Debate on Budget Policy Statement

I move, That the House take note of the report of the Finance and Expenditure Committee on the Budget Policy Statement 2014. The John Key - led Government heads to the 20 September general election firmly focused on the issues that matter to our community, to all Kiwis: a stronger economy and more jobs, better front-line health and education services, a safer New Zealand, and rebuilding Christchurch. That is what I want to talk about today, and that is what most New Zealanders are concerned about.

The National-led Government’s programme to build a faster-growing economy with more jobs and rising incomes is delivering positive results for all New Zealanders. Updated forecasts in the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update and Budget Policy Statement issued in December show a relatively strong upturn with expected economic growth reaching 3.6 percent in 2015 and the unemployment rate falling. Although the recovery is gathering momentum, the global environment still remains uncertain. We have only to look at the events in Ukraine and Russia over the past few weeks to see how fragile the world is. Markets have largely shrugged off those geopolitical scares so far, but we do not know how things will pan out in the next few months, so we do need to take all care. In this environment it is important to maintain clear and credible economic and fiscal settings. This is the best way to create new jobs, raise incomes, and help families to get ahead.

The latest forecasts show the Government posting a modest operating surplus before gains and losses of $86 million in 2014-15, similar to the $75 million surplus forecast in Budget 2013. Surpluses are then forecast to increase over the next 2 years, debt is forecast to fall, and net core Crown debt is expected to peak at 26 percent of GDP in 2014-15 before falling to 16.9 percent in 2019-20. The National-led Government remains committed to responsible long-term fiscal management, and that is why I fully support all the figures that are outlined in the Budget Policy Statement.

By the way, I just wanted to talk about some comments I came across in the Australian Financial Review yesterday in its review of the New Zealand situation. There was a quote from the Australian Financial Review that said, speaking of New Zealand: “A new Labour government, if it kept its promises (NZ Power, NZ Assure, Kiwibuild), would likely be the most interventionist Labour government since well before the Roger Douglas led pro-market reforms of the 1980’s”—i.e., if Labour followed the policies that it has announced so far, it would be heading back to Bill Rowling’s days or worse than that.

Funnily enough—I was doing some digging around—the Labour Party, when it was formed in 1916, was all about nationalising the means of production, distribution, and exchange. The party got around to dropping that in 1954. I took the time to have a look at the Labour policy platform that was signed off at the November 2013 conference last year. David Parker’s introduction to that policy platform said that it is binding: “The Platform is binding on the Party, including the Caucus. It will guide the creation of the manifesto …” for next year. So what does that include? On the question of equality it says: “Our vision of a just society is founded on equality and fairness. Labour believes that social justice means that all people should have equal access to social, economic, cultural, political, and legal spheres regardless of wealth, gender, ethnicity, or social position.” Well, I think most people could basically agree with that.

It continues: “Labour says that no matter the circumstances of our birth, we are each accorded equal opportunity to achieve our full potential in life.” Again, I think most people would agree with that. But that is not where it ends, because in the Labour Party policy platform it says: “We believe in more than just equal opportunities—we believe in equality of outcomes.” Equality of outcomes—Labour has not learnt the most basic lesson of history, that the equality of outcomes can be achieved only through extreme force and by massively increasing the power of bureaucrats and the State, and that the outcome generally, universally, in those situations has been disastrous. Some people work hard; some do not. Some are lucky; some are not. Some are talented in music and sport and science; others have talents elsewhere. Some make wise choices in their personal lives; some do not. Some people smoke; some do not. Some have five kids with five different partners; some do not. They all lead to very different outcomes, so how can the State alter the natural outcomes of the diversity of life—that is something that the Labour Party is very keen on, diversity—so that all the outcomes are the same?

By outcomes I am not quite sure what the Labour Party means. Does it mean that all are as wealthy as each other, or all have the same incomes, or all are as happy as each other or live as long as each other? I am not sure where it is all heading, but I would be very interested to hear from Mr Cunliffe as to what he means by “achieving equality of outcomes” in New Zealand. The only way you get there, historically, is by using massive amounts of force. I am sure that that is not what Labour is proposing, but I would like to know what it is proposing. That is the problem we face here today. New Zealanders up and down the country are scratching their heads and trying to work out what it is that Labour actually stands for. Talk is cheap—fine words and sentiments, but there is no basis to them. What is Labour really saying? What is David Cunliffe really saying? What is he, really? Is he a raging left-wing union reformer or is he a more moderate, business-friendly man? Nobody really knows.

So if we just run through a few of the contradictions in what they are saying, we hear Labour members talking about power prices going up and being very concerned about power prices going up—notwithstanding the fact that they went up twice as fast when Labour was last in power—and yet they champion an emissions trading scheme on steroids that would inevitably lead to higher power prices. So which one is it? Are they concerned about it or are they quite happy to increase power prices? It is the same with housing affordability. They say that they are very deeply concerned about housing affordability, particularly in Auckland, yet the single most important thing with housing affordability is interest rates. This Government, by constraining new spending on government to $1 billion a year and being highly disciplined in Government spending and fiscal policy, has kept a lid on interest rates. It has kept them lower than they would otherwise have been. But when the Labour Government was in power, it was splurging around $3 billion a year in new spending, stoking the fire of inflation and stimulating the economy like nobody’s business. The result was that interest rates were nearly 11 percent. So Labour members go on about housing affordability, yet Labour’s record was to greatly increase interest rates. They talk nobly, but their actions achieve the exact opposite.

In the meantime, the Greens go on about housing affordability, but they support, promote, and push for at every opportunity highly restrictive planning policies that artificially increase the value of land. Labour goes along saying: “Me too.” in that area. It is the same on the question of poverty. We know that the best way out of poverty is work, and yet Labour and the Greens oppose every aspect of our welfare policies, which are designed on the principle that everybody can do something and should do something, and that the best thing they can do is get back to work.

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: Where are the jobs?

That is where we have the contradictions that we have to make our way through in this Government.

We have had a good start to the year in terms of the economy. Things are going very well, but a successful rebalancing will require consistent and positive change over the next few years. The New Zealand economy has continued to expand through 2013, growing at 3.5 percent a year into September, despite the severe drought that we have had and significantly reduced growth in the first half of 2013. This was amongst one of the higher rates in the developed world.

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: Where are the pay rises?

Let us not forget, when we talk about where the jobs are, which I heard from over on the other side, that there have been more and more jobs. There are 66,000 more people employed now than a year ago, and the unemployment rate is at 6 percent. It is still too high, but it is dropping as the economy gathers strength, in contrast to what is happening in Australia. Budget 2014-15 will continue this.

It is the consistency of the way that the Government has been approaching the situation over the past 5 years that has given the confidence that businesses have needed in order to invest and to create jobs. It is the consistency about the four priorities that we have had: responsibly managing the finances and getting back to surplus, pushing ahead with a wide range of microeconomic reforms to increase the productivity and competitiveness of the economy, driving better results through Better Public Services, and supporting the rebuilding of Christchurch. People know where they stand with National. They do not know where they stand with Labour. On that basis, I affirm this Budget Policy Statement. Thank you.

In this Budget Policy Statement, National will say: “We are the party of business.” The truth, as we can all see laid bare, is that to National, politics is a business. It is a business where the coinage of the day is its relationships with the rich and the powerful—the interests of the few, which it defends. It is seen in the big things like Warner Bros and Skycity and MediaWorks. It is seen in what might initially have looked like littler things, like a Minister’s visit to China, where she happened to endorse the products of a company of which her husband is a director and that gave her party a tidy $56,000 donation. But then it gets more complicated because, as usual, it is not the initial pitfall that takes National out; it is the way it deals with it. The way it has dealt with this is to hide from the public, to obfuscate, and to delineate between what the public should know and what it has been prepared to say. The Prime Minister has got to the point where, No. 1, he has told untruths to the country—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! We have just had an hour and a half’s debate, an urgent debate, on the matters that you are talking about. I just ask the Leader of the Opposition to come back to this debate. It is on the Budget Policy Statement 2014. So this is what we are actually debating, and I ask the member to come back to that.

The numbers contained in the Budget Policy Statement are the outcome of economic and commercial processes that respond to the rules set by this Government. They have been set by this Government in the interests of some of the most powerful members of the business community, not in the interests of all New Zealanders. I will not go on for the whole of this speech about the mishaps that the Minister of Justice has faced or committed. I will not go on about the fact that the Prime Minister has misled the country or that he should have sacked the Minister today but he could not summon the courage to do so. I will not go on about that. But I will conclude this part of my remarks by making clear that this is not the first time that this National Government has fallen for the interests of the powerful, and it will not be the last.

This is the tip of an iceberg known as crony capitalism, and it is wrong. It is wrong in its effect. It is wrong for its victims, and their names are everywhere. They are the one in four children in this country growing up in poverty. One in four of our children is growing up in poverty while this Government protects the interests of the wealthiest few from the normal processes of business or the normal conventions of good governance. It has got to stop, and it will stop. It is going to stop on 20 September 2014, when New Zealanders get a new beginning and a new start and a new Government.

The Government crows that it might finally, for the first time in 5 long years, get the books in the black. Well, we remain to be convinced, because for the last 3 months the actual numbers have been nowhere near the projections. They are $600 million short so far this year. But even if the Government does get the books in the black, we ask the question: who would not? It has a 20-year high of dairy prices and a $30 billion insurance payout for Christchurch. Frankly, a trained monkey could balance this Budget, because it ought not to be hard. But I have forgotten—Labour ran nine surpluses in a row; National has run four deficits. National members would not know a surplus if they tripped over one.

But the worst of the Government’s problems are actually not what it has done, and that takes some beating—those tax cuts for the rich, remember, and the GST for everybody else. The worst of this Government’s problems embedded in this Budget Policy Statement are what it has not done. Business people say to me that even if you give the Government credit for taking the ship through some rough waters in the global financial crisis, it has no plan for the future. The Government has no strategy. It has no vision. It does not know where it is going, so the rest of the country does not know either.

Where does the Government need to be going? It needs a plan for better jobs and higher wages. It needs a plan to take New Zealand from thinking about volume to thinking about value and to work with our primary sectors to increase investment, to increase innovation, to increase skills, and to increase productivity, so that we can increase returns and increase wages. That is the strategic approach that the incoming Labour-led Government will take.

What are the core elements of that approach? Firstly, let us recognise that we live in an economy that is starved of capital and is, year upon year, building up net international debt to a point where it is now around the whole of New Zealand’s GDP—75 percent. It is a shocker. And what it is made up of is roughly 85 percent private debt and only 15 percent Government debt. So even if National manages to fluke its way to a Government surplus, that would not change the answer—the economy is still going backwards. The only way to save that is with a savings system that increases our savings rate, with a superannuation system that is sustainable, and with a tax system that encourages innovation, not speculation. That means a capital gains tax, an essential platform for taking New Zealand forward because it backs out of distortion that favours property investment at the expense of business investment.

💬 Hon David Parker: Why won’t they do that?

Well, maybe Oravida will not let it, or maybe it is people like Oravida or the property speculators who are driving this Government. We have to get this economy moving on its stalled journey from volume to value.

💬 Maggie Barry: Secret trusts—“No Credibility Cunliffe”.

Oh, well, there is a member who is conveniently turning a blind eye to the fact that there were apparently 21 donors at an Antoine’s Restaurant dinner. While this member says to any donors: “Open up and be frank with the public or you have your money back.”, John Key says: “No, I won’t reveal a single donor. I won’t give a single dollar back.” Why would he? He has got his Ministers scouring the world doing favours for companies and taking money on the backhander. That is a shocker—that is a shocker. If that member cannot recognise a conflict of interest when it walks like one, talks like one, and stinks like one, well, she just needs to watch the 6 o’clock news tonight, because it will be writ large for everybody in New Zealand to see.

New Zealanders demand better standards from Ministers than John Key does, and they demand better standards from a Prime Minister than he is delivering. If he is so out of touch with New Zealanders that he thinks he can get away with a blind eye and a wet bus ticket to a Minister of Justice who is neither ministerial nor just, then he has got another think coming.

💬 Hon David Parker: An economy which works for everyone.

We want an economy that works, as my excellent finance spokesperson and deputy leader has said, for everyone, not just for the few. That has to be an economy with fairness and opportunity for all—for the kids growing up in poverty as well as for the kids growing up at the top end of town. That is opportunity and fairness for every New Zealander. It means a good school. It means a warm, dry roof over their homes. It means an affordable house. It means a health system people can count on. And it means opportunities for training and, above all, for good jobs—for good jobs that lead to better wages.

New Zealanders are sick of this Government’s dead-end economy. This is a Government that cares more about its own books than New Zealanders’ books. It is a Government that is feathering its own nest—those of its friends, its families, and its party—not New Zealanders’. This Labour-led Government will be a Government for change, a Government for social justice, and a Government for development. It is time we had a long, hard look at the New Zealand economy if we want the next Budget Policy Statement to be better than this one.

The only thing going backwards in this House is that member’s popularity. “Mr Tricky David Cunliffe” is an individual who rants and raves and stampedes and makes very loud statements about everything. What has he actually achieved as the leader of the Labour Party this year? Very little. He has gone backwards. His own party does not trust him. This is a guy who trumpeted in this House for such a long time that we needed to reform legislation in relation to donations that effectively precluded the use of trusts. So what did he do? He established a trust for his leadership battle. The other contenders were honest enough about their trusts, but he was not. There are a lot of questions that need to be answered.

As we head towards the 20 September election, it is time to put aside the distracting antics of the relentlessly negative Opposition parties—the uneasy and motley alliance of tired old Labour, which is really bereft of ideas and energy. It wants to borrow more. It wants to spend more than we can afford. And then it wants to raise taxes through the roof. Then there is the increasingly rancid Greens, who do not represent the environmental and conservation concerns that their name might suggest. I will talk a little bit about that later in my call.

Let us focus at the moment on the issue that really does matter to our communities and to this country, and that is a stronger economy. As others have said, we are on track for getting the books back into surplus. There are more jobs now because of the strong economy—66,000 more people are employed now than there were a year ago. There are more of them. There are better front-line health and education services and we have a much safer New Zealand. I intend for my call here today to examine the good progress that this John Key - led National Government has achieved. We have a very busy legislative agenda, which we are sticking to, and a very clear plan that we are also sticking to.

In the area I represent, on Auckland’s North Shore, we are very well aware of the advantages of building a stronger economy. We appreciate that unemployment is down to 6 percent and is trending in the right direction—downwards—and that is because of the more competitive and more productive economy. It all traces back to that. Those are the sorts of issues that New Zealanders are most concerned about. They are not distracted by the antics and the sideshow pony tricks of the Opposition forces, such as they are.

Interest rates, as we know, are at a 50-year low. Government spending is well under control. Inflation is currently running at 1.6 percent, and that is much better than it was when we inherited the Treasury benches back in 2008, when it was over 5 percent. On a day-to-day level, we know that we are living in safer communities, with the lowest reported crime in 33 years. Some trends are on the up and up, even going through the roof. Business confidence is at its highest level in 20 years. The economy grew at 3.5 percent in the past year, and we do not want to put that at risk. The economy is doing well, but it is a fragile recovery, and this Government is committed to ensuring that it continues.

Let us look at a specific group: the seniors. This Government is making sure that older New Zealanders have the security, the well-being, and the overall respect that they deserve—our seniors who have worked hard and really do deserve to enjoy their retirement. We have recognised that in many tangible ways over the past 5 years.

💬 Chris Auchinvole: Thank you.

Yes, that is quite all right, Chris Auchinvole. You do appreciate it as a man over 65, in your prime. The net rate of superannuation for married couples is up 25 percent in the past 5 years. That is up by an extra $183 a fortnight, and the single living alone payment has increased by more than $125 a fortnight. Since the last Labour Government in 2008 the Consumer Price Index has increased by 12 percent. With the net rate for superannuation up by 25 percent, that does represent a much faster rate of increase for seniors than for any other beneficiaries in New Zealand. New Zealand’s faster economic growth has certainly benefited our seniors, and they deserve it.

This year we are investing $1.55 million on aged care. That is an increase of more than 60 percent on what Labour spent back in 2008. We are spending more on people in aged care—on respite care, on carer support, and on new clinical assessment tools for older New Zealanders. That is really going to make a difference to the quality of life of our older people. I feel, in particular, that it is commendable what we have done around Alzheimer’s, with the amount of money that we have put into that. My own mother had a long journey with dementia, and I was very upset to see the lack of advocacy for many of those older people who did not have friends and family to keep an eye on them. For 12 years I was patron of the organisation Alzheimers Wellington, and I know very well how difficult it has been to raise public awareness as well as to raise necessary funds. So I am very proud, indeed, that we have put more money into this important area.

At the moment in New Zealand there are 48,000 New Zealanders who suffer from some form of dementia to some degree. By 2050 that will have tripled to 150,000 New Zealanders. It is increasing at a rate of 4 percent a year. We have labelled dementia as a priority. We have put $100 million specifically towards services like home support, so that people with dementia-related conditions can stay in their homes for longer, and so that the people who care for them can have more support and better training to be able to do well the jobs that they do and to do them even better. To me it is not just a matter of clinical care; it is also a matter of having people attracted to that profession who have compassion, because that is one of the many qualities that is required.

Dementia bed subsidies have increased by 25 percent over the past 5 years. We have allocated $3.2 million in the last Budget to something I have been very involved in for a very long time, which is the early diagnosis of dementia. Unless you realise and know and understand what to look for, it is quite easy to miss those initial signs of dementia and not see it until it is too late, and to perhaps misunderstand the symptoms and misunderstand the behaviour changes that do occur. So there is a need to put money into raising awareness and making people aware of how they can get support and what they need to tap into from an early stage. There is a thing called Cuppa for a Cause, which Alzheimer’s New Zealand has just relaunched. When I was part of it back in 1993, we were jumping out of planes, with parachutes and people strapped to our backs, to raise awareness of dementia. It is something that has gradually been occurring over the years. I commend Alzheimer’s New Zealand for coming together and trying very hard to make mainstream New Zealanders, whose lives have perhaps not been touched by this yet, more aware of what is required. Fund-raising is needed—that is true—but to me raising awareness is the thing that needs to happen.

There are other initiatives as well that are helping older New Zealanders get quality of life. The SuperGold card, from very humble beginnings, has certainly been improved on. Since 2010 this National Government has invested more than $68 million in this scheme, and as of last week there are now more than 11,000 businesses involved, including transport, retail, dentists, pharmacy, and utilities services. For those seniors who can afford to and who have a mind to go overseas, reciprocal arrangements are now in place so that our over-65s can also receive a range of commercial discounts that the Australian seniors receive there.

When I look at environment and conservation, I see as well a Government that has really put its money where its mouth is and that has also endeavoured to make sure that the regulations, the controls, and the penalties are in place so that our environment is protected. It would be foolish not to explore what our potential is when it comes to oil and gas. We need to see what is there. Anadarko has not had much success in Taranaki. There may or may not be oil reserves off Canterbury and Otago. Indeed we do hope so, but it is prudent to find out. If they do find that there are oil reserves that are worth doing, there will be full public hearings to ascertain what needs to be done before those permits are actually granted. That is an enormous improvement on what Labour did. There were more than 35 grants given through just the signature of a Minister, to ensure that wells could be dug and drilled. There were not any provisions, there were not any safeguards, and there were no penalties and fines put in place. Labour compounded that problem, along with its cronies in the Green Party, by not supporting the exclusive economic zone legislation. We have now put in place very good measures and provisions—$10 million fines and so forth—for people who do not do what they are supposed to do.

I would hope that when you look at us on balance as a Government and see what we are doing with marine reserves, you would see that the Hon Dr Nick Smith has certainly made huge gains here. We are effectively expanding our protected territorial sea from 7 percent to 9.5 percent, which is very close to New Zealand’s target of 10 percent. That is part of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. There is our Coastal Policy Statement, our benchmarks for water and how we need to maintain water treatment and to clean up the waterways, which have really over a very long period of time degraded and deteriorated, so it is important that we ensure that these things continue.

When it comes to the war on 1080, I think once again we have led the charge there. The battle for our birds ensures that we will be able to cut through some of the more emotive arguments that have surrounded this space in the 20 to 30 years that I have been involved and interested in horticulture and conservation. The 1080 aerial drops are the weapon that we need to ensure that our New Zealand native birds do not perish—2.5 million of them die annually and we do not want that to continue. Thank you.

There is a rumour going around Auckland that the seat that the National Party is going to throw to Colin Craig is North Shore—North Shore—

💬 Maggie Barry: Yeah, right!

Yeah, right! Well, we will see. That is the rumour. They do not want to protect you, Maggie. Colin Craig is coming for your seat, they say. Devonport has had enough of Maggie and it is going to go to Colin Craig. Well, time will tell.

That is another example of how the National Party manipulates things for the benefit of the few. It is manipulating MMP for its own benefit and also we see it manipulating the way the New Zealand economy is run for the 2 or 3 percent at the top of society. That is going to be an essential issue at this next election. Do voters want to continue with the National Party and see the rewards going disproportionately to the top 2 or 3 percent, or do they want to have a Labour Party under which everyone will get their fair share? Everybody will be expected to do their share of the work, but everyone will get their fair share of the rewards under a Labour Government.

Under National and under the policies that it has pursued, this is clearly not the case. The list is such a long one it proves the point, and people know it. We had National doing the special deal for Skycity. We had the special deal for Rio Tinto down at the smelter, where it was bailed out for 30 million bucks and the Government did not even get a jobs guarantee. Why did it do that? It did that in order to sell the State-owned enterprises, the power companies that used to be owned by all New Zealanders, to less than 2 percent of the population, and, in the process, privatise the value of New Zealand’s rivers, which drive all our cheap hydro that we pay ever-increasing amounts for because it privatised them to less than 2 percent of New Zealand and to some overseas shareholders.

What else has National done? Well, crony capitalism does not come any clearer than it has this week with what has been going down with the National Party and Judith Collins and Oravida. There is $56,000 of donations to the National Party, Judith Collins’ husband being appointed a director, off to China, promoting while you are a Minister—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! We have had an urgent debate on this matter. This is the Budget Policy Statement debate and we are not going to regress to a subject that we have dealt with. The member can—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I did not notice when you came to the Chair, but I was listening to Maggie Barry—

💬 Maggie Barry: That makes a nice change.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Well, I do occasionally, but I was listening to Maggie Barry, who devoted a large proportion of her speech to the matter of trusts and where money came from. That was also a matter that was transgressed in the previous debate, and for you to rule that money that we are currently allocating as part of a process for the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet to give Cabinet advice to the Prime Minister—whether that can be debated or not, as part of this policy statement—cannot be debated would be a very radical decision.

My view is that we are debating the process, which includes the money for the Prime Minister’s advice, and therefore we should be able to refer to the quality of that advice and what the Prime Minister does with it.

💬 Maggie Barry: Speaking to the point of order.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, I do not need any assistance. Well, I can just assure the member I have been paying attention to the entire proceedings this afternoon, and of course any comparative situations can be raised if they are pertinent to the current debate. What I am saying is that we are not going to transgress or shift back into material generally around a subject that we have debated. It needs to be pertinent.

As I was saying, under this Government we have an economy run for the top 2 or 3 percent. We have crony capitalism that is rife, and I have instanced a number of examples that overwhelmingly prove the case. If you want more proof, what about housing? There are decreasing rates of homeownership because a few people own a lot of houses and fewer young people can afford to buy one. That is another example of how this Government is running the economy in the interests of a few at the expense of the many. Under Labour it will be different. We have got a housing plan that will substantially change that.

Why will the National Government, in the face of rampant house price inflation, not tax capital gains, excluding the owner-occupied home, like just about everywhere else does in the world? It is because it is protecting the top 2 or 3 percent, whom it so plainly acts for, who own multiple houses. So while the top 2 or 3 percent do disproportionately well, we have got flat-lining wages for most workers. The Government comes along and uses an average. What that average hides is the fact that most of the gains are going to the people at the top. Indeed, if you look at the amount that is paid differently from year to year for 1 hour of work, it did not go up any more than the rate of inflation—it went up 1.6 percent for that same hour’s work for 1 year compared with when we had inflation at 1.6 percent.

Look at power prices. Having privatised these State-owned enterprises, having transferred what was previously owned by all New Zealanders to that small section of New Zealanders, we have got power price increases and we have got the rewards of cheap generation from our hydro rivers being captured by the 3 percent who have bought shares. We have got rents going up, we have got widening gaps between the rich and the poor, we have got increasing rates of child poverty, and the Government has not got a plan to change that.

Well, in the Labour Party we have. It is a very significant plan that will bring about a fair economy that works for everyone. David Cunliffe has already spoken of it. It will improve the amount of capital that we have got to invest in our businesses by having a compulsory KiwiSaver scheme so that there is more money saved in the New Zealand economy and we are less reliant on imported capital. That does not suit the National Party members. Their end of town is quite suited to more imported capital coming in. They like the concentration of wealth that happens from year to year in New Zealand. We do not. We want to save more in New Zealand.

It was us in the Labour Party who created KiwiSaver, with the support of Winston Peters and others, with the support of the Greens—I hope—and with the opposition of the National Party. So, in addition to building more capital, growing New Zealand savings through a universal KiwiSaver, we are going to make sure it is spent in the right part—not in the speculative part of the economy where National’s cronies hang out, not in the area where, disproportionately, the top 2 or 3 percent who own multiple houses hang out—[Interruption]—or own big farms like David Bennett, who is interjecting on me but does not want to pay capital gains tax.

No, National will not bring about a capital gains tax because it does not suit its members, or the interest groups that back it. Nevertheless, we will, because we know that that will direct capital into the higher incomes and jobs that we need as a country in order to lift productivity and lift the wages and salaries of those people who work there.

This means that we need to invest more in the further processing of, for example, our forestry exports. Why is it that we are sending so many logs offshore unprocessed? The answer, in large part, is because of the poor Government policy. Who suffers in respect of that? It is the New Zealanders who do not have well-paid jobs working in the forest-processing industry. Who benefits from the current settings? It is the small proportion of wealthy New Zealanders, particularly the overseas corporates that now own our forests, that is sending our logs off overseas.

Who also benefits from these settings are the likes of Oravida. You do not like me talking about this, Mr Speaker, but I am afraid I have got to, because Oravida’s interests are being pursued by the National Government and on behalf of the National Government by Judith Collins, as a Minister, going overseas and promoting the interests of Oravida, which will make Oravida a wealthier company because it will improve its sales. That is why Oravida wanted Judith Collins to endorse its products, and that is why Oravida skited about the fact that a Minister in the New Zealand Government endorsed its products. That was for the benefit of the big end of town. There can never be a clearer example. It was for the benefit of Oravida, it was for the benefit of the National Party, which got a $56,000 donation, and it was for the benefit of Judith Collins’ own family—her husband being a director of the company. Under the current Government, you get it acting for the big end of town, while everyone else is flat-lining or going backwards. Under the Labour Government, you will get an economy that works for everyone, and everyone will get their fair share.

I rise on behalf of the Green Party. I think it is important—just to frame this debate around the Government’s economic management and fiscal management—that we are coming up to an election on 20 September. Of course, the Green Party will be putting up an alternative to the Government’s economic and fiscal strategy at that election that could be summarised as being that we need a smarter, greener, more compassionate Government than the one we have.

I think that when you look at the economic and fiscal policies of this Government, you get a sense of how badly it is doing. I wanted to talk about one way in which National has been consistent over all of these years, because I think consistency is an important value, and that is with regard to debt reduction. From 1999 to 2004 the National Party consistently opposed debt reduction at every opportunity. At every Budget from 1999 to 2008, when it was in Opposition, it opposed debt reduction. It said that the surpluses the Government had should be given away as tax cuts to the wealthiest New Zealanders. National, from 1999 to 2008, when it was in Opposition, said that surpluses should be given away as tax cuts rather than being used to pay debt. John Key and Bill English put out press releases saying that the surpluses should be given away as tax cuts rather than being used to pay down Government debt.

Fortunately, the parties that had the dominant position in the House during those years—which, I think, probably were New Zealand First, the Greens, and Labour—were able to vote for Budgets that reduced debt. That meant that when there was the global financial crisis, the Government of the day was in a position and had some fiscal headroom to deal with the challenges it faced. We would not have had that had we taken the advice of Bill English, John Key, and the National Party because they consistently said from 1999 to 2008: “Don’t use the surpluses to pay down debt; use the surpluses to give tax cuts to the wealthy.” Fortunately, everyone ignored the National Party.

Then there was a change of Government. Since the change of Government, National has consistently advocated for increased debt. So every Budget since National took over has been a deficit Budget, which has increased the Government’s debt—every Budget. Throughout the entire period of 1999 to 2014, a 15-year period, National has consistently opposed every effort to reduce debt. That is quite an achievement in terms of consistency—it has consistently opposed it. Since National has been in Government, since it took over the Government benches, it has borrowed $50 billion to $60 billion.

So you think, well, there was a global financial crisis and there was a Christchurch earthquake, so there was reason to borrow money, and there is certainly some truth in that, but it was borrowing money for other things as well. Let me give you an example. National is borrowing $1.1 billion a year—that is, $1,100 million per year—to pay for the tax cuts for the top 10 percent of income earners, which are the tax cuts that National introduced right in the middle of the crisis, in 2010. When National became the Government after advocating for all those years to increase, not reduce, debt, it immediately threw the Budget into a big hole by giving tax cuts to the wealthiest people in the country at an ongoing cost—we are still paying for this—of $1.1 billion every year, which is a big hole in the Budget. You would have to say National has been entirely consistent over this 15-year period in increasing debt and advocating for increases in Government debt. Then when it got an opportunity to be in the Government, it actually managed to do it—a $52 billion increase in debt since it has taken over the Government benches. So it is a very consistent position from National.

I also wanted to talk more broadly about costs of living for people. We know that tomorrow the Reserve Bank may well increase interest rates—the official cash rate. We will find out in the morning. The two major drivers of inflation in the New Zealand economy at the moment are coming out of the housing market and coming out of the electricity market, or so-called market—it is not actually a market; it is a jack-up. But they are the two key drivers of increases in the CPI at the moment. It is the increase in inflation coming out of electricity and housing that is putting pressure on the Reserve Bank to increase interest rates.

The Government has persistently and consistently refused to take action to reduce increasing prices in housing and the increased prices in electricity. For example, in Auckland, since John Key became Prime Minister, house prices have gone up 44 percent.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: How much?

There has been a 44 percent increase in house prices since John Key became Prime Minister. This is just after the global financial crisis. So in terms of electricity, since John Key became Prime Minister, prices have gone up 20 percent. What we have seen is very significant increases in the cost of living for ordinary New Zealanders. The National members opposite are laughing about this because they could not give a damn about ordinary New Zealanders. They are laughing about the fact that ordinary people are getting priced out of the housing market. Ordinary people are struggling to pay their electricity bills and National thinks it is funny and says there is nothing it can do about it.

National has made no efforts to deal with the inflationary pressures coming out of housing and electricity. The effect of that is that the Reserve Bank is very likely to put up interest rates tomorrow. Think about what that means for ordinary families. Not only can they thank National for the fact that house price inflation is out of control; they can thank National for electricity price inflation and their big bills in electricity, which are out of control. Also, their mortgage payments will go up because the National Government has failed to control inflationary pressure coming out of housing and electricity.

Instead, National has been defending the big electricity companies, the vertically integrated generator retailers, which have been pushing up the price of power. During the whole privatisation debate, the Green Party was saying if you go ahead with privatisation, the electricity companies will push to increase prices. Now what has happened? The National Government proceeded with privatisation, and all around the country people are getting bills in the mail telling them that the price of electricity is going to go up because National forced through privatisation on a single vote, opposed by most New Zealanders. Since privatisation, the price of electricity is rapidly escalating.

On top of that, National refuses to actually make sure there is competition in the electricity sector that could actually put competitive pressure on prices. The result of that is that ordinary New Zealand families are facing very significant pressures in terms of electricity bills, very significant pressures in terms of housing costs and rents, and soon-to-be-increased mortgage costs because the National Government has failed to deal with these problems because National protects the big electricity companies rather than protecting New Zealand households. That is the fundamental reality of our economy right now.

I want to now step back a little bit. We have talked about the fiscal performance of the National Party, which has been to consistently support increases in debt over a 15-year period. I have talked a little bit about the pressures that are coming on households as a result of National’s agenda and policy—increased electricity prices, increased housing prices, and soon-to-be-increased mortgage costs. I want to talk now about some of the macroeconomic indicators for the New Zealand economy. The Government has made a lot of the macroeconomic indicators of the economy. So let us put together two basic numbers. We are looking at the best terms of trade for the New Zealand economy in about 40 years—our best terms of trade. The terms of trade are not determined by the Government of the day; they are simply the prices for what we sell to the rest of the world, so they are controlled by the global economy. So the Government cannot take credit for the fact that we have the best terms of trade in 40 years. However, at the same time we have a current account deficit that is one of the highest in the OECD. It is over 4 percent of GDP—one of the worst current account deficits in the developed world—at the same time that we have some of the best export prices in several generations.

What does that tell you? Is this an economy that is performing well, when even at the best point, when prices are the highest, we are still running very significant current account deficits? How do you pay for a current account deficit? I have asked Ministers of Finance from National about this before; they do not know. The answer is there are two ways to pay for a current account deficit. Firstly, you borrow more—well, we have seen that the Government is doing quite a lot of that—or, secondly, you sell assets, and, well, we have seen quite a lot of the Government doing that.

Across the New Zealand economy more and more large corporations are falling into foreign ownership to pay for the current account deficit. So when you look at it at a macro level—that is, what is going on on the big scale for the New Zealand economy—we see that, actually, it is performing extremely poorly. Let me give you some other macro indicators—for example, the number of unemployed. There are 50,000 more unemployed than when John Key became Prime Minister. So in spite of all the talk from the Government about how well things are going, there are, in fact, more people unemployed than when John Key became Prime Minister—50,000 more unemployed.

Let us talk about manufacturing. Manufacturing exports are in decline in real terms, both simply transformed manufactures and elaborately transformed manufactures. That is the macro picture of a failure in fiscal and economic policy by this Government, and that is why we need a smarter, greener, and more compassionate Government. On 20 September, we are going to get one.

David Bennett.

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: Oh, no.

Have you got something to say? No, he has got nothing to say. He has got the next 10 minutes, but he will not have anything to say. This is economic policy. I would like to hear what Winston Peters’ economic policy is. Do you know how Winston Peters’ speech will go? He will stand up and he will wait for someone to interrupt him—

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. As you will know, there is a procedure in this House, and there has been for a long time, that a member can request that the other member yield so the challenge he is making out can be met. He wants to hear me speak, so I am asking him to yield.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, that is not a point of order.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: Yes, it is.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, it is not a point of order. It is up to the member on his feet to decide whether he wants to yield.

You see, the other part of his speech process is to do a point of order, because he cannot handle someone actually attacking him in this House, and so he has to raise a point of order to try to break it up. He is an old dog with some new tricks, but it is good to see him back. He has been here only 5 minutes but—

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: Call his bluff.

Yeah, nah, that is right. We will be interested to see his economic policy. I will tell you what his economic policy will be. It will be squat, it will be zero, it will be nothing. He has never had an economic policy. He never will and never could get one together. It is such a shame to see a politician of such longevity sit there in pain and not understand what he has got to do for the next 10 minutes. He will just try to abuse people personally instead of actually doing anything of any consequence.

💬 Tracey Martin: Come on, Mr Bennett. Say something about the actual topic. Come on.

OK, I will. OK, let us have a look at the Green Party. The Green Party just spoke. It was Russel Norman, the economic guru, who said it was going to print money. Where has the printing money idea gone? The Green Party soon got rid of the idea of printing money. Or does it still secretly want to print money—is that what it really wants? Russel Norman came into this House year after year after year saying the Green Party would print money to solve New Zealand’s problems. Then, suddenly, Russel Norman worked out that it was a dumb move, and he stopped saying what he had said he would want to do, which was print money. Now he comes back in here with the next level of his agenda. He always talks about macroeconomic policy as if he were some economic guru who studied and got a doctorate in economics, when he has no idea of what is going on in the world economy or in the New Zealand economy. When he talks about debt reduction and inflation, let us look at the reality of what has gone on.

New Zealand has had to deal with the biggest recession since the 1930s, and we did not have this country go into depression. New Zealand has had to rebuild our second-biggest city. We have done all that at the same time as keeping our country’s economic finances under control and delivering a strong future going forward. We now have growth rates above 3 percent—the second-best in the Western World. That is the kind of economic management that New Zealanders wanted and got from this Government. It is not the kind of economic management that the Green Party and the Labour Party would deliver.

The Green Party talks about housing and electricity as the two big expenses that are causing inflation. Let us have a look at both of them. I will come back to housing when we talk about the Labour Party policy around capital gains tax, but let us talk about electricity first. The Green Party wants to bring in a carbon tax on New Zealanders—that $500 a year on everybody’s power bills that it wants to bring in around emissions trading. It has said that time and time again. What does that do to your power price? It puts your power price up. If it puts your power price up, under the Greens’ logic that means you have got higher inflation. That means you have got higher interest rates. The Green Party is saying that power prices have gone up 20 percent in the term of this Government; yes, they have. That is nothing compared with the 70 percent they went up under the previous Government. The Green Party would want to hike them up 70 percent in 3 years if it ever got near the Treasury benches, because it would do that for its emissions trading scheme. Get ready, New Zealanders: if you had a Labour-Greens Government you would have much higher power prices. That is the reality of the Greens’ economic policy.

Then we look at the Labour Party. It has talked about a capital gains tax.

💬 Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: Look at them.

Look at them—yes, what is left of the Labour Party there. A capital gains tax—if you go and talk to any international organisation like the IMF, it will talk about capital gains taxes, but it will talk about them as capital gains taxes across all assets, not just what the Labour Party is talking about, which is putting capital gains taxes just on the productive side of the New Zealand economy. Why would you want to tax the side of the New Zealand economy that produces the most income? Why would you want to tax businesses? Why would you want to tax the companies, which pay for jobs and provide the income for this country going forward, and exempt family homes? You exempt family homes under the Labour one, but you tax the productive part of the economy. That does not make a lot of sense.

When you go overseas, you look at countries that have a capital gains tax. Have they got lower house price inflation than New Zealand? No. In San Francisco last year the price went up 30 percent in 1 year. That is what you are dealing with. Sydney has got a large increase in the prices of homes, as well. They have both got a capital gains tax. It does not stop increases. It does not stop them.

💬 Phil Twyford: We wouldn’t expect you to support a CGT.

That is Phil Twyford over there—the housing person for the Labour Party. He would have no idea. He is just doing what David Cunliffe told him to do. So if we look at it, the Green Party wants to put up power prices. It wants to put up power prices through its emissions trading scheme. The Labour Party wants to attack the productive part of New Zealand, and that is still not going to stop New Zealand property prices going up. That does not work in the economic sense.

Before I finish, I just want to talk about one local issue that is dear to my heart and dear to the hearts of the people of Waikato.

💬 Hon Todd McClay: What’s that?

That is the Waikato Expressway. This country has got the ability to grow, and grow successfully, and we need the infrastructure to do that. When you look at the roads of national significance, the Waikato Expressway has got two contracts that come up in 2015 for two parts of that road, both of them around $600 million to $700 million: the Huntly and Hamilton bypasses. They need to be contracted in 2015, which is next year. The Labour Party and the Green Party, mark my words, will not commit to funding those projects. The people of Hamilton and the people of Waikato have the most to lose from this election. They have the most to lose from the National Government not being re-elected. If National does not get back in, those roads will not happen—those roads will not happen. There will be no economic growth plan for Hamilton going forward.

I see Nanaia Mahuta there. I bet you she will go back to Tainui and they will say they need that road for their inland port. Do they not? They do need it at Ruakura. I do not know how you can sit through those meetings with Tainui and say to them that you will not build the road that makes the biggest capital investment for that tribe going forward. That is the truth of what happens, and that is the truth of what will happen after this election if you get a Labour-Greens Government. The people of Hamilton and the Waikato will miss out. They will miss out on the golden opportunity they have in front of them to leap with Auckland into Tauranga. That will happen because Labour and the Greens will not build the roads. You say: “How do you know that, Dave? How do you know that they will not build them?”. Well, the Green Party has already pulled the plug on two that are signed up now, so it is certainly going to pull the plug on anything that is in the process of being signed up next year, is it not? The Labour Party does exactly what the Green Party wants to do when it comes to these things, because the Labour Party is under the hand and the fist of the Green Party when it comes to transport.

So I say to the members of the public out there that this is an important election. This is an important election because it is about the economic future of New Zealand. This is what the Budget Policy Statement is about. Are we willing to back a growing, strong economy? Or are we willing to vote for a Green Party that is going to put power prices up? Are we going to vote for a Labour Party that is going to put a capital gains tax in, which is its trump economic policy, and that will not actually achieve anything? Are you going to vote for a Labour-Greens Government that is going to hurt the people of Hamilton and the Waikato and deny them the future that they could have had under a National Government? That is why people will not vote for them.

Then there is a red herring. There is New Zealand First over there, which does not actually know what it will get if anyone votes for it. Its members would have no idea about economic policy. I bet you that Winston Peters is trying to look up what the Waikato Expressway is. He would not understand. That is the road to the future of Hamilton. If you ever visit, you will see how important it is. This is an election that is going to be about economic policy. The choice is clear. We have had good economic management, we have delivered good economic growth, we have reduced unemployment, and we have managed our finances in the most difficult of times. On the other side of the House you have weird and wonderful platforms that will actually increase the cost of living and that will not achieve the purpose that the Opposition says they will achieve. And the third party does not even have a platform. Thank you.

There is no better demonstration of how desperate and hopeless the National Party is than in the address of the last speaker, David Bennett. First of all, David Bennett, from Hamilton East, of course purchased farm after farm on tax avoidance. That is why he does not like—

💬 David Bennett: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I request that he withdraw and apologise for those comments. I take offence at that.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: On tax avoidance?

💬 David Bennett: Yes.

Speaking to the point of order, first of all—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Are you speaking to the point of order?

I want to explain why—

💬 David Bennett: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. You cannot speak to the point of order when it is one of those comments.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I will determine that.

💬 David Bennett: You know it is against the Standing Orders for him to raise a point of order in his speech.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! If the member is speaking to the point of order—

Yes, I am.

💬 David Bennett: But it’s against—he can’t.

Well, the Speaker says I can. The reality is that tax evasion is illegal—

💬 David Bennett: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

No, tax evasion is illegal—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Please sit.

—but taking steps to avoid taxation is not.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! I am asking you to sit. A point of order has been raised. The manner in which the member used the term is implying that the member is not an honourable member.

I didn’t say that.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, I am ruling, so the member will—

No, you are not. No you were not. I have no—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! I am on my feet. Do not respond to me when I am on my feet. The member will desist from using terms that imply that the member is not an honourable member.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am remembered for taking on the wine-box conspirators. The issue there was not avoidance; it was evasion. I know the difference, and far more clearly than you do. I am not going to be ramrodded in this House on the basis of your lack of understanding.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! If the member casts an aspersion on the Speaker like that, his speech will be terminated. I have made a ruling. The member is not to imply issues that count against the honourableness of any member of this House. He may continue.

💬 David Bennett: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I have taken offence. To the member, I say that it does not matter whether it is evasion or avoidance. He needs to withdraw and apologise. That is the nature of the House.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member has taken offence, so the member Winston Peters will withdraw and apologise.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, the member will withdraw—

I withdraw and apologise. I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Are you now writing the tax laws for this country, and saying that tax avoidance is illegal? That is what I am telling you, and that is what the wine-box inquiry was all about. Having spent 7 years on it, I am entitled to make that assertion.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! We have got to a situation where the apology has been accepted. The member may continue.

One of the reasons why Mr Bennett likes the Waikato Expressway is that, of course, it goes past one of his farms.

The Budget Policy Statement is a whitewash. It is a snow job. It fails utterly as a realistic description of New Zealand’s true economic and fiscal position. It has to be asked whether the Budget Policy Statement is designed to inform the public in an objective and disinterested way on economic policy, or whether it is just outright Government propaganda. The Budget Policy Statement is very sanguine—indeed, complacent—about the economic and fiscal outlook for our country.

This is all part and parcel of National’s orchestrated campaign to create a false sense of confidence and well-being about the economy prior to this year’s election. Well, New Zealand First is sorry to spoil the make-believe, but we prefer facts and they tell another story. First of all, after 5 years of a National Government, New Zealand’s economic fundamentals are still woeful. The structural weaknesses remain. Despite having the advantage of the best terms of trade in 40 years, as mentioned by members of the Opposition, ordinary New Zealanders are struggling to find decent jobs. There are almost 150,000 unemployed, and then there are tens and tens of thousands who simply have not got enough work. Our current account deficit is one of the worst in the OECD, with New Zealand’s net international debt a staggering $150 billion.

I want every National Party person over on that side of the House to explain to me how they can get up and say things are right when the net debt is a staggering $150 billion. In the Budget Policy Statement itself, the current account deficit is predicted to get worse. That statement has the current account deficit getting worse. It is going to grow to—listen to this—6.3 percent of GDP by 2016.

💬 Tracey Martin: How much?

To 6.3 percent of GDP by 2016. All of that is debt building up in this country. Nearly half of all Kiwi workers got no pay increase last year. Ordinary New Zealanders are being hit by rising costs and stagnant incomes. The result is that 70 percent of workers do not even get the average wage—70 percent of the workforce do not even get the average wage. They are being told: “Just trust National. We know what we’re doing.” The result is that homeownership is no longer a prospect for thousands of young Kiwis. In the Budget Policy Statement real wage growth is forecast to average—listen to this—1 percent a year. What is the inflationary growth? Well, it is closer to 3 percent than 2 percent. So wage growth is forecast at 1 percent a year, and forecast inflation is closer to 3 percent than 2 percent. That is why the Governor of the Reserve Bank is going to slap on an interest rate hike tomorrow morning. That is what he is going to do.

We have a Government that is lax on immigration policy. That is having a huge effect on the inflation of house prices in Auckland, and the Government will not do a thing about it. There is someone from offshore buying 77 homes in Auckland, and the Government does not want to know. That person is an offshore landlord now. The people in New Zealand are now paying this money into a foreign economy.

What is significant in this Budget Policy Statement is what it does not say. There is very little attention paid to taking action on tax challenges arising from the rapidly growing digital economy and the threat posed to the tax base. The Government is happy to get all Draconian against Kiwi offenders and overdue student loan scheme repayments, but seems content to let the hikes and the likes of Google and Facebook take millions in profit from New Zealand and pay almost no tax at all.

On foreign ownership and its consequences, there is a deafening silence. It does not want to know. The Government will not go around the Waikato, Southland, and the West Coast and tell the people that it is selling out the country, left, right, and centre, because the Government does not want to know. Only a National Government could be so wilfully blind to the fact that the housing bubble in Auckland is being fed by foreign speculators. Just recently, Waste Management has been sold to a wholly owned subsidiary of the Beijing Capital Group for $950 million, subject, of course, to the usual rubber-stamp approval of the Overseas Investment Office.

💬 Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: Is that like Huka Lodge?

So now Chinese interests will own almost all of New Zealand’s waste collection and landfill businesses—and for the benefit of the member from the North Shore, no, that is like quisling. That is like treachery, in an economic sense. That is what it is like, and that is what the people are going to think when they front up at the election in 2014. And, I might say, what a bumbling, stumbling start the National Party has had to this campaign. First of all, John Key makes the announcement that the election is going to be on 20 September. In the next breath he demands that New Zealand First says what it is going to do. I thought it was about what National was going to do.

💬 Nicky Wagner: Otherwise people don’t know who you’re going for.

Oh, I know you would love to know that, but you want to know this. What the member from Christchurch should be listening to, apart from ignoring all the people there about the terribly slow rebuild, is what New Zealand First is saying about policy. I know those National members are mere cannon fodder. [Interruption] Those members can shout hysterically, but they are not going to be here for long. For goodness’ sake, by the time I finish my career, I will have been here 10 times longer than both of them. That is how short their careers are going to be. Listen and learn. You might learn something.

This will be the biggest Chinese acquisition of a local business in New Zealand since Haier electronics took full control of Fisher and Paykel Appliances in 2012—under which Government? Why, it was the National Government. Ownership matters. These things are not just interesting little details on the business pages. Along with all the prime agricultural land that continues to be sold to overseas interests, it means that New Zealanders are increasingly working to enrich other people in other countries. But the National Government just looks the other way—head stuck firmly in the sand. It will not even keep any accurate data on what is being sold, to whom, and for how much. Ignorance, in National’s world, is total bliss.

There is very little acknowledgment in the Budget Policy Statement of growing regional disparities and the need to overcome market failure—this is a bit long so I am trying to speed it up, and I think I have slowed down. The result is that regional economies are being neglected. The Government would not even find $4 million for the Napier-Gisborne line—not a lousy $4 million—although, mind you, it is heading towards $45 million for the bungle on Novopay. No doubt about that—$44 million for a bungle. The poor people cannot even get $4 million for the Napier-Gisborne line.

On the West Coast—Solid Energy and Bathurst Resources—there is no real Government support whatsoever. The fact is that the Government’s attempts to rebalance the economy have failed miserably.

💬 Jacqui Dean: Who wrote this rubbish?

Unlike that member, I am able to write my own speeches.

💬 Jacqui Dean: Oh really?

Unlike that member, I do not have to go to the research unit to be told what to do. Unlike that member, I do not just parrot what the financial markets paid into the National Party’s coffers. No. New Zealand First is a party with members who know what they are talking about because they are experienced and they have been through it all before. National, in over 5 years, has done nothing to address the structural weakness of the economy.

But here is the point. Here comes the sale of Genesis Energy. I want to ask those National members over there: does the Government intend to make any structural changes to the State-owned enterprise companies that the Government has in the mixed-ownership programme this year? Does it, for example, intend to retain the chairperson of Genesis Energy, whose only experience as a chair of a listed company was with Mainzeal Property and Construction, which went bust? Are those members over there aware of the growing resistance from the market to having Jenny Shipley as chairperson of Genesis Energy? Do they believe that having Jenny Shipley as chairperson will affect the price of Genesis Energy?

I picked up an article in the weekend from a guy called Tim Hunter, and he said that downtown the market is not too keen on this product. Even more important, he said that if she is there, it will take some real sweeteners, indeed, to sell Genesis Energy. How much will this cost the country because of the Government’s cronyism and the appointment of its own, when they are not competent to do the job? And Mainzeal is all the evidence I know of that. How much did Mainzeal owe when it went down? Well, it owed a staggering figure of $130 million, and there is a stack of subcontractors who have lost everything. They have been sent bankrupt by Mainzeal’s collapse. And the person who headed Mainzeal, of course, was Jenny Shipley. What on earth is she doing heading Genesis when we are trying to sell it?

💬 Grant Robertson: She’s busy at the Oravida opening.

Well, I know of Oravida, and she also was a director of China’s second-biggest bank. I mean, this is astonishing stuff. If Holyoake and Muldoon and Holland, and people like that, were alive they would be turning in their nightcaps at what these people are doing. They would be turning in their nightcaps at what this new bunch of novices is doing. For the sake of that member over there who is pointing to her head, and I know why—

Order! The member’s time has expired. [Interruption] Order! The member’s time has expired.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: I know. I’m moving for an extension—this is so good.

It is not happening today.

Oh, what a blessed relief when that bell rang and it was only 2 minutes to go, and then Winston Peters had to sit down. That was very good. The House is much relieved at that turn of events. In an election year, it is a really good opportunity for the National Government to reflect on what our priorities have been and, with the Budget coming up on 15 May, to really put our stake in the sand about what we want for New Zealand and what we want for this country. I am very proud to say that the National Government has been focused on the things that matter to New Zealanders from the moment that we came into Government in 2008. Leading up to the election on 20 September and, of course, Budget day on 15 May, here we are, putting our stake in the sand and telling New Zealanders what we plan for the future and, in fact, what we stand for.

This Government has had four key priorities in the time that it has been in Government. Firstly, we are responsibly managing the Government’s finances, just like New Zealanders expect us to do, just like New Zealanders voted National for us to do, and just like we are doing. The economy is growing by 3.5 percent, with a similar forecast of growth again for this year. On average, wages are growing faster than inflation. Business confidence is at the highest point it has been since 1999, and the terms of trade are expected to remain just as high. The Government will produce a Budget surplus next year, and that is in the context of other countries that will still be in deficit and, indeed, building up debt.

Secondly, we are building a more competitive and productive economy. That is our second major focus. Why? Because that means creating more jobs. It means increasing wages. The average weekly wage has gone up by 2.8 percent in the last year, compared with inflation that went up by 1.6 percent. Through our Business Growth Agenda the Government has been investing heavily in education and training to lift skills and match the needs of employers. I was interested to hear the comments of the previous speaker, who quite mistakenly contended that this Government is ignoring the provinces. Quite the opposite is true. If I talk about my own province and I think about the huge amounts of investment that have gone into the province of Greater Otago, and if I have a look at some of the ups and downs that all businesses have and have a look at Summit Wool Spinners, which was sold to Canterbury Spinners—so the company changed hands and there was a loss of employment in the town. For those who wish to talk down the economy and say it was all doom and gloom, well, here is the good news. Most of those workers have been either re-engaged or have found other work because they are skilled and they are valued, and I for one will not hear of those skilled workers being talked down in much the same way as the Opposition is fond of doing.

If I have a look at Macraes Mine, it is the same scenario—the ups and downs of business. Macraes Mine is suffering because the gold price is currently at a low and it has had to lay off a number of staff. It is doom and gloom in some quarters of the House—mostly on the left-hand side, it is fair to say. Well, here is the good news. Most of those workers either have found work in and around North Otago or, in fact, have been re-engaged. There is work out there. There is opportunity out there. Why? Because this Government has got such a strong focus on building the economy. In fact, as I go around the Central Otago portion of the province of Otago, there are some pretty severe skills shortages, to the point where I am attending meetings with people who are saying: “Well, what are we going to do about this? We have got work, but we cannot find the workers.” That is the situation that we find ourselves in because this Government has had such a strong focus on building the economy, building wages, and finding real jobs for people.

Thirdly, I am so proud that we have got a strong focus on rebuilding Christchurch. We said that we would. During those awful dark days of the earthquakes, we said that we would. My colleague and friend Nicky Wagner, MP for Christchurch Central, has, I believe, spent probably the last 2½ years living, breathing, and sleeping Christchurch people and their needs, and how we as a Government can work with those communities to rebuild Christchurch and make it strong again. It is the work of people like Nicky Wagner on the ground, proactively and positively working with the people of Christchurch, together with Government Ministers, that is proving to make such a difference to the people of Christchurch.

Finally, our fourth strong priority in the past, now, and in the future as we go to the Budget is delivering Better Public Services within tight budgets. We know that there has been a global financial crisis. We know that we have had to get Government spending under control. Bill English is another Minister who has worked ceaselessly to bring our Government spending under control and to get good-value money for spending on public services, because we over on this side of the House know that it is public money, it is taxpayer money, and we have a duty to spend it wisely.

I want to talk about the Better Public Services targets within the justice sector. That is the sector that is led by the Hon Judith Collins, who is providing outstanding leadership in the justice sector and whose work, together with that of Anne Tolley, the Minister of Police and the Minister of Corrections, and Chester Borrows, the Minister for Courts, is making a difference to the lives of New Zealanders. Target: reduce overall crime rates by 15 percent by 2017, reduce violent crime by 20 percent by 2017, and reduce youth crime by 25 percent by 2017. What is the result so far? Total crime is down. Total crime is down by 12 percent, violent crime is down by 8 percent, and youth crime is down by 19 percent. That is a success, and that is making New Zealand safer. Those are excellent results already, and huge credit must also go to the police for their unrelenting focus on making New Zealanders safer in their homes.

There is some pretty smart policing out there, with the Prevention First strategy and a strong focus on preventing crime. We visited Auckland. We visited the Mount Roskill police station. We had a look at the crime reporting line. Phil Goff is forever bemoaning the fact that the front desk at the Mount Roskill police station has been closed. He sees that as a bad thing. Well, if we talk to the police themselves who work within that station, they say that they could not be more happy that they are providing good service to the New Zealand public. People are using the crime reporting line. So, instead of having to go down to this old police station, stand in line, and make a report, they now lift up the phone and make a crime report to a person who is a dedicated taker of those calls. They are getting good service.

Finally, I just want to talk about our corrections system and say that the target for the Department of Corrections is to reduce prisoner reoffending by 25 percent, with a result already of a 12 percent reduction. But please do not take just my word for it. Today the Law and Order Committee considered an independent report from the Office of the Auditor-General entitled Department of Corrections: Managing offenders to reduce reoffending. Here is what it said: “Summary of our findings. 2.2 The Department has a clear strategic priority to reduce reoffending, which staff understand well and support. The reducing reoffending programme is based on sound intervention logic that targets the groups and behaviours that contribute disproportionately to rates of offending. The Department now offers programmes to prisoners on remand or short sentences who had high reoffending rates but who were previously ineligible for rehabilitation.”

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

The programme is expanding. The programme is showing results. Independent evaluation by the—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

—Controller and Auditor-General is showing what this Government—

Order! The member’s time has expired.

I thought for a minute, Mr Deputy Speaker, that you were going to give the member Jacqui Dean an extension of time, but we are all gratified that you managed to stop her in her tracks.

💬 Phil Twyford: On humanitarian grounds.

Yes, it was a humanitarian gesture on your part, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I thank you for that. That was the member, of course, who did not know what H2O was. She comes from a province that needs a lot of that substance, but she did not quite know what it was when she was written to.

The Budget Policy Statement deals, as it says, with allocations of funds to a variety of Government departments, including—as you are aware, Mr Deputy Speaker, because Mr Parker and Mr Mallard alluded to it—the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. It is interesting that the previous member referenced Judith Collins, because we have had a couple of very, very serious days in this Parliament. Nothing cuts to the heart of a democracy more than questions over the credibility and integrity of a Minister, questions over the credibility and integrity of the Prime Minister, and questions over the credibility and integrity of statements and advice that is provided from the Cabinet Office. This all goes, Mr Deputy Speaker, to moneys allocated, of course, to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and moneys allocated to Ministerial Services, including, of course, the Minister of Justice’s own office.

Judith Collins has made a bit of history today. I think that she could be labelled the “Minister of Cronies”. We know that cronyism is rife in this Government. It gets extremely dangerous and extremely serious when Ministers and others put themselves, either deliberately or through a lack of judgment and through negligence, in positions where not only their own credibility and integrity can be questioned but also that of a Government.

These questions cannot be answered because, of course, the Prime Minister, who has slipped and slid all over this issue day after day, will not release Cabinet advice. We found out today, and I know there is a quote from the Minister of Justice’s stand-up today where she effectively said when asked why she did not provide this information to the media when she was questioned in previous days: “Oh, because I answered the questions I was asked.”—“I answered the questions I was asked.”

That might be sort of tricky stuff, of course, because you have got the Prime Minister—well funded, of course, by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet—who has continual brain fades, continual amnesia, and who came down to the House today, had all this advice, and then said: “I can’t remember what I did because I don’t have the advice.” Then, of course, we have Judith Collins, who said: “I answered only the questions I was asked.” That might be—might be; it probably is not—a pretty low standard even for question time in this place, but when journalists and others are asking you direct questions and you answer only the questions that you are asked, there is a word for that. I will not use it in this place, but it shows an absolute lack of integrity on behalf of that politician and that Minister—absolute lack of integrity.

Even with all the money that is allocated to that Minister’s office, and to the press secretary who stood behind her, taping every word so that she can go back and check what she said, she cannot get her story straight. She is the “Minister of Cronies”, and she is not the only one. When you look around this Government you have John Banks—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Come back to the debate.

Yes, well, all these things are funded through the Budget Policy Statement. John Banks may well end up looking through striped sunshine, and the allocation ironically—ironically—through the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Corrections programme may well put him there. It may well put him there because the allocation to the High Court judges, of course, comes through the Ministry of Justice via this document and others, and it may well be that John Banks, on his third potential conviction—he has already got two, of course—may end up looking through striped sunshine.

That is the first rotten foundation, followed by Peter Dunne, who cannot tell us whether he leaked a document or not. Again, that document and the ramifications around it were funded through a Government allocation of funds, as represented in the Budget Policy Statement. Then, of course, we have Judith Collins. She did not look so happy today, did she? She did not look so arrogant and full of herself today, did she? She has been found out, and found out in the worst possible way, because she has slipped and slid and would not answer questions.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

It is a shame that the Hon Clayton Cosgrove is unable or unwilling to take the rest of his call.

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It is out of order to refer to the absence of a member.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Sit—sit. The member did not refer to the absence of the member.

I said that Mr Cosgrove was unwilling or unable to take the remainder of his call. He would have been welcome to give it a go. Actually, I think the Minister of Health should be looking at more hearing checks for people like Iain Lees-Galloway, because he needs to listen a bit more.

I am disappointed that Clayton Cosgrove is unwilling or unable to take the rest of his call because we would have got a 5-minute diatribe from him about how much Labour wants to tax and spend more, and how much damage it was doing to the economy when it was last in office. I say “damage” because we know that after some difficult periods of time that this country has been through, we are now one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. What we know about the Labour Party when it was last in office is that it ramped up spending. It had a huge debt track that was going to lead us towards having debt of about 60 percent of GDP. We have turned that round.

When the Budget comes out later this year it will reflect pretty much the debt track that the last Budget had, which would see debt track down to about 20 percent of GDP by the mid-2020s, and we know that that is completely the opposite of the direction that debt was going under Labour. We know it would get worse again under Labour because Labour is the party of taxes. Labour is the party of opposing innovation in the economy. It is the party of opposing growth in the economy. It is the party that would see fewer jobs being created in this economy. We know we would see fewer jobs being created in this economy because Labour would take more money out of the economy. It would ramp up the minimum wage, which would see more people unemployed. It would also make changes to the youth wage, the starting-out wage. We know that would hurt young people, because the last time Labour made changes to the starting-out wage it led to 9,000 young people losing their jobs. This side of the House cares about young people.

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: That’s another lie.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

I do not care what he says, Mr Deputy Speaker. He can prattle on. No one else is listening to him. I do not care what he says, because he is wrong. He is wrong, because 9,000 young people lost their jobs. This side cares about young people getting into employment. This side cares about jobs being created in the economy. This side of the House cares about a growing economy. This side of the House cares about New Zealanders investing in our economy. This side of the House is seeing results. The other side of the House would have a recipe to see fewer jobs, less investment, more debt, more spending, and more taxation. New Zealanders have rejected that in the past two elections, and I am hopeful they will reject that again.

I want to give the House a few facts about where we were in 2008 and where Budgets under Bill English, and led also by John Key, have seen this country move. When we came into office in 2008 this party saw an economy that had a current account deficit of almost 9 percent of GDP. The current account deficit is now 4.3 percent of GDP—a very big turn-round. When we came into office the economy we inherited had net external debt that had blown out to 84 percent of GDP. Net external debt is now down to 71 percent of GDP. Inflation was running at 5.1 percent. Inflation is now at 1.6 percent. New Zealanders do not see an economy and a situation where the wealth in their pockets is decreasing as much as it was under the Labour Party—inflation at 5.1 percent versus inflation now at 1.6 percent.

When we came into office in 2008 mortgage interest rates averaged 10.9 percent. Mortgage interest rates now average 5.9 percent. If members on the other side of the House ever get out into the community and talk to people about what impacts on their back pocket the most, it is mortgage rates. Mortgage rates under this Government are considerably lower than they ever were under Labour. They are considerably lower. More money is in people’s pockets because they are paying less in interest. More money is in people’s pockets because they are paying less in tax as well. New Zealanders have had across-the-board tax cuts. Also, wages have been going up faster than the rate of inflation. These are all success stories that the Labour Party likes to deny, but under Bill English and John Key these are success stories that New Zealanders are feeling.

I am acutely aware that I have the Minister for Food Safety sitting next to me. Food prices in 2008—in Labour’s last year in office—went up 11 percent. Food prices have gone up 1.5 percent in the last year, under this Government. Labour members like to cry about food and how much it is costing. They like to complain about prices going up. But they forget about the fact that in Labour’s last year in office food prices went up 11 percent. They have gone up by 1.5 percent in the last year. Government spending under Labour went up by 50 percent in its last 5 years—50 percent. One of the problems that we saw in European countries, where they had big economic problems, was that their Governments had borrowed too much money and they spent too much money.

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: How much money is this Government borrowing?

I am happy to mention the borrowing rates, because the track that Labour had us on had us on borrowings of 60 percent of GDP in the 2020s. It is going to start going down. It is being turned round under this Government. In the last 5 years under Labour, Government spending went up 50 percent. We have now got spending well under control. Despite the fact that we have had a global financial crisis and despite the fact that we have had the Christchurch earthquakes, spending is well under control under this National Government. We are doing exceptionally well in this economy.

I want to turn a little bit to the Better Public Services programme. We have focused very clearly on ensuring that better public services are provided to New Zealanders. A report on the justice sector was released earlier today. There are some exceptional changes that have been taking place in the justice sector that are seeing more New Zealanders safer and that are seeing more New Zealanders enjoying a justice sector that is working for them. We are enjoying a country that has less reoffending. The costs to the taxpayer long term are also going down.

Crime rates in this country are at 33-year lows. Youth crime is going down, and violent crime is going down as well. We have changed the bail system to make it tougher for people to get bail. We have also spent more money on ensuring that there are people getting alcohol and drug assistance while they are in prison, to reduce reoffending. There are also more measures to assist people to turn their lives round once they get out of prison.

If Opposition members want a bit of bedtime reading—if Iain Lees-Galloway wants to do something tonight, rather than wasting his time doing whatever he likes to do; another sleepless night wondering about the next leadership change Labour will have later this year—I would encourage them to read this justice sector report. This report highlights very well the good changes we are seeing under this Government in the Better Public Services programme that we have.

More kids are coming out of the education system with better results in the National Certificate of Educational Achievement. More people are getting elective surgery under Budgets that we have passed. The crime rate is down. The economy is turning itself round. We are going to reach surplus this year. We are going to start paying debt. We are turning round the debt track that Labour left us on. More jobs are growing in this economy. The economy is one of the fastest-growing economies in the developed world. We have got an excellent Budget. I know Bill English will do very well when he delivers his next Budget in May. New Zealanders will get to decide that later this year.

A 5-minute call—Jacinda Ardern.

Just because you say it, does not make it true. To have to sit through a speech from that member of the House, Jami-Lee Ross, claiming that Labour, when it left office, left an economy that was damaged is an absolutely outrageous statement, unless, of course, you deem damage to be nine continuous Budget surpluses, unless you consider damage to be zero net Crown debt, or unless you consider damage to be the highest continuous economic growth since World War II.

It seems incredible to me that that side of the House has tried to completely rewrite history when it comes to the economic management of New Zealand under a Labour Government. It is outrageous. It speaks to the lack of trust you can have in the way that that Government describes what is going on in the New Zealand economy today. What is not in doubt at all is that this is not an economy that is working for everyone. Everything that that member just said about the current economic status we are living under in New Zealand ignored what most New Zealanders are experiencing day to day. What he described was an environment where very few are doing well, but a lot are doing a lot worse.

What I want to speak to is how this Budget, this debate, this Budget Policy Statement could have been different; how instead of using just economic markers—as the last member did around GDP, Crown debt, net deficits—a Budget should ultimately be about people. A Budget should be about the outcomes for people. What is the most consistent measure that you get groups like the OECD or even Unicef talking about these days? They talk about how the true marker of a decent society is not those economic indicators but how your young and your old fare in a society. Those are the kinds of markers that we as a nation should be focused on.

And how are they faring? Well, even before Treasury corrected its miscount recently, we now know that our older citizens—the ones, for instance, who are renting but are in their retirement—have a poverty rate amongst that group of 50 percent. Of our oldest citizens, 50 percent who are in rental accommodation are living in poverty. That is a marker of our society. There are 285,000 children living in poverty—27 percent. That is a marker of our society. Fourteen percent of children are living below 50 percent of the median income. That increased after we found out about Treasury’s significant error. Those children are living in severe poverty—not just poverty; severe poverty. A large number of them are in their most vulnerable years, zero to 4 years. That is the period when those children are spending the longest—that is a marker.

And how are those children faring under this economy? Rising power prices are impacting on those children. Rising housing costs—the average house price has gone up 24 percent under this Government. As much as that member talked about interest rates, these are families that do not have the luxury of owning a home and who are suffering significantly under increasing rents. High food prices are impacting on those vulnerable children. These are the measures of a society, but that is not what this Government is interested in. If it was, it would measure poverty. It would show leadership on it. It would have a plan. It would target to reduce it. It would report on it. That is what the Labour Party would do.

Labour has a bill that says, when it comes round to speaking on the Budget, we will put into the Public Finance Act that the Minister of Finance will have to report on how much progress they have made on child poverty. That is the marker that we are going to put up next to the current account deficits and GDP—how are our children in poverty faring? We will set a target to reduce poverty. We will build on our Best Start plan, which helps every single child under the age of 3 in poverty. They will benefit from Best Start, the weekly payment that we would introduce.

Those are the kinds of measures of a society: whether you look out for your young and whether you look out for your old. Therefore, that should be what Budget Policy Statements are focused on.

Kia ora, Mr Deputy Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. It is quite interesting—I cannot remember the last time I followed both Jacinda Ardern and Jami-Lee Ross. It is great to see the three youngest members of Parliament, I think, all taking a call in this Budget Policy Statement debate because the budgetary and fiscal issues, social issues, and environmental issues facing our country are pressing, enormous challenges.

In this debate tonight I am reflecting on the differences—sure, there are asset sales and deep-sea drilling—but also on what unites us. I believe that every member in this House and every party in this Parliament wants to see a richer New Zealand. They want to see those kids out of poverty. In a country that exports food, that feeds 20 million people, I am sure that we can all agree that kids should not be going to school hungry. We all grew up camping on the beach and swimming in rivers. We all love and, I believe, want to protect our environment. We also want to see Kiwis in jobs. We have all seen experiences of chronic joblessness. I believe there are a lot of things that unite us in this Parliament.

It is a question, however, of the plan. Where is the plan to deliver those outcomes we can all agree on? I think what is clear when you read the Budget documents is that we are absolutely unsustainable. I do mean in an environmental sense—a sustainability sense—but also I mean in a fiscal sense. The debt outlook facing our country is huge. At the moment our current account deficit of 3.6 percent is the second-largest owing in the OECD, just behind Turkey. It is absolutely unsustainable for us to carry this much international debt. The only recourse for a small country like ours is to keep selling off the assets, keep selling off productive assets like farmland.

It is time to take control back. This Budget paints a very dark picture in terms of debt, the cost of living, inflation, and also the simplification of our economy—the reliance on only a few raw commodity exports. What we also know from the Budget documents is that this country is borrowing $1.1 billion a year—$1.1 billion a year—to pay for those tax cuts. As someone of above-average income in this country who has benefited from those tax cuts, I have seriously got to question the wisdom when the country is paying for those tax cuts for the wealthy—they are paid for by everyone, paid for by previous generations who have had their assets sold off. We are seeing debt spiral out of control. We are seeing an economy increasingly reliant. We are seeing our tradables sector fall behind the non-tradables sector. What we are seeing is the real income earners at a national level, the exporters, actually struggling versus the non-tradable sector. What we are seeing is the cost of living increase.

For a country that is working its hardest—so many New Zealanders are working two jobs; they are working 60 hours a week—this is a country where the cost of living is amongst the highest and we work some of the longest hours for some of the lowest wages in the OECD. That is why our households are struggling in debt. When you look at the inflation announcement we are expecting tomorrow, what we are seeing are rampant house price and energy price rises leading to inflation. We see housing prices are up 44 percent in the last 5 years. Electricity prices are up 20 percent in the last 5 years. An unknown story I think the public should be more aware of is that the drivers of that are leading to inflation, which will bring a real cost to New Zealanders.

So it is about choice, because we all want to see Kiwis in work, swimmable rivers, and kids out of poverty—but it is about choice. Who is going to focus on that? Who is going to prioritise that? To be frank, what I see from that side of the House is a Government that is focusing on the Choruses, the Tīwai Points, and the Anadarkos, not on the real people who live in real streets, in real Kiwi businesses—the small and medium enterprises doing it hard in the current environment.

What we need is a fiscal balance with a capital gains tax, broader capital markets, and a broader mandate for the Reserve Bank. We need to strengthen Kiwibank. We need to embrace the opportunities in clean energy, where we know there are four times more jobs. We need to support our thriving IT sector.

Today we have seen a massive plank in the Government’s economic agenda fall out entirely. It was the Government pouring literally tens of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money down Anadarko’s deep-sea oil well. You know what? It looks like Anadarko did not find anything. And you know what? It was never going to be a credible economic strategy—hoping that someone finds something down in the depths of the ocean and that they do not leave too much of a mess.

That plan to embrace the past has fallen over. It is time for New Zealand to embrace the future and put real people and real kids and their parents first; to be a country that looks to the future with confidence and entrepreneurialism and innovation and embraces new sectors like clean energy and IT. That is the richer New Zealand, a cleaner, smarter future for New Zealand, and that is what we will be taking to the country this election. Kia ora.

It is an absolute pleasure to speak in this Budget Policy Statement debate this evening. I think I am going to be the last speaker. It is always interesting to follow Green MPs like Gareth Hughes because they often talk about the planet and their place on it, but we are just as often not sure which planet that is.

I know that in my own electorate of the Coromandel, where we have had a very good summer—in fact, the farmers on the Hauraki Plains will be saying about now that summer is just about ready to be over because we are ready for some rain; hopefully, we will get some this weekend. But we have had a very good summer in the Coromandel, and the good people of Coromandel are looking forward to the next Bill English Budget, which will be read in May of this year, because they know that this will be a Budget that will continue the careful, prudent fiscal management of Bill English and this John Key - led Government. They know that when we go to the polls on 20 September, the general election policy of the National Party and this Government will remain absolutely firmly focused on the issues that matter to all New Zealanders. Those issues matter to our communities and to all Kiwis: a stronger economy, more jobs, better front-line health and education services, a safer New Zealand, and, of course, the continued rebuild of Christchurch.

My colleague Jami-Lee Ross spoke only a few minutes ago about where we were when National came to the Government benches in 2008 and what a dreadful, chaotic mess the country was in at that point. Jami-Lee Ross talked about the situation that confronted the Government. We were already in recession ahead of the global financial crisis, ahead of the worst economic situation to face our nation and the world since the 1930s. So ours was a Government that actually took a prudent, careful, and managed approach to that crisis, and, indeed, we did borrow. We borrowed to maintain the social services and the support for all New Zealanders that was required at a time of crisis—a time of crisis when many other countries were slashing, freezing, and cutting costs and cutting services to their public and their State services. So I am very proud that, in fact, the Government that I am a member of did not do that, and we did a very good job.

What I want to focus on tonight is health. I have the pleasure of sitting on the Health Committee, and I want to talk a little bit about the progress that this Government has made in the health sector since it came to power in 2008. Over the last 5 years the Government has been working assiduously to improve the patient journey through our hospital system. We have increased elective surgery, we have reduced waiting times, and we have found new ways to maximise our health care services. Tony Ryall has done an absolutely outstanding job as Minister of Health. He has been described by others—and I would also be one who would do so—as the country’s finest health Minister in the entire history of our parliamentary system. I think he deserves that accolade. I think he has earned it. I think that anyone who has needed to go through our health system would probably endorse that.

There have been some very significant improvements made within the health and disability service sector. We have been focused on delivering better, sooner, and more convenient health care to New Zealanders. This is a Government that continues to invest in elective surgery and has done so even during those darkest days of the global financial crisis. Back in 2010, $51.5 million was invested over 4 years to fund more elective surgeries. That was followed in 2011 by a further $68 million, and then, in 2012 and also in 2013, $48 million in each of those subsequent years as well. So this strong investment has led to a decrease in waiting times and an increase in surgery volumes and the number of surgical procedures being done.

Waiting times are internationally regarded as a measure of quality and performance, and so to have reduced waiting times during that period of time when other countries were cutting and slashing their health spending is, I think, an indication of the careful, prudent, and responsible management of Tony Ryall and this John Key - led Government. Since 2008 when we came to power the average number of days that patients spend in hospitals has fallen consistently. This is important because spending longer in hospital can reduce a patient’s well-being completely, and, of course, it increases the cost of care, using more of our already stretched and valuable health dollars.

But it is not just patients in hospitals and those in need of surgery that the health focus has been on. A person’s first contact with our health system is, more often than not, with their general practitioner. The Government has been working to strengthen and support primary care to provide the best possible care for all New Zealanders at every stage. District health boards are now working more closely with primary-care providers to achieve clinical integration and care closer to patients’ homes or, preferably, in their own homes. Integrated family health centres provide a more diverse range of health professionals and enable a more coordinated approach to patient care in primary-care settings. This is to be applauded and lauded. I want to again congratulate the Hon Tony Ryall on making sure that in the tough times we have had, the focus has been on maintaining that spend, and, yes, we have borrowed to make sure that that occurs.

Just one example of how that has occurred is in agencies such as the Health Quality and Safety Commission. Some people may not know much about the Health Quality and Safety Commission, but it is a special commission whose work is entirely focused on the reduction of falls and the harm from falls that occur in New Zealand homes, in places of work, and in our community. Since 2010 the Health Quality and Safety Commission has been building a culture of constant examination and improvement in the health and disability sector. This is a small but very important step and provides further indication of the focus that the Government has been placing on this important sector.

Let us not forget just how bad things were after the 9 long years of a high-spending, high-borrowing, high-handed Labour-Green Government. Remember back in 2002 when Annette King said in the Evening Post that “New Zealand is not rich enough to have the kind of health system found in Australia, Canada, Britain, or the USA.” That was an incredibly pessimistic indictment of our health service and the future of our health services from the then Labour health Minister.

It surprises me that a person who entered this House campaigning against Robert Muldoon is now being pushed forward as Labour’s great new young hope in health. Our health system was chaos after Annette King’s stewardship under 9 long years of the Labour Government, and we do not want to return to that chaos again. Waiting lists were absolutely out of control, and Labour was spending like a drunken sailor, but the results were all heading south. So the spending was going up but the results were going down. We all remember those stories in the newspapers and on our television screens of patients who were lying on trolleys in hospital corridors under bright florescent lights for sometimes days on end, awaiting basic surgery and treatment. We also remember the cancer patients who were shipped offshore—flown across the Tasman to Australia for basic cancer treatment.

It has taken nearly 6 years for Tony Ryall and the John Key - led Government to put it all right and to sort it out. While many developed countries were freezing and reducing their health spending, we were increasing ours. So we have got less waiting, more operations, and more doctors and nurses, and we have moved health spending from the back office to the front line. When we go to the polls on 20 September, New Zealanders will have a stark decision to make. They will say: “Am I prepared to put it all at risk, or will I stay with the careful, prudent, managed approach of John Key and Bill English?”, and I know which way they are going to vote. It has been a pleasure to participate in this debate.