Goldsmith Paul: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGoldsmith Paul: General Debate[Sitting date: 06 April 2016. Volume:712;Page:10243. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): Look I had a couple of days in Australia last week and let us be honest it is a marvellous country that country. It has huge resources the wonderful city of Sydney and a very vibrant economy. It is growing quite well—actually its growth figures are broadly similar to ours although its Budget surplus is not so good. But the interesting thing spending a bit of time in Australia is that there is definitely some angst in the community and in the business community and some uncertainty and one of the criticisms the Australian Government is currently being labelled with now is that it has not been crystal clear about its priorities and the sense of direction is somewhat lacking.I do not know whether that is a fair criticism or not because I have not spent enough time there but there is no question in comparison as to what the priorities and the sense of direction that is coming from this Government is and has been for the past 8 years. I think that is one of the reasons for this Government’s success and for the country’s progress that we have made in the past few years. For the last 8 years now we have been consistent about what this Government has set out to achieve and the starting point has always been to restore our finances and to have a sustainable Budget balance and well-maintained finances.Why is that important? It is important because if people can stand back and make a judgment on the Government’s management of itself and say that what it is doing is broadly sustainable then you can have much more confidence to invest and it is ultimately only investment decisions by individuals and Governments either to hire a new person or to buy a new plant or to start a new business—that all relies on confidence. And you can have confidence if you can look at what the Government is doing and say that well what it is doing is economically sustainable. It is not going to have to lurch off in a new direction and change all its policies in order to get back into a reasonable state of affairs.That is why business confidence fell in the final of the three terms of the last Labour Government. People looked at their budgets and saw that they were spending more and more and that future budgets were going to be in deficit for the next 5 years. They knew something would have to change and that undermined confidence. Restoring the Government’s finances has been essential to what this Government is about. We have achieved that. We are back in surplus and that is a very important foundation for this Government to build on and for the country to build on. The second thing is about building a more productive and competitive economy which is the relentless task of working through what it is that businesses in New Zealand need in order to employ more people create jobs deliver people higher incomes and succeed on the global stage.We have set out a very clear agenda of what we are trying to do through the Business Growth Agenda in terms of working in areas such as infrastructure which is so important in Auckland where I come from where we have got a rapidly growing city that is prospering doing well—Chris Hipkins: Which electorate?Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: —the Epsom electorate where I am based—and where the population is growing. We are struggling with keeping the city moving in terms of traffic congestion and that is why investing in infrastructure—in roads and rail particularly—is so important and why if you have a strong economy you can do that effectively and that is what we are doing.Also in terms of investment law we are hearing the Opposition members raging and gnashing about foreign investment into New Zealand. But it is so important. If we are to grow ultimately we only get jobs and we only get the higher-paying jobs as a result of investment from people. If we limit ourselves purely to the money that we have saved ourselves in terms of domestic investment well then that is fine. We can grow but we can only grow so fast. But if we want to grow faster we need to also be able to draw in investment from around the world and that is what we have continued to do.Finally the other area that the Government has been working on is building better public services. Ultimately you cannot have a competitive economy if 35 percent of the economy which is that which is run by the State is not done well and if it is inefficient and ineffective. You get good Government services only if you actually give people what they want and achieve success whether it is in health or in education.So when you look back at what this Government has done over the last 8 years people know what we stand for and know what we are trying to achieve. We have laid it out crystal clear and we are making great progress. That is why New Zealand continues to have high levels of confidence and continues to do well. It is my hope that we will get the opportunity to carry on that work in the near future. Thank you very much.