Anderton Jim: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Anderton Jim: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:606;Page:3287] 
Hon JIM ANDERTON (Minister for Economic Development) 
: 
 Last week the executive council of the Progressive party met for its bimonthly meeting and was informed by its general secretary that the new party now has 2000 members. I believe the party is on target to have 2500 members by the time of its inaugural annual conference in spring. In my view the Progressive party is growing because it is staking policy positions that have long-term benefits for all New Zealanders. Like Peter Dunne the leader of the United Future party I say New Zealand clearly needs at this time strong resolute but visionary Government that gives the people of this country a sense of stability and a sense of security. We are building a living relevant political organisation where practical thinking is nourished. Two thousand people have joined the Progressive party already because they see that it is getting things done. Progressive members share our vision for New Zealand and more people are coming on board.  
My parliamentary colleague Matt Robson and I—dare I say it—left the New Zealand Labour Party in the late 1980s along with a few others because we wanted an independent and effective progressive voice in Parliament. We wanted to create a movement totally committed and focused on advancing towards an economy based on full employment. Under first past the post that was a pretty hard road. With MMP it is an achievable goal and it is being achieved by the Labour - Progressive Coalition Government.  
Above all else the party I lead wants to satisfy New Zealanders with well-paid valuable jobs for everyone who wants to work. Progressives want a Government that has full employment as its constant underlying objective informing every policy and investment decision that it makes. My role in this Government in the first term and in the second term is to achieve exactly that. We want every young person to be in a job in training or in education and not abandoned to the poverty cycle of welfare. We want an economy that befits those New Zealanders who want to utilise their talents—and New Zealanders are talented people. Everyone benefits from a fully employed economy. The more jobs that New Zealand produces the more wealth we have in order to pay for health care education and policing our streets. The more jobs we have the fewer demands there are on the public purse to meet the social costs of unemployment crime ill health and underachievement as well as the cost of course of paying benefits to the unemployed themselves.  
If New Zealand had averaged—and I understand that Mr Peters addressed this although I noticed he used the findings of the Ministry of Economic Development in his speech—just 1 percent higher growth a year than it has managed since 1970 the average wage in New Zealand would be $175 a week higher than it is now. We would have delivered $3700 million more a year for health care in New Zealand than we do and we would have been able to invest another $4200 million a year in the education system—an additional $3500 per student in the whole education industry. Of course one does not have to be a rocket scientist to work out that that would mean a free tertiary education system.  
Back in the 1980s the parties argued over the role of regulation or deregulation in creating employment and prosperity. There were claims that more or less regulation or more or less liberalisation or privatisation would produce more or less jobs depending on one’s point of view. In my view those are the debates of the past and that is where they belong. It is true that some particular regulatory approach may be required from time to time but basically tinkering with regulation alone will never be enough to make this country wealthy. A fully employed economy is the outcome of an intelligent partnership between central government industry local government and local and regional communities. Only the most fringe-dwelling fanatic still believes that rule changes alone are enough. 
 The evidence for that is in the wasted decade of hands-off National Party – led rule. National supported by its allies at the time delivered more welfare dependency than ever before in New Zealand’s history. It delivered more unemployment than ever before. National delivered a growth rate that lagged behind the developed world because that Government stifled innovation and creativity. That was a legacy of waste. Now National comes back into the House and does not offer anything other than the tired rhetoric that we have all lived through before. It seems to me that National’s is a regressive political agenda—the antithesis of the optimistic and progressive vision shared by most New Zealanders whom I meet.  
I will compare the track record on the economy in the 1990s with what we have today. Statistics New Zealand has just reported that employment growth over the December quarter—and I with others recognise that those quarterly statistics can be unreliable—helped to push New Zealand’s unofficial employment rate down to 4.9 percent with employment at the highest levels for many many years. Now 123000 more New Zealanders are employed than were employed when Matt Robson and I entered into coalition Government with Labour just over 3 years ago. Is the Progressive party proud to be a constructive partner in a Labour-led Government? The answer of course is yes. Our official unemployment rate has fallen to levels not experienced since March 1988. We now rank ninth amongst the 27 nations with standardised unemployment rates in the OECD group of wealthy nations.  
In my view opting out of the responsibilities of Government is not moral is not right and is not progressive. If one does not want to do things for people then one can do one or two things in the parliamentary arena. One can elect a National-ACT Government which will take us back to the tired arguments of the 1980s and the failed do-nothing policies of the 1990s. The other alternative is to sit on the sidelines and wish that things were different. For a progressive party there is no difference between those two positions. A party that does not want to be in Government advocating for progressive policies is not progressive. The challenge for the six minor parliamentary parties in New Zealand is to meet the challenge of being relevant to Government policy-making. Bringing down a Labour-led Government would retard not advance what we are trying to achieve.  
Supporting Labour on confidence and on the Budget but standing outside the coalition Government as a supporting partner would be another option. That may be an honest honourable intelligent position for a centrist political party. But a centrist party is open to shifting support between Labour-led or National-led Governments over time. The Progressives are not open to such alternatives. We know exactly where we stand in the political spectrum and we are serious about getting things done. Being inside a Labour-led Government ensures a Progressive viewpoint is expressed at every Cabinet meeting. It means we always have our voice heard in the decision-making process. If we are serious about getting things done to improve the position of the people whom we represent then we have to be serious about being part of the Government.  
The Progressives will continue to push for more action on achieving full employment whether that means investing more in training and education or pulling down unnecessary obstacles to growth. There are many times—and my colleagues know this and I imagine anyone else who has been around the Cabinet table will also know this—when we disagree with this or that priority or policy within the Government. That is democracy and that is MMP working because we have a full and frank exchange of views. I believe we have been able to work those issues through in a way that satisfies and represents the people whom I represent in this Parliament. But we will work in good faith and will continue to work in good faith to make the political system work for the people in a world of rapid change and I am confident that we will succeed.  
Yesterday I was at the investment regatta in Auckland with many of the world’s wealthiest corporations and business people. It is not an environment that I always frequent. However after listening to their views of New Zealand—and they were unpaid and therefore independent—I realised it was remarkable how much unanimity there was in what they said about how magnificent a country this is how fortunate we as New Zealanders are to live in it and how most people around the world would give their right or left arm or leg to live in a country like ours. The commitment they were making to the New Zealand of the future both as the long-term residents that many of them have become or as people who see the opportunity for investment here together with other New Zealanders who are proud to be here makes the heart warm and I am prepared to commit myself to more years of that.