Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): The events that led to the Auditor-General's report and this debate are the result of Government acting outside what should be its proper role. The proper role of government is to provide a limited basket of public goods and a regulatory environment in which real business people can get on with building their businesses not politicians attempting to be business people with taxpayers' money. If you begin at the beginning of this saga it commenced with poor regulatory practice and confusion over whether or not New Zealanders are supposed to be able to export live sheep and under what circumstances. Had that simple question been answered in a clear and principled way we would not be here. But of course the Opposition when in Government banned live sheep exports. The Government promised some people that they would reverse the ban and then did not and throughout this there was no principled approach to how a Government should regulate. But then it got worse. Then we got an activist Government that attempts to wheel and deal and make commercial deals and pick winners and try to be an activist Government in business with taxpayers' money. You can hear the Opposition members thinking That's right. That's what this Government does all the time. That's what they did with Skycity trading regulatory favours to have a convention centre. That's what they do regularly with the Major Events Development Fund." but I have got news for the Opposition members. They have absolutely no right to criticise any of those practices because they themselves are guilty of exactly the same principles and exactly the same philosophy.Let us just ask the Green Party how their so-called Green Investment Bank would pick winners. If you have a Green Investment Bank you are picking technologies that will not attract capital in an open market. You are picking them precisely because they fit your particular political preferences. A Green Investment Bank would be just as open to the kind of corruption the Opposition has been accusing the Government of today. But what about the Labour Party? Is anybody aware of anybody who has proposed a $2 billion railway straight down the Dominion Road with no business case? Is anyone aware of anybody who has recently done that? The fact of the matter is that the two marital partners of Labour and the Greens are just as guilty of activist government as any Government on this side of the House has ever been—wheeling and dealing picking winners and trying to get into business with other people's money—which inevitably leads to precisely the issues we are debating. But what about the very vocal New Zealand First members? They have got a lot to say for themselves or at least many words very loudly but very little thought. Who in New Zealand First does not want to give more money to their own particular preferred hobby horse—or should that be trains? Actually "horse" was not a bad metaphor.Denis O'Rourke: What about charter schools—is that a hobby horse?DAVID SEYMOUR: How many in New Zealand First know their own history of giving oodles and oodles of cash taxpayers' hard-earned money to the racing industry because it fits their particular preferences? How many of them would love to give hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars more money to KiwiRail to open non-viable railway lines? I hear members asking: "What about partnership schools kura hourua?". If they cannot tell the difference in contracting for a service that it is part of the core role of Government to provide on a contestable basis getting better results for the students then I do not know how to help the members from New Zealand First. The fact of the matter is that the events today are not extraordinary. They are symptomatic of a Government and of Governments from both sides of the House of both stripes that think it is the most normal thing in the world for an activist Government to wheel and deal to pick winners and to spend other people's money on its own political prerogatives of the day and all of the Opposition members who have been crowing about this report have no different principles from that which they are criticising today. Only the ACT Party truly believes in low flat taxes a stable regulatory environment and letting business people get on with building businesses not politicians pretending to be business people with taxpayers' money."