Clendon David: Estimates Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeClendon David: Estimates Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 01 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19077. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DAVID CLENDON (Green):I am pleased to take the time to make a few comments about science and innovation in part to reflect on the importance of science and innovation historically in the present and all being well into the future. We know that the New Zealand economy—the Pākehā or European economy—was first established on an extraction model which was a very basic extractive economy and we know that the member for Tauranga Simon Bridges might choose to return us to that unhappy situation. Most of us though would like to see the future development of a modern economy.New Zealand’s pastoral economy our manufacturing and the wealth we have as a country have to a large extent been built on a very positive collaboration between public sector science and private sector innovation entrepreneurship and capital and that has served us very well historically. Institutions like the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research and the old MAF the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries contributed a great deal to the creation and the success of the pastoral industry. We have had some extraordinary innovation like the HamiltonJet the electric fence—all of these remarkable New Zealand - based innovations and creations. And more recently Fisher and Paykel with its medical appliances and companies like Buckley Systems have relied on good basic science good engineering and some entrepreneurship in selling into a very difficult market.It is important that we continue to base our economy on science and innovation—more so than ever perhaps because we know that despite the protestations of some we cannot and will not build a rich and prosperous economy by trying to increase the export of high-volume low-value goods. Inevitably we will hit very solid environmental constraints and physical constraints. We will not become a rich country by selling more and more milk powder or more and more pine logs. We do need to move to a knowledge-based economy a much smarter economy that relies on niche manufacturing on the provision of services and on weightless exports. We want in this way to create sustainable long-term employment not simply short-term jobs endeavouring at great risk to life and limb to rip out logs from the conservation estate or to cut down more pine trees. This is not the way forward for a modern prosperous economy. We have a very low-productivity economy a low-wage economy. The smart application of good scientific research innovative thinking and creative thinking can break us out of that downward spiral which we have been on for several decades it has to be said.I am sure that very few people in the Chamber would for the most part disagree with my comments that we need to move towards a much more sophisticated high-value economy that is based on knowledge based on science and based on innovation. Unfortunately what we have seen of late is that we are in fact moving away from that and that we are doing very little to support the development or the future of such an economy. In all sorts of ways large and small we are not enhancing the probability that we will enjoy a good economy a cleaner economy and a smarter economy based on science and innovation.One has only to look at some of the primary providers of science in New Zealand the Crown research institutes which it must be said are in something of a muddle. The model has never been particularly robust. We know that Crown research institutes since day one have had to commit far too much of their time and energy to chasing short-term funding. You cannot do long-term strategic science if your funding is for only 1 year or at best 3 years. We have seen the shambles that has evolved from the proposed restructuring of AgResearch the loss of a significant part of the scientific capacity. We have seen objections from the farming community which knows that the science that is being done on behalf of farmers has to be done close to where they live.Despite a number of comments from some of our National commentators this afternoon I actually live in a provincial area as does my colleague here Catherine Delahunty from the buzzing bustling metropolis of the Kauaēranga Valley. We understand very well the challenges in the primary sector. Advances in that sector will not be about volume; they will be about adding value and smart processing and we do have some very good examples. We think of what Barker’s has done in Canterbury. It has created some really high-value products based on research and development some very hard work and local high-quality product.The Crown research institutes are not in good shape. Morale at the universities is as low as I have ever seen it in 20-odd years of association with the tertiary sector.