Smith Lockwood: General Debates 
Smith Lockwood: General Debates 
[Volume:606;Page:3580] 
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (NZ National—Rodney) 
: 
 This Labour-led Government is creating something of an art form out of saying one thing or creating the perception of one thing yet doing another. I guess the most compelling example of that in recent times is Helen Clark’s claim that she is not involved in any way in President Bush’s build-up against Iraq yet at the same time she has very significant proportions of New Zealand’s total Defence Force deployed in the Gulf in Operation Enduring Freedom under the same commander as the one preparing the build-up against Iraq. That is what I mean about creating the perception of one thing but on the other hand doing another.  
In the Speech from the Throne after the election last year and also in the Prime Minister’s statement at the opening of Parliament this year Helen Clark claims that growth and taking New Zealand back to the top half of the OECD is an absolute priority for this Government. She is saying one thing that seems pretty credible and really important to New Zealanders yet what is she doing at the same time? She has increased the tax burden on New Zealanders and all the research shows that that reduces growth. She has put through legislation that will enable local authorities to increase the tax burden and that will reduce growth. She has ignored the 162 recommendations of her Ministerial Panel on Business Compliance Costs. She refused to put through amendments to the Resource Management Act that would have reduced the costs of that on business and permitted more growth in this country. She has passed health and safety in employment laws that make it harder for growth to be sustained in this country. She is ratifying the Kyoto Protocol when our major trading partners have not which will make it harder for businesses in this country to compete. This year she will pass continuity of employment laws that will add compliance costs for business holidays legislation that will add compliance costs for business and so it goes on—the rhetoric on the one hand supporting sustainable growth and on the other hand the policy actions all against business growth in this country.  
Today we have the Knowledge Wave 2003 conference and more rhetoric that tries to give the perception that this Government is supporting growth. This is the second knowledge wave conference. What happened after the first one? The first knowledge wave conference made 44 recommendations. How many has the Government implemented? Four. The rhetoric sounds great—on the one hand supporting sustainable growth yet on the other hand ignoring the recommendations of the knowledge wave conference.  
We have just heard about economic growth from Matt Robson of Jim Anderton’s Progressive Coalition. His mate Jim Anderton is the Minister for Economic Development. What do they do? They think economic growth is about bringing Sovereign Yachts to New Zealand. We heard Matt Robson defending it just now. They think that economic growth is about a photo opportunity for Jim Anderton when he hands out little bribes to business around New Zealand—welfare for business around New Zealand. I know that many members of Labour and Jim Anderton’s Progressive Coalition—not to mention the Greens—have never been involved in business. They are former teachers academics and union officials. [ 
Interruption 
] I do know that Jim Anderton has been involved in failed business.  
I suppose they have this feel-good thing at the moment. As Matt Robson said unemployment is down. He did not talk about sickness benefits and invalids benefits being way up. They probably feel good because of that. They inherited an economy growing at 4 percent and things feel pretty good when an economy is growing that high. But what they do not seem to understand is the lag time of policy change. They have inherited the benefits of the policy reforms carried out by the former Labour Government in the late-1980s and the National Government in the 1990s. This Government is cruising along on those coat-tails. It has had record commodity prices and 2 years of good weather but it is about to get a dose of reality. Commodity prices are down big-time. Next year the dairy industry will earn more than a billion dollars less. Beef prices in this country are down a third and the weather has turned sour. The Government will get a dose of reality very soon.