3. Economy—Growth ProjectionsHon AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn) to the Minister of FinanceEconomy—Growth Projections3. Hon AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn) to the Minister of Finance: Does he have confidence in the Government's management of the New Zealand economy?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Yes.Hon Amy Adams: What does it say about the economic management of New Zealand that the projections of the Reserve Bank Treasury and essentially all bank and independent economists are now more negative about the current state of our growth than they were at the election?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: To pick most of those entities described by the member they're all projecting 3 percent growth on average over the next three years which is the same as what was in the Government's Budget.Hon Amy Adams: Does he understand that the fact that the economy is not yet completely broken is not the same thing as saying it is not now considerably worse than it was when he inherited it?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The downward trend in GDP growth began at the beginning of 2017 well before this Government got into office. But what we have said consistently and we will continue to say is that the last Government might have been prepared to have an economy fuelled by unsustainable drivers of growth like population growth and an overheated housing market; we're not prepared for that. We want there to be good high-paying jobs over a long period for New Zealanders. That means a transition in the economy and that's what we're leading.Hon Amy Adams: Well what does it say about the Government's economic management of New Zealand that the BNZ head of research Stephen Toplis has said [W]e do not think the Government's fiscal targets will be met. GDP growth looks likely to surprise to the downside eating into revenue forecasts while the demands on expenditure will only rise."?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I respectfully disagree with Mr Toplis. The latest Government accounts to the end of May show that expenses and net debt were below forecast and the surplus was above forecast.Hon Amy Adams: What does it say about the Government's economic management of New Zealand that under this Government GDP growth has fallen to its lowest level since 2012 growth forecasts are falling GDP per capita has declined firms' views of their own activity index is at a 10-year low the service sector is down business investment is down the New Zealand dollar is falling and the only things that are increasing are the number of people on the unemployment benefit and the cost of living?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I reject various premises in that question from the member and just refer her back again to Craig Hudson the managing director at Xero who said today that business performance is doing better than it was last year. The member should stop trying to talk the economy down. People in small business out there are working hard and are growing the economy.Hon Amy Adams: Does he think it will do anything to turn around dismal levels of business confidence to have the Minister of Finance simply dismiss any negative economic analysis ignore changes in the direction of key economic indicators ignore the concerns of business owners ignore the concerns of the Governor of the Reserve Bank and Treasury and instead simply cherry-pick single lines of commentary in isolation to try to convince people that the Government's policies aren't actually hurting the economy?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: That's not what we—SPEAKER: Before the member starts I do want to warn the member her questions have got far longer than are necessary for a question. They're becoming I think it's fair to say pretty close to short speeches of the style that we don't have in our question time although other Parliaments do.Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: We're not doing the things that the member says. In fact we're working very closely across the business community and across the wider community to actually make sure that we have an economy that benefits everybody. If the member wants to talk about cherry-picking results as I noted yesterday it helps to read all the way down the page of the BNZ rather than cherry-pick the first line."