Parker David: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Parker David: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:665;Page:12674] 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 The Prime Minister was elected following a campaign where he promised that New Zealand would catch up with the fortunes of Australia and that he would close the wage gap. So at this time it is appropriate to consider what success or otherwise there has been on the part of the Prime Minister through the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and through the other departments that that department oversees in terms of that ambition. 
The Government promised us a step change in the New Zealand economy. That was the other mantra the Government used. It was going to have a step change in the New Zealand economy and that would cause New Zealand to catch up with Australia. The Government promised at the start that this would be achieved by 2025 but then of course since promising that date the Government has refused to say what an intermediate step towards that goal is. The year 2025 is 15 years away. By then very few of the people who are sitting in this Parliament will still be here. The National Party will be long out of Government. Even in National’s wildest dreams it does not realistically expect to be in office for five terms in a row. It has never happened previously in New Zealand’s history and given the Government’s lamentable performance on economic matters it certainly will not last for five terms. 
How do we judge the Government as to its performance between now and then? It is very difficult for the public to judge because the Government will not set out an intermediate goal. What has the Government done? What have its step changes been? Bill English is the Minister in the chair and he is the man who described John Key when he was talking at a National Party conference as “hopping from cloud to cloud”. He was right in that statement because we can see what has happened since then. There has been the cycleway which was going to be part of the cure. We have had a 9-day working fortnight which was going to be important but it came to nothing of significance. We had the most recent plan of Chinese investment in broadband but that has not come to fruition and it does not look like it will. We have had the assertion that New Zealand will somehow become a financial services hub in the world. That is a good ambition but that is not going to come pass. The Minister for Economic Development has not even taken a paper to Cabinet in respect of that ambition. We know that Australia which has far deeper capital markets has a far greater chance of being a financial services hub than New Zealand. Of course Australia is competing for that same space. So that plan is not going to come off either. 
Then of course the Minister for Economic Development planned to give a shot in the arm to the mining industry by mining our national parks. No one denies that there is a role for mining in New Zealand; no one denies that. There is a role outside of national parks and it is an important role. Indeed the previous Government was doing a lot to stimulate interest in the petroleum industry. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: We dug a lot of holes. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: We did. That Government funded $20 million of data acquisition because we needed gas and oil. If we are going to be using oil for the next few decades we should be using our own rather than importing it from Saudi Arabia. That is not a step change I say to Mr English who is in the chair because that was happening already. What did we have next? The Government says that New Zealand will be catching up with Australia so we have been trying to ask the Government what its intermediate targets are. What does it tell us? The Government does not have any. The Government will not give us one target by which it can be held accountable. 
I thought I would go back to a more general level today and ask the Minister for Economic Development at question time what the income gap difference is. Given that National campaigned on this very issue I thought he might take a stab at it. He did not know. It surprises me that we can have a Government elected on the mantra that it will close the income gap with Australia and its Minister for Economic Development is not able to tell the House what the income gap currently is. I thought that OK he might not know the specific figure. How about a rough idea? Can we have a rough idea of the difference? What was the answer? No we could not even have that because the Minister for Economic Development did not know. I forgive him for not knowing the exact figure. I find it surprising that he did not know the estimated amount. [ 
Interruption 
] John Key is responsible for this. Then the Minister said that the gap is getting smaller. Mr Brownlee can expect some questions on that issue tomorrow. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Heads up. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: Heads up! I encourage the Minister to do a bit of swotting because I am not sure he is right. How can that be so? In fact I am sure the Minister is wrong. Australia’s growth rate has been higher since this Government came into office. The per capita GDP gap which is one measure of income has increased under the National Government. The wage and salary gap has become bigger because we know that wages and salaries have been going up at a higher rate in Australia than in New Zealand. In terms of salary and wages the gap has got bigger not smaller. If we take it per available member of the labour force it is even worse because not only has Australia had wage growth but it has had employment growth while New Zealand has had unemployment growth. Whichever way we cut it I say to Mr English who is in the chair or to Mr Brownlee who I see is in the House the wage gap between New Zealand and Australia has not been going down contrary to Mr Brownlee’s belief at question time today. It is going in the opposite direction. I have to say that I am surprised that Mr Brownlee did not know that. [ 
Interruption 
] The Prime Minister will know that or should know that. 
Hon Annette King 
: I think he should. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: If the Prime Minister has not been advised of that I would say that we should not be voting the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet any money because the reality is that this was one of the Government’s promises. It was going to close the gap and it is going in the wrong direction. 
I turn to another area where policy is confused. The Prime Minister said yesterday at the post-Cabinet press conference that the Government is going to slow down on its review of overseas ownership rules. Just months ago Bill English said we needed to make it easier for foreigners to buy assets in New Zealand and indeed John Key said proudly that he had already done a deal with the Australians to make it easier for them to invest in assets. Now the Government is slowing down. That seems to me a little inconsistent with what the Government was doing earlier. 
The Government does not know where to go on this issue. The Government knows from Federated Farmers’ criticisms from the wider public opinion and from things that the Labour Party and the Greens have been saying that increased rates of foreign ownership in either infrastructure assets or land are problematic and should not be agreed. Rather than making it easier to sell those assets overseas the Minister should be properly exercising his discretion and not allowing the wholesale sale of our farms to overseas interests. The world has changed in the last couple of years. Credit is not easily available. We ought not to be pricing those assets in a way that it is in an international market rather than in a local market. Amy Adams asked earlier why we are going to stop those people selling those assets overseas as if that was inherent in their property right. It never has been I say to the member. The New Zealand property right in rural land has always been subject to restrictions in the national interest as to whether they should be sold overseas. 
Amy Adams 
: He was talking about Synlait; he was talking about shares in Synlait which is not land. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: He was not. He was also talking about farmland. 
Amy Adams 
: If you’re going to criticise me get it right. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: I ask Amy Adams whether you are now on record as saying that you oppose the sale of farmland of Crafar farms to China. Unless you are that is hollow talk. The reality is that the world has changed. 
Hon Bill English 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. The Opposition speakers are continually referring to “you” which is not only rude but outside the Standing Orders. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: The Minister is right. Members should not draw the Chair into the debate. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: That is the only contribution we have heard from the Minister in the chair and again it was about process. There is no substance at all from this Government because it does not have a plan. 
Do members know what the big gap is between New Zealand and Australia? It is savings. What has the Government done? It has eroded the incentives for savings in New Zealand. New Zealand is going in the wrong direction on savings incentives at the very time when Australia is improving its rate of savings. This Government is without a coherent plan. Labour voted for some of the reforms to the Resource Management Act. We thought they were quite sensible. But that will not cause an economic step change in New Zealand. There was always exaggeration as to the part that the Resource Management Act played in New Zealand’s economic growth and that is evidenced by the fact that we do not have some great surging growth or step change as a consequence of the changes to the Resource Management Act. 
We have no plan from the Government. It is setting up a Productivity Commission. Our concern is that the commission will be narrowly focused on deregulation rather than on wider issues. I am sure that the Productivity Commission in Australia which the Government says our Productivity Commission is modelled on would have opposed the abolition of the research and development tax credits and would have opposed the cuts to KiwiSaver at the time when capital markets have been grown by increased savings in Australia. I have not heard the Productivity Commission in Australia come out and say that they should be flogging off their assets like their rural land to people overseas. 
The step change in the economy that the Government has promised has not come to pass. The lack of a plan from the Minister for Economic Development given the failure of his plan to mine national parks has shown up for people the absence of a coherent plan to grow New Zealand incomes and to grow jobs. Instead the Government is resorting to making it easier for people overseas to buy our assets rather than curing our savings problem.