SpeechHon SHANE JONES (Minister for Regional Economic Development): The Minister of Finance has opened up this opportunity for us to talk a wee bit about why debt has grown on the Crown balance sheet the nature of the challenges that our economy faces and the contrasting approaches being deployed by this side of the House and what may come from other political parties.First I want to say that the member who's just resumed her seat Louise Upston is identifying the fact that too many people have been in receipt of the wage subsidy without dwelling on the fact that of all of the options before any Government this is the one that we were advised to take with great vigour. So why did the Government decide to use this approach and rack up $13 billion to $14 billion worth of debt? Because to have done anything else would have been to imperil not only the community and societal institutions but to have totally wrecked the economy. The team of 5 million followed the lead of the Prime Minister moved into a type of social cocooning parts of the economy were enabled to continue—called essential services"—but there was absolutely no credible alternative other than to keep people connected with their place of work to give them a sense of hope confidence and reassurance irrespective of how deep the fangs of COVID would bite.This was a Government that was willing to move from the historical Calvinistic approach to fiscal management into pouring money into the economy. Yes a lot of it has gone into short-term consumption; that's because many New Zealanders do not have surplus savings to live weeks on end without regular income. I think why that is important is that once we leave this House at the end of this week and go out and speak to Kiwis they're going to want to know "Yes but what exactly are you going to do?" How precisely are you going to replenish confidence in the economy or indeed—because the economy is just people. The economy is not quadratic equations; it's consumers it's investors it's NGOs it's firms it's institutions.Now I'd like to talk about what the Minister of Finance has opened up in terms of the opportunities. Successive Governments have talked a big game about productivity. I think it's fair to say none of us as parliamentarians—those of us who stretch back a few years—have seen the growth of productivity outcomes that we've always hoped to achieve. In the last 12 years it's taken off a bit at the moment but historically we relied on migrant labour and large volumes of it whether it came through international education or genuine visa applications to plug the gaps in industries where they were either unwilling to train a suitably large number of Kiwis or they were unable to invest in more capital-intensive technologies and tools of the trade. The days of unfettered access to those pools of international labour are over. Whilst there may be 300000 people in our country holding visas of some description and it is important that they continue to enjoy a level of confidence as has been the case with the extension and it is important that we encourage and enable them to move around Aotearoa freely so they can take up roles while we transition ourselves out the economic model where we outsource a lot of the responsibilities to international pools of labour or to labour hire firms—those days are over.Secondly in order for us to really make productivity gains let's take two simple answers—simple remedies. I actually believed in quite a lot of what the old regime was doing in terms of irrigation. However I accepted when we formed the Government that a number of those schemes had led to societal outcomes that were repugnant in many respects because of the localised and intensive negative effect on the environment when you married irrigation to poor farming practices. But unless we continue to invest in water networks water storage water resilience we are not—in the post-COVID environment—going to capture enough economic surplus to plug the gap of $20 billion worth of foreign exchange earnings that have disappeared. Now it hasn't really disappeared at that volume because Kiwis aren't going overseas and buying foreign exchange; so the wedge is smaller. But we are going to have to look back to these legacy industries. So for those reasons the work that we've been able to roll out with water storage—not on the grand scale of the Waimea Dam and I hope there's a solution to that very very shortly—is something that all parties are going to have to grapple with.Thirdly are we going to sit by and watch over the next few years legacy industries hollowed out of New Zealand? I personally am deeply concerned about that. I'm very persuaded by the notion that if we're going to have a transition in a post-COVID environment from legacy industrial investments whether it's the refinery near where I hail from whether it's the aluminium smelter in Murihiku whether it's the steel mill there's quite frankly an almost existential question about the character and the nature of our economy. If we're not going to support encourage or maintain those industries what is going to replace them? And not unlike the fact that I grew up in a rural environment in the Far North I look not only to technology; I look at the endowments that surround us in terms of what Mother Nature's got on offer which is why if we are going transition out of these carbon-rich industries it's important that we do not end up in a position where we're exporting jobs and importing carbon. This is going to be a challenge irrespective of who the Government is in the future.So for those reasons if for example one of those industries is aquaculture the leadership of Murihiku of Southland told Mr Patterson myself the Minister of Finance the Prime Minister and I presume the Deputy Prime Minister has been told as well that unless we put money aside to help underwrite the risk—and that's an incredibly vital role for the Crown. Now the other side may pooh-pooh that; they may say you're endangering you're imperilling the Crown balance sheet but as with all major transitions in the past the Crown does pick up the pieces either through the welfare system or through retraining. The view that I've been pushing through the Provincial Growth Fund stewardship role that I've been privileged to hold is that if we are going to transition the Crown has to move and blend its efforts with the private sector so we de-risk the cost we de-risk the challenges of the transition. And as I said if it is aquaculture society has to ensure that it gets a return for its entitlement its ownership interest in the commons. So we have a situation where if we're going to create a new multibillion-dollar industry—which I'm very enthusiastic about—in terms of ocean ranching ocean farming that we stop as the last regime learnt promising these things without making the hard decisions to reform the statutory processes and reform the actual regulatory frameworks.For those reasons the things that have been raised by Minister Grant Robertson are actually very accurate. He has set aside some pūtea $14 billion to $15 billion and a future Government can dedicate some of that pūtea to this de-risking exercise because there is no way that we are going to transition without the Crown either being actively involved helping to de-risk it or indeed in some cases leading it in provincial New Zealand which is what we have done. Which is why the Provincial Growth Fund—and it was only ever going to be around for three years and it's actually not $3 billion it's $3.3 billion; it actually grew under my stewardship. The point that I'm making though is that that is an incredibly active and valuable example of how the Crown can take a role of enablement and empowerment. It's been widely acclaimed in the provinces it is occasionally subject to shrewish behaviour from members on the other side of the House but I assure you whenever there's an opening wherever there's an announcement they elbow me out of the way to arrive and celebrate the occasion with my good self. Thank you very much."