Parker David: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Text is subject to correction 
Parker David: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Sitting date: 31 May 2012. Volume:680;Page:2759. Text is subject to correction.] 
3. 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: Did he say Budget 2011 built “a platform for faster growth more jobs and higher incomes”; and if so did his forecasts in Budget 2012 show faster growth more jobs and higher incomes than his Budget 2011 projections? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Associate Minister of Finance) 
 on behalf of the Minister of Finance: In answer to the first part of the question yes. The policy steps taken in Budget 2011 built a platform for faster growth more jobs and higher incomes than would otherwise have occurred. In fact each of our Budgets has been focused on building a platform for faster growth more jobs and higher incomes than would have been the case if we had carried on with the policy settings we inherited in 2008 which were forecast to lead to permanent deficits and ever-rising debt. In relation to the second part of the question where the member refers to “his forecasts” they are of course not the finance Minister’s forecast projections; they are independent Treasury forecasts and they fluctuate from year to year depending on a range of factors including the economic outlook of our trading partners.  
Hon David Parker 
: Did Budget 2012 cut forecast growth in real GDP per capita from 1 percent to just 0.8 percent this year and from 3.2 percent to 1.8 percent for the next year; and if so is cutting his own forecasts what he meant when he promised faster growth? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: In answer to the second part of the question I again have to point out to the member that he knows that they are independent Treasury forecasts but there you go. In answer to the first part of the question the reality is as we know that the actual growth that turns out depends on a number of things. I know the member does not like to focus on what actually happens in the wider world but during that period we had the ongoing aftershocks in Christchurch and we had lower growth in our trading partners. Those members can object all they like but that actually happens to be the reality. 
Hon David Parker 
: Does Budget 2012 forecast worsening current account deficits totalling $64 billion to 2016; and if so how is another $64 billion worth of overseas borrowing good for New Zealand? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: They do in fact increase but of course not to the percentages seen under the previous Government when they lifted to 8-point something percent of GDP and caused us very significant issues which we are still rebalancing from. The interesting thing—[ 
Interruption 
] It may be but from a much lower level and the difference with it this time is that it is largely about investment in the New Zealand economy whereas previously under the old Labour Government it was borrowing to consume and borrowing to spend and that was an unsustainable position. We know where that leads—it is called southern Europe. 
Hon David Parker 
: Does he agree with the conclusion about his Budget from Fran O’Sullivan in the  
New Zealand Herald 
: “the major problem is that there is no clear economic growth agenda.”? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: I can safely assume that the Minister’s answer to that question would be no. The reality is—as Fran would know if she actually focused on it—that we have a very strong economic growth agenda involved in a whole range of areas: the tax plans we have made; the capital markets in terms of the mixed-ownership model; the investment in innovation and science; the investment in tertiary education vocational education and getting people off benefit and into work; the investment in education; the focus on primary resources and encouraging the use of our natural resources; the investment in infrastructure; and the investment in trade policy and encouraging new free-trade agreements with other countries. This Government has a comprehensive economic growth agenda which we will continue to put in place for the benefit of this country.  
Grant Robertson 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The Minister appeared to be quoting from some official laminated documents. I wonder whether he would like to table them for us. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Let me check with the Minister. Were those official documents? They were not. 
Hon David Parker 
: Does he then agree with Vernon Small of Fairfax: “the Budget has been a barely qualified disaster.”? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: The Minister finds Mr Small a very engaging personality but— 
Grant Robertson 
: Dr Small. 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: —well Dr Small to you. But the Minister is unlikely to agree on his economic prognosis.  
Hon David Parker 
: Which is the more serious blow to his Budget’s credibility: commentators’ views that this Budget has no clear growth agenda the cut in his own forecast growth figures or the incompetence shown around his Government’s attempts to grow the economy through larger class sizes? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: Sometimes I really do wonder where that member lives and on which planet. The reality is if you look at the commentators who count—for example Standard and Poor’s and those rating agencies—they have all endorsed the New Zealand Budget of the Minister of Finance as have a number of other serious economic commentators. That member constantly tries to pretend that New Zealand is not dealing with the challenges of the Christchurch earthquake and the world economy. As long as he keeps doing that the country will still think he is in la-la land.