Tabuteau FletcherFLETCHER TABUTEAU (NZ First): Thank you for the opportunity to speak in this appropriations debate. I am grateful that the Minister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment was here to stand up and contribute to several facets that were brought up by my colleagues on this side of the Chamber—and yet again there was a kind of a manipulation of the facts. I would not dare to say that he is incorrect or that he is completely misrepresenting but it is about choosing to put forth this and then obfuscate with this bit or knowledge or this bit of fact over here. It paints an incomplete picture for the public of New Zealand. They are being sold a line—that is basically what I am telling New Zealanders today.The Minister talked about for example his regional development plans and how successful they will be in the regions. Well little does he know that as those plans came out I actually followed him around and went into those regions to ask the people on the ground what they thought of the regional development plans. I just wanted some honest feedback because if it is an opportunity for this country to jump on board with then New Zealand First would like to be a part of that. We want to see our regions grow—and the public of New Zealand knows that absolutely. So if there is a good idea out there we want to be part of supporting it. Unfortunately the reality was apart from some of the economic development agencies—and only some of them—the message was pretty grim. I then went and spoke with private individuals or privately funded groups whose mandate is to grow economic activity in those regions and really the feedback was that the Minister and his team there have created basically a missed opportunity. The research and the data that went in to inform these plans were lacking to say the least and took headline options that had already been discussed at the ground level and put them in these plans and said how wonderful they were. Never mind that the people on the ground in those regions had already examined them looked at them and dismissed them as a waste of time resources and energy. This is what the Minister presented to the people of New Zealand in the regions and said: We're looking after you we're going to help you." The reality is that the feedback was that it was an opportunity for this National Government to create a marketing campaign on regional development and to maintain a spin around claiming it is doing something.I think some of the members next to me over here on this side of the Chamber have spoken eloquently about unemployment numbers the decrease in regional growth numbers—it is happening across the country. I would highlight that there are some positive numbers out there; it is great to see. But I put it to you that those positive numbers are despite this Government—this Government which is not doing anything and is missing the point completely.I just came from the top of the South Island—a great little part of the country—and I spoke to businessmen there. Basically they said this Government would not know how to invest or create good infrastructure for actual and meaningful growth if it fell over it. They spoke about New Zealand First's concern about how this Government is using immigration to simply top up the numbers—in the short term. Research tells us that immigration in the long term will not contribute to the growth of an economy. So in the short term it is masking the reality of this country's economic growth in that basically we are not growing—and everything that this Minister and this Government are attempting to do is more about placating the masses and selling a story. It is not achieving anything that is tangible or measurable in our regions. It is completely completely unacceptable.Minister Joyce accused someone on this side of misrepresenting the facts about this appropriation bill. Actually what I would say to the Minister is the terminology used around the Budget this year has been incredible. It has been impressive—the name changes for research funds and other pools of money that have been moved from here to there to make it look like things are happening. We were sold a headline number on infrastructure of $761 million. What a figure to grow the infrastructure of the New Zealand economy—that would be amazing. The reality is actually just over half of that was in applied research and academic research which we should be funding anyway out of those pools."