Robertson Grant: Oral Questions — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRobertson Grant: Oral Questions — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 30 March 2016. Volume:712;Page:10008. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]5.GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) to the Minister of Finance: Is ASB economist Kim Mundy correct when she said last week “While headline growth appears reasonable and encouraging underlying per capita income growth remains flat and highlights New Zealand’s economic vulnerabilities going forward”?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): No I disagree with the ASB economist. New Zealand—with the exception of I think one quarter subject to revision—has had a long period of consistent GDP growth which has delivered income increases of 2 to 3 percent to households at a time when inflation is low. Job growth has been pretty strong. Whatever other measures the member may want to apply that actually shows that the economy is on a sustainable track of moderate growth.Grant Robertson: What has been the percentage of per capita GDP growth in the last year based on the Statistics New Zealand figures released last week?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I cannot tell the member that. What I can point him to are the forecasts by ASB economist Kim Mundy which show per capita GDP is to go to an annual growth of 2 percent over the next 2 years. That looks pretty robust particularly when you have got a fast-growing population.Grant Robertson: Could the failure of the Government to lift exports as a percentage of GDP and the fact that it is nowhere near its own target of 40 percent of GDP be one of the economic vulnerabilities Ms Mundy is talking about?Hon BILL ENGLISH: No. In fact recent performance in the export sector shows exactly why the New Zealand economy is less vulnerable than that member wants it to be. In a year when dairy exports dropped I think $3 billion total exports actually went up by $5 billion—Hon Steven Joyce: $2 billion.Hon BILL ENGLISH: —sorry $2 billion—which shows that the rest of the export sector is surprisingly strong. It is not correct as that member has said that New Zealand is far too reliant on dairy.Grant Robertson: When independent commentators are calling per-person growth “sluggish” and “feeble” does he not think that he should pay a little bit more attention to that instead of giving patronising answers?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I thought they were referring to the Opposition spokesman on finance but there you go.Grant Robertson: Is “importing growth rather than creating it” as the Manufacturers and Exporters Association put it last week one of the economic vulnerabilities facing New Zealand?Hon BILL ENGLISH: No and I do not know quite what it means. I mean the fact is that a small open economy like this has to be part of global supply chains whether it is goods or services or in fact people as illustrated by the pretty strong migration at the moment. We need to be more integrated with the world so importing what we need to add value and therefore grow would seem to be a perfectly legitimate way of growing as much as the bright idea that comes out of some young person who is setting out with a start-up that does not import anything. Both are legitimate sources of growth.Grant Robertson: At what point is the Minister going to wake up from his 8-year slumber and work out that the economy has not diversified sufficiently that we are still reliant on dairy prices and that we actually have not got an economy growing per person based on productivity?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The economy has had relative to others a dream run and in that sense we would be happy for that to continue. The member seems to be trying to make a point about a low per capita number from a year when dairy incomes slumped dramatically and we had record high migration. Of course in that circumstance for 1 year per capita growth would be a bit lower but as the economist he quotes has set out in the ASB graph per capita incomes are likely to return to annual growth of 2 percent over the next 2 years.