Scott Alastair: Oral Questions — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeScott Alastair: Oral Questions — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 03 December 2015. Volume:710;Page:8546. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]3.ALASTAIR SCOTT (National—Wairarapa) to the Minister of Finance: What recent reports has he received on trends in regional employment?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): I have seen reports of a rise in unemployment in the South Island which is not unexpected in view of a very substantial fall in dairy prices and in coal prices. However we need to keep this in perspective: 30000 jobs have been added in the South Island in the last 2 years and 44000 jobs added in the last 3 years—not all of these jobs in Canterbury. The South Island unemployment rate is 4.4 percent—the same level as it was 2 years ago but a bit higher than it was two quarters ago when it was as low as 3.9 percent. The South Island participation rate is 70.6 percent. That is above the highest ever nationwide participation rate—that is a greater proportion of the South Island working population is available for work than even the record high proportion across New Zealand. Four of the five regions with the lowest unemployment rates are in the South Island.Alastair Scott: What evidence has he seen of skill shortages in some regions?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Well labour markets in a number of our regions seem reasonably tight. We have seen any number of anecdotal reports of skill shortages and employers struggling to fill vacancies. For instance in the South Island the Clutha District Council recently ran a job fair in Dunedin because as it said itself the Clutha district is awash with hundreds of job vacancies including up to 350 at a Balclutha meat processing plant—that is Finegand the largest meat processing plant in New Zealand. So clearly across the regions there are some real challenges in filling the vacancies available.Alastair Scott: What other reports has he seen on labour market trends particularly in the public sector?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Although the Government is doing as much as it can to encourage businesses to employ more people it is doing as much as it can to discourage the Public Service from inappropriately employing more people. I have seen a report that showed that in Wellington public sector employment increased by 50 percent between 2001 and 2008. In the subsequent 7 years from 2008 to 2015 it has increased by a further 3.3 percent over 7 years rather than 50 percent over 7 years.Grant Robertson: In light of that answer could the Minister tell the House by how many staff—what increase there has been in the number of staff in his department Treasury in the last year?Hon BILL ENGLISH: In the first place I am pleased to see that the member is motivated at least about Public Service jobs if not about everyone else’s jobs. In respect of Treasury its headcount has grown for two reasons. One is that functions have been shifted in there from other Government departments and there have been some new centralised functions for the whole of Government—for instance data and analytics functions which are housed in Treasury.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. That Minister was asked “by how much?”. It is a very clear question and he was never required to answer it.Mr SPEAKER: That is true. I can have the question repeated if the Minister wants it. It was how much has the staff increased at Treasury?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I do not have the exact number.Alastair Scott: What measures has the Government taken to increase jobs and the resilience of the New Zealand economy?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The view this Government takes is that the private sector creates jobs. The Government cannot and should not try to just make them up because unemployment might be rising a bit for the time being. We have taken many steps—in fact hundreds of individual smaller steps—to help businesses create more jobs. For instance we have reduced the taxes on work which was opposed by other parties in the House.Hon Gerry Brownlee: They’re still not sure about work.Hon BILL ENGLISH: That is right—they are running a work commission to find out what that thing is. We have increased residential building across the country through special housing areas and have made a massive investment into infrastructure which has enabled businesses to export more to run more efficient businesses and therefore to create more jobs. Finally we have negotiated New Zealand’s biggest trade deal the Trans-Pacific Partnership to support more jobs in the economy; the parties that are running in favour of jobs apparently are against the Trans-Pacific Partnership which is completely ridiculous.Grant Robertson: Is it correct that there are 11000 fewer people in employment across New Zealand in this latest quarter compared with the previous one?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I think those are the figures and that is a bit of a shame because job growth has been so strong for so long and because we had a soft economy in the first half of this year job growth has slowed down. But probably the best hope for a lot of those unemployed people is that the Trans-Pacific Partnership is supported by this Parliament. But although Labour is campaigning for jobs it is campaigning against the free-trade agreements that enable those jobs.