Ryall Tony: New Zealand Trade and Enterprise Bill — Third Reading 
Ryall Tony: New Zealand Trade and Enterprise Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:609;Page:6402] 
Hon TONY RYALL (NZ National—Bay of Plenty) 
: 
 On cinema screens all around the nation tonight the new Jim Carrey film has been shown. It is called  
Bruce Almighty— 
and that was a speech from “Jim Almighty”! It is his great leadership that has given New Zealand farmers the best commodity prices in a generation it is “Jim Almighty” who has delivered the best weather conditions for a generation and it is “Jim Almighty” who has delivered the lower dollar that has really benefited provincial New Zealand and really given this country the get-up-and-go that we have seen in the last 4 years—but I thought it was all to do with the Lord Almighty and what was happening internationally! I was completely unaware that it is all to do with “Jim Almighty”. Is it not great to be “Jim Almighty” to come into Parliament— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: The member will use the correct address please. 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: Is it not great to be “Mr Anderton Almighty” who came into Parliament with 13 MPs but is now here with two? That is how great the Alliance’s policy was! Do members remember before the last election how well the Alliance was going to do out of the Jim Anderton “jobs machine”? Do members remember the spin that the Alliance would become the party of small business? It is the party only of people with small houses small cars and small minds. That is what one gets from Mr Anderton who has taken credit for everything that has gone right with the weather the dollar and international commodity prices. 
The New Zealand Trade and Enterprise Bill is a wasted opportunity. We had an opportunity to bring together the 32 different funding and granting organisations of the Government and to bring that $800 million of investment under one umbrella to remove the ridiculous duplication that people in business report—they can have five or six representatives of Government funds knocking on their doors offering money—to remove the foolish waste of public resources whereby Industry New Zealand has $130 million to give out and an administrative budget of $45 million and to remove the hideous inequity whereby the Warehouse can get a cheque for $75000 but a whole lot of small-business people with a good idea cannot get a grant because they cannot provide the matching funds. 
What sort of system gives the company of one of the richest men in New Zealand almost $100000 yet small-business people with a good idea who have not got matching funds cannot get a dollar out of the Jim Anderton “jobs machine”? What sort of economic development strategy spends hundreds of thousands of taxpayer resources on putting a failed yacht business called Sovereign Yachts into west Auckland yet the ordinary businessperson cannot get an Industry New Zealand grant because he or she has not got the $5000-$10000 of matching funds one needs to get an enterprise award? 
 What sort of economic development strategy do we have in this country when it is all about giving the Minister a photo opportunity—and if people say they do not want their photo taken with Jim Anderton the bureaucrats say: “Oh you’d better think twice about that. You might not get your cheque.”? What sort of economic development strategy do we have in this country when we have a budget of $130 million to encourage business and we are spending $45 million on the administrative overhead? What sort of country with a sensible economic development strategy has five agencies knocking on the door of a business in Auckland all offering money for virtually the same thing? It just does not make sense. It is excessive duplication and it is not delivering the results. 
What sort of economic development strategy do we have in New Zealand when the Prime Minister of this country said that the Sovereign Yachts project was the flagship of the Government’s economic development strategy and that it was going to deliver $600 million worth of exports and provide hundreds of jobs for west Auckland—and people are being laid off as this Parliament meets? This is a system that needs reform. 
It is amusing to hear Mr Anderton say that business endorses this amalgamation. The  
Independent 
 newspaper went to virtually all business organisations in this country and asked them whether they supported this bill. It could not find anyone in business who supported what is proposed in this bill. The  
Independent 
 could not find one business organisation that had even been consulted by this Government on the introduction of this bill. 
David Benson-Pope 
: What a pathetic speech! 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: I agree with Mr Benson-Pope—it is a pathetic bill. It is pathetic because it is a missed opportunity. If that member wants to keep interjecting we will start talking about what he did on the Dunedin City Council and about what he should be answering for in terms of the use of public moneys when he was on that council. He will not like it if we go through how he spent the Dunedin City Council’s money and what he spent it on when he was a member of that council. 
This bill is a wasted opportunity. New Zealand Trade and Enterprise will not survive the change of Government that is coming in this country. It will not survive. It will be changed. We will bring together the 32 different funding and grants authorities that exist because the “jobs machine” is a failure. The Prime Minister said that the Sovereign Yachts investment was the flagship that would create hundreds of millions of dollars in export earnings and hundreds of jobs in west Auckland 
Brian Connell 
: What happened? 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: Mr Connell asks what happened to the flagship. It sank. 
Brian Connell 
: Without trace. 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: There is a slight trace. There is that sort of shimmery petrol-type stuff floating on the water which is the wasted taxpayers’ money that was involved in this project. I urge the House to be well aware that this is a wasted opportunity. It is an agency that should have been expanded to include the other 32 different grants and funding organisations. It is a waste of taxpayers’ money that we have missed this opportunity. But that is what one gets from the small people who think they have a plan to run this country when really it is the productive sector that should be supported with lower taxes less regulation and a Government that is prepared to free up the economy and back the productive sector. That is not the sort of Government they are getting at the moment.