Hayes John: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Hayes John: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Sitting date: 15 August 2012. Volume:682;Page:4379. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
2. 
JOHN HAYES (National—Wairarapa) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: What steps is the Government taking to help give businesses the confidence to invest grow and increase exports? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 The Government has taken a number of steps to help New Zealand businesses become more competitive. These include reducing company tax cutting taxes on work and savings reducing costs to businesses and passing on the benefits of public sector reform such as a significant reduction in ACC levies. Today the Government set out the next steps in its Business Growth Agenda by issuing the first of six progress reports. Today’s one called  
Building Export Markets 
 sets out the next steps the Government will take to assist export businesses. 
John Hayes 
: Why is it important that the Government supports businesses in becoming more competitive and selling more to the world? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The key to more jobs and higher incomes is strong export businesses. We will not be able to thrive as a country in the next 10 years by selling things to each other. The Government recognises that a critical aspect of more growth and higher incomes is business confidence—that is the confidence of a business to invest a bit more money and pay higher wages. We are working hard to turn round the decline in competitiveness that this economy suffered under the previous Government. 
John Hayes 
: What are the main components of the Government’s business growth agenda? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: It is a very good question. Today we launched one component—the progress on export markets. There are more to come: documents covering innovation skilled and safe workplaces infrastructure natural resources and capital markets. These will all focus on assisting businesses to make the decisions that grow the economy. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! I want to hear John Hayes’ question. [ 
Interruption 
] Order! That is enough. Every member has a right to ask questions. [ 
Interruption 
] Order! That is enough. 
John Hayes 
: What reports has he seen on business confidence particularly in the regions of New Zealand? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The  
ASB / Main Report Regional Economic Scoreboard 
 for the March quarter ranks New Zealand according to 16 regional council areas. Among other things it shows that the Tasman region has continued to edge up the scoreboard and now takes out the top spot. Businesses in the Tasman region are more likely to believe their assessment than the assessment of the Leader of the Opposition who went there and told a very small audience that the Tasman economy was in poor shape. 
Hon David Parker 
: If business confidence is a true indicator of economic performance in the regions why is that they all losing record numbers of New Zealanders 40 percent of whom are between the ages of 18 and 30? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: As we have discussed in the House before today the key to turning round the choices that young New Zealanders have about where to live and work is to support the businesses and the workplaces that can provide them with opportunity satisfying work and reasonable incomes. That is why we are backing businesses to grow and I cannot understand why the Opposition parties are against everything that is going to create jobs and incomes for those young New Zealanders.