Goldsmith PaulGENERAL DEBATEDebate resumed.Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. I want start by acknowledging the regional economic figures that have come out today and what a wonderful picture they show of this country which reflects the prosperity of New Zealand that we see all around the country and that New Zealanders are aware of. The engine of the jobs boom that we've seen in this country that has enabled nearly 200000 new New Zealanders into work in the past two years has created opportunities for young people and people of all ages to get a job and to contribute and to be part of the New Zealand dream. So if we look through the various regions we see every region of the country growing in the past year and some real progress. Northland for example has grown 30 percent in their GDP since 2013. Many other districts—Marlborough for example—have grown nearly 35 percent in the five years since 2002. So it's a wonderful set of statistics—the result of the hard work of New Zealanders up and down the country and in a country that's going ahead upbeat and successful. It's also an economic record that has been helped along and underlined by the strong consistent stable predictable and disciplined Government that this country enjoyed for nine years under the previous Government and I suppose the question that we have to ask ourselves is will this continue under the new regime. It certainly needs to for the sake of all New Zealanders enjoying the opportunities that we've had over the past nine years and what worries me is we've seen an incoherent unpredictable and undisciplined Government emerging over the past few weeks—incoherent in the sense that they talk about caring about the young unemployed people but at the same time they axe 90-day trials which give young unemployed people an opportunity to get into work. We have Pablo Jones"—sorry I mean Shane Jones—out and about the countryside handing out cash—SPEAKER: Order! Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: —for regional development. But at the same time the proposed changes to overseas investment rules will actually reduce the amount of foreign investment going into the regions and at the same time private sector investment going into the regions will be undermined by uncertainty in the Government's handling of industrial relations uncertainty around tax and uncertainty around a host of things which affect business confidence. So it's by no means clear notwithstanding the fact that Mr Jones a bunch of bureaucrats and New Zealand First politicians will be making investments around the countryside to the tune of a billion dollars a year. We could easily lose more than that from private sector investment both foreign and domestic as a result of the Government decisions that are being made—so inconsistent and incoherent. Then we've seen the Prime Minister really putting at threat the oil and gas sector which is such a significant part of the Taranaki economy by her ill-disciplined and ill-thought-through statements made in front of the House yesterday where she just blindly said "Well you know it's all up for grabs in the future." Well this is an industry that employs a lot of New Zealanders and helps generate the wealth upon which we are able to afford the social backstop that we have in this country so that we can afford the quality medicines that enable us to lead healthier lives and so that we can afford to do all those sorts of things. If you keep chipping away at the foundations of our economy we'll all suffer. Then of course we've seen that a lot of people have been giving this new Government the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the sincerity and seriousness about which they take economic development and the strength of the New Zealand economy. That's been blown away in the last few days by Shane Jones who has shown that nasty side that we see where for political purposes they are willing to attack personally companies in this country and their leaders in a style of politics that is wholly unhelpful in this country and that will undermine over time the business confidence that we have enjoyed which ultimately leads to less investment in this country. So it's a quite perfectly legitimate thing to raise questions around the performance of Air New Zealand in the regions—a lot of people have questions there and that's quite legitimate—but to go to the next step that we've seen from Mr Jones and call for sackings and to go about it in a personally vindictive manner is wholly inappropriate. The Prime Minister was slow to reprimand him but she has. But the signal that it sends is that this Government has no respect for New Zealand corporations and New Zealand businesses—SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member's time has expired."