David Clark
Economic Development Spokesperson

27 February 2013

Joyce’s year-long comms plan finally ends

Steven Joyce’s year-long production run of glossy publications has finally drawn to a close and at the end of it we’re 30,000 jobs worse off, says Labour’s Economic Development spokesperson David Clark.

“A year ago Steven Joyce unveiled his Business Growth Agenda, claiming ‘Lifting the overall productivity and competitiveness of the economy is critical to business growth, to creating more jobs and higher wages’.

“Since then job losses have skyrocketed and wages have stagnated. Under Steven Joyce 30,000 jobs have been lost. The Business Growth Agenda was just a set of glossy brochures devoid of any meaningful plan. The only growth Steven Joyce has created is at the printing presses.

“A whole year has been wasted on re-announcing old plans and a few meek ideas.

“Today he released his final glossy and again it’s basically meaningless. Much of the $60 million for the New Zealand Venture Investment Fund will go to Taiwanese businesses, not Kiwi companies. The supposed big idea this time is to rebrand companies with significant overseas ownership as New Zealand companies. Just another marketing ploy.

“How does that create growth and jobs? Our economy is stagnating. We need big ideas that create a clean, smart and diverse economy with growth, jobs and higher wages. A year-long run of constant re-announcements interspersed with a few piddly initiatives won’t cut it.

“Steven Joyce talks a big game but he hasn’t delivered. His soft underbelly has been exposed.”

ENDS

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Arguable Reassuring: Inspector-General Finds GCSB "Arguably" Legal

Of the 88 individuals:

• 15 cases involving 22 individuals did not have any information intercepted by GCSB.

• another four cases involving five individuals were the subjects of a New Zealand Security Intelligence Service warrant and the GCSB assisted in the execution of the warrants. The Inspector-General is of the view that there were arguably no breaches and the law is unclear.

• the Bureau only provided technical assistance which did not involve interception of communications, involving three of the individuals, so no breach occurred.

• the remaining cases involved the collection of metadata, and the Inspector-General formed the view that there had arguably been no breach, noting once again that the law is unclear.
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