Imprest Supply Debate

I move, That the Appropriation (2016/17 Supplementary Estimates) Bill and the Imprest Supply (First for 2017/18) Bill be now read a second time. The Appropriation (2016/17 Supplementary Estimates) Bill seeks the House’s agreement to changes to existing appropriations and to new appropriations proposed since the Estimates of 2016-17 were finalised. The supplementary estimates also show proposed changes to capital injections to departments and offices of Parliament.

The Imprest Supply (First for 2017/18) Bill provides authority for Government expenditure from 1 July 2017 until the Appropriation (2017/18 Estimates) Bill is passed. Under the Standing Orders a 3-month period is allowed between the introduction and passing of the Appropriation (2017/18 Estimates) Bill. Imprest supply is, therefore, likely to be required for up to 2 months after the start of this 2017-18 financial year.

Imprest supply provides for the start of the Government’s Budget 2017—the beginnings of the first year, the 2017-18 financial year. That Budget is all about delivering for New Zealanders. This Government has gone forward. It has used the opportunity of a strong economy that is delivering rising surpluses for New Zealand to make some significant investments in the New Zealand economy and in public services. In fact, the Government is increasing its investment in public services, it is increasing its investment in public infrastructure, and it is increasing its investment in families, through the Family Incomes Package.

The public services investment is very, very significant indeed—$7 billion over 4 years, with a real focus on meeting the demands of a growing country. For example, in education, there is $1.1 billion over 4 years to increase operational grants funding to provide for roll growth in schools and roll growth in our early childhood centres. The Budget also includes the justice sector—$1.2 billion for 10 percent more police staff, of course for burglary prevention, reducing youth offending, and supporting at-risk prisoners, plus the flow-on effects to the justice sector, the courts, and rehabilitation.

An important part of the appropriations is the Ministry for Vulnerable Children. It is a very significant investment, to improve the lives of our most vulnerable young children. There is the social housing investment, which has been discussed earlier in the House today, with the Government making a big investment in the emergency housing sector in particular, but also in social housing more generally. And, of course, the big one in terms of public services is the very large investment in the health sector—in fact, $3.9 billion over the next 4 years. It includes big investments in the district health boards, for their services; in Disability Support Services; in new pharmaceuticals, with Pharmac; the ambulance services—the double-crewing is a very good and positive initiative; and, of course, the bowel-screening programme roll-out as well, which is a strong initiative of this Government, for the prevention of bowel cancer.

The amount of $3.9 billion over 4 years is the biggest health investment in around 11 years, and takes the total investment in health from when we first arrived in office, at something around $11 billion, to nearly $16.8 billion now. There are some in this House who characterise that as being somehow a reduction. I think that is quite a stretch. It is definitely an increase, no matter which way you cut it.

The other part of the public services investment is our social investment work. That is a significant sum of money to improve the lives of New Zealand’s most vulnerable citizens. There is $321 million in new initiatives, over the next 4 years, in the social investment space, including initiatives to help our young kids have a better start in life, to reduce reoffending of criminals, to reduce barriers to employment and independence, and, most importantly, a very significant investment in mental health services. There is $116 million in new social investment initiatives for new approaches to the challenges of mental health needs. Actually, across the Government we are investing $224 million in new spend on mental health services, which is a significant additional investment. So no matter which way you talk about it, this Government’s investment is very significant.

💬 Grant Robertson: He’s reading out the PowerPoint. Why don’t you just table the PowerPoint?

Well, the member is raising why I do not just table the speech, and the reason for that is that he has not listened to the Budget yet. He has not read the Budget. [Interruption]

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

He has not actually looked at the Budget and that is why his talking points are so removed from reality.

The Government’s infrastructure investment is also very significant. There is $4 billion in additional new spending in this Budget, but the total capital investment in this Budget is $32.5 billion over the next 4 years in capital expenditure—$32.5 billion, which is 40 percent more than the last 4 years—

💬 Jami-Lee Ross: How much?

It is 40 percent more than the last 4 years—40 percent more—and double what it was a decade ago. That is why this Government is called New Zealand’s infrastructure Government, because of the massive investment we are making in New Zealand’s infrastructure.

Then there is the Family Incomes Package. This is probably really important for the Labour Party members to listen to because they have not heard the public on this one yet and there is still time to change their minds. This is the $2 billion a year Family Incomes Package, which is delivering for low and middle income families very big increases in their incomes. Firstly, we have the tax threshold adjustments, which will apply from 1 April next year, then we have the Working for Families adjustments, which will see parents with young children get between $9 a week for the first child and $18 to $27 a week for subsequent children.

Then there are the big increases to the accommodation supplement, including not just increasing the maximum payable within areas but seeing significant areas of the country moving up the geographical area ratings so they get even more again. This package is very significant. It delivers 1.34 million New Zealand families an average of $26 a week. Most of the House has voted in favour of it but, actually, there were still the Labour Party members who somehow managed to find a way, in their tortured logic, to vote against the Family Incomes Package.

Of course the Family Incomes Package also flows on to superannuitants. Superannuitants next year on 1 April will get an additional $13 a week per couple, above and beyond what they would have got anyway as a result of the linkage between after-tax wages and superannuitant incomes. That is due to happen on 1 April next year. We have the public services investment, we have the infrastructure investment, and we have the Family Incomes Package, which are all enabled by this Budget and by this first imprest supply bill.

But, of course, none of it would be possible without a strong economic plan that is delivering strong growth in the New Zealand economy. I have spoken around the country over the last 4 weeks, spoken to something like 32, 33 different groups, including business groups as far afield as in the Bay of Islands, as in parts of the Wairarapa, as in down south as well, and all of those groups are saying the New Zealand economy is doing well and they want to see it continue to do well. They all say to me the most important thing is for this Government to continue past 23 September so we can deliver more growth, more jobs, and also more income so that the Government can actually deliver more public services, more infrastructure, and more for family incomes.

So I invite the Opposition members to, once again, stand up and oppose this Budget today and I hope they keep opposing it. I hope they keep opposing the Family Incomes Package all the way to 23 September. That would be the best thing that could happen for this Government and the best thing that could happen for this country, because this Government would then be re-elected to be able to keep growing the economy and keep providing for the public of New Zealand. Thank you.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I understand that I am required to withdraw and apologise, so I withdraw and apologise.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you.

Here is a Minister of Finance who had the opportunity to present a Budget to New Zealand that would finally do what for 9 years his Government had failed to do—finally invest properly in health and in housing and in education and in lifting children out of poverty. And what did that Minister do? He squandered that opportunity. He squandered that opportunity because he saw the dangled carrot of tax cuts, and the campaign manager for the National Party, who happens to be the Minister of Finance, could not resist it. He had to grab hold of that tax cut. He asked me in his speech why the Labour Party members had opposed the Government’s Budget. Well, we do not think the priority for New Zealand today is to give a Cabinet Minister like Steven Joyce or a member of Parliament like me a thousand bucks a year. That is not the priority. If that is the National Party’s priority, if that is Jonathan Coleman’s priority, then that is great.

💬 Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: This old chestnut.

That is fantastic, Mr Coleman, because everywhere I go around New Zealand, when they say to me “But why are our health services being cut? Why are we paying more money to go to the doctor?”, I say: “That is because Jonathan Coleman, the Minister of Health, wants a tax cut of a thousand bucks for him. That’s why you are not getting the health services in your community.” That is why, when we go to Dunedin and they say “Where’s the hospital that Jonathan Coleman promised us?”, it is not there. When we go to Canterbury and Christchurch, where I was yesterday, parents are coming up to us and saying: “My daughter cannot get mental health service treatment in this city.” Someone who at their first appointment was diagnosed as having issues that needed to be dealt with had to wait 4 months for their second appointment.

So, Mr Coleman—Jonathan Coleman—says “A thousand dollar tax cut for me.”, but that young woman in Christchurch, she does not get to have a second appointment. How is that right, Minister? How is that morally right? How is that fiscally right? Come on, Minister—because Jonathan Coleman and the rest of that National Government have their priorities completely wrong in this Budget.

Jonathan Coleman knows this, too, because $200 million is the number that Jonathan Coleman should remember. That is the gap between what his own Ministry of Health told him was needed to stand still—not improve services; just stand still—and Jonathan Coleman failed to deliver that. There was $680 million needed to stand still, $480 million delivered—a $200 million gap, adding up to the $2.3 billion worth of health cuts that Jonathan Coleman has been responsible for.

I was on an aeroplane recently, next to someone—a plumber from Dunedin. He said to me, about the tax cuts, that he did not want them, because he had thought about that. If he added up the $26 a week that everyone in his street would get—added all of that up—that would be one more nurse for the hospital, one more community police officer for his community. He said: “That’s what I want. That’s what I want in my community.” And that is what New Zealanders do want.

This Government is all about the sugar hits, and not about the solutions, when it comes to this Budget. By all means, put in front of the public a tax cut. People say: “That’s great. I’m interested in that. I like the idea of that.” But New Zealanders think about that and they care about their neighbours and their families and their communities, and they want to see the investment that has been so sadly lacking from this Government. Once again we have a Budget from National that completely fails to start to fix the housing crisis. Budget after Budget we have stood up in this House and said: “Where is the National Party when it comes to housing?”. Well, this Budget delivered the grand total of land for 1,200 homes. We are talking about a housing shortage in Auckland alone of 30,000 or 40,000 houses, and the best that the National Government can come up with in this Budget is land for 1,200 homes. It is completely inadequate and it is part of the squandered opportunity that National had in this Budget.

Then when we look at the fact that we are actually debating the appropriations from 2016 and the supplementary estimates—but the Minister gave a very wide-ranging speech to which I am responding—when we look in them, we actually see that 17 out of 20 of the district health boards (DHBs) actually had deficits that had to be made up for. The Minister of Health has, unfortunately, repeated that problem by mucking up how much money each of those DHBs had to get, and now they have had to give some of those back. That again means service cuts in our health sector.

💬 Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: No, Grant. Come on!

Yes, it does. The Minister is in such denial about this, but he knows he has got a health sector that has lost complete confidence in him, in his chief executive, and now he is in the embarrassing position of having to say to those DHBs, which had already organised what they were going to do with that money, that they have to give some of it back. That is a health system in crisis, as the housing crisis has got away on National, as well.

It is time for a Budget that actually delivers for all New Zealanders. Here is a message for the National members: you are not delivering for all New Zealanders when Statistics New Zealand tells us there are 41,000 people who are homeless; you are not delivering for all New Zealanders when we have the lowest homeownership rate in 60 years; you are not delivering for all New Zealanders when rental prices in Wellington go up by 10 percent, and 15 percent, and then 20 percent a year; you are not delivering for all New Zealanders when we have an education system where early childhood centres are $40,000 worse off a year than they were when National came into office. That is not delivering for all New Zealanders.

National is doing what it always does—delivering for a small section of New Zealanders. What we need is an approach to a Budget that actually sets out, at the beginning, the kind of society that we want to live in. On this side of the House, we want a society where every New Zealander gets to contribute; where everyone gets the basic Kiwi value of a fair go. I think after 9 long years of a National Government, New Zealanders should expect that they would all get a fair go, but they have not got that from this Budget.

We have a National Government that has run out of steam, because this Budget is back to the 1990s playbook, back to the tax cuts to get yourself an election win. It is irresponsible. It completely fails the test that New Zealanders set for their Government: to make sure that every person in our country gets the basics, the fundamental building blocks of opportunity.

That is why the Labour Party has prioritised those: actually making sure that we build houses, affordable homes for first-home buyers; actually making sure that we put the emergency housing and State housing in place. Not sell State housing, but build State housing; thousands of houses to make sure that that thing that is the bedrock of strong communities, stable communities—housing, quality housing, housing that does not make you sick, housing that is your sanctuary. That is why that is a priority for the Labour Party. It is not a priority for this Government, or in this Budget.

It is also why it is a priority to make sure that our health system is funded properly. Now, I hear Jonathan Coleman get up and talk about how we spent a record amount of money in the health system. Well, families who are going to the supermarket tonight will spend a record amount of money on their groceries. It does not mean they get more groceries, Dr Coleman; it means they are paying more—just as you are; just as Jonathan Coleman is. That is the thing: he is not actually funding health for population increase, or funding health for inflation. In real terms, the National Government has taken more than $2 billion—and he knows it—out of the health sector. It is just the same in the education sector.

So on this side of the House, we stand proudly for a fresh approach to these issues in New Zealand; to make sure we build the houses, to make sure that we support the health and education systems, and to give our communities proper community policing. Right around New Zealand, that is what National has taken away, and it has come up with an inadequate package in here. We are going to deliver 1,000 more sworn police in our first term.

I want to finish on this: this Budget lacks any vision for the long-term future of New Zealand. If this Government was serious about that, in this Budget it would have restarted contributions to the Superannuation Fund. But it did not. It chose to prioritise tax cuts. It chose to prioritise its short-term electoral interests over the long-term good of New Zealand. That ends up being the legacy of this Budget: a squandered opportunity to do what is right, a squandered opportunity to rebuild the social foundations of New Zealand. This will be the last Budget of the National Government in this era of politics. Labour will deliver a fair and sustainable Budget next year.

This is Steven Joyce’s first Budget and, I suspect, the first Budget of many, because what it does is deliver a trifecta of great things for this country: investment in public services, investment in infrastructure, as well as giving some money back to New Zealanders who need it most—those at the bottom of the heap—through tax cuts and through the accommodation supplement. We just heard a tired, trite, and platitudinous speech from the shadow Minister of Finance, Grant Robertson. He says National is going straight back to the 1990s. Well, Grant Robertson’s political apprenticeship in the student unions was in the 1990s, and I think he is obsessed with the 1990s. We often hear this from Grant Robertson: that this fifth National Government is just like the National Government of the 1990s. I think he is obsessed with it.

He just runs the tired old lines that we have heard time and time again—things like: “The Government’s cut early childhood education spending.”, when the reality is that early childhood education funding has doubled under this Government, participation is up—

💬 Sue Moroney: You cut the funding for qualified staff.

—achievements are up, and the number of qualified staff is up, Ms Moroney, as well. We hear that there have been health funding cuts. As has been pointed out time and time again in this House, it is a pretty strange definition of “cut” when it is actually a massive increase, just not quite as much as you would like to have—

💬 Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: A wish list.

That is what they describe as a cut. My colleague the Minister of Health points out it is a wish list. The reality is that health spending is massively up, and also health results. Actually, sometimes we do get confused a bit about the quantum of spending—we mistake that for intention and we mistake that for empathy and we mistake it for care. It is actually not always about the amount of money you spend. The spending the Government has done is up on health. It is up on education. It is up on the things that are important to New Zealanders. But, actually, fundamentally, it is not about the magnitude.

💬 Alastair Scott: It’s about results.

It is not about the absolute quantum; as Alastair Scott points out, it is about the results. New Zealanders actually want results out of their Government. They want results out of their public services. They are the customers of the Government, and, very often, they are the customers in a monopolistic situation. The Government is the only—or, at least, very nearly the only—provider. So it is really important the Government gets its own house in order and focuses on results. The good news is that health results are up: more elective surgeries, more doctors, and more nurses. Health results are getting better, and it is the same with education.

Then we hear the critique from Grant Robertson in his speech that this is a Budget that lacks the vision for the long term. This is just a classic critique. It is the thing you throw out there when you have run out of other things to say, you know: “It just lacks vision. We need a vision.” The Labour Party is obsessed with visions and plans and aspirations and dreams—things like that. “We need a vision, you know. We just need a vision.”

Well, actually, this is a Budget that laid out a vision of the country, and the contrast between the two parties—as we head into the regulated period and as we head into the election year—is a stark one. What the Budget laid out was a vision where we have a globally connected economy, where foreign migration is welcomed into the country, where foreign investment is welcomed into New Zealand, and where New Zealand makes its way on the world stage as a trading, globally connected country. Actually, the Labour Party and the Green Party, and definitely the New Zealand First Party, stand against that vision. It was a Budget that laid out a vision for the country, and it was a Budget that laid out the vision of returning more money to New Zealanders—more of their own money.

The Labour Party says about tax cuts: “It’s a bribe.” That is its attitude. It really just sums up, I think, exactly how the Labour Party views New Zealanders and the role of the Government. If you say to New Zealanders that through tax threshold changes they can keep a bit more of their own money, as this Budget does—particularly for those at the bottom end of the income spectrum—the Labour Party’s attitude is that it is a bribe. But it is their own money; it is not Government’s money. If they are allowed to keep a bit more of it, it is a bribe. It is very difficult to bribe people with their own money, but that is the Labour Party’s attitude to it. So I reject absolutely that this Budget did not lay out a vision for the country. It laid out a clear vision.

💬 Sue Moroney: How’s the free market going in Auckland, Chris?

“How’s the free market going?” says Sue Moroney. Well, the free market is going pretty well, actually. Sue Moroney should look at what free markets have done for the world. Free markets have dragged billions of people out of poverty. Free markets have raised living standards in China and India and numerous countries around the world. Free markets have made a more material contribution to the eradication of global poverty than anything else. Sue Moroney says: “Oh, how’s the free market going?”. What an insightful remark into the attitude, and the stupidity, quite frankly, of the modern-day Labour Party: what have free markets ever done for us! Well, free markets have raised living standards around the world and have halved extreme poverty in the last 15 years. That is what free markets and free trade have done.

Actually, that is a very insightful comment about the Labour Party’s attitude to trade, because what this Budget does is invest in New Zealand Trade and Enterprise. It invests in our foreign affairs and trade department. [Interruption]

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

It invests in our trade negotiators—[Interruption]

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Wind it back a bit.

—and it invests in all the things that New Zealand needs to do to take advantage of globalisation. Steven Joyce in question time today talked about how New Zealanders are shaping globalisation to their own advantage, and they absolutely are doing that. Whether it is Kaynemaile in Pētone and Lower Hutt, Sanpro Industries across the road, the exporters that Steven Joyce talked about in question time today, or the exporters that the Prime Minister, Bill English, talked about on the weekend, New Zealanders are shaping globalisation to their advantage.

Again—to return to the theme from just before—what this Budget does is set out a vision of New Zealand as a trading nation, and that is how we actually grow jobs for New Zealanders. That is how we grow our exports and create higher incomes.

💬 Sue Moroney: How’s the invisible hand going in Auckland?

Sue Moroney’s attitude is: “How’s that free market going?”. Well, what free markets and the trade of goods and services do for New Zealanders is allow more New Zealand companies and more New Zealand individuals to sell more to the world. It allows New Zealanders to hire more New Zealanders. It allows companies to export more, hire more people, and create profits and growth, which ultimately gets returned to New Zealanders.

So Sue Moroney’s attitude is quite instructive, actually. Frankly, it is a wholly depressing view of reality.

💬 Sue Moroney: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. This is supposed to be a speech on a particular issue. I recognise that he has run out of things to say about it, but misrepresenting my view is not what this speech is about.

Speaking to the point of order—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, I do not need any assistance. That point of order was completely fatuous. The member has taken that point of order to interrupt the flow of a speech from the member who has the call. She has made numerous interjections all the way through that speech, and she has been asked in certain terms to keep that down a bit, which she has refused to do. The previous speaker from the Labour Party was very wide, and, funnily enough, the Minister, who was accused of travelling way off his speech, was using—as the other side noted—slides relating directly to the Budget, so you cannot have it so many different ways. So I would ask the member not to take fatuous points of order in the future, and I recall Chris Bishop.

Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker. Just returning to where I left off, which was about what this Budget invests in, this Budget invests in education in New Zealand. It invests money to welcome international students into our economy. It invests in our Immigration Service in order to enforce the rules around immigration, particularly around foreign students in New Zealand. It invests in the Electoral Commission for the safe and fair running of electioneering and election spending, and it invests in our Parliamentary Service to make sure that all political parties follow the rules when it comes to election funding.

Why are these things relevant? Why are these very important investments relevant? It is because what we have heard in the last few days was industrial-strength hypocrisy from the Labour Party over there when we discovered that it was importing foreign workers in order to come and work on its election campaign. It is quite amazing, actually. It calls them “fellows”. When I think of fellowships, I think of people at ivory-tower universities in Cambridge, sort of squirrelling themselves away in the corner, having a glass of whisky as they write learned theses. That is what fellowship means. It does not mean living in substandard accommodation, working 20 hours a day—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: And now the member is—

💬 Dr Megan Woods: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I take offence at a marae being called substandard accommodation.

Well, speaking—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, I do not need any assistance in respect of that. The member was heading wider. He obviously took my comments to the previous point of order as licence, which he should not do, and he should stick to the Budget. However, I—

💬 Dr Megan Woods: I’ve taken offence.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am sorry, but you cannot—

💬 Dr Megan Woods: I’ve taken offence.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, no, I am sorry, but a member cannot decide they are going to take offence in relation to something like that, which was part of this particular speech. The member could take offence at something that is said in relation to her particularly; she cannot take—

💬 Dr Megan Woods: OK, fair call.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yes. And, once again, we see the use of a point of order for a different purpose. Let us stick to the rules.

Anyway, just—

💬 Dr Megan Woods: It was offensive.

Well, I did not say—

💬 Dr Megan Woods: Visit a marae some time, before you start putting them down.

Megan Woods, the only person who has mentioned the word “marae” in the last minute is you. It was not me.

💬 Dr Megan Woods: You called it substandard accommodation.

I brought it—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Anyway, back to the Budget.

Yes, I did mention substandard accommodation, because I was quoting what a Labour Party volunteer had said in the media. I was quoting directly from a person in the media. So the only person who has mentioned marae is Megan Woods.

With 1 minute left in this learned contribution in the House this afternoon, I do want to summarise by saying that, actually, I think Sue Moroney’s contribution to the debate summarises the philosophical differences that you see at the heart of this Budget document—

💬 Sue Moroney: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I have not made a contribution in this debate, and I think that the member should stop misleading the House by saying that I have actually taken a call in this debate. I have not.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member will regain her seat. The member has made numerous contributions to this debate. They will all be recorded in Hansard, or those that are heard, and, whether she likes it or not, an interjection is a contribution to the debate. I look forward to her scripted contribution to the debate that she will make when, eventually, she has a call, should she seek one. I would also very much look forward to the member who has the call—and who has, thankfully, 32 seconds to go—addressing the matter that is under debate, which is the appropriation bill.

This is a great Budget. It invests in public services for a growing economy, it invests in infrastructure for a growing economy, and it allows the New Zealanders who need it most to keep more of their own money. The Labour Party thinks that is a bribe. The National Party thinks that is what New Zealanders and a growing economy deserve—to keep some more of their own money—and that summarises the differences between the two parties in Parliament today.

Well, that was quite an enlightening speech, was it not? Let me take just a couple of points that Mr Bishop mentioned. Mr Bishop said very early on that this Budget—and I quote—“delivers for those at the bottom of the heap”. This is how Mr Bishop thinks of those who are slightly less fortunate than him—they are at the bottom of the heap. You know, you give them a couple of bucks, you give them a good kick in the guts, and, hopefully, they keep quiet. Well, Mr Bishop, what I am seeing in my electorate and what we are hearing around the country is that those at the “bottom of the heap” are actually sick to death of this Government and are looking for a fresh approach to a whole lot of ideas.

Then Mr Bishop said—and I quote—“It is important the Government gets its own house in order.” Well, you would think that after 9 long years, the Government would have its house in order, but it just does not. It just does not have its house in order, and nothing epitomises this more than the Minister of Health, Jonathan Coleman, having a vote of no confidence against his CEO. It is just unacceptable.

Then Mr Bishop said that—dare I say it—“Labour is obsessed with vision and aspiration.” Well, heaven forbid—heaven forbid being obsessed with aspiration. Well, if that is a crime, then I am absolutely guilty, because I got into Parliament because I have really strong aspirations for New Zealand. We have ideas. We know where we want to take New Zealand. If having a vision for New Zealand is a crime, then, yet again, I am guilty, because Labour has a vision, Labour has aspiration, and we have a whole lot of fresh approaches to the issues that this Government has just not dealt with after 9 long years.

Let me take you through some of these. Let me take you through what the Budget said about policing, OK. I know that policing is dear to the Deputy Speaker’s heart because that is his former profession. What this Budget says, and what we do know, is that crime is on the increase. We know this, and we know that resolution rates are, I believe, unacceptably low. So Labour has sought to address this. We have listened to what the police have to say, and what we have said is that we are going to deliver 1,000 more police in our first term. The police said that what they need are 1,165 more police. That is what they said would reduce serious crime. The Minister said they are going to have 880 police, but in the Budget—and this is the surprising thing—in terms of crime resolution, the document says it is not going to increase. The crime resolution rate is going to be 43 percent—this is the aspirational target, dare I say—for crime against the person, and 13 percent for crime against property. That is the same as it has been last year, and the same before, and that is the Government’s target. What this says is 87 percent of crime committed against property is not going to be solved. It is an admission by this Government that it is just not in control of this.

When I look at the other Budget figures—case resolution and support to judicial process—what this is actually talking about is police prosecutions. What we do know is in 2016-17—these are figures from the Budget documents—there were 100,000 cases prosecuted, and yet this Budget is funding only 90,000 cases. What that says is yet again police prosecutors are going to be way underfunded. The courts are going to be clogged. People are going to be in our prisons on remand for a hell of a lot longer. And what does that do for our justice system? Absolutely nothing.

In the Budget it says in 2016-17 there were 170,000 prisoners escorted and/or held in custody, and yet this Budget is funding only 140,000. What is going to happen when more police come on the beat? Resolution rates stay the same, but the Government says we are funding 30,000 fewer prisoners escorted and/or held in custody. It is just not realistic. There is no aspiration here. There is no vision here, and it demands a fresh approach. That is exactly what needs to happen. Last year the number of crimes, the victimisations, increased by 11,568. I know that probably means nothing, but let us put it into a per week figure: 222 more crimes last year than the year before. Yet there is very little funding to solve these crimes.

What we are seeing at the moment is that our communities are really concerned about the lack of policing. They are concerned about a lack of community policing. They are concerned about the police stations in their local area closing down and not being open, and the terrible thing is that in the Budget the capital expenditure dropped by 30 percent, or $12.7 million. What sort of signal does this send? Well, let me tell you. What it means is those kiosks, those 100-odd kiosks that were closed around our communities—they are not opening. The police station that closed—was it Porirua, Mr Faafoi?

💬 Kris Faafoi: Well, we had two.

Two closed. The two police stations that closed in Porirua—they are not going to be reopening. The more police that are coming on to the beat, supposedly—they are not going to be in our community. They are going to be elsewhere. In fact, the interesting thing is the Budget said last year there were 120,000 hours of foot patrol, and what the Budget says for next year is there are going to be between 120,000 and 140,000 hours. So the bottom target is exactly the same.

The Minister says she has been listening to her communities. She has not, because if the Minister of Police had been listening to her communities, then first and foremost she would put as many police on the beat as the police say they need. They said they needed 1,165 more police to put a dent in serious crime. They have been given 880 police. It is simply not enough. What the police documents showed, themselves—these are the police documents; they are not my figures—was that despite recent seizures of methamphetamine, the increase in supply and the drop in price is rampant. There is more meth and it is cheaper. And you know what? The police cannot do anything about this, because they just have not got the resources. At the moment there are 195—195—police whose primary responsibility is the organised crime squads. In my district, which goes from north of Gisborne to Porangahau—this is my policing district—there are five officers whose sole responsibility it is to go after the gangs that are peddling this death in our communities. And that is when they have not been seconded to other duties. It is simply not enough. It really is not.

Mr Robertson talked about the fact that health funding for population has dropped. We know health funding for education has dropped, and funding for police has also dropped. When the Government took over, there was one officer for every 485 New Zealanders. Now there is one officer for every 526 New Zealanders, and the number of police that this Minister has said the Government is going to provide does not even get us down to a 1:500 ratio. It is simply not good enough that after 9 years of crime increasing, after 9 years of ratios increasing, the Government has finally decided it is going to do something about this. The funding for police numbers has to be an ongoing process. You cannot just grow a whole lot more when crime is rampant, or when meth is out of control, or when the gangs are controlling our communities. It has to be done on an ongoing basis, and I am afraid the Government has failed in this area. There are not enough police to keep our communities safe.

I have been doing street corner meetings around my electorate for a year and a half, and there are two big issues that come up, and it does not matter where in the electorate I go, No. 1 is the lack of police resource. People are really concerned about the lack of police resource and what is happening. No. 2 is actually bottled water, Dr Smith. People are absolutely incredulous, as I am, that in fact we can give our water away for free to someone who then sells it to make a profit. When Dr Smith says “Oh, well, it is only a small fraction of the water we pull out of the ground.”, it does not matter. It is not about supply and demand. It is an economic argument. It is Economics 101—we know that if something has no price it does not have a value. If it does not have a value, there is absolutely no incentive to maximise its worth or optimise opportunities.

For the last 30 seconds I just want to say that the Budget just does not deliver for policing in our communities. There is not enough here. There have been cuts to road funding. There have been cuts to the targets, and we all know that stopping speeding drivers saves lives. I am just very concerned that what we are seeing here is not a Budget that has any aspiration, and not a Budget that has any vision. It needs a fresh approach, and, under Andrew Little, the next Budget will deliver on that. Thank you very much.

Since the Budget, have we not noticed a change in tone from the Opposition? Have we not noticed an increased despondency, a tone of giving up? Look, this is what we have had, and I tell you what, those members have had enough. After 9 long years in Opposition, they are exhausted—so exhausted that the Leader of the Opposition said he needed a breather. It is such a tough life over there, it is such a responsibility, and they are such a busy crowd that they needed a breather. We are not interested in taking a breather on this side. We are embracing the speed, the strength, the depth of this economy and the people who support it—the families, the communities, and, of course, this Government, supporting those who are contributing to this growing economy.

💬 Aupito William Sio: Say it again: “After 9 long years—”

After 9 long years in Opposition they lack the innovation and the aspiration. They are not interested in promoting an open economy. In fact, what they want to do is they want to slow things down, because they need, after 9 long years in Opposition, time to catch up.

This is a Government that has no interest in taking a breather. We are interested only in carrying on with new ideas to inspire New Zealanders to continue to grow the economy at a top speed of more than 3 percent—one of the top performing economies in the planet.

💬 Kris Faafoi: What planet?

Or on the planet—take it the way you like. Those members are in disarray. They cannot be organised enough to bring in 85 international students, to house them properly, to pay them a minimum wage—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: So back to the Budget.

—that is how disorganised the Opposition is. There are no new ideas on that side. Dr Smith asked the last speaker, Stuart Nash, right at the end, after 9½ minutes, where the policy was. Where is the new policy? Where are the fresh ideas from the Opposition? There are none. But, wait, there were a couple—they have a few. There was the universal benefit idea, not that long ago, of giving everyone, no matter what their income, a benefit of $11,000 per head. What a ridiculously expensive and ill-thought—

💬 Dr Megan Woods: This has nothing to do with the bill in front of you.

This is the policy of the Labour Party that is opposing this—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! I am sorry to interrupt the member, but it is only going to lead to disorder if the member keeps wandering off the bill that, apparently, there is so much good news about. I would like for him to return to the bill in hand, which is the Budget.

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. My point was that we have well-thought-out, well-considered policies that support a growing economy. We have seen the construction boom in this country. Just a few years ago there were only 100,000 people in the construction sector; today we have 250,000 people contributing to building the homes that are required because there are more New Zealanders staying at home. They are choosing—they are voting with their feet—to stay in New Zealand, and that does present challenges that we are embracing. We say this is an opportunity for New Zealanders to contribute to the construction industry, for example. The number of apprentices in New Zealand is at an all-time high. The number of people working in the economy is at an all-time high.

It is not just in Auckland; it is throughout the regions. The electorate of the Wairarapa, which I am very proud to represent, is full of economic activity. The infrastructure that has been invested is being seen on the Rimutaka hill road, all the way through State Highway 2, all the way through to Dannevirke and through to Waipukurau, to the Hawke’s Bay. It is evident that this infrastructure spend, as Minister Joyce said, will be doubling from that which was invested only 10 years ago—more than $34 billion in infrastructure spend. That is a challenge that we are here to embrace and here to take opportunity from.

There is a lot of good stuff in this Budget.

💬 Fletcher Tabuteau: He just can’t remember it.

The Opposition says there is nothing in it. This Budget promotes stuff that those members do not like—that is, stuff that supports free-trade agreements, that encourages immigrants to come into the country to fulfil the skills shortages that are in this economy, because we will be spending more on engineering projects, the number of schools that we are building. The investment in Wairarapa College, for example—$10 million directly into the Wairarapa College upgrade. That is just an example of what we can see in every electorate because we have options, we have the choice. The growing economy gives us the option to spend more money on hospitals, to spend more money on education, to build more classrooms, to build better roads—these are the things that only a National Government can deliver, because we are the Government that grabs the opportunity and contributes to the growing economy. We are going to repay debt. We are going to bring debt down, as a percentage of GDP, to between 10 and 15 percent by 2025—that is more aggressive than the Opposition would have in its policies. Those members have no interest in repaying debt; they would rather spend people’s money than make this economy more resilient.

💬 Carmel Sepuloni: Be honest—less debt under a Labour Government than under a National Government.

Well, the Opposition policy, of course, is not to decrease tax. Those members voted against the Family Incomes Package.

💬 Carmel Sepuloni: We voted against tax cuts.

They voted against tax cuts; that is exactly right. The implication, of course, is that they would love to see tax hikes, and there is no denying that from the Opposition—beware. The Prime Minister, just in the weekend, talked about being able to do more of the same, given a National Government—returning more taxpayer money to their pockets by investing more in infrastructure, in schools, in roads, and in—

💬 Carmel Sepuloni: Meanwhile, 41,000 people homeless.

Well, the Opposition policy is to build 100,000 like that, without any consideration of costs or where they are going to be built. This Government has a very organised plan. There are going to be 8,000 Housing New Zealand Corporation properties turned into 34,000 houses—social houses and market houses. That is what this Government is doing—considered and pragmatic policy and initiative.

This Budget is—

💬 Fletcher Tabuteau: Do you have to wait for the bell or something? What’s going on?

No, no, I do not have to wait for the bell, Mr Tabuteau. There is a lot to talk about—there is a lot to talk about. I am going to start talking about something that the Labour Party does not like talking about, and that is that this Government helps people who can least help themselves. This Family Incomes Package talked about accommodation supplements being raised and whole areas of Auckland being reclassified from No. 2 to the top priority, meaning that rather than 16 percent of those receiving accommodation in the top priority, now over 30 percent of those receiving the accommodation allowance will receive the top amount eligible. That is a good thing. Family tax credits—again, targeted at those who are least well off, targeted at those who have low incomes. [Interruption] I know, Mr Tabuteau, you struggle with it. You did vote for it. Of course, the tax thresholds were changed—again, to support families working and taxpayer families.

This is all able to be achieved because of the National Government’s policies—sensible policies that encourage economic growth; policies that support free-trade agreements, which the Opposition does not support; policies that accept, encourage, and demand increasing the number of immigrants into skilled labour—again, something that the Opposition wants to oppose, because it would rather have this place slow down. This place is going too fast, too well, too successfully—things are going too nicely for the Opposition to accept, and it wants to slow the place down. It wants to put up barriers to trade, it wants to put up barriers to immigration and the importing of skilled labour, and it wants to stop this economy from growing. That is going to make it very simple for the voter coming up to make a very clear decision, because it is very obvious that this Budget supports New Zealanders. It supports all New Zealanders across the entire country. Thank you.

Kia ora. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou, kia ora. Well, you know it is time for a change of Government when even the Government MPs are calling it “9 long years”. I do not know how many times Alastair Scott, in the previous contribution, called it 9 long years of National. It felt like 9 years just listening to that speech. If viewers wondered why that last member kept looking up during the speech, he was looking at the clock, because after 9 long years there still was not anything to fill 10 minutes of a speech with. It was painful to watch him constantly looking up and seeing the clock count down.

I am proud to rise and oppose strongly these bills, the Appropriation (2016/17 Supplementary Estimates) Bill and the Imprest Supply (First for 2017/18) Bill. For those who mischaracterised the Green Party’s position during the Budget that we were supporting the Budget, you will see us in this debate voting against the Budget. We voted for the pay equity and the Working for Families threshold changes, but we oppose this Budget—we oppose this Budget loudly, strongly, and passionately, just like we oppose this National Government loudly, strongly, and passionately. After 9 long years, the environment is still being failed by the Government, our families are still being failed by this Government, and our economy is still being failed by this Government.

Now, remember, this bill we are dealing with today deals with some of the changes we have seen since the 2016 Budget. That was called, by Steven Joyce, the “innovation Budget”. What we did not see was much real money for innovation; we simply saw money being moved around in different funding pots and given new names. We saw, since then, a survey come out, which James Shaw has been speaking about, that fewer businesses are actually undertaking research and development in New Zealand since then, and we are still seeing New Zealand in the bottom half of the developed world for spending on innovation. In fact, the only innovation that came out of the 2016 Budget was how successful National has been at PR gimmicks, at moving money around. This is a Government that is all about the spin—it is all about the sizzle, not the actual sausage. There is no actual substance within it, and you see it in the other policies and the other issues.

Let us take rivers: it is an absolute travesty and an indictment of policy that in two-thirds of our rivers, our kids risk getting sick if they swim in them. So what did the Government do? It simply changed the definition of “swimmable” so that it looked like it was delivering swimmable rivers—an absolute sham. We can see it with the electric vehicle targets. Here it announced the policy eight different times in eight different locations, announcing a target for electric vehicles that is actually less than its official do-nothing scenario. You can see it in how it kicks for touch with these targets that are literally decades in the future when none of the current Ministers are going to be held accountable because it is literally decades in the future. So climate change—reducing 50 percent by 2050. You can see it with superannuation changes; they are decades away. And you can see it with pest-free New Zealand, where the target is literally so far in the future that none of them will be held responsible. This is the real innovation. We are seeing a change in how our Government is being run. It is not on substance. It is about these empty targets. It is about the PR spin. It is about these gimmicks.

In the real world, what we do see as a result of the Budget is that New Zealand is going from one of the most equal to one of the most unequal countries, just across my lifetime. What we see is our children going hungry in New Zealand. Annually, we are seeing 40,000 trips being made to hospital by kids because they are sick as a result of their housing. For 60 years now we have been progressively dropping down those economic rankings, and now we work some of the longest hours for some of the lowest wages and pay some of the highest costs of living in the entire developed world. For 40 years now we have imported more than we have exported, so we have to sell assets to stay afloat, and debt has literally gone through the roof under National.

This is exactly what we saw in the recent OECD economic report that came out recently. What it said was that any short-term growth that we have seen has been driven by migration and some construction activity, but, over the long term, it is being undermined because of our low productivity, the pollution from farming and agriculture, and the high and growing greenhouse gas pollution.

So when you look at productivity, the Budget had absolutely nothing for it. There was no additional boost in investment in R & D that is actually going to lift us out of the bottom half of the entire developed world, which sees our scientists paid four times less than the OECD average. There was nothing over those 9 long years to boost our productivity as an economy, and nothing substantially to move us out from the R & D bottom rank. The Green Party has proposed the idea of a Minister for manufacturing, because what we have seen is some huge challenges facing that sector. Why does the Government not come up with some bold ideas like a Minister for manufacturing?

The OECD also highlighted the fault of the Government through its financial and economic management of protecting the environment. It signalled this out. It is a tragedy that you cannot swim in two-thirds of our lowland lakes and streams because they are so polluted as a result of intensive agriculture. So when you look at the Budget, there is a trifling amount—$1 million for a new freshwater fund. There is $80 million for investing, or subsidising from the taxpayer, intensive agriculture. For $1 for cleaning up rivers there is $80 for polluting them. You can see it is the same for climate change, where our emissions continue to grow through the roof—our net emissions. We saw a $4 million funding increase regarding climate change, but then we saw a $300 million increase for subsidising polluters under our emissions trading scheme.

Just stop and think for a sec: $4 million for tackling climate change, but 10 times that amount just in taxpayer subsidies for the fossil fuel industry. There is $4 million for protecting the climate and 10 times that for increasing pollution. You can see it—$4 million in terms of action for climate change and nearly $10 billion over 4 years for spending on new roads and motorways, which are simply going to increase pollution.

So what you see under National after those 9 long years is a continual failure for our environment, failure for our families, an increase in poverty, an increase in homeless, and, in fact, our economy is worse as a result in real terms. But that is why I say it is a real chance for change in a few months’ time. Our vision is a New Zealand where you can swim in our pristine rivers and lakes and you are not going to get sick, where you can explore our beautiful environment that every New Zealander loves—and it defines us in the world; our relationship with nature—and where you can still see some of our endangered species in the wild. It is a New Zealand where we say no to poverty. Too many people are in work, in study, or on a benefit but are in abject poverty. We can commit to an end to poverty.

We can commit to a goal of the right of every New Zealander to have a house—and not only that, a warm, dry house that is not going to make you sick—a New Zealand where you can live in more livable cities that are pollution free, where you have got fantastic public transport choices to get around faster and cheaper; and a New Zealand with 100 percent clean energy that is pulling its weight on the world stage. This is the vision of an alternate New Zealand, which you could see with the Green Party, because it is the exact contrast of what we see after 9 long years of National. But the good thing is that after 9 long years, change is coming.

It is a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak to this, the Appropriation (2016/17 Supplementary Estimates) Bill and the Imprest Supply (First for 2017/18) Bill. I just want to start by acknowledging Mr Nash and his contribution. He openly called New Zealand First policy development for the decades-old problems that the country is experiencing “fresh”. I just wish that he and the Labour Party would acknowledge the source of their policy development.

In more acknowledgment, I would like to give the greatest insult I possibly can give to Mr Bishop, because he deserves it today. He deserves it today. The greatest insult I could give to Mr Bishop is that he sounded exactly like the former Finance and Expenditure Committee chairman. He sounded exactly like Minister David Bennett. That is a sad indictment on Mr Bishop. When I was new, 3 years or 2½ years ago, I thought Mr Bishop had a lot of smart things to say, but he summarised not only himself but the National Government and just how tired it really is. It was an indictment on Mr Bishop.

What I would say—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: So on to the Budget—on to the Budget.

Oh, I am just replying—oh, sorry, Mr Deputy Speaker, I do not mean to contest your ruling, but I am just replying to speakers who have spoken before me. On to the Budget—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, just because they were breaking the rules it does not give you a licence. Have a crack at the Budget before you have a crack at them.

Oh, come on. OK, Mr Deputy Speaker. I will attempt to acknowledge the contribution from Minister Joyce, then, and I will try to relate it to the Budget. He struggled, but I will try to do that myself.

He actually changed the position of National’s spin, because he said it was an appropriations bill that is delivering for New Zealanders. Now, I do not know whether you noticed, but that is actually just a very subtle but important change for National, because just a few days ago, at a conference, the Prime Minister said it was delivering for all New Zealanders. Now the message has changed. Clearly, with this Budget, and with the imprest supply legislation and with the appropriation supplement that we are seeing in this bill, Mr Joyce does not think he can, at least, deliver for all New Zealanders. The Government has got a problem, and he does not want to say it in case we actually ask some fair and reasonable questions about how he is doing that for the homeless of New Zealand and those waiting on waiting lists to get into our hospitals, just as a short example.

In recent days the Prime Minister, whilst undermining his integrity built up over the last 20 years or so, showed us two things: the bored and tired political campaign that National will inflict on the New Zealand public, best typified by the tweet he gave out: “We lead a Government that is delivering for all New Zealanders.”—this is what he said. There were actually a few people who, thankfully, asked the question of what he means by delivering for all New Zealanders. There is something not quite right about that. It was a blatant throwaway line that means nothing, and it is typified by not only the Budget that Mr Joyce, in his lolly scramble, released earlier this year but in this appropriations supplementary estimates bill.

The other thing he suggested—and this is more to what Mr Joyce was saying earlier in his contribution. That is to say that Mr Joyce spoke about what the Government is delivering for New Zealand, and he used some wonderful words and some wonderful terminology, and he quoted GDP, as the members opposite are oft wont to do. But let us just dig a little bit deeper. He spoke about a surplus. I put it to the House that any clown can set up an expenditure and revenue column and tell the country what they are going to spend, and then anybody can not spend what they said they were going to spend and call it a surplus. That is what this Government has done with these numbers.

I will just go through—he talked about building and housing. From the bill on the Christchurch rebuild, there was money in this bill allocated for the Government to give to the council. I think it was over $2 million. If you look at the supplementary estimates bill and the schedule, you will see that that money—$2 million—was not given. So there is an example of how a Government can obtain a surplus. Health, safety, and—sorry, Mr Deputy Speaker—weathertightness. Weathertightness was the other one. There was $4.2 million allocated to weathertightness in the Budget, but in this bill—not spent. The Government wants permission not to spend it, and that is what that Government is going to pass today in this House. It is just, I put it to the House, unacceptable.

Years of woeful neglect have left this country massively ill-prepared for the mass immigration that this country is seeing coming through our borders every day, with a population the size of Rotorua coming into New Zealand every year. What has the Government done about it for the last 3 or 4 years? Absolutely nothing, except encourage this unsustainable number coming into the country. What has that meant?

Minister Joyce spoke about being the infrastructure Government, but what he failed to mention is that he has not spent a penny on core, desperately needed infrastructure, just to cope with the huge increase in population here in New Zealand. We are talking about a population the size of Rotorua every year. So how many schools does that represent? There are 12 schools, right there. Have that many schools been built in Auckland or around the country just to cope with that? No. Police, health, education, hospitals, clinics, GPs, police on our streets—it is just not happening, and now, all of a sudden, the Government is in catch-up mode and telling the country that it has got more construction out there than ever before. It is pitiful and it is woefully inadequate, but the Government is trying to sell it to the country like it had a plan; it did not. It is in catch-up mode.

One of the best examples to typify that was the Budget spending not allocated to 65,000—ah, here it is, here. Over the next 5 years, demand for construction workers will be 65,000. They will need to be trade qualified. The Government has cut tertiary funding. The Government has no real plan, and from the legislation we are debating—supposed to be debating—today, I took this as one example of the irony of the situation. We need more skilled workers. We need people to build more homes—actually, we need the Government to take accountability and we need the Government to take ownership of that, and have New Zealanders build homes. But here is one ironic example: we need all of this by 2020, and we see from this bill we are debating today that the Government held back $2 million on transportation for public schools. How does that work? This is contributing to its so-called surplus. That is how it achieves a surplus: $2 million that it is not giving to our kids, who need to get to school. I bet you anything you like that that adversely and disproportionately affects our rural and regional kids, who want desperately to get to school, but, my goodness, this Government makes it incredibly, incredibly hard for them. It is so frustrating to speak about it in the House.

District health boards (DHBs) were another example I took from this legislation. There was $5.5 million held back from health and disability support services from the Bay of Plenty District Heath Board, the DHB in the area that I live—$5.5 million not handed out from this Budget to health and disability support services. There was $6.3 million held back from Capital and Coast District Heath Board, $7.4 million not spent on Counties Manukau, and $8 million from the Waikato District Heath Board. All of that, I put it to the members opposite, helped to create the surplus that they are so proud of.

That is the reality for this country, and we do not have the money being spent on infrastructure that we need. The spend so far is not going to catch us up to the start—when this Government started—and we need so much more for New Zealand. Thank you.

It is a pleasure to speak on the Appropriation (2016/17 Supplementary Estimates) Bill and the Imprest Supply (First for 2017/18) Bill. I say that because the Appropriation (2016/17 Supplementary Estimates) Bill has quite a lot of impact on the earthquake damage in Kaikōura, which I want to talk a little bit about. I would also point out that the Edgecumbe flooding event and the Port Hills fire—all of those things were reliant on some of that funding coming through in that supplementary estimates bill.

I think that our Minister of Finance, Steven Joyce, really walked a delicate line in putting a Budget together, between spending money where it is needed and ensuring that we are able to get our books in a state where we are able to actually respond to events like those. Getting debt down by 2020 to 20 percent of GDP—Government debt, that is—is a really important target, but we have got another target. We are going further than that, and we are going to aim to get to 10 to 15 percent of GDP for Government debt by 2025. There is no doubt that we will have an Alpine Fault rupture event at some point in the future, and there is no point in casting around the world trying to borrow money to respond to an event like that at extremely high interest rates, because our debt-to-GDP ratio makes foreign borrowers very nervous, and that is what would happen. So I applaud the Minister of Finance for actually being very successful on that.

If I could just, for a moment, talk a little bit about what some of that money in the Budget is going towards: we did see $17.5 million go towards the earthquake support subsidy. That money supported 862 businesses, which have gone forward now and have got through that point, but we have now got money for an assistance grant for those businesses that are in need of it. Can I tell you, Mr Assistant Speaker, and the House, that since the earthquake, business is actually booming in Kaikōura. However, there are businesses that are not doing so well. But the amount of money flowing around through that economy—because when you are spending over $1 billion to reinstate the rail and road corridor, it inevitably spills over into the community in which it is being spent. To see all of the people on the street in high-vis gear and spending their money—all of the people who are accommodated in the 300-bed temporary accommodation village are all given a chit to eat at a local restaurant in town. So that is a really tangible way to assist the local economy and local people while they are reinstating their vital links to enable their businesses to respond and get back on their feet.

There was also $5.7 million that went to reinstate the harbour. That work is still going on. I had the pleasure of seeing the work being completed there. There was an Australian group that was working off a barge, dredging the harbour with a digger. It was very fascinating to see that barge as it walked itself along—it has large piles—and cleaned out the harbour to make it safe to navigate. That is vital, because the tourism businesses that are vital for the recovery of that town have to use that harbour. That is the only way they can get their tourists out to see the whales and other features on the water. So that money has been very well put to use, and is still being put to use, and that is a vital part of those supplementary estimates.

There was also—going to the highway and the rail corridor—extra money that came in for that. That is a vital amount of expenditure as well. I was there to see the first train get through to Kaikōura from the south, and that is a great fillip for everybody in the community.

However, having said that, there is a lot more to do. They have just reached the halfway point in clearing all of the slips, and it is fantastic to get to that point. After the earthquake it was estimated that there were 370,000 cubic metres of material to move on the northern corridor, but after these two cyclones went through that went up to 600,000 cubic metres of material, so it is a phenomenal amount of material to move. We did, in this House, pass some enabling legislation for Orders in Council, but that was not to enable the Government to be a vandal and push stuff into the sea; it just enabled a truncation of the Resource Management Act processes, and that was very much appreciated. That money is still being spent. We hope that it will be completed in time, in December, and it is all looking good at this stage. But who knows what can happen, in terms of natural events, along the way. Getting that right, I think, is a really important part of New Zealand’s economy. It is important, also, to have a Minister of Finance who enables the economy to be in a position to respond to another event should one come along in the near future. Let us hope it does not, but having Government debt down will enable us to respond in the future.

There has been a lot of talk about R & D, a little bit before. I thought the member from New Zealand First, who normally likes to give an academic approach to these matters, was a wee bit off-piste, I should say. It was a wee bit disappointing; in fact, it was rather disappointing, and I expected a little bit more. However, having said that, I think that the R & D and how well we are responding to that—there was a very good example of that this morning when we saw Emirates Team New Zealand spending less money than anyone else in getting a boat to beat the world at its game. It was a technology company, of all things, that was running the other programme.

How this relates to the Budget, of course, is that we have got things like Callaghan Innovation, which is funded through the Budget, and other different quangos that are out there helping businesses with their R & D. But Government does not start businesses, Government does not export goods, and Government does not employ people in export industries. It is businesses and individuals that do that. Where they invest their money—and they do a great job of doing it and taking a risk—R & D is a major part of that. But to do that the businesses have to have confidence that they are going to get somewhere. It is very easy to have a lofty target and say: “Let’s spend X percent of GDP on R & D.” It has got to be sensible money spent in the right area, and the people to make those decisions are those export businesses. They are those businesses and companies owned by individuals that have to have a vision. They have to have a product.

Another example that we have, which started quite small and is rapidly getting quite large, is Rocket Lab with Peter Beck. The Electron rocket is quite revolutionary, and that could turn into a major business for New Zealand. That has taken Government money and investment, but it is not the Government that did the R & D; it is actually a private business. Those private businesses—from all the ones that I have been interacting with anyway, recently, since the Budget—and the individual businesses are all in favour of the balance that our finance Minister has taken on this Budget. I think it has been phenomenal, and I congratulate him on it.

So a lot of capital has been set aside for capital expenditure over the next four Budgets—$11 billion, which will take that to $32.5 billion over 4 years in total. That is a phenomenal amount of money to put aside to invest in much-needed infrastructure. In the South Island practically every hospital is going to be rebuilt. There is a phenomenal amount of money going into that. That also highlights in the South Island—I know that here in the National Government, which is a Government for the regions, we get into the South Island and what is the biggest issue facing the regions? It is actually people to work in our businesses. So how do we do that? Immigration—and I am really disappointed by the Opposition parties saying that our economy is based on immigration; it is not. Immigration is actually supporting our growth. It is not causing our growth; it is supporting it. We could take hundreds of people tomorrow in small communities in the South Island if we had them, but we do not have them. We try to get them in. We try to get them off the benefits and they do not—[Interruption] I know those members do not like it. It is a difficult thing for them to swallow, but if you do not have the right policies that appeal to people, that is why people are deserting you in the numbers that they are.

The National Government is about growth. It is about the regions. I have great pleasure in commending both these bills to the House. Thank you.

The next call is a split call. Barry Coates—5 minutes.

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. I rise to address this bill. This is about the Supplementary Estimates for the current Budget. Since it is about the Budget, this is about confidence in the current Government. What I want to do is go back to the speech from Bill English, when he was Minister of Finance, to look at what the Government’s priorities were for this Budget that we are commenting on, and to look at the degree to which the Government has met those priorities and what these revised estimates are therefore about. The finance Minister at that stage said that there were four priorities, and I will run through those.

The first priority was a growing economy. But, you know, if you look at the economic growth figures in GDP—gross domestic product—per capita, they have fallen for the last two quarters. We are in a technical recession. That cannot be called a growing economy. Even that level of growth is there only because it has been propped up by housing speculation, which has seen house prices rise again by 6.7 percent over the past year, and by the foreign students debacle, where foreign students were brought into New Zealand under false pretences and under fraud, and then the foreign students were victimised and blamed for the fraud. We have seen massive tax breaks for foreign investors. We have seen multinational companies not paying their fair share of taxes and all sorts of tax breaks for wealthy individuals. As a result of this economic mismanagement, New Zealand is slipping down, again, the OECD’s ladder of productivity, which is the real measure of our productive economy. What we have seen is that the economy is not growing, and even that anaemic non-growth is founded on unsustainable foundations.

The second priority was fixing the infrastructure. What we have seen on that is a continued obsession by the Government on roads, even when the benefit-cost ratios have been very low. For example, in Auckland, we have seen further Government opposition to the City Rail Link and a delay in finding the mechanism where Aucklanders can at last escape the congestion that sees them spending more time in their cars than they do on vacation. That is the kind of under-investment over 9 years of this Government that has led our infrastructure to be horribly, horribly under-invested. We see it in the regions, where regions are struggling with growing numbers of tourism but without the money to be able to invest in tourism infrastructure. Where we have seen the Government putting money is into prisons. What an indictment of Government policy that is, that more and more prisons are required for the Government’s failure.

We have seen an obsession from the finance Minister on social investment—the third priority. The social investment package was so badly managed, in fact, that community-based organisations and NGOs were being asked to divulge confidential information about their clients at the stage where Government departments were still sending out that confidential information to other people, without proper controls.

Finally, the fourth area of priority was investment in health. As we have seen, there is under-investment in health under this Government totalling about $500 million a year, according to Infometrics. We have seen the gross neglect of mental health so that teen suicide rates in New Zealand are amongst the highest in the world. We have seen neglect and underfunding of aged care that leaves our older people with no proper care facilities.

This is a situation where the Government does not have the numbers. It should not be allowing Todd Barclay to vote in Parliament. It does not have the numbers. It does not have the mandate. It does not have the confidence of the New Zealand people. We are proud of our America’s Cup team, we are proud of our All Blacks, we are proud of our Black Ferns, but we are not proud of our Government. It is time that it left and there was a change of Government. Thank you.

I call Michael Wood—5 minutes.

Can I start by acknowledging our friends from the Lions tour in the gallery. It was good to see your friends on Saturday night at Eden Park, and we welcome you to our Parliament.

I am here to speak to the Appropriation (2016/17 Supplementary Estimates) Bill, unlike many members of this House, who have not actually spoken to that bill in their contributions, and I have been thinking about why it might be that many members have struggled with that. Here is the bill that we are actually speaking about. It is a doorstopper. This bill, the supplementary estimates bill, is about all of the mistakes that the Government made in the Budget last year. It is about all of the things it got wrong and is having to fix up now. That is what it is about, and I think the challenge for many speakers in the debate today is about trying to cram this into only 5 or 10 minutes, but none the less I am going to do my very best with that.

I want to start by talking about what we have seen in the Supplementary Estimates in respect of revenue, a portfolio dear to my heart. Relatively recently, the National Government has had a new, harder-working revenue Minister, who is really cracking the whip on things, but what the Supplementary Estimates reveal is that there are a whole lot of things that have actually gone wrong in the revenue area and have had to be fixed up in this document.

One of the things that stood out for me is the fact that the investigations budget was underspent by $2.7 million. It was underspent by $2.7 million in the same year that that Government—that Government itself—has conceded that multinational corporations are ripping New Zealand taxpayers off to the tune of $300 million a year. So, at the same time as we need to be going after the big guys, we are cutting back on the investigations budget in this very document. Alongside that, we have cut back by $15 million on the information we give to New Zealand taxpayers about their obligations, making it harder for them to know the right amount of tax for them to pay. That just shows the wrong priorities of this Government.

Flicking through a few of the other areas that have not already been canvassed in the excellent speeches by my Labour colleagues, I want to turn to courts. I was reminded of this because, of course, the Deputy Speaker, who was previously in the Chair, was a very good and very active former Minister for Courts. If you went down Lambton Quay today, I do not think that anyone would even know who the current Minister for Courts is, and that is probably lucky. It is probably lucky because if you look in this document, the Supplementary Estimates, there is a shocking figure. It is that the impairment for fines that should have been paid to the Government was supposed to be $12 million in the Budget last year, but that has rocketed by over 100 percent and is now up to $29 million. That is an absolute blowout, an absolute stuff-up, and an absolute example of governmental incompetence in this document, which Government Ministers are about to vote through.

We flick on a few pages later and we find out why. We find out why. It is because the Government slashed the amount of money to spend on courts and fines collection. Well, it does not take a genius to work out that when you reduce the amount you spend on fines collection, you might get fewer fines coming in, and that is exactly what is happening in this document, which those Government members are about to vote for. Where is the accountability for that? Once again, they are the wrong priorities.

Urban cycleways—the pet project and probably the best achievement of the previous National Prime Minister, John Key. It did not really change the world or the economy, but it was a pretty good sort of niche project. What do the Supplementary Estimates tell us? We were supposed to spend $43 million on that project to build more urban cycleways, but because of poor planning, we managed to spend only $27 million of that. That was one of this Government’s hallmark projects and it could not even deliver that properly over the last year, and so we have had to adjust that in the supplementary estimates.

The most shocking thing I have seen, actually, in the Supplementary Estimates really speaks to us about what this Government is getting wrong. It was a question I asked in the Finance and Expenditure Committee about the changes in the number of people receiving hardship assistance. These are the people who are really, really doing it hard and who need help from the Government. This tells us how well this Government is doing at helping those in need, which those members constantly stand up and boast about. It tells us that last year, 5,000 more people needed special benefit, and it tells us that 102,000 more special needs grants had to be paid last year, which is up from 489,000 to 592,000. That is a sign of people being left behind, despite what this Government has said.

In his contribution before, Mr Bishop accused the Labour Party of talking too much about vision and aspiration. Well, we are guilty as charged on that front. We have vision for a country in which we spend less on prisons, not more. We are guilty of having a vision for a country in which we have decent homes for all New Zealanders and decent incomes for every New Zealand householder—good health and good education, not tax cuts for the wealthy. We oppose this bill and the Budget, and we will deliver a much better one next year. Thank you.

I stand to take a call on the Appropriation (2016/17 Supplementary Estimates) Bill. When I heard that previous speaker, Michael Wood’s, kōrero, I thought: “Oh my gosh! He has obviously overlooked the $2 billion Family Incomes Package that they never even supported.” Labour members talk about supporting those on low incomes and all the rest of it and think that they have a say over that when they cannot even support this $2 billion Family Incomes Package.

That was the hallmark of our Budget for 2017, and it, actually, was met with great admiration out on the street, not only by the people who will be receiving this amazing package but also by the organisations that actually work with these people as well. So when I look across at the Opposition and the way that it rubbished the 2017 Budget, I think: “Well, there is no vision there; there is no aspiration there. There is no going anywhere in that group across the House.”

I want to talk a little bit about the children, young persons, and their families, Oranga Tamariki, the Ministry for Vulnerable Children, because this is the second-biggest investment to support vulnerable children over many years—over 30 years, actually. A little bit of history about that—in 2016, the Minister for Social Development, the Hon Anne Tolley, had been working on reviewing the Child, Youth and Family organisation, and some of the reports that came out from that investigation were found wanting. They found a system that did not place children at the centre of its organisation; it was not meeting the needs of vulnerable young children. The organisation was fragmented. There was a lack of clear accountability, and there was not any organised common purpose around the organisation. That, therefore, bore the start of the Ministry for Vulnerable Children.

From 2016 to 2017 the Minister has fastidiously looked at the way the organisation is set up, and, thereto, $434.1 million was set aside in the Budget to be invested in the ministry—that is $424.2 million in operating funding over 4 years for that organisation, $2.3 million for the 2016-17 period, and $7.5 million for capital funding. When we start to look at that, we see this is a Government that is serious about helping young children, young youth, within the system. Not only was that funding put in for the ministry but also there was the establishment of the youth group. The youth group members were advisers to the Minister and to the researchers who were setting up Oranga Tamariki. These were the young people who said: “We want to have a say. We want to make sure that the new establishment, the new organisation that will come forward, will be by us and for us.” I believe that through the Minister’s hard work with her advisers, we have actually been able to get there.

A little bit more evidence around that—recently we had a meeting with the CEO of the Ministry for Vulnerable Children, and she said her scariest time, when she applied for the job and went through the interview process, was actually the interview with the youth expert panel. She was so very nervous about facing them and showing them that she meant what she was saying and that it was not a false interview. I guess that for that period of her interview she came through, and the rangatahi on that expert panel could see that she meant what she was saying.

We have also, within this Budget, put aside or invested $26.4 million to support 4,500 caregivers of children. That is really important because sometimes it is difficult when you are looking after young people and your personal budget is very tight, and so to be able to support the caregivers of these children through this $26.4 million—it goes some way towards ensuring that the caregivers are actually able to do a good job of looking after these young people.

We have also invested $94.4 million to meet some of the ministry’s cost pressures through this Budget. It has had a number of them. With the restructure of Child, Youth and Family into the ministry, and all the other machinations that are going on within the ministry, there has obviously been quite a bit of cost pressure. So $94.4 million will actually assist the ministry to overcome those cost pressures.

We have invested another $71 million to extend support for youth aged between 17 and 18 years. This was a contention as we were going through, discussing this with some of the people who came along to the select committee. But I think where we got to, with the 17- to 18-year olds—I think it is a very good place to get to, because they seemed to be the young people who were missing out when the age for supporting them stopped at 17. So we are able to extend that by another year, and then also to put some support around those up to age 25.

There is $28.1 million for Family Start, an intensive home-visiting programme. Family Start has been one of those contracts that community organisations have had, and it has been quite difficult—I know, because I came from that sector—for some of the providers to be able to do a good job around Family Start. There has been some review of the actual services of Family Start, and now we are starting to get to a place where Family Start is starting to be embedded a bit better into the organisations. So that is $28.1 million invested in there, through this Budget.

Finally, there is $11.7 million over 2 years to trial and evaluate community-based remand placements. It is all very well having all of these things happening, but it is really key to be able to make sure that the investment is actually working, and with the remand placements, those have been some of the areas whereby an evaluation of those placements will let us know how well things are going with the investment.

As I said, we had the $2 billion Family Incomes Package to lift after-tax incomes. That was targeted at low-income families. It will increase the $14,000 income-tax threshold to $22,000, and the $48,000 threshold to $52,000. This means more money in the pockets of those people who deserve to have it. That is looking at an average of about an additional $26 into people’s pockets. Some people might say: “Well, that’s not enough.” Well, it is more than what they had yesterday, and it will carry on into their future. I can see that through this investment into the Family Incomes Package many, many families—we are looking at thousands and thousands of families—will actually benefit from this. That is 20,000 households—the household incomes threshold. Those are the people who will actually benefit from that. That is reducing the number of children living in families that are receiving less than half the median income by around 50,000. This is what this Family Incomes Package—it is targeted at children. It is targeted at families with children. I am really pleased to stand here and tautoko this particular area of the Budget.

I just want to finish off my kōrero by giving a little brief talk about the Canterbury rebuild and the amount of capital investment that this Government has put into the Canterbury rebuild. We are looking at $4.7 billion across health, education, social housing, and more. In my electorate of Christchurch East we are looking at a number of primary schools that are brand new, plus the community college Haeata. That school is thriving. Yes, it has its ups and downs, as all schools do. All schools have their ups and downs. But through the principal, Andy Kai Fong—he is doing an amazing job of bringing together ages, from 5 years old all the way to 18 years old, and being able to deliver educational packages that actually respond to each of those individual age groups. I have visited the school. I have met with Andy a number of times. I have even met with 15- to 18-year-olds. I can tell you, the investment we have put in there is paying off. I have no hesitation in supporting this legislation. Kia ora.

Labour will be opposing this legislation. Labour will be opposing this legislation for a very simple reason: it does not deliver for New Zealanders. We have just heard a number of things from the previous speaker who has just sat down, Joanne Hayes. I want to pick up where she left off, and that is with Christchurch schools. I want to challenge that member to ask her ministerial colleagues and the Prime Minister to come to Christchurch and apologise for the appalling process they ran in closing and merging our schools in our city. It was so bad that last week the Ombudsman issued a report pointing to the psychological harm that that Government did in the city of Christchurch, with the way it botched the process. To the speaker who has just finished speaking, I challenge her to ask her colleagues to front up and apologise to the people of Christchurch for that.

The previous speaker also attempted the Government’s spin that this was a family package that delivered for families. Well, the speaker is deluding herself. This Government is simply not being straight with New Zealanders, because, let us be really clear, this is a tax cut that delivers the most to the highest-earning New Zealanders. The bottom 50 percent of taxpayers get only 20 percent of the benefit from this tax package. This is what Chris Bishop so elegantly said was a package that was delivering for the bottom of the heap. Well, I say to Mr Bishop: you are talking about 50 percent of New Zealanders when you call them the “bottom of the heap”. That is not only arrogant; it is offensive and it is emblematic of a Government that is out of ideas. It is tired, and it has got absolutely no idea what life is like for ordinary people. I think that is a statement from Mr Bishop that he should come down and apologise for.

But after 9 years in Government—and even the Government Ministers are having to point to it being 9 very long years—is there anything in this Budget to fix the housing crisis? No, there is not. The Government has failed to do anything to address the housing crisis. What there is is there is an accommodation supplement. We have said that we would support the accommodation supplement. Are we supporting the increased payments on the accommodation supplement because we think this is a fundamental way to address housing issues in this country? No; it is not. It is recognition that people are struggling to put a roof over their heads, but accommodation supplements are not a long-term strategy for addressing a housing crisis, and that is all this Government can come up with.

What we heard was one of the previous speakers say that we had a wish list to build 100,000 houses. No, we do not have a wish list. We have a plan, and it is something that this Government lacks. This Government has no ambition and no plan to address the housing crisis in this country. What we have is a Government that is content to sit back, and, for an increasing number of New Zealanders, housing is seen as a luxury—a luxury that they cannot afford. That is not something we are willing to stand by. This is a Government that lacks any ambition about it.

But let us have a look at some of the other things. If you are delivering for families, I would expect there to be some good boosts for health, so that people can afford to get the kind of healthcare they need. Was that in this Budget? No, it certainly was not. There was a monumental botch-up in terms of what was going to which district health board and a lot of egg on the face for the Government, which had to be corrected after. This is a Government that cannot even count properly, to put the money in the right place in what will be its final Budget.

What we had was the Minister of Health calling out that we on this side of the House had a wish list. I do have a wish list, and my wish list is that when an 8-year-old expresses suicidal thoughts, they do not have to wait for longer than 12 weeks to see a professional. That is what is happening. That is what this Government thinks is a wish list.

We held a very successful public meeting in Christchurch last Wednesday night, when well over 350 people packed into the Transitional Cathedral to talk about this issue—to talk about mental health, particularly youth mental health in Christchurch. I have to say, it was one of the most moving political meetings that I have ever been to. A lot of very brave people stood up and shared their experiences of their struggle in the system and of this Government that has let them down. It has consistently underfunded Christchurch’s mental health service at a time when that city needed it the most, and people feel so let down and so abandoned by a Government. I do not see the provision of those basics as a wish list. It is concerning to me that that is what this Government sees. It thinks about wish lists when it sees that.

Did this Government deliver to schools in this Budget? Did this Government seek to restart and refill for schools the $158 million in operational funding that it needed to make up the shortfall? No, it did not. Instead we have our schools again struggling through with frozen operations grants, needing to use their operational grants to fund teacher-aides, increasingly, to get through in the face of the kinds of pressures that they are facing. And what are those schools doing? They are forced to pass those costs on to parents. They are increasingly asking parents to dip into their hip pocket to pay for the whiteboard markers, to pay for the photocopier paper, and to pay for the tissues. When I went to school, the school provided the chalk. The school does not provide the equivalent in many places now; parents are being asked to provide that, because this Government is underfunding the operational grants of our schools, and that is something that cannot be ignored.

Another issue that has been raised by speakers around the appropriations in turn is the Canterbury rebuild. Well, I have a question for the Ministers associated with that portfolio. I want to know whether the impairment of investment in Southern Response services, the additional $444 million—when will the Government come clean on Southern Response and tell us how much money is actually going to be spent and when the end date is? I think many New Zealanders have lost sight of the fact that there are literally thousands of Cantabrians who are still waiting for their insurance settlement to come through, who are still waiting to get on with their life. They are still arguing with Southern Response, they are still arguing with the Earthquake Commission, or they are having to have their botched repair repaired for another time. That is something that this Government simply is not delivering on and something that absolutely has to be addressed.

I would also like to touch on R & D spending, which Stuart Smith brought up, saying how great all this is and how it is that we cannot set unrealistic targets like matching the rest of the developed world in terms of investing in research and development. Well, when the Minister of Science and Innovation came to the select committee and I suggested to him that perhaps we should have a measure to see how well our spending was being used, he said the only measure he wanted to use was how much money was being spent. This is a Government that is unwilling to look at how its spend is going. That is a Government that, perversely, will not let businesses make those decisions for themselves. This is a Government that will not back an R & D tax credit to put that control back into the hands of businesses.

Then we had, quite frankly, a bizarre speech from one of the members of the Government benches about immigration and about how our policy was going to starve the regions of the workers that they needed. Well, I suggest they actually read; it can be quite an enlightening experience. If they did read our policy, what they would see is that we do not have an income threshold of when you are allowed in this country. Instead, we are going to allow regions to put together skills shortage lists and decide what it is that they need in their region. We have seen this work quite successfully in Canterbury over the last few years, and we are going to ask regions to do that on a region-by-region basis. I can tell you it is very popular in the South Island, and I see there could well be a local MP listed on the skills shortage list in Clutha-Southland, as the party struggles to fill that spot.

We oppose—

Order! The member’s time has expired.

Kia ora e Te Māngai o Te Whare, huri noa i Te Whare nei e mihi atu ki a koutou katoa.

[Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker, and acknowledgments to you all throughout this House.]

Thank you for the opportunity to speak on the Appropriation (2016/17 Supplementary Estimates) Bill. As the final speaker, it was unfortunate to hear the previous speaker, Megan Woods, particularly someone from Christchurch—and I am not sure whether she has been in Christchurch over the last few years, particularly when we look at the incredible developments that have taken place there since 2011.

If she only looked across the world and went to L’Aquila or went to New Orleans, she would see that they are still looking for development and that not even 50 percent of it has been done. But if we look at Christchurch, $17.5 billion from the New Zealand taxpayer through this Government is what we have actually seen in this incredible development in Christchurch.

There are two areas—key areas—that I want to speak to or cover in this bill. The first one is talking about one of those Christchurch electorates, the Port Hills. The other one—when we look at something quite unique in New Zealand, when you talk to visitors who come here, when you talk to people when we go overseas—is about our incredible Māori and non-Māori relationships that we have here, and another 200 ethnicities as well. This is actually about Māori development also. So the two reflections here are on the regeneration of Christchurch—the rebuild; and particularly within the Port Hills—and the other part is around Māori development.

First of all, when we look at the Port Hills, in 2011, and even before that, in September 2010—and then came the earthquakes with thousands, tens of thousands, of aftershocks. That was the first part, the first crisis. The second one was indeed the Port Hills fires back in February. We are people who have actually been through a number of crises, and it has been this Government that has assisted us. So when we look at the funding, the key changes for the 2016-2017 estimates, we see in this bill that $4.75 million has been given to respond to, and cover costs associated with, the Port Hills fires. This funding does not actually also include the additional immediate response funding that the Government made immediately available. That was through the New Zealand Defence Force personnel and equipment, so we need to take that into account as well.

In the Port Hills, as I said, we are familiar with crises, but this Government has been adept, actually, in managing crises for us down in the South Island, particularly in the Port Hills and in Christchurch—Canterbury. We have seen it not only in Christchurch but in the Government’s response to the Kaikōura earthquakes. We have also seen the Government’s responses to the floods in Edgecumbe. This supplementary estimates bill also includes some more funding back in Christchurch specifically. Our electorate was the worst affected by landslide hazards, the Canterbury earthquakes inclusive, and, as a result of that, Land Information New Zealand, in tandem with the Christchurch City Council, has been doing a fantastic job in remediating those kinds of hazards that we find within the hills. The supplementary estimates for Vote Lands have put aside another $3.5 million to assist the Christchurch City Council’s response to the Port Hills landslide hazards, and that is just another part of this amazing Budget. This is another part of the 9 fantastic years that this Government has actually been on this side of the House—

💬 Carmel Sepuloni: 9 long years.

No, 9 fantastic years—9 fantastic years—and it is all about the economy.

Looking at this—because when we look at this, let us look at some of the other things that this Budget has covered in part of the Christchurch rebuild. In the Port Hills we have big users of public transport, so we have benefited greatly with a $53 million investment in the Christchurch Bus Interchange. I was proud to see the opening of the Margaret Mahy Family Playground and to hear the praise of local Port Hills people in association with that. Work is continuing also on the sixth precinct within Christchurch. That is the Justice and Emergency Services Precinct, which is about to be completed in the next 2 months. There is the Avon River Precinct, there are the health hubs, there are the performing arts, and there is the retail and innovation.

All this has been possible because of a Government, a Prime Minister, and a Minister of Finance who take responsible approaches to managing New Zealand’s finance. This is another reflection of the 9 fantastic years that New Zealand has enjoyed under a National Government.

The next part of this—let us have a look at the Māori economy. Let us have a look at Māori development within this particular Budget. Budget 2017 includes $93 million in new Māori development initiatives, under He Kai Kei Aku Ringa, the Government’s Māori economic development programme. That is the first thing. The next one is that included in this funding is an extra $10 million to support development in the Māori tourism sector—a huge, important sector, particularly within the Māori economy. On top of that, let us come to housing. There has been this thing where the glass is always half empty on that side of the House about housing, but when we look at this initiative from this Budget, there is $17 million—$17 million—for Māori housing initiatives. That is what this is about. We also have to look at Whānau Ora—Whānau Ora, let us have a look at that. We gave an extra 2,500 whānau access to Whānau Ora. We have $10 million—here is another one—to support and sustain marae around the country, $10 million. Another $8 million to extend the Rangatahi Suicide Prevention Fund.

💬 Kelvin Davis: But there’s no details.

💬 Meka Whaitiri: Ha, ha!

That is not funny. That is not funny. It is actually about our people—rangatahi suicide, that is what it is about. And another $4 million for the Passport to Life programmes.

When we look at all of this, from the Christchurch rebuild to Māori development, all of this is because of the 9 fantastic years that all New Zealanders have enjoyed under this Government, and, particularly, it is about the economy. That makes that money available for all this incredible development that we have had. I have no hesitation in recommending this bill to the House. E mihi atu ki a koutou katoa, kia ora.