Groser Tim: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Groser Tim: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 07 November 2012. Volume:685;Page:6364. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon TIM GROSER (Minister of Trade) 
: 
 We all know the clichés about being in Opposition and they all add up to one and the same thing—it is not a pretty place to be. It is particularly difficult when you are in Opposition when you are clearly facing an internal leadership crisis of the type that Mr English has just outlined—when the Green Party is eating your lunch at the same time. 
It is perfectly clear what has happened. There has been some type of strategy meeting and somebody has come up with a “bright idea”. The bright idea is “Let’s declare there is an economic crisis—a crisis in manufacturing” and everyone who is desperate for something other than another silly proposal to print money has said “What a brilliant idea! We’ll hold a conference we’ll paper over our cracks and we’ll declare there’s a crisis.” 
The only problem is that you cannot declare a crisis. You cannot create a crisis by political fiat. It is particularly difficult to say that New Zealand is facing a crisis when you are facing the following economic realities. No. 1 is the cost of living. The rate of inflation has fallen from 5.1 percent in November 2008 to the lowest rate this century taking pressure off New Zealand families New Zealand households and New Zealand companies trying to compete everywhere. It is very difficult to say you are facing a crisis. 
It is very difficult to say you are facing a crisis in manufacturing when you have just seen a Government oversee the creation of 60000 net jobs in the last 2 years. It is very difficult to say that you are facing a crisis when the Government that replaced you was facing forecast unemployment going up to 10 percent and it is now—still higher than we all want it to be and it is a very challenging situation—around 6.8 percent. It is very difficult to say that there is a crisis facing middle New Zealand when the average New Zealand household with a $200000 mortgage is facing a mortgage bill that is $200 a week after tax lower than they were paying in April 2008. That is $200 in the hand. It is very difficult to persuade those folks that they are facing a crisis. The superannuation married rate is 22 percent higher than it was in April 2008. 
It is very difficult—if we move to the macroeconomic front—to say that New Zealand is facing a crisis when the current annual growth rate is 2.6 percent and when you look across the developed world and look at that in comparison with what other countries that also enjoy a high standard of living are facing at the moment. Net Crown debt which was forecast when we came to Government to rise above 60 percent and deficits thereafter is now forecast to around 30 percent. That is when the UK itself is looking at net Crown debt of 85 percent of GDP. 
It is very difficult to sustain a manufactured crisis in the face of economic facts like those. Let me try to illustrate what would represent a real crisis—a real crisis. We do not have to invent one unfortunately. We have only to look at eurozone countries and to some extent see what emerges in the United States to understand what a real crisis is. A real crisis is when you are sitting on eurozone unemployment of over 11 percent—almost just a tad short of twice New Zealand’s unemployment rate. A real crisis is when you have got within the eurozone a 25-plus percent general level of unemployment in the fourth-largest economy in the eurozone and you have got 50 percent youth unemployment—people between 15 and 24. One in two of them is unable to find a future for themselves. That is not just an economic crisis that is not even just a social crisis; that could have long-term extraordinarily serious political consequences for the stability of those places. 
That is what a real crisis looks like not this manufactured crisis designed to paper over the Opposition’s internal difficulties. A real crisis is when the Government is not following the sorts of policies that this Government is following—steady disciplined control over public expenditure nothing extreme designed to help hard-pressed New Zealanders take the edges off the recession and manage us all through this extremely difficult patch internationally which is facing all countries in the world. When you are looking at massive cuts in welfare and health services and 500000 jobs in the UK public sector to be slashed in the next 4 years that is a real crisis not the phoney crisis that the Opposition is trying to paper over.