Woolerton R Doug: Business Law Reform Bill — Second Reading 
Woolerton R Doug: Business Law Reform Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:634;Page:6150] 
R DOUG WOOLERTON (NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First will support the Business Law Reform Bill. In doing so I have to say that New Zealand First has never been in favour of increasing compliance costs taxation or any of those sorts of things. The two big parties in New Zealand have increased taxes and done all of those things perfectly well for many many years without our assistance. New Zealand First has a record of voting for tax reductions and we will continue to do so into the future. I will talk a little bit about reducing compliance costs and a little bit about the Dumping and Countervailing Duties Act for just a short period—in general terms I might add—then I am happy to leave it to other speakers. 
Before I do that for those who preach doom and gloom whether it is in New Zealand or anywhere else in the Western economies people like Brian Connell and others who are well versed in these things and whose business expertise I respect will tell them that around the Western World and in New Zealand businesses across the board—not small businesses I might tell members—are getting bigger and better and wealthier day by day. That is not always for producing the same things—the right things—or for exporting which New Zealand First favours. Often they are importing companies and financial companies. New Zealand First certainly believes in incentivising the tax system for companies—we have said that consistently—and businesses in the racing industry are some that come to mind. 
I will talk about compliance costs. We in New Zealand First believe that compliance costs should be reduced. We are certainly not in favour of extra regulation and the sorts of occupational safety and health things that Mr Connell talked about but those things are coming in. However we are in favour of reducing compliance costs where we can. 
I will talk just for a minute about dumping and countervailing duties. In this country unfortunately we have come into the situation where we are importing just about everything we use mainly from Asian countries such as China and India. Those countries have excessively low wages and excessively high inputs from their Governments—in the case of China it is a communist Government at that—yet those countries can still get their products into New Zealand. We talk about anti-dumping legislation and countervailing duty legislation that we do not use but we should be using these sorts of mechanisms to ensure that at least to some degree our manufacturers and exporters have more of an opportunity. 
I was in Australia just a little while ago— 
Craig Foss 
: How were the apples? 
R DOUG WOOLERTON 
: I will not talk about apples but Australians are pretty good at keeping our apples out of their country and at protecting theirs. But more interesting was a place called—now I have forgotten the name of it— 
Craig Foss 
: “Appleville”. 
R DOUG WOOLERTON 
: No it was where the tornadoes went through and wrecked the banana plantations down on the Queensland coast. The Prime Minister of Australia no less promised the banana growers that the Australian Government would not import bananas from other countries because it would hold the faith with the banana growers of Australia. It would hold faith let the prices rise and would not import bananas from Fiji South America or anywhere else. The price of bananas when I was over there was $14 a kilogram—huge! 
Brian Connell 
: That was the last week’s special. 
R DOUG WOOLERTON 
: I know that it is last week’s special and I know that it is last week’s news. But if we are going to talk about business business costs and countervailing duties then we need to talk about what the Australians do compared with what we do here in New Zealand. In Australia—as New Zealand First would advocate—the Government looks after its businesses. My goodness gracious me does it look after its businesses or what! 
In New Zealand if we had sectors of our manufacturing areas or our farming areas wiped out the stuff would come flooding in from any country in the world at the cheapest price possible and to heck with the local producers. But not in Australia. John Howard himself got up and promised the banana farmers that as they had had a reversal of circumstances and an act of God had come through and destroyed their crops the Government would hold the faith with them and would not import bananas in competition with theirs. The price would rise so that for the few bananas the growers had they could receive a high dollar which in some way would compensate for the losses they had had. 
We in New Zealand First believe that that is a sensible way and it is indeed a way of looking after industries in one’s own country. New Zealand First is happy to support this bill. It goes some way towards attending to the problems that we have in our industries but not nearly far enough as far as we are concerned.