Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you Madam Chair. I want to talk about the allocation of $1 billion for regional economic development. Everybody here in this Parliament is concerned to see that the regions of New Zealand—the wonderful regions of New Zealand—get their chance to prosper and to continue to prosper as they have over the past few years. We've seen boom times right around New Zealand over the last few years partly as a result of the good quality Government that we had previously. We see record low levels of unemployment good growth in most areas and real opportunities for young people and old people to get ahead.Now we've seen this Government allocate $1 billion a year for the next three years to the Provincial Growth Fund. I was perhaps unkind to refer to the Minister responsible Shane Jones as being deliberately tricky about the figures in question time because he said when talking about the $1 billion for the fund—of course a quarter of that $1 billion was existing money that they've rolled over from such things that the previous Government had done such as tourism infrastructure funds and many other elements that were fed through to help the regions deal particularly with the pressures of the tourism industry. Then of course another quarter of the $1 billion is actually over the next 10 years—it's not next year at all; it's about planting trees over the next 10 years. So the Minister has been deliberately tricky with the figures. But nevertheless there is still a large amount of money being put into this fund.As I go around the countryside talking to mayors and economic development groups and businesses around the country if there's money on offer of course people are keen to get some of it. And so we encourage people to get cracking and make the most of it. But what we worry about is that in their enthusiasm to shovel the money out the door as quickly as possible there will well be plenty of poor-quality spending. And so that's why we're working hard to keep a close eye on the Minister and make sure that there is some clear objective rationale for the decisions that are made on which projects to fund.What we've seen and what we discussed during the Estimates hearing was the gross regional bias that has developed. About 37 percent so far has gone to Northland; 1 percent has gone to the entire South Island so far. There have been a couple of announcements in the last week that might have got it up to 2 percent. When the Minister was asked about that he gave three excuses: firstly to the winner goes to the booty; secondly to the victor goes the spoils; and thirdly when pressed he said Well that's the way the cookie crumbles." He doesn't take the job seriously and he should when this sort of money is involved.In terms of getting information out it's been like getting blood out of a stone in trying to get some detail about the projects that have been funded. So we'll be pushing hard there to ensure that there is good probity and that the principles of the fund are followed up—one of the principles being that we should not socialise the losses and privatise the gains. And when we look at some of the projects that have been funded recently the chair and trustee of Ngati Hine Forestry Trust made it quite clear there would be substantial financial gains to the beneficiaries of that project for example. And we'd be very keen for the Minister to explain that.Meantime—the broader point is that everybody is in favour of strong economic development for the regions but economic development is about more than just feasibility studies and a few projects. It's much broader. It's about how the Government goes about its work. It's about investing in infrastructure and roads. And so it's a bit odd for a Government to be talking about pouring money into the regions but at the same time taking much more out of the regions in terms of regional roads.Taking away the road north from Tauranga to Katikati is not going to help the regional development in that area. Taking away the four-lane highway to Whangarei is not going to help Northland in any way shape or form. Taking the money away from the road from Ōtaki to Levin is not going to help the region there to prosper. And so they give with one hand and they take away a lot more with the other.Meantime private sector investment in the regions is drying up as people keep their hands in their pockets because of the uncertainty that this Government is creating around industrial relations policy around foreign investment and around tax policy. Who's going to invest in a new business if you don't know whether you're going to have to pay a capital gains tax in the next couple of years? That uncertainty is making it much more difficult for people to invest. And then fundamentally there's uncertainty around the way that the Government goes around making its decisions as seen through that oil and gas decision which will have a massive effect on Taranaki and was based on no advice and no Cabinet decision. While we hope that good value is got out of this $1 billion fund we don't have much hope."