Parker David: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Parker David: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 15 August 2012. Volume:682;Page:4394. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 That was a very shallow contribution from the Minister for Economic Development who did not even get around to talking about economic development. 
Grant Robertson 
: No there is no plan. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: Well that is right. There is no adequate plan for that. He misrepresented David Shearer as being out there with a placard saying “anti-mining”. Actually Mr Joyce he was with a placard protesting against mining in national parks. 
Grant Robertson 
: With 50000 other people. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: That is right—with 50000 other people. The National Government eventually admitted its error and reversed what was the major part of its economic plank for the last term. 
 You know the National Government is in trouble in the regions when a National member asks a Minister a patsy question like in question time today about how things are in the regions and the Minister quotes a business confidence survey. Why is the Government doing that? Well we know that the polling of the National Party is declining quite markedly in just about every region in New Zealand—just about all of them. Why? Why? Well because record numbers of New Zealanders are leaving New Zealand and leaving the regions. And the sad reality is that National does not seem to know about it—either that or it does not care. Why do I say that it does not seem to know about it? Well I asked a primary question of Bill English a couple of weeks ago about whether the numbers of people leaving New Zealand are being replaced by people coming from overseas and he said in answer: “as I understand it there are no regional statistics that specifically isolate the number of people leaving any particular region to move overseas.” 
Unfortunately he was wrong. There are. There are Statistics New Zealand— 
Hon Parekura Horomia 
: How many? How many? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: —series that show who is moving from each district council area and each regional council area. Parekura Horomia asked me how many. Well the answer is record numbers. Of the 53000 people who left from New Zealand to go to Australia last year—and that is just Australia—on a permanent basis a lot of them go from the regions. Some of our greatest rates of population growth are from the regions. 
The saddest part of all that is that 40 percent of them are between the ages of 18 and 30. We have got to ask ourselves why it is that so many 20-year-olds no longer have hope and opportunity in New Zealand but instead feel that they have got to go to Australia. The answer is because our economy is not performing and they have not got jobs. 
Today the National Government said that it advanced another part of its export agenda. 
Grant Robertson 
: Another plan. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: Another plan. Well you know this is the last in a long list of them and none of them seem to make any difference. I am going to tell the House why in my opinion that is the case. It is because the Government is not addressing the issues that need to be addressed. It says that it has a plan to develop the export economy yet it is not removing the tax bias that fights against investment going into there. And then the Government is surprised that people go to Australia. The Government says that we need more money in those industries yet it opposes improvements to KiwiSaver to make sure that everybody saves. It says that it wants to make improvements to the innovative sector yet it opposed a research and development tax credit. Its actions speak louder than its words and the consequences are visited upon our young people who are voting with their feet. 
The regions are feeling ignored. They are also right to feel ignored on roading. We had questions today about all this money going into the roads of national significance some of which are of marginal economic benefit. There is no doubt about that. The Government’s own cost-benefit analysis shows that these are a poor spend yet it insists on spending billions there to the detriment of the regions. The mayors in the regions are now complaining that they are not getting enough money to maintain and improve their roads because it is all going to these roads of national significance—and it just about all is. It is an exaggeration to say that it all is but there is a huge predominance of that money— 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: But which one would Labour can? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: —going into those—what was that? 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Which one would Labour can? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: We would can the Puhoi to Wellsford road because—[ 
Interruption 
] Yeah. We would instead spend about $1 billion less—about $1 billion less. We have been saying it for about a year. The National Government still does not understand it. We would spend $400 million and fix the road but we would not waste the other $1 billion. 
New Zealand is not being held back by a lack of infrastructure; we are being held back by the lack of a decent economic plan. 
Mike Sabin 
: You come trotting up there for fish and chips at Maunganui. Send us a copy of that  
Hansard 
. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: Fish and chips in Whanganui are as good as it gets under the National Government. That is an economic plan under its watch.