5. Question No. 5—FinanceHon AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn) to the Minister of FinanceQuestion No. 5—Finance5. Hon AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn) to the Minister of Finance: Does he agree with Treasury that firms' own trading activity indicator from the most recent Quarterly Survey of Business Opinion suggests annual GDP growth of around 2.0 percent and when was the last time New Zealand's annual GDP growth was at or below 2.0 percent?Hon DAVID PARKER (Associate Minister of Finance) on behalf of the Minister of Finance: In answer to the first part of the question no. In answer to the second part of the question I'm advised that New Zealand's GDP growth was at or below 2 percent numerous times under that member's Government most recently in quarter four 2013 when it was 1.8 percent. I know at that time when the economy was growing at—Hon Amy Adams: The GFC. That's it—the GFC.Hon DAVID PARKER: —2013 is considerably later than the global financial crisis—1.8 percent the then Minister of Finance said that there was good economic growth in New Zealand and that business sentiment was strong. That was the Hon Bill English.Hon Amy Adams: So is he as Minister of Finance satisfied with New Zealand growing at its lowest rate for six years and if not what is the Government's plan to grow the economy?Hon DAVID PARKER: On behalf of the Minister as he said last week the IMF has downgraded global growth forecasts three times in the last year. New Zealand's growth rate is higher than Australia Canada the euro area Japan and the UK and higher than the OECD average.Hon Amy Adams: What is the Government's plan to grow the economy?Hon DAVID PARKER: The transition from volume to value is already occurring. Exports have grown as a percentage of GDP under this Government after having dropped from 30 percent to under I think it was 27 percent of GDP under the last Government when they had the ambition of growing. One of the reasons why exports are growing is we've introduced an R & D tax credit. We've stimulated the economy through a tax package that the Prime Minister outlined earlier in the day which benefits low to middle income people who spend money into the economy and we've introduced amongst other things the green growth fund to support new initiatives.Hon Amy Adams: So should the public take from that that when this Government talks about transitioning the economy they mean transitioning it from one growing at 3.7 percent to now growing at a meagre 2 percent?Hon DAVID PARKER: No and most New Zealanders are aware that since World War II growth rates under Labour administrations have exceeded those under National administrations.Hon Amy Adams: So who is correct: Treasury who have used business confidence surveys to predict our current GDP track or Associate Minister of Finance David Parker who has said that business confidence surveys are just junk?Hon DAVID PARKER: The Associate Minister of Finance's spokesperson was correct and his predictions were proven correct because history already shows that. But I note in respect of Treasury that Treasury were not adopting the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER) view; they were reporting it and it's true that the NZIER view is a sentiment survey and so is subjective. It also has a hole in it. As the Opposition spokesperson on agriculture will be able to tell the member the high performing and optimistic agriculture sector is excluded from that survey. We prefer to deal with real data.Hon Amy Adams: When will we see this Government deliver the more productive economy that he has promised when economic growth is now predicted by Treasury to be at its lowest rate for six years and per person growth is close to zero?Hon DAVID PARKER: As I said earlier IMF international growth forecasts have been downgraded three times over the last year. That does have an effect on the New Zealand economy but it remains true that New Zealand's growth is forecasted by both the New Zealand Treasury and the IMF to be higher than that in Australia Canada the euro area Japan and the UK and higher than the OECD average.