Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. I've been wondering for quite a while now why this Government's policies seem so incoherent and fail to make any coherent sense. I mean if you think about the first thing they did it was to cancel the $1000 a year tax adjustment because they were worried that wealthy families would receive too much of that and then the second thing that they did was give those same wealthy families about $6000 or $7000 worth of free tertiary education. So I couldn't work out the coherency or the logic behind those two choices. Then we heard that they were very keen to help the young people who were not in education employment or training into work and they had these schemes up in Northland that were going to help this group that they were terribly concerned about. But then on the same day they announced that they were doing away with the 90-day trials so any employer who is going to take a chance on somebody who's unskilled hasn't had any experience or comes from a different background is somehow more likely to take that chance in the absence of a 90-day trial. So there was no logic or coherency in that policy decision. Then we came along to regional development and we had our good friend Mr Jones the self-styled champion of the regions going around handing out the money in little parcels around the country in order to help with investment in the regions. But at the same time this Government was proposing massive changes to the foreign investment rules that basically said to the rest of the world Clear off. We're not interested in your investment. Don't come here please." So the regions themselves may get some extra resources from Government investment but it won't anywhere near make up for the lost investment coming into the regions from foreign investors and indeed from domestic private sector investment which has been put off by uncertainty around tax policy uncertainty around industrial relations policy and uncertainty around immigration policy. All these things add up to less investment going on in the regions. Now this week the clanger is the transport policy which renders the Government's regional economic development strategy in tatters because again we have Mr Jones talking about the provincial growth fund and $1 billion a year of investment but at the same time the transport plan sucks billions of dollars out of the planned investment in regional roads. The lifeblood of the regions such as the proposed highways into Northland that would open up that region proposed highways around Tauranga and in the South Island—all these major investments that the regions were going to see in the years ahead have been pulled away. So the investment that Shane Jones is making is being overwhelmed by the sucking out of investment from the regions in our transport policy. That's why I said at question time—and the Speaker was kind enough to not let me ask the question but it is interesting to see—SPEAKER: Order! Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: —that Shane Jones when it comes to defending the regions from big business is a tiger but when it comes to protecting the regions from his own Government in which he is part of that very Cabinet he is a pussycat. There's no question about it and it's rather embarrassing to see this man. So I've been asking myself well why is this? Why is this Government so incoherent? And of course the obvious answer is—[Interruption]SPEAKER: Order! No I am going to interrupt the member and warn Chlöe Swarbrick that she interjects or she stands but not both at the same time. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Thank you Mr Speaker. I was in full flight trying to explain this incoherency in the Government and the obvious reason for it is that it is not a coherent Government. It has three parties that are all pulling in different directions and on each given day one particular party wins a particular argument around each policy. So the Greens of course are crowing over the transport policy—they won that one on that particular day. The next day New Zealand First will win a particular argument about having lots of money to spend in the regions and all these policies fight against each other and make no sense because the Government's pulling in one direction to appease that little group on Monday. And then on Tuesday they agree to something that the other little group of the Greens or the Labour Party agrees on and on Wednesday it renders that asunder. So the country of course is left confused and befuddled by a Government that on every day is proposing things that are working in the exact opposite direction of what they proposed the day before. That is why I'm afraid we're seeing this reduction in business and consumer confidence in this country because nobody can have any clear sense—SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired."