Imprest Supply Debate

It is great to be back in Wellington tonight. I have been down in Kaikōura today for the reconnection of the rail back up today; the last weld in the rail track to connect the rails between Picton and Christchurch. But I will talk a bit more about that later on.

I think this imprest supply and appropriations debate is a fantastic opportunity to revisit some of the initiatives in our Budget, which has gone a long way to make a really big difference for my electorate, in particular, with $17.5 million going to earthquake support for 862 businesses, which was really fantastic support. That has rolled over into business grants now and is really well received by the businesses, helping them get back on their feet. It has been a big task for businesses to grapple with the changing environment that they are now working under. A lot of those tourism businesses that would normally be going through a really quiet time now anyway, a lot of their staff are out working on the road doing traffic management and earning very good money and being part of a rebuild, which is fantastic.

There was also $5.7 million to reinstate the harbour. I was down there the other day, when we have made a major step forward. They will be finished in October; the last bits of that will continue on. That money that has gone forward to help—even things like the coastguard, whose ramp did not go all the way down into the water after the earthquake; that has been deepened and the ramp has been extended so the coastguard can actually get out and do their job. So that is phenomenal support for the local community in that.

But I want to talk about the $812 million that was set aside for the rail and the road. It was only last month that they spent $47 million in that month on the rebuild, and that is $10 million more than was spent on the Waterview tunnel at its peak. So there is a phenomenal amount of activity going on there now. And today there is a stack of rolls of mesh in the forward operating base for the helicopters sitting there and they were taking one roll at a time underneath the helicopter to bolt on to the top third of Ōhau Point to stop the rock that has been fractured in the earthquake from coming down on to the road. When they get that finally completed they will be able to work safely underneath it, and it is a massive task.

You can imagine the work that the abseillers are doing there; it is phenomenal. You wonder what these people do for the rest of the time—not you, necessarily, Mr Deputy Speaker; we all wonder what those people do in between disasters, but they must be doing something, because they are very good at their jobs. They are hanging off a rope, drilling holes into the rock and bolting that net and working with a helicopter dangling a heavy piece of net underneath the helicopter and putting it in place. It is phenomenal work to see that happening.

But today I had the pleasure of being there to see, with Peter Reidy, the chief executive of KiwiRail, where the workers actually did that weld. I have never seen one of those welds done before. I thought they might let me have a bit of a go with the electric welder, but it was not electric welding; it was athermic welding, I think it is. But it was amazing to see that last bit put together. I understand it will be a few weeks now; the rail line is actually connected. They have to go through and tamp it down—get a tamping machine in there. Effectively, they have got a rail line that is equivalent to a muddy farm track, and they have to bring it up to the level of a highway to take the freight trains down there that will start running, hopefully, in a month’s time. But it does take quite a bit of work to get it up there.

But this is a major step forward with a track that will run two freight trains a night in either direction, and during the day there is still more work to be done in some of the tunnels to bring them up to standard. It is all about safety, of course, but it also gives them room on the road to continue with the construction during daytime. They are working at night, as well. It is amazing, the progress that they have made. That money and that very quick action that came out once the decision had been made that we needed to reinstate the road and the rail, it needed fast action and they have stepped up. I really want to take this opportunity to thank those people who are working on that road. The work that they are doing is making a tremendous difference for New Zealanders. It is a great fillip for the people who live on and around that road to see that that progress is being made.

From the outside, you cannot see what is happening. I can tell the House that pictures do not do it justice; to actually get on the road and see the scale of it is phenomenal. They are now getting access to Ōhau Point. That slip has been nicknamed “Granddaddy”; it is the biggest one of the lot. It is three times larger than the one through the Manawatū Gorge that kept it closed for 18 months, I think. So it gives you some idea of the scale. So it is phenomenal and great news that that is moving on.

But let us go back to the Budget. I would like to talk a little bit about what is really the heart of the Budget, which is the Family Incomes Package. That was made up of tax thresholds, which I will come back to in a minute, Working for Families, and the accommodation supplement. Now, there has been some debate about tax thresholds, saying it was a tax cut. It will, effectively, lower tax, but it is about a much-needed shift in those brackets, those thresholds. It has been quite insidious; it creeps up on you over time. Even though we are in a low-inflation environment, wages are going up much faster than inflation, and it is phenomenal. Even though the numbers are small—

💬 Andrew Little: Not for two-thirds of wage and salary earners. Two-thirds are going backwards.

—it is actually larger—it is a shame there was not a bit more economics studied on the other side of the House.

Anyway, I will come back now to those tax cuts, because I was quite curious about what had happened when the last tax cuts occurred in 2010. There is a thing called the Laffer Curve, which is quite an interesting concept. This is Arthur Laffer, who was an economist who came up with the theory of the relationship between tax rates and the overall amount taken in in tax, which is really important when you are starting to talk about tax cuts. If you want to talk about it, people should really understand what they are talking about.

💬 Andrew Little: You have not had the Laffer Curve since 1985. How embarrassing.

I think there is a bit of a grumpy person on the other side of the House. I wonder why they are grumpy?

I had a look at this. So the top 1 percent of taxpayers—what do they pay in tax? If we were to believe the rhetoric coming from the other side, you would expect when tax levels were lowered that the amount of tax that the top 1 percent would pay would go down; in fact, the opposite occurred. So tax take from the top 1 percent went up, so that sort of puts the lie to that theory. So then I thought I had better look a wee bit wider than that, so I thought I would see what percentage of taxpayers actually pay half the tax in New Zealand; half the income tax.

So, looking at that, you would expect the reverse to occur. You would expect that, actually, more taxpayers would pay half the income tax, if in fact lowering the tax rates actually was bad for low-income earners. But, in fact, again the reverse occurred: 2 percent more. It went down from 14 percent to 12 percent; so 12 percent are now paying half the income tax. It is a phenomenal number. I think most New Zealanders do not understand that. It is really interesting to think about that. So income taxes are the key to our prosperity. I think it is quite interesting. I would like to have a conversation with someone who could actually understand economics, but that is another question. I think this a phenomenal step forward, to do that.

Also, I think, one of the key things that we also need to remember is that if anyone were to reverse that decision, then can anyone guess who is going to be most impacted? Actually it is superannuitants, because then their increase in their superannuation is dependent on the average after-tax income, which will, in fact, go up. So it is a phenomenal outcome for New Zealanders, a great tax package, and a great Budget that has actually helped deliver for the people who have been affected by the earthquake, and I commend it to the House. Thank you.

I just want to start by touching on Mr Stuart Smith’s comments about wanting to speak to someone who knows how to run the economy. He is talking to a party on this side of the House, which, when last in Government, ran nine surpluses, and his Government—let us remember—ran one. Actually, my colleague Ruth Dyson sent a letter out to her constituents and used a line that I think is really true and we should use more often. That line is: “A real surplus comes once the Government has met its obligations to its citizens, not by delayed expenditure and clever accounting.” That is the only way that they reached one surplus over 9 years. So if Mr Stuart Smith wants to talk to people who know about the economy, then he should probably have more conversations with people on this side of the House, because he is wasting his time—he is absolutely wasting his time—on that side of the House.

We have all been out and about—6 weeks now out from an election—I am sure, at many meet-the-candidates meetings, many political panel discussions, and debates. The one thing that I stand up and say proudly at every single one of those debates is that Labour will not apologise for not supporting the National Government’s tax cuts—and every time I say that I get a round of applause from the room. The reason I get a round of applause from the room is because New Zealanders know that that Government has underspent and under-invested in the things that matter to New Zealanders: a lack of funding for health, a lack of funding for education, and a massive lack of funding and investment in housing.

So New Zealanders do not want to see $400 million - plus of tax cuts go into the pockets of the top 10 percent of income earners in this country. They see it as irresponsible, and it is going to be one of the worst memories that members of this Government have of one of their last actions, because they thought that they could buy the votes of New Zealanders, but it is not going to work and we are getting that sense out there. New Zealanders are telling us that it will not work.

Let us reflect on National’s tax package in Budget 2017. Bill English’s tax change is so the wealthiest get $35 extra a week and the lowest paid get $5.13 a week.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: How can that be fair?

How can that be, my colleague Ruth Dyson says. How can we in this House need an additional $35 a week, particularly when we know that we have got over 41,000 New Zealanders who are homeless now, particularly when we see that, actually, we have got the worst level of homelessness in the whole OECD. Yet they think that the politicians in this House deserve an extra $35 per week. It does not sound very fair to me. Someone on the average wage will get just $11 a week. That makes me think back to 2008 when we were getting criticised on this side of the House—for what? What were they comparing our tax cuts with? A block of cheese, I think it was. Well, with $11 you will be lucky if that gets you a block of cheese now. So are members on that side of the House now thinking that a block of cheese is enough? Because that is what they are giving the person every week who is on an average wage with their tax cuts; $35 to themselves, but $11 to the person on the average wage.

Their changes, however, will also take money away from people as well. For example, a full-time single cleaner on the minimum wage gets an extra $11 in tax cuts but loses $10 from the removal of the independent earner tax credit, so they will end up with $1, which is where “One dollar bill” came from, people.

There are changes to Working for Families, some of which we support. There are changes that that side of the House has made with regard to the accommodation supplement, which we reluctantly had to support—reluctantly, because we do know that that money goes directly to the landlords of the people who are receiving it, so it does not actually benefit them in any way. I will give a couple of examples from my own electorate where it was very clear that that is the case. So at a caravan park in west Auckland—it has been covered in the media quite a bit over the years—the landlord is very aware of what his tenants are entitled to, so he charges to the hilt so that they get the maximum entitlements, and he is the one who benefits off it. So that landlord of that caravan park will be going: “Thank you, National Government. You’ve just enabled me to put my rents up a little more to these vulnerable people living in the caravan park, so that I can maximise their accommodation supplement and pocket all the money myself.”

It is not just caravan parks, though, that I have seen it with; I have seen it with boarding houses. So if it is caravan parks and boarding house landlords who are doing it, what makes them on that side of that the House think that there are not private landlords who know how the system works and know how to maximise the entitlements of the vulnerable people who are living in their houses so that they benefit from it, because, unfortunately, that is the case.

We have talked in this House—over and over again and we sound like a stuck record, but all of New Zealand knows that this is true—that we are going through a housing crisis. It is embarrassing—embarrassing—about the fact that after 9 years in Government all of the Government members are trained to deny that that is the case. You know, years ago we had climate change deniers; now we have got housing crisis deniers on that side of the House.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: We’ve got some climate change deniers still too.

Well, yes, that is the case. There are still some climate change deniers. But by denying that we have a housing crisis what they are doing is they are unable to actually address it appropriately or adequately, because they will not accept the extent of the problem that we are facing.

I have seen it in my electorate with a tetraplegic woman who ends up living in a modified van after being told by Work and Income and Housing New Zealand to go and stay in a boarding house. So she ends up living in a modified van with her partner and her 4-year-old daughter, and the only time the system springs into action is when an Opposition MP brings it to the attention of the media. I have seen it in my electorate when I found a family—parents and two children—living under a tarpaulin, a makeshift tent, at the back of a house in Henderson, and the only time the Government department springs into action is when an Opposition MP brings it to the attention of the media. Yet, you know—and I will say this—we have one of the Ministers saying that Labour MPs or Opposition MPs are using our constituents for fodder with the media. Well, actually, the only way we get attention half the time is if we get public attention around the case. That is the only time the Government responds.

But it is disappointing, because as an Opposition MP after 9 years, even though I had 3 years out with my short sabbatical there, I have come to learn that the only thing you can do in Opposition really, or one of the few things you can do, is achieve success on a case by case basis, but you cannot create the over—what is the word?

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: Arching.

“Overarching”—that is the word, Ruth. You cannot create the overarching change that you want to change the system and to make it better off for a lot more New Zealanders. You are just dealing with it on a case by case basis.

So their management of our economy, their management of taxpayers’ dollars, has been irresponsible over the last 9 years. Their priorities are in the wrong place. You need only to go out into the public and people accept the fact that housing has been under-invested in; health has been under-invested in, particularly mental health; education has been under-invested in; and, actually, New Zealanders have had enough. They want to know that when they need to access their public services, they are there for them and they support them and their families adequately. But that has not been the case under that Government; in fact, things have continued to get worse, and I think on 23 September people will make their voices known in terms of how well they think that Government has looked after them and their families. I think that that side of the House is in for some disappointment.

It is a privilege to be able to take a call in the third reading of the Estimates debate. I want to talk about a Budget and a finance Minister who followed the lead of our previous finance Minister, who, of course, had the role for some 8 years and put this country into very good stead in those 8 years, and will continue to do so as the Prime Minister of New Zealand.

Stuart Smith’s speech a few moments ago emphasised the value of the Government being in surplus. The fact is that the Kaikōura earthquake did such an amazing amount of damage to harbours, railways, roads, and other things in that area—certainly to property in that area—and that the Government was able to move quickly and, in fact, get that railway reinstated in the very short time it has is a tribute to the financial management of this Government over the last 8 or 9 years.

We heard Ron Mark talking earlier about the haves and the have-nots and heard the claims that the Budget rewards the haves. Well, that is not true, and nor are the Labour members’ claims that we lack vision and they have it. As late as yesterday, its members continued to drag out their policies of yesteryear. They know best how to spend taxpayers’ money, and the very speech we heard a moment ago from Carmel Sepuloni proved that. They are much better at spending taxpayers’ money than the taxpayers are, and, of course, the Greens have gone to ground completely.

I want to spend a moment or two talking about how this Government has continued to seize the opportunities that we have as a country. We have built on the hard work of this Government over the last 9 years, and, despite three major earthquakes and the global financial crisis (GFC) of 2008-09, we are growing at over 3 percent a year. We have created some 200,000 jobs in this economy—well, we have not, but the economy has—in the past 3 years, and a further 215,000 are predicted in the next 3 years. We have an economy that is responsive, and a public sector that is more efficient and effective and that better serves its people than it has done for many years.

The results of that hard work by the Government and its support parties that make up that Government are that we now have a growing population and a thriving tourism industry, and you have only got to look at the north of the Rangitīkei electorate to understand the magnitude of this thriving tourism industry and the fact that Ruapehu Alpine Lifts is spending some $100 million on the side of the mountain. The Lines Co., which has been the bane of my life for some years, has started to perform in an admirable manner and has got its act in order, and accommodation rates in the north of my electorate have significantly risen, giving that industry a boost that it probably thought some 4 or 5 years ago that it would never see again.

We have an unemployment rate south of 4.5 percent, and in some parts of New Zealand it is as low as 3 percent. We have a primary sector that is growing at a record rate, and not only at a record rate but also at a sustainable rate through adding value and gains from technology and science. No longer are we using the old adage of producing more from less. We are producing more from less, but we are using very different technology, and the science behind that is giving us a great advantage as an economy.

Regional New Zealand is in the best order it has been in for many years. It is very easy to go round regional New Zealand and pick off some bits here and there and complain about how bad it is, but that will always be the case. Of course, those people who live and breathe in rural New Zealand—as many of us do—understand very well the ups and downs of regional New Zealand. We understand what happens to us when we rely on a primary production sector and a tourism sector, and our small towns have suffered for many years. At last those small towns are in a much better state than they have been for many years.

We also have a country and a Government that can care for its less fortunate. I am very proud to be part of a Government that has put an extra $2 billion into the lower-income end of our community just in this last Budget. In the previous Budget, all beneficiaries benefited by $25 a week, which was the first such lift for some 40 years. I think that the actions of this Government are in the best interests of all New Zealanders. We will always have philosophical differences between the various parties in the House as to how we should go about these things, but definitely the role of this Government is to encourage people to look after themselves and to give them the opportunity to spend their own hard-earned dollars on improvements to their livelihoods and their lives.

I want to spend a moment or two talking about the Rangitīkei and the $576 million that has gone into the Defence Force upgrades, which largely benefit people and communities in my electorate through Waiōuru; Ōhākea, which is close to Bulls; Feilding; and, of course, the Linton army base south of Palmerston North. New Zealand’s defence is hugely important for our future. The recent Budget announcements around those upgrades will give the Defence Force great heart, and it will really look forward to the future with confidence, I think.

The ring road around Palmerston North, the Kapiti Expressway, and having Transmission Gully moving quickly are great advances for my part of the world, and I have got to add that from my place to here, it used to be an hour and 50 minutes. It is now an hour and 40 minutes on the back of the Kapiti Expressway, and I would imagine that with the completion of Transmission Gully in 3 years’ time—which will be interesting—it will take 20 minutes off the trip from where I live to Wellington, which is hugely important and is a great economic boost to the Whanganui-Manawatū region.

The Manawatū Gorge—I want to talk about the gorge for the moment, because it has been a challenge for my region for 150 years at least, and probably longer. This Government, through Minister Bridges, has made a commitment to fix the gorge one way or another. There are some challenges around the gorge. One of them is the Ashhurst community, and the Ashhurst community, of course, suffers from a bypass going fair through the middle of it. As we move to repair the gorge, one of the first issues that will arise is how we get round the Ashhurst community.

The ministry and the Minister are paying particular attention to this and have visited Ashhurst on a couple of occasions already to talk about that. I think the community in Ashhurst can be assured that the Government—this Government—will move in every way it can to protect that community from the extraordinary number of heavy trucks going through there on a daily basis, right through the middle of a town. Although, to be fair, those people who bought in that street knew it was a bypass road for the gorge when it was closed, but they did not expect to have 7,000 vehicles a day going through it. So I am sure this Government has got to grips with the gorge and will make great progress with it.

Briefly, back to the tourism industry—which, clearly, affects my electorate significantly—we have had some recent announcements around the Tourism Infrastructure Fund, which has given some of our councils a great opportunity to get on and develop some critical infrastructure for the tourism industry. We have some amazing walking and cycling tracks in the north of the electorate as well, and not only are they in the north of the electorate but, in fact, the Manawatū Gorge walk is a critical walk that joins the Manawatū with the Alastair Scott’s electorate on the other side of the hill. That, of course, is under some pressure as well because of the challenges that the gorge faces. So the Tourism Infrastructure Fund and the spend around tourism is pretty significant for the Rangitīkei electorate.

The science spend is another area that is critical for us, and, of course, we have the Crown research industries based on the Massey side of Palmerston North. We also have Massey University. Both of those institutions, as well as the Fonterra Research Centre, are smack in the middle of the Rangitīkei electorate—a little bit odd that might seem, but that is the fact.

So as a country we continue to innovate and clean up the environment in partnership with our farmers, our foresters, and our urban communities. The forestry national policy statement launched today will be a significant advance for that industry. It will give clarity as to how it goes about its business, it will give clarity as to where councils need to sit within that sector, and I think it is a great move forward and will continue to be.

The freshwater clean-up fund—nearly $6 million of that has gone to the Horizons Regional Council, and is being spent from Levin and particularly around the Manawatū River. It is a great opportunity for us to get on with the job of cleaning up our environment. It is a challenge for New Zealand. We are a country that has based itself on agriculture. We have also based ourselves in communities that all seem to be located by rivers, and we can tell that pretty much every time we get a flood.

Finally, the Rural Broadband Initiative, which must continue and has been hugely productive for provincial rural New Zealand, will continue to strengthen the opportunity the farmers have to adopt technology that will, in turn, help us to improve our environmental outcomes.

On our boundary we have a sleeping giant finally awakening from the GFC and the commodity downturn that accompanied that, and, of course, I am talking about those across the Tasman. They are a great strength to New Zealand. We must continue to grow. We must continue to work hard on trade, which is critical to our future. We must also strive for increased stability to pay people more, and already in the time of this Government—in the 9 years of this Government—average wages have lifted by $17,000. There is plenty of scope for that to improve. So that is me. Thank you.

I am not normally a religious man, but tonight I find myself thanking God, or the gods, that this Budget debate, the appropriations debate, is almost over—that the pain and suffering that has been inflicted—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: You should try sitting up here, sonny.

—I do feel for you, Mr Deputy Speaker—on our ears and sensibilities from the rampant sycophancy spewing forth from the Government benches is almost over. I thank the same gods, however many there may be, that this appalling, diabolical Budget is Steven Joyce’s first, last, and only Budget, because come 23 September, or the morning of the 24th, we will be rejoicing in the fact that we will not be “re-Joyce-ing”.

💬 Hon Members: Aw!

Hey, you have got to work with what you have got, all right? You have got to work with what you have got. It is always a delight to follow on from the most affable, amiable chair of the Primary Production Committee, Ian McKelvie, as I am sure you would agree, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I do have to pick up on something that Mr McKelvie said. He talked about the National Government creating 200,000 jobs, against the rhetoric where the Government also says that it does not create jobs, industry does. Those 200,000 jobs—how many extra people has this country managed to absorb in the time that those 200,000 jobs have been created? Over 9 years—we have about 50,000 school leavers every year, so if we are not creating at least 50,000 new jobs every year, never mind immigration at 70,000 a year, we are going backwards. And, of course, if we look at the rates of young people not in education, employment, or training, and we look at the numbers of people who are being shifted from one benefit to another or being classed as working when they are doing 1 hour a week, moving statistics around, we are going backwards.

Getting back to the almighty, because we do start every session in this House with a prayer—and that is a fine thing, in my estimation—Labour will obviously be praying for redemption, the Greens will be praying for a miracle, and the Nats will obviously be praying for rain on election day, because that might actually the only thing that they have going for them that might save them. Mr Bishop, when he spoke, talked about uncertain times and the fact that we live in uncertain times. Well, yes, we do, and that is obviously pertinent to the members on the National benches. I imagine that any number of them are looking around in these uncertain times and contemplating prayer, wondering which 15 of them are not coming back after the election.

If you look at the polls, and the polls are where they are because of what is actually happening in this country due to the Budget—not the spin, not the rhetoric, not the mix-and-match statistics, not the pick and mix and highlight what you want, but what is actually happening out there to real people, out in real New Zealand, who are suffering and who have been suffering since 1984, since the reforms brought in by the Rogernomics Government of Labour, carried on by the “Ruthanasia” Government of National, this neoliberal continuation of an experiment for which New Zealand was the great global guinea pig, which has not created any kind of a trickle down, apart from the one that has something to do with doing something down my back and telling me it is raining—those members over there, I would imagine, are concerned about Mr Joyce’s Budget and the effect that it will have on their future career prospects.

New Zealand First is praying also. We are praying that after the election we have sufficient time to repair New Zealand’s biosecurity network before foot-and-mouth strikes, because otherwise we going to get hit with the blame for it despite the fact that we have spent the past 6 years telling the National Government what is wrong with biosecurity and what needs to be done to repair it. We have argued about its great border levy that it talks about imposing on tourists. It is fine that tourists coming in should pay something towards the biosecurity costs of vetting them, but it is not fine that that is simply a replacement revenue stream and not actually a new revenue stream, or that in a country where three-quarters of our economy comes from the primary sector, we spend a paltry $248 million, out of about that same number of billion dollars, on securing the border against the things that promote the greatest threats to that industry and that income on which we all depend.

Minister Upston, when she spoke, talked about forestry, and I want to touch on that, too. It was with great pride that Minister Upston talked about the forestry sector employing 26,000 people and earning $5 billion in export receipts. Going back to 1980, the forestry sector employed 25,000 in the processing sector alone. There were more than 100,000 involved in forestry in total. So in 37 years we have lost 75,000 jobs from the forest and wood product sector. Try telling people in Tokoroa and Rotorua and Murupara, people who used to work in mills in towns that used to be mill towns and that are now ghost towns because all that timber is going offshore in the form of logs as some kind of a sop to the free market, because this Government cannot see the nonsense in exporting a primary product like timber with six-sevenths of its value still contained within it. The $5 billion in exports, most of it from logs, could be $25 billion if we were processing it here, and it could be employing another 70,000 or 80,000 people in the very parts of middle New Zealand that need that employment most. But do we see anything in this Budget promoting that? No, we do not.

Go back to 1980 again. Go to Indonesia. In 1980 something like 80 percent of Indonesia’s forest output went to Japan in the form of logs, and the Japanese turned it into plywood. And then in 1984 the Indonesian Government imposed a 700 percent export tax on logs, and the log trade died overnight. The Japanese plywood producers said: “Oh, my God, what we do? We can’t get logs from anywhere else. Oh, perhaps we’ll have to buy plywood from Indonesia instead.” Four years later those figures were completely reversed, and Indonesia went from supplying 4 percent of the world’s plywood to supplying 84 percent of the plywood coming out of Asia. That was done by one stroke of a pen. It was done by the Indonesians 35 years ago; it can be done in New Zealand now. There is no reason why not, apart from this National Government’s slavish adherence to a proven failed neoliberal ideology that puts the rest the world first and New Zealand last for the sake of something that, really, after 30-something years, I cannot imagine why it is still holding on to.

Why is it doing this? People out in the provinces, people out in real New Zealand, are telling us that this is what is happening. Drive through those mill towns, those ghost towns. Look at those closed-down mills. There is a mill not far from where I used to live in North Canterbury. It is a Daiken Corporation particle board mill at Sefton, just up the road from Ashley. It does make value-added products, but it is owned by the Japanese. It seems that it is fine for this Government for us to have a processing industry as long somebody else owns it, as long as all the profits go offshore. It cannot see the wood for the trees. It cannot see the wood for the trees.

If we look at the other things that are going wrong in biosecurity, we know about the Mycoplasma bovis. We do not know how it got here, but we know that it did. We know about myrtle rust. We do not know how it got here, but we know that it did. All these marvellous things that are said about the intelligence and about the technology that is going into the border, that is going to make the border more secure—there is more intelligence, there is more money being spent technologically—things are still getting through it. The latest one is lake snow. It is a relative of “rock snot”, another import. The genetic basis of lake snow does not exist in the Southern Hemisphere, apart from the southern lakes of New Zealand. It got in somehow, through our amazing border systems. All the rhetoric in the world will not stop foot-and-mouth coming into this country. What will stop it is proper inspection.

The green lane that lets people come into this country if they have certain passports without any kind of inspection did not meet the Ministry for Primary Industries’ target of 98.5 percent compliance. It was the most compliant of all the channels by which people come into this country, but it did not meet 98.5 percent, and even if it had, over the last 4 years, with the volume of passengers going through that lane, 135,000 things will have come through the border that should not have. One simple X-ray machine for everyone’s baggage, with modern technology that can detect biological material, and some sniffers, would stop that. It does not take many more boots on the ground, but it does take an acceptance and an acknowledgment that we cannot rely on fancy computer models or intelligence officers stationed overseas or anything but doing what actually needs to be done, and that is putting proper resourcing into biosecurity, which is the most important part of this country’s economic defence, and doing it the right way and inspecting everything that comes in. There is nothing in this dreadful, diabolical Budget to address that, apart from rhetoric and spin and false statistics. Come 24 September that regime will come to an end, and New Zealand First will come to the rescue. We only hope it is soon enough. Thank you.

It is a pleasure to be talking on this third reading of the Appropriation (2017/18 Estimates) Bill, and hopefully we can be more cheerful than that former speaker, Richard Prosser, because that was very, very dreary. Actually, I think this is an excellent Budget, and I will tell you why: this Government is delivering for all New Zealanders. This is a Government that is open to trade, is open to investment, and is happy that Kiwis are choosing to stay at home because this is where they want to live. They do not need to flee to some other country; they want to stay here because we are successful, we are growing, and we are delivering for everyone.

We are not taking a break, as some people said—oh, sorry, that may have been last week; someone else might be saying something different this week. But we are on a road to growth, to prosperity. So what are the people of New Zealand actually achieving? Well, one of the first things they have done, through the hard efforts of everyone in New Zealand, is get one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. In fact, I asked the Minister of Finance today in question time about the Moody’s report that has just come out. Moody’s, an independent body—and I am not sure if many of the Opposition know who Mr Moody is. But I am not referring to Mr Moody; I am talking about that international credit agency. It stated that New Zealand is one of the fastest-growing Aaa economies in the world, and what is that leading to? Jobs—180,000 jobs in the last 3 years. That is 10,000 a month—10,000 every month. That is what we want. We want to see New Zealanders with the opportunity to get good employment, earn money, buy a house, and look out for their families. That is why you create successful economies.

What that is leading to is low unemployment—4.8 percent, and projected by Treasury to go even lower. Wages are increasing as well. Increasing wages—a $17,000 net increase over the last 8 years in real wages. That is all against an environment where we have got low inflation, which means low interest rates, which means people can afford to buy houses much more readily than when interest rates were at 10 percent or 20 percent under the previous regime.

I think this Government should be named the “Government of infrastructure”. What a facilitator of growth. We know how important it is, and this Budget—contrary that last speaker—is one about investing in new infrastructure. Do you realise that $32 billion will be spent on infrastructure over the next 4 years—$32 billion? Unbelievable. You know what it is going to go into? Well, a lot of it is going into roads—and I am going to talk about that and other transport initiatives—but also into big things like schools. In my electorate of Hunua, I have got three brand new schools committed: Ormiston Junior College, Flat Bush, and a new one at Belmont, Pukekohe. I have got lots of schools that have got new classrooms, upgraded facilities, and all those good things.

Hospitals—lots of them. We have been doing all the big ones, and now we are doing things like the West Coast hospital and further south. Defence—I see the Minister of Defence here doing a great job, and we have committed $20 billion over the next 20 years to upgrade our facilities and our defence capabilities. Housing—I hope you have been listening to the Hon Amy Adams. She is doing a great job in terms of delivering a real plan for housing, and not one that is uncosted. It is not like the one that we have heard from the Opposition about these 100,000 homes: “How are you going to pay for it?” “We don’t know.” Amy Adams is doing a great job because she has costed it. We have got a plan. We know what we are going to do, and that is what we are going to do, and already we are seeing the benefits of housing prices easing off—if not decreasing—and that is going to make it better for everyone.

There is $550 million put into rail around New Zealand and $436 million allocated in the Budget for the central rail loop. But what a weekend—what I weekend I have had. I am most grateful to the Prime Minister and to the Minister of Transport, the Hon Simon Bridges, because they have recognised the need of the South Auckland community. They specified in the weekend that this Government is going to invest $130 million to electrify the rail line from Papakura to Pukekohe. One hundred million is going to go into triple-laning the rail track between Wiri and Westfield. Some people will not appreciate why we have invested in that. What this is about is that currently on the rail loop between Westfield and Wiri there is congestion with freight trains, and the triple-laning will mean that the rail track coming up from the south can be more optimised, better used, and have more trains on it. This, of course, builds on the recent announcement to buy 17 new electric trains operated by battery. That is just working its way through the process, but the intent is to get it in 2 years’ time so that we can have battery-powered trains coming up into Pukekohe with the capability to go as far as Pōkeno, and also up into the north, to the member for Rodney’s electorate. So that extends the capability of our rail network.

Of course, in the previous weekend, we had the announcement around another two railway stations that are going to be built in the southern loop—one at Paerata, where the Wesley development is going to take place, and also at Drury South. These are great things. They recognised the high-growth area I represent, and where the hard-working people of the south come from and travel into the rest of Auckland. I think when you combine this with the announcement that the Government is looking at a new four-lane road corridor that mirrors the Southern Motorway, this is what we are all about. This is about improving the infrastructure in New Zealand, improving the infrastructure in Auckland, and assisting people to get to work and go about their lives.

It was remarkable—I had just watched, with a sense of anticipation, what the Labour Party might come up with for its transport policy. What did I hear? Labour wants to invest in a new rail link that goes from the Wynyard Quarter to Mount Roskill, for light rail, over the next 4 years—already, we have had people saying: “Well, we don’t know whether we could do that.”—and then extend that to the airport within 10 years. How is Labour going to fund that? Well, the first thing it is going to do is tax everyone. Everyone in Auckland is going to be taxed another 10 cents—another tax. Then, what Labour is also going to do is it is going to slow down—scale down—the East-West Link. At the moment there are 2,000 trucks a day using the route from Onehunga to Mount Wellington, and Labour wants to slow that down. It wants to stop those truckies from coming out of that heartland business area and feeding the nation—it wants to slow that process down so those trucks cannot get out, and continue the congestion that goes on.

Tomorrow morning at 6 a.m. when my people—my constituents from Hunua and Papakura—get in their cars, I do not think they are going to be saying: “I wish we had a new light rail to the airport.” What they want to know is that they can get into their cars and get on to the motorway or get on the train, and go to work without any problems. That is where the real priority is.

When you take this package, together with the recent one around the Crown Infrastructure Partners package, which is about the Government committing a further billion dollars in terms of investment in infrastructure—$600 million from the Government and the rest from councils and private equity—this is about a Government delivering infrastructure, which is one of the most crucial drivers of growth. That is what we are going to do. That is why we need to be back here in October. I am looking forward to being part of that Government when we do come back. Thank you very much.

Well, that member, Andrew Bayly, obviously had something inspiring over the dinner break, and we could hear the booming start. But he missed a few points, and I want to draw attention to a few of those before we get too far in. First of all, he was talking about his constituents getting in their cars at 6 a.m. The bit he omitted to tell you was that they have work at 10 a.m. It takes them 4 hours to get there in the current gridlock that his Government has overseen. Now, I used to live in the area that he represents, so I speak from experience. It certainly is a lot more clogged up than it used to be, and that member knows it.

And I do not think that when he pours scorn on the light rail policy announced by the Labour Party over the weekend that he has actually talked to any constituents about it—he certainly did not reference any specifically—because the people I have heard from are pretty jolly excited about it. Finally, there is a proper plan to get Auckland moving again. These guys are still crowing about Helen Clark’s Waterview tunnel like they invented it. That is the only major infrastructure thing they have put in place in their time, and they did not even start it themselves.

There are quite a few things I have to touch on that the previous speaker touched upon. He talked about delivering for all New Zealanders, because he has not got the memo yet that the “all” has dropped out of National’s slogan because it cannot justify it any more. He talked about homeownership becoming more affordable, without saying that we have got the lowest homeownership rates in New Zealand since 1951. The only affordable housing plan National seems to have is getting sponsorship from Subaru and Toyota, because people are living in cars now.

That member knows it. He knows the situation in Auckland; he lives there. I do not believe he has not seen it, but he gets up in front of this House and seems to expect us to believe that National has a plan, when it has been sitting there for 9 years and has presided over this mess. Its members have watched real wages drop—and they have; real wages have dropped—and we have still got 90,000 kids not in employment, education, or training.

That is why we need a change of Government. That is why we need a Labour-led Government, which will actually do something about these issues and will make real progress to make sure that the economy is shared with everybody. It will make sure there is a shared prosperity so that all New Zealanders can have the benefits of a good public education and a good public health system, so that everybody can make the most of their talents, and so everybody can have the opportunity to get ahead, not just those who have parents with deep pockets or who are born into good fortune, which we are increasingly seeing defining the prospects of New Zealanders.

On this side of the House, we have always stood for the provision of high-quality access to affordable healthcare—sorry, affordable access to high-quality healthcare, as well. I want to say that that is something I would like to talk a little bit about in my contribution. In recent days, we have seen the consequences of the underfunding in this Budget here that we have been debating. We know for a fact that district health boards (DHBs) needed about $530 million to meet cost pressures, but in this Budget they got just $439 million, meaning they slipped yet further behind.

An independent research firm, Infometrics, has had a close look at the Treasury data, and it has discerned that since 2009, $2.3 billion—$2.3 billion—has been stripped out of the health system by these people opposite, and that is just the extra money that would have been required to deliver the same level of health services. We know that it is getting harder to access scans for cancer and the like. We know that it is getting harder to get hip replacements and knee replacements. We know it is getting harder to get cataract surgery.

Let us take an example from down my way. In the Southern DHB, we have had people go blind waiting for cataract surgery. We have had people go blind. We have had open letters in recent days written to the Minister—orthopaedic surgeons saying a third of people who should be getting care are currently not, and that the incentive sets it up for them to refer those people back to their GPs, who ping them backwards and forwards, so they do not get penalised for having a waiting list under this Government’s exclusive focus on short-term targets.

We know that the elective target is being propped up by eye injections and skin lesion removals, many of which could be done in GP practices more cheaply. But no, they have got to meet their targets, or they get punished by this Government, which is determined to build up statistics, prop up statistics, and make itself look good, when it is failing to deliver healthcare for all New Zealanders, which it ought to be doing, which any decent Government would do.

Well, we on this side of the House are the only party in this Parliament that voted against the Budget package. I am going to repeat that. We are the only party in this Parliament that voted against the Budget package. And we did that because, in good conscience, we could not do another tax cut package in election year, targeted at the wealthy, like those members do on that side of the House. That was not what we think the priority is for most New Zealanders. Tax cuts for the wealthy are always the priority for those members on that side of the House. A thousand bucks a year for every MP in this Parliament—we do not think that is the priority.

We think the priority is quality healthcare for New Zealanders. And so we have promised that we will put $8 billion more into health over the next 4 years than those people on that side of the House, because that is where the money is really needed right now. Parents are struggling to pay school fees. We are going to put $4 billion more into education. These are the priorities of New Zealanders, not tax cuts that benefit the MPs sitting in this Parliament.

That is what National would have you believe—that tax cuts for people earning what MPs earn or what Ministers earn is the priority. We in Labour do not believe that. We actually think we need a better future for everybody, where we promote those basics of good public healthcare and good public education.

The other thing I want to mention is not just that extra money. The other thing is that that money needs to be well spent. Labour understands the importance of spending public investment money well. We have made sure that we have run a good ship when in Government. I have not been in a previous Labour Government, but we know from talking to people in the health sector that Labour has made the real advances. The Minister opposite, Jonathan Coleman, in the Budget, got the figures wrong. For the first time, as far as I am aware, in New Zealand history, the Minister on that side of the House got the health budget wrong. He got the budget wrong.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: And blamed someone else.

He blamed someone else. He always blames someone else. And then his director-general phoned around and told DHBs they could keep the money. Where I am from, they got told 2 weeks out from the start of the financial year that they were going to have $5.7 million recalled. The equivalent of an additional 120 nurses was taken out of the Southern DHB 2 months—sorry, 2 months, oh, if only; 2 weeks—before the financial year began.

The DHBs in this country—many of them billion-dollar businesses—did not have a budget or plan in place 3 weeks into the financial year. How many billion-dollar industries do not have that? This is basic stuff. That is the mismanagement on that side of the House. It has truly lost touch. It is no longer getting the basics right, and that is harming the DHBs.

The DHBs are speaking out. They know there is poor management. They know that the Minister is disinterested in the sector, and the Minister is denying there is an issue. He refused, in this House today, to apologise for his remarks when he attacked staff at the Southern DHB who are speaking out about the shortage of funding and the shortage of care for people in the South. We know the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons recommends 3.2 full-time positions at Dunedin Hospital; it has been operating at 2.1 for, I think, nigh on a decade. These people have overseen that shortfall.

It is 30 percent underfunded and under-resourced, and people have been dying. People on that waiting list are facing death right now. Thank goodness Checkpoint is making an issue of this, and local MPs have been raising the issue for some time. I want to acknowledge my colleague Clare Curran, who has drawn attention to care shortfalls in the Southern DHB. I too have been doing it. And to those local staff who have spoken out and had the courage to challenge the Minister, who maintains that everything is well—I think we need to see a whole lot better and we need to see it soon.

A Labour Government will make sure that there is a timely rebuild of Dunedin Hospital if we get down to brass tacks in the South, because in 2014, when this Government promised it would have a business case to Cabinet in 2014, people believed it. Now it is saying it is going to be mid-2018. The hospital rebuild in Dunedin is now further away than it was before the last election. We will see some glossy pamphlets, I am sure, before the election day, but the people in the South have become cynical, because that side of the House has underfunded health for so long.

We are not promising the tax cut bribe that National is promising. Instead, we are going to fund decent healthcare to make sure there is affordable access to quality healthcare for every New Zealander. Thank you.

It is great to be, I think, the last speaker on the Appropriation (2017/18 Estimates) Bill this evening. I have had the great privilege to sit and listen over the last little while to a couple of parliamentary colleagues who have spoken before me: Richard Prosser, whose stream of consciousness was discernible only to himself, but it was entertaining to see him have a go at it anyway; and, of course, my colleague Andrew Bayly—what a vociferous promotion of the Budget that was. It reminds me, actually, that—I have to detour, if you do not mind—last week I was involved in a silent leadership challenge in Tauranga. You, over on the other side, will enjoy this. It was a silent leadership challenge where we had to sit in Tauranga with earmuffs on—this actually had a serious context—to understand what it would be like if we were hearing impaired. I had the “pleasure”—inverted commas—to be sitting opposite Simon Bridges while he was talking to me with his earmuffs on and, of course, I was talking to him, and we were struggling to hear each other. But I was thinking, while you were speaking, Mr Bayly, that you would have had no problem being discerned by anyone wearing those earmuffs through that entire event.

As for Dr David Clark, he has the audacity to stand up here and lecture this side of the House around our investment in health, which has gone from $11 billion to just $16 billion, and to wave his finger at us and say “Only the Labour Party knows how to deliver in the health sector.”, when for 9 years of that Government, from 1999 to 2008, the health expenditure went up 50 percent but hip and knee and elective surgeries stayed flat. They stayed marginally flat. It was absolutely extraordinary that he could stand here and say that this Government’s focus on delivering improved productivity and outcomes from the health dollar should be lamented, and that his party’s record, which was appalling and focused just simply on the process and the bureaucratisation of the health sector, should be lauded. It was a complete reflection of how out of touch Dr Clark is in respect of the health sector. What we are doing is investing in ensuring that there is actually more delivered for that public investment.

Part of the reason I stood 3 years ago to be part of the John Key—now Bill English—Government was to be able to one day add my voice to a Budget like this, for it speaks to the core of the National Party that we could come in here in 2008 with an economy that was an absolute cot-case. Every single time the Labour Party has come anywhere near managing the Treasury benches, we have ended up coming in after it has been involved, with the place in a mess. It cannot help itself. It is tax and spend and tax and spend, because that is the philosophy that underpins the Labour Party. There were 11 percent interest rates—do we remember that, New Zealand? That was when the Labour Party was last in office. There was 5 percent inflation—do we remember that, New Zealand? That was the last time it was in office. It was a disgrace.

💬 Hon Damien O’Connor: There’s a tired Tory over there.

And for the 4 years prior to 2008—and I hear Damien O’Connor, who was involved in the rural sector at the time—the country was in a recession of the tradable sector. The only sector that was growing was the Government sector, the public sector, because that is the philosophy of the Labour Party: you keep the wheels moving by spending money in the public sector. It does not matter what you do with it, it does not matter if you make any effect on New Zealanders’ lives, it does not matter if you do not deliver, as long as you can stand up to your group and say “Look, we’re spending more money.”, because in their world that is the definition of success.

But in our world, as this Budget shows, the definition of success is being able to retire debt and being able to build an economy that is actually delivering surpluses, that is able to deliver over 10,000 jobs a month to New Zealand—10,000 jobs a month. These jobs are New Zealanders; they are families; they are people who are able to get an opportunity to contribute and deliver for themselves and their family. Not only can we have an economy in which now, as we look forward over the 3 or 4 years, we have surpluses—which we have not dreamt of as a country for over 20 years—in this collective effort of this Government in this country, we can now do that and we have choices. We can use those surpluses to invest in the areas of the most need, but in a way that actually delivers.

So last year we could stand in front of this House and this country and say: “For the first time in 40 years we are going to lift the benefits for working families.” This time we stand in this House and this country and say: “We will, through the Family Incomes Package, lift the incomes for New Zealanders on an average of $26 a week.” In my town of Tauranga, I can talk and have been able to talk to families who will have—if this Government gets returned—the opportunity to have real, significant increases in their take-home salary in terms of an adjustment to Working for Families and to an adjustment of the accommodation supplement. This, I accept, needed to happen, but we had the choice to make it happen because we have an economy that is growing and an economy that is strong. It is great to be able to take that message strongly to the people of Tauranga.

The other area that I have felt very proud to be able to support in this Budget is our investment in infrastructure, particularly schools. My colleague Andrew Bayly talked about the schools investment in his electorate. I too can stand up in front of my community and talk about the new school that is going to be built in Pyes Pā West.

💬 Dr David Clark: It’s a formula. There’s a formula.

That I could talk to. We get the “Oh, it’s a formula. It’s a formula.”, but in our community it is real. It is actually something that is going to make a difference for people’s lives and families, because in Pyes Pā there is a school opening in 2 years. This Government’s management of property and investment—

💬 Hon Tim Macindoe: It’s been outstanding.

—and, of course, my great friend and colleague Tim Macindoe is now a key part of that decision making and focus—is ensuring that I can stand up and say: “Pyes Pā West, you’re getting a school. Papamoa, you’re getting a school.” And the various schools of Golden Sands and Papamoa College and Ōropi and Maungatapu, and on I go—they are getting the impact in terms of new school buildings. I am very, very pleased to be able to talk to that record, which is inherent here, and explicit—more than inherent—in this Budget.

The other area that I would like to touch on is the infrastructure that is of course going to give support across the country—an eye-watering commitment of $35 billion. They do not want to talk about that, because in relative terms this sort of investment dwarfs Think Big in a relative context, if you look at the scale of the country back then versus where we are today, and the size of this infrastructure investment that we have in front of us over the next 4 years.

In my community, an example of that is the housing investment fund that we talked to 2 weeks ago. This Government is intending to give an interest-free loan of $230 million to the Tauranga City Council so that it can build the waste-water facilities required to facilitate the growth in Ōmokoroa, Tauriko, and, particularly, Papamoa. In my electorate, there is an expectation now of 4,700 properties going to be able to be built in the short term because of this innovative approach of using the Government’s balance sheet to be able to support Tauranga City Council in its investment plan. It will be a huge material difference for the people of my community.

Finally, an area that I am particularly—I guess, personally—interested in is the investment that we are putting into trade to help facilitate the continuing opening of markets and the ease of trading across markets for New Zealand exporters, and particularly Bay of Plenty exporters. There is $90 million signalled over the next 4 years to be able to open two embassies, which are critical, in Dublin and Sri Lanka. I know from experience of being engaged in business in Sri Lanka that that is going to be huge not only for Fonterra but for other businesses that are working in that area.

There is also the investment in technical capability in the Ministry for Primary Industries and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, to be able to be in markets and to be able to work with our small, medium, and large exporters to reduce the technical barriers to trade. This is because when you boil down the rhetoric to be able to focus on actual delivery of making a difference for people in the market, having people who understand the technical issues at a very deep level and who can argue and debate them to get the change required to support small businesses to ensure that their products and services can get into markets—that makes a real difference. We are putting real money behind it, and people with real skills, to be able to ensure that we constantly push on our trade and economic opportunities.

It is a great privilege for me to conclude this debate. I am sure that New Zealanders at home will have reflected and will reflect on the extraordinary effort that this Government can put in front of them in terms of surpluses, fantastic economic stewardship, significant jobs that are being created every month, and, on the basis of those surpluses, investment in areas with prudent focus on outcomes for real New Zealanders. I am proud to support it.