Shanks Katrina: Appropriation (2012/13 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Shanks Katrina: Appropriation (2012/13 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
[Sitting date: 21 August 2012. Volume:683;Page:4579. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
KATRINA SHANKS (National) 
: 
 It is my pleasure to take a call on the Appropriation (2012/13 Estimates) Bill this evening. Obviously this Budget is part of a wider Government plan—a plan to get New Zealand back on track. One part of that plan is to get economic growth and grow our businesses in New Zealand. I was privileged enough last night to go and talk to the Hutt Valley Chamber of Commerce. What I was speaking to those people about was what the Government is doing around business growth and what the Government can do to ensure that they have got confidence so they can invest in their companies. That is the one thing that the Government can do well: give businesses confidence so they back themselves so they grow their businesses so they take some risks and so they invest when times are tough. They grow they employ more people and they grow our economies because the only way that New Zealand is going to grow its economy is by trading—trading its way to success. 
The Hutt I have got to say must be the most underestimated area for business in New Zealand. It has got some of the most incredibly innovative and inspiring businesses in New Zealand. If I was to pick just one of the tens twenties or dozens of businesses I can think of one would be Fraser Engineering. This business is in the Hutt. What it does is it manufactures fire engines. But it manufactures them not only for New Zealand now; in these tough times it has found new markets as well. Now it is going into Australia and it has got some significant contracts in Australia making its fire engines as well. It employs 100-odd people. I went around its factory the other day and it is impeccable. You could eat your lunch off the floor. It is beautifully tidy. It is progressive. It is inspiring. The staff obviously love the organisation and love working there. It has got some very long-term staff there it is progressive and it is backing itself. It is backing itself in these tough economic times to go into emerging markets and grow. 
I was lucky enough also the other day to be part of the Business and Parliament Trust; I went to Coca-Cola Amatil. It is investing in New Zealand as well. It has just opened a new bottling factory. Wandering around and talking to the staff there they love Coca-Cola Amatil. They are well looked after. They are well looked after and they have got a sense of pride in their product and what they produce. This is an example of a company that is growing and investing in New Zealand as well and employing more people because of that. So as a Government we have got to ensure that we can give them the confidence that they need to grow their businesses in New Zealand. 
We have identified six key drivers for business growth in New Zealand. The first one is skilled workplaces because we know that when our trainees go out into these businesses they need to have the skills to be able to match what the industry needs for its business. There has got to be a direct match from the industry training organisations and what they are producing to what the businesses need and where they are going in the future. So what we are doing is we have looked at the industry training organisations and we have made some changes. We are out talking to them at the moment consulting with them at the moment about how we can get that stronger and how industries can have a real voice about what they need in their trainees coming out so that their skills are well matched with the businesses and the businesses can grow in the future and have a constant good highly skilled stream of workers coming through. 
Another area is innovation and research. Obviously we have just put out a progress report called  
Building Innovation 
 and here it is. We put one out last week or the week before on exporting. I recommend anybody to go and pick them up. The Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment have done them. They are really really informative about what we are trying to do in these sectors for economic growth. The good thing about these is that you can actually hold the Government to account on the progress we are trying to make with our economic drivers for business. I think it is really important that there is accountability back with the initiatives that we have got in place to ensure that we can be held accountable for what we are doing as well.  
 It is interesting because when you go around talk to the businesses and talk to them about what they are doing it is all about innovation it is all about research and it is all about making their products better and better and better so that they can stay competitive in these global markets that they are entering. 
What we have done is put in place a new ministry which is known as the superministry the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment. It has brought together science and innovation economic development employment and housing and building. The important thing about putting these four ex-ministries under the same umbrella is that they will be talking to each other a lot more. They will not be working in silos as has happened in the past. When you think about it it makes sense. Science and innovation economic development employment—they should all be talking to each other interacting with each other and ensuring that each lines up with the others so that they are all going in the right direction and they are not working against each other. 
I suppose the other big initiative we announced in the Budget—$166 million over 4 years—was the advanced technology institutes. If we are serious about growing businesses helping them to grow in New Zealand and staying cutting edge we have to invest in their technology and their ability to access research and access researchers more easily to grow their business and stay competitive. One of the ideas around the advanced technology institutes is that the researchers can go into businesses and work directly with them. What we have heard from businesses is that they have got these great ideas and they can commercialise them which is fantastic but they really struggle to take them to the next level because they cannot get the researchers in their businesses. They do not need them full-time. They want them for only 6 months to come in and give them a bit of a help to get their research moving along and to come and go out of their business. What we are trying to do is facilitate research with businesses to make it much easier. 
We also know that we have got some great innovators in our Crown research institutes as well and what we are trying to do is allow them to get their great ideas and commercialise them to be able to take them to the market much quicker. So we are looking at it from both sides to actually try to make the most of the great ideas that we have got and also help the businesses to access researchers so that they can actually grow their businesses as well. 
The other area we are looking at is capital markets. Obviously if a business wants to grow it needs to be able to access capital markets and there are many ways you can do that—many vehicles you can use to grow your capital markets. Obviously one of them is through the banks through other investors through foreign debt and through foreign investment. There are many many vehicles you can use to grow your business and we have got to ensure as the Government that we have got capital markets strong enough so that businesses have a range of capital that they can access. We did significant reform in the last Government with the Hon Simon Power doing a lot of work around our capital markets and ensuring that they are a lot stronger. 
The other area that we need as one of our key business growth areas is obviously infrastructure. In Wellington in particular we have just got Transmission Gully out of the starting blocks. It has taken about 30 years but it has just started going through that process now and that will be great for New Zealand and for businesses in Wellington which will be able to get their goods and services up and down and out of Wellington in a much more efficient and effective way. Not only that we have also invested heavily in our rail to ensure that our freight can move around New Zealand much more quickly. Not only that we also have the roll-out of ultra-fast broadband. Ultra-fast broadband is very important to New Zealand business to ensure that we stay connected with the world. 
The last area I want to touch on is our exports. Once again we put out a couple of weeks ago a similar progress report on exports and I recommend that you go and pick it up and see what we are doing in this area. We have done significant work on our free-trade agreements and in 2008 one of the most famous free-trade agreements for us has been that one with China which people talk about. Since we have had that free-trade agreement our exports to China have increased by 160 percent. That is fairly significant. The one thing that businesses do say to us is that we need to get channels open to get into these new markets so that we can access them. Free-trade agreements are one vehicle. The other one we are looking at is working with Australia much more closely to use joint channels to open up some of these new sectors these new markets for our businesses to work with Australian businesses as well. 
We have got a strong growth agenda for our businesses and I am sure that over time we will get this brighter future because our exports will be the way that we trade out of this recession that we have gone through and we get the growth that we are looking for.