5. Finance Minister—StatementsGRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) to the Minister of FinanceFinance Minister—Statements5. GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) to the Minister of Finance: Does he stand by all his statements?Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Finance): Yes in the context in which they were made.Grant Robertson: Can he confirm in light of his statements on economic growth that today's quarterly GDP figures show the weakest growth in a quarter since the beginning of 2015?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Yes and all the way back to 2015 that is the slowest over that period. The good news is as I said to the member before we have had positive economic growth in every quarter except one for the last 6 years.Grant Robertson: Can he not see that growth dropping in sectors such as agriculture forestry fishing manufacturing transport and telecommunications points to long-term problems for the productive part of the economy that is actually needed to drive living-standard increases in New Zealand?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Well gosh I think the member just insulted the other half of the New Zealand economy by suggesting it was not productive. That is health services scientific services business services the tourism sector the construction sector—all of those are apparently not productive according to Mr Robertson. But actually I suggest that he goes and has a read of some of the commentary around the quarterly figures which show that the drop in primary production which flowed into manufacturing was likely a result of the wet spring conditions that affected production levels. But he is welcome to press the alarm bells as he does on an ongoing basis.Grant Robertson: Is he concerned about a 4 percent fall in exports given that growing exports is actually meant to be one of the major goals of his Government?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The member has to be careful with his trainspotting of quarterly figures. The simple reality is that despite the downturn in the dairy industry over the last 2 years New Zealand exports have risen and in fact in the 2016 calendar year they rose over that period. So the member has got to be careful—well it is up to him—in terms of the quarterly figures because quarterly figures do move around quite a bit. The good news for the member is that our current account deficit is one of our lowest at less than 3 percent so we are paying our way in the world—Hon David Parker: No we're not. We're not paying our way in the world.Hon STEVEN JOYCE: —and in fact our international net liability is down to 55 percent Mr Parker and back when you were in Government it was 85 percent of New Zealand's GDP.Grant Robertson: Is he prepared to do anything differently given that per person the New Zealand economy went backwards in this quarter and is growing by less than 1 percent in the year or will he just continue to complacently rely on population growth and speculation in the housing market to prop up the economy?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The member needs new talking points because the New Zealand economy is one of the fastest-growing economies in the developed world and our purchasing power as pointed out by Statistics New Zealand—in a statistic that Mr Robertson used to love but has now conveniently forgotten: real growth national disposable income—has shown that New Zealand's purchasing power has grown solidly over the last year as a result of our improving external position and our improving economy. Again the member is absolutely entitled to ignore all of that and say that we are heading to hell in a handbasket but I think most New Zealanders would disagree.