Scott Alastair: Debate on Budget Policy StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeScott Alastair: Debate on Budget Policy Statement[Sitting date: 11 March 2015. Volume:703;Page:2146. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ALASTAIR SCOTT (National—Wairarapa): Thank you for the opportunity to talk on this Budget Policy Statement 2015. It is quite an advantage speaking at this point I think because you have the advantage of listening to others and being able to reflect on some of those points that were made.I was interested to hear Mr Robertson speak earlier of our complacency apparently on this side of the House and lacking ideas. But then a couple of breaths later he was talking about him and his team beginning to plan and develop their own policies as if they did not have any in the first place. I have seen in the newspaper what their policies are as they develop—some of them being Māori sovereignty which some of them do not agree with; some of them being to support Winston Peters when others disagree with that. So there is an advantage in speaking later—and xenophobic comments made from the New Zealand First members but I will come back to that fairly shortly.Tracey Martin: Oh come on—name it. Name the xenophobic comment. Name it. Go on.ALASTAIR SCOTT: Your register of—Tracey let me respond.Tracey Martin: A register of foreign investment and that’s xenophobic.ALASTAIR SCOTT: There is a bit of a health and safety issue going on here—I have got a high-pitched noise in my ear.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I think there are—I know there are—rules about constant interjection but I think if the member complains about high-pitched noises he should note that it is coming both from that side and from his left Ms Barry.ALASTAIR SCOTT: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. For me this whole Budget is around confidence—confidence in the economy. If we do not have confidence we have nothing. I would like to refer you to a recent ANZ Business Outlook study that says 34 percent of firms are optimistic about the general economy. That is up from 30 percent.Why do we have confidence? Because we have the correct policies and the correct structure in place. We have policies that are about lowering personal tax rates. Interest rates are lower for longer. That has created as a result 80000 new jobs. When you have got 80000 new jobs being created it is like a spinning wheel that starts spinning—small businesses gain further confidence to employ more people. And that is what is happening because unemployment we know is falling. It has fallen from 5.7 percent. It is due to fall to 4.5 percent.I will give you an example in my electorate of Wairarapa. In the forestry industry we have got contractors looking for workers—looking for workers. They cannot find them. I have got a guy who works for Forest Enterprises Ltd—he contracts to it. He wants to bring in more immigrant workers because there are no available skilled workers in the economy.Hon David Parker: That’s called a market.ALASTAIR SCOTT: Why? Because there is demand. There is demand for labour. That is called a market. That eventually drives wages up and eventually this guy is going to start—Hon David Parker: So why don’t you let the market work?ALASTAIR SCOTT: That is the way it works. That is what drives unemployment down. So this confidence has enabled this guy to look for more employees. He is charging the contractors—the guys who are paying him—more to do the work. The whole community is better off as a result of him having confidence in the economy.One of the other things that is supporting the rural economy is the ultra-fast broadband roll-out. That continues to roll out. As we know 75 percent of the population is being targeted to receive ultra-fast broadband. I am pleased to say that Dannevirke and Carterton are two targeted towns in my electorate that will soon receive ultra-fast broadband Masterton having already received it.Confidence is going to be the key in my short address. In the recent 5-year MYOB Business Monitor report New Zealand’s small and medium sized businesses are showing the highest revenue growth in more than 5 years—again confidence.What else has been demonstrated? We are seeing people coming back. We are seeing people coming back from Australia. We are seeing fewer New Zealanders leaving to go to Australia. So in the 4-year period ending in 2008 almost 110000 people net left to go to Australia. That is a lot of people. That is three Westpac Stadiums approximately queuing up to take the opportunity to better themselves in Australia. In the 2014 calendar year there was a handful. There were 8000—a mere 8000 people did the same trip. That is because there is confidence in the economy there is real hope and there is real aspiration amongst our communities whether they are in Auckland or Christchurch or whether they are in Masterton Carterton or Waipukurau.Let us talk about Waipukurau. Waipukurau is feeling good because with any sort of luck given the Resource Management Act it will be building with the help of a $400 million fund an irrigation project. Again that brings confidence. People are already training up. They are getting their heavy truck driver’s licences and getting trained to take part in that expansion. There will be 30000-odd hectares of land that will increase in productivity. That creates jobs. It enables seeds potatoes sheep and beef to be grown and then processed in the nearby towns of Hastings and Napier and exported to contribute to the growing export dollar value that is taking place right here right now.What does not help is the xenophobic policies espoused by New Zealand First. Tracey Martin demonstrated that earlier by asking specifically what xenophobic policies New Zealand First had. The register is just that. The register of foreign owners is absolutely xenophobic. I will tell you the problem. I will give you an example. What happens when anyone from overseas buys shares that I own perhaps on the New Zealand Exchange? Let us say I own 100 shares and I sell them to a foreigner and I go with that money and buy my house in Auckland. Am I going to be registered as a foreign owner of a house in Auckland? So you can see the complication and the regulatory layers that this party is willing to impose on the New Zealand public. It does not make any sense at all.Another example of confidence is that the labour market statistics show the number of self-employed businesses grew by nearly 35000 in the last calendar year. We have got 3.5 percent growth and that only gives more confidence to more people to get involved in this economy. What puts people off is further bureaucracy. We have got the Rules Reduction Taskforce running around New Zealand at the moment talking to communities and councils in particular looking for ideas on how to reduce compliance and bureaucracy.The Inland Revenue Department today said in the Finance and Expenditure Committee that it is also going out to communities and surveying and communicating with those people asking them for ideas on how to reduce compliance issues around tax. An example given was if you pay GST and you have got a nil GST return now you can do a couple of clicks and you are done. Those sorts of simple and ease-of-use projects across the Rules Reduction Taskforce and the Inland Revenue Department can only allow more people to work and focus on their business.This Government is certainly focusing on ways to make it easy for small businesses to do business. What would make it really really tricky for small businesses is a capital gains tax which I am not sure is still Labour policy. I am not sure whether they have decided it is. But we will hear in due course. Thank you for the opportunity.