Ross Jami-Lee: Annual Review Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRoss Jami-Lee: Annual Review Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 28 April 2015. Volume:704;Page:2931. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany):I am pleased to speak after Fletcher Tabuteau. He is actually a very good member of the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee—very constructive. But then he walks into the House having listened to what Winston has told him to say and it all turns to custard.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! The member will refer to the right honourable gentleman in the proper terms.JAMI-LEE ROSS: I apologise to the right honourable gentleman.I am pleased to speak on the financial report that has come from the Finance and Expenditure Committee. I am pleased to report on it because we have in this economy in this country a finance Minister who is envied around the world by other finance Ministers because of the decisions that this Government has taken which have helped this economy to get to the position it is now in. We are living in a country with one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. We are living in a country where 80000 people have gained a job in the last year. We are living in a country where we have high growth rates and relatively low inflation rates which is leading to our country improving year after year. We are proud on this side of the House to speak about the growing economy and about the success of Bill English and this whole House should be celebrating that.One of the measures of whether the New Zealand public and those investing in this country feel confident about the direction the country is heading in is whether or not they are willing to commit their cold hard cash and front up and invest in the economy. Last week the Hon Bill English was in my electorate to visit several important developments. I want to mention those today because they are evidence that New Zealanders are feeling happier. They are feeling as though the economy is going in the right direction. They feel as though this country is worth backing.The construction launch of the Ormiston town centre which the Hon Bill English launched last year is a half-a-billion-dollar investment by Todd Corporation. It has got 700 houses in it and 30000 square metres of retail. Forty thousand people will be serviced by that retail development. This is evidence that in my own electorate New Zealanders are happier to invest because of the economic settings that we have put in place. After visiting the Ormiston town centre construction Mr English then visited the Highbrook development which has got 500000 square metres of commercial space. Fifteen thousand people will be employed in that development and there are 107 hectares of development. That again is evidence that the economic settings put in place by this Government are leading to more investment in our economy. Investment in our economy flows only if you have the right economic settings. The fact that we are cleaning up the mess left by the Labour Government which would have seen net debt as a percentage of GDP reach 60 percent—the fact that we are cleaning that up turning it round and getting ourselves back into a position where New Zealanders are happy to invest in this country—is a positive thing.The fact also that New Zealanders are voting with their feet and are coming home and are no longer leaving our country to go offshore is another positive indicator that we should be proud of. When we came into office about 30000 New Zealanders a year were leaving this country to go offshore. We are now seeing New Zealanders choosing to come home and live in New Zealand. It does not happen overnight. It does not happen by pure chance. It happens because the Government puts in place settings that lead to greater investment that lead to greater job growth that lead to higher wages and that lead to New Zealand becoming a more desirable place for people to live. When we talk in this House about what the Labour Party likes to call doom and gloom—and we talk about the fact that it is actually improving—and when we talk in this House about the economic settings the very important indicator we must always watch is whether New Zealanders are voting with their feet. They vote with their feet they vote with their pockets and they vote at the ballot box as well. The New Zealand public have endorsed once again the economic progress this country is making.I wish to challenge the member opposite who was talking just a few minutes ago about interest rates because that is a very interesting question that we often debate in this House. Let us not forget that in 2008 when the Labour - New Zealand First coalition left office interest rates were about double what they are now. Mr Tabuteau please do not come into this Chamber and lecture about interest rates when the very party he is a member of was part of a Government that had an economy with interest rates double what they are today. [Bell rung] Mr Chair—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Jami-Lee Ross.JAMI-LEE ROSS: No sorry.