Curran Clare: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Urgent Questions 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Curran Clare: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Urgent Questions 
[Sitting date: 28 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:9066. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
10. 
CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South) 
 to the  
Minister for Economic Development 
: Does he stand by his answer to Oral Question No. 7 on Thursday 21 March 2013? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Economic Development) 
: 
 Yes particularly my statement that the information and communications technology sector is probably the sector with the highest demand for skilled workers and my example of one website alone advertising 1300 information and communications technology vacancies in Auckland alone. 
Clare Curran 
: Has he or his office had any contact since last Thursday’s question time with Telecom board members or senior executives about the imminent job losses; if so what was the total number of job cuts he was told would occur in 2013? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: I spoke to the chairman of Telecom last weekend. I asked him where they were up to with their restructuring plans. He told me they were still in progress. He could not offer any numbers at that stage because the board was yet to meet to consider them. 
Clare Curran 
: Has Telecom informed him of its plan to reduce the workforce by 20 to 30 percent from each business unit which would mean job cuts of between 1500 and 2300 employees? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: No. Telecom informed us this morning just prior to releasing its statement of what it was saying today. Could I caution the member to be very careful about those statements because she is talking about a publicly listed company. Last week in this House she suggested that there would 1500 positions lost and that has turned out this week to be incorrect. The numbers are significant. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: No no. That’s only to June. 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: Well that is— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: That’s just the first tranche they said this morning. 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: Well as I read the statement today that is incorrect and I just caution the member to be careful. 
Clare Curran 
: I seek leave to table an email from a Telecom employee revealing the company’s plans to cut 20 to 30 percent of staff from each business unit. 
Hon Members 
: Whom is it to? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Whom was the email to? The members are asking whom the email was addressed to. 
Clare Curran 
: To me. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: OK. Leave is sought to table that email. Is there any objection? Yes there is. [ 
Interruption 
] Order! Order! Supplementary question? 
Clare Curran 
: Supplementary question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Supplementary question—[ 
Interruption 
] Order! I am trying to give Clare Curran a fair go at asking another supplementary question. 
Clare Curran 
: Does his Government have a sector strategy in place to support the engineering technicians and professional support staff who will lose their jobs at Telecom or is it just another example of his hands-off approach to job creation? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: The Government as the member knows has a number of ways in which it supports people in situations of job loss including through the Ministry of Social Development and through skills-matching processes. We have in fact talked to Telecom from my office in terms of offering assistance in relation to matching workers who may lose their jobs from Telecom with the very high demand for other workers across the information and communications technology sector in New Zealand. We have as I say offered on that basis but if the member thinks that a bureaucrat sitting down and planning where every individual goes is actually going to have an impact she is particularly wrong. 
Clare Curran 
: When will he admit that his Government is failing on job creation given today’s announcement and that 30000 people have lost their jobs since he became employment Minister? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: I will answer that question in two parts. For the second part the member is simply incorrect and in fact if you look at the quarterly employment survey it has gone up 53000 in the last 2 years. But the other point is that the member has to decide which argument she is running because one minute she is saying telecommunication prices are too high and they must come down for consumers and the next minute she is complaining when companies restructure to actually make themselves more competitive control costs and presumably get prices down. I know that in Clare Curran’s world you can both hold every job in place and keep prices down but she is incorrect.