Street Maryan: State Sector Management Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Street Maryan: State Sector Management Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Sitting date: 09 December 2010. Volume:669;Page:16271. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour) 
: 
 It is something of a disgrace that the National Government should want to shut down discussion of the State Sector Management Bill which is critical legislation being brought to us under urgency. I will address that matter in a moment. At the outset I say that as somebody who gave up science at the end of the fifth form I am not one to talk about any details of science but I grasp absolutely the importance of research science and technology to the future of this county. It is a no-brainer. It is recognised internationally. In fact President Obama said that the future lies in science science and science. I have been really pleased over the last 2 years—although it has taken the Minister of Research Science and Technology Dr Wayne Mapp 2 years—to see him move to a position where there is a quiver of excitement about him around this portfolio. It is clear that he has now latched on to the fact that this is of critical importance. 
The Labour Party supports this particular move in this bill. But why are we debating it in urgency? I do not understand why it should have been brought under urgency. It seems to me that in Part 1 which we are debating at the moment nothing needed urgency applied to it. I advise the Minister that if in fact this had been a tax bill that had reintroduced the research and development tax credit then yes urgency might have been needed in order for the tax credit to be effective again from 1 April. But no this Government decided when it came into office to kill the research and development tax credit which had been in place for nearly 1 year and was about to bear fruit for all of those businesses that had invested in research and development and were going to see some of the benefits of that investment. If that had been Part 1 of this bill then there might have been some justification for urgency. However as it is under Part 1 we have all the provisions relating to research science and technology particularly the allocation of funding and the establishment of the structures that will deliver it. 
The thing about this legislation and the enabling clauses in this part of the legislation is that the country actually needs more than what this tinkering delivers. In fact if the Government had not been so obsessed with utu and revenge and it had just taken a deep breath when it first came into office it may have seen the sense and the purpose of the research and development tax credit and not taken the axe to it as it did to our Fast Forward Fund of some $700 million which was beginning to bear substantial fruit. In scrapping the tax credit and not reintroducing it through a tax bill but simply reshuffling the structures this Government is really indicating that first of all it has been misfiring on the elements that are needed to promote a really dynamic science and innovation environment in New Zealand and secondly it has taken 2 years to get to anything that would be remotely useful in this space in New Zealand. 
We do not oppose the reshuffling that is happening but we are concerned that this is all there is at the moment. Although there is some reference to funding in this part of the bill the fact remains that it is nowhere near sufficient. This is a moment when as with so many other parts of the Government’s activity there is insufficient investment.