Dunne Peter: Industry New Zealand and Trade New Zealand Integration Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Dunne Peter: Industry New Zealand and Trade New Zealand Integration Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 10 June 2003. Volume:609;Page:6085. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) 
: 
 One of the constant refrains of successive Governments in the two decades that I have been in the House has been the issue of how Governments facilitate industry development both at the domestic and at the international level. We have been through a variety of constructions. We started out with two Government departments the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Overseas Trade and the Ministry of Trade and Industry. Then we went to the Trade Development Board regional development councils business development boards Trade New Zealand Industry New Zealand and a whole raft of networks. I am not surprised by the figure of 31 or 32 that we may now have of such bodies some working in the domestic economy others seeking to deal with New Zealand’s interests aboard. 
I welcome the Industry New Zealand and Trade New Zealand Integration Bill because it starts a process that people have been grappling with for some time of integrating both our domestic industry assistance programmes with our international obligations and responsibilities towards our exporting sector. I know as someone who has been a Minister in that area in the early 1990s of the constant refrain at that time from the small to medium-sized sector—and I am sure repeated today—that it is all very well for us to be encouraged to develop our domestic production and to be told by Governments and other noble pontificators that we ought to be developing an export industry but that frankly we as small manufacturers do not have the capacity or the contacts to do that; we are too busy doing well the job we know best. 
The focus of a body like Trade New Zealand apart from the big strategic picture has to be very much on providing the opportunities for those manufacturers to get their products on to a world stage. In some cases it will be about arranging appointments and opportunities for the display of products through trade fairs. In other cases it may be something as simple as providing either assistance with an air fare to a trade fair or the ability to put a stand together that displays a product and to give someone a few contacts. 
The point I am making is that the integration that this bill starts to bring about is about ensuring that the small to medium-sized manufacturer or industry that we promote in New Zealand and laud as being desirable and holding the future economic potential of the country has the opportunity with a bit of guided assistance to achieve that potential off shore. I have spoken overseas on a number of occasions to people who want to import New Zealand product but express the concern that they do not know how to access it. In Asia in particular people have asked me why we do not do what the Australians do in terms of marketing our nation and our ability to export and trade with them because they would love to trade with us. In some cases they would prefer to trade with us rather than with the Australians. 
My point is that this integrated approach—New Zealand Trade and Enterprise—has the potential to set us up in such a way that those linkages that people have argued for for some time can at last be made. The detachment and the frustration that the previous speaker alluded to of people who might feel that it is all very well that they are beavering away in their industry creating a product and trying to market it but who ask how do they get it on to a world stage and take advantage of the opportunities may be alleviated. That potential can at last be unlocked and we can at last start to give some confidence to people that these measures can be achieved. 
I see this bill purely in that light. I am not particularly interested in the nuts and bolts of how the board members are appointed or what their accountabilities might be internally—that is standard for legislation of this type—but I am interested in the fact that we are starting to set a potential strategic direction and make some links that will make it possible for those who wish to be part of that to be able to follow it. In that sense having a tighter leaner machine—one body a one-stop shop from the first approach right through to the export end—is a positive move and ought to be supported. 
How many times have we heard the refrain that as a small isolated country we survive by our ability to trade and to export? We all chant that from time to time. The reality of this bill is that it gives that sector some chance and some opportunity to make the links we need and it is a good bill. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.