Reti Shane: Debate on Prime Minister’s StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeReti Shane: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement[Sitting date: 18 February 2015. Volume:703;Page:1704. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei): Ngā mihi ki a koe. Thank you for the opportunity to talk to the Prime Minister’s statement and to especially talk about smart business working with a smart Government to provide a better quality of life for New Zealanders. The formula is simple. Smart business and smart Government bring economic development and bring real jobs and real jobs give New Zealanders options. That is what New Zealanders voted for.A few weeks ago in Kerikeri the Northland regional growth strategy was released. It is a bottom-up collaboration with stakeholders that gives real direction and by real direction I mean smart direction to the region. What do I mean by that? Let us take an example from the growth strategy. Let us look at aquaculture in Northland. Northland has maybe 10 percent of the coastline maybe a bit more. Aquaculture in Northland is a nascent industry. It is still in its early stages. It has got a lot of potential. It has done the teething time but has not actually reached that full potential. The players in the Northland aquaculture industry are widespread across the region. We have the kingfish and we have the finfish people at Ruakākā and I will come back to them. The oyster industry is well developed—Pārua Bay the Ōtamatea River in the Kaipara Waikare Te Puna Kerikeri Haupōuri Whangaroa Rangirū Houhora and Pāringaringa in the Hokianga. Pāua—who would have known? There are 11 tonnes of pāua coming out of Ruakākā. And the mussel industry is also well developed—Houhora and Whangaroa. They are all well developed and well spread across the Northland area.What this Government is doing and what it is saying is: “Where’s our bang for our buck? We could actually spread it across everywhere but where are we going to get the most gain?”. It turns out that most gains are with finfish and oysters. It does not mean we are going to ignore the other parts of the industry. Mussel farmers for example have their 70-hectare mussel farm at Stephenson Island in the Whangaroa. We are not forgetting the other areas but finfish and oysters are our strategic direction. With a clear direction like that it gives clarity and stability for investors in the industry.Let us drill down on to that a little bit more. Let us get into some details and make it a bit real. What does it mean to prioritise finfish in Northland? This is a $14 million 150-job opportunity and it is an excellent example of central government working with local government. We have four key stakeholders. We have the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Ltd (NIWA); we have the Ministry for Primary Industries; we have Northland Inc. the economic development arm of the Far North District Council and Whangarei District Council; and local iwi Ngāti Wai. NIWA did the initial work on finfish in sea cages and land tanks. When the King Salmon decision came out last year challenging sea-based farming NIWA was simply able to redirect its model to the land-based farming that it was already doing. That is smart—that is smart. We were able to keep the momentum going and use these 500-tonne land-based cages that we have been working on.Another feature of the regional growth strategy that this Government has and continues to enable is roading in Northland and I want to talk to that for a moment. We get that roading matters. Furthermore we do not just want to talk about it; we actually want to put it into action. The Pūhoi to Wellsford road of national significance is important to Northland and important to this Government and it will be put into action. Between 10000 and 20000 vehicles use State Highway 1 near Whangarei every single day. The volume of freight to and from Northland has gone up by 5 million tonnes between 2007 and 2012. That is freight growth of 6.6 percent per annum. The road of national significance to Northland will benefit many Northlanders in myriad ways. First of all there will be the manufacture and maintenance tourism and then we will be closer to Auckland the economic powerhouse.So in summary the Prime Minister’s statement is good for Northland good for New Zealanders and I commend it to the House. Thank you.