Hudson Brett: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHudson Brett: General Debate[Sitting date: 30 March 2016. Volume:712;Page:10027. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]BRETT HUDSON (National): New Zealand is in great shape. We are making huge strides building a stronger more resilient more prosperous society—one where Kiwis can enjoy the lifestyles they want and have good incomes. It is a society a country that compares well against the rest of the world.Let us look at our economic performance. Sustained growth over the last year was 2.3 percent last year and forecast to average 3 percent or more over the next 2 years. What does that mean for Kiwis? Well that gives businesses the confidence as my colleague Ms Dowie pointed out to spend another dollar to employ another person. It sees wages rise; it sees more jobs created. Let us look at that.Over the last year wages on average rose 3.1 percent—far greater than the rate of inflation. New Zealanders are better off better off in work. Over the last 3 years 175000 jobs were created and there is still good news because over the next 3 years a further 148000 jobs are expected. This is extremely important across New Zealand and no less so in my electorate of Ōhāriu. In Ōhāriu we have the highest proportion across New Zealand of people in the labour force. There are 72.3 percent in the labour force—the highest proportion in Ōhāriu out of any other electorate across New Zealand.We also have the greatest proportion on wages and salaries: 56.6 percent. Those are the people who are directly impacted by the work this Government does to create opportunities for business which leads to more jobs and leads to higher wages. New Zealand is benefiting from the work this Government has been doing and Ōhāriu is particularly benefiting and is particularly looking forward to this work continuing.So let us look at what a Government does to support these strides in the economy that we want to see. Well in the Government we call it the Business Growth Agenda. You invest in opening new markets for your exporters you free up channels for investment you invest in infrastructure that will enable businesses to be more productive you harness your natural resources better and you invest in the skills and safe workforce that you need to deliver all that. We call that the Business Growth Agenda and it crystallises perfectly in things such as free-trade agreements.We have acknowledged that the previous Labour Government did a very good job in creating the China free-trade agreement—an agreement that this Government has leveraged to the hilt to grow into an enormous trading partner and regime. Along with the China free-trade agreement we signed the free-trade agreement with South Korea and most recently signed up to the Trans-Pacific Partnership a free-trade agreement with 11 other nations that have almost 37 percent of the global GDP. In dollar terms that is about $27 trillion a year and 800 million customers for New Zealand’s goods and services. This is a boon for all New Zealanders—for workers as well as businesses. This is the opportunity as I said for our businesses to grow further to want to invest in greater production to hire more people and to see wages rise.Along with opening up our export markets we have been making enormous investments in productive infrastructure. Ultra-fast broadband and the rural broadband initiatives—there is now over $2 billion invested by this Government in connecting Kiwis with the world. What do we see there? Well we see New Zealand businesses able to harness that to be more productive. There is the general practitioner up in Whangarei who is able to do retinal eye scans in his clinic and send the information off to the local district health board to be processed saving him and his patients a great deal of time. Or there are the panel beaters on the North Shore who are able to take photographs and video of damage and send that off to assessors having claims approved much more readily. There is over $2 billion invested in connecting New Zealand businesses and Kiwis to the world.We are doing the same thing in roading. With our roads of national significance along with some regional roading initiatives we are unlocking productivity. We are helping Kiwis get to work. We are helping goods get to market more cost efficiently and much quicker supporting our export businesses supporting Kiwi businesses supporting Kiwi workers. This is a Government that is working for New Zealand.The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.