Hutchison Paul: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Hutchison Paul: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:632;Page:4153] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
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 Thank you Mr Chairperson for the opportunity to speak on these Budget estimates for 2006-07 regarding the Crown research institutes which are also very much a part of the science portfolio. It is hugely relevant that through the Speech from the Throne last year the Prime Minister one Helen Clark made the comment: “My Government believes that science and innovation are critical to driving our prosperity.” Well as well as that statement a paper has come from the Ministry of Science Research and Technology detailing a range of actions known as Picking up the Pace 
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The reality is more like the Labour Government picking up the spin. I see that Minister Maharey has just taken his seat and if ever there is anyone capable of picking up the spin rather than the pace it is none other than Minister Maharey. 
We have seen in the estimates this year certainly in relation to science a sum of $19.397 million for 2006-07. That can be taken in the context of this Labour Government’s general spending. When one looks at what was spent on Working for Families—which is in the order of a billion dollars a year or more and which will only cement-in dependency—and at what was spent on interest-free student loans which again cost about a billion dollars a year then one sees that $19.397 million seems to be extraordinarily meagre especially if we look at this Government’s rhetoric about science. It says firstly that it will pick up the pace and secondly that science and innovation are critical to driving our prosperity. I wonder whether the Minister will actually stand up and tell us what that really means if this Government is serious about science and innovation being critical to driving our prosperity. It seems to me that there is nothing serious about that at all and that the Labour Government’s priorities are in terms of cementing-in welfare dependency when it commits literally billions of dollars of taxpayers’ funds into programmes like Working for Families and interest-free student loans yet puts only a mere $19.397 million into an area that it says is critical to driving our prosperity. 
The other interesting thing about this Labour Government is that it says it has considerably increased the spending on research and development over the last 6 years. But we know as a fact that as a percentage of GDP spending on science has stayed much the same over the last 6 years or has even diminished a little remaining at about 0.54 percent of GDP. The Minister has the temerity to say the Labour Government is going to aim for expenditure of 0.68 percent of GDP but he does not tell us when that will occur. Just as the Labour Government said 6 long years ago that its aim was to raise New Zealand into the upper half of the OECD it is saying in exactly the same way that in science research and development it is going to aim for 0.68 percent GDP of spending without telling us when that will occur. 
There is no question that this Labour Government and the Minister of Research Science and Technology Mr Maharey the “Minister of Spin” is in his actions doing exactly the opposite of his rhetoric. In fact at the select committee it was very interesting to hear the Minister say that all the Crown research institutes are operating well at the present time. One only has to look at their financial performance over the last 5 years to see that they are not doing so.