Mitchell ClaytonCLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First): Thank you Madam Chair. I thank the previous speaker Parmjeet Parmar who I do enjoy the company of in the Economic Development Science and Innovation Committee. We actually do have a very good select committee I have to say. I do enjoy going along to the Economic Development Science and Innovation Committee. We have a bit of banter and we have some good robust discussion. But let me just put the member across the Chamber straight on a couple of issues.The first thing to do is clearly talk about Vote Economic Development. The R & D grants or research and development grants that are going to be allocated—up to $1 billion over the next four years—are a huge incentive. The member has just asked a question to the committee about what the Minister knows about what increases there are going to be. Well let me tell you about a report that just came out on Radio New Zealand this morning saying that in the first quarter the 26 percent of businesses that have been applying for grants has now in the second quarter gone to 50 percent. So they've nearly doubled already with the thought that research and development grants are actually going to be coming on.Hon Kris Faafoi: It's working.CLAYTON MITCHELL: It's definitely working. There's your answer right there. Callaghan Innovation although it was a fantastic model set up to encourage businesses to put money into research and development was a very slow clunky and prohibitive process that many businesses removed themselves from. This is a very clear clean cut way to manage research and development and get better innovation to look at getting more capacity capability and better productivity from our added export value economy that we are building; and a great job of building it this Government is doing too.Now up to $100000—the member makes a comment—and she's right to say that if you're not spending over $100000 you will have to go through an accredited supplier. Well there are six outlets currently in New Zealand which can take up that research science innovation and development process for you for you to get your 12.5 percent tax break. There are currently six. I see that as a massive opportunity. What about the innovation of setting up science and innovation projects around the country that can take on these small works and look at the grants that will be available to them as a business being set up to do this very thing which is exactly what this $1 billion research and development fund is set up to do: to drive our economy and look at better ways of creating wealth opportunities and business export opportunities for New Zealand—box ticked; job well done.I want to move on now and talk about the Provincial Growth Fund—we've got the Minister in the chair today the Hon Shane Jones who is the champion of the regions—and why this fund was actually set up and the great job that it is actually doing. We need to stimulate our economy. The rest of the world is talking doom and gloom and talking about economies around the world that are looking at stalling but if we don't do more in our provinces and the regions of New Zealand we're going to be faced with exactly the same problem. The previous Government invested $11 million. Now $11 million right up until this new coalition came along was a hell of a lot of money—probably more than they'd had previously for some time. But $11 billion is not going to cut it. The department was so small and underutilised and there really wasn't much chance at all for any innovation coming out of the public sector to encourage driving our economy in the provinces. Now we have set up a $3 billion fund with $1 billion per annum.I've got a few of the announcements that we've really got here. So far to date we have got allocation spending for feasibility studies first and foremost and funding to help with projects such as roading such as rail projects. Look at Gisborne I think they got $5 million; Wairoa to Napier rail got $5 million; $811000 was given for a feasibility study to unlock the potential of $350 million of tourism dollars which we're going to see a massive boom in over the next eight years with our economy. These are absolutely sensible approaches to it. But a billion dollars—I just want to go back to that figure; so far $126 million I believe Minister has been allocated to date that has actually being announced that has been given and there are a lot more great positive outcomes to come.We've got roading projects. We've got rail projects. We've got forestry projects. We have got innovation and science projects. We have got a whole lot of things and I'd recommend that the members get together and download this fantastic document so they can see. It's funny how they quite often take the time to poo poo this Government for coming up with such a big hairy audacious goal such as $3 billion going into our provinces. Now all of a sudden they're saying Oh please sir. Please can my province have a little bit of that too because under the previous nine years of the previous Government we haven't had the same sort of support?""