Mapp Wayne: State Sector Management Bill — First Reading 
Mapp Wayne: State Sector Management Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:666;Page:13698] 
Hon Dr WAYNE MAPP (Minister of Research Science and Technology) 
: 
 I am taking a call on the State Sector Management Bill in my role as the Minister of Research Science and Technology. In due course that title will change to the Minister of Science and Innovation. I will spend the bulk of my speech on those points. 
Chris Hipkins 
: Is he still the political correctness eradicator? 
Hon Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: I say to the previous speaker Chris Hipkins who raised all sorts of straw man arguments that he needs to remember that when we became the Government we inherited a National Library that was in huge physical disrepair. That party over there spent 9 years in Government with 9 years of surpluses and it did nothing. The previous Labour Government passed on along with the rest of the problems in the Government sector a National Library that was in physical disrepair. So if members of the public wonder why they are not able to access the library at the moment I say it is because tens and tens of millions of dollars are being spent to refurbish that facility—$52 million in fact I am informed by the Minister of Internal Affairs. That will lead to a greatly improved facility. The reason why in the past the Treaty of Waitangi was damaged was that it had not been properly cared for. A new properly refurbished library should have been provided years ago. We are providing it now. We will ensure that that sort of disgrace will never again occur. I can only say to the previous member that that was simply mock outrage on his part. 
I will get on to the more important and for me the material part of the bill. The bill is significant in that it merges the Ministry of Research Science and Technology and the Foundation for Research Science and Technology into a single new ministry to be called the Ministry of Science and Innovation. That amongst other reasons is why this process is truncated. Mr Shearer talked about the problems of transition. There is no doubt that during a period of transition staff become concerned; they worry about their futures and so forth. It is extremely important that when we go through a transition of this nature it is done quickly. That is one of the lessons that Sir Roger Douglas puts out as one of the key principles of reform—to do it quickly because that minimises disruption and enables people to get on with things and look to the future. That is one of the reasons why there is a shortened period. When a reform is fundamentally about the internal processes of Government it is appropriate in that case to have a somewhat shorter process than might otherwise be the case. 
The merger of the two organisations is part of the fundamental reforms that are occurring in the research science and technology sector. There are four parts to them. The first was to get a clearer set of priorities. The previous Government simply had not done that in its 9 years in office. I inherited a sector that frankly was disillusioned and dispirited. Certainly some things had been done in the previous 9 years but an ad hoc approach had occurred over a number of years and there was no real sense of direction or sense of priorities. The very first thing that needed to be sorted out was getting a strategic sense. Last year we set out in a document much more transparent Government priorities. That made it apparent to the sector what the Government saw as the key priorities. Those priorities are at the centre of this Government’s reform process: improving the performance of the economy. The reason for that is that in the previous 5 years export performance in this nation had been fundamentally flat. There had been a huge growth of credit and we are reaping the consequences of that today. 
When the Government talks about the years of economic mismanagement by the previous Government it is focusing on quite specific things: the fact that under the previous Government economic performance had been flat for 5 years; and the fact that there had been a substantial growth in the public sector which was essentially squeezing investment out of the private sector and leading to an excessive growth of credit. We have to deal with the consequences of that today. We have to put that right and this reform is part of that package. Science and innovation form one of the six key drivers of this Government’s agenda. 
The second stage of the science and innovation reforms was the work of the Crown Research Institute Taskforce. It has been well accepted around this House and I do acknowledge Mr Shearer’s acceptance of the importance of that work. That is being implemented now. 
The third phase of the reforms was primarily the 2010 Budget which followed on from the increase in fundamental science funding in the 2009 Budget. In this area the two Budgets have to be seen as a package: 2009 was fundamentally focused on science; 2010 was more focused on business. Seen as a package there has been a significant increase in overall science expenditure: nearly $100 million in the space of 18 months across the two Budgets. That is quite significant in the circumstances that we face when we consider that the Government has a deficit in the region of $9 billion—nearly 4 percent of GDP. It is a significant challenge to increase funding in those circumstances so I am surprised that the Opposition is not willing to acknowledge the challenge of increasing expenditure in a particular sector in the face of such substantial deficits. One needs to remind the Opposition members from time to time that they had 9 years of surpluses while they were in Government. Some of those surpluses were produced by increased taxes but some of them were produced by overall increased economic activity during their 9 years in Government. It is much more difficult to do these things in the circumstances of the current Government and the previous Government needs to recognise what we have had to inherit compared with what it inherited from us in 1999. 
The fourth component of the reforms is the one that we are dealing with today: the merger and renaming of the institutions and I want to emphasise that particular point. Research science and technology are three words that as a package tend to convey an impression that the ministry is primarily about the public sector as opposed to the private sector. The Ministry of Science and Innovation has two elements to it. Firstly that simplifies the title; that is self-evident. But it also indicates much more a sense of direction for the package. There is science which is more public sector - related and we have innovation which is more private sector - related. The new name is intended to indicate to the sector and more broadly outside the sector the direction of travel for this new ministry. 
Although there will be some savings from the establishment of the ministry that is not the prime reason for making this reform. The prime reason is to have a more effective ministry that will drive ahead this element of the Government’s agenda and start to get a framework in place that will enable greater effectiveness in terms of the expenditure that New Zealand taxpayers make. I understand that people say there should be greater expenditure. I understand that a number of other nations with which we might compare ourselves spend more than we do—although it is fair to note that they have a larger industrial component to their economies than we do and that explains some of the difference. 
In closing the package of reforms that I have described is intended to lead to a cultural as well as an economic change. It is intended to say to the sector and to the private businesses that interact with it that this represents an opportunity that the Government is backing the sector and that we are looking at ways both in Budget 2010 as that is rolled out and also in the future to see what we can do better in a time of economic strictures. We will focus diligently over the next period of time on enhancing this sector. I have two portfolios. I understand that this portfolio is crucial to New Zealand’s economic future and growth prospects and in my role as the Minister I intend to do everything that I possibly can to realise the potential of the sector.