Joyce: Labour’s talk of regions in decline not the reality
Sunday 27 October, 2013
Joyce: Labour’s
talk of regions in decline not the
reality
Economic Development Minister
Steven Joyce has told TV One’s Q+A programme that the
regions are not in decline despite what Labour is
saying.
Mr Joyce told deputy political editor
Michael Parkin: “With the greatest respect to my dear
friends in the Labour Party, they’re trying to talk this
up. The reality is the regions are lifting NZ out of the GFC
(Global Financial Crisis). So, regions like Taranaki,
Waikato, West Coast and Southland. The West Coast has the
highest average income after the housing costs of any region
in the country. That’s the reality of the
situation.”
He says the government’s move to
promote oil and gas exploration, and the Ruataniwha dam
project, which is before a board of inquiry at present,
would have a “massively positive impact on Gisborne and
Hawke’s Bay if they proceeded”.
“In
Northland, the opportunities are similar there. There’s
minerals opportunities, there’s opportunities, frankly,
with the Treaty settlements that Chris Finlayson has been
working very hard on, opportunities to maximise the
productivity of Maori land in Northland, which is being
closely worked on with the Ministry of Primary Industries
and various Maori landowners in the region,” he
says.
Mr Joyce says providing good infrastructure
to support this regional economic investment is also
vital.
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Q+A
MICHAEL
PARKIN INTERVIEWS STEVEN
JOYCE
MICHAEL
PARKIN
Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce, I guess that is
the question - was it fair to give that $5 million to Team
NZ?
STEVEN JOYCE - Economic Development
Minister
Well, with the greatest respect to Dale [Williams], the
reality is the reason that that goes to Team NZ is we see it
as an opportunity to project NZ on the world stage in the
world’s largest economy, and that’s for the benefit of
all the exporters that Mr Nana talks about - is to have that
opportunity to get NZ on the front page of these big
newspapers in the US so that US consumers understand more
about NZ. So it’s got nothing to do with the sailors, and
it’s got nothing to do with the team itself. It’s got a
lot to do with the investment for NZ’s
profile.
MICHAEL
But it looks like a job-creation scheme
for 45 sailors.
STEVEN
Well, that’s wrong. My point is that it’s
wrong, and with the greatest respect to Dale, he’s got the
wrong end of the stick. Interestingly, I see also Mr
Nana’s got the wrong end of the stick as well, because we
all know he’s got his Labour Party sympathies, but the
reality is the regions are doing better than the big cities
at the moment. So, 15 out of the 16 regions grew in the
population census that’s just happened. The incomes of
those regions is going up. There’s lower unemployment in
just about every region bar three than there is in Auckland,
and Auckland gets a lower share of government spend on per
head of population basis than the rest of the country. So
apart from that, Mr Nana is
right.
MICHAEL And we
will get to all of that. We will get to all that. And just
on the America’s Cup, though, before we move on to that -
Auckland. I mean, have there been any talks when it comes to
job creation about maybe hosting Larry Ellison’s defence
in Auckland? Is anyone having those
conversations?
STEVEN
Certainly there’s interest being expressed in
that, but the reality is I doubt very much. There are no
signals coming out of Larry Ellison’s camp that it will
move out of the US, and I wouldn’t expect it to. And I
think you’ve got to chase the dreams that are achievable,
and that one is not achievable. Just while you’re going
back to things-
MICHAEL
But you’ve had talks with Larry
Ellison-
STEVEN
No, hang on. Let me- Just a second. No, I haven’t
personally. Just going back
to-
MICHAEL But have
your officials?
STEVEN
What’s that?
MICHAEL
Have officials or council
members-?
STEVEN
Officials are working with Team NZ very closely on
what the prospects are for doing a whole range of things,
but I wouldn’t hold out much hope for that particular
suggestion. What it will have is the opportunity to actually
get a team if there’s an arrangement that works for the
sponsors - and, let’s face it, the government is not going
to be the biggest sponsor in Team NZ. The government’s
going to be supporting to the extent that it’s worthwhile
from NZ’s perspective in terms of our profile on the world
stage, but the team’s got a lot of work to do before it
will be able to be in a position to challenge next
time.
MICHAEL Let’s
look at the regions. I mean, we’ve heard this idea that
everyone’s losing out to Auckland and Christchurch. Why do
you think even that perception is there, then, if you
don’t believe it’s a
problem?
STEVEN
With the greatest respect to my dear friends in the
Labour Party, they’re trying to talk this up. The reality
is the regions are lifting NZ out of the GFC (Global
Financial Crisis). So, regions like Taranaki, Waikato, West
Coast and Southland. The West Coast has the highest average
income after the housing costs of any region in the country.
That’s the reality of the
situation.
MICHAEL
You’ve got unemployment. The reality is that the
unemployment levels in Gisborne, Manawatu, Northland are
increasing at an incredible
rate.
STEVEN Yeah,
you’ve picked the three regions I agree with you, and we
can talk about those regions, but, actually, most of the
rest of the country, including the whole of the South Island
and the lower North Island and Waikato and Taranaki have all
got lower unemployment rates than Auckland. And also the
average income across NZ is one of the lowest differences
between regions as it is in anywhere in the OECD. Now, this
doesn’t mean to say there isn’t work to do, so let’s
come to those regions. So, in the Gisborne/Hawke’s Bay
area, for example, the government is focused on a couple of
things that I think would really move the dial, if they were
successful, in terms of opportunities for those regions. One
is the oil and gas exploration and the other is the
Ruataniwha dam project which, of course, is going in front
of a board of inquiry at the moment. Now, those things
undoubtedly would have a massively positive impact on
Gisborne and Hawke’s Bay if they proceeded, and that’s
the sort of things I think we have to look at in those
resource-heavy regional economies. In Northland, the
opportunities are similar there. There’s minerals
opportunities, there’s opportunities, frankly, with the
Treaty settlements that Chris Finlayson has been working
very hard on, opportunities to maximise the productivity of
Maori land in Northland, which is being closely worked on
with the Ministry of Primary Industries and various Maori
landowners in the region. And, of course, there are other
opportunities in the primary sector as well and agricultural
opportunities. So all the things the government is
doing-
MICHAEL You
mentioned Hawke’s Bay and Taranaki there. Like, I mean,
are we too focused on this resourcing, this petroleum, the
mining? Are we putting all our eggs in one
basket?
STEVEN No,
I don’t believe so, Mike. The reality- No, with the
greatest respect, you just need to look at the numbers. The
Taranaki is the most successful region in the country over
the last few years and there’s a reason for that, and if
you don’t want to learn the lessons of that, then you just
stick your head in the sand and forget about it. But the
reality is it’s about exploring all our opportunities.
Now, not every region has similar opportunities to Taranaki;
they have different ones. But the government’s priority is
to open up those opportunities. You mention Shannon, for
example, and I think it’s very sad what’s happened to
those people in Shannon. So, what’s the opportunity there?
Well, Shannon is in a place called the Horowhenua, which is
not far north of Wellington, and Wellington is one of our
largest cities-
MICHAEL
So move to Wellington. Is that what you’re
saying, Minister?
STEVEN
No, no, not at all, and don’t get me wrong. But
we have a lousy transport link between Wellington and the
Horowhenua. You open that up, just like we’re doing with
the Waikato Expressway south of Auckland, and suddenly
businesses can develop along that highway in those towns
leading to the capital city. The National Party’s very
focused on that. We have actually got a number of projects
underway - the Kapiti Expressway, Transmission Gully - but
there’s a whole lot of people on the left who have got
their heads in the sand about this, and I think it’s
actually very sad, because they’re focussing on the area
closer to Wellington, but I want to focus on those regions
in Horowhenua and the Manawatu who would have great economic
benefits out of that one piece of infrastructure. That’s
very important.
MICHAEL
But what is the forklift driver who was at the
fellmongery in Shannon who wants to keep driving a forklift
in Shannon, what does he do now that he’s got four
weeks’ redundancy pay and is looking for a new
job?
STEVEN Well,
it is difficult. There’s no doubt about it. But, actually,
we lose a quarter of a million jobs in the NZ economy every
year, and we create a quarter of a million jobs in the NZ
economy every year, and there are industries that are having
struggles for various reasons. So, if you take the meat and
beef industry and the fellmongery which is associated with
that, there’s a long-term over capacity because of a
decline in numbers because the dairy industry’s growing.
The dairy industry in the Manawatu, you just have to look
around, is a much more successful industry currently. So
those industries are rationalising. Now, you can’t stop
that, and Mr Cunliffe wandering around saying you can is
actually dead wrong, and most of the public know that.
It’s the same with the postal industry. The reality is
we’re not all offering to go out and post more letters to
keep NZ Post afloat, so it actually does have to change. The
opportunity there is to attract more investment and do more
things that attract more investment, and the difficulty that
those on the left have, particularly the Greens but also the
Labour Party, is they sit there and try and pretend that’s
not what’s necessary-
MICHAEL
Mr Cunliffe
suggested-
STEVEN
And it is what’s necessary, and that means
actually going out there and doing the sort of things - the
dam projects, the oil and gas, the roading projects, the RMA
reforms-
MICHAEL What
about loans to attract businesses that Mr Cunliffe talked
about this week? What about incentivising businesses to come
to the regions instead of setting up shop in Christchurch,
Auckland or Wellington and helping them with that
process?
STEVEN In
what sense? What’s he actually
saying?
MICHAEL Well,
this is him-
STEVEN
What he was actually saying was no-interest loans
for people that are prepared to stay in regions. Well,
he’d have a huge queue of people lining up at his front
door, business owners. ‘If you don’t give me a
no-interest loan, Mr
Cunliffe’-
MICHAEL I
think what he was saying was incentives through loans to
attract business.
STEVEN
Well, with the greatest respect, it’s just not
going to make any difference. What you have to do to make a
difference is let people explore the economic opportunities
in each region, and that means freeing up the RMA so that
people can make calls. You took the West Coast there, Tony
Kokshoorn on the West Coast. It’s a travesty the time
it’s taken for Bathurst Resources to actually get the
ability to open an open-cast mine on the West Coast right
next to the Stockton Mine that would employ 225 people, and
that’s why we’re making the RMA changes that we’re
making so that doesn’t happen again, so those people would
have jobs to go to on the West Coast. Now, that is a very
significant economic opportunity. It’s finally got the
go-ahead, and Labour and the Greens have been opposing it
the whole way through, and that’s where there’s a real
lack of understanding of what’s really required for
regional development.
MICHAEL
What if we look at migration? Obviously,
immigration figures now are above average. What has the
government looked at to get these people to move beyond
Auckland and maybe out into the regions and spread a bit of
the wealth around
there?
STEVEN
Well, the real opportunity in immigration at this
point- And you’re right, the numbers have turned. But
what’s turned is the number of people coming back from
Australia. Now, there was a significant number that left,
particularly from Christchurch after the earthquakes, which
really knocked our emigration numbers around a bit. And what
you’re now seeing is a whole lot of people coming back
from Australia. The most useful thing you can do to attract
people into the regions is have the jobs from investment
opportunities and growth in those regions, and there’s
some great things happening. So if you take, for example,
the Manawatu, there’s a company that’s coming in there
with the help of NZTE, which is a company called Proliant.
They’re setting up a big factory in Feilding. There’s
the Food HQ investment that’s going on Palmerston North.
So, those are the sort of things
that-
MICHAEL But the
government’s doing nothing to push people in that
direction?
You’re-
STEVEN
No, no, you’re completely wrong. The government
is doing a whole range of things to bring people to NZ, and
it’s been hugely successful, and they’re going to all
over different regions of the country. So that’s just
wrong. The reality is all the employment law changes we’ve
made, we’ve made it more flexible for small business to
take on jobs. So, for example, the 90 day employment
probationary period helps small business in regions take on
jobs. And that’s worked very well, because about a third
of people who have come into employment over the last year
have actually had a trial period and been successful on that
trial period. So that’s very positive. So all these things
are things that work throughout the regions. And I tell you
what doesn’t work in the regions is this whole idea that
Mr Cunliffe had of kicking out the starting-out wage, of
pushing up the minimum wage dramatically and of actually
having a national award system which would cause problems
for employers in places like Levin and Palmerston
North-
MICHAEL I think
we’ll leave-
STEVEN
…who have to pay exactly the same incomes as
people in Auckland, and that just doesn’t
work.
MICHAEL We’ll
leave the Mr Cunliffe bashing till another day. I just want
to finish, finally, on a bit of a change of
topic-
STEVEN
It’s not Mr Cunliffe bashing at all. It’s
actually-
MICHAEL
We’ve just talked to
Colin-
STEVEN No,
no, Michael. I’m sorry, it’s really important. Because
if you’re going to make regional development important,
you have to look at the alternative solutions, and it’s
not a case of bashing-
MICHAEL
I think we’ve heard enough of those alternative
solutions. I just want to ask finally, just on Colin Craig
we heard there mention he’ll be looking to stand in that
Auckland seat when a new one is created. Is it time for you
to become an electorate
MP?
STEVEN Oh,
I’ve got heaps to do at the moment, thank you, Michael,
and very focused on doing it. One last thing for you as well
- you said at the start that the state asset sales was only
ideology. You’re completely wrong, my friend. The reality
is that it’s all about raising incomes so we don’t have
to borrow from foreign markets. It’s also about improving
and lifting the NZ Stock Exchange, which it is doing, and
it’s also about getting better public oversight of those
companies. So you really do need to drop the whole ideology
line.
MICHAEL We’ll
save that for the Genesis Float then next year. Steven
Joyce, thank you very much for your
time.
ENDS