Goldsmith Paul; Mallard TrevorHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. This Government with its reckless disregard for the drivers of this economy its arrogance towards its critics its lack of self-discipline its replacement of the previous Government's clearly articulated economic plan with random and naive do-goodery is putting this country's economic prosperity at risk. A weaker national economy means fewer opportunities for New Zealanders. A weaker economy means young Kiwis will decide their prospects are better overseas—quite probably in Australia where the economy is picking up. A weaker economy means less money available for world-class healthcare for access to the latest medicines and the latest technology. It means less money available to help those in need.How can this possibly be happening at a time when our terms of trade—what New Zealand sells into the world—is at record high prices? This Government needs take some responsibility for what's going on. It needs take responsibility for business confidence falling through the floor—in particular the measure of businesses' own assessment of their future investment. The latest ANZ survey showed that the figure for New Zealand businesses' assessment of their own future activity is falling. It's now plus 14 percent which is very close to the level where the economy is starting to stall and yet Mr Parker the Minister for Economic Development says that's all junk—it's junk—and the Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters agrees with him. It's junk. Well the ANZ said in defence of their survey after Mr Parker's attack that it's a service of businesses' expectations of their own activity and that this maps well with official GDP figures produced by Statistics New Zealand … meaning it provides a reliable and robust gauge of business activity." So it's an unbelievably arrogant thing to say to call it junk. I mean in effect what he's saying is that the 1500 - odd business people who are talking about what they're planning to do in the next year don't know what they're talking about—he knows better. Their concerns aren't valid. It's no surprise that business confidence and business investment intentions are going down.Primarily it's because there is so much uncertainty in this economy. New investment leads to jobs and growth and would-be investors are keeping their hands in their pockets. Everyone I talk to is keeping their hands in their pockets and not investing because everywhere they look they see uncertainty. They don't know whether they're going to be facing a capital gains tax or not. They're uncertain about the effect of the new labour laws and the strengthening of union powers which are seeing strikes everywhere we look. They're uncertain if they're a foreign investor whether they're welcome or not—and they're probably not welcome. And they're uncertain about the decision-making processes in this Government as we've seen with the oil and gas decision where a major economic decision was made in the absence of any detailed advice and in the absence of a proper Cabinet process.They see an arrogant Government that has no sympathy with the wealth creators in this economy. We have an economic development Minister as I say who thinks that their opinion is junk; we have a workplace relations Minister who says that if they're worried about increased labour costs then businesses are just not resilient enough; and of course finally we have the regional economic development Minister who goes around attacking business leaders and calling for their sacking and their resignation.And on that point the most alarming element in that is the chaos that it points to in this Government. So we see Mr Jones and his leader Winston Peters in open defiance of the Prime Minister. Let's recall the sequence of events. He blurted out an attack—because a few days had gone past and he hadn't been in the news—on Fonterra's leaders. He had been warned by the Prime Minister before when he attacked Air New Zealand not to do it again. He did it again and then she came along and said rather hopefully "Well he was speaking in a personal capacity not as a Minister."—remember she said that four times—"end of story."—end of story. Nobody believed that but at least that might've created a fig leaf that she could've stood behind. If it'd stopped there it might've gone away but it didn't stop there of course because then immediately afterwards Shane Jones came along and rolled over that fig leaf with his steamroller and said—actually in the House—"I stand by all those statements." and continued his attack on Fonterra's leadership in this House speaking as the Minister.So he made the Prime Minister look like a twit he made her look weak and he's done it again in this House attacking Fonterra in open defiance of the Prime Minister. The only point that he's making—the message is clear that the Prime Minister may be in office but she's not in power—SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! The member's time has expired."