Carter David: New Zealand Trade and Enterprise Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Carter David: New Zealand Trade and Enterprise Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:609;Page:6276] 
Hon DAVID CARTER (NZ National) 
: It is with pleasure that I rise to speak on this bill. The first point I want to make as we talk about handouts and the largesse and generosity of the Minister is that every time he gives a handout to any organisation around New Zealand that money was first taken from the taxpayers. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: That’s right. 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: Ken Shirley says that that is right but I sadly think that many many members on the other side of the Chamber tend to forget that. It is all very well to be generous with this money and to grab photo opportunities up and down the country but I say to the Minister—[ 
Interruption 
] Sorry the Minister says there are no photo opportunities. 
Hon Jim Anderton 
: I said you hate them. 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: No I tell the Minister that I do not think it is a matter of whether I love photo opportunities or whether I hate them. The important thing is not whether the Minister loves or hates them but that every one comes at a cost. It comes at a cost to some other person who has paid taxes so that Mr Anderton can have his photograph taken when handing out a cheque. National certainly supports the bill and when I look at its purposes particularly in clause 3(1) we are happy to support anything that will make it easier for New Zealand businesses to operate in New Zealand and to be internationally competitive. But the thing that staggers me—and I certainly hope that the Minister may take a call and explain whether this is right—are some figures that I have picked up from the  
New Zealand Herald 
 so they might not be right. It says that in this current year the operating budget for the Minister’s agency will be $45.89 million and the budget for the programmes and awards it manages will be $50.59 million. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: It is actually $130 million. 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: They give out $130 million and spend approximately a third of that to give it out. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: That’s right—feathering the bureaucratic nest. 
John Carter 
: It’s actually worse than that. 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: Well the Minister had better take a call and explain these figures because if we are spending approximately a third of every dollar of this taxpayer money in processing the applications and deciding who will be the beneficiary of this largesse then the Minister needs to take a call and convince this Parliament that that is the most efficient way to operate. I looked through some of the grants that have been made to date and in one example the Minister made a grant for $4500 to Auckland University to develop non-toxic body paint for Maori performing arts. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: That’s probably a ticket to Melbourne. 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: It could be. It would be a very expensive ticket to Melbourne— 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Yes but it’s for expensive hotels. 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: My colleague says it is for expensive hotels. But there are others that are quite interesting. We have had a series of articles in the Christchurch  
Press 
 recently in which Rod Donald is railing against the existence of the Warehouse and how it is an affront to New Zealand’s culture. But—hang on!—the Government that he supports gave $75000 to the Warehouse— 
John Carter 
: They need it. 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: The Warehouse does need it. It has had some interesting profit projections lately. The chief executive left quite suddenly but not before he had been able to bank $75000— 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Does the member know why? 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: No I do not know why. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: He has been selling non-toxic body paint at $2 a time. 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: And they are having trouble getting $4500 of taxpayers’ money back—it could be that. But there are other interesting payouts that Mr Anderton is overseeing. There was $100000 granted to a gaming-machine distributor. I thought I had heard Mr Anderton railing against the scourge of gambling but here he is overseeing $100000 of hard-earned taxpayer money that is being given to a distributor of gaming machines. And then I came upon another one that was really interesting—EDS. That is a huge company that has an annual turnover similar to the gross domestic product of New Zealand. Mr Anderton felt sorry for it; it needed to receive a gift— 
John Carter 
: How much? 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: It was $1.5 million.