Guy Nathan: Debate on Prime Minister’s StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGuy Nathan: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement[Sitting date: 28 January 2014. Volume:696;Page:15567. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon NATHAN GUY (Minister for Primary Industries): What a fantastic speech today with the Prime Minister’s statement leading off the start of this parliamentary year 2014 which is going to be a fantastic year for the Government and for the National Party—a statement that of course those opposite do not believe. They do not buy into it. They hate the fact that the economy is really starting to move—3.5 percent from September to September last year. Is that not fantastic economic growth when we think about what is happening in the Canterbury rebuild helping those people get back on their feet and when we think about the big plans that we have for infrastructure in this country? It is a fantastic Prime Minister’s statement.We need to also acknowledge Bill English and the way that he steered this economy forward over the last few years. We are all going to reap the benefits of that going forward. It was interesting that David Cunliffe in his—whatever it was—state of something speech came out and suddenly magically said: “Oh we’re not going to take the GST off fruit and vegetables. We’re not going to do something else on tax-free status and that’s magically just generated $1.5 billion.” That is not at all budgeted in the Government books. So therefore he just felt that he could come out with a delusional policy and announce all of this stuff which actually some have said is to encourage those on incomes up to a level of $150000 to have more babies Some have labelled it middle-class welfare and that is the way it will be portrayed out there in the electorate. We have a Labour Party that is old and tired.Hon Annette King: How ignorant. What an ignorant member.Hon NATHAN GUY: Annette has not got any new fresh thinking. She has not got any new ideas. For Mr Cunliffe to come into the House today and actually start criticising primary industries he is actually not in touch with what is happening in our rural communities. He does not feel a part of what is happening with the productive sector of the economy because for that $1.5 billion to be spent it has to come from somewhere. It has to come from the productive sector of this economy and that is the primary industries. It does not just drop out of the sky. It is not budgeted for. It is notfactored in to our forecast going forward. Yet Labour just expects the primary industries to pick it up.Here we had Mr Cunliffe today who is not in touch with rural communities. He would not give a damn. He says that they are not adding value in the dairy industry. We should be proud of the New Zealand dairy industry and what it has achieved exporting to around 200 countries all around the world. What we have is the fact that of course Labour is opposed to anything that is happening that is productive in our primary industries. It is against the Trans-Pacific Partnership which has the opportunity to generate more income for our rural communities more income actually for most of New Zealand. It could potentially be $2 billion.Labour is of course against other trade opportunities as well. I cannot believe that. We have also got the Primary Growth Partnership which is a real showcase policy working well with those in the primary industries—17 projects up and running supported by this Government and $700 million invested. That is going to generate billions and billions of dollars in research and development and Labour is opposed to that. Labour is opposed to research and development. This Government is partnering with primary industries to lift our growth potential to put more products into different markets. Labour is opposed to that. I cannot believe it.It is also opposed to irrigation. This Government has invested $80 million and is forecast to invest $400 million in total in decent water storage projects in our regional economies. This of course is going to grow our regional economies. It is also good for the environment—Moana Mackey: Oh yeah. OK. Poisoning water is great for the environment!Hon NATHAN GUY: —because when water is stored it takes the pressure off the aquifers. You can maintain summer water flows and of course that is good for the aquatic and marine life. Of course Moana Mackey chips in from the back seats over there in Labour. It just goes to show that Labour does not care about job creation. It does not care about regional economies. [Interruption] I am sure that is Moana Mackey. Labour does not even care about growing jobs in our regions. Here it is against research and development. Here it is against irrigation. Here it is against opening up new markets. We have just had a new market open up in Peru. Is Labour against that? Yes probably. We are working hard in other international markets as well. Russia and South Korea are looking promising. We have got to acknowledge the good work that Minister Groser and Minister McCully do on the international stage supported by the Prime Minister as well to open up these international markets so that we can continue to grow our primary industries because you cannot have policies rolled out like the dopey one that Labour announced just a couple of days ago that cannot be supported by the productive engine room of our economy.We have $32 billion worth of exports at the moment. We have set a target of doubling that to $64 billion. That is going to happen with the Primary Growth Partnership. That is going to happen with more trade opportunities. That is going to happen with water storage projects. Also important is lifting the potential of Māori agribusiness. That is where we are working closely with the regions like Northland. We are looking at other opportunities over in the East Coast as well where we need to partner with iwi and other communities to lift their overall growing potential. If you look at the potential in Māori agribusiness there are about 1.5 million hectares owned in multiple ownership of iwi and about 300000 hectares are under full production. If we can lift the rest—the other 1.2 million hectares—if we can lift the potential there that is worth an $8 billion prize in growing our exports. It is worth 3500 jobs. That is why we need to celebrate this Government and what we are trying to achieve in primary industries.Also in the Prime Minister’s speech he talked about the importance of biosecurity and investing in our front line. We have got 100 new biosecurity officers that we have rolled out in the last 14 months. That is hugely important. We have got 11 new X-ray machines as well in our major airports which is important and a real focus of mine. It is my No. 1 priority. I need to acknowledge the work that the Ministry for Primary Industries is doing right now in the Whangarei area working closely with that community where we have had a fruit fly that was detected in one of the traps up there—a Queensland fruit fly. As a result of that we got 70 people on the ground there another 80 or 90 or so working as well and a big response to ensure that we do more trapping to hope that we do not have any more fruit flies in that area. I want to acknowledge the wonderful work that our biosecurity people do and also acknowledge the support of the Whangarei community in this response and what it has been is a very good response.Also in the Prime Minister’s speech he talked about infrastructure. I cannot work out whether Labour on the other side of the House is opposed to Transmission Gully or it supports it.Hon Dr Nick Smith: We don’t know.Hon NATHAN GUY: We do not know. We do not know. We might hear today. What does Chris Hipkins think about Transmission Gully? Does he support it or is he against it?Chris Hipkins: Support.Hon NATHAN GUY: He supports Transmission Gully. It is good that we now have Labour on the record as supporting Transmission Gully. If we move up to the end of Transmission Gully where it comes into my electorate the wonderful electorate ofŌtaki Labour is opposed to the Kapiti Expressway. A thousand jobs will be created by the Kapiti Expressway and Labour is opposed to it. The biggest Government investment in the Kapiti district and Labour does not give a damn. It does not give a damn about my constituents sitting in a traffic jam getting into the capital city of New Zealand. It does not give a damn about freight getting through to the port here or about people getting to their hospital appointments on time. It does not give a damn about the Kapiti Expressway. It does not give a damn about infrastructure and investing in that in the community. Of course how do you grow the productive engine room of the economy? You make investments in roads. You make investments in ultra-fast broadband—200000 people are going to benefit from the roll-out of ultra-fast broadband—Hon Annette King: When?Hon NATHAN GUY: —in rural communities and that is happening as we speak. Annette King says “When?” yet when she occasionally comes up in her van and sees the people of Levin she does not acknowledge the fact that ultra-fast broadband is going to connect us not only domestically but internationally. This is a fantastic Prime Minister’s statement and it should be endorsed by every political party in this House. Let us roll on to the 2014 election.