"We welcome this opportunity to meet this new challenge as an organisation and look forward to growing our capability to meet the needs of the Government"
— Paul Carpinter, Secretary of Commerce and new Chief Executive of the Ministry of Economic Development.

"All the Government is doing is tinkering with the bureaucracy. The policy of how the $100 million fund will be distributed is still months away. The main point is simply this: The Government might be planning to put $100 million into local communities, but that is more than cancelled out by the estimated $250 million it is taking away with the ACC renationalisation and the $400 million in tax increases.

"Behind the re-jigged bureaucracy, there's a huge question to be asked about the credibility of the package. Alliance Leader Jim Anderton reckons 1000 new jobs from 100 new projects could be created by investing $100 million. What credibility does this have? What projects? Where is the new private investment coming from? What sort of jobs?..."
— Max Bradford, National Party Economic Development spokesperson

"It's absurd for Jim Anderton to declare the "Free Market" policies of the last century a failure. The comparison is with socialism which is in complete collapse around the world. State interventions like Jim Anderton is always proposing have never worked. What's disturbing is just how far Jim Anderton is prepared to go. We now have New Zealand being run by political and economic dinosaurs "
— Rodney Hide, ACT Finance Spokesman

"The Green Party is pleased with the Government's hands-on approach to create jobs ... However it is vital that any initiatives taken by the ministry put the New Zealand economy on an ecologically sustainable footing. We want jobs with a long-term future which enhance rather than deplete the environment"
— Rod Donald, Green Party Co-Leader

"It is something of an anomaly that the government is talking about attracting new enterprises to NZ while pursuing policies that have businesses already here throwing their hands up in the air ..."
— Michael Barnett, Auckland Regional Chamber of Commerce chief executive

"This is a crucial turning point in the policies of government. During the barren years of the 1990s the economy was expected to produce growth as a natural process and the needs of thousands of workers in communities throughout the country were ignored. It's very welcome to see some positive initiative that will probably encourage not only regional development but economic development generally, particularly for groups such as Maori who are over represented in unemployment statistics."
— Ross Wilson, president Council of Trade Unions

"Government funding of regional development is an insult to every New Zealander who has set up a business without assistance. ACT totally opposes the concept of hard working, successful businesses subsidising new businesses that have failed to get capital from traditional sources. We are totally opposed to Jim Anderton picking winners with the hard-earned money of taxpayers. This is a "regional cronyism" policy. Money inevitably goes to mates, to where votes can be bought and where genuine, established businesses will feel aggrieved when they don't get to be one of the chosen few ..."
— Owen Jennings, ACT Industry and Regional Development Spokesman

"It seems the relevant luminaries have now returned from their study tour of North Korea to parade a glossy new `jobs machine' to be presided over by none other than Industries Commissar Jim Neanderton. We are clearly on the verge of another orgy of pork-barrelling, palm-greasing, "winner"-picking, cronyism and corporate welfarism.

"Not what-you-know but whom-you-know in or from Wellington will determine your success. The sickening thing is that there'll be no shortage of candidates lining up for the confiscated, forcibly redirected money that Comrade Neanderton's new politburo will be doling out to his new `partners' "
— Lindsay Perigo, former Libertarianz Party leader

"While it is tempting to think of a government-sponsored economic development programme as a `job machine', the reality is that jobs are created by the ordinary Kiwi investing his or her own money and working hard ..."
— Anne Knowles, Employers Federation chief executive

"I support anything that means central government is going to support economic development in the regions. It's a positive step on a long journey of growth. It's a good partnership model and we wait and see how swiftly the Ministry of Economic Development can be developed ..."
— Stuart Trundle, Venture Taranaki chief executive

"Local economic development is best promoted at a local level a centralised body like Industry New Zealand is likely to be monolithic and hidebound to respond effectively to local initiatives ... "
— Peter Dunne, United New Zealand Party leader and former Regional Development Minister

"Mr Anderton may be underestimating how long it will take for the Ministry to suddenly become expert in economic development after 15 years of taking a strictly neutral stance on it. The name change for the Ministry and the setting up of Industry New Zealand could mislead the regions on how fast the Ministry can build policy expertise for economic development.

"The extra $100 million ear-tagged for this will not make much of an impression once the bureaucracy has taken out its transaction costs. We have misgivings too over the representation nominated for the new Industry New Zealand organisation. This is to include local authorities, community groups, Maori representatives and the private sector. The very real risk is that hard nosed business attitudes and disciplines will be lost in such a mix though they are absolutely vital for long term business success..."
— Alasdair Thompson, Employers and Manufacturers Association (Northern) chief executive

"Mr Anderton's development plan is no more than a stopgap to plug the holes in the social fabric that will widen as New Zealand's economic performance suffers further from world market forces.

"The past 15 years have shown that the benefits that flow to big business have not trickled down to the bottom two-thirds of society. We have a dual economy where the rich have developed expensive tastes for luxury town houses, cars and overseas villas, while the poor have sunk backwards into hardship and poverty.

"Yet the Labour-Alliance Government is committed to broad policies that cannot reverse these trends. Indeed, these will get worse as New Zealand becomes increasingly hostage to foreign investment and dependent upon the dollars of rich tourists and gamblers. So the $100 million devoted to economic development is really the price of the Alliance's loyalty to the Government's broad economic policy.

"This is why Mr Anderton's plan will have little effect. Even if it were spent in one year, $100 million would represent a tiny 0.34 per cent of Government spending; 0.40 per cent of the social welfare budget; 7 per cent of the unemployment benefit; and 70 per cent of the interest on student loans.

"Therefore, it does no more than target and devolve a minuscule fraction of welfare spending towards job creation in the regions. It would be equivalent to taking $33.3 million off the top-heavy Work and Income bureaucracy in each of the next three years and giving it to the bottom-dwelling rural poor.

"To that extent, it is to be supported and encouraged. But to work as a real stopgap (that is, to eliminate the gap between rich and poor, Maori and Pakeha and so on), it would have to be much more and under the control of the local people. And that, it is clear, cannot happen under this Government."
— David Bedggood, senior lecturer of sociology at University of Auckland