McClay Todd: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In Committee 
McClay Todd: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In Committee 
[Volume:673;Page:19337] 
TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua) 
: 
 I am happy to take a call in this part of the debate on New Zealand Trade and Enterprise because as with Mrs Street I believe that it is a very important organisation with very hard-working people doing a very important job on behalf of New Zealand. But that is where my agreement with her finishes. I found her intervention to be far too pessimistic not only about the challenges we face and how we are moving through them but about the feeling among those who work for New Zealand Trade and Enterprise. Those I have met have a great amount of pride in the job they are doing—a very good job—on behalf of this country. 
Also she was far too pessimistic in her view of what the clients of New Zealand Trade and Enterprise thinks of its work. We see that 84 percent of those who have had assistance from New Zealand Trade and Enterprise say they have had value added to their business. Eighty-four percent say they have had value added to their business. Mrs Street said they were not universally satisfied. Well I am yet to meet anybody who is universally satisfied with the exception of the people of Iraq I read about in the newspaper some years ago who were asked to vote in an election. They were universally satisfied with the then president Saddam Hussein. He got 107 percent of the vote. 
With the exception of that situation it is not unusual for New Zealanders to have differences of opinion but 84 percent of businesses helped said value was added to their companies by New Zealand Trade and Enterprise. I say good on New Zealand Trade and Enterprise and the hard-working people there who are doing a very important job. 
So why do I think they are a very important group of New Zealanders who are doing a fantastic job for us overseas? Well the work they do fits very closely with the Government’s economic agenda and with our economic plan that has been rolled out over the last 2 years: to back New Zealanders and to invest in the local economy so that our economy can grow so that more people can be employed and so that we have a better standard of living and can afford more and better services for New Zealanders. We get to do that by exporting more to other parts of the world. 
Since we have come to Government we have had a number of trade agreements that have been negotiated where the negotiations have been concluded or have entered into force which New Zealand Trade and Enterprise then had to do something about. I will not go through all of them because I have only 5 minutes and the list is an extremely long list of achievements by this Government but I will pick one that I think holds great opportunity for us: the entering into force of the free-trade agreement with China. 
Why is China important to us? Well that is very straightforward. In the 2 years since we have been in Government and this agreement has entered into force our trade with China has grown in value from $8.5 billion to $11.1 billion. Do members know what that means? That means that very many more New Zealand businesses are producing goods and exporting them to China. Their trade has grown. But more important it means that many companies that were not exporting before have now been helped out by New Zealand Trade and Enterprise. 
The challenge that we set for New Zealand Trade and Enterprise—and this Government backs it fully—is to help New Zealand businesses to get into some of these new markets and to take advantage of the great opportunity there so that we can sell more of our produce bring those funds back to New Zealand and employ more New Zealanders. Some wonderful work has been done. 
Finally the job of New Zealand Trade and Enterprise overseas is to leverage the very good work that this Government and our Minister of Trade are doing when it comes to free-trade agreements. Last year I had a chance to visit Shanghai for the World Expo 2010 and I went to the New Zealand Trade and Enterprise office. Millions and millions of people particularly from China but also from around the world visited the New Zealand pavilion at the expo. But more important for tourism purposes thousands of businesses visited New Zealand Trade and Enterprise which leveraged the opportunity the Government had provided for New Zealand businesses to meet it in order to talk about New Zealand and some of our advantages and to do more business and more trade. That was very important work. 
One of the great things New Zealand Trade and Enterprise will be doing this year—and the Government is backing it fully in this—is leveraging the 85000 visitors who will come to New Zealand for the Rugby World Cup. In my electorate of Rotorua I have had a number of meetings with New Zealand Trade and Enterprise and the businesses it has been working with and supporting. I tell the Committee that the feeling of satisfaction with New Zealand Trade and Enterprise in Rotorua is greater than 84 percent in as far as this report we have been given. I thank the staff of New Zealand Trade and Enterprise and ask them to keep doing that great job on our behalf. Thank you. 
Report noted.