SpeechCLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First): Thank you Madam Chair. I'd just like to start my contribution off—in fact I'd actually written down a point to say that I actually really enjoy the Economic Development Science and Innovation Committee. For the most part anyway Melissa Lee I think we get on very well. That was a bit of an outburst from you but I think you must be living in a parallel universe because in actual fact I sat through all of those estimates and I thought the Minister answered those questions exceedingly well. I thought he was very robust and very forthright and Goldsmith was struggling to get some points made that he tried to make in the House.Hon Members: Who? Who?CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Full name.CLAYTON MITCHELL: Mr Goldsmith. Anyway so my point is this: look it was a very good interaction. There's a huge vote coming under economic development science and innovation of $3.8 billion. Of course transport sits in there also which is another very large vote of $5.79 billion. We've heard over the last weeks about this Government over this side from the Leader of the Opposition referring to no spending on roading nothing going—no infrastructure. Yet we've had a 2.7 percent increase on infrastructure spending particularly on transport of which 65 percent is going into roads that they haven't spent money on in the past. If we wanted to talk about ghost roads and ghost highways and ghost bridges I think we've had nine years of ghost leadership from the previous Government because we got nothing in return. And we're doing a great job of tidying up the underspending that we've seen after nine years of neglect. What was absolutely fantastic was when the Minister Mr Jones came in to our select committee and talked about rail specifically: a $1.1 billion boost into rail that has been underfunded for a generation almost. Where money has not been spent by the previous Governments—certainly for the last nine years—now we can actually see some things moving forward. We're getting connectivity with some of our most provincial rural and exposed areas. Hawke's Bay for example—they had the rail lines breakdown and $5 million that the previous Government would not spend on it now has gone through. Thank you very much to the Provincial Growth Fund. Thank you very much for a Government that's absolutely committed on coming up with some solutions that we've not had before for some of the transport issues. The benefit that we're talking about here is taking this traffic the heavy traffic off our roads particularly those containers and logging trucks and putting them back on to rail. We're using ships better than we've used them in the past. We've coming up with initiatives to invest in our coastal shipping again making sure that funding is allocated so we can make our roads safer. We can actually get longevity out of the construction of our roads because they're just being used for cars and lightweight vehicles as opposed to the heavy trucks that we've been seeing with no solution from the previous Government.But with this contribution I cannot get away from the Provincial Growth Fund and what an economic powerhouse that has become for the provinces of New Zealand.Hon Member: How many jobs?CLAYTON MITCHELL: Oh thousands and thousands of jobs. But 873 jobs; not the 65 that you've talked about or the 32—Hon Paul Goldsmith: 54.CLAYTON MITCHELL: Fifty-four now is it? The number changes all the time Mr Goldsmith. Now the reality is it's going to create thousands of jobs but you can't just say We're going to spend some money and we're going to miraculously make appear thousands of jobs." They will come as those businesses grow and develop. Look $20 million—just under—has just been invested into Rotorua for example—a great investment into tourism. It's going to unlock $350 million of potential private funding and private investment into Rotorua for our tourism industry. Now that's not going to happen overnight to create those jobs. But like Pantene it definitely will happen. Hawke's Bay's received $70 million looking at water looking at jobs looking at employment opportunities and also developing roads. Now my favourite town my favourite city—Tauranga. Just last week we had the Minister from the Provincial Growth Fund Shane Jones come through and speak to us and he's just unlocked a huge potential there by announcing $980000 going into our tourist hub. Now this is an essential piece of infrastructure because Tauranga is one of the ports in the world—and certainly in the Pacific—that is one of the most highly regarded. We get $91 million of revenue coming in from 223000 passengers a year with over 115 ships that are coming into Tauranga and now we're going to have a beautiful facility which will be a feeder facility sending people to the Waikato and sending people to Rotorua to look at our beautiful landscape in and around the Bay of Plenty. So it's a great thing. Things are looking up and I have to finish off with some great words that were spoken by another great leader that certainly the members across will be talking about where John Key himself spoke about the economy: "It's going in the right direction. It's not doom and gloom. Things are looking up. Put your sunglasses on. It's very bright.""