Williams Andrew: Financial Review Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWilliams Andrew: Financial Review Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 04 March 2014. Volume:696;Page:16257. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First): I wish to speak on behalf of New Zealand First about the National Government’s economic failure. Despite having the best 40 years of trade because of the dairy boom that we are having this Government has managed to put this economy in a perilous state. We have 150000 unemployed people—significantly more than when the Government came into office—and now we have $60 billion in Government debt. Meanwhile New Zealand’s net international debt has risen to $150 billion—a staggering sum. That Government debt of $60 billion is 10 times what the National Government inherited from the former Labour Government which was supported by New Zealand First. It is 10 times the debt of $6 billion when National took office.Meanwhile what are we seeing? We are seeing Kiwi workers with virtually static wages. Those who are on low to middle incomes are seeing virtually static wages. Sure the bosses and the very highly paid are getting significant increases but those who are out there at the coalface are not seeing the same rewards. We have seen 154000 workvisas issued in the last year for people to come into this country while there are 150000 people on the dole. Those 154000 work visas included 40 visas going to people who came in to work as supermarket checkout operators. It is hardly great policy on the part of the National Government to bring in people to work in our supermarkets.We are also seeing the end of the homeownership dream for young Kiwis. The housing bubble in Auckland is now seeing foreign speculators buying up many many houses. People who are not even living in Auckland are now pushing up the cost of housing for young Kiwi families and young Kiwis trying to get on the ladder. This Government refuses to step in and stop speculative purchasing by foreigners and people who do not even live in this country. New Zealand First will change that when we are in Government. We will ensure that people have to live here—be residents or citizens here—before they can buy property. They do that in Australia. They have the same restrictions in Australia so why not here? This Government turns a blind eye to it and allows foreign speculation to drive up the prices particularly in the likes of Auckland and Christchurch.At the same time this Government is not putting a stop to the sale of land and other strategic assets such as the 19 Crafar farms and other significant farms that are being sold. It is not stopping that. It is allowing ownership of some of the best of our productive land to disappear overseas. All the while the Government is selling off public assets that have been built up by my parents my grandparents their parents in turn and all of your parents and grandparents. Generations of people have built up the assets of this country. The Government has sold off our silverware for a miserable $5 billion or less just so it can pay the next 6 months of debt.The Hon John Banks says that debt is going up by $100 million a week. This Government is taking a miserable $5 billion from selling the best assets that we have so that it can help try to keep a lid on the debt. In so doing it is losing some $900 million a year in revenue from these assets and that is an absolute tragedy. It is like giving away your ATM machines. It is like giving away your best-earning companies if you were in private enterprise and then in a few years’ time wondering where all of those good revenue-earning companies went. Those previously owned by the Government will have disappeared down the track.At the same time regional economies are being neglected. This Government has not been prepared to put in $4 million to keep the Napier-Gisborne railway line open—a miserable small amount of money to keep a whole region vibrant in terms of that East Coast area. It is an area that has high unemployment and that could do with the continuation of the rail link. At the same time it is not retaining important infrastructure like the Hillside railway workshops in Dunedin so we see this week that Chinese engines are being bought full of asbestos—40-odd engines—while it is closing down the Hillside railway workshops. Those workshops in conjunction with international providers could have built those engines assembled the engines or indeed put a huge amount of componentry into those engines. I am sure that as a result we would not now be seeing asbestos in our trains.At the same time we are seeing the likes of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade buying ferries in Bangladesh to go to the Tokelau islands. Where is this Government stepping in and saying we should be supporting very good local industry to build boats here to go to the Pacific Islands?