Faafoi KrisHon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Broadcasting Communications and Digital Media): Madam Speaker can I thank you for the opportunity to speak to this piece of legislation and congratulate the Hon David Parker for both a successful Budget. But to get us here—to get this piece of legislation to the House—can I also acknowledge the finance spokesperson for the Opposition the Hon Paul Goldsmith for saying that the Opposition will support this piece of legislation to the select committee where that dragon's den the Finance and Expenditure Committee can have a look at this piece of legislation in much greater detail as the member said.I'd also like to thank him for the slight glimmer of sunshine that he had during his speech—in amongst some of the doom and gloom—in suggesting that this could be a good thing for a number of companies here in New Zealand. But I will suggest that it will be an extremely good thing for a number of companies here in New Zealand who have certainly since our Government has taken power taken many opportunities to suggest that there is a capital gap domestically here in New Zealand and it needs to be filled. As the previous speaker said his preference is that the taxpayer shouldn't have to fill it but that doesn't take away from the fact that it does exist and that many companies around the $2 million to $20 million mark have found it extremely difficult to get hold of capital to grow for them to become more productive. At the end of the day that growth could turn into more jobs which fundamentally this Government is all about.The mechanism by which this piece of legislation will go through is the Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation fund; that will be debated out in the select committee. But I just want to talk about the two areas in which this is very important for the two hats that I wear both as Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs and Minister of Broadcasting Communications and Digital Media. I'll start with commerce because there are a lot of very clever tech developers who would like to take the opportunity to do more in that space with the likes of open banking for instance—once that gets under way—but they are struggling to get investment and struggling to get the capital to go to the next level. I think this fund is a great opportunity for some of those extremely tech-savvy developers around the country who have had a degree of success already but really are struggling to go the next mile and haven't got an option whereas they may now.For those who are watching at home and are concerned about this kind of mechanism I just do also want to point out that it is dollar for dollar. So if the Government is putting in a dollar via the venture fund—Fletcher Tabuteau: Skin in the game eh? Skin in the game.Hon KRIS FAAFOI: —they will also be expected to put a dollar into the venture fund as well. There is skin in the game as Fletcher Tabuteau has said to ensure that it isn't just 100 percent pure capital from the taxpayer. So I think that is one point that we want to make sure is very clear and I'm sure the select committee will look into as well.As Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs if myself or the Minister of Finance had a dollar for every time we went along to our financial sector roundtables etc. and they said to us that there's not enough capital in the market—for instance Can you do something about KiwiSaver; can we get more of that put into the market domestically?"—I would be quite well off. I wouldn't of course take the money but that goes to the reality that there is a capital gap here in New Zealand and we can sit on our hands and do nothing about it which has been the modus operandi until this point where we're saying it is important that medium and large sized companies that want to go to the next level need that capital. We want as many of them to stay here and be New Zealand - owned if possible; we don't want to stop those who have to go overseas and be more successful offshore to do that but those who do see themselves having a future here in New Zealand—giving them a hand to do that. And again the examples in the tech sector and examples around the capital markets—and of course the New Zealand Stock Exchange is looking at a situation at the moment—are two pretty glaring examples of why this is needed.The other reason why we think this is very much needed is our productivity issues at the moment. We think we've got a lot of firms out there in New Zealand who for want of the capital that they require could be a hell of a lot more productive. And that is holding the growth of our economy back and getting some stimulus via this fund may enable them to buy the tech or the plant to go the extra mile to be more productive and to hopefully supply more jobs to the market—again what this Government is all about.I'm not going to hold up proceedings too much longer because we've already had the two main speakers lead off and it looks like this piece of legislation is going to head to the select committee with the blessing of the Opposition somewhat but this is one of those pieces of legislation where we are tackling some of the long-term issues that are facing New Zealand—those being here a shortage of capital in the domestic market. And this piece of legislation is going to get us a long way towards sorting that issue out."