Goldsmith Paul: Annual Review Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGoldsmith Paul: Annual Review Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 28 April 2015. Volume:704;Page:2958. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs):Thank you for the opportunity to speak. Over the dinner break I have been catching up on the National Business Review and I came across an interesting article in relation to the latest IMF World Economic Outlook which estimates that advanced economies are expected to average 1.5 percent annual GDP growth over the next 5 years from 2015 to 2020—1.5 percent. New Zealand a developed country is expecting to grow on average 3 percent over the next 3 years so at double the rate at which the IMF is expecting the rest of the OECD countries to be growing. That to me exemplifies why I am so proud to be part of this Government—its economic record is second to none and it is doing very well.The question is why growth is so weak in so many countries around the world. The answer is that investment is sluggish and that is because businesses particularly around Europe and in many other parts of the world at the moment lack the confidence to invest. That is a puzzle because when you look around you see almost negative interest rates in some parts of the world. Money is cheap and yet businesses are still not investing significantly to grow their economy. The puzzle is why that is and it is because there is a lack of confidence. To me the best thing that a Government can do anywhere around the world is provide stable predictable government. That leads to confidence and that is why you get businesses growing and investing and it is investing that leads to jobs. When we look back over the last year a year in which 80000 jobs were created in New Zealand we see that we are in the middle of a jobs boom in this country and every family around—Dr David Clark: Why is unemployment higher than it was during the recession?Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Well 80000 jobs were developed in the last year and 217000 jobs were created in this economy in the last 5 years and it is those jobs that are enabling young men and women in this country to be able to get up in the morning and go to work and come back with some money in contrast with so many other young people around the world at the moment who are facing high levels of unemployment. That is something that I am proud of.I want to focus on the services to business area which we are supposed to be focusing on in this period and the areas that I am responsible for—particularly in the financial markets where we are working hard particularly with the significant changes in the Financial Markets Conduct Act in the last year which we are bedding in this year. The most important thing that businesses need is access to capital so that they can grow. We are hoping to build confidence in capital markets in New Zealand by improving the quality of disclosure in respect of investments and creating a regime that can build confidence in investment by strengthening the governance of financial products—and we have done that in many detailed ways—and thirdly by enabling more innovative and flexible methods of capital raising.We have seen some real progress being made in the crowdfunding area over the last few months which is opening up a new avenue for smaller fast-growing countries to access capital to grow. We are expecting the next market to develop in the stock exchange which will provide a new opportunity for middle-sized businesses and so on and the programme develops so that those businesses have more access to capital and can grow. We want financial markets to be supported by clear predictable rules that enable investors to make confident judgments about risks and returns.Related to that is the review of financial advisers that we have got under way at the moment. We have had the terms of reference out for the last few months and I expect to be bringing some suggestions over the next few months in the area of financial advisers which again is a very important area. New Zealanders have been in the habit of investing most of their money in residential property. That is a good thing for many households but we want to enable New Zealanders to feel more confident to invest in financial products and the financial advisers’ regime is an important element in that.I do just want to touch again briefly on competition law because if we are trying to raise living standards in this country we can grow the economy but we can also make each dollar that people have go further by having a competitive domestic market in all sorts of industries across the economy. That requires good competition law which roots out cartel behaviour and deals effectively with the misuse of market power and that is why we are at the moment bringing through our cartels legislation. We are also going to be reviewing section 36 of the Commerce Act.