Joyce Steven: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeJoyce Steven: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 20 May 2014. Volume:699;Page:18088. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Economic Development): I rise to support in the most fulsome way this excellent Budget from the Minister of Finance the Hon Bill English. It is the sixth Budget from the Minister of Finance and as he pointed out last week it is also similar to the number of children that he has. That means that there is a number of us pondering having a discussion with his good lady wife as to whether we could possibly extend the brood to make sure we get further good-quality Budgets like this one.This Budget as it says on the cover is what it says on the tin. It is about managing a growing economy. Yes we have a strongly growing economy. It was one of the fastest-growing in the OECD last year and it is likely to be one of the fastest-growing in the OECD this year—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order!Hon STEVEN JOYCE: —and likely—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! [Interruption] Well I was not interrupting the honourable member. I was actually bringing the House to order. Courtesy is contagious but the member may continue.Hon STEVEN JOYCE: It was one of the fastest-growing economies in the OECD last year one of the fastest-growing this year and likely to be one of the fastest-growing in the OECD next year. That is firstly because of the fantastic fiscal management ofthis Minister of Finance but also because of a range of other initiatives. I would like to focus on a few of those that are part of the Government’s very successful Business Growth Agenda which is being well supported by businesses that want to invest and grow jobs up and down this country. If you look through the Business Growth Agenda there are a number of new initiatives this year including extending the investment in New Zealand Trade and Enterprise to help expand its support for businesses as they grow offshore around the world. There is $69 million over 4 years there.There is increased investment in the science area through science and innovation funding of $58.6 million over 3 years. There is the approach of tax exemptions for loss-making start-up companies to allow them to cash out part of their tax losses the research and development black hole expenditure and of course the centres of research excellence.In the skills space we have talked at question time this afternoon about the investments in tertiary education. In infrastructure there are significant investments in transport and for the KiwiRail Turnaround Plan and also significant investments in the Hobsonville Land Co. housing development. In the natural resources space we have had the Future Investment Fund moneys for Crown irrigation and of course as just mentioned in question time the kauri dieback programme. So this Budget is a Budget that is focused on encouraging New Zealand to continue to grow over the longer term and that is a good thing for the New Zealand economy but most of all that is a good thing for New Zealand families. This Government stands proudly on its record now of six excellent Budgets under the tutelage of the Prime Minister and of course our Minister of Finance.So we come to the other options we could have had standing here today in terms of talking about a Budget. Of course this is what the Labour Opposition might have done. The Opposition is now telling us in its latest manifestation that it would be as fiscally responsible as the current Government. That is its current statement of the day. Mr Cunliffe gets up there puts the nerd face on and says: “Oh no no. We would be as fiscally responsible as the current Government.” except that those members would not be. We have to remind ourselves of what they have said over the last few years. For example one finance spokesman for the Labour Party in 2009 said that we needed a bigger stimulus package. How could anybody call this robust? David Cunliffe said adoringly: “New Zealanders have watched an American President take office and take action passing a NZ$1.5 trillion stimulus bill. They look across the Tasman and they see a Government prepared to move heaven and earth with a NZ$67 billion stimulus package.” And now when the chickens are coming home to roost across the Tasman he says: “Oh no. We would be as responsible as the National Party in terms of our fiscal responsibility.”If you go back you will see that it was not just once. In 2011 he signalled that Labour would increase its borrowing so that it could spend more than National’s $1.1 billion allowance. That was at the end of 2009. Then he said that you cannot be driven simply by Government debt as your overriding concern. That was in another speech from Mr Cunliffe when he argued that there should be more expenditure again. And then there was the one where Mr Cunliffe called the National Government’s spending packages timid and said that Labour would have spent more. So that is what Labour actually said at the time yet today it is: “Oh we would have got back into surplus at the same time as everybody else.”But let us test it again. Let us look across at the front bench. Let us look across the front bench and see what those members would have done. Well we will start with Grant Robertson who has not seen a student whom he does not want to spend more money on. In the three times that he was tertiary education spokesperson he opposedevery single change to save money so that we could spend more elsewhere in the tertiary system. Then there was David Cunliffe who was another great spender as I have said. There is Annette King who has never seen enough spent on health and who has constantly criticised Tony Ryall for not spending more on health. Then there is Jacinda Ardern the one-time spokesperson on social development. Today she was moaning that the Government had not spent more in the lower-income areas. Finally there is Mr “Twifford”—Mr Phil Twyford—who sits there saying—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! The member will refer to another member—Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I actually corrected myself.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): —by their proper name not by a nickname or anything else.Hon STEVEN JOYCE: It was a mistake and I corrected it. Can we keep going? Anyway there is Mr Twyford who in his house-building plan wants to spend anything up to $20 billion replacing the private sector on housing. And that is just its front bench. So you have a leader who has spent the entire time wishing he could have beenBarack Obama or Kevin Rudd and that he could have spent a lot of money through the global financial crisis. And now even today we have a front bench—which of course is without the lately lamented Shane Jones who was the only person interested in growth; he is gone—that wants to spend more and borrow more.But there are other issues to deal with including the latest problems that have apparently manifested themselves since the Budget. We have now got not one but two new crises to deal with on top of all the other crises that the Opposition has been consumed with over the last few years. You may recall the regional crisis. That was a massive crisis in the regions where 2 days before the census came out the Leader of the Opposition at the time who apparently is still the leader actually wandered out and said there had been a massive departure of people from the regions—except there had not. In fact ANZ has come out today and said that every single region in New Zealand has grown in the last year including Otago which went up 4.5 percent. So where is that little Dr David Clark now? It went up 4.5 percent in Otago. The crisis continues in Otago!Then there is the manufacturing crisis—another fantastic crisis. The manufacturing sector has now been in expansion for 19 consecutive months. Then we have the export crisis which was immediately followed by the highest-ever New Zealand dollar value of exports leaving New Zealand. So then we have the two new crises including the housing crisis. Unfortunately for the Opposition the only difficulty with the housing crisis is that it was a lot worse when Labour was in Government. That is the only slight problem with the housing crisis. But nevertheless let us roll with that sucker for a minute. Let us have a look at the housing crisis under Labour. Under Labour house prices in the country doubled for over 9 years. Under National in 5 years they have gone up 16 percent. So that is a crisis; there is no doubt about that!The latest crisis—the one I love now—is the immigration crisis. There is now the immigration crisis. Well let us analyse that just for a second. In the year to March 2014 net 32000 people came into New Zealand which is about 30000-odd more than 2 years ago—35000 in fact. What has happened? It is that fewer New Zealanders have moved to Australia which is something that the Labour Party used to be concerned about and 24000—two-thirds of that reduction or more than two-thirds—are people who have not moved to Australia. Apparently it is causing house price problems in Auckland except that most of those people who have not moved to Australia have not left their provinces. It has nothing to do with Auckland. It is that 19000 of the 24000 are still living in Dunedin still living in Napier still living in Invercargill where theyare slightly bemused to see Mr Twyford popping up at their window and asking: “Are you buying houses in Auckland?”. It is not happening and that is the trouble with the Opposition members. They are a bunch of panic merchants who do not understand that actually it is about sensible economic growth and that is what this Government delivers.