Joyce Steven: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeJoyce Steven: General Debate[Sitting date: 07 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:17574. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Economic Development): I moveThat the House take note of miscellaneous business. Let us take stock of where things are as we head into the halfway point of the first week of the session when the Opposition once again is absolutely focused on the issues that matter: private dinners innovations in fund-raising and even this afternoon correct grammar. This Opposition is a million miles from reality and the people of New Zealand know it.Meanwhile on this side of the House we are focused on achieving things for New Zealand and today we had another example of it with more growth in employment—84000 more New Zealanders have got jobs this year than a year ago. It is the largest increase in employment in nearly a decade—nearly a decade—and there was not a word out of the Opposition on that today. Business and consumer confidence is at record highs manufacturing has been in expansion now for 19 months welfare reform is working more people want to move to New Zealand and fewer Kiwis want to leave. Last month we had a seasonally adjusted net loss to Australia of just 400 people. We heard nothing from the Opposition on that; those members are too wrapped up in their private dinners and their fund-raising events.New Zealand is doing better on all other economic indicators—economic growth the balance of payments. The Labour Party’s obsession about the balance of payments—maybe it is some sort of delayed apology for how appallingly it did with the export sector when it was last in Government. Our international liabilities are one of those things that boffin Parker likes to focus on. How much we owe the world is down to just 66 percent of our economy. It was just over 85 percent when Labour finished its handiwork in 2008. The export crisis that we know about—our goods exports have just had their biggest quarter ever. The goods surplus for the last 6 months is over $2 billion. But that does not stop the boffins on the other side trying to reform the economy with their wacky new monetary policy which they have no idea how it would work. And here we are 8 days into it and one David Parker—boffin in charge—cannot tell us at all how it would work and to what extent it would work.Hon David Parker: You don’t understand.Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Apparently the rest of the world does not understand. It is very complicated. It is a very interesting alchemy of stuff that Mr Parker has concocted but he cannot answer the question. There is a very simple question—which neither he nor Mr Cunliffe can answer—that is very straightforward. How much would people’s KiwiSaver rates have to go up to avoid a 1 percent increase in interest rates? And if they do not know the answer to that question it is not a policy; it is a thought bubble. The problem for the Opposition is that it does not know the answer and the silence is deafening.The problem with that is that it is another example of a policy where you have to read the fine print. It is like Labour’s trucking policy that does nothing about trucks. It is like its baby bonus that does not provide a baby bonus. And this is the monetary policy that does not actually achieve anything. It does not actually deal with anything like interest rates. The public know that and the public say—actually it is not just the public. There is of course one late-lamented—again not mentioned in the House this week—Shane Jones. Ah he knows it too. He popped his head up and said that he was leaving and we all thought: “Wonder why that is.” The reason was that he believed that being an economic development Minister in a Government that is opposed to economic development would be an oxymoron. He is right—it would be—and so not surprisingly he started to talk about other jobs. He realised that it would be the worst possible job because Labour and the Greens together are opposed to economic growth.So here we have it. On this side of the House we are focused on the issues that matter and achieving great things for New Zealanders through the hard work of the Government and New Zealanders. On the other side of the House those members are obsessing about the silly stuff and then coming up with wacky policies that achieve nothing. It is no wonder the country is in favour of this Government. Thank you.