Joyce Steven: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeJoyce Steven: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In Committee[Sitting date: 17 June 2014. Volume:699;Page:18553. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Science and Innovation):May I say that I do not think that the last two speakers get out that much. They really do need to get out some more. I had to laugh at young Gareth Hughes because he literally said that we have to encourage the capital markets and we need a capital gains tax. That is exactly what he said. The answer to encouraging the capital markets is to tax them more! That is obviously the answer; how silly of me! He also suggested that the idea of taxing about a quarter of houses would reduce the investment in housing whereas at the same time taxing 100 percent of businesses with a capital gains tax would increase the investment in businesses. I do not know how that is supposed to work.He also should have gone to Fieldays last week because he acted as if the primary sector does not innovate. He said that the primary sector needs to innovate more and not just sell raw stuff overseas. Well hello! The news is that actually that is what is happening. For those of us who did go to Fieldays I myself was incredibly encouraged by the amount of investment in technology and innovation that is going on there with the assistance of organisations such as Callaghan Innovation. The farming industry is now very much a data-driven industry and the members opposite should get out more and actually learn what is going on out there in the actual market place. But the other thing I would note—Dr Megan Woods: Ask them about a research and development tax credits in the market place while you are out there.Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Oh by the way in terms of the whole LanzaTech rubbish with the greatest respect the research and development grants that it was entitled to in this country were more generous than the ones in the US. The reason it has gone to the US is actually what happened under Labour’s watch when the company was largely sold offshore while Labour was still around. It hired a chief executive based in the Midwest of the US and now she wants to put the company there. That is the extent of it. So actually a little bit of work Megan would be good in terms of before you pick your examples as to why things should happen.What is actually happening is a big increase in private sector research and development supported by Callaghan Innovation. We now have $142 million a year being co-invested alongside private sector companies in research and development growth grants and the Opposition still has not woken up to that because it is still harping on about the policy I think it has announced seven times now and implemented once which is the research and development tax credits. It has got nothing more to say on innovation at all. That is the entire story in innovation since about 2007. Well news—we are in 2014. Something else a little fresh would be helpful.But the other thing I have got to take up with the member opposite Megan Woods is the issue of this whole thing that companies having international investment is somehow bad for them. I can tell her that actually a normal part of the innovation process is that some of the companies are eventually bringing in international investors. The good news about that which Ms Woods has overlooked is that it frees up capital to invest in more companies so people like Sam Morgan and so on who sold their TradeMe shares have now invested in a whole range of other companies and that is part of what encourages the ecosystem in New Zealand.My definition of success in innovation is the increase of innovation that occurs in New Zealand and that is what is happening right now in this country. We have had a big increase in research and development by businesses and it is continuing to grow. We have had a big increase in exports by what is known as the high-tech sector which is the information and communications technology sector high-tech manufacturing and medium high tech manufacturing. That is increasing. That is a factual reality.Dr David Clark: How close to the OECD average?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Speaking of the OECD Mr Hughes was saying that we are continuing to go down the OECD ladder. Well I have some news for him actually. We stopped going down the OECD ladder as soon as the Labour-Greens crowd went out of office. We stopped. And actually we are now going up. The former Prime Minister Helen Clark talked about being No. 22 in the OECD for years and nothing happened. Now suddenly we are at 20 and going to 19 because of the work done by this Government relative to other countries in the OECD.Here we have a growing high-tech sector that is in really good shape with more and more companies listing publicly and more companies being seeded and growing. We have big support of that from this new entity Callaghan Innovation. If the member Ms Woods is unsure of what it is for I recommend this quite simple page with five bullet points on it. That would be a good summary for her to start with. We are lifting the investment in New Zealand’s technology companies and the Opposition needs to bring itself up to date.Report noted.