English Bill: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
English Bill: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 05 December 2012. Volume:686;Page:7148. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Prime Minister) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of miscellaneous business 
. Was it not interesting this week to see the Greens measuring up the desks in the Beehive? In fact I think some of them were seen there. There is no doubt at all who is the energetic organised cohesive front end of the Greens-Labour Government. It is not the Labour Party which of course is disorganised lacks cohesion has no energy and has left a vacuum in Opposition which has handed the leadership of the Opposition not as the media think to Ian Shearer the leader— 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: No no no not Ian Shearer. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: —oh David sorry—David Shearer the leader of the Labour Party. It has handed the leadership of the Opposition to the Green Party and in particular Russel Norman. 
Hon Member 
: Harvey Norman? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Russel. No not Harvey Norman from Australia. Russel Norman is very keen on office furniture but the most important asset in the Greens’ office is the photocopier where you print the money. That is the most important part of their office furniture. The Greens have been measuring the doors on the Beehive to see whether they can get the photocopier—the money-printing photocopier—through the doorway so that when they have the ministry of finance they can solve all the problems. 
Some of those solutions have become a bit clearer from Mr Norman’s contributions at the select committee recently. I will not go through the rather confused transcript other than to say that I could sum it up this way: “If you printed the money it doesn’t matter whether you lose some.”—if you printed the money it does not matter whether you lose some. This is the new thinking in the Greens-Labour Opposition. Those members have been on through the year about old-fashioned thinking—you know like spending only what you have got and not borrowing too much. That is very old-fashioned neo-liberal conservative extremism but new fresh thinking is an upgraded brand of photocopier. That is the new stuff and probably security features on the money no doubt. But the great news is that it does not matter whether you lose it because it was only printed money to start with. 
Well while the Greens have been taking over the Greens-Labour Opposition—and now find themselves being described by the media as easily the most articulate Opposition spokespeople—the Government has been getting on with its plan which does show some of the differences. I mean the Greens have got a spokesperson on transport who is against transport a spokesperson on energy who is against energy and a spokesperson on finance who is actually against finance—up for printing money. Actually it is an Opposition that is against jobs. And it has a spokesperson on employment of course who has to go out there and say: “What we’re trying to do in Opposition is destroy employment. Anywhere it might pop up we want to jump on it—we want to jump on it.” 
The Government has been getting on with helping people create the jobs in difficult circumstances and through this year we have acknowledged the new reality which is that growth is hard to come by. Many developed countries do not have any growth or any employment growth and we are backing New Zealand’s households and businesses because that is who is making the decisions that are making this economy work. The Business Growth Agenda sets out not one thing but about 200 things actually—policy initiatives that we need to undertake to support our businesses to make the decision that matters which is not turning on the photocopier but the decision to invest real savings made by households which are giving up something to save that money—to invest that money in their business and employ another person.