Robson Matt: General Debates 
Robson Matt: General Debates 
[Volume:606;Page:3579] 
Hon MATT ROBSON (Deputy Leader—Progressive) 
: 
 I am pleased to hear the ACT member refer to “3 short weeks”. I take that as code that tonight as my member’s bill on 4 weeks’ annual leave comes up he will be crossing the floor and voting with us for that. If he likes I will give him the Labour Party briefing notes I have received in support of the bill which I am quite grateful for.  
A debate on economic and regional development is one that the Progressive party wants. We are proud to be part of a progressive Government using the resources of the State to work with the private sector and our communities for economic growth and regional development. Our party believes we are having a positive role in Government working step by step to implement policies that we went to the country on. ACT’s flea-bite attack on one economic development project is not the stuff of serious debate on the most serious issue for our people—economic development. The ACT party has been an Opposition party ever since it first entered Parliament. By the next election it will have had nearly a decade of opposition under its belt—and good luck to it! It is clear from its behaviour that it wants to remain a permanent Opposition party for ever which is an ideal position for a party that does not want to ever take responsibility for doing anything. It will just sit on the sidelines issuing ineffective press statements in an attempt to create scandal. The last tactic has its shortfalls of course as the scandal-busting party is swamped by scandals of its own making.  
Ever since their arrival here—and they hope for many years to come—ACT members will get well-paid taxpayer-funded jobs to be a party of endless whinging and complaining press statements. Yesterday ACT’s biggest contribution to Parliament was to highlight that this Government had facilitated the creation of jobs in west Auckland—not at any cost to the taxpayer but through our Minister’s actions. The ACT party is ecstatic that not as many jobs were created as we certainly had hoped to create and it claims that that is proof of some sort of systemic Government failure. I know that Dr Smith reads them all the time but I remind members of Michael Joseph Savage’s words in this House on 30 September 1937: “we might make mistakes but we would make other things too ... we have to stand our ground and do something worth doing”.  
However the failure in policy was actually made during the decade of the 1990s when the said land in west Auckland was not used to create any jobs at all. The land was idle. In the latter part of that decade a minority National-led Government sat on the sidelines and did not create jobs doing nothing with its “look—no hands’’ policy. The ACT party provided the National Party with the critical votes on Budget and confidence.  
Yesterday in this House we saw again the differences between the Labour - Progressive Government and the Opposition highlighted in sharp relief. One of the most significant defining characteristics between us is that on our side there is a commitment to policies creating employment. We are a Government committed to working with business regions with industries and with unions for jobs. We have an Opposition that does not want economic or regional development. It does not even want industry development; it wants the failed market experiments of the 1980s and 1990s and the high unemployment that went with them. It lacks commitment to New Zealand. It is scared of failure and would rather not try if it means that something might not work.  
However the failures are more than compensated for by our successes which outnumber failures by 100 to 1. We have booming industries 123000 new jobs and the lowest unemployment rates in 15 years at 4.9 percent. “Luck!” cry the Opposition parties but it is a pity they did not have some luck while they were in Government. The comments of Sergio Arzeni who is the head of the OECD’s local economic development and employment programmes are worth listening to. He endorsed our economic development approach saying: “The economic development programmes and strategies of Industry New Zealand since its conception in 2000 are in the forefront of best practice internationally.” He highlighted our focus on small and medium-sized enterprises and decentralised programmes and our innovation as important elements of the strategy. Nearly all New Zealanders want to see a growing economy creating more high-wage and high-skilled jobs. That is of course except National and ACT members.  
The Labour - Progressive Government’s programmes address market failures. Those are things such as access to capital access to information and advice facilitation of partnerships and growing networking so that businesses can work together in clusters to make the most of opportunities and efficiencies. Yesterday we saw National and ACT again attack the very concept of working with business. The debate over economic and regional development is a debate that Progressive wants to have. For nearly 30 years we have had Governments in this country that really did not want to get actively involved in partnership with our productive sectors. That has changed and this Government is here to help. We need to start more companies that depend on uniquely New Zealand skills and we need to take those companies that have five to 10 staff and lift them up to the next level where they are employing significant numbers of staff and exporting millions of dollars every year.