Dowie Sarah: Annual Review Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDowie Sarah: Annual Review Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 29 April 2015. Volume:704;Page:3066. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SARAH DOWIE (National—Invercargill):Thank you very much for this opportunity to speak in the last part of this debate on the internal affairs and Government relationships theme for the 2013-14 annual review debate. It is a pleasure because this debate is so wide ranging. The topics under this heading include arts culture and heritage finance and revenue Prime Minister and Cabinet and State services to name a few. I think that that leads really nicely into the fourth priority of this National-led Government which is delivering better public services.We want the public to have confidence in our departments. We want the public to have confidence in the services provided. They need to be provided in an effective way and they need to be fit for purpose for that individual who walks through the door. We have asked our Government departments to do more for less. This Government has been pragmatic in its solution-finding and has set tangible targets for each department and we measure those achievements and those targets so that we can track progress. And we actually monitor it—a novel idea I know for the Opposition. We monitor it to see that it is working and if it is working we capitalise on that.But we are a Government that is brave because if things are not working so well we are prepared to take the hard decision and modify whatever we are doing for the betterment of all New Zealanders. This is why we have kept Government spending down because we have focused officials on key measures. We have kept Government spending down and built a stronger competitive economy one that grew by 3.5 percent in 2014. It is the best performance since September 2007. With an economy that is growing with production increasing and with more jobs—80000 last year to be exact—the wealth for ordinary New Zealanders is growing for families and for businesses. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet advises the executive on the Business Growth Agenda—some 350 initiatives that have helped grow the regions—Rt Hon Winston Peters: Who wrote that?SARAH DOWIE: —and I find it disturbing when some members opposite take a trip on the wild side and come down to Southland and then tell me that we are not doing well. I have got one thing to say to the member opposite—Mr Twyford—which is that the Bluff portion of State Highway 1 is currently being resealed with the Greenhills overbridge reseal having been completed. If generating 14.4 percent of New Zealand’s total export receipts if having an unemployment rate of 3.3 percent—Stuart Smith: How much?SARAH DOWIE: —3.3 percent—and if having some of the most affordable housing in the country and above-average household income is doing badly well then I do not know what is good.Southlanders enjoy a high quality of living and we are highly satisfied with our lives according to the 2014 regional activity report. See? We are happy—happy. One of the key parts of the Business Growth Agenda advice from the Prime Minister and Cabinet is to open up our new markets and Southland is obviously a trading export economy but we are not going just for dairying. We are diversifying and growing other markets including fishing and aquaculture meat tourism and wool—over $3 billion in export receipts—and we are even investigating new industries like cropping oil and gas and platinum in an environmentally sustainable and responsible way. So one can see that Southland has got a lot going for it and different competitive activities but that those activities can coexist if the right conditions are put in place in respect of the operating parameters.Mr Clayton Mitchell would be well advised to listen to the answer that the Minister of Conservation gave yesterday in respect of shark tourism operators. That is a competing business but with the right parameters it is operating in a sustainable way. I want to just end—Rt Hon Winston Peters: What do the pāua divers say?SARAH DOWIE: —Mr Peters—by extending my condolences to the family of Frana Cardno the former Mayor of Southland District. She was a champion of Southland and as such she encouraged people who had Southland’s best interests at heart and that actually transcended the colour represented in Parliament. She encouraged me while I was at the Department of Conservation she encouraged me while I was a lawyer and she encouraged me as the member for Invercargill.