Upston Louise: Address in Reply 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Upston Louise: Address in Reply 
[Sitting date: 08 February 2012. Volume:677;Page:184. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupo) 
: 
 Seventy-five days ago New Zealand gave its support to the Rt Hon John Key in re-electing National to office. I want to take this opportunity to thank the people of the Taupo electorate for their increased support for me and I pledge to continue my hard work in representing them.  
National is committed to building a brighter future where New Zealanders have the jobs have the incomes and have the public services that we all aspire to. We started this work in 2008 and with an increase in support in the recent election we are happy to continue delivering this. One of the four main priorities over the next 3 years is to build a more competitive and productive economy. Really what that means is growing our exports. That is the focus. It is very appropriate coming from the Taupo electorate where the main sources of employment come from farming forestry and tourism that this is very close to my heart.  
Part of our 120-point economic action plan is ensuring that we sell what the world wants but that has to be done at a competitive price so that is why we have this export-focused economy. What we know from conversations with people up and down New Zealand is that people want to see more jobs and they want to see higher incomes but actually we know that those will come from having better international trade links and that will lead to a stronger economy and create more jobs with higher incomes. That is one of the fundamental reasons that New Zealanders voted for a National-led Government.  
Part of our strategy around those high-quality relationships is with emerging economies like China and India as well as our more traditional trading partners. We have had some conversations in the media in the last few weeks about making the most of our free-trade agreements and in particular the one with China. Here in Parliament today we are recognising the Chinese New Year so I felt it important to make sure that we stress this point of how important they are to us.  
One of the things that is important to note though is that this focus needs to be clearly on the export sector and the tradable sector because that is where the sustainable jobs will come from over time. We do not want to see what we saw under 9 years of Labour which was an increase in the jobs in the non-tradable sector so that is clearly why we have an export focus.  
I want to give an example of a company in my electorate a dairy processing plant that was opened in August last year which I took the Prime Minister to in November. It is called Miraka which is Maori for milk. It is a really interesting joint venture because it combines the Maori landowners with strategic partners and investors that include the Maori Trustee the Global Dairy Network and the Viet Namese milk and dairy manufacturing company Vinamilk. Ninety million dollars was invested in the electorate in this absolutely state-of-the-art milk processing factory. The two key markets for its processed goods are customers in Asia and the Middle East. It has been a fantastic example of a local business that is now employing 30 people who would not have been employed otherwise as well as $90 million that went into the construction of that milk processing plant.  
But there are some other aspects of it that I am really excited about and one of them is the fact that it is powered by renewable steam and electricity from the Tuaropaki Trust’s nearby geothermal power station which is a power station that is owned by the trust and Mighty River Power. It is even better from an environmental perspective because what it also does with its waste water is that it goes on to a neighbouring farmland and the solid waste is being disposed of on a worm farm. 
 This is a business a local business a Maori-owned business—54 percent of it owned by Maori—there is a connection with a State-owned enterprise it has a fantastic environmental record it is exporting our goods to the world it is employing local people and that is exactly what we want to see more of not just in my electorate but across New Zealand.  
We need investment. In this case some of it has been foreign investment. Again it is something that has been debated at length over the last few weeks and I was pleased that our Minister for Economic Development spoke about that more today because actually we do not talk enough about the benefits of foreign investment. If we continue to have New Zealanders—as we will for many years to come—demanding higher-paying jobs we actually have to look for foreign investment. That is why it is really important. [ 
Interruption 
] Mr Mallard might think it is not important to have foreign investment; actually I think that side of the House has not figured out what their position is on foreign investment because it seems to change daily or actually several times a day.  
If I look at my electorate we want to look at foreign investment we want the opportunities that it brings. Part of it is the sustainability of the jobs. One of the things that I love about my electorate is the fantastic ideas that are generated and I have just given you some examples with the Miraka dairy plant. It is not just about having ideas and innovation; it is actually about delivering on those ideas. Whether it is in high-value wood processing whether it is alternative uses for geothermal energy—of which there are multiple examples in my electorate—new farming techniques creating interesting trading relationships between nitrogen and carbon which we have seen in the south of the Taupo electorate and which are mitigating environmental issues or whether it is software development we have some world-leading businesses in Taupo that are born out of ideas and they are exporting from their homes their offices and their businesses on the side of our great lake.  
This side of the House knows what is important to those individuals and to those businesses and knows that to get some of those businesses up and running and off the ground requires foreign investment. We actually want to encourage them not discourage them which is why I am quite staggered by the fact that those on the other side of the House do not seem that interested in what the advantages of foreign investment will bring. We want to encourage those businesses to be based here. We have to make sure that the resources are available to them and we are looking at some exciting opportunities with geothermal energy. We have got to have the infrastructure available to them to keep things moving and we need to ensure that our people have the right skills and access to capital for them to make it happen.  
There is another example in my electorate of another dairy project that was not quite so successful or has not been yet. It had the idea it had the location and it was looking at jobs during construction and jobs during production. It is very exciting for a small part of my electorate that does not have a lot of jobs currently and it would be very helpful to have this sort of opportunity. Unfortunately there have been too many people who have been opposing it—the location—and really slowing the whole process down which creates significant issues.  
I did want to touch on the Crafar farms very briefly. For the people of my electorate it is an exciting opportunity that those farms have finally been sold. So instead of the farms languishing in the hands of the receiver we will now see investment we will now see jobs we will now see the opportunities that that investment in skills in training and in capital development will provide. It is so important that that sale means things can get moving and it means that people in my area can be better off. It was quite interesting because we get the odd comment from the other side of the House about why this was not a good idea. But I think they continue to be confused because we heard yesterday from David Parker that in 3 years—2006-08—they had approved four times what we have approved in only the first term.  
It is kind of puzzling I do not know whether Labour members want new jobs. They obviously do not want any foreign investment or at least they do not in this hour. Clearly they do not want better environmental practices on farms. We need to encourage the development of all our opportunities if we are to prosper. This is what will create the jobs that we want long term. This Government is about less spending less debt. It is about more investment more exports and more jobs. That is what New Zealanders voted for 75 days ago and that is what we will deliver.