Robertson Grant: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRobertson Grant: General Debate[Sitting date: 12 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:5712. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): If ever there was an image to sum up the lazy incompetent complacent economic management of the National Government it was this image here from the front of the Westpac quarterlyEconomic Overview released yesterday: a boat run aground an economy run aground. That image got me thinking of another group of castaways from my childhood: a group marooned on an island who week after week tried to find their way off the island. Surrounded by opportunities to move themselves ahead they failed consistently week after week. I speak of course of Gilligan’s Island. In them we see the National Government and its approach to the economy led by the skipper John Key. The skipper the happy-go-lucky captain of the SS Minnow drifted along completely unaware of and unable to control the chaos around him distracted by irrelevancies—does that sound familiar—and completely unable to lead his team. But do not worry the erstwhile skipper has his first mate: the bumbling accident-prone incompetent Gilligan or as we know him Bill English. He is a man whose head is so firmly in the sand he cannot get that boat off the island and he cannot take the opportunities that are in front of him.If people want to recall the general plot of Gilligan’s Island each week the castaways tried to find a way to float the boat again to find the opportunities that were there and they would fail every time missing the opportunities because Gilligan did not know what to do. He had no idea. But he had some assistance on the island as Bill English does from Steven Joyce the Minister for Economic Development—or Thurston Howell III the bewildered millionaire who found himself washed up on the island constantly thinking of new schemes that he could do to lift their spirits and he completely failed. There were others on the island as well whom people may not remember. There was Mary Ann Summers who for me is summed up by Paula Bennett the Associate Minister of Finance who is just a little surprised—just a little surprised—at her role as the Associate Minister of Finance.We have in our Government the Gilligan’s Island crew completely unable to work out that right around New Zealand there are opportunities—Judith Collins is laughing but I am coming to her—that could take them off the island. It could be investing in our regions diversifying our economy or adding value to products—getting that boat and lifting it from its becalmed state and taking it out there—because right around New Zealand there are businesses and there are communities that want to be part of this. There is the Ōpōtiki community which wants its wharf to get an aquaculture industry going. There is the Wairarapa community which could have a wood-processing industry right there right now today if this Government was prepared to take those opportunities on but it is not. But do not worry because week after week on the island there was somebody there to look out for them: Ginger Grant. We on this side of the House know that it is not up to Gilligan it is not up to the Skipper; it is up to Ginger Grant—Judith Collins—to come to the rescue of the National Government. That is how they will get off the island.The Economic Overview from Westpac shows unemployment going up over 6.5 percent it shows growth going under 2 percent and it shows the Canterbury rebuild peaking. This Government built an economic stool with three legs: the Canterbury rebuild which is falling off; Auckland housing prices for which the bubble will come to an end; and dairy prices which have collapsed. There is no plan B. Plan A is not working. Government members are marooned on Gilligan’s Island.