Groser Tim: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGroser Tim: General Debate[Sitting date: 23 September 2015. Volume:709;Page:6932. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon TIM GROSER (Minister of Trade): Question time yesterday was from our point of view a thing of beauty—probably not a joy for ever literally but it was certainly a very memorable question time. It was essentially the day that the Opposition yellow-carded itself. You can see how it would have happened. Some genius on the left—we will call her or him the “Homer Simpson of the left”—came up with this “brilliant” idea: “Let’s get all the Opposition political parties together. We’ll send them an email but we’d better ring up Ron Mark because he might not read it properly. We’ll get all the Opposition political parties to ask the Prime Minister the same question about his 7 years of achievements.”If you look at military strategy when you are launching an attack you start from the point of view that you do not attack the strongest person on the other side—a man at the top of his political game—and you do not attack on territory that is so easy to defend. If we think back to our military defeat in Gallipoli at least the first lord of the admiralty when he consigned so many young Australians and New Zealanders to near certain death did not actually mean for them to land on that beachhead; he meant for them to go somewhere else. But this Opposition careless of the history of how you attack and when you attack chose the strongest ground of this Government and the strongest person in this Government—the Prime Minister—to launch this attack against.And anyway—7 years—even their instincts should have told them that seven ladies and gentlemen is a dangerous number OK? If we go into religion the number 7 is God’s foundation stone. We have 7 days. If you go into the Talmud it is a universe of seven heavens. If you are a Muslim and you go on the haj you walk around the Kaaba seven times. And I understand that in traditional Jewish marriages—I have not had one yet but who knows—Hon Gerry Brownlee: You have had some.Hon TIM GROSER: Well I am just warming up basically. The bride is meant to circle the groom seven times. I have been thinking about that. I have some reflections on that but perhaps this is not the time or the place.And then we have got secular religion. What number did David Beckham haveat Manchester United? Number 7. And then when we come to the current secular God—well bar a foot trip or two—Richie McCaw what number does he have on his shirt? It is the number 7. So I would have thought that elementary reasoning and pure instinct would have said to the Opposition: don’t go there—don’t go there. Although Opposition members were screaming like jackals through every response that the Prime Minister gave they allowed our top guy an unrivalled opportunity to explain to New Zealanders what 7 years of solid stable Government looks like contrasted with situations in developed countries around the world that are anything but solid and stable. He explained exactly what this Government under his leadership has been able to deliver for New Zealanders—that is 7 years of solid achievement.The fact that Mr Little started this ill-judged attack on the issue of employment was just incredible. Here we have a situation where in the eurozone unemployment is at 12 percent. At 6 percent or thereabouts unemployment is higher than we all want it to be but we have created 199000 jobs since 2011. Actually we can be sure that since that statistic was taken it is above 200000—200000 new jobs—by following orthodox pro-growth policies that have encouraged businesses to invest in those jobs to have a situation where people can see a real future for themselves. We have—is it 11 quarters from memory—11 quarters of consecutive growth. Sorry I might be understating the record. This has produced economic growth that is the envy of many countries in the developed world. We have a situation where people are confident in coming to New Zealand. New Zealanders are returning from Australia—we have turned that shocking position round. We have had 7 years of an outstanding Government led by an outstanding Prime Minister and it is incredible that the Opposition served him up that wonderful opportunity yesterday.