Carter DavidRt Hon DAVID CARTER (National): What a pleasure to follow on from the Hon James Shaw and I must say after listening to his explanation that's the best explanation I've had on the current situation around the statistics. Why he didn't try that approach initially instead of standing in this Parliament day after day and blaming the previous Government for the mess the statistics got into I will never know. That was a credible explanation but unfortunately his reputation as Minister of Statistics has already gone down the drain because he stood in this Parliament and said Not my problem; all the problem of the previous Government."My concern today that I want to address as a member of the Finance and Expenditure Committee is of course the declining economy. The Governor of the Reserve Bank will appear before that select committee again tomorrow at 8 o'clock and explain the reason why he's now dropped the OCR—the official cash rate—to the lowest level at 1.5 percent that it's ever been at. We've had Government Ministers including the Minister in the chair now the Hon Dr David Clark arguing the economy is not in decline. It's time for reality rather than rhetoric. The economy is in decline; it has dropped from 4 percent GDP now to 2 percent and even the Hon Dr David Clark has got to see that as a decline. That will be one of the questions that is put to the Governor of the Reserve Bank tomorrow as to why he has dropped the OCR. I accept there are some world headwinds but the New Zealand economy is declining far more than it should and the reason for that is because businesses lack confidence in this Government.We have record employment; I agree with that. We had Dr Duncan Webb saying earlier that his Government was proud to have turned the ship of State around—it's turned around in completely the wrong direction and what happens when you turn a big ship around is it takes time for the effects to happen. I don't think it'll be too long before we see businesses because they don't have confidence lowering the opportunities to employ people. My prediction is unemployment will not go any lower. It will now start to increase. Why is business so pessimistic? It's issues like a capital gains tax that was out there for months following the report of the Tax Working Group before the Government ultimately pulled the plug on it. But in the meantime businesses switched off investment decisions because they were worried about the impact of a dirty capital gains tax.It's issues like the reforms of the labour market that we've just had—the 90-day trial period which worked so well for so many disadvantaged difficult-to-employ young New Zealanders has now been taken away from most employers; 19-year-old employees and above you cannot now use the 90-day trial period and that will make it more difficult for young New Zealanders to get jobs.It's issues like climate change and I want to take this opportunity of acknowledging the announcement today by the Hon James Shaw around the zero carbon bill. What he has done is recognise the importance of giving some certainty to business and that requires bipartisan support. We will not make progress on the issue of climate change unless business has some security around the settings. But I do take this opportunity of saying to James Shaw that his targets must be reasonable and my first look at those targets—particularly around methane levels—is they are not reasonable. They're in fact not achievable unless an economy that is so dependent on primary production is prepared to cut cow numbers cut sheep numbers and dramatically; so it will not happen.The final point I want to make around a lack of confidence in this economy and in the Government is around the so-called well-being Budget. There has not been a Budget presented in this House that I've been part of either by a Labour Government when I'm in Opposition or by a National-led Government when I'm in Government that doesn't take into account the well-being of New Zealanders. So what we've got to watch is we don't get more rhetoric coming from the Prime Minister which is meaningless and a Budget that doesn't deliver real growth."