23 September 2003 Media release
National challenged to debate jobs and development
The Progressive leader and Acting Prime Minister Jim Anderton today threw down a challenge to the National Party’s
co-leaders to debate jobs and development.
His challenge comes after National’s struggling leader Bill English attacked reports that new rules would be introduced
to allow planning for nationally significant developments to be fast-tracked. Jim Anderton says no such proposals have
been announced.
“National is attacking ideas it has never seen.
“The National Party read in a newspaper a report that outlines an idea to speed up job creation and streamline the
Resource Management Act. Its response was a knee-jerk reaction to the policy. It lined up with the Green Party to
denounce the policies without even seeing them.
“Business needs to know that National likes the Resource Management Act and infrastructure planning the way National
left it in the nineties.
“National is anti-business and anti-jobs. It has voted against every single clause of every development policy
introduced since it left office.
“I challenge Bill English and Don Brash to debate jobs and development with me in any region of their choice. If either
of them want to earn the title of leader of the National Party, they should accept a challenge from the acting PM.
“This week I will be at a regional development conference in Timaru, where the thriving regions of New Zealand will
celebrate their growth, and discuss ideas to accelerate growth and development. The National Party has actively opposed
every single regional development idea and would take us back to the failed hands off policies of the eighties and
nineties, when the regions were in decline.
“Bill English should come to the conference in Timaru this week to learn something about successful regional
development. I’m sure the hundreds of regional representatives there would willingly help to further his meagre
understanding.”
ENDS