Hutchison Paul: Imprest Supply Debate 
Hutchison Paul: Imprest Supply Debate 
[Volume:628;Page:456] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 Mr Jones certainly makes a lot of noise and not necessarily a lot of sense although I must say that he did give an excellent maiden speech the other day. 
I want to spend my time tonight discussing an area that has been woefully neglected by this Labour Government and that is science and technology. We immediately hear the shrill cacophony of scorn from the Government. But this is quite serious. Let us look at the  
New Zealand Herald  
of 14 November. “No way to treat a scientist” was the headline. “There was a grim irony in Industrial Research’s announcement that it was to close its research sites in the country’s two main industrial centres and make about 20 scientists redundant.” It goes on: “The state-owned institute’s decision was made public on the same day that the speech from the throne declared that ‘science and innovation are critical to driving our prosperity’.” The contrariness did not end there. A day later the chief executive of AgResearch warned of a looming shortfall in scientific brainpower. 
We have heard the Government say time and time again how much it has spent or invested in the area of research and development over the last few years. But the facts are quite different. Let us look at the 2004 research and development survey which states quite clearly that Government spending on research and development excluding universities in 1998 was 0.39 percent of GDP but by 2004 had fallen to 0.36 percent. But then let us look at the universities. We see that in 1998 Government spending on universities for research was 0.4 percent of GDP but by 2004 it had fallen to 0.33 percent of GDP. Who was presiding over this? It was none other than Steve Maharey. 
It is no wonder the universities do not like Mr Maharey very much and no wonder they were very glad to get rid of him because he is the man who presided over the creation of the Tertiary Education Commission New Zealand’s most bloated and fastest-growing bureaucracy. The wananga is just a side effect of one of the other things he did. But he is the man who has now come over to science and technology. 
What we must not do however is to forget his predecessor in science research and development. It was none other than Labour’s own billion-dollar mistake man the Hon Pete Hodgson. He came to this Parliament and said: “I’m going to write out a cheque for $500 million because of our Kyoto Protocol policy.” He has created the biggest fiscal mistake in the history of the New Zealand Parliament by being just plain stupid. He was the Minister of Research Science and Technology and he is now the Minister of Health. It is absolutely vital that we do not forget his legacy. What did he do for scientists? What did scientists say about Pete Hodgson? They said that his policies were all over the place absolutely ad hoc with no recognition of the long-term requirements of scientists and no recognition of the huge importance of planning. 
But what about the compliance costs? I will repeat what one of the doctors from Industrial Research Ltd Dr David Hayward had to say. He might not have lost his job but he said: “The disintegration of IRL highlighted the funding system that required a staggering amount of scientists’ time. The bureaucracy meant it virtually cost more to apply for funding than the funding itself was worth.” That is the sort of tangled bureaucracy and hurdles that the Labour Government has created over the last 6 years in the area of science and technology not only in terms of funding grants but also in terms of a regulation regime that is one of the most complicated in the world and that has caused New Zealand scientists in the biotechnology area to leave this country. The legacy in science and technology left by this Labour Government is woeful.