Paul Goldsmith says mixed messages from different parts of Government are contributing to uncertainty.
Paul Goldsmith says mixed messages from different parts of Government are contributing to uncertainty.
National's Paul Goldsmith says the fact that Shane Jones is fuming at the decision to abort the Waimea dam and other members of the Government will be celebrating it is symptomatic of the uncertainty that unsettles business.
Jones said New Zealand First had invested a lot of time working with the Greens and Labour to protect the option of Crown funding of the proposed dam.
Jones accused the Tasman District Council of being "Jim Henson graduates of politics" - meaning Muppets - for voting against the dam, and he described opponents of the dam as "lotus eaters."
"Where these lotus eaters believe that jobs and investment and foreign earnings are going to come from, I'm beggared if I know," said Jones, the Minister of Regional Economic Development.
"We cannot afford as a country to take the lotus eaters' approach," Jones said on Newstalk ZB.
But Goldsmith said half of the Government would be celebrating the decision by Tasman District Council to not proceed on the project.
The mixed messages from Government ministers were not an insignificant part of the uncertainty that was driving the concern of the business community, Goldsmith said.
It was concerning if major initiatives for economic growth could not be progressed in a reasonable manner.
"The Waimea dam proposal had been carefully worked through for a very long period of time and was a key to greatly improving the productivity of that horticultural plain."
We cannot afford as a country to take the lotus eaters' approach.
Goldsmith also pointed to what he saw as mixed messages within the Government on the Prime Minister's new business advisory council, to be headed by Air New Zealand chief executive Christopher Luxon.
Jones vehemently criticized Luxon and the Air New Zealand board in March over its cancelling some regional routes, which he did not resile from today when invited to do so by ZB's Leighton Smith.
Goldsmith said Jones was talking out both sides of his mouth by supporting the council but not haveing nay time for its head.
Ardern had announced the new advisory council in a business speech on Tuesday amid very low levels of business confidence but other ministers had called such surveys "junk."
She said that as the country's largest employer, she understood the need for certainty by business.
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones says New Zealand First spent a lot of effort protecting options for a dam that has now been dumped. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Most of the Government's agenda was contained in one of three documents: the Speech from the Throne, the Coalition Agreement with New Zealand First and the Confidence and Supply Agreement with the Greens.
Goldsmith said there was not a single detail, policy or proposal that points to increasing productivity or growing per person incomes.
"She seems to think saying she wants both of those things in enough."
The Government's "ambivalence towards growth" was becoming the issue, Goldsmith said.
He also said the decision to ban new offshore oil and gas exploration was not foreshadowed in any of the three documents cited by Ardern as setting out the Government's agenda.
"As much as the decision itself, it was the way that it was made is one of the reasons why people are so spooked."
