Ardern Shane: Estimates Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeArdern Shane: Estimates Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 01 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19074. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki - King Country):It is a pleasure to rise and speak in the current debate. It has been interesting to listen to the Opposition spokespeople speak about what they will do for provincial development. Let us just start at the beginning and look at some of the facts. Something like 72 percent of the country’s gross export earnings comes from our primary sector. It will come as a surprise I know to the likes of Grant Robertson that these businesses and industries are based out in the rural provinces and the small-town areas of New Zealand.It will also come as a big surprise to the likes of Mr Robertson that those sectors particularly in areas such as Taranaki - King Country where I come from represent about 95 percent of what the economic activity is in those areas. Let us just look at Taranaki in terms of GDP per capita by region. Taranaki produces per person about $560000 in export earnings. Compared with most other areas of New Zealand that is substantially ahead. I will just ask the simple question: why is that? Well it is because over the last 7 or 8 years particularly in the time of this Government there has been massive development in the sector that produces the wealth—that is obviously the dairy industry and also the oil and gas industry. Those are the areas ironically that our colleagues on the other side of the Chamber particularly in the Green Party have a great aversion to. They are constantly saying that we need cleaner smarter and more sustainable activities in the area.Let us just look at what—[Interruption]. Well OK if that is a fact why do we not use some facts and measure against that? What the Green members are saying is that industry that grows in non-rural areas is cleaner and smarter yet actually our agricultural sector particularly our dairy industry has the lowest carbon production of any dairy industry in the world. We have the lowest carbon production of any industry. In Taranaki we have the cleanest water of any other agricultural sector in the world where that activity takes place and we have 22000 kilometres of fencing and planting which the Green Party never touches on.We have some of the smartest technology innovation—companies like Tru-Test and C-Dax which has invented a machine for measuring grass growth and the metabolisable energy of the grass so you know what you are growing and how much nutrient it uses to grow it. We are world leaders in this area. At our processing end we have some of the most sophisticated some of the largest and some of the most efficient processes in the world which produce sophisticated smart products like nutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals.Here is a question for the Greens and their Labour colleagues. Apparently the American company New Holland has developed a tractor that will run on hydrogen. When did the Green Party last promote that? Yet we have a forecast of something like 200 billion extra people in the world who will need feeding by the year 2050 who are going to have to have smart technology to feed them. What is the Green Party saying about that? When did I hear about that innovation recently? When did they promote that? They would not know about it. The real irony of those members’ debate is that they have never been there they do not know they live in cities but they throw stones at those who are out there doing it.So what is the alternative? The Minister in the chair the Hon Steven Joyce touched on some of the alternatives that the Opposition has put up. It intends to introduce a capital gains tax. It is going to introduce a methane tax on methane emissions from animals. It is going to lift income tax. It is going to have a higher company tax. It is going to put limits on livestock numbers. It is going to limit nitrate use. It is going to do away with the 90-day trial period in employment. It is going to do away with the reforms that we have made to the Resource Management Act. It is going to bring in higher ACC charges. All of these things according to Grant Robertson are standing alongside industry helping industry to grow. Well it will come as a big surprise to someone like Mr Robertson who lives entirely within the beltway and never sets foot outside it that industries require innovative focused Government policy that allows industry to get on. In fact what industries want more than anything else is for the Government to get out of their way and to stand back and let them grow and do what they are good at—and they are the best in the world—not put up further hurdles in front of them. The Government has invested a lot of money.