General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business.

So tomorrow’s Budget day. It’s Budget day tomorrow, the first Budget of this new coalition, three-party Government, and isn’t it exciting? It’s exciting! This is where we get to find out what really matters to the Government. This is where all of the sound bites and the virtue signalling and the value statements count for nothing and we find out what actually matters to this Government and whether they intend to deliver on any of their promises. Tomorrow is where we find out and where the rubber hits the road.

So what do we know so far? Let’s just recap. Well, one thing we know is that this Government inherited one of the strongest economies that they could’ve hoped for. We know that thanks to the National-led Government’s careful management over nine years, not only did we turn around the decade of deficits from the loose spending of the last Labour Government but we left this country with strong and growing surpluses and a GDP of 4 percent in 2016 and well over 3 percent for the last several years.

This is a Government now that is awash with cash. It has at least—at least—$6.5 billion more tax coming to them in the next four years than they thought they would have when they wrote their fiscal update, and that’s before the $2.27 billion of new taxes that they’ve already imposed. Over the next four years, the Labour Government will have $20 billion more tax to spend of New Zealanders’ money—$20 billion more—and they’re taxing New Zealanders more and they’re borrowing another $10 billion. They’re putting $10 billion more on credit, taxing hard-working Kiwis more, and they’re awash with cash.

Now, I think it’s pretty clear that the fundamental job of any Minister of Finance—and what Mr Robertson will be judged on tomorrow—is: is he making the most of the financial conditions that he’s lucky enough to have to fulfil his obligations to New Zealand? Right—that’s number one. Then, secondly: is he doing his best to ensure that the future economic conditions are as strong as those he’s inherited—right?

So you take those two roles, and you ask yourself, “How’s the Government going?” Well, it’s no surprise to me that GDP numbers are still holding up pretty well, because GDP is a reflection of the work that’s already gone on. It’s a reflection of the work of the last Government. It’s a reflection, more importantly, of the work of businesses and workers up and down this country. That’s why GDP growth is still looking pretty good.

If you really want to know about the future, if you want to see where New Zealand’s going or what our prosperity is going forward and what our ability to pay for this Government’s spending habits is really looking like, the far better indicator, the lead indicator, is business confidence. Business confidence—anyone who understands the economy knows that it’s businesses who create prosperity. It’s not Government spending. If you want to know what businesses are thinking about their ability to get ahead in this country, look at business confidence.

So what is that telling us? Well, we know the ANZ survey is down negative 23 percent. This country’s businesses are saying to the Government, “We have no faith in your ability to support this economy.” Staples Rodway came out yesterday and had 500 business leaders, more than half of whom expect this to be a bad Budget for the economy of the Government—and, by the way, half of whom are saying this Government’s economic performance has been poor or extremely poor. That’s what the people who create wealth and jobs in this country are saying. And you’ve got a 39 percent decline in the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research business confidence survey.

So you look at the indicators that tell us where the country is going, and it’s clear we’re going backwards. And it’s no surprise, from a Government that’s wiped out a $2.5 billion oil and gas sector—wiped it out; don’t care. They’re doing their level best to destroy the remaining financial viability in agriculture. They clearly hate farmers. They’re increasing wage disparity with Australia. They’re bringing in industrial relations reforms that are already seeing bullish unions—frankly, an arrogant Minister who thinks that if you can’t cope with everything Labour wants to do, you should just go out of business, and never mind the jobs that go with it. They’re turning off the foreign capital tap. They’re signalling more debt and more taxes, and they’re not even protecting New Zealand exporters from the US tariffs. They can’t even manage that.

So it is, for all the world, looking like a Government that wants to—

Order! Order! The member’s time has expired.

It is Budget day tomorrow. It’ll be a great day for the Government, it’ll be a sad day for the Opposition, and they’ll be even quieter tomorrow than they were during that contribution.

The greatest contribution we’ve had from the Leader of the Opposition in the last week has been trickle-down theory. Well, what trickled down under the last Government? I’ll tell you what trickled down: homeownership rates went down to the lowest since the 1950s. Homeownership rates for Māori and for young people—they didn’t just trickle down; they plunged down. This Government’s going to do something about that. What else went down? Under the last Government, exports trickled down from 30 percent of GDP to 27 percent of GDP, when they had an ambition to lift them to 40 percent of GDP.

Tomorrow’s Budget will do much good for New Zealand. There will be measures to strengthen the economy. There will be measures to rebuild some of our services. Everyone in New Zealand knows that our hospital sector is under pressure—you just need to go and see someone in hospital. People are running around—you know, some of the facilities are a bit shabby. People are so overstretched it’s obvious that there’s been not enough taxpayer money going into the health service, and we all know that most of us need to have a publicly funded health system in case something goes wrong for ourselves or those that are dear to us.

I’m not going to take fiscal advice from Amy Adams or other members of the Opposition. Last time Labour was in Government, we reduced gross Government debt from 38 percent to 18 percent of GDP. We reduced net Government debt from 18 percent of GDP to zero, when you take into account financial assets like the Superannuation Fund—the super fund that, of course, the National Party paid no money into. What did National do? National borrowed an extra $49 billion and took net debt to well over 20 percent of GDP.

We’re going to do lots of good things in the Budget tomorrow, but what we’re not going to do is run a deficit. The fiscal responsibility rules that Grant Robertson outlined before the election are being adhered to by the Government. We will be in surplus. We will be showing a route back to net debt of under 20 percent of GDP.

I want to say a little bit, in the time I’ve got, about the money that the Rt Hon Winston Peters has secured for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Another area of trickle-down under the last Government was that the amount that New Zealand spent on overseas development aid trickled down from 0.28 percent of gross national income to 0.23 percent of gross national income, and the Budget bid that Mr Peters has secured takes it back to 0.28 percent of GDP, before we do better in the future. Why is that necessary? Well, there are pressures in the South Pacific that are varied. They relate to a diversity of factors at large in the Pacific, and we need to take care to both help the Pacific and protect our interests in the Pacific.

More broadly, though, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade includes the word “Trade”. As the Rt Hon Winston Peters said in question time today, it is a threatening time in our trading interests at the moment. There is rising protectionism. There are new tariffs against steel and aluminium. There are trade wars breaking out between different countries. There are non-tariff barriers going up everywhere. None of this is in the interests of New Zealand, and we’ve got to fight even harder to secure our place in the world. This Government’s got an enormous trade agenda on. We brought home the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, and I acknowledge the work that Mr McClay did on that before he left, but we’ve improved that and we’ve landed that.

We’ve got work in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. We’ve got impending negotiations that the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister put an enormous amount of political effort into, meeting Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel, and other countries in Europe, in order to get those negotiations under way. We’ve got the Pacific Alliance negotiations with parts of Central and South America under way. We’ve got the upgrade to the China free-trade agreement. We’ve got the upgrade to the Singapore agreement. We’re doing all of these things. In the meantime, of course, we’ve had a hugely redistributive package in favour of some of these people who were not doing so well in society under the last Government, in the 100 days, and lots more good news tomorrow.

David Parker, what a hard-working trade Minister. All of that negotiation from his desk in the Beehive. When he says we’ve got these challenges in the US around steel exports, he writes a letter to them. He doesn’t go and see them. And then he says, “It’s only $40 million of trade. It doesn’t really matter.”

What happened last year in the Budget was the last Government, National, announced $100 million, the largest ever investment in trade policy. David Parker—nothing. Winston Peters has got almost a billion dollars for foreign affairs. David Parker—nothing. He is the comprehensive and progressive David Parker. He’s just the same as he was in Opposition, except he’s put his Trans-Pacific Partnership protest sign down. But I’ll tell you what, as soon as he’s back to Opposition, he’ll get it back out again and he’ll be marching in the streets against trade deals because he’s a wolf in Opposition; he’s a lamb in Government. Mr Parker, writing a letter from your plush chair where your desk sits in the Beehive is not cutting it when it comes to trade negotiation. But I do congratulate you on your progressive and comprehensive approach to writing letters.

The last Government worked very hard on foreign affairs, as this Government is, and particularly when it comes to development assistance. I want to congratulate Winston Peters on a billion dollars of diplomats over doctors, because he knows how to get money in a way that the Australians don’t. The Australians in their Budget, just last week, actually siphoned off development assistance. They said they’re keeping their foot on the throat of overseas development aid. I have a question—a simple question—for Mr Peters: whose throat did he have his foot on to get that billion dollars? And it will be well spent. At least he has an opportunity to stand up and tell us in this House, tell every New Zealand taxpayer, that there is the ability for all of these countries to absorb this money, because it’s hard-earned taxpayers’ money. But he must also explain why the coalition Government is happy not to meet its commitments to New Zealanders, but in place believes that this is a greater priority.

Now I don’t begrudge the money to be spent on the Pacific Islands and on other countries. It is very, very important. But this Government has been left with very large surpluses, much more money than was seen in any single year over the last nine years, and the one thing we certainly see is they’re very good at spending other people’s money. So the commitment they must give is that the money that they’ll be spending around the world will be well spent—an absolute guarantee of that—and then why this is a priority, when they say they can’t put the money they need to into almost every single other area of promise they made before the election.

I want to talk about the investment in a new embassy. Congratulations on that. I’m still not sure why they’ve chosen Stockholm, other than they said we closed it. We closed it, so they want to go back there. Although, we did hear the Prime Minister say all of a sudden that the European Union trade is important. We’ve just had the Foreign Minister in Europe, visiting countries, going to Brussels, talking more about Russia than about trade with the European Union. But what they forgot to say is that in the largest ever one-year investment in trade under a New Zealand Government last year, we committed to and are opening an embassy in Dublin, because of the importance of both Brexit and the European Union; Sri Lanka, because that’s an important nation where we will have more trade; and Columbia as well. Three embassies last year—we were able to do that and meet our promises to New Zealanders. So why are New Zealanders getting one embassy and no doctors? Why are they getting 50 diplomats, and the promise of cheaper doctors visits to all New Zealanders is being phased in? Well, that’s something that actually every New Zealander will be interested in.

The thing is—and Jacinda Ardern as Prime Minister will get to know this—if you’re going to make commitments in the run-up to an election, you absolutely have to meet them. Mr Peters, I hope you make sure taxpayers’ money is spent well. Congratulations on holding the Government to account and getting $1 billion for diplomats, over doctors. I guess New Zealanders will judge whether that’s a good use of money in so far as priorities are concerned. I can only assume that’s the cost of becoming Prime Minister when you’re in coalition with New Zealand First. Wouldn’t it be good if we actually saw a bit of “New Zealand first”, instead of every other country overseas first.

Mr Speaker, thank you very much for the opportunity. Look, isn’t it amazing? I think that side over there is showing all the classic signs of Budget envy. Budget envy: things they wish they could’ve done, but under Steven Joyce—[Interruption] Look at Mr Mark Mitchell smiling. He knows about can-kicking. He knows about not making decisions. He knows about the troubles of getting money out of Steven Joyce. And now he’s sitting there, watching record expenditure in areas that are of key, prime importance. Want to ask questions about foreign policy? Multilateral contributions under that Government were the lowest in the whole of the OECD. This is an enlightened Government that takes its responsibilities for security, trade, and social security in the Pacific very seriously. Large surpluses? You’ve got to be joking. That was a ghost surplus, built on the biggest social deficit this country has ever seen—ever seen. There were holes in the Budget all over the place. If that man wants to talk about the EU, look at the track record. Nine years in Government, in terms of EU trade? Zero—nothing. Six months of this Government, and it’s all happening.

I’ve said enough about them. Let’s talk about National’s Nathan Guy, who’s having a road to Damascus experience on biosecurity right now. His speeches and his questions in this House on biosecurity might be seen as a pathway to redemption if his performance in the role as Minister of Agriculture hadn’t been so pathetic. Likewise, his cause for struggling farmers fighting to stave off the banks on the back of the Mycoplasma bovis issue would be laudable if his track record wasn’t so laughable. Under that Government, there were over 150 biosecurity breaches. Mr Carter is smiling, looking down, because he knows it’s true. And Mr Guy wants to talk about compensation? He wants to talk about response? Come to the Wairarapa, Mr Guy, and listen to the farmers talking about that member’s performance over pea weevil. What about velvet—

💬 Hon Members: Velvetleaf.

—velvetleaf? Where was that Minister on velvetleaf? What would he say to the farmers now? Was there compensation, Mr Guy? Was the compensation rolled out at lightning speed, like that which one is asking of our Minister, Mr Damien O’Connor? No. There is silence over there now, because that member knows full well that the cause of the issues that this Government is now dealing with were laid by him and his pathetic performance, supposedly as a defender of the New Zealand agribiz sector. But no, this is the man who’s become known as what? A fair-weather farmer. He’s not even a Queen Street farmer; he’s now being talked about as a Lambton Quay farmer because all they ever see is him padding up and down the footpath going out for runs. He doesn’t actually farm. That man over there has got a classic record of a dollar each way. He spent no dollars in protection, underfunded biosecurity; 150 incursions later, he dares to stand up in this House and question Damien O’Connor on his failings and the things that he didn’t do through his poorly funded, poorly led, pathetically managed ministry of his own? We won’t even get into the other range of 150 biosecurity incursions. Nobody is fooled by that fair-weather farmer. No one is fooled by Nathan Guy, the Lambton Quay farmer.

I played half back, Mr Speaker—as you know—alongside of you. If I had a pass as good as his buck-passing and if I had a kick as good as his can-kicking—you know, “Oh, I don’t think I’ll make a decision. I’ll just kick it out for a little bit.”—I would have been a damned All Black. I’d be right up there with Sid Going and Chris Laidlaw and the rest of them. That man over there might well have been a Minister of Agriculture, but he’s a has-been Minister of Agriculture. Every time he wants an answer to the question of biosecurity breaches and what this Government is doing, I’ll give him only one word of advice: go and look in the mirror, Mr Guy—go and look in the mirror and ask your questions right there.

It’s always a pleasure to follow a contribution by Ron Mark. It certainly makes us look good in contrast.

I have got a question for the New Zealand First - Labour Government, and that is: why are they walking away from the regions? Why are New Zealand First and Labour walking away from the lower South Island of New Zealand? Why is it that they are walking away from the Lumsden Maternity Centre? Why is it that they are failing in their obligations with the Otago Rescue Helicopter Trust? Why is it that they are walking away from their obligations with West Otago Health Ltd? And, most critical and most important, as far as I’m concerned, why are they not supporting the Roxburgh health camp?

Let me tell you a little bit about the Roxburgh health camp. It is the one residential wraparound facility for children who have suffered trauma in their lives and their families in the whole of the lower half of the South Island. We have huge distances to cover in the lower half of the South Island. We do have social problems. We have vulnerable children, and now Roxburgh health camp, just yesterday, has failed in its funding application with this Government and is being forced to close its doors. There have been many, many angry people in the lower half of the South Island.

I visited Roxburgh health camp just recently. They cannot believe—they cannot believe—they’re going to lose this residential service. The local mayors cannot believe that this Government, New Zealand First and Labour, are walking away from the vulnerable families in the lower half of the South Island. What happened to their promises? What happened to the promise of the Labour and New Zealand First Government to look after those vulnerable children in their society? They have broken that promise. I made a personal representation to Tracey Martin. She put up her hands and said, “It’ll be all right, it’ll be all right—there’ll still be services.” It won’t be all right, Minister—it will not be all right.

It’s ironic to see that the Government has announced almost $2 million, just yesterday, for the Growing Up in New Zealand study—a study. This Government—Carmel Sepuloni—has put up $2 million for a study. Well, I’ll you how much Roxburgh needs: they need $3 million to support vulnerable children. Carmel Sepuloni goes on to say, “This Government wants New Zealand to be the best place in the world to be a child. Hearing the voice of children will be a powerful contribution to Government policy makers’ and service providers’ understanding of how to best meet the needs of diverse New Zealand families and children.”

Well, I’ll tell you what, I’ll give you the voice of the child. I’ll give you the voice of the eight-year-old little girl who stood up at a public meeting in Roxburgh and said this—and I quote—“This is my second time at Roxburgh. It has changed my life, because I’ve had a lot of hard times where I haven’t been able to talk about stuff.”, and then she pauses and says, “Yeah, talk about stuff … It’s just changed how I can talk about how I’m feeling, and it’s just changed my life. It’s helped my mum, it’s helped my dad, and my annoying little brother”—she got a laugh for that comment—“and I really want to say I really want it to stay because it’s, like, the only thing that helped.”

So Carmel Sepuloni, the Hon Tracey Martin, and Minister of Education Chris Hipkins—who’s been very, very quiet over this issue—this is my message to you: you have broken your promise to the people of Roxburgh to look after vulnerable children. You have broken your promise to the people of the lower South Island to look after vulnerable children—shame, shame, shame on you. Shame on you, on behalf of that little eight-year-old girl and all the other children that have crossed the threshold of the Roxburgh health camp over the last 60 years and who have come out of that residential facility where life is just a little bit better. Surely that—surely that—is worth supporting by this Government.

I leave you with a Tremain cartoon in the Otago Daily Times, which says, “The talk, the walk”—

Order! The member’s time has expired.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. As the rain trickles down on the roof of the House this afternoon, isn’t it great to be here one day out—one day out—from the first Budget of this coalition Government, a Budget that is going to rebuild the social and infrastructure foundations of our country that have been let go so badly over the last nine years. In my address, I actually want to speak to the future. I don’t want to speak to the past, which is what we’ve heard a lot of from the members on the other side of the House in this debate; I want to talk about the plan that this Government has to rebuild those social and infrastructure investments.

Even though we have to wait one more sleep until the Budget tomorrow, we already have a very, very clear indication from the coalition Government about what our priorities are through the series of announcements over the last couple of weeks. Let me put some of those concrete things on the table, and let’s hear what those members opposite think.

How about the $81 million investment to rebuild New Zealand’s investment in our forests and our birds, to make up for the underfunding of the Department of Conservation over the last nine years, to make up for the fact that rangers have been walking away from the Department of Conservation because they have been so utterly depressed about the rundown of that department over the last nine years? When that Government put up a target—admittedly, a good target, a bold target, and an ambitious target—of making New Zealand predator-free by 2050, this Government actually has a plan to do something about it by putting the resourcing on the table: $81 million of funding to expand the extent of the conservation estate that we actually fund to be free of predators.

What about the $21 million announcement earlier this week to help 8,000 preschoolers with their learning needs? These are the kids who need extra support, who might have special education needs, and, once again, if any member in this Chamber in a constituency goes and speaks to the specialists in our schooling system, they’ll tell you that over the past nine years they have been crying out for resources, crying out for support, unable to meet the needs. Even before this first Budget, the coalition Budget is here, investing $21 million in preschools so that those kids get the assessment and get the support that they need to succeed at school. That is rebuilding the foundations of a decent education system, which gives every single child—every single child in our country—the ability to learn and reach their potential, as Clarence Beeby said our education system should.

How about that $700 million investment in overseas aid in the Pacific and rebuilding our foreign service? We had a very confusing exchange across the House, because, of course, Mr McClay stood up before and he was singing its praises. He was saying that investment was good. But, of course, if you’ve listened to members opposite over the last couple of weeks since that announcement, you’d think it was the worst and most wasteful and profligate thing out. The arguments they put forward were those typical inward-looking, myopic, conservative world-view arguments that forget that we are actually connected to the region around us, that forget about the fact that the ability of New Zealand to make its way in the world rests on the relationships that we build and rests, particularly, on the strength and the resilience of our Pacific partners. So while those members make fun of that announcement, we welcome the comments from the Hon Todd McClay—or Roger McClay, as the Speaker referred to him—in favour of that $700 million investment.

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order!

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

💬 SPEAKER: Don’t bring me into the debate, and bringing my mistakes into the debate is foolish.

I apologise, Mr Speaker. What about the $80 million investment in family violence services—those critical services—the women’s refuges, and those other grassroots organisations who look after women and children and families in desperate need, escaping awful situations, who have more or less had their funding frozen over nine years. They have welcomed with arms wide open that $80 million investment that this coalition Government has put into rebuilding their ability to care for the people and the families of New Zealand.

And how about the $100 million package to rebuild the foundations of a housing sector, to mean that every New Zealand person should have a decent and safe place to sleep at night—$100 million to make sure that that stain of homelessness in our communities starts to be worked on, because we say that in a wealthy and prosperous country, in New Zealand, with the values that we have, people shouldn’t be sleeping out in the cold this winter.

This is a Government with a plan—with a plan to rebuild the social and infrastructure foundations of New Zealand. We believe that New Zealanders deserve more than a trickle-down from the rich; they deserve a Government that gives every person in this country a fair go and good health, education, and housing, so that all people in this beautiful country can reach their potential. That’s what this coalition Government is going to deliver tomorrow. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

That last member, Michael Wood, set down the challenge: let’s talk about announcements; let’s talk about infrastructure. Well, I’ll tell of an announcement that happened in my electorate of Waimakariri on Thursday last week. The local Pegasus Residents’ Group and the Woodend town residents association had their AGM. They invited the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) to come and talk about a long-overdue Woodend bypass that’s been agreed to and is going to be constructed by 2027. In the words of the NZTA representative, he said, “The Woodend bypass is now off the table. The Woodend bypass is not a priority for the Labour Government. The Woodend bypass is not a priority, because the new Government is prioritising for public transport in main cities.” That’s the announcement that is happening in regional New Zealand.

New Zealanders, like the people of Waimakariri, are very pragmatic, and they know a Government that supports them. The former Government built the Western Belfast Bypass and the northern corridor was under construction, and now we have a new Government that is reneging on the Woodend bypass. At the start of this year, I started a petition, and the media approached the transport Minister, Phil Twyford, who used words on me that said I was misleading, it was Opposition politicking, and now it was disingenuous. Yet last week, NZTA came out and said the Woodend bypass is off the table. It’s not a priority for this Government, and this Government is prioritising public transport in main cities. These are the announcements that are going to happen more and more around regional New Zealand.

Let’s talk about the announcements for mental health. Now the Government talked up a big game for mental health in the campaign. What have we heard? Eight months in, we’ve had one announcement: $25 million for schools’ mental health professionals in Canterbury. Yes, a good programme—it was one of our pilot schemes announced last year. But here it is: it’s not new funding. The $25 million was out of the $100 million that this Government has inherited for the contingency fund for mental health. So eight months in, they’ve already short-changed mental health by $75 million. Not only that—short-changing $75 million—they’re actually cutting mental health services in rural New Zealand. The Rural Health Alliance is having funding cut. Now, they’re people best placed to provide suicide prevention services in rural communities, and there we have it: short-changing mental health by $75 million, cutting mental health services in rural communities, and what do they announce? A mental health inquiry, which is already causing division in the mental health sector.

Shaun Robinson from the Mental Health Foundation says, “One of the dangers is that this review isn’t going to tell us anything we don’t know already.” Kevin Allan, the Mental Health Commissioner, said, “There is no need for an inquiry. We need action.” Corinda Taylor, who is a Life Matters Suicide Prevention Trust spokesperson, talks about how much time the public has to submit on this inquiry. How much time has the public got to submit on a year-long inquiry: 80 days, 60 days, 40 days, 20 days? The public has 15 days—15 days to submit on a national inquiry.

So the pressure’s back on this Government for mental health. David Clark said, “A visit to a GP for mental health issues will be free, and there will be mental health coordinators in primary care.” So there they go. That’s what they pledged. That’s what we’re expecting for mental health in the Budget tomorrow. Free mental health visits to GPs, and primary mental health care teams—that’ll need to be in the Budget, because what the benchmark is is a year ago, pretty much to the day, the last Government in Budget 2017—

Order! The member’s time has expired. I want to remind the member that when I’m on my feet, he doesn’t—I mean, his mike’s cut off so no one can hear him anyway, out in the world, so he just looks a bit funny. But the member must resume his seat when the time’s up and I’m on my feet.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Thank you. Tomorrow’s Budget is about people and planet, because this Government recognises the importance of both. That’s why we’re investing in public transport so that we can get our cities moving again. The National Government’s preoccupation with building more motorways didn’t unblock the congestion problems in Auckland. This Government’s investment in the Auckland transport package will. But I am really proud as the Minister of Conservation to have announced last weekend increased investment because of Budget 2018 in conservation—$81 million more in new funding over four years to tackle our predator crisis.

Under National, there wasn’t trickle-down into conservation; there was slashing of conservation funding. This Government, as part of its plan to rebuild the public sector, to invest in people and planet, is significantly increasing the resources that are available for the department, for the first time, to do ongoing predator control on a landscape scale and plan for that. Under National, the Department of Conservation (DOC) was only able to do 200,000 hectares of predator control on an ongoing basis. It had to go cap in hand to Government each time there was a predator crisis in a mast year to get some more funding.

The announcement of an extra $81 million in new funding over four years means that that funding for predator control is secure and the department can plan, and that is the basis—getting rid of the rats, the stoats, and the possums—for securing the future for our native forests, for our native ecosystems, and for our precious native birds, snails, insects, and plants. This Government is investing in conservation, not cutting the funding like the last one. It’s about the three parties in Government—Labour, New Zealand First, and the Greens—delivering on their commitments in the confidence and supply agreement and the coalition agreement to significantly increase DOC’s funding, and that is a very strong contrast to what we had under National.

Our taonga species—our kiwi, our kākā, our kea, our cabbage trees—are at the heart of who we are as New Zealanders. They and our natural landscapes are what draw visitors here. They are the basis for our number one export industry and the basis of our primary production sector, but for those things to thrive we need to invest in their protection, not assume that you can have a catchy phrase “Predator Free by 2050” but just have the phrase and not the plan, not the investment.

We are making the commitment to more funding for the regions, because where does predator control happen? It doesn’t happen on Lambton Quay or Queen Street; it happens in the regions. So I utterly reject Ms Dean’s comments. This Government is investing in the regions. This extra $81 million will help the regions, just as Minister Jones’ work with the big forestry project of a billion trees is investing in the regions. We have just seen the announcement of a major funding and partnership with Mānuka Farming to plant mānuka trees. It’s a pity National never had that vision. This Government does, to reafforest areas that are risk of erosion, creating more sustainable land use and also enabling the opportunities for the export industry based on mānuka honey and those high-value products. That’s showing that you can get benefits for the environment and the economy by good forward-thinking, sustainable initiatives, that we were well short of under the last Government.

I’m looking forward to the Budget tomorrow because the predator control announcement is the centrepiece of what’s happening in conservation, but there are other announcements to follow. We need a healthy environment, and with things like the increase in mast years that are happening with climate change, where we get prolific flowering of the beech forest, where we get rat numbers increasing, stoat numbers following, and increased pressure on our native species, we need a sustained plan to deal with that, and Budget 2018 is about that. It is about people and planet. The losers are the rats, stoats, and possums, and the winners are our indigenous species.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. The member who just sat down, Eugenie Sage, was talking about how this Budget will be investing in people and planet, but if I was listening correctly at question time, it sounds like they’re more likely going to be investing in websites—websites about forestry in Rotorua. That sounds a little bit more like it, so I’d better start investing in the tech sector.

Well, we’ve certainly had an exciting start to the first half of this year. We’ve had the ups and downs—well, let’s be fair, mostly downs—for this Government. It’s been ambition, transparency, relentless positivity, but now we see business confidence starting to track down a long, long way. And we might need to downgrade the outlook for this Government to “maintaining the status quo”, or maybe “a bit hedgy on the edges”, or “buck-passing” at best. As we head into the cooler months of this year, this Government will be starting to take off the warm, sunny, rose-tinted glasses that they’ve got, and the kindness, and might need to start looking at how they’re going to actually work out the details of some of their policies.

As the associate education spokesperson, I’d like to spend a little bit of time talking about the Government’s policies in education—the unrealistic, broken promises that they have been peddling across New Zealand in the campaign around education—and how tomorrow’s Budget will be something where raised expectations will not be fulfilled. So let’s go through a few of these promises.

The Government has promised to ensure that every New Zealand school will have modern learning environments by 2030, at a cost of—how much, do you think?—$10 billion to $15 billion. They’ve promised a big injection to school infrastructure in the Canterbury schools build, money which they failed—failed—to put in their own costings as a line item. They promised to provide $150 per school student to try and end school donations. They’ve promised free iPads and devices to every child in schools. They’ve promised to boost early childhood education (ECE) by $193 million. They’ve promised Te Reo lessons for every ECE and primary school teacher, and they’ve promised school-leavers kits for every school leaver. The list could go on—the wish list could go on—and the reality is that they will not be able to fulfil their unrealistic list of promises, which they have peddled up and down the country.

On this side of the House, we have a strong and proud record in education. We increased education spending every single year while we were in Government, from $8 billion to $11 billion per year in the compulsory sector alone, and we did this while dealing with the global financial crisis (GFC) and the Christchurch earthquakes.

💬 Kieran McAnulty: Were you even alive then? Were you even born in the GFC?

Over nine years, from 2008 to 2017, we invested $5 billion in school infrastructure—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! I’m going to remind Mr McAnulty that I certainly was, and he shouldn’t be interjecting in the second person.

We invested $5 billion in school property—in school infrastructure—over our nine years, which compared to only $3 billion in years prior, under the former Labour Government. When we came into Government, we inherited a neglected portfolio of property with an average age of 40 years. In Budget 2017 alone, we invested $456 million into school property to increase capacity. We planned for growth in Auckland, with the Auckland education growth strategy, which the Minister of Education has refused to release and refused to work on, and we increased ECE spending from $0.9 billion in 2008 to $1.7 billion in 2017. From $0.9 billion in 2008 to $1.7 billion in 2017—that’s an investment worth making in our kids to ensure they get the best start in life. We invested where it really made a difference.

But the ultimate arrogance of this Government is that they think they know best. They’re ideologically driven, and just today, in the Education and Workforce Committee, they voted against the select committee going to South Auckland Middle School to hear submissions on their legislation to ban and shut down—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat. I’m going to seek an assurance from the member that that decision was one that was taken in a public part of the committee. If not—

It was taken, and we decided to release it immediately to South Auckland Middle School.

💬 Kieran McAnulty: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

💬 SPEAKER: Well, can I rule on this? The member’s assured the House that, in fact, that decision is a decision which has been made public, and if that is the case, he may continue. Does the member have a further point of order?

💬 Kieran McAnulty: May I seek some guidance, Mr Speaker—

💬 SPEAKER: No.

This is a Government which says it knows best. They’re ideologically driven. They think they know what—[Interruption] By some fluke, they’ve ended up in Government. Their saving grace at this stage is that they have a strong foundation delivered by a National Government, which has grown our economy with strong Budget surpluses, which have been put in place by strong economic management and economic policies. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

One sleep to go, and I’ve got some advice for the members of the Opposition. One sleep to go, and to my colleagues across the House, tonight I’m going to invite you to head home and to sit down. Perhaps you might have a nightcap—you know, you might ask the Speaker for a whisky, perhaps a cup of tea; Mr Brown might like to have a nice warm milk—and sit there and reflect a little, just think a little, about what has gone wrong over the last nine years.

You see, I don’t think that my colleagues on the opposite side of the House are bad people. I think they came into the House for a reason, and the reason—like all of us—is to try to make New Zealand a better place, to make this country better. But they’ve made a mistake. They’re just mistaken, and it’s a bit of a sad mistake. They thought that holding back on health funding would make the health sector more efficient, but, sooner or later, you cut and cut and cut and there’s no fat left to cut and you’re cutting into the bone, and things have gone wrong. We all know that.

You know, they thought that introducing national standards in schools would somehow magically improve education, but in terms of the fact of the matter, the standing of our children in international tests has gone down. It didn’t improve it at all.

They thought that the market might perhaps provide sufficient housing—the market, the saviour of all, would have the right solution. Well, I tell you, we’ve had an excellent market solution in housing; it’s just not the solution we want as New Zealanders. We could not solve that problem through the market, and that is the mistake that our colleagues on the other side of the House have made—a simple mistake.

So I’m urging the members of the Opposition to take heart, to be courageous, to sit down and think about what has actually happened over the last few years, to acknowledge that they’ve made a mistake, and to think about what could be done better. We all know the difficulties in health, in education, in housing, and in welfare. This is common knowledge in our country now, and on this side of the House we have a plan to fix it. We have strategies, we have time lines, and we have work under way to fix up the mistakes of the last nine years.

You know, we’ve started with our Families Package—384,000 families who will be about $75 a week better off. That’s a great start. We’ve continued with $21 million going into early childhood education, specifically to help children with learning needs. We’ve carried on with our KiwiBuild. Within just months of the election, those first houses are under way and being built as we speak. This is a Government that is taking action.

This is a Government that is not afraid of the tough decisions. We could see the writing on the wall for the oil and gas industry when Shell pulled out of Taranaki. Courageous leadership from the other side of the House would have worked with people in Taranaki to let them know that they needed to change. We took the courageous and tough decision to stop oil and gas exploration. We are looking after the regions. We’ve got a billion dollars in our Provincial Growth Fund. We are working with our biggest city to deliver a fully funded transport plan, not a plan with a $4 billion funding gap, but a real plan that will work. This side of the House is taking action.

I’m just going to say that this is what we are doing. We know that, sadly, New Zealand is one of the worst in the world for domestic violence, and what have we done on this side of the House? We have come up with $76 million to fund providers of family violence services.

This side of the House has a plan and it is taking action. That’s why I invite the members of the Opposition to go home tonight to sip their whisky, their tea, their milk, and to reflect, and then to sleep well. And remember, my colleagues on the other side of the House, it’s the putting right that counts.

In 2015 and 2017, Northland was invaded by Mr Peters and his band of followers. Like the Pied Piper, he promised everything to everybody. You remember those endless, non-negotiable bottom lines? There were hundreds of them. “Send them a message”, he said. “Had enough?”, he said. Well, Northland has answered those messages loud and clear. They’ve had enough of Winston Peters and his band of merry men and women—5 percent in the polls tells us that.

💬 Hon Members: Three.

Labour gave him—well, it’s 5 percent now. Labour gave him the kitchen sink to get into power. They gave him the kitchen sink, but I don’t blame them. They were desperate. They were looking at 12 years in Opposition. Imagine that—12 years. What about the top-secret 38-page coalition document? They fought so hard to keep that secret. So much for an open and transparent Government!

Winston Peters came up north and he said, “Free ferry rides for the Kohukohu and Russell ferries for SuperGold card holders.”—not achieved—“Sort out the Mangawhai $30 million rates debacle.”—well, we’re still waiting—“A referendum on the super-city for the Wellsford voters”—that’s not going to happen. “I’ll shift that Auckland port to Northland.”—he said that. Not in his lifetime and not in mine, probably. “Hundreds of millions of dollars invested in the rail line to the port and an upgrade to the northern line.”—I’ll believe that when I see it. I’ll believe that when I see it. But what’s worst of all, he rubbished the Northland motorway, a motorway that’s been identified by Northlanders and our three mayors as the biggest driver of economic growth in Northland. His sidekick, the self-appointed champion of the regions, Matua Shane Jones, helped kick that billion-dollar motorway into touch in exchange for some rumble strips, a couple of roundabouts, and a few pet projects.

Peters offered a binding referendum on the Māori seats. That hoovered up a heap of votes. He offered a binding referendum on reducing MPs from 120 to 100. That got him a few more. He promised to reduce immigration to 10,000. That got him thousands more votes. But what’s happened? None of it. Remember, he pledged no more synthetic carpet and insulation in Government buildings and in Housing New Zealand homes. He cannot be serious. They made the Pike River tragedy a political football—shame on them. They cancelled National’s tax cuts under urgency, criticising us for using urgency—tax cuts that New Zealand First and the Greens voted for and then changed their minds. They didn’t even campaign on it.

They are a Government that has smashed the oil and gas industry. Everyone that understands that industry knows that’s what they’ve done. They’re passing the Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Bill, a bill that is devoid of integrity. They opposed it—there’s been universal opposition, including experts and former Labour and Green MPs. It should be called the “Save New Zealand First Bill”. New Zealand First and Green MPs are supporting it like turkeys voting for an early Christmas.

But you know what? Northlanders are not fooled by that political rhetoric. Voters feel betrayed, and we welcome an early election. This coalition Government is a flip-flop, backflip Government. Open, transparent Government—what a joke. Honestly, you could not make this stuff up. Bring on 2020.

Āe, kia ora. E Te Māngai o Te Whare, tēnā koe. Where to start? I really think I might just put some of my notes aside and respond to all of those comments made on the opposite side of the House, but I will try and give some structure to this speech.

💬 Kiritapu Allan: Never mind structure—throw it away.

Yeah, never mind structure, they’re saying. Throw it away. Respond to all of that. Clearly, the member for Northland is having different conversations to the ones that I am having where just yesterday people are still pinching themselves, going, “Willow, is this really for real?” We have had so many Ministers in the North, so many announcements already, so many pieces of legislation that have passed that are going to make such a meaningful difference to the people in Northland, and guess what? There’s more to come. But you will have to wait. Just one more sleep, Matt.

💬 SPEAKER: Order!

Aroha mai. If economic growth isn’t reflected in the well-being of people, then what is it for? Northlanders know that the trickle-down just doesn’t work. If the trickle-down worked, then we would not be suffering some of the worst statistics in the country. We just don’t buy the argument that the trickle-down works, because our people have some of the lowest average incomes in the country, some of the highest unemployment in the country, highest youth unemployment in the country, lowest academic achievement rates, and lowest homeownership rates—and continuing to fall.

I am so proud of the announcements that we have already made. I reflect back to December, when we made announcements around the Families Package: an average of $75 per week, and for lower income families even more. That’s over 384,000 families that are going to be better off. And when you look at our statistics in my region, many of them are going to be benefiting from that.

I look forward to our kaumātua, our kuia, and our families receiving the winter energy payment—a winter we can look forward to. I am so proud of the $100 million announcement we made to address homelessness this winter, right now, in offering to partner with those in our communities who are trying to do something about it for their people.

This Budget is about building strong foundations. It is about addressing the issues, the immediate needs, right now, but also looking at the next three years and the next 30 years. So it’s those fundamentals: housing, health, and education. Those are the announcements I am looking forward to in our Budget announcement in just one more sleep.

Housing—every whānau deserves a warm, dry home. We want to end homelessness. We want to build more State housing, build affordable homes for Kiwis to buy so that Kiwis can own homes of their own, and this Budget will tackle the housing crisis head-on. We are taking responsibility to fix it. This is a Government that has a plan and we are putting our money where our mouth is.

Health—there’s a lot of work to do in this area. I have seen this first-hand in recent weeks and months. There have been nine years of neglect. Our district health boards (DHBs) are stretched. Our DHB in Northland reported a major deficit. Deficits are growing, our hospitals are crumbling, and our hard-working health professionals are under huge pressure.

A quality education is the foundation for a good life and we want all of our young people to have the best opportunities in life. I’m told—but I can’t reveal any details here; you will have to wait for just one more sleep—that the Budget will deliver a much-needed boost to our schools and our early childhood centres.

💬 Chris Bishop: Oh really? Are you sure?

In fact, we have made an announcement already about the extra $21 million, Mr Bishop, that is going to help over 8,000 preschoolers with extra learning needs.

I am also so proud of the recent announcement I saw about banning oil and gas exploration, and then $80 million for pest control. We are putting people back at the centre of everything that we are doing. We are protecting our taiao. We are addressing immediate needs while also laying down the foundations for our future generations, our uri whakatupu.

I’m out of time. Tēnā koe.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.