Cosgrove Clayton: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCosgrove Clayton: General Debate[Sitting date: 26 August 2015. Volume:708;Page:6171. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour): That speech by Paul Goldsmith said it all. When we have international economic difficulties that speech was a mixture of a blast from the past and looking across the water to other countries and other political elections and then it resonated back here to a theme that ended on the theme of Money Week. Well I say to that member if he looks for instance—and the agricultural Minister led off the general debate—at the Primary Growth Partnership which has been around I believe since about 2009 it ain’t Money Week; it has been “Money for Years” for National Party mates. That has been evidenced by the Auditor-General who said the following in respect of the Primary Growth Partnership: “It has no significant economic benefit.” I will repeat it for Mr Goldsmith: “It has no significant economic benefit.” And many of those projects are halfway through.This is a Government that confuses lethargy with strategy. It is lethargic. This is a Government whose political plan is to not react—whose Prime Minister gets up so relaxed that he is horizontal and says: “Don’t worry; it’s all under control.” He said the same thing about Solid Energy. No reaction. Disaster. I remember when this crew said the same thing in the 1990s and tried the same thing in respect of Solid Energy to flog it off and in respect of Landcorp to flog it off. When we inherited them in 2008 they were almost a basket case. We proved them up and we told those State-owned enterprises to get on with the job. Solid Energy was an export award-winning company. Landcorp was doing well. National gets in and it is at it again. No reaction. Lethargy with strategy is the confusing symbol of this Government. Do not react. Even when you are warned do not react.We have a dairy problem. The Minister for Primary Industries held up a headline saying all is great in agriculture. Well here is a cracker from senior agricultural journalist Tony Waugh. The headline says: “… Where to now for dairy industry?”. “… Where to now for dairy industry?”: that is what he said. The dairy industry is in difficulty—economically and internationally in difficulty—and the Government’s view is: “Let’s just taihoa.” Well I wonder: if certain farms go to the wall which New Zealand farmers will be in a position to pick those farms up? Whilst they are in debt up to their eyeballs whilst they are struggling with a low milk powder price I would wager—and I will take a bet with anybody maybe Mr Muller ex-Fonterra himself learned gentleman—that the boys over the water in New York in Tokyo and other places will be licking their lips to come over here and grab those farms. And the National Party—its strategy? No reaction just let it happen—just let it happen. And the Prime Minister of course I think in 2010 worried and lamented publicly that he did not want to see New Zealanders become tenants in their own land.So what this National Party’s strategy is is lethargy plus no reaction. And then we have of course a thing that has come out recently in a Treasury paper called asset recycling—no sorry capital recycling. I had better get the jargon right. The Government is after $1 billion to $2 billion of capital recycling. In English to the uninitiated that means it is trawling around to sell anything it can. It came a gutser with Solid Energy—the Government wanted to sell it. Now that it is a fire sale the Government is going to sell it all right. It is burning very very quickly and the taxpayer is up the wazoo to the tune of $389 million—$389 million and hundreds of jobs gone. Then we have Landcorp. Landcorp is doing pretty well it is doing its thing making a pretty good contribution. Oh no! Suddenly we have talk that it could be in trouble. Either this is some sort of Academy Award - winning ruse to make it look like that for once in terms of the State-owned enterprises the Government may well be being proactive—whereas Tony Ryall I do not know he was maybe attending piano lessons or something got confused for many years got distracted and just let Solid Energy fall into a hole. Suddenly either this is an Academy Award - winning performance with the Government actually looking closely at a State-owned enterprise or I would wager probably a credible agenda from this mob to try to flog it off. That is where the real agenda is—to try to flog off parts of that.I started by saying this: I think I have identified the strategy. One there is none—but what a lethargic lazy indolent and negligent lot we have over that side whose only strategy is no reaction and “She’ll be right.”