Appropriation (2015/16 Supplementary Estimates) Bill, Imprest Supply (First for 2016/17) Bill

I have been looking forward to the opportunity to speak on this legislation, particularly after the contribution of the previous speaker, David Bennett, who, I think, illustrated a point I wanted to make in my speech, which is that there is no plan from this Government. These supplementary estimates, which we are debating today, make that abundantly clear. The supplementary estimates, for people at home, come out in a volume like this. You can get them on a computer as well. They are in a pretty solid book, usually in a blue cover, produced by Treasury, and they indicate the areas in which the Government has moved money around in the year that has passed. The Government does it to make sure there is appropriate accounting treatment for the money that has been spent.

The member who spoke previously would have us believe a whole lot of bunkum, if we took his speech at face value. He did not speak at all about the supplementary estimates. I propose to differ from his approach and actually speak a little to the supplementary estimates in my speech, novel though that may seem in such a debate. I also just want to set the record straight on a couple of things that he raised.

The first thing he said was that the Cullen Government was not a good manager of the economy, or words to similar effect. The Cullen Government ran nine surpluses in a row. I cannot claim any credit for that—I was not a Minister in that Government; I was not even a member of Parliament when the last Labour Government was here—but what I can say is that I have done the sums myself and Labour grew the economy 25 percent real. Once you strip out inflation and all of that kind of stuff, it grew the economy 25 percent—real. Labour genuinely grew the economy, and it ran nine surpluses out of nine Budgets—nine surpluses in a row. I think the facts speak for themselves. This Government, by contrast, has borrowed more money than Robert Muldoon’s Government borrowed. It has generated deficit after deficit after deficit after deficit after deficit after deficit, and, finally, it has squeaked a couple of surpluses home through a bit of jiggery-pokery. And that is the economic record that we debating here today.

All those fine words that that member read out to the House do not address those fundamental facts of history: the last Labour Government grew the economy; this Government has struggled to make ends meet. Part of the problem, I would argue, is laid bare in these supplementary estimates. There is no plan—there is no dream of sharing the economy amongst the members of our citizenry. Government members are not interested in sharing any economic gains with middle New Zealand. Most New Zealanders are missing out. Under the last Labour Government over 50 percent of the gains went to ordinary working people. Under this Government most people are missing out. Only 37 percent of the minimal gains have been accruing to working New Zealanders, and that lays bare a fundamental approach to the economy, which is that the Government is just not interested in the interests of most New Zealanders.

I flicked through the Supplementary Estimates, because I enjoy looking through these things—it is a slightly awkward thing to admit to, but I enjoy having a flick through. I was looking through them and stumbled across the supplementary estimates for the Inland Revenue Department (IRD), and I remembered, of course, that the Business Transformation project, the grandly titled computer rebuild at the IRD, was one of the big infrastructure projects claimed by this Government as part of its Budget—the infrastructure project being a central government computer. That is the great vision: replacing what we already have.

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: The big hit.

That is the big hit, as Mr Cosgrove says. That is the vision. So in the Supplementary Estimates we find a line that says “a transfer of $717,000 from 2014/15 to 2015/16 for restructuring costs.” That is the grand vision that we find in the Supplementary Estimates. Then we find something about this rebuild—“a fiscally neutral adjustment of ($2.100 million) to reflect Inland Revenue’s funding contribution to the business transformation programme”. This is the kind of thing we find in this document. It is moving small amounts around in a fiscally neutral fashion—if you are lucky—with a transfer here, a fiscally neutral adjustment there. That is the range of exciting plans on show from the Government in the Supplementary Estimates.

What else do we notice if we look through this document further? What we find in there is that there are delays noted in here. The reason that the Government has a little bit more money in its pocket to spend on some issues is that it did not get around to spending it last year. So the Christchurch rebuild delays contributed to the changes in this document. We find that the slow roll-out of broadband contributed to some of the changes that had to be noted in this document. We find that some outstanding earthquake claims that have been written off because the Government has not managed to process them well are in this document.

We also find that there is a reduction in capital expenditure for district health boards at the very time we know that the Southern District Health Board needs a $300 million refit of the clinical services building that sits in Dunedin Hospital. We know that that needs to happen—we know a rebuild needs to happen—but this Government keeps pushing out the expenditure year after year after year. Tony Ryall was going to bring a plan to this House to rebuild Dunedin Hospital, and he has gone. Then arrived Minister Coleman. He said “I will commit to that. I will have it done just as Mr Ryall suggested.”, and then he shifted it out. Then he shifted it to the end of the year, and now he has shifted it to a bunch of commissioners, who have no fixed deadline, as best I can tell, for delivering a capital rebuild project to Cabinet. They keep pushing it out. So in here we find more adjustments because they have not spent their capital allocation.

So here is the kind of jiggery-pokery that is in here—it is about a Government that is not doing what it says it will do. It has a limited vision for what it will do and, even then, it is not delivering on it. That is what these supplementary estimates tell us when we actually look through them.

We can also see that there is $50 million put aside because the number of unemployment beneficiaries is higher than forecast. So in these documents we have an extra $55 million allocated for a higher number of unemployment beneficiaries. It speaks to the Government’s success once again—it is an economy that is working in the interests of the ultra-wealthy, and middle New Zealand is missing out. Those who are struggling, those who have hit hard times, and middle New Zealand are missing out. They are missing out in this Budget and in these supplementary estimates documents.

We also find in there a reduction in the programme for investing in education success, and what more would you expect from this Government? We also find that the forecast tax credit for KiwiSaver is down because people are earning less and, therefore, the KiwiSaver contributions are less overall because the forecast wage growth has simply not eventuated. This is a Government overseeing a stagnant economy and content to manage decline. Those members are content to manage decline. That seems to be the vision that we find in this document here.

I look forward to some more contributions from those opposite to explain how exciting managing decline can be. That may well be what we hear from the next speaker—I think it is Mr Bishop. I can see him poised, sitting on the edge of his seat, ready to tell us that, actually, “managed decline” is one term for it but there is a much more exciting term and that is “managing the economy well”, or some such story.

Those members do not have an answer to the fact that GDP per capita has been absolutely flat or the fact that most New Zealanders have not seen salary or wage increases, that most New Zealanders are missing out and that the share of wealth going to the top 10 percent of New Zealanders is now at 60 percent in the recent study that came out, that we have growing inequalities, that homeownership rates are the lowest they have been since 1951, that they have underfunded the health system by $1.7 billion in the last 6 years, and that they have capped operational spending on education. This is a Government with no vision but to manage decline. It is not interested in the Kiwi Dream like we in the Labour Party are. We would have made sure that 100,000 new houses were planned for. We would have made sure that the health and education systems were properly funded. But this is the Government’s document. This is the National Government’s document. Those members are content to manage decline. Shame on them. This is not what New Zealand deserves.

Budget 2016 was delivered by our great Minister of Finance at a time of great global economic uncertainty, and, actually, those uncertainties have only increased in recent days with Brexit—the British exit from the European Union. I was thinking over the weekend, as I remained transfixed, watching the BBC coverage and the Sky News coverage on television, and reflecting on the seismic political and economic events in my lifetime. I was 6, possibly 7, when the Berlin Wall fell. I do not really remember the Berlin Wall falling, but I certainly remember 9/11. I certainly remember the attack on the twin towers, and I was thinking over the weekend about what is comparable to 9/11. I do not think Brexit meets it, but it is certainly probably second in terms of the big political and economic events of my lifetime.

I have got to say that I am a bit of an optimist about the exit from the European Union by Britain. I think Britain is fundamentally a great country and its history demonstrates that it is versatile and adaptive, and it will cope with exiting from the European Union as indeed we will cope with it as well. The initial response from the markets in the short term was panic, I think, in the few hours post the decision as we watched during the day on Friday as those leave votes tallied up in the north-east and then increasingly around the country. Is it not an interesting irony of the whole situation that all the exciting things in British politics happen in the middle of the night? They vote till 10 o’clock, the results come in at 4 a.m., and it is nice for us because it is 4 in the afternoon and we can watch it all happen.

I think economic uncertainty has increased in the days following the Brexit vote, so the question really is now, more than ever before, we need a Budget like Budget 2016, which this Appropriation Bill gives effect to, and we need a Government that knows where it is going—that provides the stability and the economic confidence that will allow New Zealand to continue to make its way in the world. I think this Budget does three things that are very important in light of the global economic uncertainty—and we had the Reserve Bank officials in at the Finance and Expenditure Committee, which I am privileged to serve on, a couple of weeks ago, talking about how global growth is still weak despite very stimulatory monetary policy around the world.

We look at the EU and we see anaemic growth; we look at the United States and we see fundamentally anaemic and sclerotic growth rates. So this is a time of uncertainty, and I think this Budget does three things that are very important. Firstly, it moves to increasingly diversify our economy; secondly, it tries to build an economy based around innovation, and based around science and technology; and, thirdly—and this Appropriation Bill gives effect to this—it is a Budget that tries to expand our opportunities on the international stage and that tries to grow our export markets, and that is incredibly important in light of the British exit from the European Union.

On that first point, about the diversification of the New Zealand economy, when Britain entered the EU in the 1970s, it is fair to say that New Zealand did not respond well, and that it was a cataclysmic shock to the New Zealand economy when 60 or 70 percent of our exports went to Britain and that was cut very quickly—not quite overnight, but very, very quickly beyond that. In 2016 we are in a much better position to cope with Britain’s exit from the European Union because we have an increasingly diverse export base, in terms of both the types of goods and services we export and the places to which they go. The fourth Labour Government, from 1984 onwards, deserves a lot of credit for the important changes to the New Zealand economy that it enacted, which have led to that situation—changes that Labour members have turned their backs on in some ways, I suggest to the House.

This Budget builds on past measures by past Governments to diversify the economy, and we are increasingly seeing our ICT sector that we are blessed to have in Wellington and the Hutt Valley—or, as I call it, “Technology Valley”—booming. Exports are growing at record pace. Jobs are being added into that sector of the economy—the report out just last week demonstrated just that. If you look at reports like the TIN100 Industry Analysis and the TIN200 report, you will see exactly the same. Our tourism sector, under the guidance of Paula Bennett as Associate Minister of Tourism and, of course, the Prime Minister as Minister of Tourism, is going great guns.

Something else in the Estimates I want to point to is something that I know is of real importance to our regional MPs—people like Sarah Dowie and Stuart Smith—and that is the regional research institutes that are going to increasingly diversify our economy in a regional sense. I was down in Southland last week, with the regional development caucus committee of the National Party, meeting with the great people down there from Venture Southland, the Southland economic development agency, hearing about its plans for its regional institute, which has been shortlisted and is about investing in primary industry productivity. I know my colleague Stuart Smith, from the great wine-growing province of Marlborough, has high hopes for the regional institute that he hopes to establish there—a wine institute. That is exactly what we should be doing as a country—focusing on the regional strengths that we have. Clearly, if you go to a region like Marlborough, or you go down south where they have got aluminium and they have got primary products, or you go to Taranaki with oil and gas, it obviously makes sense to focus on our strengths. This Budget gives effect to those regional institutes, and I think that is a good thing.

The second thing I want to point to is innovation. Every now and then—well, not every now and then; actually, it is a constant refrain from members opposite that we have got to focus on building an innovative economy, we have got to focus on innovation, and those members’ solution to all this is always research and development tax credits. They never take that next step and actually look at the broader picture that we need to be investing in.

What this Budget gives effect to is the Innovative New Zealand package—$761 million across the science sector and across our tertiary sector to invest in the core capabilities of our Crown research institutes, to invest in things like the Pre-seed Accelerator Fund to increase investment for our incubators in New Zealand, and for a range of very important initiatives like that. It is not true to say that this is politically directed flunkeys handing out science money, as one particular member opposite sometimes mentions. Science funding in New Zealand is arm’s length from the Minister. It is given out by independent bodies like the Marsden Fund, and we know it is independent because the Marsden Fund gave Jane Kelsey a large sum of money to issue a study on neo-liberalism and the transcendent nature of it in the public policy sphere. I can assure members that if it was politically directed, the National Government probably would not be funding such a project, but that just illustrates the falsity of the claim that this is something that is politically directed.

It is likewise, too, with the other funds that are funded, like the Endeavour Fund. This Innovative New Zealand package will lead to more commercialisation of scientific discoveries, and if you go to the Callaghan Innovation campus and the precinct that I am privileged to have in my neck of the woods in the Hutt Valley, there is a range of highly innovative companies there doing great things, and this Budget will help support companies like that.

The third thing I want to mention is what this Budget does about expanding our overseas trade opportunities. We have done a lot in this space already, signing free-trade agreements with Malaysia and economic partnerships with Taipei, Hong Kong, Korea, and, of course, the big one of them all, which is the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. Something that has not received a lot of press in the Budget, but I think is really important, is the new initiative that funds the Centres for Asia-Pacific Excellence, which will be based in our universities.

Increasingly, our future is not so much with the EU and UK, or not so much with the old economies that we have traditionally associated with; our future is in Asia, and we need more young kids in our universities and more young students studying Asian languages and studying Asian cultures. That is why we funded things like the Prime Minister’s Scholarships for Asia programme—which is given effect to in this Budget—that sends young New Zealanders offshore to Asian economies and Asian countries to study culture, to learn the language, to enmesh themselves in the cultures of those economies, and then to come back to New Zealand, as they invariably do, and add to the knowledge base of this economy. That is why we fund things like that, and it is why we are funding the Centres for Asia-Pacific Excellence. There are going to be three of them set up. I think that will be a significant and substantive long-term legacy of this Government and this Budget. This is a Government that is focused on building an outwardly focused, confident New Zealand on the world stage.

I want to end my speech by just cycling back to where I started, which is: in a time of global uncertainty, what is the correct policy response? Is it to try to insulate ourselves from the rest of the world? Is it to put up the shutters of “Fortress New Zealand” and retreat to some sort of 1970s utopia that never existed? This Government does not believe that is the right answer. This Government believes the right answer for New Zealand is to be outwardly focused, to be confident on the world stage, and to expand our overseas trade opportunities. I commend this Appropriation Bill to the House.

I rise to speak on the Appropriation (2015/16 Supplementary Estimates) Bill, and I would like to start my comments by responding to some of the comments from previous speakers from the other side of the House. I do, seeing as he raised it, want to touch on Brexit—the decision by the United Kingdom to leave the European Union that was raised by the previous speaker, Chris Bishop.

But I thought that I would start by responding to some of the comments of Mr Bennett, who spoke a bit earlier about how the EU was a failed State. I would imagine that some of the EU ambassadors will shortly be making their way to Mr Bennett’s door, because I do think that the European Union does not fit the definition of a failed State, and neither do any of the countries inside the European Union. Germany, for example, has a higher productivity rate than New Zealand. Germany’s wages are higher than New Zealand’s. Its environmental standards are higher than New Zealand’s. Its employment relations are stronger than New Zealand’s. Germany is moving further and faster on climate change than New Zealand. Germany is also pulling its weight substantially when it is coming to resettling refugees from Syria and other distressed countries. I think that it is an extraordinary assertion to suggest that it is a failed State.

Moving on to Brexit, to the decision by the United Kingdom to withdraw from the European Union—and it is relevant to this Appropriation Bill because in his analysis that this kind of appropriation bill giving effect to this Budget is exactly what we need for this kind of time of instability—Mr Bishop overlooks the fact that it is exactly this kind of Budget and appropriation that leads to the underlying social and economic conditions that give people a reason to vote for leaving the European Union.

Because the very same set of conditions in the UK that led to the rise in discontent in the United Kingdom with the people who are running the United Kingdom, with immigrants coming into the United Kingdom, with the general state of affairs is what drove that protest vote and the decision to leave the European Union. It is exactly the same set of social and economic conditions that is giving rise to Donald Trump in the United States. It is rising inequality, where you can have an extended period of significant increase in GDP but, at the same time, a large portion of the population is getting left further and further behind. That is the trend in the United States, it is the trend in the United Kingdom, and it is also the trend here. We did start later. It started here in about 1991, whereas it had been going on in the United States since the late 1970s and in Britain since the early 1980s, but the same trend does exist here, and if it continues you will see the same kind of resentment and backlash that built up in both of those countries present here today. That gives rise to populism and to nationalism. It gives rise to anti-immigrant feelings and to social discord. We absolutely cannot let that continue in New Zealand, and it is exactly the kinds of policies that are enacted in this Appropriation Bill.

Today we had the news from Statistics New Zealand, from the household net worth statistics, that the top 10 percent of New Zealand households now own half of the country’s total wealth. So 10 percent of our families own half of our wealth, while the bottom 40 percent of families own just 3 percent of the wealth. So you have got 10 percent owning half the wealth and 40 percent owning 3 percent of the wealth and that trend is continuing. And that is exactly what we saw in the United Kingdom, and it is exactly what we are seeing in the United States and in several other countries as well. When you have the kind of wealth inequality that is that stark, and when it is growing, it is clear that the economy is not working for everyone.

So you can have a headline number that says gross domestic product is increasing 2.4 percent a year, and that is, you know, “Great news!”, but if it is not shared in by people all across the economy, then it is not working. The economy is not working. That is what you are seeing here. That kind of wealth inequality is driving the housing crisis, particularly with the kinds of measures that you continue to see in this Budget, which enable people who are already property owners—it is extremely easy for them to leverage their existing assets to buy yet more assets, whereas people who want to buy their first home are completely locked out of the market. It means that you have got people who cannot afford their rents any more.

Many of the people who are living in garages and in three-bedroom houses with 11 people in them—these are people with jobs. They actually have jobs, and so when, I think it was, Anne Tolley asserted in the last few days that National’s plan for eliminating poverty is to grow the economy, well, the economy has been growing at the same time as poverty. Poverty has been growing in this country all of these years, even while gross domestic product has been increasing. So the fact that GDP is growing, actually, is meaningless just by itself in terms of what that means for people at the bottom of the heap. If the kinds of policies that the Government is enacting continue to be applied, then those people will continue to get further and further behind.

What you have had here in New Zealand since about 1991 is that the top third of income earners in New Zealand have done very well, so their incomes have increased. People in the middle—we call it the squeezed middle; the middle third of income earners—have just managed to increase, but as cost of living has increased as well they are holding on by their absolute fingernails. They are getting increasingly conservative because they are worried that any change will rock the boat and that will cause them to slip under the waves. But, in the meantime, the bottom 30 percent of income earners in this country have got further and further behind because their incomes have been rising lower than the cost of living has been increasing, so they have actually been going backwards in this country.

These are exactly the kinds of outcomes that are exacerbated by the Budget this year and by the Appropriation Bill that we are debating here today, which gives effect to that Budget. I concur with the previous speaker, Chris Bishop, that these are uncertain times and that we need to navigate carefully, but the problem is that Mr Bishop’s Government is doing exactly the same kind of thing that the United States and the UK did that created the conditions that caused the kind of resentment that is leading to the rise in populism and nationalism and racism in those countries, and that would be a disaster if we allowed that to continue here in New Zealand as well.

We have some other specific criticisms about the Appropriation Bill that is in front of us today, as well. We have said consistently that we were looking for an improvement in the state of our rivers. We have been campaigning on that for many years. The supplementary estimates include $3.816 million for ensuring successful implementation of the national policy statement. But, of course, all that does is maintain a pretty low level of water quality in New Zealand. You would have to say that $3.816 million is not a significant allocation of money.

In housing, this is another perfect example of a Government that is trying to be seen to be doing something while actually doing as little as possible. When it could have been really changing the conditions in this country, it has actually done pretty much nothing at all, just what it can get away with. We need tens of thousands of houses, and this Government is not doing anywhere nearly enough to ensure that that actually takes place.

On climate change, I want to note that there is an additional appropriation here of $115.760 million of allocation of New Zealand Units to trade-exposed emitters—in other words, a subsidy by the Government to our major polluters in this country. So we are handing $115.5 million of public money to the worst polluters in the country—that is, $115 million of free carbon credits to subsidise pollution—and it is no surprise, therefore, that when you subsidise pollution it continues to increase. We learnt about a month ago that the emissions trading scheme, which has now been in existence for 9 years—during that period of time our emissions have actually increased by 20 percent, which is extraordinary. Why would you have an emissions trading scheme if you actually did not want emissions to go down? So this Government is short-sighted and—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Sorry to interrupt—

Very well, Mr Assistant Speaker, I shall sit down.

It gives me pleasure to be able to rise on behalf of New Zealand First and speak to this Appropriation Bill. I would like to be able to get up and talk about something positive, but, unfortunately, we have a job to do. I have police as one of my portfolios, and I need to say on behalf of New Zealand First that we are disappointed. We are disappointed that the Government’s budget for police continues what we see as a flat-line policy. We are disappointed that this Budget continues what is, essentially, a funding freeze that has now stretched out to 6 years and, as a consequence, New Zealand is now seeing a new age of policing that we have seen once before—in the INCIS era, when we were having senior police officers telling us that they were going to have a computer catch crooks at night.

Today we are seeing the thin blue line get stretched to the point of almost becoming emaciated, we are seeing fly-by patrols being talked about, and one new phenomenon we are seeing in this Budget as a result of the funding that has been appropriated is policing by warning and police concentrating staff in big centres at the expense of small-town New Zealand and rural communities. It actually does not matter, really, what the Government says it has done or what this Budget is going to do, and it really probably does not matter what New Zealand First has to say. Contrary to what the Minister of Finance has asserted, which is that crime has dropped by 16 percent, we could say that what we have noticed is a drop in the number of charges that police have lodged, and that drop reflects a massive increase in the number of warnings and cautions that police are giving out instead of charging offenders.

We could point out the official statistics—and, let me assure you, it has not been an easy task to get these statistics, but we have got them. Those statistics we have obtained show that the percentage of incidents that police have attended that resulted in arrests has plummeted from 16.5 percent in 2007 to 13.5 percent in 2015, that from 2008 the total number of incidents police have attended has risen from 420,000 to 525,000 in 2015—up 150,000, or more than 20 percent—and that of these incidents, the number of arrests made during this same period has dropped from 72,000 to 69,000 in 2015. So we could say from the numbers we now have that incidents are up 105,000 and arrests are down 3,000, and, therefore, the Minister of Finance is probably quite right, on his figures, that on his gerrymandering of the numbers—and whatever instructions have been passed on as a result of the negotiations between the Māori Party and the National Party—crime on those numbers is down.

But we do not need to talk about that. All we really need to do is look at the evidence that we are seeing in newspapers daily now about the result in provincial New Zealand, and we can find the evidence in those media reports. For example, from Radio New Zealand on 23 June, “Small towns becoming lawless” say business people in Kawakawa, Kaikohe, and Kaitaia. They say that the flying squad approach is not working and that criminals are getting younger and bolder. Why? Because they know they are not going to get caught. Kaikohe business association spokespeople are saying that there is no police presence in the town. The head of the Kaikohe community board is reported by Radio New Zealand saying that the community is “at the mercy of marauding gangs of youth”. They know where the police are and where they are not, and when they are not around, the youths are “running in and just grabbing what they want and … assaulting the shop keepers while they’re doing it.”, and doing it at liberty, which is exactly the same thing that we are seeing reported out of Auckland.

But it is not just there. Look at Hastings. Its district council is looking to expand its assisted community patrol initiative at further cost to the Hastings ratepayers by about a million dollars. And this is Hastings. The Mayor of Hastings is Lawrence Yule, a man whom the National Party has been having quiet conversations with about replacing Craig Foss because it knows that Lawrence is highly respected, and he is a deep-seated National Party member and supporter. He does not take shots like this on behalf of his community just for the love of it, because Lawrence has been well-known for not actually wanting to criticise National Governments over the years. But it is not just him. There is Roly Ellis from Tararua—now we have a group of 18 mayors, primarily in rural New Zealand, provincial New Zealand, saying that the big cities are getting the attention.

So, however this Budget has shaped up and however we sell it, you have got to say that the Minister of Police must be grinding her teeth at the back, looking at the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister and saying “What the hell are you trying to do to me?”, because these frozen Budgets are having a serious impact in rural provincial New Zealand. Have a look at what is being said in Masterton. In Masterton we have got reports of burglars now. “Burglars have struck Masterton more than 11 times in the last week,”—this is Monday, 13 June—“in some cases stealing from the bedsides of sleeping homeowners.”

💬 Warning: we know—and it was good to have the Minister of Police confirm that we were correct over here—that burglary is an entry-level crime. It starts at the burglary of an empty house or a house that is not occupied at the time. It progresses to burglary at night, when people are home. Then it progresses to voyeurism, and then it progresses to an assault when someone wakes up and confronts the burglar, or it progresses to a burglar stealing from the bedside of a sleeping homeowner, and then the next step that comes in is sexual assault and rape.

We know from all the reports from criminologists—not New Zealand First—that burglary is a serious crime if one wishes to interdict the rise and prevent crime and serious crime, but we do not see that this Budget is going to do that, we do not think these appropriations are going to do that, and we certainly do not see that the reports that we are reading repeatedly in the newspaper about the concerns of rural provincial New Zealand are going to address the problems that rural provincial New Zealand is facing. This is a serious article here: “Senior Sergeant Gordon Crawley said in four cases the burglar had entered unlocked houses at night while the owners were asleep and had stolen small portable items, such as cellphones and cash.”—right beside the sleeping victim. That has got to be a massive alarm, and if I was the Prime Minister I would be explaining myself to the rest of Cabinet as to why the police budget has not been increased.

Look, New Zealand First has a track record, and, in conjunction with our time in coalition with the National Government and in our time with the Labour Government, we did everything we could to increase police numbers, but it is not just about increasing police numbers. It is making sure that the police presence is out there and that it is being seen.

I want to summarise by saying this. Between 1997 and 2005, I had the opportunity to spend time with law enforcement agencies in the United States: Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Arizona. I spoke to, of all people, Chief William Bratton, who was the Los Angeles Police Department chief of police and formerly a very successful chief of police for the New York Police Department. He said that policing has not changed. It is about feet on the beat, prevention, intervention, and enforcement. It is about the three Rs—random patrolling, rapid response, reactive investigations—and it is about creating a presence in the street and the certainty that if you are going to commit a crime, like bashing a shopkeeper on the head and stealing cigarettes, you will be caught and you will be arrested and you will be charged and you will be convicted.

He also gave one further warning—if I might, in the time I have. He said: “The evidence is clear at LAPD that as arrests increase, crime decreases.” He also said—here is a warning—about when you take police away and you reduce the numbers and they are too thin on the ground: “Stranger policing, … results when too few are asked to do too much with too little for too long. Stranger policing creates a disconnection between the police and the public undermining trust, particularly in minority [communities].”, so increasing the incidence of crime.

We in New Zealand First are disappointed. We expected this Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance to appropriate more to the police budget, but what we did not expect to see with the appropriations that have been made is a thinning out of the number of police in rural provincial New Zealand, where they are so desperately needed to ensure the safety of those communities.

It gives me great pleasure to rise to support the Appropriation (2015/16 Supplementary Estimates) Bill. I would like to talk not so much about the money or the amount of money that is listed in the documents, but more about the results, because they are what matter. It is the results that count. It is not a matter of numbers of dollars or even, perhaps, the number of police on the streets; what matters are the results.

Reflecting on Mr Mark’s comments about the police, I was just thinking that my father retired from the police around 1990. He started probably around 1958 as a constable, and jumping into a police car nowadays, he would be just amazed at the technology and the efficiency and the change in the way that criminals and youth are dealt with from the way that he dealt with them back in the day. I have been in a cop car recently, and they do amazing things. The technology has enabled results to be almost instant, and with technology the results matter. I can also reflect on the town of Dannevirke, where technology is used to get results and where they have put up closed-circuit television cameras in the town, and that is getting results. That is reducing crime rates and enabling crime to be pushed out of Dannevirke, and, as we have seen in the results, crime statistics are coming down. Fewer youths are going to prisons. These are important statistics because they affect the way that our communities act and behave in the future.

Other results that matter: National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA)—we have talked a little bit about NCEA results. Performance is increasing. More youths are passing NCEA level 2 than ever before. Particularly, Māori and Pasifika are having a fantastic increase in results. Pharmac funding—increased Pharmac funding enables better results to be achieved for the likes of melanoma victims. Colon scanning is now going to be part of the health system, rolled out, in the first instance, in the Wairarapa and the Hutt Valley. These are results that matter.

We get these results because we have a strong economy. That economy is going to enable debt to fall. Forecast debt will fall below 20 percent of GDP. That is an important result. The percentage of Government involvement in the economy is also reducing, enabling the private sector—New Zealanders—to take control of their own lives and their own destinies by having a greater part of the economy, as the influence and the expenditure that the Government has reduces. We have already heard that new money from this side of the House at each Budget is about half of what the previous Government spent per Budget, if you like. So approximately $3 billion a year of new funding was introduced each year by Labour, and about $1.5 billion per year is the constrained and sensible amount of new money injected into the economy by this side of the House.

The Minister of Finance has already talked about results in the social investment sector, so we know that the results of the $1 million investment in kids are important. We need to identify these kids and invest in and wrap around those children because, again, they are going to be the future that we live in tomorrow. Once we can identify those kids, we can invest in and care for those kids. We have already seen improvements in that future liability. That future balance sheet item has reduced, and that is because of the investment we are making—and have been making—today. If a kid has had Child, Youth and Family contact, if mum and dad have been in jail or have been on the benefit for more than 5 years in the past, or if the kid has left school early, we know that that child is at risk. It is highly likely that that child will follow the parents’ pathway, and we need to arrest that. That is why we are focused on that end of the community, and that is why we are getting results with the targeted—and my emphasis is on targeted—investment.

We have had a few speakers before me, and so far I have not heard of any alternative approach, any better way forward from the Opposition, today at least—except, perhaps, the 100,000 houses. “Build more houses” is the Greens’ solution to the issue, and, of course, there is the building 100,000 homes programme from the Labour Party. But where are these buildings going to come from? Who is going to build them? Who is going to pay for them? Where will they be built? Those are fundamental questions. That is a $50 billion project. Let us say half a million dollars a house—that is a big programme, and do we really expect the taxpayer to fund that? Do we really expect the State to get involved and with a snap of its fingers build 100,000 houses? I do not think so.

The other alternative policy that we have heard to solve some of these issues that we continually debate and have talked about this afternoon is the universal benefit idea, where all the benefits are cut. Well, there is an idea, but, again, who is going to pay for the universal benefit that replaces the targeted social welfare system that we have today? With the universal basic income, I and all of us here would receive about $11,000. That wipes out all benefits for all people. But, of course, I do not need that fund. I am not in need of an extra $11,000. To ignore all those people most in need is, quite frankly, a very poorly thought out policy from the Opposition.

Again, who is going to pay for the idea that there should be free tertiary education for anyone over 18? That is another “bums on seats” idea that is apparently going to educate everyone so that they are able to get high-paying jobs and more jobs. Of course, again, it is not targeted. There is no filter. There are no criteria. Anyone can turn up and sit on a seat at a university who has not previously been at a university or in tertiary education and spend taxpayers’ money. You see, that is the difference. This side of the House considers taxpayers’ money when it invests, when it decides where the money should be spent. It is not a lolly scramble on this side. It is not a free-for-all. We know there are limited resources. We are concerned for the taxpayers’ money because we are all taxpayers. That is who we represent.

We took at question time today the question around increasing paid parental leave. Yes, we would all like to have our mums or dads have increased paid parental leave, but there must be consideration as to the cost. As the Minister of Finance mentioned himself, it is $25 a week going to every beneficiary family with children, or something else. We have decided that the priority is to target those most in need.

I was going to talk about Brexit, actually. Mr Bishop talked about Brexit and how it had changed, and I would reflect on when Margaret Thatcher got kicked out of Parliament. I was working in London at the time, and there was chaos and calamity. This situation I do not think is going to be the same as back in those days. That is because the economy here today that we are lucky enough to be working in is a diversified economy. It is much more resilient, it is much more flexible, and there is much more understanding of what the economy does for the community. We do understand that having a strong economy is the only way that we can afford to invest in and support those most in need.

This Appropriation Bill talks about where money flows and where it does not flow, but really it is all about getting results, and that is what we are targeted on on this side of the House. We want to leave more money in the taxpayers’ pockets for them to decide to do what they wish to do with it, to reduce Government debt over time, and to reduce the Government’s share of the economy over time. I commend this bill to the House.

The next call is a split call. Julie Anne Genter—5 minutes.

The previous speaker, Alastair Scott, asked what the alternative vision is from Opposition parties. He said he had not heard it, so I would like to use my speech to lay that out. Obviously, this bill, the Appropriation (2015/16 Supplementary Estimates) Bill, is about the additional appropriations that have been made since Budget 2015 was finalised. An example of that is the $150,000 that the Government appropriated for the Shewan inquiry, which was the Government inquiry into foreign trust disclosure rules, which, of course, was released very recently and demonstrated that there are serious shortcomings with our foreign trust rules, on which, of course, the Opposition parties have been calling for constructive changes. In fact, many of the recommendations in the Shewan inquiry go further than Opposition parties were suggesting. The Government was denying that there was a problem.

Like most New Zealanders, I am here because I love New Zealand. I love our natural environment and I want to live in a country that is fair—where everyone has a fair go. What has the National Government achieved through its eight Budgets, including this supplementary estimates bill? Well, we finally got a narrow surplus this year—just a couple of hundred million—and, aside from that, we have seen it achieve a mastery of spin in the media. It has also achieved more expensive houses, especially in Auckland but all over the country; more people living on the streets or sleeping in their cars; and more pollution—60 percent of our rivers are now unswimmable and carbon emissions are up. And I note that in the supplementary estimates bill there is actually an additional $115 million to subsidise carbon polluters. That is $115 million spent on free carbon credits for polluting industries.

There is more inequality. We have got information, just released today, from Statistics New Zealand that the top 10 percent of New Zealanders now own 60 percent of the wealth. That does not seem fair. In fact, inequality is at the worst point that it has been for a decade. And, of course, that is not going to change under this National Government, because, ultimately, it is gutless and focused on protecting the status quo.

Well, I have a message for the National Government. Budgets are all about priorities—what we choose to spend money on. Mr Scott was asking “Oh, who is going to pay for these things that you want?”, like education, and houses, and the things that people actually need. Well, we are not going to spend as much money as the National Government does helping out its mates. We are not going to spend as much on tax cuts for the wealthy because you do not build a strong economy by helping those who are already doing very well; you do it by investing in your people, the ones who actually need the most help. We are not going to spend it on Saudi sheep deals. We are not going to spend it on subsidies for polluters. We are not going to spend it on Skycity or Rio Tinto or Chorus. We are not going to spend it on infrastructure that does not stack up economically. The National Government is focused on dams, like the Ruataniwha Dam, which does not even make sense in economic terms, let alone in environmental terms. It is the same with transport infrastructure—the Government has managed to find billions and billions of dollars for motorway projects that will not reduce congestion. They will not make it easier for people to get to work or to get to school, and they certainly will not do anything for our carbon emissions and pollution.

There are smarter ways to do things. We could take the same amount of money and spend it on making sure that kids are not hungry in schools. We could spend it on protecting our environment and having a transport system that actually makes it easier for people to get around. Imagine that—imagine a rail link to the airport or to the North Shore. We could actually do that for less than the idiotic motorways that the Government is prioritising.

A strong economy, as I said, is not achieved by privileging those who are already doing well and giving handouts to businesses that are already making money by screwing over the environment. Actually, a strong economy is developed by protecting our environment and investing in our people, and that is why we in the Green Party would prioritise affordable housing and smart infrastructure that reduces pollution—smart infrastructure that uses our water better in our cities and creates more people-friendly streets. There are so many things that we can do, and we have shown how we can pay for them. That is the kind of New Zealand that I think most New Zealanders would like to live in.

I call Meka Whaitiri—5 minutes.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Otirā, ngā mema o Te Whare nei, tēnā tātou katoa. I am pleased to take a call on the Appropriation (2015/16 Supplementary Estimates) Bill, and say that Labour stands for a productive and fair and just society, where all benefit and not just the elite few.

Poverty levels and inequality levels are real and are growing in this country. Today we had Statistics New Zealand release some inequality-related figures, and I would like to share them with the House. European people had an individual median net worth of $114,000; Asian people, $33,000; Māori people, $23,000; and Pacific people, a very sad $12,000. That is individual net worth. That is what we have in this country under this National-led Government.

Like previous speakers have said, the supplementary estimates are a normal part of the Budget cycle, where we seek to authorise and vary the appropriations for 2015-16, the financial year that is about to end, which were made in Budget 2015. For the time that I have got, I want to make my contribution in reply to the Minister of Finance’s opening statement, where, amongst other things, he talked about value for money and a commitment to showing results. He made mention of the results framework and the social investment framework.

I want to give a snapshot of the electorate that I represent and paint the picture of the so-called results that people in Gisborne and Hawke’s Bay are experiencing, particularly around unemployment and homeownership. The statistics that I want to share with the House were taken from Statistics New Zealand’s household labour force survey. It paints a picture of when Labour left Government in 2008 and when National took over. The unemployment rate in Gisborne - Hawke’s Bay in 2008 was 5 percent—5 percent was the unemployment rate in Hawke’s Bay - Gisborne. The New Zealand unemployment rate was 3.7 percent. Let us fast-forward to 2016. The Gisborne - Hawke’s Bay unemployment rate is now 7.7 percent—7.7 percent—and New Zealand’s unemployment rate is 5.7 percent. That demonstrates that unemployment in the Gisborne and Hawke’s Bay region has grown significantly in these last 8 years.

Let us look at the real numbers. In 2008 in the Hawke’s Bay and Gisborne area we had 5,200 people who were unemployed. Fast-forward that to 2016, and there are now 8,200 people unemployed. The Government’s policies around addressing unemployment in the Hawke’s Bay and Gisborne region are failing. If I look at the real numbers of Māori unemployed people, I see 3,000 people of Māori descent in 2009, growing to 4,200 in 2016. For Europeans, the real number in 2009 was 3,900, growing to 4,400 in 2016. Again, many more people in Gisborne are facing the sharp end of unemployment, which this Government has taken its eye off.

Homeownership in Hawke’s Bay has decreased by an average of 30 percent. We all know that when we have homeownership it leads to stable whānau within that home, it leads to children being in education, and it leads to their health issues being addressed. But when you take away that dream of owning your home—not to mention the homelessness that I see experienced on a daily basis in my electorate—again, this Government’s record has failed when it comes to showing social investment results.

Like I said, for the short time I have got I have looked at the Estimates, particularly around Vote Māori. All I want to say is that one of the roles that Te Puni Kōkiri did have in ensuring better Māori outcomes was the monitoring of all the mainstream agencies. I am saddened that that is not one of its key pillars, and I suggest that we should do that—

Order! The member’s time has expired.

It is a pleasure to be talking in this supplementary estimates debate tonight. I was going to talk on three of the four key strategic initiatives that the Government is pursuing. The first one is mainly about returning to surplus and retiring debt; secondly, making this economy much more productive; thirdly, delivering better value from public services; and, of course, the very important one, which is supporting the rebuild of Christchurch, which has proceeded very well and made great progress.

I just want to start with the first one—which I think is absolutely essential—which is about returning to surplus and reducing debt. Of course, we are a long, long way from 2011, when we recorded a deficit of $18 billion. Last year we recorded a surplus of $414 million, and I would note that at the 10-month stage, to April this year, we recorded another surplus of $300 million. Hopefully, we are going to build on that to get an even greater surplus this year, for the financial year.

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

Just before we closed for the dinner session I was just talking about how we have been achieving surpluses and we would expect to continue to do so, rising to a massive nearly $7 billion in the year 2019-20. Of course, all that means is that you have got more money to spend, and this Budget was particularly generous. It has in it well-targeted programmes. We have got the $650 million we are going to put into social investment, $2.2 billion into the health sector, the nearly $800 million we are putting into science and training and apprenticeship schemes, and roughly $2.1 billion for infrastructure.

The other thing about running surpluses means you can reduce debt. This is something that we set about trying to bring down to very modest levels, particularly when you compare it internationally. So at the moment we are just over 26 percent, but the Minister of Finance has got a target to get it to 20 percent by 2021, and that is a great thing to be doing. With growth rates projected of about 3 percent over the next few years, this is what is going to generate the money to help pay down debt as well as invest in other schemes and infrastructure that we so dearly want.

Of course all of this is leading to increased jobs. We have heard many times in the House how over the last 3 years 175,000 jobs have been created in New Zealand, and Treasury is expecting another 173,000 by 2020. Also, this is leading to higher job incomes—a 3.1 percent increase in the year to 2015 against a very low inflation rate—which all means that people are enjoying net increases in their wages, which is what we want to do, and it is about sharing with everyone in New Zealand the benefits of a growing economy.

I just want to now turn to the second part of the big plan for the Government, the plan that we are working to, and that is around making the economy much more productive and competitive. Running our economy is just as important to achieving this goal. When I say that, that is about the Government’s entities. So what that is about doing is making sure our own business is much more responsive, and what is interesting is that the gross share of Government entities that we are spending money on was about 34 percent when we took over office in 2008; it is now just under 30 percent. Again, reducing the size of government but, at the same, time making it far more accountable and efficient has been a wonderful achievement. I think we need to compliment many of the people in our State services and all the various Government agencies on achieving that.

The other big thing is that there has been a massive reduction in the area of ACC, and I know that the member opposite—Sue Moroney—is very interested in that. There has been a net $2 billion reduction over time. Also, the Hon Steven Joyce is investing very heavily in science and technology, and that is correct. That is a very important thing. The focus on building the skills in science, technology, and engineering is all really, really important. We have a target to get to 60 percent of all 24 to 34-year-olds gaining an advanced trade. An interesting thing at the moment, and many people do not understand this, is we train about 44,000 people in apprenticeships. This Budget actually provided some more money as part of a $257 million spend into science and work schemes to see more people get into skills training and apprenticeships. That will take the number of people and apprenticeships in New Zealand to just under 50,000. I think that is a point that is well made because I do not believe that many people realise so many people are in apprenticeships in New Zealand.

The other thing is we are continuing to enter into free-trade agreements. We are hoping that we are going to get the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement through. Of course what has happened in Europe puts added pressure on making sure that we do enter into good negotiations—which have already commenced—with the EU. Also, the complexity now around the exit of Britain from the EU will place added pressure, but our Ministers and our officials are up to that. It would be good to be in a position where we can put in place some really robust trade agreements not only with Europe—because it is the third largest trading bloc in the world, with over 550 million people involved—but also with England, which we have had a long history with.

The other thing I just want to talk about is telecommunications. Sometimes it is glossed over, but we are making huge strides in this, particularly in ultra-fast broadband (UFB). We originally had $1.35 billion allocated to it, we have had another $210 million, then just recently we have invested another $50 million set aside for dealing with some of the black spots we have around New Zealand. I have seen evidence of this even in my own electorate. I was very happy to be at the closure when the final cabling or UFB was rolled out in Waiuku, a small town in my electorate. That was great. I think it was No. 16 out of the regional towns that were involved in the complete roll-out. Of course that opens up huge possibilities for people wanting to work and also to do business but also for general personal enjoyment. These are the types of things that people want and actually demand now. The other one is the Rural Broadband Initiative, a very substantial programme of $400 million. The final one, which is near completion, is the Network for Learning, which hooks up all our 2,500 schools across New Zealand, and provides substantial broadband access to all of those.

Finally, I just want to talk a little bit about our economy because most people sort of seem to gloss over it. I just want to note that manufacturing is a very important component of our economy. It has notched up well over 43 months, I think it is now, of consecutive positive growth and outlook. That is measured on a monthly basis, of course. But the services sector, I think, is terribly underestimated in New Zealand. It accounts for nearly 70 percent of our economy. It is a growing part of our economy, and it is a really important thing in terms of the access, the skills, and the talent that New Zealanders have. It is growing substantially, particularly in areas like information and communications technology, which is now over a billion dollars’ worth of exports. It is a dynamic area and obviously one where we have a lot of inherent advantages in New Zealand. I believe it accounts for about 25 percent of all net exports from New Zealand. So services are really important and getting the right framework for those, coming back to those trade agreements, is really important.

The other ones I just want to highlight—we have got the Associate Minister of Tourism in the House tonight—are the huge strides that we have made in tourism. International education is now worth over $3 billion and wine is worth over $1.5 billion. These are all just helping to drive us at a time when other parts of the economy—namely, the dairy industry—are going through a period of difficult conditions. But this is the way that helps makes sure that we have got a dynamic, robust, and competitive economy. Thank you very much.

I just want to take one issue with something that Alastair Scott said before the dinner break. I think it really defines the difference between Labour and National when it comes to spending and responsibility and how we view things.

Alastair Scott was talking about the housing issue. He said this about Labour’s solution: “Do we really expect the Government just to build houses?”, as if this was just anathema. Well, the thing is the answer to that is yes—it is yes. The reason I say that is I believe the main difference between the two parties is that National believes you can leave things up to the market, the market will provide the best solutions, and the Government does not need to interfere because it will all do OK, whereas Labour believes—certainly in a country the size of New Zealand—that the Government has a very important role in providing for its citizens, in giving them a hand when they need a hand by providing houses, providing education, providing police services, and actually meeting or even exceeding the expectations of New Zealanders. We believe that the Government has a very important role in driving equity of outcomes and of opportunities. We believe that Government is about doing the right thing when it comes to fairness for all New Zealanders.

I would just like to talk about my four portfolios, but before I do this, one thing that I think that this Government has done particularly poorly—there are a number of things, but it is one thing that I would like to highlight and I will weave through my four portfolios—is managing our global brand. I have talked about this a bit. Our global brand is worth about $20 billion a year. It is what differentiates us, it is what businessmen and businesswomen take overseas when they are hawking their products, and it is what makes us proud to be Kiwis, because we stand for integrity, we stand for fairness, and people know that we come from a country that values these values, basically. It is who we are and it is part of our DNA. People know it and I am very, very proud of it. But if we look at what is happening in the country, I am concerned that this global brand we have has been mismanaged to the point where we have got brand dissonance—there is no doubt about that. We need to start managing for this, because if we do not, we are big trouble.

Let me start with police. No matter what the Minister of Police says, the crime rate is increasing. The statistics have just come in and this year, month on month, burglaries nationally were up by 35 percent compared with last year. There were over 1,500 more burglaries committed in the year to May 2016 than in the year to May 2015, and yet there are less police on the beat in Hawke’s Bay.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: Fewer.

Sorry—fewer police on the beat. In Hawke’s Bay there has been a 43 percent drop in police on the beat between May 2015 and May 2016. That makes a difference. Lower resolution rates—we know this—we know that in Auckland less than 8 percent of all burglaries committed are going to be solved. That does not play into how we view our communities and the role of Government in providing protection for our communities and crime prevention but also in solving crime so that the bad guys can go away.

Forestry is now dominated by overseas interests. This was epitomised for me by a situation in Gisborne where there is a Malaysian investor who owns a 35,000-hectare forest. There is a sawmill there that is owned by the local economic development agency. It could employ about 40 people in the area with the highest level of unemployment in the country and with one of the highest levels of deprivation—a fantastic place to go on holiday, though. It is a magic spot, Gisborne. This forestry company is sending pruned logs right past this mill to send overseas without a cent of value added at all. As a consequence of that, this mill cannot start up without a guarantee of logs. When the Minister was asked about this she said: “Well, that is the market. We let the market decide about this.”. Well, that is wrong—that is wrong. What about Kiwis? What about jobs for New Zealanders? This sawmill, which wants to buy logs in Hikurangi, does not want any special favours. It is prepared to pay for logs at the global price—but no. This is what happens when we lose control of our future in a strategic industry. It is wrong and we need to change that as well.

Let me look at revenue. We have got a tax system that is just not fit for purpose. John Shewan has come out with his report, and the fact that he had to write a chapter on New Zealand’s reputation shows that we are in trouble. When I talk about our global brand being one of integrity and fairness and transparency, and John Shewan comes out and says that our global reputation is at risk, then we know we need to do something about that.

The thing about a reputation—and again, John Shewan outlined this—is that it is often about perception as opposed to the facts. So when a member of the Government stands up and says “Well, the facts say this.”, my response to that is that is all very well, but when international media are calling New Zealand a tax haven and when international media are saying “Invest in New Zealand and set up an overseas trust in New Zealand because the laws are lax and you don’t have to declare who the beneficiaries are, and it is easy to get away with hiding money.”, then we know we are in trouble. Who cares if that is the reality? That is the perception in the international media and, again, it cuts to the very heart of who we are as Kiwis. We are a country full of integrity and this cuts to the very heart of that.

Let me have a look at electricity and energy. It was fantastic to see the Minister of Energy and Resources drive to a photo op for the 1,000th electric car to be registered in New Zealand, but the thing is he drove to that photo op in a huge big diesel BMW. He had the photo op then he jumped in that huge big diesel BMW and drove back to Parliament. Would it not be great if the Government actually walked the walk and if Ministers started this by driving electric vehicles? Imagine if our Crown fleet was electric vehicles. Would that not be fantastic?

💬 Hon Paula Bennett: What a great idea!

Would that not be great? Even the Minister agrees with me. She obviously does not have the power to influence those in control because, obviously, if it was up to her, then we would have a Crown fleet full of electric vehicles, but there are none—there are none. What a shame.

Start walking the walk and stop talking the talk. It is actions that speak louder than words. Imagine international visitors being picked up at Wellington Airport in Tesla cars. Imagine what that would do. Imagine the brand—imagine how that would resonate around the world. We have led the way in a number of these initiatives, we really have. From the day we gave women the vote—we were the first country to give women the vote.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: Excuse me, we won it.

Sorry, women won the right to vote. Then we were nuclear-free. We were leading the emissions trading scheme. We were global players in all these things that were incredibly important to defining our global brand and who we were on the global stage. People looked at New Zealand and said: “Wow, these guys are just amazing. Look what they stand for.” All of these things played into who we were, and ever so slowly, over the last 8 years, these have been eroded. We are now falling behind in the emissions trading scheme—that plays into our global brand. Nuclear-free has sort of disappeared. Women have still got the vote—thank goodness for that. But these things that made us great, these things that defined us, and these things that gave us a unique selling point are slowly being eroded to the point where we have now got a tax system that is seen as an easy target for overseas money-launderers. We now have a forestry system where the overseas investors just do not care about local jobs. We have now got an electricity system that is creaking—there are global innovations going on and we are way behind the eight ball.

We have got a police force where the men and women on the front line work incredibly hard. They work incredibly hard, but that thin blue line is stretched to breaking point. Then I read the Budget this year and saw that there was no money allocated for more police—man, that is the wrong direction. What is worse is that I had a look at the New Zealand Police’s strategic plan between 2016 and 2020 and it says that there are going to be no more officers on our streets—and that is simply wrong. There is so much more that needs to be done, but the thing that I am afraid of is that that Government is just unwilling to do it. The only way that we are going to get things back on track is a change of Government. Bring on 2017. Thank you very much.

I feel a bit sorry for Stuart Nash. He is one of the bright young hopes of the Labour Party. He is actually a reasonably nice guy. He is the closest thing that the Labour Party has to a free-market capitalist, but he is just so negative. He is just so negative. Was there anything positive in that speech? Is the Labour Party ever going to come up with an opportunity to win Government and ask New Zealanders to support it if it never has anything positive to add, never has anything positive to suggest, and it is always negative? We hear moan after moan after moan. Everything’s bad, the country’s going down the sewer—that is the Labour Party’s mantra. Day after day, week after week, it never has anything positive.

💬 Sue Moroney: Oh, vetoes are positive, are they?

I can hear Sue Moroney yapping over there. That is a one-trick pony for you—looking at Sue Moroney. How many times has she lost a seat? Mr Assistant Speaker Tisch, you probably stood against her too. If we wanted to hear an opportunity from the Labour Party to be positive, we did not hear it during this debate.

The National Party is positive. The National Party is doing good things for New Zealanders. The National Party is presiding over a Government that is leading to this economy growing at one of the fastest growth rates in the OECD. We are growing faster than many of the economies we compare ourselves with. We are seeing job rates going up. We are seeing rates of pay going up. The average wage is going up. Unemployment is trending down. New Zealanders are more prosperous than they were 8 years ago.

Mr Nash talked about crime rates, and I want to pick him up on that. He is absolutely wrong about crime rates. The year 1978 is a year I do not remember as I was not born at that time, but 1978 was when crime was last at these levels. Crime rates are at the lowest levels they have been since 1978. He tried to tell us that crime is rising. Recorded crime is down 17 percent since June 2011. Violent crime is down 10 percent since June 2011. Reoffending is down 7 percent since June 2011. Crime rates are actually dropping. Do not come into this House and try to spin a line that crime rates are going up. Of course any crime is bad. Of course we all want crime rates to go down even further. But do not come into this House and try to tell us that crime is actually going up. Crime is going down. There are more police on the streets in New Zealand than there have ever been before. New Zealanders are safer in their homes. Reoffending is coming down. New Zealand overall, from a law and order perspective, is doing well.

Mr Nash also said there was no money in the Budget for the police. I do not know which Budget he was reading, but there is $300 million extra in the Budget for funding for police—$300 million extra. I know he is from Napier and I know he is focused very much on his electorate, but I suggest that if he wants to be the police spokesperson, he should actually be reading the Budget. The Budget allocated $300 million extra for the police. They are doing a good job. We should be backing our police, and this side of the House does. We do not talk down the police. We do not talk down the economy, like Labour does. We do not talk down the health sector, like Labour does. We do not talk down the education sector, like Labour does. We talk up those sectors. We provide them with the resources to do their jobs. More funding going into important areas is what this Government is delivering.

But at the same time as we are delivering more funding to those key areas, we have kept Government expenses under control. We have got the economy back on track. We have got the deficits under control, and we are now posting surpluses. When we came into office we looked into the horizon and there was a decade’s worth of deficits. That has been turned round. Net debt as a percentage of GDP is expected to be under 20 percent by the mid-2020s. If the Labour Party was in office at the time that we went through the global financial crisis, I hazard a guess that the Budgets that New Zealand would have faced would not be as good as they were under Bill English.

National is delivering more jobs and more wages for people, and we are also seeing better outcomes for New Zealand children. We are seeing more children being educated than ever before. The National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) rates are showing us that more children are leaving school with NCEA than ever before. The rate for 18-year-olds leaving school with NCEA level 2 is now over 84 percent. It was much lower before, under the Labour Party in its last term in Government. We are also seeing more funding going into early childhood education. There is more funding going into early childhood education so those kids can have a good start before they go to school. That is something that we are seeing improving, which we never saw previously, as well.

One of the hallmarks of the Government’s recent announcements in past years has been to put, for the first time, more funding into benefits so that more children in need are getting the help they need through the benefit system. Paula Bennett reformed the benefit system consistently, and she did a good job of doing that. We identified the need to put more money into families so that we could invest in those families, so they can get a better start in life for their children.

💬 Sue Moroney: They can sleep in cars and garages.

I know Sue Moroney, who is still yapping over there, does not support that. She does not support that all. The Government made a deliberate decision not to go through with throwing money at something in an unaffordable way, like Sue Moroney did. We instead prefer to take the investment approach that actually sees the funding going where it is needed.

At the same time we have delivered an increase in paid parental leave. We have delivered an increase in paid parental leave in a measured fashion—in a measured fashion. Sue Moroney, who has lost the debate every time that she has come up with a paid parental leave idea, thinks that we should just massively expand the scheme at an unaffordable rate. Well, she might get 26 weeks this time around—or in the future, next time she tries—but where will she stop? What is the right number? Is it 52 weeks? Is it 2 years? Those members would just throw more and more money at it, at an unaffordable rate. We prefer to do things in a measured fashion. We prefer to do things in a way that is affordable for New Zealanders but still delivers better outcomes for young New Zealanders.

I am proud of the effort that this Government is putting into supporting families in need. I am proud of the effort that this Government is putting in to support those who need social investment by the Government, not just a handout in perpetuity. There are far fewer children living in benefit-dependent homes because of the reforms that Paula Bennett has put through. There are far fewer children living in benefit-dependent homes because their fathers and their mothers have jobs. There are far fewer children living in benefit-dependent homes because the average wage rate is rising under this Government. We are proud of that. We are positive about that. We are happy to talk about our plan. If we could, for once, hear from the Labour Party about what it would do, it would be quite refreshing. I do not suspect we ever will. I do not suspect we should expect it.

💬 Sue Moroney: My 26 weeks’ paid parental leave, for a start.

There is the one-trick pony again, over there. She lost six elections to different National MPs, but she has got her one trick to play. It is never going to get there—never going to get there—because it is unaffordable for New Zealanders right now. But we are actually delivering results for New Zealanders.

I also want to talk about the health system. The health system is delivering more operations for New Zealanders as well. Annette King likes to come to the House and tell the House that, supposedly, there is billions of dollars of under-investment in health. If there is such a dire situation in the health system, how come we are able to deliver 50,000 more operations every year for New Zealanders? Every year 50,000 people are getting the operations that they never got under the last Labour Government. We have increased the health budget, like we have increased other budgets, but we have done so in a way that delivers better public services for New Zealanders. We have done so in a way that sees better results for New Zealanders.

Being in Government is not just about throwing money at certain areas. It is about getting results and getting a better bang for your buck when you put the money in there. We are seeing that in the health system as we are seeing it in the education system and as we are seeing it in the law and order system in this country. On every measure that you can look at, when voters go to the polls and when voters talk to us as electorate MPs—electorate MPs, Sue Moroney—about the things that matter to them, they tell us about getting more jobs for their families. Well, we are ticking that box. They tell us about delivering more operations for their families. We are ticking that box. They talk to us about seeing their children getting a better education. We have ticked that box. They talk to us about seeing fewer crimes being committed in New Zealand, and we are ticking that box.

We have delivered, over a long period of time now, sensible Government that is delivering for New Zealanders. These bills, about imprest supply and the appropriations, will lead to greater investment in key areas for New Zealand. That will benefit New Zealanders going forward into the future.