Joyce Steven: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeJoyce Steven: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate[Sitting date: 24 June 2014. Volume:699;Page:18792. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Economic Development):Where does one begin after that speech by Grant Robertson? I have not heard such an empty pile of baseless rhetoric in a long time—in fact not since I heard my last David Cunliffe speech. Where do we start with Mr Robertson? Mr Robertson tries to lecture a National Government about the Budget when he has opposed every single expenditure-saving initiative that this Government has done over the last 6 years. In areas that I have some interest in—for example in tertiary education—the only new policy Labour has announced is to stop the reductions in adult and community education that we made back in 2010. The news in tertiary education is that if Labour was re-elected it would reinstate Moroccan cooking class subsidies. That is the extent as Bill English was talking about of the deep thinking that has not been occurring in the New Zealand Labour Party. It is empty baseless rhetoric and it is actually quite sad.The other one is ACC—declaring somehow that the National Government has given insufficient cost cuts to people from ACC. It was the Labour Party that made the ACC’s costs blow out. Now Robertson is lecturing the National Government about how to behave responsibly with ACC. That I am afraid is one of the reasons why Labour is struggling to connect with New Zealanders—it is that New Zealanders know the record. They know what the Labour Party was like. They have not forgotten. Mr Robertson can stand up and pretend that things were not the way they were but actually New Zealanders have a longer memory than that.The good news is actually that all these views that the Labour Party has of New Zealand and New Zealanders are wrong. All of them are wrong. All of them are massive exaggerations—and in fact delusions—about how New Zealand actually is. Is there an export crisis? No. Is there a regional crisis? No. Is there a current account crisis? No. Is there a manufacturing crisis? No. Is there an immigration crisis? No there is not. And if this is a housing crisis explain to me how you can have a lift in construction of housing of 17 percent in one quarter in New Zealand—an increase of 17 percent—to the biggest level of activity since 2002. I sense that crisis is receding as well. What is actually happening is none of those things. It is a crisis crisis. There are insufficient crises for the Labour Party to be able to convince and bamboozle New Zealanders that somehow it should be given another shot.The true story is that the New Zealand economy is going very well. It is one of the fastest-growing economies in the OECD. The balance of payments was asked about earlier in this House this afternoon. It is down to 2.8 percent of GDP which is the lowest figure by a long way in a long time. We inherited by the way nearly 8 percent. What we owe the world has dropped down a good 20 percent of the economy. Is that not amazing? This country owes the world 20 percent of its economy less than when National first came into office. That is a very impressive figure which is a tribute to the hard work of New Zealanders.Our goods exports have just passed NZ$50 billion in 1 year for the time. Not only is that a good thing but also it is at just about the highest New Zealand dollar rate that we have ever seen which means that the amount of goods going offshore is even greater than that number suggests. We have seen another interesting statistic and that is the drop of outward migration to Australia. That rightly worried New Zealanders for a long time. In 2008 when we came in 35000 New Zealanders in that year in net terms—a net 35000 New Zealanders—moved off to Australia. Then it dropped a bit. Then it went up a bit after the Christchurch earthquakes. Now last month just 200 New Zealanders moved across to Australia in net terms. The month before just 200 moved. That is 400 over 2 months. That is an annual rate of 2000 or 3000 a year. New Zealanders are voting with their feet all right. They are voting with their feet to stay in this country and experience the job opportunities in this country.I want to touch on regional New Zealand. Mr Robertson has made at least one trip now to the regions I think since he has been the Labour spokesperson on regional development. That is very exciting for him I am sure. He got very excited. He went to Rotorua I understand and met Tāmati Coffey apparently who is apparently a normal “Rotoruaian”. I am not sure about that. But anyway let us talk about regional economies because regional economies have led New Zealand out of the global financial crisis. We have got a range of policies in our Business Growth Agenda which Mr Robertson would do well to read. It is 120-odd pages. It will keep him up for about a month. It is 120 pages but here is what is not in it: there is no reference to a carbon price at five times the world price in National’s economic policy. There is no reference to high water levies like Mr Parker wants in National’s economic policy. There is no reference to banning oil exploration in the Taranaki Bight which both the Labour Party and the Green Party have declared they want. There is no reference to a capital gains tax that would hit 100 percent of New Zealand businesses but—whoops—hits only 25 percent of New Zealand houses. And there is no mention of a wacky monetary policy that would have the whole world confused.Those are not in National’s economic policies and regions around the country will breathe a sigh of relief about that because 13 of our 16 regions are dependent on the natural resources economy—13 of our 16. The Greens can pretend that is not the case but it is and this Government understands that. We understand you have to balance the jobs of regional New Zealanders against environmental constraints and if you do it well you can get improvements in both outcomes but not if you treat the whole thing like a cartoon and look to ban oil prospecting and knock the dairy industry over as is proposed by the Greens and even Labour. That is what we are dealing with.The other thing that is really important to regional New Zealand is trade deals. They are very important. Access to other people’s goods markets is crucial to regional New Zealand. If you look around this House the weirdest thing about that at the moment is there is only one major party in this House that is unambiguously in favour of doing more trade deals for New Zealand exporters and that is the National Party. The Labour Party does not know what it thinks. The Green Party as always is opposed and that is the reality of it.Hon Phil Goff: Oh rubbish—just rubbish.Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Mr Goff you are sadly in a party that has moved to the left around you. That is the reality of the situation—the unambiguous support for trade deals in the Labour Party has gone. Mr Goff has been rolled by his mates. Shane Jones knew it. That is why Shane Jones left. He knew all these things that I have just laid out.That is why regional New Zealand ain’t going anywhere near the Labour Party. The Greens can talk about promoting exports by buying everybody a 3-D printer—apparently that is the gig; a 3-D printer is what you need to succeed in the Green world so they must be printing 3-D money—but all these other things get the knock. All these other industries get the knock. New Zealanders know it is not real. New Zealanders know that you cannot do these things. New Zealanders know that you cannot have the attitude of the Opposition which is to push a whole lot of imposts on New Zealand businesses and expect them to keep growing jobs for Kiwis.Sue Moroney: Oh what rubbish. Talk about your own policies.Hon STEVEN JOYCE: That is what we have done and are doing—84000 jobs in the last year Sue Moroney. Think about that for a minute. That is because this Government is supporting the growth of businesses with policies that enhance their competitiveness on the world stage not reduce their competitiveness on the world stage. Our job now now that the economy is growing well is to ensure that we remove those capacity constraints and that is what we are doing. Our job is to ensure that we are encouraging skills growth in the New Zealand economy that we are encouraging engineering and information and communications technology and science that we are encouraging innovation with big investments in the innovation space that we are encouraging more free-trade deals that work for New Zealand exporters that we are encouraging the growth of capital in New Zealand and that we are encouraging the natural resources sector by working with iwi and Māori and getting Treaty settlements done so that there are stronger investors in regional New Zealand.We are encouraging all those things through our Business Growth Agenda and through the financial decisions of this Government. That is why New Zealanders are supporting not just the economic policies but the fiscal policies of this Government. It is because they know what it means in terms of great jobs and great growth for New Zealand. Thank you.