Verrall AyeshaHon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Labour): Well there's clearly some confusion in the House tonight. We've heard David Seymour the Minister responsible for this bill describe the Productivity Commission's advice as a taonga. He's recognised its highly cited reports as assets for the whole country and yet he is getting rid of it. My colleagues on this side of the House have already spoken on the irony of some of those changes but I would just like to make the simple point that surely improving productivity to drive prosperity for all New Zealanders would be something everyone could agree on. And it seems like we are all in agreement that the Productivity Commission does excellent work to this end. So why is it that they are being disestablished?One of the opportunities I had was to visit innovative businesses and scientists around the country when I was Minister for Research Science and Innovation. The Productivity Commission did multiple pieces of work in this area as my colleague Grant Robertson has already outlined and there is so much opportunity for us to raise productivity in New Zealand that is unrealised. We have had pieces of work done that can create robotics for picking fruit for example that would mean that we would not be so dependent on the vagaries of international labour supply for doing that job. And yet industry has not been able to take that up. Now I was lucky also in my role as Minister of Research Science and Innovation to be able to visit a country that took that work seriously. I visited Singapore where they had a programme an $800 million multi-year programme to improve the uptake of artificial intelligence (AI) by industry in order to improve productivity. They were doing things like reaching out to small business and building small businesses' skills in artificial intelligence as well as making sure they had world-class scientists to be able to help their big firms take up the latest opportunities in AI.There is plenty of work to do in improving productivity and yet it seems like this Government is closing the door on those opportunities for all of us. And if we're to believe David Seymour's rationale for why he's doing this he's doing this so he can have a ministry of regulation. While my colleague James Shaw has made a contribution saying that isn't the point it's about the only point we have to go on in this argument so we'll look into that. Well it would be great if we had the opportunity for example as this ministry has intended to do to look into regulatory impact statements. I'd love to see a regulatory impact statement on this bill. That would be fantastic—not to mention all of the other things that this Government is repealing all of the legislation across health and across justice that is being repealed without a regulatory statement. It just shows the complete hypocrisy of this Government when it comes to making good regulation and that this is just a mere fig leaf for the fact that as my colleague has said David Seymour wants a little piece of the Public Service to call his own and something to lord over his predecessors.The case has not been made for the removal of the Productivity Commission. There is no shortage of work to do to improve productivity. There is a number of good economists and other scientists who have done work in this area and yet we see that while complimenting them the Minister is cruelly disestablishing their jobs. This remains an important area of work for our country to work on to make sure that there are opportunities for all New Zealanders to participate in the economy.I can't help but think that there's some truth to the allegation that my colleague cited in the press about the politicisation of the Productivity Commission's advice. I wonder if the Government is threatened by receiving reports that point to persistent inequality in our community as a sign of poor productivity and high housing prices as a barrier to everyone being able to participate fully in the economy. It does seem like there's a fear of receiving advice amongst this Government that means that the sources of advice that are challenging unpopular—but are actually what needs to be heard from time to time—are being disestablished. This bill will be no good for New Zealand and I'm proud to have had the opportunity to speak against it tonight.