5. METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green) Link to this
to the Minister of Finance
What will the impact of the proposal to mine protected schedule 4 land be on the New Zealand economy?
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance) Link to this
The proposal itself will have no impact on the New Zealand economy, but should the Government follow through on the process and remove some land from schedule 4, then I would expect that successful mining on that land would have the same impact as successful mining does on any other land—that is, it would create jobs for New Zealand families, and create wealth for New Zealand so that it can provide better public services and a better community.
I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The question was very specific; the Minister is using weasel words to avoid answering it directly. The issue here—
Mr SPEAKERThe member will resume her seat immediately, and cease to interject. If she reads the primary question she laid down, she will see “What will the impact of the proposal to mine protected schedule 4 land be on the New Zealand economy?”. There is no way there can be a precise answer to that question; it is basically seeking an opinion, and the member knows that when she seeks an opinion, the answer will never be very precise.
Has the Minister sought any advice about the economic impact of mining in schedule 4 land on revenues to the Crown?
I am not familiar with the matter of whether any assessment of economic impact has been broken down in terms of revenue for the Crown. But I can reassure the member that the Government is committed to lifting our economic growth, because that is how we get better jobs and better public services. We are quite happy to have a vigorous discussion with New Zealand about some of the more challenging trade-offs we need to make to achieve that.
So is the Minister confirming to this House, and to the New Zealand public, that he has sought no advice about the impact of mining on schedule 4 land on income, royalties, taxes, or jobs, in either the mining industry or the tourism industry?
That is a different question from the one asked earlier, which was about the impact on revenues for the Government. Some pretty well-established work has been done on the wider economic impact of mining, and of course the Minister of Tourism is interested in the impact on tourism. I point out that the Minister of Tourism recently opened a new visitors centre at the Martha Hill mine on the Coromandel, because tourist numbers are growing so fast that a better visitors centre is needed.
How can the Minister have the confidence about any impact on the New Zealand economy, when his own Minister of Tourism said in this House that he sought advice, but has none, on the impact on the tourism industry; and when his Minister for Energy and Resources does not know whether the value for just one mining proposal will be $1.5 billion or $4 billion?
The member is dealing in a series of hypotheses, and we can all debate who has a better hypothesis than someone else. I might say that the impact of mining on the Department of Conservation estate approved under the previous Government appears to be positive when that mining has turned out to be successful, because it has provided jobs for New Zealanders. The decline in tourism in recent years has not been due to mining in the Department of Conservation estate; it has been due to the global recession and a high exchange rate.
Has the Minister sought advice about the economic impact of international newspapers and their criticism of New Zealand, like that of the Guardian when it said that the “clean, green” Kiwi brand amounted to “a ‘shameless two fingers to the global community’ in the face of a dirtier reality.”?
A few newspapers reflect the traditional practice of the Greens, which is to advertise to the world that New Zealand is nothing like as positive a place as almost all other New Zealanders believe that it is. But that is just the way that the Greens do business. We do not worry about the economic impact of that; we are getting on with growing our economy, and with providing jobs for families, and better public services.
How can the public have confidence in the Minister of Finance, when he is not interested in the economic impact of mining—as he just confessed to this House—or the fiscal impact of international condemnation on a $20 billion-a-year tourism industry?
As Minister of Finance and as an interested New Zealander, of course I have an interest in what other people say about us. I have to say that a couple of lead writers—covering one article in two different newspapers—have shown a lot less combined negativity than the Green Party has about New Zealand, about what a dirty place we are, about how no one cares about the environment, and about how we would be much better if there were no economic growth. I do not agree with any of that. We are getting on with the job of proving that the Green Party is wrong.
How can the New Zealand public trust his management of the New Zealand economy, when his Government is trading off a known $20 billion a year tourism industry against who the hell knows what?
We do not deal in those kinds of generalities, and I do not think anyone is suggesting that the whole tourism industry is being traded off against one or two other items of economic growth. There has been a vigorous discussion about mining, tourist numbers are rising, particularly from Australia—they have been going up quite rapidly—and we are looking forward to a very positive tourism season through the winter. It is all part of the Government’s attempt to grow the economy, provide sustainable jobs for families, and improve our public services.