Guy Nathan: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGuy Nathan: General Debate[Sitting date: 06 November 2013. Volume:694;Page:14409. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon NATHAN GUY (Minister for Primary Industries): Labour is not on the move. I will tell you what: Labour is so disappointed with those figures that are out today. It is so depressed about those figures out today because the economy is growing. Those figures out today prove it. The Opposition finance spokesperson David Parker knows that the economy is moving and unemployment is on its way down from 6.4 percent to 6.2 percent. That is fantastic when you consider all of the issues that this Government has had to deal with. The unemployment rate was 7.2 percent a year ago. Our policies are making a difference. Our policies are really getting cut-through. Of course when you consider that our economy is growing by 2.5 percent and then you have a bank like Westpac out there forecasting 4 percent next year it is no wonder that the Labour Party is depressed.For Mr Parker to get up here and say that Labour is on the move from its conference—I cannot believe it. The only thing that I heard that came out of its conference was the man ban. The only thing that came out was that it is back talking about the man ban again and half of the male members in the Labour caucus are really worried about that.Of course the business confidence which Mr Parker did not want to talk about is at an all-time high over the last 14 years. He forgot to mention that. Those members on the other side of the House do not trust business but over here we do. The business confidence surveys are backing this Government.What I want to also address this afternoon is the importance of regional infrastructure and investment the importance of innovation and how we are going to continue to grow our exports. Importantly when you think about the Opposition and I thought this article in theNew Zealand Herald recently summed it up really well you have Russel Norman over there objecting to pretty much everything—in fact he did. He objected to everything: the Trans-Pacific Partnership Skycity the Ruataniwha Water Storage project deep-sea oil exploration the Denniston mine the Pūhoi to Wellsford motorway saying Steven Joyce is agreeing with everything and then saying on the monorail that the Minister of Conservation still has to decide on that one—the list goes on.Then you had Mr Cunliffe in the middle where he could not decide anything—weasel words. Paula Bennett is exactly right: “Yeah nah yeah nah we are not really sure.”Let us think about the project just up the road from me Transmission Gully. Labour is not quite sure whether it should back that or not. Then you move up into my neck of the woods the Kapiti Expressway and Labour is opposed to that. How are we going to get the region of Manawatū-Whanganui which needs a bit of a kick-start moving up? We are going to need to invest in decent infrastructure. But our opponents over there are against the 1000 jobs to be created in my electorate when the road is built. They are against it.Then you move on to water storage projects. We know that the Greens over there are against it. We could tell from their questioning today from Russel Norman. Then you get into the “Yeah nah.” over on the other side. They are not quite sure. On one handyou have got David Cunliffe saying “Yeah nah.” but then you have Ruth Dyson recently in the paper talking about the Ruataniwha Water Storage project where she said that the Government would be irresponsible to proceed with this scheme. So once again “Yeah nah.” They are not really sure about investing in the regional economy. They are not sure about the $4 billion of exports that decent water storage and irrigation projects would create.The other thing that is really important is investing in innovation. We need to invest in innovation. That is why we are investing in the Primary Growth Partnership. It is a very very successful innovation project. There are 16 projects and $684 million invested by industry and backed by the Government. You had David Shearer when he was the leader out there saying that increasing spending on innovation is a crucial step for the New Zealand economy. So on that side of the House you should have them supporting the Primary Growth Partnership but they want to attack it negatively. They want to attack investment in our primary industries. I cannot believe it. They should be out there supporting it.Then we move into trade. Then we move into trade. Phil Goff knows the importance of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Phil Goff should stand up in his call this afternoon and say that Labour is going to back and support the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Will Mr Goff say that this afternoon? Well we look forward to Mr Goff standing up this afternoon and saying that Labour is going to back the Trans-Pacific Partnership worth $2 billion in exports. I bet he does not.