Hutchison Paul: Debate on Prime Minister’s StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHutchison Paul: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement[Sitting date: 12 February 2014. Volume:696;Page:15879. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Hunua): It is a great pleasure to support Prime Minister John Key’s motion that this House has confidence in the National-led Government. I have just been travelling around the wonderful electorate of Hunua doing my annual general meetings—about 14 of them—and it is a great pleasure. They are real people.Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Annual visit? Once a year he visits his patch.Dr PAUL HUTCHISON: I am there all the time Mr Cosgrove I assure you. But the good news is this: that I am able to tell those people about the fact that economic growth under this magnificent National Government is 3.5 percent that unemployment is coming down 6 percent and going lower than that and that interest rates have been the lowest ever in the last 50 years. I must say that those hard-working people of Hunuawho work on the farms who live in the towns and hamlets of our provincial New Zealand echo their support for this National Government.But what is really important is to understand where we came from over these last 5 years because the contrast is stark. We inherited an economy from that dismal former Labour Government back in 2008 when the current account deficit was 9 percent. Today of course I am able to tell the people in the provinces that it is 4.3 percent.Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Once a year you tell them.Dr PAUL HUTCHISON: I tell them on a weekly basis. I would tell them every day if I could Clayton Cosgrove. This man is no longer an electorate MP. We never hear from him these days let alone the people of Rangiora. Do they even know his name?The net external debt back in 2008 after that Labour Government had blown it out to 84 percent is now of course trimmed down very successfully to 71 percent. Inflation was running under Labour at 5.1 percent only 5 years ago. Now of course it is down to 1.6 percent. But more important the interest rate 5 years ago under Labour was 10.9 percent. We hear Mr Twyford over there talking about houses until his head comes off. Every New Zealander knows that interest rates are all important and that under this National Government they have come down to 5.9 percent. Food prices under Labour in the year previous to 2008 had gone up 11 percent—gone up 11 percent. In the last year food prices have gone up no more than 1.6 percent. What a huge change—what a huge change. And I can tell you that everyone in the provinces everyone in the towns and cities of New Zealand realises very much that under a National Government there has been major improvement.But let us go on. What about Government spending under Labour for those last 5 years? Government spending increased 50 percent—50 percent—and in health of course there was no extra productivity. In fact productivity had declined. Of course there was that huge increase in bureaucracy that we all know about which happened under that dismal Labour Government. Now Government spending has been very much curtailed. It is under control and of course we have a forecast of a surplus in the—Hon Clayton Cosgrove: So the first one; we had nine.Dr PAUL HUTCHISON:—2014-15 books. Clayton Cosgrove let me just remind you what Treasury was forecasting back in 2008: never-ending deficits and debt looking likely to get to 60 percent of GDP and never coming down. That Labour Government had 9 long years of profligate spending—of profligate spending.But what else am I able to tell the good people of Hunua about the recipe that Labour and the Greens would have in store for them? They of course would bring in a capital gains tax. What that would do is punish every business and every farmer in New Zealand. I can see the whites of the members’ eyes over there. They know it. They would be doing everything negative for our businesses and our farmers in New Zealand and those businesses and farmers should be very worried about the prospect of Labour and the Greens getting together. Of course they would be increasing the gap between personal income tax and company tax. Mr Brownlee is not with us today but he would tell us that a huge huge number of tax-avoiding entities mushroomed under Labour during that time. What we need in this country is a low broad-based simple tax that people can understand that has clear incentives of reward for effort. That we will get under a National Government. We will get the opposite under a dismal Labour-Green alliance.One other thing that deeply concerns the good people of Hunua is the sorts of impositions that the Labour-Green new emissions trading system would place on the businesses and the farmers of New Zealand. In Hunua our biggest single employer happens to be New Zealand Steel. It would find it extremely extremely difficult toremain viable under the Labour-Green recipe. Might I tell you it is a company that cogenerates 70 percent—Iain Lees-Galloway: Tell us about LanzaTech.Dr PAUL HUTCHISON: —of its power. Yes let us talk about LanzaTech. There is a pilot programme at New Zealand Steel where it is indeed converting exhaust emissions into alcohol. This is being piloted in some of the major countries of this world including China and it has expanded to North America. This is great innovation and this is the sort of company that Labour and the Greens would gladly destroy. [Interruption]The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! You cannot say that.Dr PAUL HUTCHISON: Let us go back and have a look at the other plan Labour and the Greens have got—the plan to nationalise the power industry. That sends shudders up and down the spine of every businessman and farmer in this country. What is more they are planning on setting up the 97th insurer in New Zealand. They just do not understand how business works how we have to work really hard to get an efficient effective New Zealand.I would like to turn to Labour’s glorious leader—the one at the moment—Mr Cunliffe whose veracity has certainly been so deeply tested recently with the $60-a-week lolly scramble for every child. I am hugely interested in making sure that every child in New Zealand has the chance to achieve their full potential. But we in the Health Committee heard from Professor David Fergusson an expert on children and an expert on social development. What he told us was that if we put money in the hands of dysfunctional families it is likely to be totally blown unless it is very very carefully worked out how that money is to be spent. We have a Labour Government-in-waiting that is prepared to blow an untargeted half a billion dollars when it should be spending that money in a very very carefully directed manner in order to ensure that every child in New Zealand has a very good start. That was one of the saddest things I have seen at the beginning of the year coming from Mr Cunliffe.I would just like to finish this speech on a high note by talking for one moment about the wonderful achievements in health over the last 5 years. Immunisation is one of the classics. Five years ago only 67 percent of New Zealand children—2-year-olds—completed their immunisation. Today it is over 90 percent and Māori children in something like 12 district health boards have even higher rates than non-Māori. Under the National Government we have a very bright future.