Robertson Grant: New Zealand Productivity Commission Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Robertson Grant: New Zealand Productivity Commission Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 09 December 2010. Volume:669;Page:16352. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to take a—sorry about that noise. It takes me back to my old death metal days at university—a bit of feedback. 
Chris Hipkins 
: He doesn’t like feedback. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: No I do not mind feedback; not usually from Mr Hipkins though. 
We strongly support in principle the notion of having a productivity commission as my colleague Lianne Dalziel has said. From my perspective as the spokesperson on State services for the Labour Party it is a good thing. Some eyebrows might be raised on the other side of the Chamber at that statement but I think that productivity in the State sector is a big issue. Obviously I believe that we need a strong healthy State sector that provides high-quality services to New Zealanders and one issue it struggles with from time to time is productivity. 
It is a conundrum for New Zealand as to why we have consistently not been able to lift our productivity rates. Throughout the last 20 or 30 years we have struggled to see productivity rise we have lagged behind other OECD countries and questions have been asked. Productivity was at the heart of the agenda of the fifth Labour Government which aimed to raise skills and improve innovation in order to do the things that we thought would help lift our economy and improve our productivity. I think that a commission like this one is useful. If we look at Part 1 these are obviously the preliminary provisions and the bill goes into more detail in Part 2. 
The particular matter I will discuss is the definition of “productivity-related matter”. As my colleague Lianne Dalziel has said a difficult balance needs to be struck between a definition that enables plenty of scope and one that at same time is not so broad that we cannot have a good mandate for the commission. The definition of “productivity-related matter” in Part 1 is “any matter relating to productivity or improving productivity in the private sector the public sector or the economy as a whole”. It is very important that we have managed to break out the private sector public sector and the wider economy in that interpretation. Members on this side of the Chamber are very attracted to the kinds of reports that the Australian Productivity Commission has made. It has made a very wide range of reports including some on issues that people might not have traditionally seen as being about productivity but about how the Australian economy and society are developing. We think there is potential for the New Zealand Productivity Commission to do that. 
“Productivity-related matter” in clause 4 “Interpretation” has been defined pretty widely. From our point of view that is a good thing but the issue with our having done that with regard to the commission is that each Government that comes along may have a different view on exactly how it will interpret a definition that is fairly wide. 
Obviously Labour has its own concerns—which we will be raising in Part 2 when we come to talk about the Productivity Commission in detail—including the fact that we already have someone appointed to run the commission at this time. That person is Murray Sherwin. He is a respected public servant of many years’ standing but in all honesty from a personal perspective I do not see his appointment as being particularly ambitious for this commission. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Not very exciting. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: Not very exciting at all I say to Mr Mallard. That is correct—not ambitious not exciting. Murray Sherwin is a competent public servant; he is not the kind of person in my opinion who would drive the Productivity Commission to be the thing that it could be. It has the potential to harness a lot of different views from across the community the private sector and the public sector and to bring them together to face the challenge. My colleague Shane Jones has often asked what it is about the New Zealand economy that needs to be picked up and kick-started and I am sorry to say that Murray Sherwin—as competent a man as he is—will not be doing that leaving aside the question of whether having someone appointed before we have even gone through this process is appropriate. 
I would like to think that what will come out of the House tonight will be an enduring agreement about the importance of having a productivity commission. Certainly in terms of National and Labour there is consensus that this is a good idea. Mr Hide has been championing it as part of the coalition agreement between ACT and National. Its time has come but the interpretation clause tells us that there is a lot of room for manoeuvre when it comes to what constitutes a productivity-related matter. Members on this side of the Chamber certainly look to the Australian Productivity Commission. We look to some of the issues it has looked at including issues in the environmental space which are very very important. I am not so sure that Mr Hide would see those things as being quite as important but Labour can support this part.