Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. I also do want to start by acknowledging our great sporting success. I of course had a tough night like many New Zealanders watching the Black Caps. The worst moment was at 3 o'clock in the morning when I noticed that Grant Robertson was in the stand watching it at Lord's. We were at home freezing cold in the miserable night in winter while he was over there watching the cricket. I thought Well should I be jealous?" Well then I thought "Well hang on; my opposition is just swanning around in Europe for three weeks" and he never put out a single press statement about finance in that whole three weeks—and that shows where his focus is.This country should be booming. We should be going well. The export prices that we're getting in New Zealand right now are at historic high levels. Now the world wants what New Zealand produces. This economy should be going strongly; and yet we're in a funk—we're in a funk. We're at the lowest levels of business confidence since the global financial crisis. There has been a sharp decline in the New Zealand economy where we were going in the 3 percents in the GDP getting close to 4 percent at one point and now we're somewhere in the low 2 percents—and that makes a big difference to the opportunities that New Zealanders get.Now the Government of course will say and the Deputy Prime Minister will say "Oh well it's Mr Trump's fault. It's the Iranians' fault. It's the Chinese's fault. It's everybody else's fault because of the international situation and its risks. It's not us; it's somebody else." But they don't take responsibility for their role in slowing down the New Zealand economy and reducing our opportunities. They've done three things. They've added costs every day to every business across this country whether it's in an industrial relations sense with all their union-friendly rules whether it's in petrol prices or whether it's in many other areas where they've added costs. They've created massive uncertainty around all the hundreds of reviews that they've tossed up into the air. Nobody's sure where things are going to land and the rational response for any would-be investor is to keep their hands in their pockets and wait to see what happens.Finally they've demonstrated time and again incompetence in everything they've done. If you look at KiwiBuild—$2 billion dollars; the Minister of Finance doesn't know how much we've put in and how many houses we're getting for it. If you look at transport they've cancelled everything and started nothing new. You look at many areas of wasteful spending under this Government. So New Zealanders look at it they look at this Government they think "We're not being led by a competent team; we're being led by incompetents who want to keep on adding costs and increase uncertainty." No wonder there are low levels of business confidence. How does that matter? How does that matter to everyday New Zealanders? It means that when they are looking around for opportunities to get new jobs and get higher incomes and better wages and better prospects it relies on somebody making an investment—and they're less likely to do that when they are lacking in confidence because of how this Government is operating. So we're seeing this Government at the moment under intense pressure. Who would have thought that we would have the Greens coming out with heavy attack ads? Poor old Simon Bridges—it was like being attacked by a wet rabbit having the Greens after him when they went on full attack mode and then stopped after a couple of hours. But it underlines the hypocrisy that we see so often from the Greens.SPEAKER: Order! The member knows that term is not parliamentary.Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: OK. Well it underlines a very strange attitude of doing one thing and then saying the other. So just imagine what would happen if we'd put out an ad mocking the accent of one of the Green MPs—particularly from our migrant communities. Just imagine what would have happened. Just imagine what would have happened if we'd put out an attack ad mocking the accent of one of their migrant MPs. Golriz Ghahraman would have been riding on her high horse of sanctimony. They would be attacking us. We'd be pilloried from pillar to post. Yet that's what the Greens have done to Simon Bridges. They have no credibility.Then we think of Labour. Well of course the Labour Party's leaking their poll—a fake poll no doubt—and trying to put pressure on. Then we have the Prime Minister whose primary focus—when all of this is happening when the economy is slowing when there are fewer opportunities for New Zealanders—is on doing personal fluff pieces in the magazines. I can make a prediction today that the next major announcement from the Prime Minister will be this: the first family are getting a puppy. I think that's going to be the next major announcement from the Prime Minister: the first family are getting a puppy—because that's the sort of thing that she is focused on at the moment—Hon Shane Jones: No poodles are over there. Poodles are over there.Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: —and this is a time when the Government should be focused on improving—SPEAKER: Order! I'm just interrupting the member. I think that giving a canine description of members opposite is not appropriate.Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Thank you Mr Speaker. I missed that point. I'd quite like to hear what he said.But the only point I would say is that at a time when this economy and this country should be booming and when New Zealanders should be doing well we're in a funk. This Government should be focused on those important things that make a difference to the lives of ordinary New Zealanders which are about delivering a strong economy to give people opportunities. Thank you."