Barry Maggie: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Barry Maggie: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Sitting date: 28 June 2012. Volume:681;Page:3495. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
3. 
MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: How will the Better Public Services results targets announced this week contribute to a stronger economy? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Associate Minister of Finance) 
 on behalf of the Minister of Finance: The Government has set ambitious targets across 10 result areas for the Public Service to achieve over the next 5 years. Getting better results in difficult areas like reducing crime reducing long-term welfare dependency and reducing educational underachievement improves the lives of individuals saves taxpayers money and benefits the economy. The public sector makes up about a quarter of the economy so any improvement in public sector productivity naturally flows through to the wider economy. That is why it is one of the Government’s four main priorities alongside responsibly managing the Government’s finances building a more competitive economy and rebuilding Christchurch. 
Maggie Barry 
: What benefits will achieving Better Public Services targets have in terms of raising the skill level of the New Zealand workforce? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: Lifting educational achievement lifts the skills available in the New Zealand workforce. This helps our economy become more productive and competitive as it continues to recover from the recession that started under the previous Labour Government. For example today the tertiary education Minister discussed with the adult literacy and numeracy forum new initiatives to target foundation-level education at those who have not previously achieved in education and need to lift their skills and employment prospects. We are also looking to make levels 1 and 2 foundation funding more fees-free meaning learners will not have to take out a student loan. Already under this Government the number of adults accessing literacy and numeracy support has tripled. All these things help us meet our target of 55 percent of New Zealanders aged 25 to 34 having a level 4 or higher qualification. 
Maggie Barry 
: What benefits will achieving Better Public Services targets have for New Zealand businesses? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: The Government is determined to drive down costs for businesses dealing with government by 25 percent by 2017. We will achieve this by developing a one-stop online shop to deliver faster online services better integration of services and designing services around business needs. Our target is deliberately ambitious to achieve a significant improvement in the quality and cost of business interactions with government. Improving the quality of these transactions and making them easier and faster to complete will have a significant impact for the businesses involved and for the New Zealand economy. 
Hon David Parker 
: Why after 4 years of his Government has he got no target—never mind an ambitious target—for either export growth current account deficit reduction or net international liabilities by which his Government can be held to account given that even today we have Philip Borkin an economist at Goldman Sachs Group saying that the decline in exports and rising imports are the driving force behind our deteriorating current account deficit and rising international indebtedness? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: The first one in all those things would be to do better than the previous Labour Government and we have already achieved that. The second one is that actually the Government does have indicators. For example we have a very ambitious target for increasing export growth being led by the Minister of Trade and the Minister for Economic Development— 
Hon Members 
: What’s the target? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: Well it is amusing. I think the Opposition has to decide what its attack is: we either have too many plans or not enough plans. It is over to those members but they really do have to make up their minds. 
Maggie Barry 
: Has the Minister seen any reports on the Government’s Better Public Services targets? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: Yes I have seen a report that achieving things like less welfare dependency lower crime rates and improving education is all “meaningless stuff”. On this side of the House we do not think it is adequate to simply spend billions and tell the country that we care. We want to get real results for the community for individuals and for the economy. Frankly I am not surprised by the Opposition’s reaction because focusing on getting better results is a relatively new experience for the New Zealand Government as the last lot was focused on how they managed to spend the most money. 
Hon David Parker 
: What is the export target that he referred to in answer to my last supplementary question? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: To achieve exports at 40 percent of GDP by 2025.