Patterson MarkMARK PATTERSON (NZ First): Thank you Mr Speaker. It is a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak to this Venture Capital Fund Bill. Of course this bill looks to amend the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Act 2001 and enable the Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation to take on this new role managing the Venture Capital Fund. I welcome the opportunity to speak after the previous member Lawrence Yule and address some of those issues; I'll get to that shortly. But in terms of this Venture Capital Fund it has two roles really: to increase venture capital available to new entities and particularly as we've heard those entities that have got to about $2 million to $20 million. That's the gap that has been identified. We will now have some capacity—or the super fund will have some capacity to use their track record which is world-leading to identify those opportunities. It's all to develop New Zealand's venture capital markets and this is a catalyst for more funding coming in from other private sector funding opportunities. So it's a catalyst. The reason we need to do this is because if we are to grow our economy to its maximum it is about productivity and this country has not fared well in productivity for decades. We've had a volume over value mentality which we've got to the end of to some extent particularly in our agricultural sector where we've come up against some of the ecological limits for our environment. So we must do things smarter and that starts out with investing in R & D. Of course we know that our R & D is about—well it's less than 1.5 percent of GDP our investment. So that is quite an indicator actually across the OECD—the level of investment in R & D spending as a percentage of GDP is almost a direct correlation with the wealth of the countries that are on that OECD ladder. So it is incredibly important. This Government has a goal of getting our R & D to GDP ratio up to 2 percent and we have started out on this road. I've heard from the Opposition some plaintive cries over there about What are we doing for the economy?" It reminds me of that old Monty Python skit about "What have the Romans ever done for us?" I mean this $300 million Venture Capital Fund is actually one of the more modest steps we've taken—if you look at the $1.25 billion R & D tax credits—of course to get us up to that 2 percent. Of course being New Zealand First it would be remiss of me not to mention the $3 billion Provincial Growth Fund (PGF). Let's just put some context on that: under the last Government the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment had a regional development fund of $11 million. It is now $1 billion a year—under the previous Government it was $11 million. So there has been a hundredfold increase in the Government's investment in our provinces. And in fact this Venture Capital Fund will do—the PGF is actually making very similar sorts of investments and we saw it actually down in my neck of the woods down in Otago and Southland recently. Minister Jones was down there in the heavy industry the manufacturing industries; those old legacy industries that are a bit disparate and ad hoc but with some investment and tooling them up and joining them together with a sort of overarching strategy and an entity that can help them pull together to win bigger contracts and give them some funds to as I say to tool up and fill their order books and revive some of those great industries that we have down there—and there's some really smart people and some really really clever thinking going on. And of course if we've got some of the other stuff around the $100 million Green Investment Fund that the Greens will be unveiling some of that—they've been squirrelling it away a wee bit. We're hoping to see some action there but they'll certainly have some exciting projects to come there. But this is an important thing. Last night some of us went to the Speaker's Science Forum and we had two presentations actually: one from the Cawthron Institute around aquaculture and one from Plant & Food Research around some of the developments in horticulture. It struck me there that the opportunities are so exciting—and using what we grow in different ways that we would never ever have thought of. It's how do we get those technologies from being developed in those science labs and those experiments and get them up to being companies that are producing millions and hopefully billions of dollars for New Zealand. Of course one of those has been referenced a little bit the seaweed—the red seaweed which has some enormous potential in terms of its methane inhibiting potential. It is being developed—actually the PGF invested $500000 down there in Southland last week and Cawthron are also doing some work on this. So it's that sort of thing: how do we get that sort of initiative from a $2 million company or a $20 million company up to a billion dollar company. I fundamentally disagree with the last speech by Lawrence Yule. It is important that we own these assets. It is important we own those value chains. We don't want to be in the words of our previous Prime Minister Sir John Key "[peasants] in our own land". We need to own these assets. We need to reach into the international marketplace and bring that money back to New Zealand not have it just disappear away to foreign jurisdictions. We are not on this side of the House in favour of that and we have taken many measures to do that. Mr Yule in terms of the dairy farm prices I see Fonterra have just lifted their payout today and that's what should drive the price of land. It's the productive value of that land and there's plenty of money in New Zealand to buy those farms should the return on that investment be where it is at the moment; of course we've got record exports. So there's a 15-year timeline on this bill and we note the Finance and Expenditure Committee worked through a number of small changes but it's good to see actually cross-party support for this bill because it is important that we get our innovation going in this economy and getting ourselves away from being—those companies that start and then they just sell off overseas and those ideas disappear off elsewhere. We can innovate and take some of those great ideas that have been developed in our institutes and universities and in small companies up and down the country and turn them into taxpaying entities and powerhouses for our economy here in New Zealand. So New Zealand First absolutely supports this bill as we do all those other measures that I indicated earlier as part of a wider suite of packages that we are bringing in for the long-term good of this economy. This is not a Government that looks at immigration and housing speculation as the elixir of an economy. That is not a sustainable position so we do have to do some of these hard yards. We have to build up those fundamentals in our economy. This bill does go some way to addressing that and we hope that it builds some momentum and helps assist some of those private entities as well come on board which of course has been the experience of the Provincial Growth Fund. That's often co-funding or almost always co-funding these. It is the catalyst the enabler for greater things to happen and we're seeing that up and down the country. So without further ado New Zealand First will enthusiastically support this bill through to the next reading. Thank you."