Our Guest Speaker on Tuesday was the honourable Paul Goldsmith MP.
Paul is a National List MP based in Epsom.
He has taken one for the team to allow Act MP and leader David Seymour to hold an electorate seat and thus maintain the existence of the Act party.
Paul gave us a rundown on his recent activities and also gave some commentary on the recent speech by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to business leaders.
Paul told us he spent 27 August 2018 visiting various businesses in Nelson. He commented that a number of the business people he met were anxious about the Labour policies including the industrial relations policies and noted that spending in the retail sector is generally very low, more so in Auckland. His comments mirror comments that you editor has had made to him by clients.
Paul expressed concern about the state of business confidence in the country. Levels of business confidence the lowest since 2007/2008 when the GFC was taking place.
There is concern about the absence of any clear business or economic growth strategy. Indeed Paul made the comment that growth seems to be absent from government policy the focus being on nice warm fuzzy things such as diversity, inclusivity, the green economy and equity.
The labour government has dropped the previous governments business growth agenda, which obviously focused on growth, and substituted it with a business partnership agenda focusing on those nice green things mentioned in the previous paragraph.
Paul wants to see greater productivity which gives rise to the ability to pay people more but sees no roadmap to achieve that increase. The Prime Minister may have empathy for business but that does not itself translate into the roadmap or certainty for that matter.
A lack of certainty is a great concern for the business community. We have industries being closed down by government fiat, the oil and gas industry in Taranaki, Mining on the Coast as examples. A major export earner and a potential earnersclosed down by the stroke of a pen. Some thousands of people have their employment placed into serious jeopardy. Another example of government by Fiat is banning “single use” plastic bags. Unilateral decisions to ban activities do nothing for business confidence.
The government is actively closing down the New Zealand market to offshore capital. The limitations on acquisition of land as recently enacted means acquisition of capital for development is severely curtailed.
The restriction on student visas is affecting a major dollar earner – education. That generates $4 billion a year but the inflow of students has been cut off so the receipts from that education industry will diminish significantly.
There is been no capital investment in the universities to improve quality of courses, instead funding has been directed to university fees for students which has led to no appreciable increase in student numbers or their quality.
The Prime Minister has expressly stated she wishes to increase productivity but not how.
The theme of Paul’s address was that the government’s activities in the past 10 months have not provided the country with consistent stable and predictable governance which enables business people to invest in their companies. What we have had is quite the opposite which has led to people those in business keeping their hands in the pockets and not investing in all.
Certainty is what is required and we are not getting it.
Paul made the comment that in her speech the Prime Minister suggested she is through her government one of the country’s largest employers and empathises with those in the private sector. Paul disagreed with that notion saying that the government is different private sector activity. He noted that Government gives you services whether you want them are not and makes you pay for those services whether or not you want to.
Paul made the comment business community feels that there are not enough (or perhaps any0 people in government to understand business and the role it plays in the country’s economic activity.
Paul’s concern is that the government examine costs as it does, with compulsory wage rises, promotes uncertainty as it has by picking and choosing which elements of the economy to shut down then the risk is that by this time next year the low level of confidence will have led to significantly lower growth than is presently being experienced, consequential lower levels of taxation revenue for the government.
It is not possible to take growth for granted. Every dollar earned by exporters is hard earned in summer international competitiveness depends on exporters confidence needs to be protected from an uncaring big world by a government that supports business.
In closing Paul made a number of comments in general about things happening in Wellington.
He does not know who the leaker of the travel expenses is, pointed out only three groups of people knew, the National MPs and staff, Parliamentary services and the speaker whose unilateral decision to cancel an investigation into the “leak” is frustrated Parliamentary National party and has created significant distrust of the speaker’s motives.
On Scott Morrison the new Prime Minister of Australia Paul commented that he is a capable person well disposed to New Zealand but the open question is whether or not he can weld the Liberal party into a coherent government party to face the next Australian election in 2019 .
Paul was thanked by Simon Dalton.
