Tabuteau Fletcher: Annual Review Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTabuteau Fletcher: Annual Review Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 28 April 2015. Volume:704;Page:2930. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]FLETCHER TABUTEAU (NZ First):Thank you very much Mr Chair for this opportunity to speak to the Committee today. I would like to commend the Minister for speaking up earlier to defend the National Government’s opening speech. It was unfortunately a reflection of this Government’s inadequate thinking and arrogance as to the economy. The opening speech was an attack and a focus back on the past that was inaccurate and inappropriate for this debate. I want to address a couple of statements from the Minister himself if I could. The Minister spoke of the breadth of the base of growth in New Zealand and he justified that by saying: “Well actually we are still growing despite the fall in milk-solid prices in New Zealand.” But the Minister will be the first to admit that those falls in milk-solid prices actually have not transferred to the farm gates yet. The farmers themselves are not getting those lower payouts yet. The auction prices are not yet reflected in our farmers’ pockets. To say otherwise is deceptive and in only 6 months’ to a year’s time we will see the fallout of those decreases in international market prices. This Government is in denial already and obviously has no plan to move forward.The Minister spoke about this wonderful trade-weighted index average. What a wonderful statistic that is to highlight how wonderful the New Zealand economy is! Our unrealistically high exchange rate has come about because of our unrealistically high interest rates which the New Zealand banks are having to run at the behest of this New Zealand Government. We are talking about interest rates compared with the rest of the world that actually you cannot compare with the rest of the world because in some of the European economies for example they are literally paying a negative interest rate to borrow money. Yes that literally means they will borrow $100 and be paid back $110 in the future. That is what our New Zealand businesses are having to compete against. The fact that the Minister is claiming our trade-weighted index as a wonderful measure of how this economy is performing is either deceptive or naive. It is wrong. It is our exchange rate and it is our interest rates that are doing that.What it is also doing actually is punishing New Zealanders. It is actually punishing New Zealand exporters. That high exchange rate is making it incredibly hard for our exporters to compete in the international market. Picture a large multinational in China or in the US where money is so cheap and they are borrowing that money. Back here in New Zealand our businesses are borrowing at 6 7 8 or 9 percent. There is no competition there. We will be dominated and the fact that we are opening up our markets through Government procurement for example to these kinds of businesses with access to this kind of money is an unfortunate state of affairs that will see most New Zealand businesses not able to even compete or provide core services for the New Zealand Government or local council.The Minister also spoke about Governments from the past. Can I suggest that the Government stop using Governments of the past as an excuse for things not happening now. He talked about cutting everything. Actually what this National Government is doing is exactly that. The Government is now looking from the reports we have received to cut back expenditure to contain it within 30 percent of GDP—almost as much as 5 percent lower than it has been in the past. It is a blatant attempt to cut back expenditure. On the other hand it says it wants to decrease the tax take. It just does not make any sense at the moment. I think that most members of this House including those on the other side would agree that trickle-down economics does not work and that we need a smarter and more focused plan.I had the privilege of travelling to Ireland and Poland over the break. What we saw there were those two respective Governments investing literally billions of euros into their agricultural markets.