Robertson Grant: Oral Questions — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRobertson Grant: Oral Questions — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 10 May 2016. Volume:713;Page:10889. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]9.GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) to the Minister of Finance: Does he stand by his statement made in Budget 2015 that “the unemployment rate is expected to fall below 5 percent in 2016”?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): Yes. The statement was based on Treasury’s forecasts at the time reflecting its best professional judgment. The member will be pleased to know that 60000 jobs have been added to the economy since Budget 2015—7000 more than the 53000 additional jobs that I stated at the time on the basis of the forecast by Treasury reflecting its best professional judgment.Grant Robertson: How many more people are unemployed now than when the National Government took office in 2008 according to the latest household labour force survey?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I know there are 200000 more people employed and it is possible that there are more people unemployed than there were then because we have had a major recessionsince then from which there has been a moderate recovery.Grant Robertson: Does he consider it a sign of success when the number of young people not in education employment or training has increased by 26000 or 44 percent after nearly 8 years of a National Government; or are those young people just “pretty damned hopeless”?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The member insists on making completely irrelevant comparisons between now and the situation just before New Zealand had a major recession. We have just come off—[Interruption] In the last couple of quarters we have had the lowest number of young people not in education training or employment ever. It has bumped up a bit in this last quarter. The Government has a wide range of programmes in place to deal with that issue and if we persist with them we will succeed.Grant Robertson: Does he recall declaring the global financial crisis over in 2012 and how then does he explain the fact that we have a record number of “neets” which has increased by 44 percent under his watch?Hon BILL ENGLISH: First of all I would not accept all of the member’s assertions. I can remember saying that the New Zealand economy was recovering from the global financial crisis which turned out to be almost as difficult as recovering from the previous Labour Government.Grant Robertson: Will Budget 2016 commit to unemployment being under 5 percent?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The member will have to wait and see. But if having low rates of unemployment was merely a matter of the commitment of politicians then there would be no unemployment whatsoever. I mean if you could commit to it why commit to any unemployment? What Budget 2016 will underpin is the extensive efforts that the Government is making particularly with our young people across a range of programmes from Māori and Pacific trade training through to the youth services which have the most concentrated—and probably the most expensive—youth programmes all designed to ensure that young people are on a pathway to work not a pathway to welfare.