Shirley Ken: Industry New Zealand and Trade New Zealand Integration Bill — First Reading 
Shirley Ken: Industry New Zealand and Trade New Zealand Integration Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:607;Page:4351] 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY (Deputy Leader—ACT NZ) 
: 
 I listened with great interest to Mr Dail Jones of New Zealand First. I think he gave an excellent speech. He made some very good points and I would like to elaborate on some of them. But he was totally inconsistent and irrational in his analysis because he absolutely rubbished the organisation then said how happy New Zealand First was to support Industry New Zealand. In my mind those two positions are quite incongruous but be that as it may. 
What I can tell the House is that ACT New Zealand is certainly opposed to the melding of Industry New Zealand and Trade New Zealand. We actually believe that Industry New Zealand is really a political creation of Jim Anderton. It is that old Alliance party policy—I think that even Labour may have abandoned it now—of Government programming regional development. We of course heard Jim Anderton for many months claiming that he was responsible for turning round the Southland economy. He claimed that Invercargill which had been in a state of malaise for some 20 years was now booming because of his delicate hand of intervention. I think all of us knew that that was absolute baloney. The only reason that Southland had a turn-round of fortunes was the dairy industry. When the dairy price rocketed to the high of $5.70 a kilogram all those Northlanders from up the Waikato and around Matamata were buying properties down in Southland doing conversions and milking up to 1200 cows. All that investment was flowing into the rural economy and indeed that is why this Government has had such a dream run. It has nothing to do with its policies; the Government is busy messing up the fundamentals. It has been all about good export prices a relatively low dollar and good climatic conditions. What we know is that those three stars have now moved out of alignment. The dollar is going up the dairy price has gone down to—$4.70 now? Do I hear lower? 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: $3.60 and falling. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: It is $3.60 and falling unless one is a supplier to Tatua of course. So the price has gone from $5.70 down to $3.60 and falling. All of a sudden Southland does not look so wonderful and when has Jim Anderton taken responsibility for that? We do not see him. That is the nonsense of the Government’s policies in regional development. 
We have of course had generations of this. Successive socialist Governments have tried to set up regional development plans. I remember the early days of the Forest Service. It would go and burn off tracts of native bush—napalm them actually—so that it could plant pine trees in the name of regional development. Many of those trees are actually ready for harvest now but the foresters tell me that they would never bother cutting the trees down because the cost of harvesting and transport to the mill or port makes it economically unviable. Indeed on the East Coast up past Tolaga Bay it is highly questionable whether cutting down some of those forests is actually viable. All of them were planted by the State by the taxpayer in the name of regional development. It is an absolute myth. 
Then of course we have had the Government supporting the plastics factory on the West Coast and all the shams associated with that. We saw Sovereign Yachts—Jim Anderton again. His great launch of Industry New Zealand was with Sovereign Yachts but a fiasco has been associated with that. 
So we are philosophically opposed to Industry New Zealand. It is not the role of the State to try to be the benevolent helper of industry and commerce. It is that old great lie. There are three great lies and one of them is: “I’m from the Government. I’m here to help you.” Whenever people hear that they should run a mile. Whenever a bureaucrat says: “I’m from the Government. I’m here to help you.” trouble is on the way. There is nothing surer. 
When we look at the explanatory note of the bill we see that two Crown entities are going to be dissolved and a new one established which “would allow the new organisation to develop a strong commercial culture”. Do we want a body of State a bureaucratic monolith behaving commercially? ACT says no. That has never worked in the past. All it does is take taxes off business and struggling New Zealanders—so they are paying more tax than they should be—in the belief that somehow a bureaucratic monolith set up by the Government will be of help. All the evidence shows that it does not help. Actually it is a hindrance. Even Tradenz has often been more of a hindrance than a help. Such organisations cannot act commercially. They are essentially a body of State. They cannot second-guess the market. I know from personal experience of some horrendous stories of so-called help from Tradenz that has actually messed up the marketplace for commercial ventures and the thought of putting those two together—Industry New Zealand and Trade New Zealand—in one bureaucratic monolith is I and ACT New Zealand believe a recipe for disaster. 
So we will not be supporting this bill. We do not believe that it should even be referred to a select committee. In a way it is almost an admission of failure. It is really saying that these two organisations have not worked and that therefore they have to be somehow stitched together to make them viable. 
I think that Mr Jones in his speech put an alternative reflection on it. He suggested that this bill is really a way of trying to cover up the nonsenses that we have seen in recent years with Industry New Zealand by tucking it under the umbrella of Trade New Zealand to try to sanitise it. That is the impression I got from Mr Jones’ speech and that could well be the case because I think the Government must be embarrassed by the performance of Industry New Zealand—absolutely embarrassed. We have all heard some of the stories of businesses being offered huge blocks of money from Trade New Zealand. It is the old story of trying to bribe people with their own money. In other words the Government takes taxes off business takes taxes off people then employs bureaucrats in Wellington to fly around the country stay in flash hotels and go out to businesses and say: “Boy have I got a deal for you! I will give you a bundle of money if you take this grant from Trade New Zealand.” It would be far better not to take the tax off the business in the first place. 
I believe that strong independent business is the creator of wealth not the Government trying to act commercially—and that is exactly what this bill states. It mentions the development of “a strong commercial culture”. Well the thought of a big Government bureaucratic monolith trying to develop a strong commercial culture is a contradiction in terms. So ACT will be opposing this bill strenuously.