Wong Pansy: Imprest Supply Debate 
Wong Pansy: Imprest Supply Debate 
[Volume:628;Page:451] 
PANSY WONG (National) 
: 
 The Hon Michael Cullen has not told the public that the National Party position is that what we oppose is the wastage of the Labour Government with regard to the money it has spent. I ask members to look at one recent example of that waste. Have members heard of Converge 05? One hundred and fifty people converged together to try to convert some creative initiatives into commercial reality. Apparently New Zealand Trade and Enterprise contributed $250000 for 150 people to have a talkfest. That is what it was. When the organisers were asked how the Labour Government could be sure of the value of the $250000 that had been spent they said that it is hard to determine the benefit in the short term and that that type of creative project needs to be reassessed in the medium to long term because at this stage people have just got together to learn to think and to bounce ideas off each other. That is what the National Party is opposed to. It is not opposed to Government spending but to the way this Government wastes taxpayers’ money. 
We oppose this Imprest Supply Bill for the very simple reason that Treasury the chief adviser to the Labour Government in its briefing papers has observed that there is “little information to indicate that New Zealanders are getting more services and better results from the public sector for the large increase in resources provided”. The question that National wants to ask of the whip and the few Labour MPs who have bothered to turn up to the House is: given that Labour’s own adviser—Treasury—actually states that Labour has not lifted the performance of the public sector how can the public have confidence in continuing to pay high taxes into the Labour Government’s coffers when we are not getting value for money? Treasury states there needs to be a greater driver for performance across all parts of the State sector. 
We happen to agree with Treasury. In the financial review coming up in the Finance and Expenditure Committee our hard-working fellow National colleague Mrs Katherine Rich will certainly want to get to the bottom of how the $250000 that was spent on Converge 05 was used. Of the 150 people who attended that function only 10 paid the full cost of $1200 and I am sure that those 10 are now rapidly trying to claim a refund for attending that conference. When we have a Government agency that is not acting responsibly in dishing out taxpayers’ money I think the Government has a lot to answer for. 
I wonder whether that was the reason why the Hon Jim Anderton who sort of set up New Zealand Trade and Enterprise and who had a disastrous run of scandals uncovered relating to grants is being shunted away by the Labour Government. It has now put him in charge of the agriculture portfolio. We all know that the Labour Government is less than popular with the farming community. Can members guess what happened to the Hon Jim Sutton? He was tossed out by our very good National colleague Jo Goodhew. That is what the Labour Government has in store for the Hon Jim Anderton. It is trying to line him up with the farming community which is totally disillusioned with the Labour Government. We are looking forward to the Hon Jim Anderton paying the price for that at the next election by losing the Wigram seat. I am sure National will put forward a good candidate. 
It is interesting to note that the Prime Minister Helen Clark lives in denial because she said in a speech made on 8 November: “My Government has implemented a framework for growing a higher-value economy.” We have just seen it spend $250000 on trying to change so-called creative initiatives into commercial reality. We want to know why the Labour Government cannot just accept what is stated in the Treasury briefing papers: “New Zealand continues to be a natural resource - based economy.” Why can the Labour Government not acknowledge the backbone of our economy: our agricultural farming fishery forestry and tourism sectors? Why can it not accept that and be proud of them? But none of those sectors has actually asked New Zealand Trade and Enterprise to come up with $250000 for a talkfest. I am sure that a lot of small businesses would love to have a share of the $250000 so that they could have a thinktank strategy meeting or talkfest but they have to risk their own hard-earned money in order to start their businesses. 
Helen Clark said that the Labour Government had built a strong economy but I wonder whether she has been following the series of surveys being put out by the various banks. The latest one put out by the ANZ National Bank points to the risk of New Zealand going into a recession. Business confidence is at its worst level for a long time with 66 percent of those surveyed expressing gloom and doom in terms of their own businesses and of the economy. 
The Labour Government promised it would work in partnership with stakeholders to grow our economy. All that our business community asks for is sensible initiatives. It did not ask for $250000 worth of talkfests. All it wants is two things: firstly a cut in company tax which is the recommendation of the extremely right-wing—according to Dr Michael Cullen—Treasury echoed by the business community and secondly a cut in compliance costs which I think is very sensible. The business community conducted a survey that shows that the average total cost for each enterprise over each of the four compliance cost areas is $53000 a year—that is for 2005. Can members imagine that it costs businesses up to $53000 a year just to fulfil compliance costs? 
When everything was going well the Labour Government took the credit for that but now that the economy is packing up why is the Hon Michael Cullen blaming New Zealanders for saving in the form of buying their own houses? Why is he blaming the public for spending? Why can he not take some of the blame? Now it looks as though our economy is going into a recession. National will definitely not support this Imprest and Supply Bill because it will simply waste more taxpayers’ money.