Adams Amy: Address in Reply 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Adams Amy: Address in Reply 
[Sitting date: 14 February 2012. Volume:677;Page:325. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister of Internal Affairs) 
: 
 Can I just begin my contribution by congratulating you Mr Assistant Speaker Tisch and your fellow presiding officers on your re-election to your roles and can I welcome all new members to the House.  
That last contribution from Mr Parker tells us very clearly that Labour is still labouring under the illusion that somehow New Zealand got it wrong: they did not really mean to vote National; it kind of somehow slipped by them when they were not looking. The reality is that New Zealand has once more comprehensively rejected the Labour programme of debt and disarray. What New Zealand actually told us on 26 November was that they wanted a National-led Government with John Key at the helm and that they understood that in challenging times you need the sort of economically responsible strong stable Government that we have proven ourselves to be over the last 3 years and that we will continue to be over this next term.  
The last 12 months in particular have seen the global situation continue to deteriorate. I know that over the break in January I was looking at one of the reports that came out of Europe that had been entitled “Euro-geddon”. That is certainly a graphic way of describing the very real and very serious nature of the deteriorating situation in Europe and around the world. We cannot put our heads in the sand on this. We cannot keep continuing to believe that we can just keep spending and say “Don’t worry about where it will come from; it will all come out all right.” We have to take the necessary steps to protect ourselves from these international shock waves and we have to continue to diversify our trade routes. Excellent work has been done—and I acknowledge that that work has been done by a number of Governments—on diversifying those alternative trade routes making sure we are not as heavily reliant on the traditional European and US markets and recognising that the great growth areas for us are in the Asia-Pacific region. And all the work we are doing in that area is certainly fundamental.  
We have to also reflect on our domestic situation and recognise that when you are a country the size of New Zealand we have to be better leaner and more resilient than perhaps our larger neighbours. If we are going to move towards the sort of New Zealand that this Government wants to deliver—one of higher incomes and better opportunities—we have to have a plan in place to weather this situation and build towards our future and that is what this Government is focused on. It is not always going to be easy. Some of the decisions and some of the discussions will challenge some people but we cannot keep carrying on pretending everything is rosy while the world gets weaker and weaker around us.  
Looking across the 3 years of this term the Prime Minister set out in his introductory statements to the House that in this term there are four key areas in which we see important progress needing to be made. The first of those is around the management of Government finances. Both this National Government and National Governments historically have proven themselves to be Governments of economic rationality economic prudence and very careful management of taxpayers’ money. We understand that every cent we spend we take out of the pocket of a hard-working New Zealander. We are very very mindful of that. We are not going to throw money away or throw it around recklessly. We have to respect the people who have earned that money and we owe them the courtesy of ensuring we spend it well. So we have to manage the Government finances well.  
We are focused on getting New Zealand back to surplus by 2014-15 and we are still on track to do that even though the times are getting tougher. Why is that so important? It is important because being in surplus means we have choices. We cannot keep spending money we have not got. You have got to earn money before you spend it. Now that sounds pretty simple; it sounds pretty trite. Every family and every business in New Zealand knows that but for too long Labour and left-wing Governments have forgotten that. We are going to get back to a basis that you have to earn money before you spend it. So we have to keep the Crown debt to a manageable level.  
Debt has become an issue over years gone by and dealing with the impact of the Christchurch earthquakes and other disasters we are going to keep debt peaking under 30 percent. The Labour Opposition over the campaign went out and promised $15 billion more in spending than this Government did. Labour did not worry about the debt it did not worry about the long-term resilience of this economy; it just kept promising to spend your money and rack up more debt which your future generations were going to have to cover. This Government will not do that. We will keep debt peaking below 30 percent.  
Let us look back on the legacy of the Labour Government. We hear Labour members harping away over there from the Opposition benches; let us look at what they left us. From 2004 to 2008 Labour increased Government spending by more than 50 percent—50 percent increases in core Government spending. That would be fine if things were going well in the real sector— 
Hon Annette King 
: We got rid of all the consultants that National employed. 
Hon AMY ADAMS 
: —but over that same period Mrs King that party presided over a recession in the productive sector well ahead of the rest of the world. While Labour kept spending our productive sector—the people in this country who earn stuff make stuff grow stuff and sell stuff—was going backwards and the Labour Government did not care. It just kept spending. It did not understand that it is the productive sector in this country that creates jobs. You do not create jobs and you do not create better opportunities by Government spending; you create them by setting up the conditions in which business can thrive in which investment will come into New Zealand and where entrepreneurs are prepared to put their own capital on the line.  
That is the next part of what we need to do. We need to make sure our economy is resilient and we need to make sure it is productive and that it is competitive with the world. You have heard my colleagues Sam Lotu-Iiga and others talk about our 120-point plan. That is a comprehensive document recognising that the best thing the Government can do—the best thing the Government can do—is create an environment in which business can thrive.  
We are in the season of maiden speeches in the House and it makes me think back to my maiden statement. In that I talked at some length about the fact that we needed to wake up to the fact that in this country business is small to medium enterprises more often than not. It is not the big ugly corporates that the Green Party likes to attack at every opportunity. Actually more often than not it is a mum and dad running their own enterprise struggling to employ a few staff; it is a dairy owner; it is someone working out of his garage. It is small business. Those are the people who create jobs in this country; those are the people we have to support.  
We have to do that by doing a couple of things. We have got to create the right infrastructure. We have to get the road rail electricity and very importantly broadband networks in place to ensure that they can conduct their business easily. We have to ensure that we have got the skills coming through our education system to support that business and there is some tremendous work happening through my colleague Minister Joyce’s portfolios in tertiary education and skills. There is some tremendous work happening in the information and communications technology space around the entrepreneurs scheme to ensure that we are supporting our New Zealanders. They are incredibly innovative and we need to ensure that those skills are harnessed nurtured and retained in New Zealand. That is what this strategy is designed to do: to make New Zealand a place where young New Zealanders coming up come out of our system with the skills to lead the world and with every incentive to stay here in New Zealand.  
Obviously I have taken on the portfolio of broadband and communications and information technology and in that space alone over the period to July of this year we are going to see 58000 premises including 211 schools connected to ultra-fast broadband. The impact that is going to have on our education system our health system and our way of doing business will be revolutionary. It is due to the investment of this Government which the Labour Party opposed that we are going to see world-leading connectivity for New Zealand households New Zealand Government services and New Zealand consumers.  
Better public services are a core part of what we need to deliver. We have to have a welfare system that incentivises people to get back to work because that is the path out of poverty. You can talk about poverty all you like; the path out of poverty is to get people back into work. You have to create the jobs and you have to have a system that incentivises and rewards them for getting back into that system. We have to have a world-leading education system and my colleague Minister Parata is doing excellent work building on the good work of Minister Tolley in that space. And we have to ensure that the Public Service provides value for money.  
I know that my time is coming to an end and I do want to touch on the rebuilding of Canterbury. The rebuilding of Canterbury is a significant priority for this Government. The people in my region have shown incredible resilience over the past 18 months. We are now up at more than 10000 earthquakes and I want to pay tribute in particular to the residents of suburbs like Parklands and those out east who on 23 December when everyone else was settling back for Christmas looking forward to hanging up their briefcases and their suits were once again having to be out there digging out tonnes of liquefaction from their homes. The way that they get up time and time again keep going and stay committed to their province is absolutely heroic. I cannot speak too highly of them and this Government is going to walk with them every step of the way. We are going to build a temporary rugby stadium to get the Crusaders back there and I look forward to seeing every member of this House down there supporting the Crusaders on 24 March.