Bayly Andrew: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBayly Andrew: General Debate[Sitting date: 22 July 2015. Volume:707;Page:5209. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): Well what a shambles from the Opposition members today. We heard them at question time today when all their questions just fell flat and then we have had to sit through a whole range of speeches this afternoon. Honestly I am struggling with some of the issues that have been raised. What I want to focus on is not the negativity that I have heard but some of the positive stuff and so what I thought I might just talk about are economic conditions and where New Zealand fits internationally.We have been talking about the Budget surplus. When the Budget was announced all these Opposition members were saying that we were not going to hit surplus that everything was bad and that we had broken our promises. Well actually at the 11 months to 31 May our operating budget or operating balance before gains and losses was sitting at $1.2 billion surplus—$1.2 billion surplus. We have got only 1 month to go now and we may still get to our surplus which the Opposition members said continually that we would not. We cannot count our chickens but it is still a great outcome where we are.Also if we think about our debt position which again our Opposition members love to talk about let us talk about some facts. Let us talk about some facts. As at 31 May the same period again our net debt stood at just on $60 billion—$60 billion—which represents just over 25 percent of our GDP. That sounds high but let us just have a discussion about what that seems like when you compare it internationally. Bear in mind that we have got a target of getting our net debt down to 20 percent by 2020. So let us turn to Australia. Australia’s current debt is just above ours at the moment on an equivalent GDP basis. By 2020 when we expect to be at 20 percent Australia will be close to 40 percent. The UK is another example. It is currently at 90 percent of debt to GDP. That is expected to fall to about 80 percent of debt to GDP by 2020. Let us think about Europe—well actually it is about the same as the UK. It will be about 80 percent. In the US it is actually about 110 percent at the moment and will still be over 100 percent by 2020. So our 20 percent by 2020 is looking internationally like a fantastic outcome and it will position us strongly to deal with any future issues that we may have to contend with.What about going forward? Let us talk about growth rates. In the year to March 2015 New Zealand achieved a very credible growth rate of just under 3 percent—about 2.6 percent. The Reserve Bank’s forecast over the next 3 years is that we are going to average 3 percent per annum. Let us compare that internationally which again our Opposition members do not seem to do because they do not seem to be able to get the numbers by asking the Parliamentary Library. But this is interesting. China—Mr Bill English has been there just recently—is currently sitting at about 6 or 7 percent although there is a view that it takes inflation into account for that figure. Australia is achieving a mere 2.3 percent and that is what it recorded for the March quarter which is close to America’s 2.5 percent and Europe’s anaemic 2 percent. Again New Zealand’s growth rates are even higher than in all of those main countries that we all look up to and quote.The other thing that I want to talk about is this diversification. For some reason Labour cannot understand this and I do not know why it is so difficult to understand. We do have a robust economy. We have a very diversified economy. Let us get some statisticsfresh from the Parliamentary Library because again we seem to have a problem with this. Did you know that the agriculture sector accounts for only 6 percent—6 percent—of our GDP? When you take into account manufacturing which I always hear Labour in particular decrying it accounts currently for about 11 percent of our GDP. Construction is 7 percent. And when you take into account all that is normally called goods produced in the component part of our economy it is roughly about 28 percent. The balance is made up of goods and services. And here we go. This is why New Zealand has a robust economy: tourism is 7 percent—we heard Mr Joyce talking about that earlier—retail is 7 percent finance and insurance is 6 percent health care—