6. Question No. 6—FinanceHon AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn) to the Minister of FinanceQuestion No. 6—Finance6. Hon AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn) to the Minister of Finance: Does he consider consumer confidence to be an important measure of the strength of the New Zealand economy; if so what does the trend in consumer confidence since the election say about it?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Consumer confidence is an important measure of how confident consumers feel. Sometimes consumer confidence surveys are interpreted as current indicators of the strength of the economy overall. For example in the latest ANZ consumer confidence survey the current conditions index is said to be very strong with a trend showing a rise in the latest month and at a similar level to that after the change in Government.Hon Amy Adams: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It was a primary question on notice with two parts. He answered the first part certainly; I don't think he addressed the second.SPEAKER: I mean I feel like—no I will ask the Minister. It's sort of like a free hit really but if the member wants it then the Minister can have another go.Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: As the question asks what the consumer confidence trend would say about the strength of the New Zealand economy what I'd say to the member is that the New Zealand economy is extremely strong at the moment and this Government's very very proud of the strength of it.Hon Amy Adams: So how does the Minister suggest that the trend of the consumer confidence surveys shows strength of the economy when in fact since the election the Westpac McDermott Miller index has dropped to a six-year low and the ANZ consumer confidence survey has dropped by 15 points?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: As I said consumer confidence surveys survey aspects of how consumers are feeling. Within the current ANZ survey we can see that people who are feeling better off has stayed pretty steady; those who think that bad times are ahead is at the lowest it's been this year. But if the member is trying to suggest that the Government is the ultimate controller of that well the last time we saw the levels in the ANZ consumer survey was when that member was a Minister—so presumably she was responsible for that too.Hon Amy Adams: So is his plan to simply dismiss consumer confidence views as politically biased in the same way he's dismissed business confidence?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: No my plan is to make sure that we invest in infrastructure that was neglected for nine years that we lift the skills and training rates of New Zealanders that we get a billion dollars' worth of research and development funding out in the community and start to correct the mistakes of the last nine years.Hon Amy Adams: So how much does he think consumer confidence is affected by the 30 percent of New Zealand households that are now reporting that even after the Government's Families Package they now have less money to spend on meeting essentials because of rising costs?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I don't have the information the member's referring to in front of me. But if we do talk about the ANZ consumer confidence survey it says that a net 33 percent of people say it's a good time to buy a major household item which has bounced back from last month.Hon Amy Adams: What has this Government done for those New Zealanders who don't rely on State support but are working hard every day and finding it tougher and tougher to deal with rising costs?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Among many things we've increased Working for Families which I don't think the member is rejecting although it appears this is yet another interesting place in National's fiscal and policy stance—perhaps Working for Families is on the way out now as well. But we've supported Working for Families. But I just said to the member before: we're now investing in infrastructure in a way the previous Government completely neglected. We're making sure that there's more money available for research and development. We're making sure that there's more money available for education. On this side of the House we're actually investing in how we grow the economy sustainably not relying on population growth.Hon Amy Adams: Would he agree that in fact the best explanation for the large decline in consumer confidence over the last 12 months is that costs are going up faster than households have experienced for a long time incomes are not keeping up and 1.7 million households are worse off under this Government?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: No; I reject the premise of that question and the member should actually look at the real data in the economy which shows that it's growing solidly. There's a lot of work to do to undo the last nine years but we've made a great start.