Key John: New Zealand Trade and Enterprise Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Key John: New Zealand Trade and Enterprise Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:609;Page:6274] 
JOHN KEY (NZ National—Helensville) 
: In addressing Part 1 I want to speak for a moment about the purpose of the bill. The purpose as was pointed out by the previous speaker Mr Dail Jones is extremely important. It is the development of competitive businesses for New Zealand and I want to point out to the Committee why that is of such great significance. New Zealand is a country of small businesses. We have a huge number of small businesses all across the country and the number is growing at any one time. 
Hon Jim Anderton 
: They are growing faster. 
JOHN KEY 
: They are growing for a whole lot of different reasons. But without the proper coercion support and encouragement they cannot grow to become competitive and internationally successful. 
Will this bill achieve that purpose? I refer to a little quotation that came from Jim Anderton back in 2002. He described the purpose and aim of Industry New Zealand—which is to be put into New Zealand Trade and Enterprise—as being to lift New Zealand’s growth rate fast enough to catch up with Australia’s and to stop the relative economic decline of New Zealand compared with Australia that has occurred over the past 30 years. We have failed to do that. Treasury has had an opportunity to review the purpose of this bill and to ask whether the purpose will be achieved and the bill will help New Zealand to grow on a relative basis to Australia. The answer I tell members is that Treasury does not think that will be the case. 
When Dr Cullen delivered his very very bland Budget just a few weeks ago he put out his—or rather Treasury’s—long-term economic growth forecasts for New Zealand. 
Hon David Carter 
: Halved. 
JOHN KEY 
: Not only have they been halved but New Zealand’s long-term economic growth forecast is for 2.5 percent growth for the next 8 9 or 10 years and that is probably being very generous. That is made up of 1.5 percent productivity growth—below Australia’s; in fact Australia’s is 1.75 percent to 2 percent. Every year Australia will grow at 0.5 percent more than we will as a country. Our position relative to Australia’s is in fact not improving—it is declining and it will continue to get worse. 
We are supporting this bill simply because we are a business-focused party and because we hate to see the wastage in expenditure that goes on when there is more than one Government partner doing the same job as we have seen for the last 4 years. We know why Industry New Zealand was set up. It was set up not necessarily to help companies but because that was the price of the coalition arrangement. This bill was not necessary; this could have happened already. In fact this bill is a waste of the House’s time. We could have had that help for companies earlier on right there in Trade New Zealand—but we did not have it in Trade New Zealand because that was the price that Jim Anderton extracted from Helen Clark when he went into coalition with her. He wanted to have something he could pin things to: Industry New Zealand. 
Jim Anderton has pinned a few interesting things to Industry New Zealand. He has given a few grants up and down the land but have they been successful? No. 
Hon David Carter 
: Sovereign Yachts. 
JOHN KEY 
: Sovereign Yachts in my very own electorate was to be a triumph for the “jobs machine”. But no it has not been successful. Has Eternal Waters been successful? No. Has that lived up to the purpose defined in Part 1 of this bill? No. Other people have been given money but have gone broke before they have had the chance to take the second tranche. 
The purpose of this bill is to support the development of New Zealand industry but if we are to be successful in that we will have to do one thing that is not defined in the purpose of this bill—to actually listen to Business New Zealand. I talked a little earlier on about the Irish Development Authority which was an interactive agency in Ireland.