Clark David: Annual Review Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeClark David: Annual Review Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 28 April 2015. Volume:704;Page:2959. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North):Well we have heard another speech from a tired arrogant out-of-touch Government. The Government has the rhetoric but it does not have the ideas any more. We hear about capital markets reform and we are seeing that it is not happening the way it should be. This Government is a Government that reads the National Business Review in the dinner break rather than talking to ordinary New Zealanders who know that this country is struggling to get ahead and that the ordinary people who are working hard are being left behind. When we do see some signs of economic growth—some tentative shoots—it is the people in the middle who are missing out. It is a tired out-of-touch and arrogant Government that is failing to achieve its own targets.I talked in my earlier contribution about the failure to achieve growth in exports as a proportion of GDP. That was discussed extensively in the annual review that I was a part of. This Government set itself the goal of shifting from 30 percent of exports to 40 percent of exports as a proportion of GDP and that number is something that it is now in fact trying to retreat from because it cannot achieve its own targets. It has also talked about achieving surplus for a couple of elections now. It is about to have its seventh Budget and will fail to reach surplus yet again. It is failing to achieve its own targets yet again. New Zealanders are losing trust in the promises of a Government that always promises jam tomorrow and has failed to deliver.I want to talk about regional development which was another thing that came up in the “MBIE” annual review. The OECD says of course that there is—Sue Moroney: “Mobie”.Dr DAVID CLARK: “Mobie”—my colleague corrects me. The Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment the great white whale. We know that regional development should be a focus for this country and yet people in the regions are feeling neglected and they are being neglected. We see a tale of a two-speed economy emerging as the Government neglects growth in the regions and we cannot afford it. Everyone in Auckland agrees as well that we cannot afford the regions to be left behind. The OECD says that the way to build economic growth in developed nations is to lift the skills of the lowest-skilled workers in the regions. It is the most cost-effective way of achieving economic growth. We have seen a Government without a plan happy to let a two-speed economy emerge as it takes its hands off the wheel of the economy.I want to talk a little bit about the way in which those statistics play out. In Northland recently we had an election and the Minister for Economic Development said there was a unique set of circumstances there that caused the thumping defeat of the National Party in Northland which had previously held a huge surplus of votes. The people in the regions are saying: “We are not happy with what’s happening.” They have voted out the National Party in Northland. But it is not a unique set of circumstances—and this is the point I want to make—because in Northland people are struggling and it is tough there as unemployment is around 8 percent. But in the Manawatū and Whanganui regions it used to be around 3 percent and it is now 9 percent—higher than in Northland. That is hardly a unique set of circumstances. In the Waikato they used to have a 10 percent premium in real median weekly wages over Northland. They used to get paid more in the Waikato than they do in Northland in real weekly wage terms. They do not any more—they do not any more. Northland has caught up. It is getting worse in the Waikato because the commodity price bubble is hurting. We also see that in the Hawke’s Bay and Gisborne it is actually worse again. They used to have a higher real median weekly wage in Hawke’s Bay and Gisborne than in Northland and now they have a lower real median weekly wage than they do in Northland. Again it is hardly a unique set of circumstances. Talking about the West Coast and Tasman unemployment and weekly wages are hurting there too.The people in the middle are struggling in New Zealand and this Government has no answers. It is out of touch and it is leaving them behind. It is happy to get on with its meddling and its tutu-ing around—adjusting the settings here and there but sailing on while Rome burns. We have seen this with of course the gerrymandering the “John-mandering” and the “Joyce-mandering” that I have talked of earlier. The Skycity deal and what we see going on there is what the Auditor-General has described as neither transparent nor even-handed. It is a deal done behind closed doors that the Treasury was suspicious of and that looks set to introduce very little if any economic growth for New Zealand. That is the Government’s big flagship economic growth project. This is a Government that is out of ideas. It talks about unique sets of circumstances. It has every excuse in the book but actually it is out of touch and New Zealanders are losing faith in this Government.It is about photo opportunities. We have heard the pre-announcement for the Budget of $20 million a year in extra research and development spending. That is a drop in the bucket in research and development terms. It will buy the Minister a few more photo opportunities with his hand-picked favourite companies but it will not boost research and development in this country which is well below the OECD average.