Copeland Gordon: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Copeland Gordon: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:629;Page:1287] 
GORDON COPELAND (United Future) 
: 
 Whilst we here in this House continue our debate on the Prime Minister’s statement to open the new parliamentary year we need to be very very conscious indeed that for the people of New Zealand particularly business people life has just got considerably more difficult. They are faced with rising interest rates and a relatively high exchange rate. Perhaps most important of all we have just seen in recent surveys that the confidence of business people looking forward has dropped quite dramatically. Given those realities in the next 3 years we in this House need to concentrate on trying to improve the New Zealand economy and the conditions of doing business in this country. 
I mention in that connection a number of matters that have been raised by the Prime Minister in her statement. First of all though she failed to say that the carbon tax has gone. It was not gone by lunchtime but it was gone by Christmas. I remind the House that in the 2005 Budget the Minister of Finance announced that a carbon tax would be levied on the people of this country to the tune of $322 million per annum. I am very delighted to be able to tell the House that the carbon tax is gone and that New Zealanders will therefore be relieved of a $322 million per annum impost from the Government. Why? The reason is that in order to gain the support of United Future on confidence and supply the Labour Government was somewhat forced to back down and remove the carbon tax. It is just as well the carbon tax has gone because as the officials’ papers show it would have had a minuscule impact on the volume of greenhouse gases in New Zealand which was the original logic for bringing it in. It was a flawed policy. I for one am glad to see the end of it as are most businesses. 
The Prime Minister also mentioned that a review of business tax would take place during this term of Parliament. It is interesting to remind people of what the situation of the various parties was at the last election. The Labour Party firmly ruled out any reduction in business taxation in New Zealand. The National Party was I suppose one might say a little more in favour of the idea. It said that yes it would have a reduction in business tax but not until 2008. In 2008 National was going to drop the rate of business tax by 10 percent from 33c to 30c. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the member but members must be seated. It is a courtesy. I ask them to please not stand and talk while the member is speaking. I am sorry Mr Copeland. 
GORDON COPELAND 
: Thank you for that intervention Madam Assistant Speaker. I should mention that during the election no policy commitment came from New Zealand First to cut business tax. But United Future went to the electorate and said that it wanted to promote very vigorously in this Parliament a reduction in business tax. Again as a result of our confidence and supply agreement that is now going to happen. A cut in the rate of business tax in this country will occur during the next couple of years and I believe that it is timely and overdue. 
The Prime Minister laid stress on the fact that we want to incentivise productivity gains and make New Zealand more competitive with Australia. We must in fact do both those things if we are to see our economy grow and New Zealand prosper so that people can make proper provision for their families and so that for a lot of them they can start to address the significant debt burden so many families now find themselves in. 
The Prime Minister also laid stress on the need to provide more support for exports. I must say that for some time I have thought about the question of how we go about getting more growth in our exports. In fact back in I think the year 2003 I sent the Minister of Finance a list of 12 ways in which we could boost exports from this country only to be told in the majority of cases that they would breach World Trade Organization rules which forbid any kind of subsidisation of a country’s exports. So in this particular area I am really beginning to think that if we are to see exports grow then exporters themselves will have to take a major initiative. I am interested in getting away from rhetoric and in doing things that actually work. I suggest to exporters that in Fonterra and Zespri we have models to build on in terms of building strong exports going forward. Both Fonterra and Zespri bring together all the players in the industry and create a single desk for exports. They have a company formed with individual exporters as shareholders whose sole job is to seek discover and develop export markets for New Zealanders and New Zealand businesses. 
It is also very important in my view that we bring the price of electricity down. For many years surveys have been done amongst Grey Power members whose No. 1 issue for a long time was elective surgery. For Grey Power members now the No. 1 issue is the rising price of electricity. That is not surprising because the price of electricity last year went up to somewhere between 25 and 40 percent—depending on which set of figures one uses—in one single year. That is far too much. The Government must therefore look at ways and means of ensuring that our electricity prices come down. 
We in United Future have some worthwhile suggestions to make in that regard. For example we believe that Transpower should fund the upgrade of the national grid solely from debt financing—debt financing borrowed by the Government against its balance sheet and repaid over a 30 or 40-year period—so that we spread the cost of that investment which has to be made in the interests of our electricity system across if you like several generations. We believe that we must bring down the cost as much as we possibly can so that we can give a shot in the arm to our businesses and also keep electricity prices affordable particularly for our elderly.