Willis Nicola; Clark David; Robertson GrantNICOLA WILLIS (Deputy Leader—National): So is it the Minister's position that the savings drive outlined today is simply on par with the incredibly weak efforts that have been driven in the past and are our public servant heads therefore wrong to interpret that there is in fact a stepping up in concern and anxiety about the state of the Crown accounts? Because has the Minister realised he can't have it both ways? He can't on the one hand say to the Public Service It's really really bad now we've genuinely spent the cupboard bare" and then also turn around to this House and say "Oh look this is all just in line with what we've done previously" because the efforts previously to deliver any kind of backroom savings have been extremely poor. So which is it? Has something changed or hasn't it?Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin): I just want to bring the debate back to the Estimates hearing and some of the questions that were asked in the hearing when we met as the Finance and Expenditure Committee and just ask about some of the new productive economy initiatives in the Budget because I think that was one of the things that we covered off in the committee and came away quite impressed with. I think for the benefit of the House it would be good to hear a little bit more about some of the funding—all private and personal interests aside—around game development also around some of the science initiatives and apprenticeship development and also the green initiatives in the Budget. I think all of those things point to a higher-value economy in the future—and even Opposition members I think in the committee were impressed with some of those initiatives—and they have not been discussed in this debate. I wonder if the Minister would make a contribution on that.Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Thank you Dr Clark for that question and noting his acknowledgment of the important role that these initiatives play in creating the kind of economic growth that I think we all want and that is economic growth that is sustainable that is low emissions and that actually does create those high-paying jobs that we're all after.I'll just quickly highlight a couple of those. The first of those—and we've talked about that infrastructure we talked a little bit about skills in this debate. I do think the investment in the game development sector is a really good example of that and it's not coming from nowhere. The member who asked the question may be familiar with the concept of the Centre of Digital Excellence that has been developed in Dunedin. That is starting to bear fruit. We have seen investment across the country in the digital economy.What we did in this Budget and in these Estimates is actually step in particularly to the game development sector. Now in part that has been driven by the fact that this is a very competitive sector and one where particularly in Australia subsidies have been provided and we were at risk of losing some of the talent that we have been developing. So a 20 percent rebate that's something that's been asked for over many years. There were Ministers previously who've done the work—I know how modest the member is he wouldn't want me to mention his role in doing that. I do want to acknowledge Ginny Andersen for her role however in doing that work. It's a really important investment one that will create and retain jobs here and a good example of the kind of thing the Government can do.The second one I will briefly mention is around the question of what's called the—colloquially the "science city" initiative. The three big investments in new multi-research hubs—multi-institution research hubs to bring together the best of our private researchers our Crown research institutes our universities to actually find those opportunities both for big scientific breakthroughs but also for commercial opportunities. So three of them one in the area of health one in the area of oceans and climate and one in the area of advanced manufacturing nanotechnology—new technologies. Really big opportunities there for us to harness the benefit of all of that work across many parts of our science and innovation sector. So I thank the member for raising that.Also referring back to the last intervention from Nicola Willis I think it's really important for everybody to remember here that the Government any Government relies on the forecasts that are given to it by the Treasury. We have to make sure that we put together Budgets that are in line with those forecasts. That's exactly what you see here. It is a responsible Government that makes sure that it continues to work towards as we are our fiscal rules and to make sure that we do everything we can to support that.As I've noted three times now for the member anyone who is paying attention when the May Government accounts came out would have been able to see what was happening there. There is work to be done in response to that and work to be done to understand what the trend of that looks like. But the problem here is for people who are promising things that they don't know how to fund. If you're doing that and you're doing that in a situation as we are now with the global economy deteriorating—the IMF concerned about China issues that are still there for many New Zealand businesses and exporters. If like the National Party you don't know how you're going to pay for your promises then these sorts of situations are tricky. For us and from our point of view as we did in this Budget and as we will do into the future we will carefully balance we will look at what is there and we will respond to that in the context of the fiscal rules we have."