Russell DeborahDr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn): The previous speaker Todd McClay had a singular focus on GDP growth. Let me quote something he said: GDP growth is much more important he said than how people fare—GDP growth is much more important than people. What an astonishing thing to say. What an absurd thing to say. The purpose of people is not to serve the economy; the purpose of the economy is to serve the people and that is the fundamental difference between that side of the House and this side of this House. On this side of the House we care about the people. On this side of the House we know that the purpose of the economy is to help the people not the other way around.Now we know that when we came into Government there were some big long-term issues facing New Zealand and we are tackling those problems. Particularly we are tackling them in this set of portfolios around economic development. We have got long-term plans in there that are looking 30 years ahead not just to the next three. Let me give you an example of one of these taken directly from what this set of portfolios is concerned with. Let me talk about the Infrastructure Commission—the Infrastructure Commission. What is that about? It is about setting out the longer-term plans for how we intend to develop infrastructure in this country from roads to rail to power generation setting it out in a long-term structured way so that businesses in the construction industry know where their work is coming from—not just for the next 18 months not just for the next three years but for the next 30 years. That is the sort of long-term planning that this Government is involved in in respect of economic development and that gives businesses the certainty they need.Let me talk of another issue that is concerned within this particular portfolio. In particular I want to talk about how we get businesses growing in New Zealand. Now we know already that it's a fairly easy place New Zealand to start up a business. We know that people can get going with businesses but we also know that there is a gap in taking a good idea a good business that is starting to grow and helping it to really expand on to the world stage. There's a funding gap there and it's really hard for businesses to make that leap. So one of the actions that this Government is engaging in to ensure that those businesses can get ahead is setting up a venture capital fund. The New Zealand Venture Investment Fund will come under the New Zealand Superannuation Fund and we'll be taking some of that money and using it to support New Zealand businesses. That's long-term action. That's the sort of long-term action we need in this economy. You know it's a start. We've got to do a lot of work in this space. We can't do it all straight away but we are getting started and making some really good progress. This venture capital fund is one of those items of good progress.Let me talk about another one—again all coming out of the action that this Government is undertaking—and that's to do with research and development a long-known problem in our economy that there simply is not enough expenditure on research and development. This Government this far-sighted Government that planned for the long term is putting in place a research and development tax credit to ensure that firms can get access to support for R & D—critical to our success. In the process of doing that we have adjusted that R & D tax credit to ensure that the help really does reach the firms who need it.So when we talk about which Governments are responsible which Governments are doing the work that is needed I say that that work is being done on this side of the House and it is being very clearly done in these economic development portfolios where we have a plan to address the problems that New Zealand faces in a changing and unstable world and a plan that will do its best to give certainty to business so that business can operate successfully so that our economy is successful and so that our economy serves the people of this country.