Appropriation (2016/17 Estimates) Bill, Coroners Amendment Bill

I envisage that, certainly on this side of the Chamber, there will be a rigorous debate during the Committee stage around the Coroners Amendment Bill. I will just flag for this Committee that we have a total of four amendments on the Table, most of which relate to Part 2 of this bill. We look forward to the opportunity to debate them at great length. They are in my name, Phil Goff’s name, and Kelvin Davis’ name.

Coming first to Part 1 of the bill, I want to start by just outlining again that when it comes to the general purpose of this bill—what its intent was as it was raised in the beginning by the Minister for Courts—we were generally supportive of some of those objectives. Some of those objectives were to improve coroners’ recommendations, reduce duplication, clarify which deaths should be reported—there was also Law Commission advice on the way that suicides and suspected suicides should be reported—and generally improve accountability, transparency, and leadership. Our position through all of this, though, has been—particularly when it comes to the workload management, which, it is very clear in Part 1, is some of the reason that the purpose of the Coroners Act is being changed—that we need to be very clear as to at what cost some of those amendments may come.

Just to give some context to Part 1, according to the initial briefing that we received from the Ministry of Justice, there are about 6,000 deaths reported to coroners every year. Coroners accept jurisdiction—because, of course, not all of those cases will be within their jurisdiction—in over half of those, which is 3,500 cases. About 1,300 of those cases will then become an inquiry, keeping in mind that only about 300 will ever be the subject of a public inquest. I will come to the definition in a little more detail later on, but—to very briefly give an overview of the difference between an inquiry and an inquest, as we had it explained to us at the Justice and Electoral Committee—basically, an inquiry is able to be held on papers in a closed office; an inquest allows a much higher degree of scrutiny and a wider remit for the coroner to investigate and call for evidence. So an inquest is more in-depth. That becomes important, particularly to Part 2 of this bill. That is a little bit of context for what this bill was meant to achieve.

Our view, however, is that caseload management should not come at the cost of proper inquiries and inquests held in cases where we need to ensure public confidence, in particular. I want to come first to the amendment made in Part 1, clause 4, amending section 3—the purpose section—of the Coroners Act. My understanding is that the original Act recognised in its purpose section “the cultural and spiritual needs of family [and] others who were in a close relationship” and “the public good associated with a proper and timely understanding of the causes and circumstances of deaths:”. We are looking at a much more deliberate purpose clause. In the bill, it instead states that the purpose of the Act is “the making of recommendations or comments that, if drawn to public attention, may reduce the chances of further deaths occurring in circumstances similar to those in which the deaths occurred.” I imagine that, on face value, most members of the public would absolutely agree that that would be useful guidance by which the coroners’ office should govern itself.

My view is that we have inconsistency within this bill with the purpose clause itself. If the purpose clause, for all intents and purposes, is stating the idea that if those recommendations are out there, the likelihood that we may reduce further deaths is going to be enhanced, then surely it would follow that this bill should require that anyone who is the subject of a recommendation be obliged to at least respond to that recommendation. Those amendments are ones that we have made in a Supplementary Order Paper that will affect Part 2 of the bill, I believe—I will double-check. But, ultimately, this purpose clause is not given proper effect in the bill as it stands without an obligation for agencies, be they public or private, to respond to a coroner’s recommendations.

In Labour’s view, that is a very simple amendment—a very simple amendment—and one that would make a substantive difference. It is one that the last Chief Coroner called for to be adopted. Otago University has conducted a piece of research that has called for it to be adopted. If the Minister in the chair, Amy Adams, is about to take a call and state that that is happening anyway, then, again, there is no reason not to embed it within the legislation. We think it is important, and, actually, research has shown that it has not been picked up enough. But I will come to that in my further contributions.

I come then to clause 6, replacing section 7—replacing the Chief Coroner’s functions. Some of the more substantive additions are around an additional function in new section 7(2)(a) “to establish, and help maintain, relationships between coroners and other persons carrying out functions or duties within the coronial system:”. We heard, within the debate on this bill at the select committee, from memory, from pathologists particularly, who talked about the difficulty in jurisdiction issues. We have heard about that, to a certain degree, from people reporting their experience with the police, as well. It seems a useful function for the coroner to have that primary role of managing those relationships and functions for anyone who has some interest or say or role in the coronial system.

What I do want to point out, though, is that under these functions we also have the overseeing of coroners’ investigations by managing the workload of coroners, issuing practice notes, and monitoring the operation of the system. In terms of managing the workload, one issue—which was not discussed substantively but on which I would be interested to hear the Minister’s view—is what has been reported, at least, as an increase in coroners’ offices using external resources in order to deliver on their statutory obligations. Our understanding is that the workload within coroners’ offices is such that they have started contracting externally in order to assist them in the completion of their functions.

If that is the case, my question would be: in managing the workloads of coroners, to what degree does that primary function of the Chief Coroner allow them to go to the Minister’s office, point out these resourcing issues, and establish the degree to which they are able to maintain the workload within the office, rather than having to contract out those core functions? We would have concern if that becomes a habit within the Chief Coroner’s office in order to maintain those primary functions. If they have the role of managing workload, to what degree would it fall back on the relationship with the Ministry of Justice and the Minister for them to say “We do not have the ability to internally manage those workload issues.”?

Coming over, then, to the Chief Coroner’s functions in new section 7(2)(e), it again also states there: “to set up and maintain a register, which must be publicly available, of coroners’ recommendations and comments (or summaries of those recommendations and comments) …”. Again, our view would be that a complete register surely would require that we have a response to coroners’ recommendations included in that register, and at the moment, there is no legislative power to ensure that that happens. It seems to me, all the way through the initial parts of the purpose clauses and the function clauses, to be a missing element of this bill and one that would be remedied by our Supplementary Order Papers 145 and 146.

I want to come briefly to the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper 174, though, which amends clause 14 to add new section 19A. It amends some of the New Zealand Police’s responsibility for coordinating the extraction of bodies, in relevant circumstances. I just want to clarify with the Minister—it strikes me, on reading this Supplementary Order Paper, that this might perhaps be a response to the horrific evidence we heard, as a committee, around the hot-air balloon disaster in the Wairarapa. One of the key issues there seems to be that there was not enough clear responsibility in that case for the police to be able to communicate with families in that circumstance. Their view was that it was strictly for the coroners’ office—that they could not communicate with those families even though the police did have responsibility for the extraction of bodies. I would like to hear the Minister’s view. Would this Supplementary Order Paper remedy that situation—

Thank you for this opportunity. I rise in support of my colleague Jacinda Ardern, who has just resumed her seat. She has already mentioned that we have a number of Supplementary Order Papers at this particular stage of the bill, and we will be talking about them as we go through the amending bill part by part.

Part 1—and I want to flesh out a little bit more around that particular select committee hearing. I was a member on the Justice and Electoral Committee, which listened to the harrowing tales from whānau who were affected by the tragedy that Jacinda Ardern has just mentioned. The ability to communicate with authorities was difficult. The ability to care for their loved ones at such a desperate time was really quite difficult. To hear those stories, to be honest, pulled at the heartstrings and drew a bit of a tear for some of the members on the committee because they were hard to hear; they were hard to listen to. But I guess this is the importance of this bill. We need to make sure that we get this right.

I do want to make a very brief mention of the inquiry established by the Māori Affairs Committee to look at the way that the Coroners Amendment Bill—and indeed just the overall practice of dealing with and managing tūpāpaku is an important thing for Māori whānau. I think, as New Zealand grows, we find there is a blend of tikanga, Māori customs, and probably more Western customs, if you like—more Christian customs. So I just wanted to make quick mention of that because I understand that that inquiry is well under way and submissions will be heard soon.

Part 1 is around the Chief Coroner’s functions. The Chief Coroner’s main function, as in new section 7(1) set out in clause 6, is to “contribute to the integrity and effectiveness of the coronial system provided for by this Act.” My colleague Jacinda Ardern has already mentioned some of those challenges that will be faced that we believe will come out of this particular amendment bill. Some of those are around capacity; some of those are around making sure that there are clear processes in place so that there is a clear and coherent register. We are actually empowering coroners to make sure that they are able to do their job, as intended by that particular clause, to “contribute to the integrity and effectiveness of the coronial system provided for by this Act.”

It says in section 7(1), in clause 6: “(b) overseeing coroners’ investigations by—(i) managing the workloads of coroners;”. I happen to know a couple of coroners, who have already mentioned to me on several occasions how stretched they are. There was a particular recent case—a tragedy in my whānau last week. A whānau member passed away tragically on a farm on a Sunday. Sadly, just because of the sheer workload and, of course, the process of the coroner, the tūpāpaku, or my relative, was not released back to the whānau until late Monday evening, which made things quite difficult for the whānau. But I think that probably the most difficult thing in that whole process is that whānau are just left out to flounder; they do not know what is going on. They are unable to communicate meaningfully with anyone to make sure that their loved one, in the care and possession of the coroner, is actually cared for according to our customs—cared for in the way that we would expect anybody to care for those who have departed.

The reason I talk about that workload is that further on, in section 7(2), the Chief Coroner has the following additional functions that, arguably, are there to support the Chief Coroner’s main function. It says: “(a) to establish, and to help maintain, relationships between coroners and other persons carrying out functions or duties within the coronial system:”. I understand that part. That is pretty clear with me. However, I think—and we will discuss this later on in the amendment bill—a bit later on it actually defines who some of those people can be and their role in the particular coronial process. It says here: “(b) to help to inform, and to achieve consistency in, coronial decision making and other coronial conduct (for example, by issuing practice notes): (c) to perform the functions of a Head of Bench under the Judicial Conduct Commissioner and Judicial Conduct Panel Act 2004 in relation to the exercise by coroners … (d) to help to avoid unnecessary duplication in investigations into deaths by liaising, and encouraging co-ordination”.

I think that is an important part, because throughout the submissions, we heard how there seemed to be a breakdown in communication far too often between authorities such as the police, the coroner themselves, and the hospital or the doctor involved in the particular case in respect of whether or not the point of contact with the whānau was actually the right one, or whether or not there were numerous stories being told to different people or the same story being told to different people. We know how often a breakdown in communication occurs when despite hearing the same story, people retell it in a different way.

So I understand all that, and from the outset the provisions look pretty practical. They look like they will be a good way to make sure that the experience families have with the coroner is a good one, considering the difficult times. However, it gets back to that issue I mentioned earlier around resourcing and capacity, actually making sure that we empower coroners to do the right job without forcing more roles and more responsibilities on to them, and not supporting them to achieve their function. I think that should be of huge concern to us.

Paragraph (e) says: “to set up and maintain a register,”—it goes back to what Jacinda Ardern was saying—“which must be publicly available, of coroners’ recommendations and comments (or summaries of those recommendations and comments) made after 1 July 2016:” We understand the need for a register. I think that is a pretty good thing; it is common sense and it is pragmatic. It allows people to follow what is going on, because unless you have the unfortunate circumstance of losing somebody, you would not know what the coroner does, and you would not know how the process works or how the system is set up. So I think it is actually quite important that you have a register there.

However, more importantly, it talks about the recommendations and the comments, and making sure that they are in a register; you will find that in Supplementary Order Papers 145 and 146 by members on this side of the Committee. And as we debate this bill further throughout the evening, you will find that, actually, we are going to get on to the recommendations from the coroners. It reminds me of the Waitangi Tribunal: coroners do a fantastic job, they work considerably hard given they are under-resourced, in my opinion, they come up with great recommendations, and they seem to just fall into the nothingness or into the abyss, into the information highway that leaves everybody else behind, and nobody actually sees or understands what these recommendations mean and how important they are to a particular industry.

We heard some submissions throughout the select committee hearing about the forestry industry, and we know the appalling record of health and safety in the forestry industry. Members on this side of the Chamber heard about and spoke to some of the whānau of victims from the forestry industry, and we were really, really concerned. Well, how do we fix this? Are some recommendations or pragmatic steps put in place able to fix this? But it means nothing if, once again like the Waitangi Tribunal, it is a lion with no teeth.

I know my time is coming up short. Clause 7: “In section 9, replace the definition of chief coroner with: chief coroner means the person appointed under section 105, and includes either of the following people while he or she is authorised to act for the chief coroner under section 105A(1) section 105A or 106: (a) the deputy chief coroner: (b) the acting chief coroner”. Given some of the discussions from the coroner who came in front of the select committee, I think it is important to have roles of delegation, because they talked about how stretched they were. They talked about how it was difficult to actually feel that you could go and have a bit of a break and get the break that you need to make sure that you do your job properly given just the huge workload. In their absence, it is important that we have those particular roles delegated.

Just in closing my contribution on this particular part, we will see that some of the Supplementary Order Papers coming in will make, I think, some real pragmatic changes to this bill, and we will be looking forward to moving on to the next parts.

Before addressing some of the key clauses of the Coroners Amendment Bill in this part, I would just like to make two more general comments.

This first is that we do have considerable sympathy for our Labour colleagues’ view that this legislation unfortunately does not go as far as it might. There are things missing from this that could usefully be put in here. The primary legislation is now about a decade old. Coronial legislation is not something we want to be coming back to too often. We all want a system that functions well and meets the needs of New Zealanders effectively. For that reason we will be supporting, I think, most if not all of the Labour Party’s proposed Supplementary Order Papers 145 and 146, which do, for the most part, reference a later part of the bill.

The other general comment that I would make is derived from some comments from the Chief Coroner’s submission to the select committee. In it, the Chief Coroner said at the outset she notes that the amendment bill does impose some further requirements, some further obligations, on the Chief Coroner and, indeed, on other coroners. She points out: “The ability of my office to meet these requirements is dependent on sufficient resourcing.” She goes on to say: “The Office of the Chief Coroner staff consists of a judicial support manager and a personal assistant.”—at that point at least—“…there are two recent law graduates responsible for legal research for the Chief Coroner and the 16 coroners nationwide.”

I have heard comments along those lines from all of the coroners I have spoken to personally: that they operate in an under-resourced environment, that there probably ought to be two more of them, and that they all need more administrative assistance in order to do their work in a timely fashion. Because, after all, as the point has been made, nobody actually wants to be involved with a coroner, and it is incumbent on us to endeavour to make sure that we get the most effective means we can so that they can do their work as swiftly as possible and get the outcomes.

To speak to some of the specifics in this first part of the bill, one of the first matters that came to the Justice and Electoral Committee’s attention was the conversation or discussion about the relationship between coroners and the police. I think it is not a well-known fact that the coroner’s office has no particular investigative resource of its own; it is completely reliant on New Zealand Police to go out and do the investigations for it.

The original drafting of the bill had it that “the Commissioner of Police must cause to be made all investigations that are reasonable and necessary to help to achieve the purpose of this Act in relation to the death, including any investigation directed by the responsible coroner.” The Chief Coroner, again, was concerned at the use of the word “reasonable”. She felt, and the committee in turn agreed, that the original wording actually gave too much discretion to the police to say no to a coroner—to refuse, effectively, to carry through investigations that the coroner might have thought were necessary and called for.

I do think that the wording that has replaced it now still allows for the Commissioner of Police to object if he or she thinks that a request from the coroner is unreasonable or unnecessary. There is then a process where the commissioner might go to the Chief Coroner, make the case, and, ideally, they will come to some arrangement whereby the needs of both will be fulfilled.

To me, again, this whole concern about that relationship seems to rest on a resourcing issue. It does require significant resources over time for police to investigate well, to the standard required by the coroner, particularly when an inquest is occurring. It would seem to me that they are put in this unfortunate position of the coroner’s office and the police having to have the language nailed down fairly tightly, because I do not believe there is any sort of inherent opposition from within police to following the reasonable instructions of the coroner’s office. But there is a concern that, on occasion, they may well lack the resources to do that given the demands that are placed on them and the obligation they are under to prioritise everything that they do.

I think that was reflective, as I say, of the fact that too many of the functions and purposes of our justice system throughout are being constrained by a lack of resource, and it is reflected in the changes made here.

In this bill, there is generally a need to balance public interests and private interests. That includes balancing the need for unnecessary inquests and, at the same time, the need for full transparency. Also, there needs to be a balance between the freedom of the media to report deaths and their circumstances without sensationalising them or encouraging copycat suicides. There needs to be a balance to inquire fully into deaths that occur in official custody, but at the same time we should be avoiding pointless inquiries, so that some discretion can safely be used to avoid them.

There needs to be a balance between independent inquiries of deaths of defence personnel in all circumstances when the deceased was not in hostile action, and the circumstance when the death was in a hostile action situation. So the balance then would be a need for a transparent inquiry, when that is really required, and the need for the protection of national interests. So there are a lot of balancing acts to be thought about when going through this particular piece of legislation.

I want only to comment, however, not on the bill itself—because I have expressed in previous speeches what New Zealand First’s position is on that—but on four of the proposed amendments. The Supplementary Order Papers that I want to comment on are, first of all, the two that Jacinda Ardern—numbered 145 and 146—has submitted. They relate to new section 57C, and the question is whether it should be mandatory for a Government agency, which is dealt with in Supplementary Order Paper 146, or anyone else, which is dealt with in Supplementary Order Paper 145, to respond or to not respond to recommendations of a coroner. New Zealand First will support whichever of those Supplementary Order Papers turns out to be successful.

I hope that, at least, Supplementary Order Paper 146 is, because we think that is appropriate. There should never be a situation when a Government agency can simply ignore the recommendations of a coroner. That is not appropriate, nor should such an agency ever feel that it can simply brush off, without reasonable response, recommendations made by a coroner. This does not mean that the response has to be of any particular kind, but it needs to be genuine, comprehensive, well considered, and a proper response to the recommendations of a coroner. We think, therefore, that his Supplementary Order Paper—or whichever one of the two is successful—is harmless, worthwhile, and would make a genuine contribution to upholding the effectiveness of the office of coroners. We also think that the 60-day period is a reasonable period, as set out in the Supplementary Order Papers, within which those responses should be made. So we support that one.

The third amendment I want to comment on is the one submitted by Kelvin Davis to delete clause 41, which deals with the new section 80. We feel that we cannot support that Supplementary Order Paper. We believe there does need to be discretion exercised when there is a death in official custody—that discretion being whether or not to hold an inquiry into the death. We accept what the new section 80 says—that the criteria is set out there as to whether the coroner should exercise their discretion in favour of or against having an inquiry. So we want to see that new section remain in the legislation, so we will not support Kelvin Davis’ amendment to delete it.

The fourth, and the last one that I want to comment on, is Phil Goff’s amendment—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the member. All of the amendments that you are referring to are in Part 2. We are on Part 1 of the bill.

I am sorry; I misunderstood. I thought we were debating the whole of the bill.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No, it is part by part. So can you just come back to Part 1.

Well, in that case, I will leave it there and I will come back to this when the appropriate time comes.

I want to come back to two amendments that I was not able to address in my first contribution. The first sits within Part 1, and it talks about the definition of those areas where there is jurisdiction for the coroner to investigate a death in official custody or care. This issue was not something that was discussed in great length directly by the Justice and Electoral Committee, but we—inadvertently, I think—stumbled across some definition issues when we were debating deaths in custody, as they relate to those who are under the care of Child, Youth and Family (CYF) in a residential facility.

The discussion that was had was why, when going back—and this arose off the back off the bill as it stands in Part 2—it was changing the criteria to allow the coroner greater discretion around whether or not a death in custody is an inquest or an inquiry. I had a selection of coroners’ reports around deaths in CYF’s care, which I had requested under the Official Information Act on a previous occasion to better understand some of the child protection issues we have here in New Zealand. Within that stack, it became clear to me that there was a real range of areas in which a coroner had opted for an inquest over an inquiry, and I found that very confusing.

My understanding was that currently it is always going to be an inquest. Why was it that we had so many examples of coroners’ reports that were indeed inquiries for children who were in CYF’s care? The answer lies in Part 1, because in Part 1, clause 7(1B) states that “In section 9, replace the definition of death in official custody or care …”, and then it has the definition, and that states “a child or young person who has been placed in a residence within the meaning of section 2(1) or 364 of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act 1989 (whether or not the death occurred in the residence):”. Then it goes on to a description of “a child or young person who—(i) is in the custody or care of an iwi social service, a cultural social service, a residential disability care operator, or the director of a child [youth] and family support service” and so on.

So, clearly, the indication here seems to be a young person who is in a residential facility of some description, whether or not that is operated directly by CYF or is contracted to operate by CYF. My question is: why does the definition simply not state “a child who is under the care of the chief executive”? Because that would then cover those who are in residential facilities via, perhaps, youth justice, or those in foster care, whānau care, or kinship care, or home—perhaps not Home for Life, because they are not technically under the care of the chief executive. If we had had that broader definition within Part 1, simply stating “a child who is under the care of the chief executive”, under the definition of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act, we would have had greater consistency in the way that we treated those children, and we would not then have had that discretion between coroners who were conducting inquests and inquiries.

As it happens, actually, that is now slightly null and void, because this bill is giving that discretion, regardless of whether a child is in residence or kinship care or so on. Our hope would be that we treat all children in care the same. I would wager that it is in the public interest for an inquest to be held any time a child is harmed to the point of death when they, technically, come under the jurisdiction of Child, Youth and Family regardless of whether they are in a residence or not—regardless of whether or not they meet that current definition. On Part 2, we will argue that we should not have that discretion around inquest and inquiry—if you are in custody, it should be an inquest—but I still have that definitional issue on Part 1 around whether, even then, every child who is in the care of the chief executive is covered by those provisions. I would be interested to hear from the Minister if I have wrongly interpreted that definition.

The reason that I extrapolated that was that in some of the departmental—[Bell rung] Mr Chair?

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I call Jacinda Ardern.

I will be brief.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): She will be brief. You will be next, the Hon Amy Adams.

Sorry, Minister, but I will be very brief. I will add one more statement to the mix. The reason I raise that issue is that when we were having this debate, the advice that we received from the department did point to the definition of official custody in care in the Coroner’s Act as the reason for those differences in the reports from the coroners that I was referring to in the first part of my contribution.

My second very quick reference that I want to make really just highlights what is, I think, an unfortunate amendment that was made to the original bill, as it was drafted by the Minister, and it was touched on earlier: the role of pathologists. I found this a particularly compelling piece of evidence that was provided to the Justice and Electoral Committee, and it relates to clause 18, which says: “Section 27 amended (Family may request pathologist’s report on post-mortem)”. What it really intended to do was narrow down the range of family members who can receive a pathologist’s report to immediate family, but what we ended up having quite a substantive discussion in the select committee about was another section that was being inserted after section 27(1), and that was, as originally drafted: “A pathologist may, at the request of a member of the dead person’s immediate family, contact the family to explain, or answer questions in relation to, the pathologist’s report.”

We had those from the National Forensic Pathology Service strongly welcome the ability to be able to communicate with family members directly, something that was informally happening within the system—pathologists came in and gave very compelling evidence that they were having those kinds of discussions with families, but without a statutory footing. They pointed out countless examples where they literally had family members there waiting, and how awkward it is for a pathologist to say they cannot speak to the family or cannot communicate. In practice, that was happening anyway, so they welcomed that change.

However, at the select committee, we had the Chief Coroner submitting that the clause, as drafted, was allowing direct contact that they felt needed to be facilitated by the coroner. Their view was that they had immediate responsibility for the final outcome and, therefore, that it would raise difficulties for them if suddenly there was some statutory footing for the pathologists. The Chief Coroner submitted that clause 18 in its entirety should be deleted and that everything should be facilitated via the coroner.

The midway point that the select committee eventually came to—although it is the view of Labour members that the original drafting was correct—was to insert clarification that, essentially, means that all that communication must still go through the coroner. So what we might have is what will seem like a farcical situation: a pathologist saying to a family member that they cannot relay any information to them until they are able to contact the coroner and then communicate. You can imagine, in those stressful situations, how difficult that would be for both the family and the pathologist. So I believe the original drafting was right. I believe it put the informal practice on a statutory footing, and I thought the pathologists’ evidence was compelling. It is disappointing that that has been redrafted, and I would be interested in hearing the Minister’s views on that also.

I will take a call on Part 1 of the Coroner’s Amendment Bill to run through the rationale behind the principal provisions in the part, to talk to my own amendment on Part 1, and to respond to a number of the points that have been made in the discussion so far this evening.

I think the one point that the Committee is in clear agreement on is that our coronial system is an incredibly important one and an incredibly well-respected one, but also one that really works with people when they are at their most traumatised and at what is a very foreign time of their life, no matter who they are. I have certainly been in the situation of dealing with the death of a loved one and finding you are caught up in this coroner’s process, and for most of us, it is something we have never dealt with before. If we deal with it, it is all foreign to us, and no matter how good, caring, and professional the people—and they absolutely are—I think it is incumbent upon us to make sure that the system operates in a way that is as clear and as time-efficient as possible.

No one wants to be in that process any longer than they need to be, and it has a very real impact on bereaved families and loved ones when the process of getting probate and attending to the resolution of the estate is held up in the coronial process. There is a very real need, I believe, to ensure not only that we have a coronial system that is well-respected and professional, as it absolutely is, but also that we have absolute clarity about the very important roles each of the professional parties play in the system, that we reduce duplication, and also that we provide a legislative framework that is cognisant of advances in medical technology.

Part 1, of course, begins by setting out the Chief Coroner’s role, and it is very clear about that. The first major change is to be very clear about the types of deaths that need to be reported, and I think these changes—and there are a few of them in this category—are critical. We do not need, or have any benefit from, our coronial system and the very high-quality pathologists and coronial staff that we have being caught up going through processes where the cause of death is plainly apparent.

Under the bill, natural-cause deaths in custody or care are not going to be required to have a mandatory inquest; it will be sufficient if an inquiry is held. To require families to go through that much longer process of a detailed inquest, where it is very clear to the parties what the cause of death was, is, I think, an unnecessary and very difficult requirement to put them through for no discernible benefit. Clearly, the coroner will always have the ultimate ability to order an inquest should they think that it is necessary, but to require it as a matter of course without any sort of flexibility there, I think, is absolutely unwarranted, and this bill will change that.

The bill also now provides in Part 1 the ability to provide for preliminary investigations to be directed by the coroner so that the pathologist can use medical imaging and new technologies to determine whether in fact a full post-mortem is required. We know that the act of post-mortem is a very invasive one and one that many cultures find quite troubling. If we can avoid the need for very invasive post-mortem processes, because medical imaging equipment can give us the answers we need, then, again, I think that is something that we should provide for, once more within the control, ultimately, of the coroner.

It is important that we have real clarity between the roles of the coroner and the New Zealand Police. The police, obviously, carry out the investigative work for the coroner. They are both statutorily independent roles and must maintain that independence. However, we do need absolute clarity about the ability of coroners to get the investigative capacity that they require from the police but none the less not be able to control the police and ensure that they respect their ultimate independence. The test that we have landed on of “reasonable and necessary”, I think, is the right balance.

It might be the right point to talk just briefly to my Supplementary Order Paper 174, which also goes just a little further in that space of clarifying very clearly the definition of roles between the police in the extraction of a body and the role of the transportation providers, who are the mortuary services who are under contract to the ministry, who, obviously, move the body to the mortuary for post-mortems. I mean, it is a somewhat grisly topic, but of course there are situations where the bodies are in difficult situations—often forensically there have to be tightly controlled scenes—and they are often in places of quite difficult access, so we have to have real clarity around the control and responsibility for the movement of the body from those situations to a place where the transporter can easily get to them. Obviously, if the body is, for example, on a roadside or in a public park, those issues do not arise, but none the less we do have situations where that becomes real, and it is incumbent upon us to have real clarity of roles. My Supplementary Order Paper will do exactly that.

Just carrying on, Part 1 of the bill also does something else that I think is worthy of specific mention—I do not think I have heard it tonight in the debate—and that is to clearly provide for the role of forensic dentists in a post-mortem, particularly in the situation of mass casualties. I do want to just take a moment to reflect on being at Burnham Military Camp in the days after the February 2011 earthquake, watching the incredible, unbelievable work of our coronial teams, our pathologists, and our forensic dentists, who came from all over New Zealand at the drop of a hat—left their practices, left their families—and did the most remarkable, highly skilled, highly emotional, and yet incredibly necessary work of body identification. It made incredibly clear to me the critical role that they play, and this legislation gives us a good opportunity to ensure that the role of forensic dentists is provided for in the legislation, as I think this Committee would want it to be.

I was going to turn to Jacinda Arden’s amendment, but that is in Part 2, so I will return to that when we are debating that part of the bill. Thank you, Mr Chairman.

This bill does go some way towards redefining or confirming the definitions of the role of the coroner, but I guess, in the public’s mind, there are three areas of expectation that the public expects from the coroner in conducting an inquest.

I want to concentrate my Part 1 contribution on the role that the coroner has in supporting the expectation of families. Families do have an expectation that a cause of death or the mechanism where a death has occurred, whether it is as a result of crime or an accident or whatever, is found so that families are then able to take the necessary steps that they need to take in order to then perform the rituals that they need to for their loved one. There is also an expectation, I guess, if that death is as a result of a crime or part of a criminal investigation, that the coroner’s recommendations and report go some way to addressing the issues that might come up in that investigation. I guess the third area that the public really expects the coroner’s input into is really whether that death is preventable—whether the recommendations that the coroner makes could go some way to ensuring that deaths of that nature do not happen again in the future.

In this regard, I want to really just emphasise the expectations of families and loved ones in terms of the role of the coroner and, in particular, I want to talk about the very, very sensitive topic of how we treat bodies and the body parts and tissues that may be used as part of the investigation to establish the cause of death. It is a highly sensitive topic, but it is a role that the coroners undertake with due care, regardless of whether that death is as a result of a crime or as a result of an accident or an incident that could have been prevented. There is no doubt that the treatment of bodies, and then what happens in terms of the deceased person after the coroner has made their determination, has huge cultural implications. My colleague referred to what would happen to tūpāpaku. Well, in my culture, we use the same term, and there are specific ways that we would expect our loved ones to be treated through this process. But there are other cultures too that have other sensitivities in the matter of death and the matter of handling deceased persons, which need to be taken into consideration.

In this regard, I refer to the submission that was made by the National Council of Women. It was a very interesting submission. In reference to the replaced section 50 in Part 1, subpart 2, clause 27, they make a statement about it being vital that processes for retaining or returning human tissue samples should be improved in the sense of being more sensitive to the needs of families, and that there should be open discussions between the coroner and the immediate family so that there is clarity and understanding of the processes in place, and this also gives the family time to ask questions about the concerns that they have with the processes.

I see that when the amended bill was returned to the House, there had been some consideration made to this—in that the coroner is required to notify the family of the retention of any parts of the body and inform them of the right to request or return parts and samples, and it is very clear in this section that the coroner has a role to inform the family about how they intend to use any parts of the body or any tissue that might be retained once the body is released back to the family. So there is some clear definition, but in terms of what was requested by the submitter and what the understanding is, I guess, of the general public, it does not go far enough.

Is there an opportunity here to actually be far more cognisant of the wishes of families over a wide spectrum of cultural backgrounds to actually be able to have a much more sensitive process? It is not just about the coroner explaining and saying what they intend to do but also about actually taking far more of a steer from the families about what their expectations are of how that body and the tissues will be handled. One of the discussions—and it is very sensitive—is that some of the tissue may be destroyed and might never be able to be returned to the body, so the body may not be able to be disposed of completely and whole. For some cultures, that is a significant issue when it comes to the appropriate conduct and the rituals and the rites of dealing with deceased persons, and it is an important aspect that cannot actually be over expressed. The coroners, and the coronial process, have, over time, really taken full cognisance of, particularly, Māori tikanga when it comes to dealing with bodies, and they have changed their practices over time. I think that here is an opportunity for us to look at other cultural implications.

I also refer to the submission that was made by the Still family, whose daughter was one of the victims of the tragic Wairarapa balloon crash. They talked about what happened for them—the anguish of having to wait and not be able to identify their daughter or be with her body at the time immediately after the death. So, in this case, the coroner did not actually make any recommendations on reforms for how the process could be improved, but I think it actually suggests to me an opportunity for the family to take a much greater role in determining how we treat our deceased people in this case. It is a very, very sensitive matter, particularly when we are looking at possibly returning bodies to their families not in a complete state, and at how that might actually impact on families being able to appropriately conduct the rights and rituals of the deceased. Thank you.

I move, That the question be now put.

I would like specifically to address clause 32 of this bill, in so far as it makes a change relating to coroners’ inquiries into Defence Force personnel killed while on operational service, as a result of hostile action. The status quo is that the coroner is able to report on deaths, as a result of enemy action, by New Zealand Defence Force personnel out on service in an area such as Afghanistan. What this bill does is it takes away the coroner’s right to provide independent scrutiny and to produce a report that is accessible to the public. Those are the critical points. What the coroner enables us to have as members of Parliament, and enables members of the families of armed services personnel who are killed in action to have, and allows the public to do, is an independent person scrutinise the causes and circumstances of the deaths of those personnel and provide a report that the public has access to.

The reason why this has been brought to the House, in this bill, is that the New Zealand Defence Force took umbrage at a report by coroner JP Ryan into an incident in 2012 where three members of the New Zealand Army were killed in an improvised explosive device incident in Bamiyan: Corporal Luke Tamatea, Lance Corporal Jacinda Baker, and Private Richard Harris.

I have read the report by coroner JP Ryan, and I have got to say it is an inoffensive report. It does not in any way intrude on issues of national security, though that is the pretext in which this amendment is being made to the Act. The coroner’s report is available to all of us—any member of the House can look at it—and there is nothing concerning in that report, I argue, that could in any way be regarded as jeopardising New Zealand’s national security.

The second argument by the New Zealand Defence Force is that these matters are non-justiciable—that is, the coroner, as a legal figure, has no right to second-guess the decision that is made by a commanding officer on the battlefield. I do not believe that Ryan’s report does that either. What I do know is that unless you have the right to have a coroner’s report, there is no mandatory requirement for an investigation into the death of a soldier on the battlefield. That point is made in the memo that I have, briefing the Chief of the Defence Force.

The coroner’s inquiry is the one mandatory requirement that the cause and the circumstances of the death of a soldier in action should be established. The Defence Force can, of course, hold a court of inquiry, but that is not mandatory. Secondly, when the Defence Force holds a court of inquiry, its decisions and its reasoning are not available to you or me or, most importantly, to the families of the soldiers killed.

One of the strongest points that I have read was made, in fact, by the partner of Corporal Luke Tamatea, who herself is in the military. She makes the point very, very strongly that she and her family took reassurance from the fact that an independent person—who was interested in finding the actual causes of the death and not interested in protecting the reputation of the Defence Force—had looked at this and had given information to the family. I say, why should we as a House deny the members of the families of soldiers killed in action from receiving such a report?

Sorry to interrupt the honourable member, but the time has come for me to report progress.

House resumed.

The Chairperson reported progress on the Coroners Amendment Bill and no progress on the Riccarton Racecourse Development Enabling Bill and the Riccarton Racecourse Bill.

Report adopted.

The House adjourned at 9.56 p.m.

On Sunday Metiria Turei, the co-leader of the Green Party, gave a speech entitled “I am the River, and the River is me”. I think that would have been more appropriately entitled “I am the Labour Party, and the Labour Party is me”, because, quite frankly, those two are now completely inseparable. The Labour Party is completely stuck with the Greens. Of course, it contrasted a bit with her statement from 2 days before when she was at Timaru Girls’ High School, where she said: “I have a bad attitude towards the Labour Party.” I am not quite sure how they are going to square that circle.

I do not know whether anyone told Damien O’Connor that this deal was going to be stitched together, and I do not know what Stuart Nash thinks about it. But what I do know is that I think next year, at election time, you will not see those red Labour billboards in Napier and on the West Coast, you are going to see the borrowing of old Clayton Cosgrove’s anonymous orange billboards—name only, no party background. There is going to be more and more of this stuff.

When we were hearing from old Kennedy Graham today, he was talking about the great old days when East Germany was thumbing its nose at the West, and I was just thinking what Labour members think of that sort of thing. But, anyway, that is a great problem for them to have as the Opposition. We are very happy with it over here because that leaves us free to talk about the Budget—and what a great Budget it has been.

I would just like to set the wider context. There are not too many economies in the OECD that are in as great a position as New Zealand: forecasting surpluses as far as you can see, falling unemployment, options around future spending and around what we can do—it is a very good position, and New Zealanders realise that. This $1.6 billion that we have allocated in this Budget will make a real difference to New Zealanders, and you will have heard my colleague Nikki Kaye talking about the more than $2 billion that we are spending on school infrastructure; that is a real major feature of the Budget. Steven Joyce, Minister of Science and Innovation, has over $700 million going in to foster Kiwi innovation and science, and to make sure we have got the right sorts of skills in the economy. Then, of course, there is social investment.

💬 Phil Twyford: Who chose that tie?

Phil Twyford is asking “Who chose that tie?”. That is the level of debate, and that pretty much sums up where Labour has got to on this Budget. That is about the most potent barb it has had right throughout this debate, because Labour has given up opposing the Budget and opposing the Government. There was a time when a hard-working Labour Opposition spokesman on finance would have been sitting down there grinding out some alternative numbers, and getting up to say what the Opposition would spend the money on. But, no, what has Grant been doing—well, what has Grant being doing? I do not know what Mr Robertson has been doing, but there has not been one single number that he has put up. That is, of course, apart from the $1 billion tertiary education promise that the Opposition chucked out a few weeks ago—that went well, did it not—and apart from the extra $1.7 billion that Annette King is promising to stick straight into the health budget before there is any new money at all.

I think poor old Mrs King is a bit politically concussed—she has taken one too many political blows to the head—because she no longer knows the difference between core Crown expenditure and Vote Health. Her questions have got so muddled and so all over the paddock, and the problem for Labour on health is that it has fired all its shots. It had this one last shot it was going fire: those members were praying like anything that we had not been able to fully fund demographics and cost in our Budget. You know what—the figures are out. For the last 7 years, we have fully funded demographics and cost pressures. What a disappointment for Mrs King because that throws her credibility right under the bus.

Meanwhile, what a fantastic health budget—$568 million this year, and $2.2 billion over the next 4 years. That is going to fund the services that the people of New Zealand need in health. There is $1.6 billion in there for district health boards, and I can tell you that that has been incredibly favourably received out there. That is going to provide the services that people across New Zealand require. No wonder we have been able to provide that extra 6,100 doctors and nurses—6,100 more now working in the system than there were 8 years ago. No wonder we are doing an extra 50,000 operations per year and an extra 110,000 appointments.

The difference between us and the Opposition on health is that all those members are about is putting in more money; we are about results. They put in more money and the results were worse. As the Dominion Post said in September 2005, how could you put so much money into a health system and make it worse. I am afraid that is written there—go and Google it—it is there.

But, anyway, we are getting on with this health budget. You know, it is great. I am sure the Opposition members would join with us in celebrating that $96 million going into elective surgeries. That is just fantastic. That is going to continue—that uplift of 4,000 extra surgeries per year—that target that we have set ourselves. I am just very disappointed that Labour members never set some health targets when they were in Government because, frankly, the system would have been even better now if they had spent those 9 years doing something or other, but their only target was more money. We set that 4,000 target. We are actually doing more than the 4,000 per year; the uplift continues. I can tell you that the only answer to unmet need is to do more and we are doing more and more all the time.

What about that $124 million for Pharmac? That was a great announcement, funding the drugs that New Zealanders need. We know that there are thousands of New Zealanders who are going to benefit from the options that that money now provides for Pharmac. It now has an option to fund Opdivo, a fantastic drug that is going to save lives for those who have stage 4 malignant melanoma. And there are hepatitis C drugs—those drugs are true social investment. Fifty thousand people in New Zealand suffer from hepatitis C and we now have the option of funding a drug that is going to prolong life and improve health for thousands of New Zealanders. That is true social investment because those people would never have got back to work—they would have died early. Now there is a nearly 100 percent cure rate offered to them, funded by Pharmac. That is a great opportunity—and Grant Robertson just looks so disappointed there. He is not disappointed for the public, but he has got no answer—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: That’s hunger.

Sorry, it is not disappointment; it is hunger. But look, what I can say is that there is just more and more in this Budget. I mean, the $36 million between Simon Bridges’ vote and the health votes—$18 million from health for the Healthy Homes Initiative—insulating more houses for New Zealanders and making sure that we keep young New Zealand children out of hospital. That is very important—and it just shows the way that this Government is thinking.

One thing that I am very, very proud of is the $39.3 million that is going in this year to fund the roll-out of the bowel-screening programme, starting with the Hutt Valley District Health Board (DHB) and the Wairarapa DHB. In the next 3 years we will be rolling that out throughout New Zealand. That is going to screen 700,000 New Zealanders aged 60 to 74 years every 2 years. It is going to save hundreds of lives, quite possibly 700 lives a year. So that is a major strike against one of the biggest killers in New Zealand.

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: 10 years too late.

David Cunliffe says that it is 10 years too late. Actually, he is right, because Labour talked about it in 2008 when he was the Minister of Health, did nothing, and put no money into it. It did nothing at all—it was a disgrace. But that is the story: Labour is big on rhetoric but actually it really did not get the health system going in the way that it could have.

I am proud to be part of a Government that is focusing on New Zealanders’ priorities, that is delivering in areas like the economy—you know, more jobs, and the average wage rising to $63,000 a year by 2020. It is delivering in education.

💬 Grant Robertson: It’s dropping. Jonathan, it’s dropping.

Grant says that it is dropping. I do not know where that guy gets his numbers from, but I can tell you that one thing I know is that they are not based on hard work. We are delivering on what New Zealanders expect and deserve from their health system.

This is a great Budget. It is the culmination of 8 years of very hard work by this Government. It is creating options for future investment as the public begin to reap the benefit of those increasing surpluses in years to come: more jobs, greater economic growth, and more money in the hand for New Zealand families. This is a great Budget for the people of New Zealand and I commend it to the House.

I want to talk about the political train wreck that is the Government’s housing policy, because that policy is at the heart of why this Budget has played so badly with the public. There are two things that are going on. The first is that homeownership rates are falling. Auckland has some of the most unaffordable housing in the world and speculators are running riot. The second thing is that we are seeing homelessness on a scale that we never have before. RNZ reported on Friday that children as young as 11 are living under bushes in South Auckland. The nation is shocked by that. Kiwis are deeply uncomfortable with that, but it is made worse by the sight of this Government’s non-response to the housing crisis—a response that shows the Government to be breathtakingly out of touch with most New Zealanders.

We had the Prime Minister advising first-home buyers last week to just go on TradeMe, because apparently there are lots of affordable houses on TradeMe; that is, if you like living in a houseboat or living 3 hours’ drive from the centre of town, or in a one-bedroom shack. We also had the Prime Minister saying that homeless people should just run along to Work and Income, and Work and Income would sort them out. That is completely and utterly out of touch. Then, to cap it all, we had the Prime Minister on Friday, obviously nonplussed by the kind of heat he was getting on this issue, flailing around and just making it up by saying that Government officials had been out with the Salvation Army trying to help homeless people who did not want to be helped. That was a complete and utter fabrication.

What is going on here? This is odd. This is the Prime Minister who 9 years ago said that he was concerned about a growing underclass, but he will not do anything about families living in cars. This is the Prime Minister who 7 years ago stood in this House and told us every day that he wanted to take the sharp edges off the recession and protect the most vulnerable in the global financial crisis. But his response to the fact that there are kids sleeping under bushes in South Auckland is to make up a story that blames the homeless for his own failed policy. The Prime Minister said that he was ambitious for New Zealand, but he is clearly not ambitious for desperate young Kiwi families who just want a home of their own. This Government’s housing policy is collapsing around it. Every day the cartoons, the editorials, and the letters to the editor in newspapers all around this country are mocking the Government, mocking its insistence that this is a challenge but not a crisis, or, as Simon Bridges said, that it is a top-tier issue.

Let us count some of the ways that this Government’s housing policy is a train wreck. We had Paula Bennett in a panic the day before the Budget was due to be released, running around announcing one of her hare-brained schemes to pay people $5,000 to get out of Auckland to get a house. Never mind that at the same time Anne Tolley is paying people $3,000 to move to Auckland to get a job. Never mind that there are 41,000 homeless people in this country, according to Kate Amore, a researcher at Otago University, and that Paula Bennett’s policy that she announced to pay people to move out of town is designed to help only 150 people. Never mind that in Huntly, one of the places that Paula Bennett wants to send people to, there are no vacant State houses.

💬 Hon Nanaia Mahuta: How many?

No vacant State houses. But Paula Bennett apparently wants to pay people in Auckland $5,000 to move to Huntly to get one of those non-empty State houses. On what planet is that a good idea? On what planet does that actually pass for a housing policy?

Nick Smith, the hapless building and housing Minister who thinks that the surge in homelessness is a figment of someone’s imagination, got an extra $100 million in the Budget. He got it so that he can buy more Crown land, but shortly before he made that announcement his own officials released information under the Official Information Act showing that having promised in last year’s Budget 500 hectares of vacant Crown land to be developed for housing, Nick Smith spent the $50 million he was allocated and got how many hectares? He got 13 hectares. He promised 500 hectares but he got 13 hectares and not a single house was built.

To be fair to the Minister, he had to go back and exclude the power substations, Government House, the Mangere Lawn Cemetery, and dozens of other sites that were included on the original list that his officials confirmed had been used as the basis for that list of 500 hectares. It is a farce, and this was Nick Smith’s big policy in the Budget last year to build houses in Auckland. It follows in a long line of policies that are designed to make it look as if this Government is doing something about the housing crisis while doing as little as possible.

In the Budget before, Nick Smith promised to knock $3,500 off the cost of a new house by suspending tariffs and anti-dumping duties on a range of building materials. What has happened in the last 2 years? Well, plasterboard, one of the building products that Nick Smith removed anti-dumping duties and tariffs from, has increased more in price than the entire amount that he promised he would save under his policy. So the cost of building supplies has got worse under Nick Smith’s policy. And the granddaddy of them all was the special housing areas that were announced in the Budget before that—Budget 2014—3 years ago. According to Nick Smith, they have been responsible for building only 1,000 new houses in 3 years. That is the Government’s centrepiece Auckland housing supply policy—1,000 houses in 3 years—when Auckland has a deficit that has built up under this Government’s watch of 40,000 houses, and it is getting worse by 4,000 every year.

So the question is why this train wreck has been allowed to happen day after day after day, like Groundhog Day. Remember that this is the Prime Minister who made an art form out of swallowing dead rats. Remember Working for Families?

💬 Grant Robertson: “Communism by stealth”.

“Communism by stealth”, but National kept it. Remember interest-free student loans? This Prime Minister, he knows the U-turn. He knows the U-turn. Remember the City Rail Link? Does anybody remember that? He has announced it twice and still has not written a cheque for it, but he made the U-turn. But why—why—has this Government continued, in the face of all the evidence, in a string of grudging half-measures and deliberately ineffective policies—why has it continued with this train wreck that passes for a housing policy? Well, the ugly truth of it is that this Government simply does not care about homeless people. John Key could not have stood up last week and told the fabrication that he did—that Government officials had gone out with the Salvation Army to talk to homeless people who did not want to be helped. If he cared about homeless people, he would not have stood up in front of journalists in this Parliament and told them that lie. Homeless people are not National’s people.

John Key and Paula Bennett—two Ministers who benefited tremendously from the generosity of previous generations of taxpayers—got a good start in life thanks to the people of this country, who were willing to fund through their taxes State housing and a welfare system designed to give people a hand up. But not only are those two Ministers happy to dismantle those structures, which helped New Zealanders get a decent start in life, but they are willing to go along with caricaturing and undermining State house tenants and people on welfare benefits and portraying them in the most unflattering light because they are not National’s people, so National does not care about them.

When it comes to Auckland house prices, the ugly truth is that the Prime Minister has taken the view that he has more votes to harvest from homeowners who are happy to see their paper wealth increase, as last year house prices in Auckland went up 25 percent. It is a cynical calculation that he can harvest their votes at the expense of Generation Rent—at the expense of thousands and thousands of young Kiwi families who are desperate only to get a home of their own. He does not care about the parents and the grandparents who desperately want to see their kids own a home of their own, but the Government has lost control of this issue. It has gone past the tipping point, and that is why those members are flailing around like chooks with their heads cut off. They are out of touch, they are out of ideas, and they are running out of other people to blame.

After that short break from reality, it is my great pleasure to take a call in this Budget debate, reflecting on Bill English’s eighth Budget, the eighth of this National-led Government. I think that for anyone who is looking at the meat of the issue rather than the noise in a Budget, it tells them that the economy is strong, it is stable, and jobs are growing—200,000 so far, and another 170,000 to come. Incomes are growing, and, importantly, they are growing faster than inflation, so real incomes are growing. We are on track to have an average income of $63,000 a year, under the stewardship of this Government. And our GDP is growing—that is not something to take lightly or to say quickly, because the reality is that most of the countries we would look to for comparable indicators of success would kill to have a GDP growth averaging 3 percent a year over the next few years. New Zealand is in a position where it is envied around the world for its strong, stable economy, and that is thanks to Bill English, to John Key, and to the stability and success of this National-led Government.

We are now in a position where the moderate and rising surpluses that this Government has delivered enable us to have choice, and, actually, that is what economic growth and surpluses and the operating balance before gains and losses, and all the phrases that Treasury can throw around and that we discuss in this House—that is actually what it means. We get the country back into surplus, because once we have surplus, we have options to do things that matter to New Zealanders. That is why, in this Budget, you are seeing us being able to now raise the budget for Pharmac. As my colleague Dr Coleman said in the opening contribution today, the budget for Pharmac has risen to $850 million a year, meaning we can fund more of the drugs for things like hepatitis C, which affects 50,000 New Zealanders; melanoma drugs, which are incredibly expensive but very, very successful; and bowel cancer screening across New Zealand. And there is the biggest investment in school property spending in more than a decade. That is why we work so hard on this side of the House to get us into surplus and create growth.

Those surpluses are hard-won and hard-fought for, but they represent the very real ability to provide that sort of quality of life for New Zealanders. We have not done it through borrowing; we have not done the old Cullen/Labour trick of “Just keep spending the money. Let us run up the debts for our future generations to pay for.” We have done it the way New Zealand families and New Zealand businesses do it, which is to earn the money first, do the hard yards, work out how you can trim your sails, work out how you can be more efficient, work out how you can actually deliver more within a constrained budget, and still deliver surpluses. Not only have we seen better achievement and more spending in education, not only have we seen more elective surgeries every single year since we have been in office, not only have we seen a falling crime rate—it is safer on our streets—not only are we doing the work that my colleague Anne Tolley is leading to reform Child, Youth and Family, as we desperately need to do, but we are doing it while ensuring that we get the books back into shape and we do not leave significant debts for my children and grandchildren to have to pay in years to come.

Those surpluses are starting to provide the very real choices and ability for this Government to do those things, and we are very proud to be delivering them when countries around the world are facing increasing deficit forecasts. In fact, our debt track is going down. That is a remarkable achievement, given the challenges that this Government has faced—the international, the economic, and the frankly seismic and weather-related challenges—to get to a position where our debt track is reducing, our core Crown debt forecasts are going down, and the surplus forecasts are going up. We are in a very strong position.

I want to talk for a moment about the parts of the Budget that relate specifically to my portfolios. I have to start off with the $837 million invested by this Budget in the justice sector. That is one of the biggest investments in the justice sector that we have seen, and it is on top of the extra $56 million that we put into the sector through Supplementary Estimates for this current year. What you are seeing in the Budget is another $280 million for the police force.

We are now funding 6,000 out-of-gate referrals, so that when our prisoners are leaving prison we are working extensively with them in the community—and in a collaborative, wraparound way—to ensure that we are doing everything we can to ensure that they can reintegrate well into society. I want to talk about one specific statistic that I think is incredibly significant, and that is this: we now fund 4,500 alcohol and drug treatment places in our prisons every year—4,500. Do you know what that number was in 2008?

💬 Hon Members: Tell us.

It was 500—500 places funded under the big-spending Labour Government. We are now funding 4,500 alcohol and drug treatment places every year, and I am very, very proud of that.

The Budget includes $8.2 million towards the setting up of the sex offender register to help keep our young children safe in society. Within that overall allocation, $208 million goes into the justice and courts sector. That is the biggest single investment we have seen in more than a decade. Of that $208 million, the biggest investment is focusing on access to justice. This House will be aware of the challenge of ensuring that communities and people within our communities have access to effective legal help when they need it. We are putting $96 million into increasing legal aid, into increasing civil eligibility thresholds, into increasing criminal legal aid funding, into ensuring and enhancing the funding for community law centres, and into further funding for the Public Defence Service. Can I just touch on that for a minute, because I was a huge fan of the Public Defence Service when Minister Simon Power created it, and it has been remarkably successful, to the extent that judges now regularly comment to me about the high quality of the advocacy they see from our public defenders in court. It is a brilliant training ground for young lawyers, it is a very high-quality legal service for those who need it, and we are very pleased to be funding it further in this Budget.

Restorative justice gets a $16 million boost in this Budget, and, again, this House should be aware that restorative justice has the potential to really revolutionise the way we think about, deal with, and let victims recover from what is generally lower-level offending. It does allow victims—they tell us this—to be heard, to feel that they get a sense of addressing their offender, to get closure, and to recover much better. For the offenders, we are seeing a significant reduction in reoffending by those who have been through restorative justice. It does work. It is outside the norm, we want to see more of it, and that is why we have put more money into restorative justice.

We have funded an increase in non-violence programmes for family violence offenders as part of our work, and you are going to see more from us in this space as the work of the Ministerial Group on Family Violence and Sexual Violence continues. I do want to mention and highlight the $46 million that, with the help of Minister Anne Tolley, we are putting into sexual violence services for victims—$46 million. When the Social Services Committee did an inquiry into the funding of sexual violence services—and we want to commend it for its work—it noted that we needed to put more funding into the sector. We agreed, we said we would, and this Budget delivers on it.

The Independent Police Conduct Authority will get an extra $300,000 every year to ensure that it can continue to operate and hold our criminal justice sector to account.

In the time remaining, I just want to talk very briefly about cyber-security. Cybercrime is a pervasive and real threat that we have to deal with. In fact, the global trade in cybercrime is now bigger than the international drugs trade. Cybercrime is bigger than the international drugs market. When you look at our $231 billion economy, we have to ensure that New Zealand businesses are well-positioned to take advantage of the digital world. We are uniquely positioned to do that with our world-leading infrastructure and our incredible, innovative, and resourceful Kiwis, but we have to ensure that they learn how to keep themselves safe. That is what cyber is about. It is why this Government put out the first-ever Cyber Security Strategy in 2011, why we refreshed it last year, and why this Budget includes $22 billion—oh, sorry, million; that would be a good cyber-security centre—$22 million to set up New Zealand’s first Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), which will be the one-stop shop and trusted clearing house for information, incident response and triage, analysis of threat information, and, importantly, our international point of contact for cyber-security incidents.

In addition, and in that space, can I finish by making reference to the money we have set aside in the Budget for the Harmful Digital Communications Act and the agency we have set up. Last week I announced that NetSafe is the approved agency under the legislation. It will do a fantastic job of enhancing education and awareness about being safe online, and will provide people with a very real, very cost-effective, and quick form of redress. It is just another brilliant aspect of a Budget of which I am incredibly proud.

A 5-minute call on behalf of the Green Party—Eugenie Sage.

Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is time for New Zealand to be the cleaner, fairer society that all Kiwis want it to be. It is time that we put families first, so that everyone has a warm, dry, and secure home that they can call their own. It is time that the Government realised that we need to protect water quality. It is time that we invested in protecting the thousands of species in Aotearoa New Zealand that have these islands as the only place that they can call home. It is time that we had an attention to water quality and controlling land uses that pollute water quality, and to cleaning up our rivers and lakes. It is time that we took action on climate pollution and worked to stabilise our climate.

But that is not what we have got with this band-aid Budget from the National Government. It is more of the same: more of not caring enough about New Zealanders—not caring about those who are sleeping in cars, on the streets, and in garages. It is not caring enough about people who have got damp, cold, mouldy homes because the Government has failed to invest adequately in the Warm Up New Zealand housing insulation programme. This is a Government with a Budget that does not care.

If it were the Green Party, with Labour, in Government we would have been promoting a major increase in the State housing build so that people do not have to sleep on the streets, in garages, and in cars. We would have ensured that the $90 million that this Government demands from Housing New Zealand as dividend payments goes to build 450 new homes as emergency housing, and that the tax payments that this Government demands from Housing New Zealand are similarly allocated. Instead, the Government keeps those dividends because it wants to bribe voters with tax cuts next year.

On the climate—the greatest crisis facing humanity—what do we have in this band-aid Budget? There is one mention of climate, with the bill that removes the two-for-one unit subsidy for big polluters. The Government needs to tackle climate change. It needs to have in the Budget a spending programme that helps to ensure we can reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. Yet we saw in question time today the dismissive approach of the Minister of Finance to the major costs to our economy from sea level rise and storm surges associated with climate change.

The costs of adverse weather events to our land transport network alone in the last 10 years have increased from about $20 million annually to $90 million annually. The New Zealand Transport Agency has estimated that there is a huge cost of nearly a billion dollars from replacing the more than 160 kilometres of rail lines, 222 kilometres of State highways, and more than 2,000 of local roads that are at risk from sea level rise and storm surges. Yet the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment’s recommendation that there be a working party established to look at the fiscal and economic risks from climate change has not been tackled with the establishment of such a working party.

If the Government is willingly blind to the economic cost of climate change, then it is not going to invest in tackling our emissions. That is something that the Green Party would change. We would not be slashing AgResearch’s investment in climate science—in real work to actually reduce our emissions. We would not be lavishing $100 million on encouraging an expansion of irrigation—the Government wants to see another 200,000 hectares of land put into irrigation in the current financial year, through Vote Primary Industries and the Crown irrigation fund—because the cost of that irrigation is likely to lead to an expansion in dairying and more greenhouse gas emissions.

We have a plan to reduce our greenhouse emissions and to clean up our rivers, rather than encouraging more intensive land use that pollutes rivers and increases nitrate levels in our aquifers. We would invest in housing so that all New Zealanders have a warm, dry home. This band-aid Budget does not care about the climate, does not care about the homeless, and does not care about inequality. We need to change that, and change is coming.

A 5-minute call—Denise Roche.

I rise to take a call in this debate, which I hope will be the second to last debate on a Budget from the National Government. This Government is tired. There were no new ideas in the Budget that the National Government presented to this Parliament. It failed to deal with two of the biggest issues of our time: climate change and inequality.

Let us talk about climate change. After 8 years of not talking about climate change, National’s big idea—and only idea—was to end the two-for-one rort that made no economic or environmental sense. Rather than just finding some simple solutions like, for example, putting a 10c to 20c levy on single-use plastic bags—it could have raised between $20 million and $60 million of new revenue, it could have decreased our pollution impact on marine life, and it could have reduced our emissions by the equivalent of taking about 3,000 cars off the road. Instead of doing that, the National Government opted to go for a less effective recycling scheme that does not actually fix the problem of too many plastic bags, and actually costs taxpayers money.

If the Government had put in this plastic bag levy—a simple solution—perhaps it could have avoided the steep cuts to the Department of Conservation (DOC), which has lost nearly $60 million since 2008. Under National, 146 species are closer to extinction and nearly a quarter of the DOC huts and half of the walking tracks are not up to standard. National is mismanaging New Zealand’s clean, green reputation, and, by doing so, is putting our economy and our environment at risk.

We have a Government that is unwilling, or unable, to deal with addressing inequality. When you have a Prime Minister who is denying the housing crisis by saying that homeless people do not want help, then we know where the refusal to deal with problems comes from: it comes from the top—the rot starts there. While chief executive officer (CEO) salaries have gone up by $180,000 over the last year, working people are facing real cuts to their real wages over the next 2 years. The only thing going up almost as quickly as CEO pay rates is the Auckland housing crisis, which has surged by $100,000 in the last year alone.

Auckland is now the fifth least affordable city in the world, but there is nothing in the Budget that addresses the growing gap between the haves and the have-nots in this country. There is nothing in the Budget about the housing crisis, which has led to nearly one in a hundred New Zealanders being homeless or on the brink of homelessness—and that is shameful.

Instead, since the National Government has come into office, it has given away hundreds of millions of dollars in tax cuts and corporate subsidies to its rich mates in private companies like Serco, like Skycity, and like Warner Bros. At the same time as doing that, it has been absolutely gutting the Public Service and has twiddled its thumbs while community services that provide support to some of the most vulnerable people in our country, like the Nelson Multicultural Council, are contemplating closing by year’s end because money has been either frozen or cut. Although we have got migration at over 100,000 a year, we need to be taking migrant settlement and support seriously, not freezing the settling-in grants and support budgets for migrant services, like this Government has.

To sum up, under the National Government, CEO pay has gone up and real wages are going down. Under the National Government, homelessness is going up, but housing affordability has gone way down. Under the National Government, emissions have gone way up and conservation funding is way down. Under the National Government, our planet and our people are worse off. We need to change the Government.

There has been a lot of talk in the last week or so about the Labour-Greens’ MOU (memorandum of understanding)—I call it the “marriage of unity”, but wait, it might end up being called the “marriage of disunity”. Let me take you through a little example that we have seen play out in the last week or so since this marriage of unity—or disunity—has been playing out.

On the West Coast of the South Island we have Damien O’Connor, and he has a very strong challenge from our National list MP, Maureen Pugh. Of course what does the local paper do? They are interested in local stories and so they pick up the phone and ring Damien O’Connor; he answers and they ask him: “Do you support this MOU?”. They had to ask him seven times whether he supported it or not. In fact, I think that everyone on the West Coast is actually unsure whether or not their local MP supports this memorandum of understanding. West Coasters are very pragmatic people. The coasters know a hell of a lot about primary production. Actually, so does Damien O’Connor, and he knows that this deal is terrible for his voters on the coast. He knows that what underpins his regional economy is dairy farming. Well, we have just heard a speech from the Greens—actually, two of them—opposing dairy farmers. Those members would prefer it if we had no dairy farmers in the whole of New Zealand, let alone on the West Coast of the South Island.

We also saw in 2014 the Greens oppose special legislation—Cyclone Ita had come through and there were a whole lot of wind-blown trees down there on the West Coast. Damien O’Connor crossed the floor because he knew it was good for local jobs on the West Coast. The Greens were opposed to that. Of course what we will also see play out is that the Greens are opposed to mining, which is hugely important on the West Coast. But, importantly, let us not worry too much about the marriage of disunity, because it is already playing out. It is playing out on the West Coast; it is playing out as I speak.

I think, actually, most Labour members who are on the right of their caucus, like Mr O’Connor, like Stuart Nash, like Kelvin Davis, like many others, like Phil Goff—

💬 Tim Macindoe: Clayton Cosgrove.

Phil Twyford, Clayton Cosgrove—they are all petrified of this deal. You can bet your bottom dollar that those who are standing—those names I have just mentioned—when their billboards go up in their electorates, there will be a little tinge of red but it will be all about the personality, because they know this deal is terrible for Labour and, I think, ultimately, it will be terrible for the Greens. I reckon they will both be punished.

But, importantly, I want to focus on this Budget, because this Budget is what matters. This Budget is what people are talking about on the West Coast of the South Island. This Budget is what people are talking about in my electorate of Ōtaki. This is Bill English’s eighth Budget—a fantastic Budget. We are back into surplus, there is massive investment into health and education—$2.2 billion in health over 4 years—and more money into the SuperGold card.

Of course in my electorate, Ōtaki, I have got the highest number of over 65s on a proportionality basis. They are stopping me on the street saying: “Well done for supporting the SuperGold card.” They really back this Budget. There is more money into health, more money into education. They are very concerned about their grandkids, and they acknowledge that this is an all-time spend on health, education, and social services and that is hugely important. They acknowledge there are 200,000 jobs that have been created in the last 3 years. Is that not fantastic? There are 170,000 predicted to be created in the next 3 years. This is a Government that is doing things. It is getting the books back in order, paying down debt, getting back in the black, and, actually, voters acknowledge that. They acknowledge that we have steered this country through the tough times.

What is really exciting about this Budget for me is the record biosecurity investment of $223 million—90 new staff working on the front line, an extra 24 of these amazing dog detector teams, and six new X-ray machines on top of the other ones that we have got. We have now got Government-industry agreements—nine parties have signed up to that. There is a huge investment happening in keeping our borders safe, on top of the border clearance levy and the like.

I could go on—$70 million into managing TB. This is a very invasive disease that we have got to get on top of, and that means $70 million on top of $30 million over the next 4 years. That is a $100 million investment, which has been applauded by many in the primary sector. We want to eradicate TB from wildlife by 2026 and we are on track to do that with this investment.

Also, wilding pines—many people will be unaware that these are causing a huge amount of concern in regional and provincial New Zealand. We have estimated there are about 1.8 million hectares of these invasive wild pines. They are basically a weed tree, and they are spreading their seeds at about 90,000 hectares a year. Kevin Hague knows all about this, and he is nodding. He sees this as a very prudent investment. We want to get in there and stop the spread of these wilding pine trees and kill them off, and we hope that regional councils will come on board and partner with us. We hope that philanthropic organisations will come and partner with us, and communities, as well.

Also, there is $100 million for environmental clean-up projects. That is a massive investment. It is interesting that when the Greens had their conference over the weekend the co-leader stood up and said: “I am the river, and the river is me.” Well, now its members are out there saying we need to do more in this space. In actual fact, I think that this Government has done a huge amount in cleaning up our waterways—actually way more than when the Greens got left at the altar and Labour was in charge in the last 3 years of the Labour - New Zealand First coalition. Importantly, over that period of time, from 2000 to 2008, there was about $29 million invested in the clean-up of our rivers and streams and lakes.

This Government has invested $115 million since 2008-15 and we are now going to invest another $100 million. I think it is fantastic that we can get out there and partner, once again, with other community organisations, the regional councils, and philanthropic individuals who want to come forward and partner with us. The Greens have now just woken up to the fact that, actually, rivers are important. Well, we have known that for a huge amount of time. We are investing $5 million in cleaning up the Manawatū River, which runs through my electorate. We are investing over a million dollars in Lake Horowhenua cleaning up that. We are doing a huge amount as we speak.

We are also investing $20 million in the Global Research Alliance (GRA). That is very important for our farmers, because we know that in terms of our emissions profile, about half comes from agriculture. So we have got the best scientists in New Zealand—and some around the world—who are working on this initiative. The GRA has got about 46 countries that have signed up to it. We are leading the world in trying to reduce methane emissions from our animals. I think that is a fantastic initiative, which the Government is very keen, once again, to focus on to ensure we give our farmers solutions. The Greens and Labours just want to give our farmers problems. We want to invest in new technology. We want to provide the tools in the tool box so that farmers can open it up and say: “Yes, this is how I can address my emissions profile.”

What is also really important to acknowledge in this Budget is that there is more money in tertiary education. We know we need to attract another 50,000 people to the primary sector in the next 9 years, and that is going to be really challenging. Over half of those—so 26,000—will need to have a level 4 or a tertiary qualification. They will be food safety scientists, they will be robotic engineers, they will be environmental planners. That is why this Budget focuses so heavily on science—$761 million. Ultimately, that means our investment in science will be about $1.6 billion in the next few years. We are also going to put more money into science, engineering, agriculture, and veterinary science students as well, in terms of their tuition fees.

This is a Budget that is focused on the future. This is a Budget that is about getting us back into surplus. This is a Budget that is about creating jobs for all New Zealanders—200,000 in the last 3 years and another 170,000 in the next 3 years. This is a Government that is really focused on the issues that matter for New Zealand. I applaud Bill English for his eighth Budget. He has done incredibly well to get us back into surplus and to grow this economy. We are now favoured on the international stage. When you look at all these countries—whether it is OECD measurements or different measurements—and you think about little old New Zealand, we can put our hands on our hearts and say we have done a fantastic job in getting us through the global financial crisis, doing more in terms of investing in the future and our children, and looking after some of those in need. Thank you. I applaud this Budget.

The 2016 Budget will go down in history as a Budget that ignored the big issues facing middle New Zealand. It is a Budget that seeks only to manage decline. The aspiration the previous speaker, Nathan Guy, spoke of is nowhere to be found in the actual pages of the Budget. The Budget has, in fact, all the hallmarks of a Government that is increasingly arrogant and out of touch with most New Zealanders and the issues that they are facing day by day. It is a Budget that does nothing to challenge an economy that is increasingly stacked in favour of the ultra-wealthy and those at the very top at the expense of middle New Zealand. And that is at a time when middle New Zealand is finding it harder and harder to get ahead.

When I was reflecting on this managed decline that is there to see in the Budget in the area of housing, where there are no initiatives—there is one. There is one initiative in housing, to buy 25 more hectares of land, when the Minister for Building and Housing has promised 500 hectares and has only managed to deliver, I believe, 13 in the last year, if that. We have an education system and a Budget that has put a cap on operational funding to make sure that in future parents will pay more for their kids’ schooling. We have a health contribution in the Budget that does not keep up with the prices in health inflation and demographic change. We see a Budget that is not there for middle New Zealand. It is a Budget that is failing to deliver for most New Zealanders.

The reasons that I oppose this Budget are the same reasons—when I was reflecting on why I was so opposed to it—that I stood to become a Labour member of Parliament. This Budget does nothing—absolutely nothing—to address the growing inequalities in New Zealand. It does nothing to provide the building blocks of opportunity that would make the Kiwi Dream possible once again. In 2010, before I was in this Parliament, I wrote a blog called Killing the New Zealand Dream, and the things that I found in that when I went back to look at it anew were the same reasons that I find in this Budget about why the Government does not stack up.

It is not about quality health-care that is available for all New Zealanders. It is not about rewarding and supporting dedicated teachers, and an education system that delivers quality results. We have seen education results slip under this Government, as it has failed to invest in the future of this country. We have seen the values that underpin New Zealand’s sense of identity, that sense of fairness, being undermined by the kinds of changes this Government has made. It has given tax cuts in the past where 40 percent of the value goes to the very top earners, and those in the middle and bottom are left to pick up the scraps. Our pride and our identity as New Zealanders, I would say to this House, are tied up with our sense of fairness. That is the Kiwi Dream, and it is under threat in this very Budget once more.

The reasons that I oppose this Budget are the reasons that I wanted to become a Labour MP: because I want to see us do something about those growing inequalities. I want to see the Kiwi Dream become real once more. I am unhappy—extremely unhappy—that right now we have the lowest homeownership rate in New Zealand since 1951. In this Budget, as I have said, there is nothing—nothing—that is going to change that. I think it is both socially and economically bad for New Zealand when we have that growing wedge between the richest New Zealanders and the rest of us. When we have kids going to school hungry, they do not learn. They are much more likely to end up in the justice system. They are much more likely to be living in cold, damp homes where they get preventable diseases that we all pay for through the health system and our taxes. They are much more likely to go on to train to become not neurosurgeons but hedge fund traders, because they are worried about money rather than their best contribution to society, when they may have otherwise gone on to do a public-good profession.

We also know that when we have those growing gaps between the very wealthy and the rest of us, we have a lack of investment in infrastructure because the ultra-wealthy—whom this Government is trying to appeal to—are not interested so much in public infrastructure. They do not care if the public hospitals are not getting funded right. They do not care if there has been a $1.7 billion cut in real health spending under this Government. They do not care, because they have the private health care they need, where most New Zealanders are reliant on that public health system and do care about the cuts in this Budget.

Most New Zealanders would like to see more investment in schools, not the freeze in operational grants funding that we see from this Government in this Budget. Most New Zealanders want to see more investment in roads, not the cuts to roading funding that have taken place across regional New Zealand. Of course, when everyone feels like they are having a fair go, they work together. They do not feel like that under this Government, and I would contest that that is part of the reason that this Government has failed to grow the economy like the previous Government did. This Government, I am afraid, has a paltry record in that regard, and the Kiwi Dream is the ultimate victim of this circumstance. Instead of seeing New Zealanders into their own homes, having well-educated kids, and having a health system that we can all rely on, we have increasingly patchy health-care and public services under this Government, and that is not the Kiwi Dream. The Kiwi Dream is about values that we all share and about quality public services, because we do care about our fellow citizens, even if we are doing well ourselves. This Government seems to be against middle New Zealand.

It has become apparent in the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) payroll disaster that the Government agency responsible for the oversight of payroll has itself been in breach of the law for years—for years. We do not yet know how much it owes in back-pay to its own working people in MBIE, but we do know that there are estimates now available that say this Government’s neglect of the oversight of payroll services means that up to $2 billion, in its own estimate, is owed in back-pay to middle New Zealand. But it is doing nothing about it. It is doing nothing about it. It confesses, in the MBIE papers that are now on public display, that up to 800,000 working New Zealanders may be out of pocket for the last 6 years. Up to 800,000 New Zealanders may be out of pocket, and probably from somewhere between $250 and $500 a year. They can claim back 6 years. This Government—if it had a sense of fairness; if it was concerned about middle New Zealand—would be putting forward a solution to that issue, where ordinary New Zealanders could claim the pay that they are legally entitled to. But this Government is so embarrassed by its failure, which it has tried to sweep under the carpet, and it is so embarrassed that it has let employers down, because it has failed to give the correct guidance and now sees employers with a liability, that it will not even face the issue. That is another example of the way in which this Government is not on the side of middle New Zealand.

When there have been small, incremental gains in the economic situation of this country, the proportion that is going to working people has dropped. The last Labour Government grew the economy 25 percent in real terms, once you strip inflation out. Over 50 percent of the gains under that Government went to working people. Well, we know this Government has borrowed more than Muldoon—borrowed more than Muldoon—and a paltry 37 percent of any gains that have been made in the economy have gone to working people. That shows you more starkly than anything else where this Government’s priorities lie. They do not lie with those in middle New Zealand; they lie with the ultra-wealthy, the people tied up in the Panama Papers. The Government is not concerned about middle New Zealand working hard to get into a house, and working hard—

💬 Hon Member: You’re already giving a Green speech.

—for their own future. It is not there to support them, and that is the shame of this Government. New Zealanders are falling out of love with this Government. They identify it as increasingly out of touch. They identify it as increasingly arrogant. Those backbenchers over there who are yelling out are doing so because they are feeling increasingly under threat—those list MPs who may not be here in the next Parliament.

We on this side of the House want to see the Kiwi Dream restored. We want to see every kid go to school with some kai in their tummy. We want to see them in quality housing—warm, dry homes, not damp, cold homes. We want to see them get the health care they need when they need it, and we want to see New Zealand rise up in the international education standings once more. That is a New Zealand we can all be proud of. That is the Kiwi Dream, and that is what Labour stands for. It is on its way.

Scott Simpson—I understand it is a 5-minute call.

Correct. Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. There we had it: the big problem with the Labour Party is a speech from that member who comes from Dunedin, David Clark, speaking in riddles, speaking in slogans, speaking in a confused and glass half-empty way—the sorts of riddles and slogans that are not resonating at all with middle New Zealand.

Over the last week or so we have seen this reverse takeover of a once-proud political party—in its 100th year a reverse takeover by the Greens, who are now playing for lead roles. I bet that member, when he was waxing eloquent in riddles and slogans about why he virtuously decided to stand for the Labour Party and become a Labour Party member, did not think for one minute that his place in a potential Labour Government in 10 or 15 or 20 years’ time would actually be taken by a backbench Green list MP from an obscure part of the country; that it would probably be Catherine Delahunty who took his Cabinet role. Well, that is the future vision for that party. Over the weekend I had an opportunity to do a little bit of reading, and I found this wonderful quote from no less a person than that great communist revolutionary Bolshevik, Vladimir Lenin himself. He said this: “The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves.” That is what the Greens have done. They seek to control the Opposition by leading it themselves.

What a particularly good Budget Bill English’s eighth Budget has been: 2.8 percent economic growth forecast for the next 4 or 5 years; a country that has its books back in the black; and options that the Government now has that the Government simply did not have 8 years ago, when we were at the peak of the global financial crisis, when we were as a Government contending with the tragedy that was the Canterbury earthquakes. Now we find, due to Bill English’s careful, prudent, skilful management of the country’s books, that we are back in black, and suddenly the Government has options that it did not have 8 years ago.

In my part of the country, in the beautiful Coromandel, where we have had a summer-like long weekend, things are going exceptionally well. I will come back to the beautiful Coromandel in just a minute, but I do want to just comment to the House and to people who may be listening or watching this afternoon about how important it is that this Government, in Bill English’s eighth Budget, has been focusing on the things that matter for all New Zealanders—focusing on the things that matter for Kiwis and their families. We have, in this eighth Budget from Bill English, been able to further invest very significantly in health and education—two of the most important portfolios. Even during those dark days, back in 2008, in the middle of the global financial crisis, we were a Government that even then was prepared to continue to invest more in education and more in health. This year we have been able to provide very significant extra investment, which means, for the people in my electorate for instance, that more elective surgeries will be available to them.

The Minister for Primary Industries, Nathan Guy, spoke about his electorate of Ōtaki as having, by number, the most mature citizens in this country. Well, it just happens that the Coromandel electorate has the second-highest number of people in the 65-plus age group of anywhere in the country. For that age demographic, things like more spending on the SuperGold card are terribly important. People have been coming up to me in the street in Thames and in Whitianga over the weekend saying exactly the same things that they have been saying to Nathan Guy in Ōtaki: “Thank goodness that this National Government is prepared to spend money and invest in our older people.” In health that means more hip and knee operations, more elective surgeries for those people, and more support for vulnerable New Zealanders across the range.

An amount of $94 million is going to be invested by this Government in better regional development initiatives. In the provinces, like the Coromandel, and in regional and provincial and rural New Zealand, that is very important. In my part of the world we have been reaping the rewards of a growing economy—more jobs, more roading, more people, and more tourists. Heaven forbid! We have had so many tourists over the summer. In fact, we are getting more by the day. They are coming because they can afford to and they are coming because they want to see a very beautiful country. But they are coming and spending, and they are spending their time and their money in the beautiful Coromandel. That means more jobs for local people, more opportunity, more investment, and more support from this Government.

Another feature of this particular Budget has been that we have been able to ensure that there will be more money for—

Order! The time for the member’s speech has expired. Can I just remind members of the requirement in the Standing Orders to address the Chair. If the member had, he might have seen signals—one, that he had a minute to go, and two, to wind up.

Thank you for the opportunity to participate in this debate. First of all, I would like to wish all the Muslims of this country a happy Ramadan, because this is the holy month of Ramadan and they are celebrating this. I would like to wish them a restful and peaceful Ramadan.

💬 Tim Macindoe: Salaam alaikum.

Alaikum salaam. I would like to congratulate the Hon Bill English on presenting an excellent Budget. It is his eighth Budget, and also it is my eighth Budget in this House. After a long time it has happened that I am following someone with a positive speech. My colleague Scott Simpson, who is the hard-working member from Coromandel and who was speaking before me, at least had something positive to say about this Budget. Otherwise, all the time when I stand up in this House I have to follow some of the Opposition members, who are whingeing and moaning all the time.

This is very important—the Budget has really made us proud and we are getting a lot of appreciation from all walks of life. Over the weekend I attended an event where I met someone who has been overseas for the last 30 years and has recently migrated back to New Zealand. He mentioned that: “Every time I used to introduce myself as a New Zealander, people used to talk about the All Blacks all the time, and nothing else.” But he said that: “In the last 5 to 6 years the times have changed. Whenever I told people that I was from New Zealand, they mentioned the Rt Hon John Key, his strong leadership, and how this country has progressed in the last 8 years.” I was very pleased to hear that from someone who has been overseas for the last 30 years.

It was very important to say that before we took over in 2008 we were already in a depression and not progressing, growth was negative, and there were a lot of problems for the economy. Then, in 2009, Bill English came up with his Budget and brought in some plans that have really progressed very well. In the last 8 years he has made sure that the economy has continuously grown, and the projections for the next 3 years also are that we will have growth of about 2.8 percent. This is to be compared with what the previous Labour speaker, David Clark, mentioned—that there are no jobs, no plans, and the Budget is without any direction. I would like to clarify for him that even though we see that almost 70,000 people have migrated to New Zealand annually, we still have a very low rate of unemployment. The projection is that in the next 3 to 4 years the unemployment rate will drop below 5 percent, which is a real achievement for this Government.

I would like to share a few figures of what we are going to invest, in this Budget, in the justice sector. We are very fortunate to have the strong leadership of the Hon Amy Adams, as well as the Hon Judith Collins, who are leading our justice sector. There is $280 million being invested in the police, who make sure that our society, our people, are safe, day and night. We are also going to invest $8.2 million towards protection against child sex offenders. We will build up a register where we can register offenders who are criminalised for a crime against a child. There is $96 million being invested so that low-income people can have advice from community law centres. There is $19.7 million invested in Crown prosecutions, because the people who have committed any crimes should be behind bars for as long as possible. We are also investing $356 million in the Department of Corrections, so that reoffending can be reduced. We have a target to reduce reoffending by 25 percent, and that we hope to achieve. With these words I support this Budget.

It is my pleasure to take a call in this Budget debate. I do note that we are getting towards the end of this debate and the obsession that members on the Government benches have with talking about members on this side of the House is just becoming more and more obvious. I think this speaks to the fact that this Budget was a do-nothing Budget. There is very little to talk about, for those members. The member who has just taken his seat, Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi, is probably the only speaker whom I have heard since mid - last week who has not used the opportunity to share with the world their obsession about the memorandum of understanding signed by this side of the House. Well, I say to the National members on that side of the House that you are a party in Government with three other parties that you have memorandums of understanding with—an arrangement that my colleague Kelvin Davis has very eloquently dubbed the “ménage à whā” of this House. That is the side of the House that is trying to manage a four-way relationship and keep it in check.

In this penultimate Budget that we have heard from the Government—what have we heard from members when they stood up? Is it with pride that they speak about what this Government is going to do, what the vision is? No. What we are hearing about is ghost constituents and what they are saying on the streets of Ōtaki. Very tellingly, we are hearing of the slip into a first-past-the-post mentality, of people naming their constituencies, and of the pork barrel politics that we saw at question time today. This is the sign of a desperate Government that is on the run because it knows it has failed to deliver in Budget 2016.

Budget 2016 did not focus on the things that matter to middle New Zealand. It did not focus on the things that most New Zealanders worry about and concern themselves with. Instead, this was a Budget delivered by an increasingly arrogant and out-of-touch Government that really does not have an idea of what is happening in the real world.

There is no greater epitomisation than the issue of homelessness. In the last week we have heard the member from Auckland Central, Nikki Kaye, say that people pop into her office to discuss the fact that they are quite happy being homeless. We have had the Prime Minister just making things up about what social agencies are doing, and the Minister in charge of social housing having to take the bullets for the fact that the Prime Minister has been very, very frugal with the truth when it comes to this matter.

This is a Government that does not—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I am going to warn the member. I think she probably just went over the line twice with her “making it up” and “frugal with the truth” comments. I think those are not parliamentary terms.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. What we have is a Government that is failing to address this very real issue and look at the things that matter. We have a Government that has nothing in this Budget to fix the housing crisis, be it homelessness or be it people getting into their first homes and having the ability to save the money to do that. We have a Budget that has cuts in real terms to health and education—the very things that parents concern themselves with for their children and the future of their children, the kind of future they are going to have in this country. It is what we used to refer to as the Kiwi Dream. That is the idea that you get a quality education and access to a world-class health care system, and that one day you would be able to afford to own your own home, and that that would not be the preserve of the very few at the top. That is what most New Zealanders strive for, but that is something that is increasingly out of reach. What we are seeing is most New Zealanders—middle New Zealand—getting a smaller slice of the economy and what is on offer.

We see that when we look at the issue of health. We have a health Minister who would not even front up to the Opposition spokesperson on health today to answer questions, and he transferred those questions away. If you look at what has happened to funding in our health system in real terms, $1.7 billion of funding is missing in action. Put this into real terms and what this means to ordinary New Zealanders.

If we have a look in the area of Canterbury, just for example, what is happening there? We see that over 29,000 Cantabrians have been denied operations, despite being referred by their GPs since 2010. That is 29,000 people in just one province in our country who are having to live their days in pain, and that is because this Government has failed to take into account the population growth. When the Minister of Health stands up and talks about the extra money going into health, he fails to take into account the fact that we have more people. If we are going to have an adult, grown-up conversation about funding in this country, let us actually do it in a meaningful way and talk about how much people are being funded per head of population.

If we look, again, at my region, we see that our local district health board has $33 million less in real terms. This is the Canterbury District Health Board, which has had to deal with the psychological fallout of a major natural disaster. This is a region that is having to deal with an unprecedented level of anxiety in its population. It is having to do that, and it is finding itself being funded $44 less per person than in previous Budgets.

When the Minister of Health tells us that there is additional funding, most New Zealanders know that that is simply not true, because I think you would be very hard-pressed to find someone who has not been touched by the cuts in health funding. I know that on this side of the House we are constantly having constituents come into our electorate offices who simply cannot get access to operations, who are being denied that. There are elderly patients who are living their final days in pain because this is a Government that refuses to put in the additional funding. They are not a priority. Middle New Zealand and most New Zealanders are not its priority; instead, it is the few at the top.

We are being told, and the last speaker talked about the growth that we see—but what this Budget has forecast is shamefully weak per capita growth in GDP over the next two fiscal cycles. We have seen 0.5 percent forecast for the 2015-16 financial year, and 0.9 percent for the 2016-17 financial year. This is low growth. It is not the kind of ambition that we need from a Government. It is not the kind of aspiration that we want to see for New Zealand. We want to see a Government that has a vision, that has a plan, that wants to invest in its people, that wants to grow its economy, that wants to create jobs with high-paid wages and security, and that will not be content to let people flounder—to let people out there be on the scrap heap without access to health, without access to education, and without access to housing.

I also want to turn my attention, briefly, to the issue of Canterbury and the Canterbury recovery in this Budget, because what we saw in this Budget was yet more evidence of how Canterbury is slipping down the list of priorities for this Government. The Government’s commitment to the Canterbury recovery is wavering. You will hear that figure of $17 billion being bandied around. Well, let us unpack that figure. Let us have a look at how much was insurance payout. Let us have a look at how much, actually, was Crown investment, because, I can tell you, far too many Cantabrians are still living—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! The member will resume her seat. The senior Government whip will just take a seat for a second, please. The whips get special privileges in their movement around the House to talk to members. They do not have the privilege of walking along and yelling at the same time, and the member will not do that.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. What we are seeing in Canterbury is too many people living in broken houses. We have seen 1,500 people in the last 4 months who have had to go back and ask for their dodgy repairs to be re-inspected—and that is in only the last 4 months.

What I have big concerns about is that we have seen the fiscal liability around Canterbury rise from $262 million in last year’s Budget to $1.9 billion. There are a number of explanations around why this is the case. It may be around the land payouts, but I want a reassurance from this Government that this is not smoke and mirrors to create a surplus. This is not the kind of recovery that Cantabrians need. This is a Budget that has failed middle New Zealand. This is a Budget that most New Zealanders will not benefit from.

I can certainly give that member a reassurance that this Government will never win the prize for most spending. Indeed, Dr Woods has just reconfirmed the fact that what a Labour Government does better than any other is spend other people’s money. Why should we be surprised at that, when in the last 5 years of the previous Labour Government public spending went up by 50 percent? If this Government had kept the spending trajectory as Treasury had predicted when it came to office, this country and its young would be $100 billion more deeply in debt than they presently are. That is the irony of the gloating: that members of the previous Government say “Well, we had nearly zero net debt.”, while the legacy they left was a spending programme that, were it not reined in, would have our young inheriting $100 billion more debt than we are presently experiencing.

And, actually, Dr Woods is right: we would not have spent as much in Vote Health as a Labour Government would have—or at least what Labour says it would do. It says it is one thing in Opposition, and it is another thing in Government. There is $2.2 billion appropriated over the next 4 years for funding pressures and growth in services in Vote Health, and Labour says that is $1.7 billion less than it would have spent. Well, fair enough. Add that to the $100 billion and the tertiary education promises, and everything else that it promises to spend were it the Government.

But here are the numbers that really matter to New Zealanders. It is the number of elective surgeries undertaken—that is, tens of thousands more than when we came into office. It is the number of New Zealand patients flying to Australia for cancer treatment—that is, zero. It is the number of patients who are having to wait more than 6 hours in an emergency department. It is the proportion of our young who are vaccinated and immunised against some of this country’s worst diseases. It is the money that we have invested in rheumatic fever and now in colon cancer screening, and in extra drugs. They are drugs that are incredibly expensive, and therefore we need to be very careful to ensure that decisions about their funding are evidence-based, not emotion-based, and that they are drugs that will make a difference. It is really important that Pharmac continue the excellent work that it does in order to make sure that it is appropriately targeted, because we cannot spend unlimited amounts of money on every single medicine that is available—that it is well-targeted money. Those are the numbers that I think that New Zealanders are interested in.

I am very proud of this Government’s record on health, and I will stand by it strongly. But there are a few other numbers too. I think that $17 billion spent by this Government in the Canterbury rebuild was dismissed as, somehow, smoke and mirrors. Well that is not what the people of Canterbury are telling us. That is a very, very meaningful investment in what I know, when that rebuild is complete, will be one of the great small cities of the world—modern, sustainable, with good transport infrastructure, with safe buildings, and with really good amenities that the people of Canterbury can enjoy for a very long period of time. I think we should be pleased and proud of the effort that has gone in under Ministers Brownlee and Wagner to ensure that that is achieved.

As Minister of Immigration and Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety, it is very important to me that that city is rebuilt on the back of a very strong and safe workforce that is paid well, is skilled, and understands its obligations and rights. I am very, very pleased to note the progress in the reduction in harm that is occurring against a very strong prediction of death and serious injury in the rebuild because of the scale of the work that is going on in that city and in that province. So far we are not seeing those sorts of predictions come to pass, and there is a very good reason for that. Again, I think it was very strongly led by the parties to the Stronger Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Team and the other people who signed up to the Canterbury Rebuild Safety Charter. Of course, we had a very important piece of reforming legislation, which went through the House last year and has come into effect this year, that I think will go a long way to supporting ensuring that everybody who goes to work comes home again safe and well.

I want to touch on another part of the very large investment that the Government has made in targeting our revenue base. One of the largest appropriations was of more than $800 million—$324 million in capital and over $0.5 billion in operational funding—to lead the business transformation that the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) is embarking on right now. It is an eye-watering amount of money. A significant proportion of that is going on an IT system, but indeed it is much, much more than that. It is a transformation in the way that IRD interacts with the millions of stakeholders and taxpayers that it deals with around the country, and, in particular, the small-business community.

There are two quite significant changes in the way that the Inland Revenue Department is being asked to consider the work that it does, and that is, firstly, that it should tailor its systems around business systems, not expect businesses to tailor their systems to the IRD’s. Secondly, and this is the one that I think IRD is having the most trouble getting its head around, frankly, and I can say this as a chartered accountant and as someone who is fairly money- and quantitatively-minded, is the concept of near enough being good enough—that we can spend 80 percent of our time, effort, and cost arguing about the last 5 percent of taxpayer obligations. Actually, I think it is a really, really important change in emphasis that we make sure that when it comes to taxpayer compliance we do not spend an awful lot of money nickel-and-diming, because that is a paradox.

But I think the biggest part of Budget 2016’s tax announcements came in the $187 million small-business tax package—this is what small businesses have been telling us for years that they want. It is, in particular, around changes—in fact, potentially the dispensing of provisional tax—enabling a small business to pay tax as it earns it by using the accounting income calculated by their small-business accounting software, and then paying tax as it goes. The IRD is going out and consulting on that significant change right now, but the plan is to have that process in place by 1 April 2018.

So from that tax year small businesses will be able to pay tax or claim a tax refund, if indeed during the month accounting losses and tax losses are sustained, rather than try to guess how much income they might be scheduled to make and then being punished for doing better than that, or for being surprised on the upside that they might have been more profitable—the seasonal harvest could have gone better, the milkfat price could have gone up, other innovations reduced the cost base—which then leads them to be punished with use of money, interest, and potentially penalty taxes as well. So I think that that is one of the significant developments and milestones of Budget 2016. It has been very well-received by the business community. We are consulting on it now, and I think that this will be very well-received.

But, of course, it comes back to that first part of transformation: in order to be able to deliver that Budget announcement we need to have the IT system in place—by 2018 in that case. The transformative process has its stage one changes to GST from 1 April next year, and I am very confident that both of those phases are well on track, despite the significant risks that exist in an IT project of this scale.

I just want to finish by talking about international tax obligations, because usually with revenue things are a bit dry and the media is not really dominated by matters tax. Over the last few months there has been quite a bit of discussion around multinational tax avoidance, foreign trusts, and so on. Most members of the public find it incredibly difficult to understand, but it goes to their inherent sense of fairness that if they are required to meet their tax obligations to the New Zealand Inland Revenue Department, so too should multinational companies as well. That is a sentiment that the Government agrees with. Indeed, to the degree that there is multinational tax avoidance, there are 15 separate actions going on to ensure that those loopholes are closed.

But this is a global problem. If global companies are not paying their taxes here, the chances are that they are not paying them anywhere. It is really important, as we get behind the emotional response of “This doesn’t feel fair.”, that we do not come to a knee-jerk reaction and put in place policies that, in the long run, could be bad for New Zealand. This would erode the Budget base, the tax base. If we go out and try to tax a multinational company that does not have a permanent establishment here, the retaliatory response could be that companies like Fonterra and Silver Fern Farms, which transact business offshore but have their presence in New Zealand, could be taxed in those offshore jurisdictions, much to the detriment of New Zealand’s tax base. So I applaud this Budget. I think there is a lot in here to be positive for, even in the dry area of revenue.

Denis O’Rourke, for 5 minutes, I understand.

Ten minutes now.

💬 Hon Member: Do we have to listen to this for 10 minutes?

Ten minutes is always better than 5 when it comes to speaking about a National Government Budget. The thing I want to talk about first of all is the social housing crisis, because it is a crisis and yet this Budget does next to nil about it. That is actually particularly cruel when you consider how many people there are in New Zealand, especially in Auckland, who are searching for a home—any decent home—to live in, and they cannot find one. In fact, large numbers of people in New Zealand, and especially in Auckland, are being forced to move from one rental home to another as rent increases force them out of one property into another one. The rent goes up again, they go into another one, and so on. That is the scenario that we have under this Government.

It is actually caused by three things, I believe. First of all, it is actually caused—caused—by this Government’s awful housing management over 8 years. It has tried to deny it. It actually tried to deny that there is a housing crisis, and yet its policy is one of the primary causes of it. The other cause is uncontrolled immigration—a rate of immigration that this country simply cannot sustain if we are going to house everybody, and if we are going to provide them with all the basic services that they need. The third reason is that this Government is selling off State houses in a complete absence of any State house - building programme. So there are three fundamental reasons why there is a social housing crisis, in particular, and why it is actually all this Government’s fault. And this Budget does next to nothing about it.

This Government’s ideologically driven housing problems have actually created what is nothing less than a toxic mess as far as housing is concerned in this country at the present time. I particularly want to take a look at the provisions that there are in this Budget, because there is nothing new, really. The first is that there is a total of $257 million over 4 years, which averages only $64 million a year to solve such a serious crisis. Of that $257 million, $200 million—or an average of $50 million a year over 4 years—is actually the income-related rent subsidy top-up. That itself is needed because of huge rent increases caused by this Government’s policies, so almost all of its provision for social housing is addressing issues that are actually caused by the Government’s own policies.

There is another $41 million provision for emergency housing over 4 years, and that is only about $10 million a year, so it is not a huge amount of money in relation to the problem. I want to read out what the narrative to this in the Budget is: “This funding will pay for emergency housing places in areas of high demand, including some places specifically for perpetrators of family violence. It will also establish an Emergency Housing Special Needs Grant to meet housing needs of individuals and families.” What that really means is that we are given a band-aid at the bottom of the cliff—not even an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff; a band-aid at the bottom of the cliff—to solve the emergency housing crisis, which is, of course, just part of the total housing crisis. That $10 million will not go very far. No doubt it will pay for some more motels as the Government’s housing agency scrambles to find emergency accommodation for people. The fact that this $41 million provision is there at all is actually an admission of failure by this Government. It is a $41 million admission by this Government that its social housing is in complete disarray—total failure—and this money is needed to just throw some band-aids around and try to fix the problem from time to time when it occurs.

I want to go on to mention one other particular item of interest, and it is under the heading “Growing the Māori Housing Network”. It is a provision of $3.15 million a year, and the narrative for that is “repairing and building homes for whānau living in sub-standard accommodation, including emergency housing.” New Zealand First says there should not be separately provided provisions of this kind based on a person’s race in the Budget. If there is a need, then it should be met whether the person is Māori, Pākehā, or another ethnicity. It is completely wrong, in our view, that there should be Budget provisions of that kind based exclusively on race—that is wrong.

New Zealand First does have some policies to offer the Government, since it seems to be so devoid of anything sensible of its own. First of all, New Zealand First would require territorial local councils to prepare and implement a social housing plan for their districts. We in New Zealand First think it is a core function of local government that it should have plans for its districts and its people. It should ensure there is an adequate supply of good-quality rental homes in its districts. It can do that by encouraging private investment but also by direct provision by the council on a long-term basis. New Zealand First, as a Government, would make long-term, very low-interest, 2 percent loan finance available to local government for the establishment of elderly persons’ housing and for the establishment of low-cost public rental housing developments.

We would say that that should be administered by local government - owned and controlled housing enterprises. Those would operate independently, but would be required to carry out not just the local councils’ housing plans but also the requirements of a New Zealand housing strategy, which is something that New Zealand First also wishes to see in place. Those enterprises would also be required to reinvest all of their profits, if any, back into housing in the districts. We would say the same about Housing New Zealand, by the way—all of the dividends it receives and currently pays to the Government should be reinvested back into housing.

Secondly, we would legislate to improve the security of tenancies so that we can move to see longer-term tenancies in New Zealand, as you see in many countries overseas. We want to provide mechanisms to avoid large fluctuations in rents, and if people think that is too hard to do, then take a look at what happens in the United States and many parts of Europe. There are a lot of templates for us to follow in that regard. We want to see, generally, a raft of policies to improve the quality and attractiveness of renting as a viable alternative to owning a home in New Zealand, because that is going to be a necessity for people in New Zealand in the future. Thirdly, we would reform Housing New Zealand to make sure it fulfils the role it once had as a primary and high-quality provider of social housing in New Zealand.

I want to finish up by just mentioning something about transport, because I note there is a $190 million provision in the Budget over 4 years. That is not new—that is the 2015 provision of $200 million, less $10 million for the first year. That is all the Government is prepared to invest in rail in the next 4 years, and yet it has signed up to the Paris accord on climate change. We have no idea how the Government will meet that but I can say this: if that is going to be achieved, then there is no doubt the rail system in New Zealand needs investment and needs to be upgraded so it can take its proper share of moving freight and passengers around New Zealand without us continually having to see increases in the use of fossil fuels for road transport of both cars and also other road transport. New Zealand rail needs secure funding—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: We’ve invested $4 billion—$4 billion.

—not $200 million every now and again. That is exactly what I am talking about, Mr Minister. That amount is utterly inadequate to see the New Zealand rail system properly develop in the way it would need to as a 21st century, not a 19th century, railway system. That $200 million—$10 million a year—is not going anywhere. The rail system should be funded in the same way as road transport, from a single land transport fund. In that way, we can guarantee that it will get its fair and necessary share of transport funding.

Ian McKelvie, and I understand that this is a 5-minute call.

It is, Mr Assistant Speaker. I am going to share it with Stuart Smith, but before I—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Share the 5 minutes?

No, no, no—I will share the 10 minutes that would have been mine were I more important than I am.

💬 Ron Mark: Wasted a minute.

And I am now going to waste another minute on New Zealand First members, because they have spent their life accusing the rest of this House of stealing policy—and I notice in the last moment or so the previous member went right back to the 1950s to steal a bit of Government policy around social housing. It is amazing how deep they will dig to find some policy to put up, because it is exactly the policy that local government had in place for many years.

I want to talk about a number of things in this Budget, but I really want to talk initially about the result of the latest agreement between the Labour Party and the Greens. I want to talk about the two things that I think the Government has the upper hand on in respect of their historical—

💬 Denis O’Rourke: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The relevancy of an agreement—the political agreement between two of the political parties—has got nothing whatsoever to do with the Budget.

Speaking to the point of order, I was not able to expand on my point.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Well, I think both members are absolutely right, but, unfortunately for Mr O’Rourke, the Budget debate is one of the broadest, and what we have seen within it—including from members on his own side—are some pretty general discussions about policy and politics in general. That has been the tradition, and I am happy for that to continue.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I will—

💬 Dr Kennedy Graham: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Can you give the House an assurance that the scope within which the speaker can address the memorandum is confined to within the context of any reference to the Budget?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): No.

💬 Dr Kennedy Graham: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Can you please explain to us why that would be the case?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): First of all, I cannot at any stage guarantee what a particular member says, but what I have already indicated is that the Budget debate is a broad-ranging debate and has always included topical political issues. On occasions, members from both sides of the House are not particularly comfortable with that, but it is part of the arrangement. The Budget debates, as with the Address in Reply debate, have, effectively, become general debates. What we have seen in the House over the last few days has been a number of speeches from both sides of the House that have made only passing reference to the details of the Budget.

All I wanted to say was that the National Government, through its support from the Māori Party and ACT New Zealand, now firmly owns the environmental space. This was clearly demonstrated by James Shaw’s questions to the Minister of Tourism today, where he was desperately trying to claim back the space around freshwater policy, which, of course, this Government is leading the way on and has put a significant investment into over the last few years. Also, through the reforms started by Minister Bennett and continued by Minister Tolley, the National Government has firmly claimed a very important space in the social space of our community.

This is a responsible Budget. It has gone a long way to reinforce the work of the past 8 years by the Minister of Finance, Bill English, and I think it has set the country up for a very strong next few years. It is going to make a big difference to the way we are able to plan our next few years. It is going to make a big difference to the way the country runs in the next few years, the way we are able to support those who need support in this country, and the way we are able to establish and encourage business in this country.

I want to speak briefly about that, because there is a very good reason why in New Zealand we have to, through the ministry of tourism—New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (NZTE)—the Ministry for Primary Industries, and other agencies, go beyond the norm to ensure our country is recognised internationally. The reason we have to do that is that business in New Zealand is not big enough on the whole to compete internationally without some significant input from the things that make New Zealand work so well. I use that term because if you look at New Zealand business, really only Air New Zealand and Fonterra of our New Zealand companies are in a position where they are able to significantly impact on the world market for New Zealand. So it is most important that the Government invests strongly in this area and that it helps our businesses and manufacturers to find a place offshore where they can do really well. We also have a very important role to play in assisting this through our embassies, trade missions, trade envoys, and of course, as I said earlier, NZTE. I think that the Budget gives a strong message to those organisations that we need to grow New Zealand’s opportunity in business.

On the topic of jobs, we have heard numerous times during this debate about the number of jobs that have been created in the last 3 years, and the number of jobs that will be created in the next 3 years—some 170,000. I just want to make the point that it is most important, particularly for our primary industries sector, that technology and science and research move very quickly. Of course, the Government’s very large investment—some $411 million—into this sector over the next 3 years, is going to make a significant difference. In fact, it is $1.6 billion by 2020. That will make a significant difference in this area. But I also want to point out that it does not mean that we will have fewer people in employment in New Zealand. In agriculture, in particular, it will ensure that we have the opportunity for people to get involved in this sector who historically did not have that opportunity because manual work was basically the prime role that we played in agriculture. That has changed completely. So the increased budget for science and innovation is going to make a massive difference to New Zealand.

I want to talk very briefly about public infrastructure and the spend in tourism in New Zealand, which of course in the Rangitīkei electorate makes a significant difference, particularly in the north of my electorate where we have cycle trails—we have a couple of major cycle trails and, of course, we are involved in the Mountains to the Sea cycle trail, which goes down through the Whanganui River—and also the $12 million in this Budget that is being invested in infrastructure to assist with tourism. That, of course, was the subject of a question in the House today as well. It is going to be most important to New Zealand’s opportunity that we continue to invest strongly in the tourism sector, and strongly in the smaller councils’ ability in New Zealand to put infrastructure in place for a very strongly growing tourism industry. Often in New Zealand the tourism industry grows in places where we have the least ability to pay for the infrastructure required. That particularly applies to the north of my electorate, where what historically was a major winter sports area has now become a major summer sports area, and, of course, that puts a whole different emphasis on infrastructure.

I want to quickly talk about the environment, because the environment to all in the primary sector in New Zealand is hugely important. The $100 million that this Government has put into freshwater and water quality is really important to us—particularly in my electorate with the Manawatū River and the Kiwitea stream, which have had significant help from community-based organisations arranging that.

I have great pleasure in supporting this Budget.

Stuart Smith—5 minutes.

It is a great pleasure to speak in this Budget debate. I think I would like to characterise the Budget as a canny Budget. It is built on seven previous Budgets that have put us in a position where we can make some good choices about what we do. If you do not have a good income side to your Budget, you have got a pretty poor chance of doing much on the expenditure side. We have got 2.8 percent per annum of real GDP growth, and net debt is projected to fall to 19.3 percent by 2021. That underpins the income side of the Budget and enables those good choices that I alluded to just a little bit earlier.

It is quite interesting, the Innovative New Zealand package of $761 million. That is on the back of other investment in regional economic development around New Zealand, from which we are really starting to see some real benefits come through, right throughout the regions. I want to talk a bit about what is happening in my own electorate, because we have—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: We’re all ears.

We are? OK, well, fantastic. In the Marlborough region there is a population in the whole region of about 43,000 people, and in the next 4 years, by 2020, the wine industry alone is predicted to grow 2,000 more jobs, or around 5 percent of the entire population. That is a phenomenal amount of growth into an industry that is all about adding value. When those bottles of wine go offshore and sit on a table in a restaurant, they have “Marlborough” on them and they have “New Zealand” on them. That underpins New Zealand as a producer of high-quality, high-value goods, and other industries are able to go on the back of that. For example, selling lamb or venison or seafood or, indeed, fashion—I have seen them leveraging off one another in such a way around the world. I think that adds tremendously to our economy.

But we have other industries, of course, and I would like to just touch on those briefly in relation to migration numbers. I think it is a pity that this debate was really a shroud-waving exercise around migration by some across the House, because the growth in the regions would not be possible without high-quality migration. In particular, in the wine industry, young winemakers from overseas come in who migrate here permanently, or we have people coming here on holiday work schemes who are actually qualified people coming in who do a vintage and, in effect, get two vintages in a year. You only have so many vintages in your entire life, which I am sure is no surprise to anyone, but if you can do two—one in the northern hemisphere and one in the southern hemisphere—you can really supercharge your career, and that is what is happening. It is building links between wine industries and countries in a very effective way.

The aquaculture industry is also going very strongly in my region. As a matter of interest, on-the-water jobs average over $70,000 per annum, so we are not talking low-end wages. The regions are really steaming along, and I think it is in no short measure due to the things put in place around regional economic development by this Government.

On to other parts of the Budget: I think that the money going towards the bowel screening is going to be something that will pay big dividends in the long run, and—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: Oh, for many, many thousands.

Yes, I think that most families in New Zealand will have had somebody touched by bowel cancer. It is a terrible disease and it is now time that something was done about that, to at least mitigate that as much as possible. I support that.

There is, of course, a lot of the investment approach going into education, as with health spending. Focusing on what the results are, rather than just throwing money at the problem, will always be a far better approach, and it is unfortunate that the debate has swung around to how much money is being spent on it and whether it has kept pace. We know it has, but people are trying to play silly games around that. It is about whether we are getting more operations, and we are. Are people having to go to Australia for cancer treatment? No, they are not. They used to have to.

We are getting all of those things by a canny and measured approach from a very good Minister of Finance who has put together eight fine Budgets, and I know that everyone in this House is looking forward to the ninth and the 10th to follow. It is with great pleasure that I commend this bill to the House.

If those two speeches were an exemplar of the Government’s promotion of its eighth Budget, it is no wonder that out in the provinces there is not a peep, not a sound, not a murmur of what the Government is trying to promote here today in the House.

Do you know what? It is as simple as this. The Government’s Budget has got its priorities in the wrong place. It does not reflect the type of concerns that everyday New Zealanders have. They want a warm, healthy home. They do not want homeless people on the street. They want a reliable public health care system where district health boards are not crammed to the hilt in the accident and emergency (A and E) room. They want to ensure that every kid has access to a decent public education—where we are not relying on philanthropic trusts to feed our kids at school—and that we have a school system that works for them and a school system that cares about them.

They are thinking about jobs, and out in the provinces—and I heard the contributions of members on the Treasury benches who were talking about this Budget being good for the regions. They want jobs out in the regions, but there is a more unstable work environment for many people who are earning up to the minimum wage—up to the minimum wage—and they cannot rely on the jobs that they do have out in the regions. It is a very precarious state. The Government has got its priorities in the wrong order, because people out in our communities in the provinces—actually, in Auckland—are worried about the housing crisis that is there but also out in our regions as well.

I want to come, in particular, to the lack of a strategy for Māori opportunity, because the Māori Party members have simply raised their hands and said “Hallelujah!” to all the baubles of what they have been able to achieve, but it is as simple as this: the Government is getting more revenue in tobacco tax than the Māori Party has been able to return in the initiatives that it is putting out there. So let us go through them. This is an example of putting the cart before the horse. The Minister for Māori Development has promoted the Māori Land Service, and my colleague Meka Whaitiri is promoting the concerns of people about Te Ture Whenua Māori reforms. He is providing $18 million over 3 years to the Māori Land Service. Heck! The legislation has not even passed through the House. Those members are putting the cart before the horse without listening to the concerns of people in their communities about the type of land reform that may inhibit simple owners on their own land from having a say. How can that be? Then, yes, Te Matatini, our huge cultural event, is receiving a small increase. Comparatively, when you look at the numbers going to regional kapa haka and then the national kapa haka event, around about 250,000 people are estimated to go, which is more, I am told, than the 71,000-odd people who go to the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, but there is a huge inequity in distribution.

Housing initiatives—around about $17.2 million has been set aside for housing initiatives, $12.9 million of which is for the Māori housing network. But I can confidently say that the needs in the Māori housing space will outweigh the meagre apportioning of Budget funds in this area. So, you know, we can acknowledge that, yes, some gain has been made there but, actually, is it enough and does the strategy meet the real need in our community, which faces high needs in terms of housing provision, high needs in terms of health care, and high needs in terms of good, reliable, quality education? No, the Budget does not address that at all.

In fact, it is laughable what Minister Bennett did, when she said: “We’ll give a $5,000 grant to people to get out of Auckland for free and go to places like Huntly.” Well, I was brought up in Huntly and I can tell you now, there are no homes in Huntly. That $5,000 will go straight into the pockets of private landlords, who will be reaping all the rewards from these people who are being turfed out of Auckland. How can that be? The Government sells State houses, the Government refuses to ensure that there are more affordable homes to buy in many of our regions and in regions under pressure, and the Government ignores that homelessness exists. How can that be, where we have the Government promoting its economic performance at the expense of greater inequality and greater poverty in our society? It cannot be, can it? Well, it is.

So next year, when the Government brings out the policy—and people should know now that the reason why no one is talking about this Budget is that next year the Government is probably going to give tax cuts, and that will be the election sweetener. Well, it cannot be at the expense, I believe, of people who need the support now—it cannot be at the expense of people who need the support now.

In housing we see some very significant pressure, so let me paint a picture just across my own electorate, which I am sure reflects many other electorates. In Huntly there are no homes. In fact, you will be waiting for a long time to get assessed even by private landlords to be eligible to go into the private rental market there. It is a problem. In Pukekohe you only need to visit Kingseat to see what people are reduced to if (1) there are no homes on the Housing New Zealand list and (2) private landlords will not have them. So they go to whatever is available, and I challenge any Government Minister to go into Kingseat and see the conditions that people are forced to live in when the Government does not take some leadership role in this space. Papakura—what we have seen is the refurbishment of a fire station for temporary accommodation, but I can tell you “temporary” at that particular dwelling is up to 2 years because the Government is not taking its rightful leadership role in providing good State housing. In Thames and Paeroa it is the same. People are moving out of the city. They are moving back to where they think they can get more support around their whānau and things like that. They are moving into their whānau’s sheds or their sitting rooms because, again, there are no homes. There is no adequate support for them, and how can that be? In Hamilton it is just as bad.

If we have any issue coming through our electorate office, it is housing, and the issues around housing mean simply this—and this is how it impacts on education. We have had a family who came to us, and those people had been in three different homes so that meant their child had to go to three different schools, and that child’s learning opportunities were set back simply by the transient nature of their living experience. In a caring, decent society we should say “No, this is not acceptable.”, because in a society like ours in New Zealand, education is the doorway to opportunity. So having a secure housing environment, a stable, warm home, will give all our kids the best opportunity, and the Government members should not look down. They should look up, they should look forward, and they should meet the challenge of kids who are now forced to live in cars, and we have numerous stories of those people up in Auckland.

The Government talks about district health board funding, but for the Waikato District Health Board it has flat-lined. I can tell you that if you go to the hospital in Hamilton you will see good staff under pressure, working in the A and E unit with waiting times up to 8 hours. If you go to a private A and E in Hamilton city, they are waiting up to 2 hours to see a doctor. This is the challenge of a public health system that is not adequately funded, and then that impacts on other parts of the community.

Operations funding grants have not increased significantly. Teachers are bearing the pressure of more and more responsibility for needs outside the school gate, and that means they are taking from their pocket to try to ensure that their kids get the very best opportunity. The Government is putting pressure on teachers and principals who want all kids to have a good opportunity. Operations funding means that schools will be more reliant on parents to give, but what about the parents who cannot give? What is going to be the opportunity for them? Oh, a charter school. A charter school—give more funding to a charter school than to a public school. What message is that sending to kids in New Zealand?

This Budget has got its priorities in the wrong place. It does not provide for people who want a good home, a reliable job, good access to education for their kids—not transient opportunities—and a good public health care system that they can rely on. More so, the Māori Party has no strategy in terms of Māori development. In some cases, it is putting the cart before the horse. It is not addressing the fundamental need of regional development that provides jobs in partnership with iwi. It is a bit of a mess. I am happy to speak to this particular Budget because I think that in 2017 it will be all on—all on.

What an outstanding Budget by the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance, Bill English. It is one that he should, rightly, be proud of. I say that from two perspectives: from the perspective of looking back at the pitiful state that things were left in when we inherited office, the long way we have climbed back to where we are today; and also from the perspective of where this Budget and the numbers show we are heading as a country. That, I know, fills the people of Tauranga, of Hamilton, and of many parts of New Zealand with absolute confidence as to where this country is heading.

It is right to reflect on where we have come from. A decade of deficit is what we inherited from that lot over there—a decade of deficit. It is remarkable, when you think about it: $1.6 billion of new spending. Look at this graph. Here we see Annette King—in her last year, $7 billion in new money. That is $7 billion more than all of the new spending of this Government. She managed to make it look so hard. She managed to make it look so hard, that $7 billion in new spending—fewer results for the people of New Zealand, whether in health or in education. We are spending more and we are spending it wisely. In health there is $16.1 billion, more than ever before. New money is being invested incredibly wisely by Jonathan Coleman.

💬 Hon Annette King: What does Treasury say?

Education, for the first time ever, is above $11 billion in spending, and it is being spent really well. It is being spent where we know it makes the difference, because we have taken the time and we have made the effort to make sure it is making the difference—unlike Annette King. When she was in office, the billions kept accumulating and the results got worse. We are investing more and we are seeing better results.

And where are we heading? We are heading to a position of rising surpluses, of falling debt, of growth on average of 2.8 percent over the next 5 years, and of falling unemployment. Nanaia Mahuta had the cheek to come into this House and try to hit us where we are strong. If you are going to hit someone—Muhammad Ali knew this—hit them where they are weak. She hit us on jobs. We are creating 170,000 new jobs over the next 5 years. Annette King said, just about a minute ago: “What does Treasury say?”. That is what Treasury says—170,000 new jobs through this Budget. More jobs, higher incomes—averages of, I think, $63,000 per annum—and, fundamentally, more choices, which is what New Zealanders want.

This Budget is a Budget for a growing New Zealand. I would say it is more than that, actually—Bill English is being too humble—it is a growing and a thriving New Zealand. You contrast where we came from, yet again. Those adverts, I remember them well: a fresh-faced John Key at the Wellington Cake Tin.

💬 Hon Annette King: How does he look now?

I would not say that about you, Annette King—you are in dangerous territory there, my friend. The Wellington Cake Tin holds the number of people leaving every single year when Annette King was a senior Minister in the last Labour Government, and now Kiwis and Aussies—

💬 Kris Faafoi: Is that the one when you ripped off the music?

—are returning to this country—no, that was another one—in tens of thousands. They are voting with their feet, and they cannot be wrong. They are seeing the confidence and they are understanding the numbers in this Budget. They know that it is real and that it means real jobs and a better economy in New Zealand.

Tauranga is a very real example of this: a city that I do not think has ever been as confident, and that is booming on the back of kiwifruit, where the Government supported it. It has come back with a vengeance with construction and entrepreneurship. This is a Budget that is catering for that boom: more money in health, the district health board getting some $32 million more, taking it to $718 million invested every year in new generation medicines—

💬 Hon Annette King: He’ll be sat down for repetition soon.

—and elective surgeries and bowel screening. See, Annette King is interjecting because she does not like the speech. She knows how true it is. She knows that in the Hamiltons and the Taurangas and the Dunedins and the Canterburys and the Aucklands, they know that it is true.

💬 Hon Member: Gores.

They are seeing it in the Gores. In the metropolis of Gore, where people have got great representation, they know there is more in health. They know, as we have seen in Tauranga, that there is more in education infrastructure funding. A new school was announced last week in the growing areas of The Lakes and Pyes Pā, and all that that means. There are more classrooms in Welcome Bay, Ōropi, Maungatapu, and Mātua. I was there—can I declare a conflict of interest? I have got a 4-year-old who will probably go there, but a new classroom was delivered literally last Thursday.

I appreciate that there is more that is required there over time, but, actually, in Tauranga, where we have got some of the highest population growth in New Zealand, we are not just catching up. We are, I think, getting ahead of the game and building for growth, whether it is in education or whether it is in health. We have also seen it in the great investment package Steven Joyce had there in innovation, with more trade training, more apprenticeships, and more tertiary investments really making a difference in the provincial areas of New Zealand, in the cities of New Zealand, and in rural New Zealand.

I just want to speak very briefly about my portfolios and the great difference that the Budget is making in those portfolios. You look at transport: $358 million more invested by this Budget in regional roading—

💬 Hon Annette King: How many bridges?

—and projects like in Taranaki. There are plenty of bridges: Mōtū Bridge in Gisborne, which Annette King and her lot talked about and which we are investing in, in Taranaki, as I say, and in other parts of New Zealand. KiwiRail, where Denis O’Rourke came down to this House and said we are doing nothing in that area, we have $4 billion invested in rail by this Government, or $3.9 billion to be precise—it is comparable to what we have invested in the roads of national significance—for electrification, improvements, and new rolling stock. What we are seeing as a result of our investment—this Government’s investment; not that previous Labour Government’s investment—is burgeoning metropolitan use. The numbers are going through the roof and freight on rail is up year on year, because we are backing rail as well as the others.

One of the things of course that is not appreciated is all of the things in transport outside the Budget, where, through the Land Transport Fund, we have seen a fourfold increase—and in some parts of New Zealand a fivefold increase—in the investment in transportation, from around $1 billion a year when Labour was first in Government in the early 2000s, to $3.5 billion at the moment. Actually, it is nearly $4 billion when you include the Crown investment as well—unprecedented investment that is making the difference, whether it is the western ring route, the City Rail Link, the East-West Link, the Wellington corridor, or the Christchurch roads of national significance.

I also want to talk about homes, because Nanaia Mahuta came down here and said—I am sure not wilfully—an untruth about this Budget and what it does for homes. I am really proud that this Government, through this Budget, will get to having over 300,000 homes in this country insulated. How many did the last Labour Government manage to get to? Look, I think it was about 50,000. For all of its members’ compassion and for all of their talk, 50,000 homes were insulated—and over 300,000 by this Government. Complementing this are the changes that Nick Smith is making to the Residential Tenancies Act that will see an additional 180,000 rental homes in this country insulated to good standards.

I think that we have got an incredibly proud record on insulation. We have made sure that not just tens of thousands but hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders—actually, when you consider that there are families living in these houses, there are possibly many more than that—have warmer, drier, healthier homes. This Budget has helped with the insulation of a further 20,000 rental homes, which complements and incentivises the 180,000 rental homes under the Residential Tenancies Act that must be done by July 2019.

Finally, regarding access to justice, some of you may not appreciate it because it is just quiet, diligent work that I do behind the scenes—I do not expect any credit for it—but as Associate Minister of Justice, I can say that there is $110 million more for access to justice in this country, meaning that we are getting the kind of justice system that we deserve. In civil legal aid, criminal legal aid, and family law we are ensuring that people—those most vulnerable New Zealanders—get the advice and the advocacy that they need, and it is yet another area where we can be proud of this outstanding Budget, which is delivering in health, in education, and in the economy the brighter future that we promised in 2008.

The Minister, the Hon Simon Bridges, and I agree on one point: this country is growing. There is a lot of growth in this country. There is growing inequality, of that there is no doubt. There is growing homelessness—we know the statistics; the statistics do not lie. There is growing unemployment. There is the growing disenfranchisement of young people in this country, whom Mr English calls—what did he call them?

💬 Meka Whaitiri: Hopeless.

He said “pretty much hopeless”—and there is growing desperation. When people have to live in cars, then we know that this is not the sort of country that we believe New Zealand is and that New Zealanders deserve better. If that is the sort of the growth that this Government is proud of, then that is a shame and a tragedy, because New Zealanders deserve more.

Even though this Key Government will have been in power for 9 years at the end of its term, there is no legacy so that in 50 years’ time Kiwis will look back and say “Wow, the Key Government really made a difference.”, because it has done nothing. It started with such a mandate for change, and it has done nothing. We look at the Governments over the years that are looked back upon fondly: the first Labour Government, under Michael Joseph Savage; the Kirk Government; and, perhaps, Holyoake’s—perhaps, maybe. We might not all agree with the direction that the Lange Government took, but it certainly changed the economic settings. The Clark Government, yes—but the Key Government, no.

This Government came in with a mandate for change because we were in the grip of an economic crisis, and it has done absolutely nothing—absolutely nothing. It could have revised and overhauled the tax system, but did nothing at all there, except that it has increased GST and dropped taxes for the most wealthy. I remember that at the time, the head of Telecom got a $4,000-a-week wage rise in his hand, while every single person had to pay more GST. The Government could have driven growth in a way not previously seen for generations. It did not do that. There was no transformation, no attempt to grow our economy, no attempt to look at the export market and ask what needs to happen there—it did nothing.

As for regional economic development, I do not know where Mr Stuart Smith has been. God knows, the National Government held nearly all of the provincial seats in 2008. You would have thought that if any Government ever had a mandate to drive change in the regions, it was the 2008 Key Government. Nothing has changed; in fact, a lot of the regions have gone backwards. I look at Wairoa, a little town in Meka Whaitiri’s electorate and my own electorate, where 44 jobs have gone because they closed one of only two supermarkets. Is that progress? Is that the sort of progress that the National Government is proud of? No, not at all, in any way, shape, or form.

Stuart Smith talked about migration and how fantastic migration is for the regions. Well, let me tell you about Hawke’s Bay. We have 5,000 unemployed people in Hawke’s Bay. We have the highest percentage of “neets”—those are young, 16 to 24-year-olds who are not in education, employment, or training—yet we have 3,500 Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme workers in Hawke’s Bay. What is going on there? Why are our young people not working? What has happened to the education system? Who have they been let down by? This Government. There are no jobs for young people in our regions; there should be. They are not working. There is nothing in the Budget for the education sector; rather, it is a 20th century pedagogy not fit for a 21st century environment, and that is an absolute tragedy for the young people going through the school system at the moment. In the Bay, those companies that are successful are successful almost in spite of the Government, not because of it.

I have said this before and I will say it again. I think that one of the main differences between a Labour Government and a National Government is that a National Government believes that if you leave it to the market, the market will come out with optimal solutions, whereas a Labour Government absolutely believes that the Government has a role in creating the sorts of economic settings that allow for businesses to thrive, for jobs, and for people to get ahead.

When I look at my portfolios and see what progress has been made over the 8 years, I shake my head because often it has gone backwards. Let us look at forestry. It is now dominated by overseas investors. One in particular, a Malaysian company, bought 35,000 hectares of land from Fletcher Challenge and promised in its Overseas Investment Office application that it was going to build a state-of-the-art processing facility. That was one of the reasons it was granted its consent. It did nothing. Ten years later it put in an application to buy more land. What did it promise? It promised a state-of-the-art processing facility. It did nothing. Yet again, in 2007, it bought some more land. What did it promise? You guessed it: a state-of-the-art processing facility. What has it delivered? Absolutely nothing. In fact, there is a mill in Gisborne that is owned by the local economic development agency that cannot even start because this company will not even promise it 5 percent of its cut. Pruned logs drive past this mill’s gate, go out to the wharf, and are exported without a cent of value being added. That is an absolute travesty.

What is the Minister’s response to that? “Oh, let the market decide. This is what the market has decided.” I can tell you that this mill is prepared to pay export-equivalent log prices. It wants no favours. It just wants logs so that it can employ young people from the East Coast in the mill, and this overseas investment will not allow it.

How much more money was there in the Budget for forestry? None. In fact, the forestry budget has been cut. This Government does not understand that sector at all, and it is an absolute travesty for the people of the East Coast, the people up in Northland, and all the other centres where there is forestry.

Let us have a look at energy. We saw Simon Bridges stand up there and talk about the great things that have happened in his portfolios. He did not even mention energy. We are at an important historical crossroads here, where technology is changing the way that people live, commute, heat their homes, and store energy, but there are no innovative policies whatsoever from this Government. In fact, there is a word beginning with “h” that we are not allowed to use here. What is a synonym for hypocrisy, Mr Faafoi?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order!

It is about walking the walk, and this Government simply does not do it. What does Mr Bridges do? He turns up to a press conference to announce the thousandth electric vehicle in a huge diesel BMW. He takes the photo, hops into his huge diesel BMW, and drives off. This Government has just renewed the contract for those BMWs. I can tell you that if that Government had said “OK, let’s walk the walk. Let’s live our global brand. Let’s go hard on what we believe in.”, and had made sure that every single Crown car was an electric car, then that would have sent a very clear message to New Zealanders and to the world that we understand what our unique selling point is, what our brand is, and that the Government is prepared to walk the walk.

Let us have a look at revenue. We have got a tax system that is geared up for the 20th century but is not delivering for the 21st century. We have got housing speculators running rife who are determining the house prices in our largest market and pricing New Zealanders out of the market completely. When I entered the Auckland housing market, I bought my first house, which was a villa in Mount Eden, for $285,000. You could not buy that for under $1 million these days. And it is not Kiwis forcing up those prices; it is our overseas speculators. Let alone our global brand—we all know what is happening with our global brand. I would say to the Minister of Revenue that he has some work to do, because if we do not get this right then we are going to drop down the transparency index in a way that will hurt everything we stand for, which is integrity and honesty—that is how New Zealanders are viewed.

When I look at police—I see the Minister of Police over there—the resolution rate for burglaries is now under 10 percent. In Auckland, resolution rates for burglaries and car thefts are under 6.4 percent. That is not the New Zealand that we grew up in, and it is not the New Zealand that we believe we live in.

This could have been a good Budget. It could have been an inspirational Budget. It could have created aspiration for Kiwis, but it has not. Let us be honest: none of the commentators have come out and said: “Well done, Bill English. You’ve done a fantastic job.” The only people who think Mr English has done a good job are those sitting over there. The vast majority of New Zealanders think this is a nothing Budget, and that there is certainly nothing in there for good, hard-working Kiwis who just want a break.

As mentioned, Prime Ministers look back and they wonder what their legacy will be. The Key Government will have no legacy. It will have no legacy. It will yet again be left up to the next Labour Government to change the settings, to create aspiration, and to make a difference in the way that I think New Zealanders expect their Governments to do. Thank you very much.

The next call is a split call. Paul Foster-Bell—5 minutes.

Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā Tuarua. Tēnā koutou katoa e ngā mema o Te Whare. Before commenting in the estimates debate, I trust I will be indulged just to put on record my condolences to the family of Sir Graham Latimer. Sir Graham was not only a prominent leader in the north, where I whakapapa to, but was also a leader in the early era of Treaty settlements, as well as being a vice president of the New Zealand National Party back a few years before my involvement in the 1980s. I give condolences to all his whānau and friends, who have lost a great New Zealander today.

Secondly, I would also like to place on record my congratulations to Her Majesty the Queen on having achieved her 90th birthday. We had a wonderful range of contributions, but the interesting thing for me as a list MP representing National in the Wellington Central electorate was that New Zealand’s official birthday present to Her Majesty the Queen will be a wonderful education centre at Pukeahu, the National War Memorial, to be named the Queen Elizabeth II Pukeahu Education Centre. This is, I think, a very good use of those taxpayer dollars, to create not only a gift for Her Majesty but an amenity of great interest to the citizens of Wellington and visitors at the National War Memorial.

I have to refute one of the comments made by the previous contributor to this debate, Stuart Nash.

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: Only one?

Well, there are many worth refuting, but one in particular—that is, it is not only members on this side of the House and people who occupy benches in this Chamber who think Bill English has done a wonderful job of providing economic stability, fiscal rectitude, and improving the public services that we have in our country; it is the people I speak to every day on the streets of Wellington Central.

To give you a few examples of that, the Friday after the Budget I joined the Minister of Education, the Hon Hekia Parata, Nikki Kaye, and also Christopher Finlayson at Mt Cook School. The school is the guardian of Pukeahu. The children of that school have been given a special role, given their neighbouring status to the National War Memorial, and they will be given another two new classrooms to accommodate roll growth. There will be another four at Karori West Normal School. This is an example of the sort of excellent public infrastructure we can enjoy when we have a country that has its accounts in order, that is exporting, and that is manufacturing and producing high-value products, and, as a result, with the revenue we take in as a Government we can deliver for our citizens whilst also retiring debt, and we are not taking taxes up as high as the Opposition parties would if they were given the chance or were let anywhere near the Treasury benches.

There are a couple of other things that I think will be of particular benefit to Wellington. I would like to congratulate the Minister of Revenue on the significant investment—I think it is $857 million—into the Inland Revenue Department business reforms. These will not only make it much easier for those who pay provisional tax, especially small and medium sized business, but create a lot of employment here in the capital for the people who will help improve that capability within our public sector: the IT programmers, the consultants, the business management experts who will be brought in to make sure we have a world-class—or even more of a world-class—taxation system.

The average person on the street—let us, for argument’s sake, call him Mitchell. Mitchell might be a smart young person. He might be in the tertiary education sector. So he will have the benefit of, perhaps, attending something like the ICT Graduate School, which we have funded, and for which there is an extra $257 million of tertiary education funding in this Budget. But Mitchell will also feel safer as he walks down the street, given our very good Minister of Police has secured nearly $300 million worth of extra funding to ensure our police officers, who protect us all and do such a good job of keeping our community safe, are properly remunerated. I would like to congratulate the Minister on securing that significant extra funding to support our police system.

In the health area there will be many Wellingtonians—let us, for instance, take another example. Let us call the Wellingtonian on the street Sue, who will have access to a wide range of medications. Let us hope that Sue does not get ill, but should she, for instance, need access to state-of-the-art melanoma drugs, something for kidney disease, something for brain tumours—these are now all available thanks to the extra investment in Pharmac.

This is a very good Budget, and I commend it to the House.

Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā. Before I make my contribution to the Budget debate, I would also like to honour and remember a great New Zealander, a great tōtara in the forest of Māori leadership, Sir Graham Latimer. Nō reira e te rakatira, haere atu rā, haere atu rā ki te pā o te whakawairua, e takoto mai, takoto mai.

[So depart, esteemed one, travel on to the abode of spirituality, lie and rest there.]

When I look at this Budget and Labour’s response to it and the other events of last week, I am reminded of where I came from as a child of a family with a strong Labour Party background. I was born to a working class family and a family that was proud of its Māori heritage, and it also embraced all that it meant to be Māori. At that time to be working class and Māori actually meant, almost certainly, that you voted for the Labour Party. Labour had a proud heritage at that time of looking out for the working man. My father was proud to give his vote to Labour, and I do not mind saying that, also, at a very early age, so was I. The Labour Party back then, though, was aspirational. Michael Joseph Savage gave us social welfare, but he never intended at any family remain dependent on a benefit over multiple generations. Peter Fraser’s Government first provided a free education for every child. But more than just a free education, he espoused the vision of an education that was best suited to each child. He allowed each child to reach their full potential.

The Labour Party of old drew much of its support from poorer, working-class people, but it supported the aspirations of those people to better themselves. Many of us did make a success of ourselves. We took our opportunities and got jobs that were better than our parents’ jobs. Many of us built businesses and began employing others. But at some point, we looked back and realised the Labour Party had not come with us—had not come with us.

That is why the Labour Party has sunk so low in the last week that it has admitted it is no longer a major party and cannot challenge National on its own. Budget 2016 shows us that this is the Government, led by John Key’s National Party, that is a Government of today and that is aspirational. It is this Government that wants to see New Zealanders improving their lives and is giving them the chance to do so.

This Government continues to support our welfare system. Last year we increased benefits in real terms for the first time since 1972. Although we want to see people who are out of work, and particularly their children—particularly the children of those families—be better supported, we do not want to leave them there. We do not want to leave them there. Budget 2016 invests $50 million in initiatives that will reduce long-term welfare dependency. Whānau Ora will support 2,500 more whānau. This is in stark contrast to the party opposite—a party that did not increase benefits at all in 9 long years of Government. In Opposition, it has opposed every single measure here in this House to get people off benefits and back to work.

I tire—I tire—of hearing from the other side of the House how National is only looking after its rich mates. I support National not because I have had some success, but because it is National’s policies that will enable others from a background of poverty to make a success of themselves. This Budget is not a handout; it is a hand up. Thank you.

The next call is a split call. Jacqui Dean—5 minutes.

What a privilege it is to be part of this John Key - led Government. I want to acknowledge and congratulate my colleague Nuk Korako on what was a heartfelt and moving speech. It is appropriate at the time of this Budget debate to speak about things that are really important to us.

I am going to take a slightly different tack from the member who has just spoken, but what is really important to me, and what I think has been well expressed through this Budget, is the connection to my part of New Zealand—my and many other people’s part of New Zealand. It is a part of New Zealand I care a lot about, and I am very proud of the achievements by people and business in my part of New Zealand, which is the Waitaki electorate: Central Otago, South Canterbury, and North Otago. I was so pleased to see, yet again, the affirmation through this Budget that regional economic development is important. It is important because it provides not only employment but also social cohesion. It provides for communities that look after each other and that are not afraid to express their enthusiasm and caring nature for each other. That is one of the good things about small communities in my region.

So how was that expressed in the Budget? For tourism, which is one of my portfolios, I was so pleased to see an announcement of $25 million going into upgrading the New Zealand Cycle Trail. How does that promote social cohesion? How does that promote strong communities? Well, actually, it is providing the most effective means of growing jobs and growing communities that I have seen in my electorate. I have long gone on about the Otago Central Rail Trail and the impact it has had on that local community. We are seeing that very same impact on jobs and opportunities through this investment in the New Zealand Cycle Trail. We see it from one end of New Zealand to the other. I was most recently in Cromwell with the Prime Minister as he made a major announcement to upgrade the Cycle Trail to bring some of the cycle trails together. People will be travelling throughout the world to come and visit New Zealand’s cycle trails, thereby enhancing our communities.

The Prime Minister also announced $12 million to help communities build small-scale infrastructure projects as a result of increased visitors to New Zealand. That is what we commonly know as the freedom camping dilemma—the fact that we have got increasing numbers of people coming to New Zealand and no facilities, or not enough facilities, to cater for them as they stay overnight and are not self-contained.

Do you know what? When James Shaw, the co-leader of the Green-Labour alliance, got up to speak after the Budget, he laughed. James Shaw, the co-leader of the Green-Labour alliance merger, laughed at the fact that this Government had invested $12 million to build toilets. Actually, if it was really the environmental party maybe he might have stood up and actually applauded that initiative, because as well as providing a welcome to visitors to New Zealand, which is incredibly important, it is also about protecting the environment. So where were the Greens—where were the Greens—on a really key environmental issue for those of us in scenic New Zealand? They were nowhere to be seen, displaying their true colours. I can tell you that this Government has displayed its true colours, and under John Key we are providing not only for the environment but we are providing for our communities. Thank you.

I call Sarah Dowie—5 minutes.

It is a pleasure to rise to take this call in the debate on Budget 2016, and also a pleasure to follow the honourable member Jacqui Dean, who took the conversation south to the fantastic place of the Waitaki. I too intend to take it further south, to the fantastic provincial—

💬 Todd Barclay: Oban?

—not quite; well, maybe Oban—city of Invercargill and the seat that is the Invercargill electorate. That, of course, spans right out, takes in the Catlins and Oban on Stewart Island—I know that Mr Barclay is fascinated by Stewart Island/Rakiura—and goes right out to Riverton and Orepuki. It is a fantastic electorate to represent, and certainly this Budget goes a long way to helping out regional New Zealand.

I do want to join in the accolades to congratulate the Hon Bill English on delivering his eighth Budget for this Government, because he has done exceptionally well. It is no mean feat to bring this country back into surplus, with 2.8 percent growth in GDP over the next 5 years, which, of course, means more jobs and higher wages for our families, to help achieve their hopes, dreams, and aspirations—or, as any good AC/DC fan would say, “Back in Black”. I too stood at the Cake Tin in Wellington and rocked away to that song, and so does this Government. We are back in black, and that is no mean feat that this Government has delivered.

Not only are we back in surplus with a growing economy but we are supporting families to get ahead—again, more jobs, higher wages—and investing in a quality of life for them, investing in things such as health, education, and infrastructure. Not only that—not only that—we are also supporting our most vulnerable, the people who are most at risk in our society, by identifying risk factors very early on with our social investment model and intervening early on, requiring services to be wrapped around these people, tailoring these services to their needs, and expecting the deliverers of those services to achieve measurable results. It is a fantastic Budget all round, touching on all of those things.

What an interesting week it was last week with the union—the Greens-Labour union. Staff members were run off their feet as they were delivering roses between the two camps. I think we have moved on from that now, with the bedding-in of that union, and now we are looking at the different combinations and permutations of co-leadership and how that could look, with different shadow Cabinet Ministers and parliamentary under-secretaries and decision making by committee. I am wondering how on earth they will actually get things done if they are ever voted into power, but it is quite an amazing thing to watch, all these different permutations, with different results every which way but Sunday. But I digress.

In the meantime, this is the Government that is delivering results. We are looking for measurable results and we are investing in our people and our services to deliver for our people. I want to talk a little bit, firstly, about health. Of course, we have all heard in this House about the woes of Southern District Health Board (Southern DHB). But Southern DHB was a winner out of Budget 2016. It received an extra $32 million in funding. The commissioner team was exceptionally pleased with that. That is certainly going to help with the delivery of quality health-care throughout the region, but also the delivery of sustainable health-care. I was very pleased to learn of that extra funding.

Of course, Innovative New Zealand is a package that is designed for the regions. There is $94 million to go into developing different opportunities and looking at the potential for our regions. I would like to commend the Southland Regional Development Strategy group, which is doing an excellent job of identifying potential in Southland. I look forward to working with it further, to deliver on those aspirations. So this is a fantastic Budget, and I commend it to the House.

The next call is a split call. Catherine Delahunty—5 minutes.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. He mihi nui ki a koutou katoa. It has been an interesting week, and it was an interesting Budget. It is great that the National Government has got something to focus on. I would rather its members talked about our fantastic agreement with the Labour Party than pretend to be the heroes of the housing crisis. Before I start talking about fresh water in the Budget, I really have to express my actual nausea about children sleeping in bushes and about hundreds of people sleeping in cars and garages in winter in the country I grew up in, and the sense of shame that I feel when seeing the conditions in which people are living in this country, at this time, and then to hear that everything is great, the Budget did great, we are looking after our people, and it could not be better. It does make me feel quite unwell, because we know it is not true and everyone else knows it is not true, especially those people living through that experience.

However, to focus on the Budget, in my portfolio area of water—today the Prime Minister said he had a preference for swimmable rivers. Well, that is very nice, is it not? Rather than a preference, a reality would be a good thing. We know how that reality can be achieved, and how it cannot. It will not be achieved by putting a mere $100 million in a freshwater fund over 10 years that does not start until 2019, and when each really polluted major river costs more than that to clean up. Lake Rotorua costs $144 million—one lake. This is the great fund that is going to fix our waterways, when we know that 62 percent of our monitored rivers are too polluted to swim in. So it is very disappointing to see the Budget put such a limited amount of money into this fund and, also, to open the fund up to the irrigators. It is a bit like saying: “Come on, Dracula. Come and drink the blood bank.” Actually, the fund is supposed to be a clean-up fund, but those members are opening it up to major irrigators as well. Go figure. The people who have wrecked the Canterbury rivers, who have sucked up that water, are going to be able to apply to the clean-up fund, which is very bizarre.

Let us take an example of that. Let us take Ashburton, where I have had the privilege of working with a very concerned local community. They are talking about selling the fresh water from the aquifer for free and then taking the water from the Hakatere River, which has already been contaminated by intensive dairying, and recharging that water back into the aquifer, as well as continuing to support irrigation impacting on those catchments. This is a recipe for the saddest-looking waterways in the country, in Canterbury.

Unfortunately, there is not just Canterbury. From throughout the motu, from top to bottom, we have rivers in dire need of more than a token discussion and a token bit of throwing money at it, while on the other hand we are promoting dairy conversion.

💬 Todd Barclay: How much will it cost?

My colleague asks how much it will cost. I can promise him that every day that we delay this, it will cost more. The Minister’s commitment is that there are too many birds and too much volcanic ash. He is quite happy for that cost, to clean up the real issues that he does not want to talk about, to go on to the next generation. So the next generation will have to pay. Once you have dumped your externalities on to communities, we have to pay, and $100 million is not going to cut it. Lake Rotorua took $140 million, so let us think about what it really takes to clean up rivers and make a start, make a real commitment.

But the reason why we are not making progress on rivers is the standard—the National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management. The real reason is that we need swimmable rivers. Unfortunately, the Government, with its preference for swimmable rivers, actually only talks about it. Its real commitment is to boatable and wadeable.

At the Greens conference a wonderful man from Waikirikiri, Selwyn, who cares about his river and whose 10-year-old child has never been able to swim in her river—never—put it straight. He said: “I don’t want to hear about whether it’s dairy cows or golden unicorns. Fix our river. Why do we pay rates and taxes? We pay them to fix our river. But the Government will not curtail the dairy industry, and therefore the rivers will continue to be too contaminated for Rosie to swim in. That’s a disgrace.”

However, the Green Party has a vision of swimmable rivers. That is what we are taking to the country. That is what people will support. We are very proud that we can do a whole lot better than this Budget. Kia ora koutou katoa.

I call Jan Logie—5 minutes.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. The Budget is supposed to represent our shared concerns. But, sadly, this Budget fails to represent our most pressing concern as a country. In this Budget, the first Budget since the coroner found that Emma-Lita Bourne’s death could be linked to the cold, damp house that she had to live in, the Government has cut funding to Warm Up New Zealand for home insulation. In the Budget—as we have found out, one in 100 New Zealanders are homeless—the Government has provided money for 750 social houses, in the face of one in 100 New Zealanders living without a home. This is all while the Government allocates further money to facilitate the sale of more State houses. Although more than one child a week dies of low-income - related diseases, there is absolutely nothing to increase incomes for parents who are not in the paid workforce. I guess the Government considers that it fixed child poverty in last year’s Budget.

The Government tells us that work is the pathway out of poverty, and it obviously thinks that it is going to do this by getting people off benefits. The Government has set a target of getting 25 percent of people off benefits by 2018. This is although its targets and its budget lines for expenditure for every single core benefit in this Budget show that it is expecting expenditure to either increase or decrease by about 1 percent, which clearly shows that the Government does not believe it can do it—that it cannot get people off benefit at the rate it says it can. Even if the Government did, it would still leave over 200,000 people in this country unable to work and living in grinding poverty, unable to secure a roof over their head, unable to consistently put food on the table, and unable to keep themselves healthy and well.

That is what this Government’s Budget is delivering to the country. Although two out of five children in this country who are living in poverty have parents who work, no one even talks about people without children who are living in grinding poverty. The Budget projects that wages will be 1.1 percent worse off after inflation, so every day people are going to find it harder to pay the bills, thanks to this Government.

This is the first Budget since the working group was set up to start delivering equal pay for women. This is something that is well over 120 years overdue. This working group started meeting last year. The expectation was set that there would be money in this Budget to ensure equal pay for caregivers at the very least, yet here we are and there is nothing in the Budget beyond the usual contingencies. Even worse than that, the commitment that the Government has already made to pay caregivers for their in-between travel time, which was only partially funded in the last Budget, has no more funding in this Budget. So it is all too clear that this Government plans to continue to underpay and exploit women, and it expects us to be thankful for it.

Although we have known for years, and have had repeated reports in the last year, of the fact that Child, Youth and Family is not adequately resourced to help families and keep our children safe and that the Children’s Commissioner said he was not resourced to be able to monitor their safety and ensure that they were safe, we have had no increase for the Office of the Children’s Commissioner—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member, but the time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break.

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

This Budget cut money for home insulation, put money into selling off State houses, reduced funding to the Children’s Commissioner, chose to keep over 200,000 people in poverty, failed to deliver equal pay, predicted growing inequality, and then it cut funding to community organisations that are desperately trying to hold people above water as they deal with increasing homelessness, stress of stigmatisation, and grinding poverty created by this Government. This Budget is a fail.

I rise to take a call in this Budget debate, probably a little bit more hopeful and little bit lighter and brighter than that previous speech, which just seemed to be a whole lot of doom and gloom. This is a great Budget. Eight years on and this Budget has delivered. I would call it, in my title, “delivered on the things that matter most to New Zealanders”. We know that it is having better results for Kiwi families.

💬 Su’a William Sio: Oh, come on.

Su’a William Sio knows this because he has experienced it, even over in Māngere. He knows that we are taking the books back into the black. It is all the things that we know matter most.

You can hear it from us, but how about we hear it from the people out in our communities who serve our people. So let us go to Moody’s, which is the credit rating agency. This is what it said: “we view the upwardly revised projections as credit positive for the government.” Business New Zealand was widely supportive of the Budget, with chief executive Kirk Hope calling it “prudent economic management … positive GDP and employment growth figures, and projected growth in exports, investment and other indicators give confidence about New Zealand’s economic path.” Employers and Manufacturers Association Chief Executive Kim Campbell said that the Budget “sent a strong signal that the New Zealand economy is in good health … We know the books are in capable hands, and today’s $700m surplus is proof of that.” These are from the people in our communities—yes, they are the businesses, they are the people out there in the manufacturing associations, and they are also the people who care.

Maybe something a little bit different—even out here in west Auckland, there is a man named Mathew Tauia who talks about the importance of the funding that has been invested into at-risk children and young people and even into schools. He is a board of trustees member at his children’s decile 1 Royal Road School in Massey. I think that is in Upper Harbour. He said his school has “more than its fair share of such children, so it should be a net winner out of the Budget decision to freeze school operations grants but give an extra $43 million to schools with the 150,000 children deemed most at risk … It’s also good that they are looking at special needs [in our schools as well].” That is something we cannot argue with. That is actually people in our communities, in businesses, in schools who are out there actually saying that this Budget is a great Budget.

In my contribution I want to talk about the social investment package because that becomes critically important. We hear on the other side—they are talking about all the things that could go wrong. They will talk about homelessness, and they will talk about issues around poverty, but never once will you hear about a solution. You can bang the drum. They keep saying that nothing goes well, everything is going wrong, and they use—this is what I suppose irks me—the aspects of these issues as a badge of pride, to say that this is what they could do to make a difference. Yet in the 9 years they saw issues of housing, they saw issues in which families were struggling, which you would call poverty—the Salvation Army said it in its report.

So what is it that we are doing that makes a difference? In 2014 the Productivity Commission was commissioned to actually look at how we could make a difference. This is changing the whole rhetoric. This is not just about numbers, and I will talk about those numbers in a moment. This is about saying this: in our systems of care, we have probably spent about $34 billion on health, education, and social services. That is what is actually spent over that period of time per year.

The Productivity Commission said this: “What could we do to make a difference?”. You see, previously, under a Labour Government, you just kept on pouring money into those services, without asking the real question: “How can we transform and change these lives?”. That is what this Government is doing. It is taking a different approach. The thing that it is doing is that it is taking a targeted approach. The social investment package sees that $200 million is for new services and support for vulnerable children. Under a Labour Government there were 14 reviews of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act. No more reviews—this time it is an overhaul. It is an investment of $348 million to ensure that we overhaul the system that works and makes a difference.

I want to talk about warmer, healthier homes. The previous speaker, Jan Logie, talked about the fact that we have been cutting those fundings. There is $36 million for warmer, healthier homes. There is $80 million into Warm Up New Zealand, to go alongside the 300,000 homes that we have already invested in to make them warmer and drier. With the 180,000 properties to come under the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill, that will take it up to almost 500,000.

This is a good Budget; a good bill. I commend the Budget to the House.

A 5-minute call—Jono Naylor.

In the year and a half that I have been in Parliament I have heard from the other side of the House a lot of reports about Sir Michael Cullen and what a financial genius he was—the great work that he did as finance Minister. I want to give credit where credit is due. Sir Michael Cullen obviously had an ability in this area, and so we will give credit where it is due. I just want to think about, in 2008, when he delivered his Budget, what he predicted the current Crown net debt would be at this time. Dr Cullen said it would be around $160 billion. That was his best estimate—$160 billion. Where are we sitting now? It is $60 billion. We are $100 billion better off under this National Government over the last 8 years than what Dr Cullen predicted in 2008. That is good financial management. That is sound financial management.

This Budget continues to do more great things for New Zealand. Let us take, for example, the impact of this Budget on the Manawatū, where I come from. We have been through a reasonable period of time. There has been a business growth study done that identified some key areas that our region can benefit from to a greater degree. There is $44.4 million set aside in this Budget to help those regions that are going to have further work done on them and to help implement that regional growth study.

The Accelerate25 programme is well under way. It is working with local government and local business to deliver good outcomes for New Zealand. There is $40 million for more regional research institutes. I know from my experience in Palmerston North what a good impact those institutes can have, and so it is great to see that more communities around New Zealand are going to be impacted by the positivity that comes from having research institutes located there.

But it is not just new institutions. This Budget has over $400 million extra in it for science and innovation. What I can tell you from my experience in Palmerston North is that where you have money going into research and innovation, into science, it creates jobs. It creates jobs not just for people who are doing the research but also those people are researching things that will create more jobs down the track for people.

But it is not just about business. It is not just about jobs and creation. This is a Government that is committed to the environment. It is committed to cleaning up our rivers. There is another $100 million in this Budget towards cleaning up the rivers. I can tell you that the money that has been used so far is making a really good impact. I was privileged to be a part of the Manawatū River Leaders’ Accord that helped put together the Manawatū River action plan, and since that time, over 200 kilometres of fencing has been put across waterways. Two hundred kilometres of fencing has been put in place to ensure that that is happening. There are 120,000 plants that have been planted to help improve the Manawatū River. The extra $100 million in this Budget is going to ensure that other rivers around New Zealand will also be able to improve over time, and I think that that is incredibly important.

But, again, it is not just about business. It is not just about the environment. In the education sector there is going to be a further $256 million going into tertiary education, particularly focusing on those science and agricultural areas, and veterinary science. Again, it is very, very good for the Manawatū and very, very good for Palmerston North. That is going to ensure that the likes of Massey University can continue to grow and continue to have a positive impact on our region, and I look forward to that.

Finally, there is $190 million extra being invested into the national freight rail network. Palmerston North is absolutely a logistics hub for the lower half of the North Island, and also for New Zealand. It is a central point for five different railway lines. Investment into rail as well as road is going to help Palmerston North to grow more jobs in the logistics area—an area that is already growing significantly.

So this is a good Budget. It is a sound Budget. It has been put together by a finance Minister who has shown and proven his credibility over the last 8 years by New Zealand being $100 million better off than what was predicted under the previous Labour Government. It is a good bill, this appropriation Bill. It is a good Budget, and I commend it to the House.

I call Shane Reti—a 5 minute call.

It is a pleasure to speak to this Budget tonight—a sound, solid, fiscally responsible Budget. I want to focus on three particular components: education, health research, and smoking. In the education space this Budget strongly supports our overall investment in education with $14.4 million for more apprentices, $9.6 million for Māori and Pasifika trades training, and an extra $1.4 billion in education—that is, nine new schools and 480 new classrooms.

Whangarei Girls’ High School is a beneficiary of some of these 480 new classrooms. We saw the commitment last week when Minister Nikki Kaye visited Whangarei Girls’ High School to announce the 10 new buildings. The principal, Anne Cooper, told me today that Whangarei Girls’ High School has a burgeoning roll, currently sitting at 1,350 students, and these buildings are absolutely essential to them. It is a roll that is growing because the school is doing well. It has a solid reputation, there are new people to the region, and students are staying longer. There is an increasing awareness among students that education is the tool to advance and improve their outlook. A solid fiscal programme like this allows for these 10 new school buildings, which are going to be used for arts, commerce, and student support. All of this is under the umbrella of a new model learning environment. The school’s motto is “Fideliter”, which means faithfully, and just as this school has faith in its students, so this Government has faith in the school.

I want to turn to health research funding. Health research funding is also a beneficiary of this Budget, with an increase of $97 million over the next 4 years. The annual amount available for health research through the Health Research Council (HRC) increases from $77 million to $120 million.

The HRC boxes above its weight, and one of the HRC’s success stories, for me, is the Liggins-Howie story. In 1972 they published an article called “A controlled trial of antepartum glucocorticoid treatment for prevention of respiratory distress syndrome in premature infants”. Now any woman, anywhere in the world today, with a pre-term infant can thank the HRC and these two doctors for the likelihood that their baby will survive. You see, what Liggins and Howie found was that the lungs of premature infants do not expand. They have got surfactant and they just cannot take air in. What they found was that if you give steroids to premature infants and give them at least 24 to 48 hours, those steroids mature the lungs and the babies’ lungs are able to inflate. So where before pre-terms might have died at 32, 33, 34 weeks, with this new knowledge, funded by the HRC and with its own expertise, New Zealand was able to lead the way, and it is now standard protocol across the world. It was a really seminal finding, and we think that it may have saved 10,000 premature New Zealand babies—the Health Research Council in cooperation with an academic university.

The last thing that I want to talk to is smoking and the tobacco tax increase. I want to focus on one particular area that interests me, and that is around youth smoking. We know that in New Zealand the average youth starts smoking at 14.6 years of age. What interests me is that cigarette smoking and the use of marijuana and alcohol have what is called co-occurrence—the two tend to go together. So it interests me that if we increase the taxes on tobacco, what does that do to marijuana use and maybe alcohol use? International studies across the world have shown several things: first of all, if you increase tobacco taxes, you decrease tobacco consumption—we know that; that is why we are doing it. What it also does is it decreases the number of youth smoking marijuana and it also decreases the amount of marijuana consumed. Let us apply that same thinking to alcohol, which also has co-occurrence with tobacco. What we find is that if we increase tobacco taxes, we decrease tobacco consumption—again, that is our principle—but it also decreases alcohol consumption. Imagine then if the tobacco measures in this Budget, in some maybe small and indirect way, could also reduce alcohol- and drug-related harms, such as drink-driving and domestic violence.

I have focused on these three small areas from a very wide-ranging Budget with a lot of breadth, and I have made the case for many other benefits that accrue beyond the immediate visibility of this Budget. It is a solid Budget, it is a sound Budget, and I commend this Budget to the House.

A 5-minute call—Todd Barclay.

It is a privilege to be able to speak on National’s eighth Budget since coming into Government. I would like to acknowledge the finance Minister, Bill English; the finance team, Paula Bennett and Steven Joyce; and Prime Minister, John Key, for an outstanding Budget that will benefit all New Zealanders, and in particular all Southlanders and all members of the Otago communities.

Before I go on and talk about some of the main areas that will benefit Southland and Otago, I want to touch on a couple of insights as to what an alternative Labour-Greens Government might potentially look like, just based on some of the few short facts that we have received in the last few days since the Budget. So far, we know that if a Labour and Greens alliance was in power, there would be more for traffic control, more for cleaning our rivers, more for social housing, more for preparing for climate change, more for public health, and more to support parents.

The National-led Government has done a considerable amount in all of these areas. I saw a figure the other day saying that to counter National’s $100 million fund to clean up freshwater waterways, the Greens’ proposal would cost up to $7 billion—that dwarfs the budget of the police and early childhood education combined. I do not think that we can afford that for a region like Southland, whose backbone is the agricultural sector. What we need is a pragmatic Budget—which this delivers—delivering more jobs, higher incomes, better outcomes, and brighter prospects for our people.

Just to have a bit of an idea about what a Labour-Greens alliance might look like in consultation around the Budget, which would be an interesting prospect to be a fly on the wall for, we already know that in housing, Labour wants to scrap Auckland City limits, but the Greens do not. Deep-sea oil drilling—it has been a longstanding fact that the Greens oppose this, but Labour would not ban the offshore activity. Instead, it would call for better safety activities. Immigration—Labour wants to slow the intake of semi-skilled migrants, but the Greens do not think that would help our economy. Too right, that would absolutely shatter the Southland economy. Have you any idea, Mr Deputy Speaker—and I know you will, coming from a provincial area—how much it means to have additional low-skilled migrants coming into our areas to be able to fill the jobs that our regions struggle to fill with locals coming on board. It would absolutely cripple the local economy if that were to progress. We know with foreign trusts that Labour would look to ban foreign trusts, but the Greens would not go that far.

One thing they do agree on though—and it is another thing that would absolutely cripple the Southland and Otago economies—is they both want to ban the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. We all know, as this is going through the select committee right now, that it would be an absolutely shattering thing for regional New Zealand, particularly for trade-based economies such as Southland and Otago that rely on export markets.

One thing though that is quite interesting—and this is too good to miss—is what a Labour-Greens Cabinet might potentially look like, and I just want to pick on two particular areas. There is the future Minister of Health Mr Steffan Browning, who said that Ebola could be cured with homeopathy. This is something that goes against the World Health Organization, which issued a warning against using homeopathy to try to cure severe diseases such as HIV and malaria. It says there is no science to support that. How would the Labour Party view that? I do not think that that would be a very interesting prospect for the Labour Party to take to its constituency.

And there is Catherine Delahunty, the future Minister for Primary Industries, calling for a moratorium on bottled water and a moratorium on dairy conversions. Again, for the Southland and Otago communities this would be absolutely shattering. It would destroy our economies. What we survive on is the progressive nature of our primary industries succeeding well on the world stage, and dairy is a key part of that. And I think for most New Zealanders who want to live a healthy life, bottled water plays a key part in that. So it is not surprising that the Labour primary industries spokesperson, Damien O’Connor, will not support the deal, saying that many West Coasters were worried about the Greens’ proposition because of its opposition to mining. So that is a bit of insight there.

There are a couple of areas in this Budget that are of huge benefit to Clutha-Southland. In the primary industries space there is the biosecurity spend, at a record high of $223 million, and I would like to acknowledge the Minister for Primary Industries, Nathan Guy, who is sitting here—it is his key priority. There are also tuition subsidies for agricultural and veterinary sciences at the tertiary education level, and there is more investment into tackling wilding pines. In tourism, the investment of an additional $25 million into the cycle trails is hugely beneficial to the Central Otago area, and I would like to acknowledge my colleague Jacqui Dean, who represents most of the Central Otago area. So that is good.

There is also the small but significant fund of $8 million that can go towards—that is right—providing additional toilets in small communities that are faced with the issues of freedom camping.

On that note, I would just like to acknowledge the Ministers who have played a key role in preparing this year’s Budget and acknowledge the National Party caucus. Thank you very much.

This Budget is so devoid of vision and so devoid of substance that the previous contribution from the young fellow over there, Todd Barclay, had to fill only 5 minutes and he gave us 4 minutes about the Labour-Greens alliance—which has obviously got the National Government shaking in its boots—and then he talked about toilets. That is the National Government vision for New Zealand. That is how much substance there was in this Budget. That is what we have heard throughout the Budget speeches from the National Government members: very little about the Budget itself, and a lot of obsession with the fact that Labour and the Greens are working together to change the Government. But they cannot bring themselves to talk about the Budget that Bill English delivered just the week before last.

The measure by which I look at any Budget, and, I think, the measure by which most New Zealanders look at a Budget, is what it does to build the platform on which people can succeed. Success means a lot of things to different people. Success can be making a lot of money. It can be being very good at your job. It can be contributing to your community. It can be raising good kids and having a good home. It can be whatever you want it to be, actually. We all decide how it is that we want to be successful in life, but the common themes in success are taking your opportunities, applying yourself, making the most of your opportunities, and working hard to get ahead.

Most people—all but the very tiniest number, a few people—do not look to us in Parliament or to the Government to make them successful. What they look to us to do is to create the conditions in which they can be successful—in which their hard work actually does mean that they get ahead and that they achieve success in life, whatever that may mean to them—so I have looked at this Budget through that lens. What does it do to build the platform on which people can be successful, on which people can get ahead?

In talking with people about what the opportunities are that they need, it comes back to the basics: health, housing, education, and jobs. That is what people want our Government to focus on. And almost every conversation comes back to housing, because without a safe, secure, warm, dry home to live in, it is impossible to build the rest of your life. Without knowing that you have got the security to live in your neighbourhood so that your kids can go to the same school year after year and have that continuity, and to put roots down in your community so that you can build those foundations, people find it very, very difficult to get ahead.

So what is the situation? What is the challenge to that at the moment? The challenge to that at the moment is that we have the lowest rate of homeownership since the 1950s, and yet there was not one thing in this Budget to help people get into their first home, to help people get on to the ladder and secure themselves for their life and for their retirement by being able to own their own home—not one thing. When the biggest challenge that New Zealand is facing, the biggest thing that is undermining that platform of opportunity that the Government should be building, is homeownership—not one thing.

But it is not just about people who own homes; it is about people who rent homes as well. Where is the effort to make sure that rental homes are warm and dry so that kids do not get sick and end up in hospital, so that kids do not end up missing days at school, and so that adults do not end up having to take sick leave from work? Where are those initiatives? Missing. Nothing—not a sausage.

Where are the efforts to make sure that there is substantial social housing and State housing? Paula Bennett says that she wants to pay people $5,000 to get out of Auckland and go and live in a State house somewhere else. Well, come to my city, Paula Bennett, where you are tearing down State houses and selling off the land. Five thousand dollars is not going to help if someone comes to my city and there are no State houses because you have torn them all down. And you make it nearly impossible for people to get on the waiting list, so that you can pretend that we do not actually need any more State houses. Where is the effort from this Government on housing, regardless of whether you are a renter, regardless of whether you need social housing, and regardless of whether you are trying to own your own home? Where is the effort from this Government to lay that foundation so that people can be successful?

In health, people need to know that they can go to the GP and they are not going to be charged huge amounts of money just be able to go and see the doctor. We do not want people to be avoiding going and seeing the doctor because it is too expensive. We also want people to know that when they need a procedure in hospital, they are going to be able to get on the waiting list in the first place. National can crow about its numbers, but we know they are all fudged. It is just like State housing—it is actually impossible to get on the waiting list in the first place. So people get sick or people suffer from things that could be treated if this Government was actually prepared to fund our health system just enough to help it tread water, so that year on year the health system provided what it provided the year before, instead of district health boards having to find every imaginative way possible to cut back services. Again, people cannot get ahead. They cannot succeed if the health system is not there to lay that foundation for success.

As for education, this Government has frozen the operations grant for schools. At a time when parents are paying more for their children’s education than ever before, it has frozen the operations grant. Parents are going to have to pay more and more for what should be free State education. And what happens when the cost of education goes up? The children of wealthy parents do well; the children of parents who are struggling to make ends meet do poorly, because their schools cannot rely on parents stumping up the cash to actually provide that education for their children. So this Government is growing the gap.

Education is supposed to be the leveller. It is supposed to be the thing that closes gaps, that gives people opportunity no matter what their background. No matter what situation they are born into, we have agreed to provide them with State-funded education so that every child has the opportunity to get ahead. What does this Government do? It says it is going to make it easier for children born into privileged circumstances to get ahead than it is for children born into underprivileged circumstances to get ahead. It is growing the gap between the rich and the rest, and undermining that platform on which we build success in New Zealand.

What about jobs? The Government likes to talk about all the jobs it has created, although it then says that Governments do not create jobs.

💬 Jami-Lee Ross: 170,000.

I cannot quite tell what the National Party’s message is on jobs, actually. National members never tell us about the jobs that have disappeared under the time that they have been in Government. They never tell us about the fact there are more people unemployed after 8 years of a National Government than there were before it came in—and it came in during a global financial crisis. It came in under the global financial crisis and there are more people unemployed. Jami-Lee Ross, there are more people unemployed today than when you came into Government, and the unemployment rate is going up again. So whether you want to talk about the raw figure or you want to talk about it in percentage terms, it is going up. Unemployment is going up. You cannot argue against that—it is the fact, and it is a failure on the part of this Government to ensure that that platform of success is built.

Yes, jobs come and go; industries rise and fall. But a thriving economy is one in which people can feel secure that if they do lose their job, there will be another job available for them—that if they get the qualifications that they need, if they work hard, and if they go to work every day and they show up on time and they do their job well, then they are going to be able to get ahead. But I know so many people who have lost their jobs over the last few years, and they have struggled to get back into the workforce because every time they apply for a job there are hundreds of other people applying for jobs. There are 25,000 more young people not in education or training or work than there were when this National Government came into power.

So I ask National MPs, instead of going on obsessively about what the Opposition is doing, tell us in your Budget what you are doing to build the platform for success. What are you doing to help New Zealanders get ahead? What are you doing to make sure that people who do work hard have the opportunity to be successful, whatever success means to them? I have not heard that from one member opposite. It is time to actually focus on the challenges, and it is time to actually start working for the people who vote for you. It is time that we had a Budget with vision that builds the opportunities for success.

I am very happy to answer the previous member’s question about what it is that the Government is doing to build a platform that people can build on. The simple answer is that—

💬 Todd Barclay: Tell us.

—thank you—the most fundamental thing that any Government can do anywhere in the world is to provide stable, predictable, and financially sustainable government for the country. That financially sustainable government provides the platform upon which investors have the confidence to invest, and it is, ultimately, only investment—whether it is people spending money on new plant and machinery, investing in a new company, or hiring a new person—that leads to jobs and growth and wealth. So that is the most fundamental thing that any Government can do when potential investors stand back and look at how the Government is conducting itself—whether what it is doing is affordable over the medium term, or whether or not it has to make radical changes to its basic policy platform because what it is doing at the moment is not financially sustainable and then confidence drops and investment drops.

But when they look at this Budget and this Government after 8 years of stable, predictable, and financially sustainable government—now with our second year of surpluses, on track to reduce debt to 20 percent of GDP, which is very unusual internationally, continuing to produce jobs and increase earnings for New Zealanders—that gives the confidence that potential investors need. So a short answer to the previous member’s question about what we are doing to build the platform upon which people can build—it is just that. It is providing that strong, stable, predictable platform that encourages people to invest. That is why I am pleased with the progress that we have made in this economy. You just have to look around the rest of the world and acknowledge—[Interruption]

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! You have had your speech.

You have had your speech. That is right. You just have to look around—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: You know the Standing Orders.

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: A point of order—Iain Lees-Galloway. He should be very careful.

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: Are interjections now out of order?

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, they are not, funnily enough. But they are to be rare, reasonable, and, hopefully, witty, to quote Speaker Hunt, as I have quoted to that particular member on many, many, many occasions.

Yes, that member was lacking in wit, but I will carry on. Look, Parliament is very effective at passing laws. Some legislation enables the Government to spend money, and that is what we try to do wisely and that is what this Budget is all about in terms of enabling this Government to invest in quality health-care, quality education, proper justice, and all the things that good government requires.

But other legislation tries to stop people doing bad things. In my area as the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, in the past couple of years we have made a lot of changes around the Fair Trading Act and the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act to, amongst other things, stop people making unsubstantiated claims for products, to prevent businesses offering unfair contracts—where unreasonable penalties and conditions are listed on, say, page 32 of some fine print somewhere—and to put a stop to irresponsible lending practices where fees and penalties are not properly disclosed. Those are some of the sorts of legislation that we have been passing over the past few years.

But, of course, legislation is only useful if it is properly enforced. In my area, the area that I am responsible for, the Commerce Commission is the enforcer of the legislation that we have been passing over the last couple of years, where we have made significant changes, like I say, to the Fair Trading Act and the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act. Any agency with a fixed budget has to make choices about which cases to prosecute and who to follow up and who to chase, and it has to make those decisions every day. I was determined very much as the Minister that we give the Commerce Commission the best chance to protect consumers and promote competition. So I am very glad that within this Budget 2016 we have provided an extra $15.2 million of operational funding over the next 4 years to the Commerce Commission. In fact, the last time that the Commerce Commission funding for general markets regulation was increased was back in 2005, more than 11 years ago. So Budget 2016 actually increases that core funding for general markets regulations by 25 percent. This is very timely, because, as I say, over the past few years we have added a lot of consumer protection law, and that needs to be properly enforced.

This is an area that can actually make a real impact on the lives of everyday New Zealanders. I mean, one of the saddest things that I came across as a Minister—last year, actually, in South Auckland—was an iPhone 5 advertised for $59 a week for 100 weeks. So it was $59 a week for 100 weeks, and this is an iPhone that was retailing for about $800 at the time. The new consumer affairs laws that came into effect in June last year require that traders and moneylenders be much more upfront about the total cost of the purchases and interest rates. So now, under the law, you would actually have to say that that equals $5,900 for an iPhone and, hopefully, that will encourage a few people to think that that is not a good purchase.

So we have changed the laws in order to try to protect those vulnerable consumers, but, as I say, those laws need to be enforced by the Commerce Commission actively enforcing those laws. We have seen over the past few months since that legislation was passed the Commerce Commission being very active in this area, and that is already having an effect on behaviour. What I am particularly pleased about in this Budget is that we have now been able to give extra resources to the Commerce Commission so that it can continue to push further in trying to improve the standard of behaviour and the conduct of some of those groups working in the moneylending area.

It is worth just traversing a couple of the cases. Just this month, the Commerce Commission announced the successful prosecution of the Twenty Fifty Club, which was just one small step in a very complicated process. In December 2013 the commission started to investigate a Mr Marsich and the Twenty Fifty Club, a pay-day loan business, targeting low-income customers in Manurewa. Just to give you an idea, there was a history of using offensive weapons, including a meat cleaver, to threaten customers and enforce compliance with loan terms, which included a 7-day repayment window. The commission consequently filed charges under both the Fair Trading Act and the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act, and charges included failing to disclose loan information to borrowers, charging unreasonable default and establishment fees, falsely claiming to be a registered financial services provider and a member of a dispute resolution scheme, and failure to supply information required by the commission. This month the Twenty Fifty Club and Mr Marsich were found guilty of 16 charges, most notably around unreasonable fees. Fifty percent of the original loan amount per week was his standard fee—50 percent of the original loan per week was his standard fee—and he will be sentenced in the coming months.

Protecting vulnerable consumers against unfair lending practices like these is one of the central drivers of the legislation that we passed, and I am very pleased that this Budget gives extra resources to the Commerce Commission to get out there and hold those people to account and to root out some of those worst practices. I suppose the broader point I would make is that although you can pass laws and you can have those laws properly enforced, the broader picture is about trying to improve the basic money skills, or financial capability, of New Zealanders as a whole and particularly those vulnerable communities. That is why this Government puts such resources into budgeting courses through the Ministry of Social Development, but also the work of the Commission for Financial Capability that coordinates the national strategy for financial capability, which is all about making sure that the various arms of Government that are working in this area, and many areas in the private sector that are working in this area, are all pulling in the same direction, so that over time we have better resources available in schools and better-equipped teachers in order to teach this area to schoolchildren up and down the country.

So that combination of passing laws, having them properly enforced, and, over time, building financial capability is, I think, a very effective way of dealing with what can make a real difference to the lives of many families up and down this country. On that basis, it is one small part of a broader Budget that is providing that confidence and certainty for New Zealanders to invest and get ahead. I commend this bill and this Budget to the House. Thank you.

I call Ria Bond—a 5-minute call.

I am proud to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to take this split call in the debate on Budget 2016. It has been just over a year now since I found myself here in the House debating an area that I was slightly knowledgable on, with having my family members and loved ones being taken care of in hospices in Invercargill and around the country. So it is kind of ironic that here again tonight I am addressing the same issue that we had last year—that is, the underfunding of palliative health care here in New Zealand.

I have spent the last year visiting hospices around New Zealand, and I have met the most amazing, giving, thoughtful, unselfish, caring people who work within the 29 hospices around New Zealand, and who truly care about the whole person, not just their physical needs but also their emotional, spiritual, and social needs too. What I saw in front of me collectively throughout the hospices I visited was that this care extended out beyond the person who was unwell to include their family, their whānau, and the support available before and after their death. Regardless of where a person lives, the philosophy of care does not change, and these services are free of charge. Not one hospice staffer, chief executive, or management team I met with said that they could not do with more funding to remove the extra stress and pressure they are facing.

In the 2015 Budget we saw palliative health care receive a $76.1 million injection of funds. The catch was that this was to be spent over a 4-year period, up until 2019. This year we have seen palliative health care receive a measly $13 million—$13 million. That tells our hospices that they are going to get less but they need to do more. What this tells me is that the Government is giving up. It is giving up on our vulnerable terminally ill citizens. New Zealanders need to keep a close eye on what is really happening under this National-led Government and right under our noses. Forget the glory-seeking, backslapping, mighty, “pat ourselves on the back” behaviour, and take a really good hard look at the figures and the state of underfunding for palliative health care in this country.

This 2016 Budget, as my colleague Denis O’Rourke has pointed out, is nothing more than a boring Budget that is all glued together with a piece of band-aid, and, quite conveniently, I think that is just what this Government wants, so that it can talk it up and talk it up to the members of the community.

There are 29 hospices around New Zealand that provide free health care and support to members of our communities, and those are 29 communities that this National-led Government relies on fundamentally. So these are the facts. In 2014 we saw that hospices were $43 million short of funding. In 2014, nationally, hospice needs totalled $99 million. In 2015 hospices were $45 million short of funding. In 2015, nationally, hospice needs totalled and tipped over $100 million. In 2016, nationally, hospice needs will total well over $100 million, and if we look at the trend it is glaringly obvious—the massive underfunding of our palliative health care services.

But wait, there is more. As an essential health provider, hospices do receive the majority of their funding from the Government, but, alarmingly, the financial support that the Government relies on is within our communities—that is, the fund-raising that our communities are providing, which is absolutely critical to keeping hospices open to look after our most loved and vulnerable family members. I congratulate the hundreds of volunteers who give every bit of time they can to local hospices. In 2014 that equated to 1 million hours, and I congratulate the hidden volunteers who keep the drink trolleys topped up each week; the flowers gifted to volunteer hospices; community funding and partnerships such as the Tree of Remembrance, which donated more than $675,000 to hospices; and investment partners that raise funds for hospices that have exceeded $1 million. There are too many to name—there are simply too many to name.

Ten years ago the annual operating costs for hospices nationally totalled $30 million. Fast-forward to 2015, and they topped over $100 million. The 2016 projections show that this will go even higher. The challenge that hospices now face is a double-edged sword, with dramatic increases in palliative health care demand and the ever-increasing funding constraints that apply multiple stresses within these premises, which include a serious shortfall of clinical expertise, particularly of senior palliative care specialists. New Zealand First does not support this Budget. We do not support that still, a year later, our palliative health care is being underfunded.

It is a pleasure to take a call on behalf of New Zealand First. We in New Zealand First believe that this Budget represents another lost opportunity for the Government to take real action for the current health of New Zealanders and for their future health.

The bottom line is that health was underfunded. We know that health outcomes are poor and that they are even worsening here in New Zealand. We were pleased to see the increase in funds, but we thought it could have really gone further. When we looked at it and assessed it we decided that it would not matter how much went into health because it would never be enough. Of course, we know that New Zealanders want certainty when it comes to their health care. The bottom line is that we cannot just keep throwing money at health and expecting a different outcome, because it is never going to be enough. We lost the opportunity to change the way that we do things.

Perhaps we need to do some things differently, like ensuring that our SuperGold cardholders can actually go and visit the doctor and stay out of hospital, because we know the hospitals are overworked and that some SuperGold cardholders find it very difficult to actually leave hospital and go and resume life again. So that could have been considered. There could have even been some consideration given to private health insurers, making private health insurance more attractive for people who can afford it—because that means that the burden on the State is actually lessened.

I was interested to see that preventative health programmes were not even mentioned. We have got the third-highest rate of obesity in the OECD: one in three Kiwi adults is now obese. It is a critical problem that is a ticking time bomb for our health system. We have had anaesthetists tell us that they are concerned about the extra difficulties that they face when they are anaesthetising obese patients, and the extra cost that comes with caring for these particular patients. And, of course, with obesity there comes a whole range of obesity-related diseases, including joint problems, heart problems, diabetes, and even some cancers. It is a sad fact that our heart disease rate is far worse than the OECD average and our cardiovascular death rate exceeds even that of the US.

So people need some certainty. We know that Kiwis are waiting longer to have the surgery that they want, waiting to get on the waiting list, and that the extra $24 million for elective surgery that was promised within the Budget will not even come close to getting on top of this current problem, which is a shame. Of course, one still is not going to meet the need because we have got an increasing population due to immigration and we have got sharp increases in chronic illnesses. It is simply common sense to carry out operations when they are needed, because then people can get out of hospital quicker and carry on with their lives. It is all too common for all of us MPs to receive horrific stories of Kiwis desperate for operations, left in pain, and waiting until they really want to give up. Many of these people are in desperate situations.

When it comes to aged care, we were quite surprised to see that there was nothing in this Budget for aged care. We know that the over-65 age group is set to double to 1.2 million people in 20 years. There was no increase in funding for aged care and dementia services within the district health board allocations, and no increase in aged care services directly through the Ministry of Health. When we had a closer look, we saw that in this particular area funding from the Ministry of Health had been discontinued—$700,000 worth of funding had actually gone, which is a shame because it is sorely needed.

We were sorry to see that despite the increase in funds, the need is still greater than what is there.

I call Matt Doocey—5 minutes.

It is a pleasure to rise and speak in the appropriations debate. New Zealanders are voting with their feet. Many New Zealanders are coming back home because New Zealand is a fantastic place to live, but what we should not lose focus on is that thousands of young Kiwis every year continue to go overseas on that great Kiwi tradition, the OE. It is fantastic for our young Kiwis: they go overseas—London, Europe, further afield—and they expand their world view. All these young Kiwis will travel to a range of countries around the world and they pretty quickly realise that in a globalised world countries choose to be competitive—and if they are competitive they improve the well-being of their people and they protect the environment—or countries choose not to be competitive. It is as stark as that. It is a choice, and it is great to live in a country that has a competitive economy, engaging in a globalised world, that is improving the well-being of our people and protecting our environment.

As deputy chair of the Social Services Committee I just want to focus briefly on the announcement of $652 million into social investment. There will be many economic boffins trying to explain social investment as allocated efficiency, where you cut up the pie to get good returns, but the people on the street in my electorate in Waimakariri know that social investment is about spending money wisely and getting the best bang for your buck.

That is exactly what this Government is doing. In our welfare manifesto we set out that we are going to reduce welfare dependency by 25 percent and reduce the future liability of welfare dependency to the New Zealand taxpayer by $13 billion. What we are going to do in this Budget around social investment is that we have got $61 million that goes directly into expanding our youth services—that is, working with our vulnerable young people and getting them into education, employment, and training, because we know that when you look at people who go on the benefit, 70 percent of long-term beneficiaries go on the benefit before the age of 20. For those young people who go on the benefit by the age of 18 or 19, the average time they spend on it is 13 years. But what we do know is that for those young people who get off the benefit, 70 percent of them do so in the first 6 months of getting on the jobseeker allowance. So we know that we have got a 6-month window of opportunity, and that is why the $61 million investment will be supporting vulnerable young people to get into education, to get into employment, and to get into training.

The focus of our youth services is not only to reduce the risk of long-term dependence on the welfare system; it is to improve social outcomes. Many of the young people in youth services have children of their own. The focus is also to ensure that they get National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 2, to go on and be productive members of New Zealand. When you talk about the $61 million, it will be in intensive and active wraparound services. These young people have complex and challenging needs, and we need to make sure they get the wraparound services that they need. When you look at this cohort of young people 38 percent have been victims of domestic violence, 76 percent have been victims of emotional neglect, 5 percent have been homeless, 5 percent have been victims of sexual abuse, and pretty much all of them have disengaged from the mainstream education system. That is why the $61 million of social investment in our vulnerable young people will get them into education, employment, and training.

We know this works—research shows that $1 invested into our youth services reduces a future liability of $2.53. That is smart investment, that is a smart Budget, and I commend the Budget to the House.

What a fabulous Budget we are debating this evening. The Budget is targeted investment that focuses on results. That is the difference between this side and the other side. I will give you a couple of examples: $2.2 billion into health. It is not just thrown about; it is targeted. There is more money in Pharmac, for example. Melanoma treatments, hepatitis C treatments, affecting 50,000 Kiwis—that is targeted investment. A colon cancer programme—that is targeted investment, with Wairarapa being one of the first district health boards to receive that programme. Representing the Wairarapa, I say that I am very appreciative that we in the Wairarapa are the first to see that programme.

Targeted investment in education—we do not just throw more money at education; we focus it on those most in need. So there is $43 million going to follow kids who are most in need—not necessarily decile 1, 2, or 3, but focused on the kids whom we know are at risk. There is targeted investment in the social investment programme that we talk about: understanding what creates the dysfunction in the family and investing in the cause of the dysfunction. Minister Tolley is doing a fabulous job of focusing investment in that area.

None of this can be achieved without a strong economy, and that is what we have got. We have got an economy that is growing at about 3 percent per annum. It is one of the strongest-growing in the OECD and of comparable countries on the planet. More jobs, higher wages—200,000 new jobs are being created, and 170,000 are due to be created in the next few years. There are forecast surpluses—and quite good-sized surpluses—in 18 to 19 years. There are more resources available to be invested in the targeted fashion that I referred to. Of course, Kiwis are voting with their feet, as mentioned by my colleague Matt Doocey. Kiwis are voting with their feet. They are staying because things are in good shape.

And what have we heard from the other side? What have we heard? We have heard more of a gunshot approach. In fact, we have not even heard a gunshot approach, really. They have not regurgitated the tertiary—

💬 Sue Moroney: Well, is it or is it not?

Where was the tertiary education policy? Why did you not repeat your tertiary education policy that the Opposition talked about previously, where everyone gets a free education, where everyone rolls up and says: “Get on board. Here’s a free ride.”?

Then there is the universal benefit idea. That is the idea where you can get all the benefits, cancel everything, throw out the Working for Families credits, and everyone gets 11,000 bucks—everyone. Then there is the housing programme—100,000 houses are just going to turn up because of the Labour Party policy; 100,000 houses are just going to turn up out of nowhere. Who is going to pay for that? Have a guess at how much 100,000 houses would cost, at half a million bucks each. Do your numbers—that is a $50 billion work programme.

Who is going to pay for all of these gunshot policies? It is the taxpayer. The taxpayer—you forget about the taxpayer. Those guys over on that side forget about the taxpayer. Instead of having any half-decent policy, what do they do? What do they say? They throw up a little distraction. They say they have got a new girlfriend or a new boyfriend; they have got a nice little relationship, and that is their announcement, as far as policy from the Labour Party goes.

It is disappointing. In fact, it is going to be hamstringing the Labour Party, because those people on the far left of this House, those people on the far left—physically, that is where they are—are going to be pulling the Labour Party towards them. Those policies of the far left are going to be wagging the dog that is, or should be, the Labour Party, unfortunately. This country is in good shape, the Budget is a fine one, and I commend it to the House.

Thank you for this opportunity to contribute to the Budget 2016 debate. You may recall that in my maiden speech I pledged to bring the voices of the people of Manukau East into our nation’s conversation. I came to Parliament wanting to do my best to ensure that our Government is one that works for everyone, including my constituents in South Auckland, as well as for ordinary New Zealanders—those hard-working people who work two full-time jobs, and some who work a full-time job and an additional part-time job, but they still just cannot make ends meet.

Over the week before this Budget announcement there were a lot of discussions about working families living in cars, working families living in garages, and homelessness in New Zealand in general. I was very hopeful that Budget 2016 would actually address those folk living in cars, and families living in garages. But I was bitterly disappointed because Budget 2016 does not provide relief for those families. Budget 2016 did not provide long-term solutions to comprehensively address homelessness or the housing crisis. This Budget did not deliver comprehensive solutions for homelessness or, indeed, for the housing crisis. This Budget was a great opportunity for the Government to show leadership in the area of housing, and it did not.

In Auckland, where the average price of a house today is over $950,000, most families that come to my office in Ōtara seeking advice do not come asking for assistance to purchase a house worth just under a million dollars. Unfortunately, many of my constituents come to seek assistance because they can no longer afford to pay the high, unaffordable weekly rent. Many of these working families have been pushed out of the housing market and unfortunately they are now living in cars, in garages, or in other such places in the freezing cold winter in Aotearoa New Zealand. Low-income families are disproportionately affected when weekly rents continue to rise, and they have no control over the kinds of rents that landlords charge.

Just last week the University of Otago released a study where it told us that there are over 40,000 people who are now homeless. When comparing the census figures of 2013 with the census figures of 2006 and those of 2001 it is a staggering number to hear that we now have over 40,000 people who are homeless in New Zealand. But New Zealand is a country where we are supposed to have a safety net for our most vulnerable children, and for our elderly who are now also living in cars and garages. Under this current National Government this safety net has a big hole, and it is not ensuring that the hole is patched up. The level of homeownership is the lowest that it has ever been in 65 years. What does this Budget 2016 propose to address homelessness or, indeed, State housing? The National Government announced $41 million for homelessness. When it was first announced by the Minister for Social Housing in this House, she said that the $41 million was for 3,000 new places, but we know that the Minister—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The members who are carrying on a conversation would be better off sitting alongside one another.

We know that this Minister had to come back to this House and correct her statement, because it turned out that these places were not new places after all.

This is the Government of smoke and mirrors, and this is the Government that, when families are homeless and when we do not have enough emergency housing, would actually recommend that those particular families go to live in motels—except they will have to pay back the $1,200 or $1,300 per week for having lived in that motel. So let us see, what other solutions has this National Government come up with to address the housing crisis and homelessness? Well, it has passed legislation to sell off thousands of our State houses, and in this Budget it has put aside $7.5 million to sell off our State houses. This is the Government that promised us that it would not sell off any more of our assets. The last time I looked, I think we could actually say that our State houses—our social housing—are indeed one of the biggest assets that taxpayers own in this country. It is yet another broken promise from this Government.

Instead of ensuring that our homeless families are housed, that our vulnerable children and our elderly folk who are living in cars and garages are indeed housed, instead of housing themselves in a car or in a garage, what does this current Government do? Its solution is to sell off the State houses, precisely at the time when we are experiencing a housing crisis, when rent is becoming so unaffordable, and when first-home buyers are actually finding it really hard just to get their foot in the door. This National Government has sold off nearly 3,000 of our State houses since 2011. At the same time, we are seeing nearly 5,000 people across New Zealand who are on the waiting list for a State house. These people, I contend, should indeed be housed. What else do we see in this National Budget of 2016? We see the social investment approach. Apparently, it is to target money to the most at-risk kids. But, apparently, housing our most at-risk, vulnerable kids is not part of this investment approach. Having a house is a basic human need. Our kids—indeed, our vulnerable children especially—should be housed.

But, you know, I am really heartened that we actually have people in Aotearoa New Zealand who get it. We have people who actually care and who are actually addressing homelessness on a practical level. I would like to acknowledge and thank Te Puea Marae in Māngere for opening up its doors to homeless people in Māngere, and saying: “We are here to assist you. We are here to care for you. Indeed, your right to a roof is the Government’s job and I would have also thought it was to say ‘We are here to care for you.’.” Another organisation is the Salvation Army; it has done this work for many, many years. Another NGO is Monte Cecilia House, which houses vulnerable families, again, in Māngere. And the City Mission has indeed served our homeless families for many, many years. Recently, I have also had Samoan and Tongan churches from my electorate reach out to me, saying that they would also like to assist to feed our homeless people.

But it is more than that. I am heartened because I have also had individuals reach out to me, saying that they have spare bedrooms in their homes, saying that they have a spare room in an office, and even saying that they have land so that if people would like to come and park their caravan on that land, they can also do that. Just today, I have even had a builder and his wife come to me to say that they can put insulation in a garage and put carpet down so that a family can be warm. I am really heartened that we have caring people in New Zealand who step up where the Government should be stepping up to care for our vulnerable families.

Two days ago in Auckland, the outside temperature went down as low as 4 degrees Celsius. I can only imagine what it would be like—what it would feel like—if you actually lived in a car, or if you actually lived in a garage, to then also live in such a cold 4 degrees - type place. My challenge to everyone in this House, but especially to those on the opposite side, is to come out on 16 June. We have “Park up for Homes: Māngere”. For those members of Parliament, especially on the opposite side of the House, who do not know what it is like but are curious to know what it is like to live in a car, come out and experience it at least for one night. Maybe then you might care a little bit more for homeless families living in cars. Thank you very much.

I am going to give only a very brief speech so that the Associate Minister of Finance can get a full 10-minute speech in.

If there is one conclusion that we can take from the Budget delivered a couple of weeks ago, it is that New Zealand is very lucky to have at the helm the Hon Bill English, the Minister of Finance in this country. This is because New Zealanders have not just voted in elections on what they think about the New Zealand economy; they have actually voted with their feet and they are moving back to this country. They are moving back to this country because they know that economic prosperity lies in New Zealand and they know that their future opportunities lie in New Zealand—for them and their families. This National-led Government is delivering that. We are seeing more investment in our economy through this Budget. We are seeing wages going up under this Budget. We are seeing unemployment coming down under this Budget, and more New Zealanders are living a successful life.

I think one of the greatest statistics that I saw come out of the Budget was that under a National-led Government 40,000 fewer children are living in benefit-dependent homes. That is a great statistic, and one that we should be proud of. We are proud of the successes that we are having in this country. More people have jobs under National. More people are getting operations under National. Fewer crimes are being committed under National. There are more doctors and nurses under National. There are more police under National. We are growing faster than many of the countries we compare ourselves with. When you look at the US, the UK, Canada, and Europe, they are envious of the fast-growing New Zealand economy.

Labour can do everything it wants to try to pooh-pooh what we are doing, but the bottom line is it cannot even make 30 percent in the polls—it has to go and have a quickie marriage with the Green Party to find some friends. I tweeted after Andrew Little’s speech that it was an 8 percent effort but, actually, it was a 7 percent effort, which we have found out tonight. New Zealanders are voting with their feet. They are choosing an economy where they have jobs. They are choosing an economy where their children have future opportunities, where we are investing more in hospitals, where we are investing more in housing, where we are investing more in schools. And we are seeing the results from that.

The Labour Party is no longer the party that stands by New Zealanders. I know its members are upset because it is a National Government that has increased paid parental leave. It is a National Government that has delivered free doctors visits for the under-13s. It is a National Government that has increased benefits by $25 a week—for the first time in four decades. New Zealanders know that Bill English and John Key are where their fortunes lie, and this is a Budget that is for all New Zealanders and I commend it to the House.

If you had been listening to the Opposition members over the last few days since this Budget, you would think the country was all doom and gloom. They have just had a wedding, and yet they are already out of the honeymoon phase. The honeymoon is over.

I want to stand up and put on the record, in no uncertain terms, a huge congratulations to Bill English for what I think is an absolutely awesome Budget. It is a Budget that is sound, it is a Budget that is solid, and it is a Budget that is actually delivering for New Zealand and New Zealanders. Actually, you still hear that doom and gloom from the Opposition members. I almost think they have done what I thought was kind of impossible—and I did not think was actually possible, too much—they make Bill English sound positively optimistic and bursting with positivity, which, of course, that man is. And why should he not be, when we are looking at growth rates of 2.8 percent, when we have projections of another 170,000 jobs coming on board, and when we are seeing the average wage rise to $63,000—that is real money in real New Zealanders’ pockets making a real difference for them and their families—and when you have got projections of unemployment falling to below 5 percent?

We should take a moment for this, in all seriousness. You see, Bill English, actually, when we needed it in this country—when we were in the global financial crisis, when we were seeing Christchurch need it—and when we were in deficits of $18.5 billion, turned that around last year to surpluses. We have got surpluses projected of $700 million and then going right up to that 2.5 percent. That deserves a round of applause for Bill English and the work he is doing.

He is paying off debt, as you would expect, as many households do themselves. When they can they spend that money that they have to, but then they actually start paying it back as they can. We are well on projections to have our core Crown deficits below 20 percent by 2020-21, peaking this year at 25.6 percent. I think that that is pretty extraordinary and it is unsurprising that it is the envy of many in the world when you can see those sorts of numbers.

Let us get to numbers, and there is one that I reckon has not, perhaps, had the attention that it could have—and, quite frankly, I blame some of it on Dr Coleman because his health budget things were so great. We are seeing such big numbers in health, and we are seeing such big numbers in new schools being built, but I do just want to concentrate just a little bit on that $761 million package for Innovative New Zealand. If I can put my Minister for Climate Change Issues hat on for one second and just say that $411 million invested in science and innovation is actually investing in our kids, in us right now, and in our futures and what is coming through. Equally, you can see that investment coming into climate change and you can see that making an absolute difference in that area.

Tertiary education is getting its fair share of this money, and, I think, it is making a huge difference when it really comes down to it. The list goes on, and I know Opposition members get a little bit bored with it—but it is because there is so much happening. Let us go to public infrastructure. I mean, it is massive. We are talking new schools, we are talking new classrooms, we are talking over $880 million—investing in our children and their education. I have heard much rhetoric from the Opposition—lots of little different bits chipping in about how this is not about the kids and their future—and then we see numbers like that, which make a real difference.

Let us move to health—

💬 Hon Members: Oh!

—$2.2 billion. Thank you. [Interruption] Unnecessary—unnecessary, honestly. But the actual health budget in this does deserve a round of applause—those members are absolutely correct. Let me get my numbers right: we have got $1.6 billion going into district health boards and another $169 million going to disability support. We have got ambulance services; mental health is getting more money; we have got bowel cancer screening, which is literally lifesaving; we have pharmaceuticals coming out—which, of course, we have heard some incredibly sad stories about, and it is a privilege to be in Government and able to put that money in so that we can help those people who really need it; and we have the elective surgeries, and the numbers that are going on there are absolutely massive.

I would also like to talk about the money that is going into housing—

💬 Hon Members: Oh!

—and that is extraordinary. Thank you. I am just—it is lovely. Are you feeling it? I am feeling it. I am feeling the glow. Thank you very much.

This is the Government that for the very first time is actually putting money into emergency housing. [Interruption] There is $41 million going into emergency housing. They can make as much noise as they like, but Labour never put funding into emergency housing and gave them certainty of funding to keep their doors open when they needed it. They can carp on, but the truth is that it is this Government that is delivering for all New Zealanders.

We are seeing $200 million more go into social housing to pay for those houses—more than 750 new houses on top of the more than 1,000 that are currently being built and are making a genuine difference for those people who are in need. We can hear rhetoric or we can see a building programme that is making an actual difference, and that is what you are seeing on this side of the House.

What I also want to touch on is the social investment package. I do want to touch on the social investment package because it is very, very important. More than $650 million is going into those more vulnerable children and their families and making a substantial difference for them. That is new money that is going into those very kids who are doing it the hardest in this country. It is about actually targeting your funding in the right place for the right length of time. That will make the right difference.

If I can pick up on how you can see the difference that is happening within that social investment spend—and let us get to some real numbers here. When we did the first valuation of welfare liability it was at $86 billion. The latest valuation, under Minister Tolley, is now $68.4 billion. That is an $18 billion difference. They might not say that that is about real people, but it is about real people. What that means is we have 55,000 fewer children—that is the population of Rotorua—who are no longer growing up in welfare-dependent homes. They have got hope, their parents have got jobs, and they have got real opportunities—and that has happened under this Minister and this Government, and it is absolutely making a difference.

We can do better; we can always do better. When you look at social investment and you start pulling in the spend from health, the spend from education, and the spend within Child, Youth and Family, the spend and the data that come together, you recognise the hardship of those families and that they have not got there overnight. It has been decades of neglect, quite frankly, and deprivation that has led them to where they are. This is the Government that is stepping up, that is putting the money in where it is actually needed, and that is making the biggest difference for those more vulnerable families.

We are seeing the benefits of last year’s Budget. We are seeing the extra money that went into beneficiaries’ pockets for the first time in, literally, 40 years, and which made one of the biggest differences that we have seen.

This Budget this year is a Budget about infrastructure. It is a Budget about investing in our future when it comes to Innovative New Zealand. It is a Budget that gets to the heart of New Zealanders for the health, the education, the justice, the law and order, and the education and social welfare that matter the most to them. It is a Budget that actually delivers in the future when you look at growth and you look at debt coming down. It is the hard work and dedication of people like Bill English who tirelessly work for this country, giving people security and sensible policy and options in a Budget that fundamentally makes the biggest difference. Alongside a leader like John Key, who backs him with that kind of commitment that we see for this country, this is a Budget that has delivered. I commend it to the House.

The question is that the amendment in the name of the Leader of the Opposition be agreed to.