Ryall Tony: Industry New Zealand and Trade New Zealand Integration Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Ryall Tony: Industry New Zealand and Trade New Zealand Integration Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 10 June 2003. Volume:609;Page:6083. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon TONY RYALL (NZ National—Bay of Plenty) 
: 
 The National Party in Opposition will be supporting in principle this bill’s continuation. It is a weak and feeble step towards the National Party’s wider policy in respect of industry assistance. In fact about 32 different funds and organisations provide support for innovation and business development in New Zealand and the integration of Industry New Zealand and Trade New Zealand is but a first step. We think that the other 31 organisations need to be rolled in together because too much money is being spent on bureaucracy and all that rigmarole and photo opportunities for the Minister and not enough is going in to provide support in the areas that we need. 
The Minister who has just spoken—I think he used to be the Deputy Prime Minister of New Zealand but his party suffered such a wipe-out in the last general election—wanted to draw members’ attention to the great success of Industry New Zealand. I remind members of what that member has said about his plans for proposals for Industry New Zealand. Members should cast their minds back to 5 February 2001 to a new superyacht development in west Auckland. According to the Government that development was going to deliver hundreds of jobs and up to $600 million in export earnings over the coming years in the $18 million construction facility to be built on surplus defence land at Hobsonville by Sovereign Yachts. It was all about outstanding investment in New Zealand! Mr Anderton said that the downstream benefits of the venture would flow on to the rest of New Zealand. 
But Mr Anderton was not the only person effusive in his support for that taxpayer investment in Sovereign Yachts. The Prime Minister of New Zealand consciously went on to say that that latest investment was just a flagship of the Industry New Zealand programme and an indication of the true commitment of the Government to industry development in New Zealand. That was our Prime Minister. Sovereign Yachts was the flagship of industry development from the Labour-led Government. We now know that it has sacked most of the workforce. The Prime Minister truly has the gift of the gaffe. Time and time again we see the Prime Minister making those ridiculous statements. Here we are: a “flagship of Industry New Zealand”! 
John Carter 
: When did she say that? 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: In February 2001. The National Party is concerned that the Government would bring the bill to the House with no regulatory impact statement at all. The Parliament has absolutely no idea what effect this proposal will have on business compliance costs or regulation nor is there a cost-benefit analysis of the benefits of doing what is proposed in the bill. 
We heard in the previous debate from the junior member for the Hutt Valley about how important it was to consider cost benefit in all this stuff. As a former Minister of Commerce given the push because he could get nothing passed through the parliamentary agenda he was the guy who used to go on about regulatory impact statements and there is not one mention of that here. 
The National Party is concerned also about the over-prescriptive nature of the proposal. I want members to know that rather than saying we are amalgamating those organisations we are empowering them with a go-ahead statement of corporate intent with clear indications about what granting and assistance will be provided we have legislation that sets out that they can have one or more bank accounts. Other legislation states what they can do with their funds. It talks about what is required to execute a document. Sensible professional people are running this organisation yet this Government is giving them a law that tells them about their bank accounts how they will execute documents and it provides about 15 items that need to be included in the statement of corporate intent. No other Crown agency has a page and a half of instructions as to what must be included in its statement of corporate intent. 
Then the bill has half a page on how one actually gets a draft statement of intent from New Zealand Trade and Enterprise through to the Minister’s office and then there is another half page on what the Minister does to put a signature on it and then there is another half page on what to do if there are amendments to the draft statement. I say that if we are to have an industry support organisation it needs to be swift of foot flexible and professional. We simply do not need the overly prescriptive and detailed features that appear in this bill. 
It gets even worse. I would have thought—and Mr Edwin Perry is agreeing with this—that if we were appointing someone to run this new organisation there would be a very clear expectation as to how that person would perform. But what does the Government do? It is so worried about its appointees that clause 6 of the first schedule tells the board and staff that they have a duty to act with honesty and integrity. The Government actually has to put that in the law. Surely there would be an expectation— 
John Carter 
: Parekura would have liked that in Te Mangai Paho would he not? 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: Maybe. Then we have all this stuff about a duty to act with reasonable care diligence and skill. That is required in the law already under expectations of trusteeship or company directorship. This bill is overly prescriptive. It requires directors and management to do a myriad of things which will bog them down in too much paperwork. We on this side of the House want to be supportive of any measure that will reduce unnecessary costs to business because there are problems with the way Industry New Zealand and Trade New Zealand operate. There is simply too much money going into the administration of the grants schemes and the criteria are not appropriate for many people in business. 
For example if a small business wants to get ahead it gets a $15000 grant from Industry New Zealand and Jim Anderton gets his picture in the local paper saying how he has given the business that $15000 grant but what people are not told is that the business cannot get that $15000 until it has generated $15000 of its own money to match what Industry New Zealand is offering. If one is running a small business and trying to get an idea off the ground $15000— 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: That is nothing new. It occurred in your Government. 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: I know that that Minister with his salary may not think $15000 is a lot of money but for ordinary people who are trying to get their ideas off the ground and need a bit of support $15000 is a lot of money. The point I am making is that the Government likes to go around saying that it is giving out those grants to everybody but they are not picked up because no one has the matching funds. That is what is wrong with that scheme and the National Party in Government will be changing that. We also want to make sure— 
David Benson-Pope 
: Is that policy at last? 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: We hear “Is that policy at last?” from that member from somewhere down south. Actually this bill was our idea. We were the first to say that we should bring those organisations together but the Government does not have the intestinal fortitude to bring the other 32 grant organisations under the one umbrella as well. If that small business that I was talking about wants to get that $15000 grant there is not only Industry New Zealand and Trade New Zealand but also Technology New Zealand the Foundation for Research Science and Technology the Public Good Science Fund Fast Forward—there is a myriad of funds and organisations that businesspeople have to go to in order to get funds to try to support their ideas. 
The National Party says that that money would be much more effective if we brought it all together under one roof cut out the 30 percent that goes into administration banked those savings or used them for other industry assistance and made sure it worked. What we know works is mentoring support and advice networks. 
This party says that it is important we back the productive sector. The reason we want to back the productive sector is not that we want to own it—unlike this Government which renationalised the Accident Compensation Corporation and bought the airways and is now buying the railways and setting up its own bank. We do not think that is the role for the Government. We think the Government’s role is in providing support.