Parmar Parmjeet: Oral Questions — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeParmar Parmjeet: Oral Questions — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 15 September 2015. Volume:708;Page:6584. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]2.Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (National) to the Minister of Finance: How is the Government’s programme of economic reform supporting the resilience of the New Zealand economy?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): It is certainly not to declare a crisis and panic when dairy prices fall. The Government’s approach is to support the resilience of the economy through responsible fiscal management a floating exchange rate sustained investment in infrastructure and education and supporting diversification and investment in research and development through the Business Growth Agenda. As a result of this programme we are seeing higher household savings more moderate borrowing growth a smaller current account deficit and improvement in New Zealand’s net liabilities offshore all of which improve the resilience of this economy to external shocks.Dr Parmjeet Parmar: How does our economic resilience compare internationally?Hon BILL ENGLISH: It compares pretty well provided we stick to the policy that delivers the following four factors: a broadly balanced Government budget net debt less than 40 percent of GDP economic growth greater than 1.5 percent and interest rates high enough to reduce them. New Zealand meets all of these criteria and only four other OECD countries do. So by this measure we have a pretty resilient economy compared with most developed countries.Dr Parmjeet Parmar: What recent report has he received showing growth in the New Zealand economy despite recent falls in dairy prices?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Reports show continued expansion of manufacturing and services which together make up three-quarters of the New Zealand economy. The BNZ-Business New Zealand Performance of Manufacturing Index showed the sector expanded in August the 35th straight month of expansion since the Labour Party called the manufacturing crisis. The BNZ-Business New Zealand Performance of Services Index showed that services which make up two-thirds of the economy are growing at their fastest rate in over a year. So these are positive indications that outside of the dairy sector the economy is growing moderately.Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I want to draw your attention to Speaker’s ruling 197/5 which you have also referred to in the past about Ministers not bringing a political party into an answer where they have not been involved in the questioning. You indicated at the beginning of question time today that you intend to set a higher bar for questions and for answers and so I want to get some reassurance from you that you are also going to be enforcing that Speaker’s ruling because repeatedly throughout his answers today the Minister of Finance has been referring to policies of the Labour Party—and we could argue misleadingly—and if that is going to be the nature of the debate then I think your higher standards are going to be difficult to enforce.Mr SPEAKER: I certainly had not picked up any drawing in—I may have missed it but I had not realised that the Minister was continually bringing in an Opposition party through those answers. I thought the answers were reasonable but I will certainly keep a more vigilant watch in the future.Dr Parmjeet Parmar: What options does the Government have to support the economy should economic growth end up being lower than expected?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The Government continually updates its plans depending on changing circumstances. In the past we have increased spending and supported New Zealand families through the global financial crisis and the Christchurch earthquakes and then tightened our belts when times were better to get back into a position where we could deal with further shocks to the economy. At the moment growth is around 2 to 2.5 percent and we do not believe the kinds of measures we pursued after the global financial crisis are currently warranted. But of course if significant global risks eventuate then we may have to consider them.