English Bill: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
English Bill: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 12 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8421. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 I would be happy to respond to some of the issues raised by members of the Committee. First of all I simply outline the fact that the accounts that we are looking at here show the benefit of the Government’s continued focus over a 3-year period since it has been in office on a considered and consistent change in the economy. We have had considerable headwinds in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. That has made it difficult for the Government as well as households and businesses to achieve the aspirations that they have but the Government has stuck right through that period to a straightforward plan which we have every confidence is bearing fruit now and will continue to do so. 
There are any number of examples I could give but one example I will use is around infrastructural investment where despite difficult times for the Government’s books the Government committed early on to a range of investments in transport broadband and energy and it stuck to that plan. The projects are funded they are under way and some of them are completed. The industry and the country know that that process will continue with some confidence. 
Just to pick up a few of the comments made by the members of the Committee I was interested in the member from the far north being worried about the Government’s—in his words—lack of interest in creating jobs. He is a member who spends a great deal of his time in the far north making sure no jobs are created—leading the movement that opposes for instance the exploitation of minerals oil and gas not just in the far north but also off the East Coast of the North Island. The fact is that jobs flow from investment. If you do not have investment you do get jobs and that means your 17-year-old in Kaihohe has less prospect if there is less investment. It would be worthwhile the member spending a bit of time just seeing how that linkage works. Wishing for jobs does not create them. 
We also heard from the member for New Zealand First about the so-called manufacturing crisis. If there was a crisis of the sort that he was describing then I could understand the level of concern that the Opposition is showing. However it is not the case. Of course it is difficult for manufacturing and not just manufacturing—it has been difficult for everybody in an economy that has had a significant recession with a relatively moderate recovery from that recession. What the members should be learning I think from that inquiry is the resilience that so many manufacturers and exporters have shown. If they had not been very resilient we would not have the revenue that is flowing through the accounts that we are discussing today. 
If fact manufacturing is growing moderately. In the last quarter the most recent employment numbers show a drop-off in the total jobs in manufacturing but what is surprising through the last 4 or 5 years is not how much manufacturing has shrunk because it has not but how well it has held up given the difficulty of markets where demand is shrinking including now Australia and the headwind of a high exchange rate. It does not mean that some are not shedding jobs. They are. Some businesses are going out. What is less visible is the large number of manufacturers and exporters who are actually expanding their investment and expanding their employment. 
One of the contributions as I said that they have made is a contribution to fairly steady growth in tax revenue. The Government has set out to reduce taxes on work investment and savings. That was done back in 2010 and these accounts are starting to show the fruits of the improved incentives in the economy. As we see taxes continue to grow and in fact grow just slightly faster than we might have been expecting and that is why we remain on track to surplus.