Rich Katherine: Budget Debate 
Rich Katherine: Budget Debate 
[Volume:631;Page:3370] 
KATHERINE RICH (National) 
: 
 She is bitter all right she is bitter! For those listeners who have just tuned in that was the valedictory speech of Jill Pettis. Anybody who has read the  
Sunday Star-Times 
 will see that she is on Helen Clark’s hit list. No doubt some backroom deals are going on but I doubt whether Jill Pettis has been offered anything other than being Ambassador to Namibia right now. The Ambassador to Namibia is all that is on offer for Jill Pettis. Was it not rather telling that that member started to talk about the Budget in only the last minute of her speech? That bitter and twisted diatribe about all and sundry had nothing to do with the Budget we heard delivered last Thursday. 
In last Thursday’s Budget there was nothing for business—not one sausage not one skerrick that will make any difference to business here in New Zealand. All the Government did with last Thursday’s announcement was confirm a total lack of understanding about business and what it takes to create an economic environment that will make it easier to do business in this country not harder. 
Of course there has been the endless self-congratulation about Lianne Dalziel’s review into business regulation and compliance costs. I say there is something quite wrong with a Government that thinks announcing another business review is something to celebrate. There is nothing to celebrate in announcing a review. It might be newsworthy but it is not exciting. Actually doing something as a result of a review is exciting and that is what this Government has no track record in doing. 
Leading up to Monday’s announcement there was that predictable release to the local papers telling reporters what Lianne Dalziel would announce. She launched her new image—with some nice pictures I have to say—and the idea that she was looking across the ditch to Australia to get some new ideas about looking at regulatory reform here in New Zealand. She was drawing on the work of Gary Banks who has recently written a paper called  
Rethinking Regulation 
. The build-up to the announcement got many business people thinking that something would be done—the expectation was built that there would be something in the review for them perhaps a tax cut perhaps some announcement into the area of employment law reform or perhaps changes to the Holidays Act. Businesses rightly had their expectation raised but there was none of that. What was the announcement? Another review. 
Well the response from business was understandably cynical because they had seen it all before. The rhetoric surrounding this review was exactly the same as it was in all the previous reviews that had been announced. Members who have been here a while will remember the Ministerial Panel on Business Compliance Costs in 2000 launched by Paul Swain the then Minister for Small Business. Paul Swain said that he would be the Minister who would “wage war on red tape”. The objectives of his review were pretty interesting. I will read them: “The objective of the Panel will be to provide advice to the Government on ways to reduce unnecessary and over-burdensome compliance costs to business arising from central and local Government regulation (excluding tax legislation).”—of course—“This may lead to either the amendment or repeal of existing regulation or to changing administration procedures.” That was written 6 years ago. 
What Lianne Dalziel announced had some business people quite rightly feeling a sense of déjà vu. Certainly their complaints have not stopped and business has not seen any result of that compliance cost review. That is why business people are suitably cynical about what Lianne Dalziel has announced. Ministers Tamihere Hodgson and Barker—who were also Ministers for Small Business—announced similar kinds of initiatives— 
Simon Power 
: It’s a powerful line-up. 
KATHERINE RICH 
: Yes absolutely. Although Lianne Dalziel likes to pride her Government on having a Minister for Small Business there have been so many of them that I wonder why she thinks it is something to celebrate. There have been so many business-oriented reviews strategy papers and blueprints it is no wonder yet another review has drawn an audible groan from business people asking whether they have to go through one again. I ask members about the reports from the Small Business Advisory Group. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: In the bin. 
KATHERINE RICH 
: The first report went in the bin; the second report is obviously in the bin. If I was sitting on the Small Business Advisory Group I would be wondering why I was wasting my time. Time and time again business people put forward their recommendations to this Government and they amount to absolutely zip. This Government continues to commission advice and reviews then does nothing about the advice when it is received. That is because the Government’s approach is all wrong. 
On Monday we saw the Government congratulating itself and saying how great it was because it had commissioned a review. I think that is more indicative of this Government and what it thinks should be celebrated than of anything else. There have been so many reviews in the business area that it is not funny. There was the McLeod Tax Review and there have been reviews done on the Holidays Act the Employment Relations Act and in other areas of business compliance costs. Lianne Dalziel has all the information there; she need only dust off her own copy of the report of the Ministerial Panel on Business Compliance Costs. It is all there but she chooses not to follow it and commissions yet another review. 
The funny thing about Lianne Dalziel’s review panel is that it is all made up of bureaucrats. At least Paul Swain’s panel was made up of business people. 
Simon Power 
: Good old “Swainy”! 
KATHERINE RICH 
: At least good old “Swainy” had a few clues. The panel that will be set up by Lianne Dalziel is stocked full of bureaucrats. Will they really find the answers to problems troubling New Zealand businesses? I do not think so particularly when this Government has said that it does not want any recommendations to do with tax employment law the Holidays Act or the Health and Safety in Employment Act. The Government has its ideological blinkers on and somehow thinks that a silver bullet solution will come from some other area and not from the big areas business is currently troubled by. That is one concern. 
We also need to look at economic development. This magical $64 million was announced that would go towards new business grant programmes but the very very small print stated that this was not new money; it was reallocated funding. So there was not even new money to help businesses go to trade fairs and do all the other things that will make a big difference. 
Jill Pettis 
: Ten minutes and not one policy. 
KATHERINE RICH 
: Jill Pettis says I should be talking about policy. I would think a member who had been here long enough would know that this is actually a speech on the Budget. Members are supposed to be talking about the Budget. It is fine coming from someone who spent only the last 60 seconds of her speech actually talking about it. She managed to totally ignore the Budget in her speech but because she knows so little about what we are doing here in the House today she does not know that what I have been just discussing is totally about what is in the Budget—in fact my speech has been solely on the Budget. I think she needs to go back to her office and fill out her CV and perhaps raise her sights above being the Ambassador for Namibia—a good place to send Jill Pettis—and take things from there. 
National would have liked to see in this Budget something tangible for business—something that would really have made a difference to all those businesses out there currently struggling under a poultice of regulation. When Helen Clark stood in this House at the beginning of the year and said she would take a fresh look at regulation most people thought that would mean less regulation not more. Although this Government continues to spout out the rhetoric of being business-friendly it has not made one significant difference for business that will make it easier—not harder—to do business in this country.