Shirley Ken: New Zealand Trade and Enterprise Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Shirley Ken: New Zealand Trade and Enterprise Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:609;Page:6278] 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY (Deputy Leader—ACT NZ) 
: Members could well be outraged by what we just heard from the Minister in the chair Jim Anderton. He really confirmed our worst fears. That is what he has done I say to the Minister. To start with he said that a third of the budget of Industry New Zealand has been spent on operating services. What happened to the other two-thirds of the budget? What is the spending there? He did not answer the basic questions. I ask the Minister in his next call—I hope he takes another call because it is sad that many Ministers in the chair sit there like maturing cheeses and never take a call in the Committee stage—to answer these simple questions. The Warehouse is a very successful business and a tremendous one. I do not support the Greens’ position at all. I applaud the Warehouse. It is doing a fantastic job and it is very successful. Why did it require a grant of taxpayers’ money for $75000? That is question No. 1. 
Question No. 2 is why was a $100000 grant given to a gaming-machine interest? I ask the Minister why that was. He should get up and give us the explanation in his next call. The next question is a big one. $1.5 million of taxpayers’ money was given to a multinational corporate—and again there is nothing wrong with multinational corporates. All I say is that they are big enough and ugly enough to look after themselves. They do not need $1.5 million of New Zealand taxpayers’ money given out by a bunch of bureaucrats in Wellington. That is outrageous and I want the Minister to tell us and to tell the country why Industry New Zealand gave a $1.5 million grant to EDS . 
We are owed a response to that question. Those examples go to the root of our concern. Is it the role of the Government to pick winners in business? ACT believes that we have got past that. We left that garbage back in the 1980s with the Rogernomics reforms. The Government’s message is: “I am from the Government; I am here to help you.” The Government does not have any money whatsoever. The only money the Government has is money that it takes off individuals and off enterprises in the belief that it can spend that money more wisely than those individuals or those businesses could themselves. 
There are some functions that the Government has to carry out. The Government does need to determine regulatory frameworks. That is the legitimate business of the Government. It is the role of the Government to ensure that we negotiate with other Governments to break down tariff protections. So there is a role for it but it is not the business of the Government to set up commercial trading enterprises. Members need only read the purpose of the bill which is to set up and promote commerce and business in New Zealand. That is not the business of the Government. The private sector can do that by itself quite adequately. 
I am a bit dismayed by some of the messages that I am getting from National. It has a policy that will create “Investment New Zealand” which will be another big monster. I say to National that it should change tack now because that is fundamentally wrong in principle. Certainly when ACT is in coalition with the National Party we will not favour that proposal at all. 
I say to the Minister that the key thing is that he owes an explanation to the House. He should tell us why $1.5 million has to be taken off struggling small businesses and hard-working battlers in this country so that the Government can give grants to the Warehouse and EDS. What business really needs is the Government to get the fundamentals right. What do we know? One of the biggest problems is compliance costs. This Government did a review of compliance costs and came up with something like 40 recommendations that needed to be addressed in relation to the Resource Management Act alone. Not one of those recommendations was implemented. Just a month ago in this Chamber we passed the Resource Management Amendment Act (No 2) and not one of those recommendations arising from the review of compliance costs was put into that legislation. 
What is the point of saying that the Government is here to help people when the biggest help that could be given to business would be to address things like compliance costs and the Government itself commissioned at incredible expense a review of costs came up with recommendations and failed to implement them?