Goodhew Jo: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGoodhew Jo: General Debate[Sitting date: 26 August 2015. Volume:708;Page:6168. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon JO GOODHEW (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector): Well what do we think? Do we think that speech by Andrew Little has shored up his leadership ambitions for the future? What do we think about Jacinda Ardern’s supporters at the moment? They will be grinning from ear to ear I am sure after that effort.I want to concentrate on the reasons that would give this side of the House cause to panic. What would the reasons be for this side of the House to start panicking? Well let me think: interest rates of nearly 11 percent over a period of time or a current account deficit of nearly 8 percent? Would we start to worry if we increased State spending by 50 percent and the results that we were getting were going down—if the statistics were poorer not better? Would we start panicking? I think that we probably would. If during global good times before a global financial crisis this country was already in a recession—a technical recession—would we panic? Of course we would. We would have every cause to. But that is the legacy of the time that the Labour Government was in office—for 9 years.Let me talk a wee bit more about Labour’s legacy. The Prime Minister has been talking about it today. The Prime Minister has talked about the cold damp and mouldy housing stock that was left for this Government to fix up and it has been a large task. Are we there yet? No we are not and we know that we are not. We know absolutely that there is more work to be done. We have done it during a period of a global financial crisis when revenue has been down but this Government has been showing true stewardship of taxpayers’ money.On that side of the House we have panic merchant Mr Winston Peters who lends his voice to the panic that is rising on the other benches as well. So if ever our business people were thinking about getting worried they most certainly would be worried if they listened to the Opposition. If they believe in this Government and the work that we are quietly getting on with—supporting businesses and supporting the economy—and if they understand how New Zealand fares in the global situation they will see when we look at growth that our growth is looking to be about 2.6 percent which is so much better than richer but similar nations to ourselves.We also know that our unemployment rate of 5.8 percentis so much better than in many other countries and it is predicted to go down into the 4 percents. We know that we have tools at our disposal should things go really badly in China and should the rest of the world be impacted by that. Should that impact on Australia it does not have many tools in its tool box at the moment given the state of its economy. We do have tools. We can adjust interest rates and because of the current economic state the Government can put stimulus into the economy. We are in a good position but we are not going to be complacent about that. Over the months ahead this Government will be rolling out an even more ambitious Business Growth Agenda to add to what we have already achieved and the rest of New Zealand will see that we are looking for more ways to diversify our economy.There have been some great storiesalready. More than 3 million people are coming to New Zealand for tourism’s sake. There are fantastic resultsin the wine sector as the Minister has said already. We have $1.42 billion worth of export sales up from I think only $800 millionin 2008. So there are some great stories out there. This Government is not in charge of a one-trick pony. This Government is absolutely supporting many businesses to succeed and that includes tourism. Large swathes of the primary industry sector are going exceptionally well but we are putting more emphasis on training in order to make sure that those sectors have the skills that they need. We need 25000 more people in the primary industries. This Government is not resting on its laurels. I tell you ladies and gentlemen members of this House we are not panicking. We are getting on with business.