Bridges SimonHon SIMON BRIDGES (National—Tauranga): Well it was interesting. [Interruption] Can I say it's great to hear my fans on the other side. It was interesting to hear the Minister of Finance just now. He is clearly fascinated by me. He spent half his speech talking about me but what I found fascinating was watching him over the last 24—Hon Phil Twyford: Did it make you feel good?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Well you speak for yourself Phil Twyford. I spent the last 24 hours being fascinated by him watching him squirm at question time as he struggled to answer questions on why business confidence in this country is plummeting.Hon Chris Hipkins: Here we go talking down the economy.Hon SIMON BRIDGES: And there's absolutely no—well the member over there says talking down the economy." I think he'll find his buddy now the Deputy Prime Minister did that on the night he decided to go with them. He's the one talking—I say actually if you look at the fundamentals of the economy there's absolutely no reason to talk down the New Zealand economy: 10000 jobs a month for the last two years some 245000 jobs; I think as my colleague Amy Adams said third in the world for employment. We've got an economy that's diversifying into many areas whether it's ICT whether it's all manner of new food types or whether it's rockets. We've been lifting benefits under the National Government—no reason whatsoever for confidence to go down. And you have a look: the major economies of the world at the moment from America to Japan to actually throughout Asia and Europe are going gangbusters—the first time in a very long time when all the major economies in the world are growing. So you have to say—we have to say—that if business confidence is down and if this economy starts to dampen there's only one place to look—Hon Chris Hipkins: Well why'd you lose?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Chris Hipkins—it is on your side of the benches Mr Hipkins. That's where we'll be looking.And you have to ask yourself: why is it that that's what business is thinking? Is it just because they don't like the other lot? I don't think it's that at all. I think it's the policy settings that they're changing it's the uncertainty that they're creating.Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: Ha ha!Hon SIMON BRIDGES: And Iain Lees-Galloway he's excited but he's the little pawn in all this doing some of the worst things as far as business is concerned. We've heard from Amy Adams about the courage that it takes to get a business going to take on that extra person and what we've got from Iain Lees-Galloway coming I think it is tomorrow is a ragtag wish list of union wishes that he is putting into place undoing a whole lot of things that made this a more flexible economy a more exciting and a more vibrant economy to be in with very strong growth indeed.Worse than that though are the changes in immigration—or in fact the non-changes at the moment because what we know is that every single party on that side—Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: Make up your mind Simon.Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Well I'll give you the real view. Every single party on that side is very scared about migration wanting to slash the numbers and now Iain Lees-Galloway says "Oh we're not fixated on the numbers." Well what is the policy? Businesses need to know Mr Lees-Galloway. They need to understand to have the confidence to plan and to grow their business. I can tell that member I've been out in regional New Zealand all over the country and what they are telling me is given they don't have a plan from Iain Lees-Galloway given they don't know that they can take on the new workers that they need they are planning not just to stay the same; in many cases—a bus-builder company I went to in Tauranga—to shrink their businesses. So if that member wants to know why business confidence is down it's a fear of their policies.Out in regional New Zealand we've seen when this last Government finished 12 of 15 regions growing incredibly strongly and what have we seen in its place? Rather than regionally led growth we've seen pork-barrel politics. But we've got a situation as we have heard today. We've got a situation as we've heard again today from Mr Shane Jones: a billion trees that as of today is—how many trees? No trees; mother Nature's going to take care of it sometime in the next decade. He's keeping the promise as an aspiration now not a commitment. Work for the dole—he got rumbled by Willie Jackson. If he loses to Willie Jackson he's in real trouble—and project blowouts all over the show I'm being told by officials. That makes you very worried actually about that billion-dollar fund and what a lack of progress is going to mean in regional New Zealand.So it's embarrassing for this Government—a Government Mr Hipkins with no real agenda that's going to run out of work in this House quite soon. No wonder business confidence is down. We'll be fighting the things that are stupid for the best of this country."