Ardern Shane: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeArdern Shane: General Debate[Sitting date: 06 November 2013. Volume:694;Page:14410. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki - King Country): It is a good place to start—will Labour members stand up and say they will support the Trans-Pacific Partnership? “Yeah nah.” When they are talking to the farmer audience they will say yes; when they are talking to their union audience they will say nah. The one thing that is interesting about that which both of my colleagues left out is that the best response to Labour members is to say “Yeah right!”.Let us have a look at what Labour members have said out in the provinces. They have been up in Taranaki just recently. The soon-to-be new leader of the Labour Party the Hon Shane Jones visited Taranaki and he said: “Look we’re not frightening to business. We’re not frightening to growth. We like the primary industries. We like the provinces and we’re here to help.” Of course he had in tow with him the once wannabe and long-since-disappeared Andrew Little as a co-pilot.Let us have a look at what Labour members said when they were in Taranaki: “We’ll promote growth in the primary sector. We’ll promote growth in the development of the province.” But the problem is of course that in provincial New Zealand we have seen a maximum exodus to Australia we have seen a huge decline in economic growth and we have seen a massive loss of jobs. I thought I had better go and research that so I went and got Venture Taranaki’s latest paper which it has just released. What does it say? The rate of population growth is up the economic outlook is up employment numbers are up the employment participation rate is up and the employment outlook is up. But numbers are up in terms of the skills shortage. Well that is a negative. Skills shortages are up—there is something for Labour to hang on to.The paper goes on to say that natural increases in population are up long-term international arrivals are up house values are up house sales are up values for residential construction consents are up and the number of dairy cattle is up. Labour members will probably see that as a negative. They will probably see more dairy cattle as a negative. The number of farms for sale is up port activity is up and the number of 18-year-olds with National Certificate of Educations Achievement level 2 or equivalent is up.Something seems to be wrong with the “Yeah nah—yeah right!” approach here because the story Labour is putting forward is quite different compared with the facts. In fact just recently we saw that Taranaki was leading in all of the statistics: economic growth the average wage and in terms of opportunity going forward. The question then is why. Well here we go. Once again Labour members have said that they will be totally supportive of the primary sector. Well in Taranaki—and it will come as a surprise to Labour members—we have the dairy industry. On the one hand they say: “Yes that’s a good thing and we should encourage it.” but on the other hand they will say: “Well actually we’re too dependent on it.” Well there is another industry in the Taranaki as well: the energy industry. On the one hand they say that it is wonderful but on the other hand they say: “We’ve got to be careful with where we go looking for oil and drilling for oil.”But there is a third industry and it was once as big and that is the meat and wool sector. Labour members know that internationally New Zealand lamb already has a very high brand value. You can go to supermarkets or restaurants anywhere in the world and be told that New Zealand lamb is a very sought-after product. We know that internationally it is fetching about half the price it could. So what is Labour’s response to that? That is the first question I would ask. What is its policy on that?I look forward to hearing from Labour members because if they are concerned that the dairy industry is too dominant in the economic drivers of the New Zealand economy why not lift some of the others? Why not bring some of the others up to the dairy industry’s level? I think that probably Sir Ralph Norris’s response in the recent report on the Fonterra scare sums it up perfectly. He said: “New Zealand society is often described as egalitarian. It has never had a European style inherited aristocracy.” As the son of a sharemilker I am very pleased about that. But the problem with that is that Labour will not support winners. It is called the tall poppy syndrome the “Yeah nah syndrome” or if you like the “Yeah right!” syndrome. Economic growth from Labour is I think summed up perfectly by saying “Yeah right!”.