Goldsmith Paul: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Goldsmith Paul: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 12 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8415. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) 
: 
 It is my pleasure to speak on this bill here the Appropriation (2011/12 Financial Review) Bill. We have heard many tales of woe from the other side of the Chamber. I suppose one of the puzzles I have is why given the problems that have been outlined by the two previous speakers this Government 4 years into its period of office is retaining the levels of support that it is. They are at historic levels. You have to go back to Michael Joseph Savage I think back in the 1930s—dear fellow that he was—to see this sort of support from the public 4 years into a Government. You ask what the reason for that is. I am sure the Prime Minister’s— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the member. Can you just hold the microphone up a little bit. 
PAUL GOLDSMITH 
: How is that? Thank you Mr Chairperson. The reason we continue to have this high level of support is the Prime Minister’s leadership which is a big part of it. What I want to talk about here is the consistency and the clarity of purpose that this Government has brought to its economic programme. We have talked about the four priorities: first getting the books back in order. This Government is making very good progress on that as the figures here outline. We have halved the deficit in the last year and are on track to be back to surplus by 2014-15 which is no small achievement in a very difficult time. 
Secondly we have been focusing on improving public services. Again during a period of 3 or 4 years of tough Budgets without significant improvements it is very remarkable that all the surveys that have been taken in the public sector have shown that the public has been seeing an improvement in services notwithstanding the tight Budget constraints. 
Then we are looking at rebuilding Christchurch—everybody understands the rationale for that—and finally building a more productive and competitive economy. That has been the real challenge because getting books back into order on its own is not helping us. You need also to have that growth in productivity which is the key to our enterprise and success. So that has been about getting the incentives right. It is about rebalancing the tax system which was done in the first Budget about the welfare reform programme which continues to get incentives correctly responded to and about the Business Growth Agenda which is the core of the Government’s programme in terms of building productivity. All this is working quite well when we look at the state of the economy. Treasury forecast in December real GDP growth from 2.3 percent in 2012-13 to around 3 percent in 2013-14 and there are signs that growth has picked up in recent months. For example the volume of building work undertaken has risen in the December quarter after gaining 9.8 percent in the September quarter. Manufacturing volumes are rising notwithstanding all the heat and light that we have heard from that sector. So this Government continues. We are not giving away any gimmicks in contrast to what is being offered from the other side. 
And then we look across to what the Greens continue to talk about which is to make it difficult to either close or stop most of the industries that will grow the economy yet they blather on about the green economy as if somehow this is going to magically replace all the jobs that they will stop. Then we talk about quantitative easing. We hear a lot of talk about pulling various levers. I am not quite sure what those are other than the capital gains tax. I am quite sure there are plenty of respectable economists who will argue for a capital gains tax and plenty of other countries have it. If I could have any confidence that Labour would not introduce that just as an extra new tax on everything else and have more and more taxes then we might be more open to talking about it but I am quite confident that it will be just more and more taxes—significant taxes—that Labour is piling on right at a time when we need to be rewarding innovation and investment. A capital gains tax does not seem to be a good way to increase investment in this country. 
These figures that we have got here in the financial review are encouraging figures at a difficult time globally. New Zealand is holding its head up high and has a very clear path forward for progress. Thank you.