Speech to business lunch, 11am 4 February 2009
With Prime Minister John Key

Prime Minister, Ministers, colleagues and friends,

It is fitting that Waitakere plays host to today’s major announcements. This is, after all, your territory.

You are our local PM - our Prime Minister. In fact the first time the West had had a resident Prime Minister since Michael Joseph Savage.

That has been a long-awaited speech.

Make no mistake, recession is here, it is biting….
and it is going to get worse before it gets better.

This Government has committed to business, and today we see the Government taking real leadership.

For that, Prime Minister, we thank you.

The West is made up of small to medium sized businesses.

80% of our economy is made up of businesses employing 10 people or less.

Yes, we have some large, very successful and high profile enterprises, such as those in the boat building industry.
But it’s the five and ten-staff teams that are the life-blood of our economy.

In Waitakere City, small business is led by large projects.

Big subdivisions. Big export orders. Big films. Big boats.

When the big jobs fall, hundreds of small firms worry.

When hundreds of small firms worry, hundreds of thousands
of staff worry.

Today we have heard how Government will take some of that worry, and some of that uncertainty away.

I am here to announce Waitakere’s own recovery package.

Here in Waitakere, we provide support through Waitakere Enterprise – our hosts today.
Thanks to Bryan, John and his team.

We also support the economy through our contracts and capital works programmes. These deliver thousands of jobs and millions of dollars back into the local economy.

These examples will all come into production this year.

1. The first is New Lynn transit station. This is $300 million

of funding from a variety of sources. It’s also 300 construction

jobs on site now. That part is being constructed by Fletchers.

But by June you will see tenders out for $20 million of roadworks associated with this. I want to see local firms bidding for this work.

By the end of February we will also announce another set of funding from NZTA. Watch this space.

2. The second is the New Lynn civic development.

In March, our partners Infratil will unveil a project to demolish and rebuild the entire centre of New Lynn.

It will integrate with the transit station.

This is the first true public private partnership launched under this new government.

We are inviting the government to launch this with us.

3. The next is Hobsonville Land Company. By October this

year, Stage 1 of Hobsonville will be under construction.

This is New Zealand’s largest single development of any kind.

It is like the entire town of Blenheim moving up

and being built from scratch.

4. You will already see H.E.B construction hard at work on

State Highway 16 and 18 across the northwest.

Many firms in this room will be subbing to that job.

That’s $220 million of public money and 160 jobs on site already.

Prime Minister, amongst all the uncertainty, we are providing

certainty and delivery.

Thanks to government and local government in partnership.

5. The next part of the recovery plan is Westgate, with our partners at the New Zealand Retail Property Group.

They are undertaking $600 million worth of work.

on another new town centre. The first stage alone is worth

$100 million. This is a greenfields site, so contractors, start

your engines.

6. Finally, I am also announcing today
that Waitakere Enterprise will be launching a campaign
to contact five thousand business to plan their business
and ensure each of them are linked to a private equity network.

We all know that capital is hard to come by, so we are pulling out all the stops to link every business to capital.

In conclusion,

Prime Minister, these are not pie in the sky projects.
They are underway or about to kick-off and demonstrate the very real commitment that this Council- this City- has to economic development.

They show local government and central government working hard at it together.

Because together with yourselves, Prime Minister, and the commitment of small and medium businesses, we can get through these tough times.

Out here in the west, like you Prime Minister, we are in this for the long haul.

That’s what the west is known for….when the going gets tough, the tough get going.

ENDS

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