Falloon AndrewANDREW FALLOON (National—Rangitata): Thank you very much Mr Speaker. We've heard this afternoon that this Venture Capital Fund Bill will establish a new $300 million fund and of course it will. But sitting here as I have for the debate this afternoon you'd almost think that it's $300 million of new money such are the self-congratulations that are going on opposite in the House. Of course it's not $300 million of new money—$240 million of it is coming from the New Zealand Superannuation Fund and a further $60 million is coming from the Venture Investment Fund.I do just want to touch on a couple of points about that $240 million that's coming from the super fund because what it's doing by bringing it into this new fund is actually putting some additional obligations or additional requirements on it with the oversight of Government and certainly with the oversight of the Minister.In one of the amendments that the Finance and Expenditure Committee has made which is an amendment to clause 35 it says in there that the Minister can now direct the Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation to give consideration to the Government's commitment to an inclusive economy in its investment decisions.I don't know about other members but I actually find that quite chilling. What they're doing is they're taking $240 million from the Superannuation Fund which is set up to try and gain as much money as it can to fund future super obligations and instead they're diverting it off into another fund which is going to have ministerial oversight ministerial direction which will allow for a Minister to give guidance or direction to the Guardians to then put it into things that fit with the Government's economic policy.In fact that's spelt out quite specifically in the bill as well. Not only is it in relation to a commitment to an inclusive economy; it also refers to the Government's commitment to a low-emissions economy and also the Government's wider economic policy.I have concerns about that because what it means is that you can have a future Minister—and I'm not suggesting that Ministers opposite might do this but you can have a future I don't know Green Party Minister—who might determine that actually the Government's economic policy now is for no economic growth because we want to hear this I don't know great leap backward—and that's something that they used to advocate in the past. If they were to do that and they were to say Right we now want to have zero or low economic growth in this country because we want to pursue other economic outcomes." that means that actually this fund will not be making an economic return. It will be set up with the explicit purpose of diverting money off into other things other projects that the Government of the day might favour without actually funding things that will get a return.I now want to cover off some of the submissions that were made on the bill and one of those came from—where is it?—the Guardians themselves who have said that the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) and the Green Investment Fund are exempt from paying income tax and that this bill should be as well. I unfortunately didn't sit on the Finance and Expenditure Committee that considered this bill but that is one question I'd like to raise with the Minister during the committee of the whole House which is: if funds like the PGF and the Green Investment Fund are not going to be subject to income tax then why would this fund be subject to a tax as well?During his contribution Mark Patterson referred to this as being just part of a wider economic strategy and that made me laugh a little bit actually because what it seems to be—what we seem to have from this Government actually—is when there's anything to do with the economy it's either a negative or it's throwing money at the problem. Their proxy for good policy seems to be simply establishing funds or to set up new funds to throw money at the problem. But it's unfortunately not a proxy. They can't simply bring in $3 billion funds in the way that it is with the PGF or $300 million funds as it is with this as a proxy for good policy. We see that actually when we look at economic confidence and when we look at farmer confidence. That's now flowing through to economic growth. That's flowing through to job growth which is now flat-lining. In fact in some parts of the country it's going backwards. Unemployment in the Ashburton District for example has now tracked up for the first time in several years—1.7 to 1.8 percent. That's seeing a real impact actually. Instead of doing the real work—instead of doing things that will actually move the dial and grow the economy—they're setting up small $300 million funds of existing money—not even new money; existing money—and that seems to be their proxy for economic growth.However as has been heard on the side of the House this afternoon we will be voting for the bill because we do see it as a very small tweak a slightly positive change. As my friend and colleague Brett Hudson pointed out it was the one positive economic announcement that was made in the Budget. We on this side of the House actually think that we should be trying to encourage the Government to take on really good economic policy and really really good ideas. So in the spirit of encouraging them to do that we'll be voting for this bill and we hope that encouragement leads to some better economic policy in the future."