Bennett Paula: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBennett Paula: General Debate[Sitting date: 22 July 2015. Volume:707;Page:5204. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister of Local Government): I think I would like to clarify one thing just before I start. Steven Joyce on behalf of the Labour Party apart from everything you are doing you are doing nothing OK? That is pretty much what it is. Apart from all of the interventions that you are implementing through the Business Growth Agenda—Hon Steven Joyce: Apart from all of them.Hon PAULA BENNETT: Apart from all of them really there is just nothing and there is no diversification. It is as simple as that. Also to the rest of New Zealand on behalf of the Labour Party the regions are completely broken it is all going to hell in a handbasket and it is absolutely terrible out there.Denis O’Rourke: It’s true. It’s absolutely true.Hon PAULA BENNETT: It is absolutely true yells the Opposition.Well I would like to stand here and say that I am offended on behalf of those who live in the regions who are working hard who are innovative who are employing people who are getting jobs themselves and who are getting ahead. I tell you what. I will be offended on behalf of pretty much the entire South Island which has an unemployment rate of 3.6 percent—3.6 percent—compared with the national figure of 5.8 percent. I ask people in Southland which has an 11 percent growth rate how they feel about it.Let us go to the Waikato or let us go to Marlborough both of which have 10 percent growth rates when you actually start looking around it and seeing where they are. The Bay of Plenty Tauranga—boy that Tauranga is doing appallingly is it not with its—Alastair Scott: Kiwifruit.Hon PAULA BENNETT: —growth rates and the kiwifruit that is coming back on and how fantastically it is going? [Interruption] Oh my colleague Alastair Scott is sitting behind me—the wine industry. Oh yeah. I would not know much about that; I would not want to talk too much about how fantastically the wine industry is actually going in this country.It does not go well for that story that talks about how actually the regions are doing so poorly when growth is the reality for so many of them. I just spent the last couple of days at the Local Government New Zealand conference with mayors from throughout the country and they are the ones who have good stories when you start talking to them about the growth that is happening. [Interruption] Well they actually do. They live in the regions. They are the ones who are living it every day and going there.So let us be clear: there are areas within New Zealand and within some of those regions that are doing it tough. Actually there are some areas within Auckland that are doing it tough and some suburbs that we by all means would say are seeing their own set of challenges. We know the streets that are; we know where those small areas are. To actually go out there and talk about the regions as if they are one to talk about a region as if it is just one holistic region and that is all it is—a homogeneous sort of group and that is it how it goes—is absolute rubbish. There are patches within New Zealand where we are the first ones to stand up and say work is going on in a considered way across education health economic growth—which means real jobs by the way. You know you can cut it down to everything but it means supporting a business so that it can employ someone else which gets them into an opportunity to get ahead in life and buy the very houses that one of the members was talking about a bit earlier. It is about supporting those areas of growth but also those who can get into their own small businesses.Tourism is one area that is particularly close to my heart having that portfolio. In the last 12 months $8.3 billion was spent within tourism and over half of that went outside the three main cities—so over half of that was actually spent throughout New Zealand. Its opportunities are huge and significant not just for those who can work in the sector across accommodation and food and beverage—across those very big operators—but equally for those who can start their own businesses and see those kinds of opportunities that are happening everywhere.I would like to take a moment here as you do sometimes when you have left a portfolio but can look back to say that part of whether we hit surplus and when we do will be because of the savings that we are making as we see more and more people coming off benefit and off welfare and living real lives. Members opposite do not like to talk too much about the 42000 children who are no longer in benefit households but significantly it is they throughout all of New Zealand who will see a change and the savings from that mean that the Government is obviously spending more where it wants to. You can see it in social investment. This is a fantastic country with awesome opportunities. New Zealanders are getting ahead. It is a National plan that is working.