Collins JudithHon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura): Thank you Madam Chair—a great choice. I think I've been listening to people on the other side of the Chamber who are living in a fool's paradise. Anybody who wants to know about how lacking in confidence small-business people are should go out and visit some of the people in our electorates where people are actually deciding that they can't take on extra staff. They can't get skilled staff in to do the work because the Immigration Service is now so absolutely hopeless at letting anybody in who is skilled. They're orchardists—we have people who have berry farms who can't get people in. Why? Because this Government has a big issue around immigration. You've got three parties to it who actually voted against the sort of immigration that National was very happy to enable into this country. When I've been listening to some of the contributions from the other side tonight I've heard some comments about how interest rates are really low. They are actually—they're the lowest I can certainly remember. And there is another issue with that too which is that when you have very low interest rates it is very easy for people not to put their money into banks. It is very easy for people to say Well I'll go and put my money somewhere else." It may be for instance overseas. It is very easy for people to do that. If low interest rates were the answer then Japan would have become more of the powerhouse that it used to be economically. Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): The House is in committee for further consideration of the Appropriation (2019/20 Estimates) Bill. When we suspended for the dinner break the committee was debating the Finance and Government Administration Sector. The Hon Judith Collins had the call and has three minutes and 20 seconds remaining of her speech should she wish to take it. Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Oh she does. Thank you Madam Chair. Only three minutes 19 seconds? I mean goodness I really need at least 35 minutes. I think it's really important that we come back to the theme of the economy and the Finance and Expenditure Committee's Estimates and our concerns that we felt in the committee about some of the head-in-the-sand type of behaviour coming from the Government. I think one of the big issues is the issue of business confidence and we've seen quite a robust debate coming along—it seems to be quite one-sided—from the Governor of the Reserve Bank which I have to say I've never seen before from a Governor of the Reserve Bank. I've always thought Governors of the Reserve Bank should be sort of quiet unassuming and should just keep a lot of confidence but there's certainly a bit of rarking up going on between the Governor and the banks generally. I think one of the things that is really important is that we understand that whatever happens on a bad side in the world's economies such as Australia and China and the US Europe and elsewhere it tends to hit us quite early on in the piece. That's just a historical fact and that is also based on the fact that we are very much a trading nation. We cannot really survive as a country without being able to trade and particularly trade in the agricultural area. It is also really important to remember that it often takes us longer to recover than other countries for instance. So we were hugely helped during the global financial crisis which started to occur in the world in 2007-08 because of the strength of the Chinese economy and the fact that it was growing so steadily and also because Australia was seen to be benefiting from that as well. Australia and China as you will know are our two biggest trading partners and when they do well we tend to do well. The problem that we're seeing at the moment is that they're not necessarily doing quite as well as one would hope and that does create a huge amount of uncertainty in the world. So it's really important in New Zealand that our Government not do fruit-loopy - type things and actually do things like take wonderful productive farmland and plant it full of disgusting pine trees that drop needles everywhere and which the people who mostly benefit from it seem to be overseas investors who have cottoned on to the little schemes going here in New Zealand. In the meantime rural New Zealand and provincial New Zealand is being replaced—people are being replaced—by trees and that is not good for this country. We have a huge natural advantage in agriculture. We feed the world with our mere 1 percent of the world's cattle and yet we are seeing this Government intent on ruining that wonderful asset that we have and turning it into pine trees. I give you Kaingaroa Forest—nothing but pulp and paper is the quality of what was coming out of that. That's what this Government is doing to our country. CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): I call Fletcher Tabuteau."