Woolerton R Doug: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Woolerton R Doug: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:615;Page:10854] 
R DOUG WOOLERTON (NZ First) 
: 
 I have a great deal of admiration for the Hon Damien O’Connor but when he talked about the delivery of health and all the worthy things he has just spoken about in that speech he did not talk about where the money comes from. That is what is critical in this country because we are living with the results of consumer-driven economic activity which has led to higher house prices and a lot of heartache and grief as far as the average New Zealander is concerned. We are living with a high level of immigration—with people coming into this country who are buying things at one-third of their price as far as they are concerned if they come from England where Stg£1 equals NZ$3. To them the goods are cheap but that puts up the price for all of us who have no option but to live and make our money in this country—New Zealand. 
It is export-driven economic activity that we should seek in this country. When we talk about export-driven economic activity we are talking about farming in all its guises—about horticulture forestry pastoral farming fishing wine and all of the bits and pieces that go with that. Those are the things that this Government should be looking at and be putting money into if it is to put money into anything. If Government members are to give tax breaks or incentives in any area it is those areas that they should apply their minds to. What we see at the present time is that those areas of the economy that will give us valuable export wealth are being burnt off by a high exchange rate for the New Zealand dollar. Everybody seems to agree in this House that nothing can be done about that. I say to members that there are economies in the world that do do things about that and further that those economies are flourishing. 
As a small country if we leave ourselves open to the vagaries of international commerce we will always be in trouble—as we are now. It is all very well for the Government to say that things have never been better the economy is fine and unemployment is down but we are coming off the back of the money that was brought into this country when the exchange rate of the New Zealand dollar was at US45c. The Government will not be able to say those things in a year or two when we are coming off a period of the New Zealand dollar being worth US70c. Those things are critical in this small country of ours. At least if the Government will not intervene in the market—which is sacred these days so people tell me—it should be trying to talk the dollar down and saying again and again that this is not a good thing. But that is not happening. Because the immigrants have settled mainly in Auckland that is causing a lot of infrastructural problems which my colleague and friend Dail Jones can give members first-hand information about. We are seeing all of those things happen in that city because this Government wants consumer-driven economic activity. It has had it and we will pay the price for it because at the present time with the high exchange rate for the New Zealand dollar we will find that exporters are not nearly as competitive as they have been. That will cause a problem for us. 
We can talk for ever about knowledge wave discussions and conferences. We can talk about a whole lot of industries that will start up that we hope will start up or that maybe will start up but have not started up yet—and they have not started up in the last hundred years. I do not suggest that we should not seek to do things that we have not done hitherto. The film industry is a wonderful example of that. It is driven by a tax break I tell members that I understand Dr Cullen was most reluctant to give to that industry but it has been most successful at the end of the day. I am not suggesting we should not do those things but we should remember that it is primary production that provides the dollars in this country.