Robson Matt: General Debates 
Robson Matt: General Debates 
[Volume:618;Page:14393] 
Hon MATT ROBSON (Deputy Leader—Progressive) 
: 
 There is a man who objected to a prison being located in his area when he was offered one. Yesterday in the estimates debate Parliament said yes to the Labour-Progressive Government’s $263.128 million investment in economic industry and regional development. Funding has been approved for 26 new initiatives in the 2004-05 financial year totalling $98.398 million. Some of the more exciting investments propelling the economic transformation of our nation include programmes to enhance New Zealand’s ability to attract new investment the opening of new international market opportunities to a number of our industry sectors significantly greater participation in international trade fairs and the promotion of New Zealand’s goods and services. The Large Budget Screen Production Grant fund is paying dividends for all New Zealand. New Zealand is increasingly a technologically advanced and forward-looking society that is confident of its place in the world and confident of where it is going as a nation. 
The Labour-Progressive coalition Government relishes its vital role in contributing to that process of economic transformation. The reason the coalition Government is active in supporting industry and regional development is that we know that intelligent partnerships are assisting the whole economy to leverage more out of our existing skills and advantages. It is a multiplier effect and we need to have a lot more of it to ensure that the exceptionally strong economic performance we have seen over the 5 years since 1999 continues uninterrupted for many more years yet. It does not seem very long since 1999 because so much has happened since then and it has been so good. We are a Government that is actively encouraging new investment and new job-creating businesses including those with export potential. Strengthening the international connections of our businesses plays an important part in lifting our national economic competitiveness and therefore delivering higher average living standards. The Progressive Government’s hard work constantly pays dividends for all New Zealand. 
Yesterday Jim Anderton and EDS (New Zealand) announced that EDS has already achieved a major milestone stipulated in an investment partnership forged between it and the Government in March of last year: EDS has created more than 200 jobs in just 15 months. It has created all those jobs in the wake of this Government’s $1.5 million investment in the company via our Strategic Investment Fund. That is great news of course—which is why John Key is celebrating it now—for our expanding information and communications technology industry. EDS’s next target is to create 360 new jobs in total by March 2006. Increasing the number of high-value high-skilled jobs is an important step towards the Labour-Progressive Government’s goal of raising the living standard of every New Zealander. The flow-on effect to the wider society from the Government’s partnership with that global company is that all New Zealand benefits from having a stronger information and communications technology sector based on our shores. Of course all New Zealand benefits from increased export earnings and from a sophisticated skilled workforce. EDS (New Zealand)’s managing director Rick Ellis says that the Government grant was an important factor in assisting EDS (New Zealand) to compete in the global market for work from overseas EDS subsidiaries because the investment partnership reflected the strong level of Government support enjoyed by EDS (New Zealand). 
The Government is committed to working in partnership with New Zealand in order to get more and more New Zealanders into jobs. As of March 2004 there were 1985000 people in work. That is 193000 more than when we were elected as a coalition Government in 1999. The growth in jobs far exceeds the growth in the labour force. If members want to know what the opposite of the Progressive Government’s economic development policies would look like then they should look no further than to the National Party members on the Opposition benches. Those members strongly oppose the new jobs created at EDS and the positive partnership that this Government has. Instead they have a scenario of reckless big Government spending. National proposes on the one hand to end the Government’s investment in our future prosperity while on the other hand recklessly spending more on building prisons and employing more police to keep order in the streets of the alternative society it wants to build. New Zealand would become the Uzbekistan of this part of the world. National would have trouble in building the prisons because Paul Hutchison Shane Ardern Phil Heatley Bill English and Tony Ryall do not want prisons when those prisons are to be sited in their areas. National’s is a vision of a society that is failing economically and socially and therefore has to use precious taxpayers’ money to build ever-increasing numbers of prisons. New Zealand currently imprisons 155 people per 100000 inhabitants the seventh-highest imprisonment rate in the OECD. That is the only competition in the OECD National wants to win—the one for the highest level of imprisonment—and that is what it probably would achieve.