets a chance to develop its full potential.  
There is an amazing array of innovation creativity and successful development going on in this country at the present time. We have every reason to be extraordinarily optimistic. There has not been a time that I can remember when other major economies like the American the Japanese many of the so-called “Asian tiger” economies or the European economies have been doing a lot worse than New Zealand. Usually when those economies catch cold this country has caught pneumonia but we have been out-performing our traditional trading partners for nearly 3 years and that augurs very well for our future. It is true that we have had some luck in terms of commodity prices weather and so on. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Some luck! 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: Mr Ryall complains that this Government has got lucky. It is amazing that in 9 years in Government his party never had any luck at all! It reminds me a bit of Gary Player the famous South African golfer who once won the PGA championship in America. After the tournament a reporter came up to him put a microphone in his face and said: “Mr Player you were very lucky on the putting green today.” He said: “You know the more I practise the luckier I get.” I do not think the National Party practises getting lucky at all. This Government practises a lot and—guess what—we get lucky a lot. 
This is a policy-based Government. Those policies are working. This policy of a one-stop shop agency for the development of business in New Zealand for the regions of this country for our economic development and for the well-being of our people is a very positive move in the right direction. I commend this legislation to the House. I thank those who have been associated with it in the House in hearing the issues involved and in reporting back the bill which was almost unamended. The only amendments we had were a few frivolous ones that suggested that we should do all sorts of extraordinary things. Those amendments were frivolous because those things were already covered in the bill and the members putting the amendments did not understand the full import of the developmental policies of this Government. I commend this bill to the House.