Appropriation (2018/19 Estimates) Bill, Land Transport Management (Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

I move, That the Land Transport Management (Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

For too long, Aucklanders have been losing hundreds of hours of time every year sitting in traffic—time that they will never ever get back. The productivity losses caused by congestion are $1.3 billion every year, and that’s why the Government recently announced the biggest civil infrastructure programme in New Zealand’s history to get Auckland moving and it is fully funded. This is a game-changer for Aucklanders and the first step in ensuring a congestion-free alternative and a transport system that allows the roads to move more freely. This bill—this regional fuel tax—enables those projects to become a reality and provides a sustainable funding mechanism to fund those projects over the next 10 years.

The Finance and Expenditure Committee received over 500 submissions from people, organisations, and individuals—and, interestingly, not just from Auckland but from across the country—and I want to thank all of those who made submissions, especially those who appeared in person before the committee in Wellington and in Auckland. There were many private individuals who took the time to express their views and make valuable comments.

Aucklanders understand that they must pay a fair share to address Auckland’s transport problems. This bill allows them to do that. The Automobile Association (AA) pointed out in its submission to the committee that when it surveyed its Auckland members, they were, within reason, willing to pay more to improve the transport situation in Auckland. The AA points out that a regional fuel tax has been one of the more popular funding options to help address Auckland’s most critical transport challenges.

This Government is committed to making the hard decisions and addressing the most difficult problems. Drift and neglect are not options for us. We said during the election that we would implement a regional fuel tax in Auckland and we are keeping our word. Our transport policy commits us to addressing the infrastructure deficit that we inherited and we’re committed to striking a balance between affordability and taking urgent action on the deficit we inherited.

ATAP—the Auckland Transport Alignment Project—predicts that public transport ridership will go from 93 million annual boardings to around 170 million under this 10-year plan. ATAP will build 125 kilometres of new cycleways. The plan forecasts a 60 percent drop in deaths and serious injuries between 2017 and 2027, and it is fully funded. For the first time ever, Auckland has a fully funded transport investment plan co-funded and co-governed by central government and local government. Without the regional fuel tax, Auckland would have a $4.3 billion transport funding hole and would be virtually unable to build any new projects to address rapidly worsening congestion.

The regional fuel tax enables 200 kilometres of bus priority improvements across Auckland, providing bus travel time savings of up to 30 percent on completed routes, a new bus station and route at Sylvia Park, a bus interchange in Lower Albert Street for the North Shore Busway and a similar interchange in Quay Street, improved access to the airport for the 40 million annual passengers by 2044, and the 27,000 extra jobs that are predicted in the airport precinct. The Eastern Busway—that I would have thought Jami-Lee Ross would be supporting—will increase public transport patronage in electorates like Botany from 5.8 percent to 13 percent, more than doubling public transport patronage in that member’s electorate.

The regional fuel tax enables park-and-rides in Hibiscus Coast, Westgate, Kūmeu, Drury, and Paerata; 20 additional trains and the construction of associated facilities to house and maintain them; redevelopment of the downtown ferry terminal to deal with an expected 40 percent growth in ferry journeys over the next 10 years and a road safety programme for a large number of high-risk intersections. In the last five years, Aucklanders have experienced a 65 percent increase in road deaths and serious injuries. In 2017, this equated to 64 deaths and 749 serious injuries—a level of road trauma that has not been seen in the city since 1996. The combined impact of the accelerated programmes allowed by this regional fuel tax is estimated to reduce deaths and serious injuries by 60 percent over the next 10 years.

This regional fuel tax also enables Penlink. It enables Mill Road and many more projects across Auckland—projects that were talked about but nothing was done about over the last nine years. The bill enables a regional or unitary council to seek funding for specific transport-related projects.

We’ve indicated—the Government’s indicated—that in this term of Government, only Auckland will be able to put in place a regional fuel tax under this bill. The regional fuel tax must be applied for and that application must be for identified and specific capital projects. It is not there to pay for business-as-usual operating expenditure. The bill allows for a regional fuel tax of up to 10c per litre, and our modelling shows that this could result in between $150 million and $170 million a year in the case of Auckland. The bill enables a tax that will apply to both petrol and diesel but for no more than 10 years. This period of time gives Auckland funding certainty to deliver on major transport projects, but it requires it to come back to its citizens and to Ministers if it wants to go beyond the 10 years.

A regional fuel tax is not, as some have suggested, a blank cheque to Auckland Council. Both Ministers and the residents of the region expect to see delivery of the things that the regional fuel tax was raised for. I want to acknowledge that the regional fuel tax will add costs to Auckland motorists and to Auckland families. The combined effect of the Auckland regional fuel tax and the proposed increases to fuel excise duty will cost an average family $5 per week. This Government has put $75 per week into the pockets of 384,000 low and middle income families. That puts it into perspective.

Congestion costs are regressive. The best way to deal with the regressive nature of the cost of congestion is to invest in a modern rapid transit and public transport system for our biggest city that will give people genuine transport choices. The worst thing for low-income people is having no transport choices and being forced into the most expensive option, which is utter dependence on every working adult having to own and run a car in order to live and survive.

The select committee’s report back recommended a number of sensible changes to the bill that was introduced into this House. They include enabling a regional council to exclude a part of its region from the regional fuel tax, requiring Ministers to give consideration to regulations for rebates for fuel used off road, and requiring the Transport Agency to report on revenue costs, fuel prices and volumes, and compliance. These recommended changes are broadly sensible, and are reflected in the bill as reported back to the House from the select committee. I am actively considering now how to best ensure that the eligibility for a rebate for fuel used off road is both principled and practical.

This regional fuel tax enabled by this bill allows us to move ahead with a $28 billion, fully funded transport investment plan for our country’s biggest city. That plan is designed to get Auckland moving. It is designed to give people a genuine congestion-free alternative that they currently do not have. It is designed to give people—and especially in peak hour—an alternative to spending hours stuck in gridlocked motorway traffic.

Alongside KiwiBuild—our plan to build affordable housing—our urban development authority to lead large-scale projects, our plans to fix infrastructure financing and reform the planning system, these reforms will allow our city to make room for growth, to provide a congestion-free alternative, and unleash the growth and prosperity denied Auckland under nine years of drift and neglect.

Second Reading

I always enjoy watching the faces of the Labour backbenchers as Phil Twyford is answering questions in the Parliament during question time, because you can see the despair on their faces after his performances in the House. I think, having now listened to him give that second reading speech, members of the public watching will understand the concern that the Labour Party has around Phil Twyford. Never before have they seen someone so excited to come to the House to talk about taxing people more, because that’s, effectively, what this Land Transport Management (Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill is all about.

It’s about taxing people more—a tax that isn’t necessary; a tax that isn’t supported by Aucklanders; a tax that doesn’t need to be in place, because there was already a transport plan in place that was effective; a tax that will hurt low-income people the most; a tax that will hurt the very people that elected them on to the seats that they’re sitting in right now. When we get to the end of this debate, when there are more taxes in place—and it’s going to be up to 25c a litre, because that is actually what Phil Twyford has proposed; it’s not just the $5 a week—it’s 25c a litre on the people that are needing assistance the most with their cost of living. They’re the people that will be hurt the most by this tax, and they’re the people that, supposedly, they represent.

The biggest impact of this bill is to let the Labour Party Mayor of Auckland off the hook. The Labour Party Mayor of Auckland went to the public, went to the polls, and told people “I will find 3 to 6 percent savings in the Auckland Council budget.” Well, he hasn’t. He’s failed, and he’s now being let off the hook by this Government.

The reason why this tax is not necessary is because if the Auckland Council went and found the savings that Phil Goff said he’d find, then this tax wouldn’t be required, because more than the amount that this tax would raise would be available in the Budget because of the savings that Phil Goff said he would go and find. Phil Goff hasn’t found those savings; Phil Twyford is coming to the rescue with more taxes. The people in South Auckland that are struggling the most, that have the most fuel-inefficient cars, that won’t get the benefits of any taxation put in place—those are the people that’ll be paying and hurting the most because of this tax.

The Auckland Council and Phil Twyford think this proposal has huge support. Well, there was one poll back in February that did show marginal support for the proposal, but ever since then—after the efforts of Phil Twyford up and down the country, in this Parliament, and after New Zealanders have become more aware of his plans for 25c-a-litre fuel tax increases across the country—public support has been dwindling, to the point where, when it came to submissions on this bill, only about 10 percent of people were actually in favour of it.

So there was a poll back in February—I’ll give that to Phil Goff—saying there was support. A Colmar Brunton poll said there was 52 percent support. A Colmar Brunton poll in May, though—the same company—now shows that 58 percent are opposed to the bill. But let’s actually not just rely on political polls; let’s go and ask the Auckland public what they think, because Aucklanders submitted to the Auckland Council on the regional fuel tax proposal.

A couple of months ago, a majority of people who submitted were opposed to the Auckland Council’s plans and Phil Twyford’s plans for a regional fuel tax. Under the 10-year consultation, more people were opposed to it than were in favour of it. Come again to the full consultation on the regional fuel tax—a majority were opposed and a minority were in favour of it. Come to the political polls, come to the consultation undertaken on the bill—more and more people are opposed to these taxes that Phil Twyford wants to put in place, and he’s about the last man standing who is excited by these taxes.

There’s a fiction around these taxes that he’s perpetrating in this House, as well. It’s not just $5 a week for people—that’s turned into $150 million collected for the council—but he’s gone and turned that $5 a week into $150 million, which is supposedly going to be $1.5 billion over 10 years, which supposedly will lead to $4.3 billion of investment, which supposedly will lead to a $28 billion plan. Those numbers aren’t real. That $4.3 billion isn’t real, because most of that $4.3 billion would have been there anyway. If Phil Goff went and found the savings that he said he would go and find, then that $4.3 billion would be there anyway.

Let’s go to some of the comments from the people that represent those that are impacted the most by this tax. Those are the councillors—actually, Labour Party councillors elected to the Auckland Council—who represent the poorest people in the city that will be paying this. Efeso Collins—he’s a good man; he probably would’ve been supported by Willie Jackson, sitting up the back there chirping away—says that whilst he understood the council wanted to progress transport issues, when people were “below zero this is taking food off people’s tables”. This tax is taking food off people’s tables. Daniel Newman, who represents people in South Auckland, said this is a “wholesale redistribution of wealth from some of our poorest blue collar workers who have the least transport choice to fund much of the infrastructure to serve those people who enjoy the greatest wealth.” He said it wasn’t fair and he didn’t vote for it.

If the Labour Party were true to their values and cared about people who are hurting the most in this country, they wouldn’t be putting more taxes on them. Are they going to be seeing more assistance? Are they going to be seeing more public transport? Are they going to be seeing more help from a transport perspective? No, they’re not. No, they’re not. This tax isn’t required. There was already a plan in place that Phil Goff had signed up to with Simon Bridges, and that plan would’ve also led to improvements, without the need for more taxation.

Phil Twyford gets excited about taxing people more, but I think what he’s excited about most are some of the regulation-making powers he’s put into this bill. Phil Twyford stands up in the Parliament, Phil Twyford goes on the news and says “It’s only 10c a litre, it’s only 10c a litre.”—of course, add on top of that the additional tax which leads to 25c a litre that he’s proposed. He’s given himself the power, through regulation in this bill, to increase it at any point that he wants.

It is not a 10c-a-litre tax; it’s a legislative power that this Parliament will be passing—if it gets the votes from the coalition partners—to give Phil Twyford, as Minister of Transport, the ability to increase regional fuel taxes as high as he wants. We asked him about it in the Parliament. We said, “OK, so you’ve said to people it will be 10c a litre. Why give yourself that power?”, and he skirted around the issue. Then we said, “OK. Well, if it’s only going to be 10c a litre, why don’t we take this out of the bill?” No, no—Phil Twyford doesn’t want to take regulation-making powers out of the bill that will give him, as Minister, the power to increase regional fuel taxes as much as he wants.

He also went to the country and said, “It’s only going to be Auckland—it’s only going to be Auckland. It’s only required in Auckland.” Well, we’ve got councils lining up, up and down the country, saying they want regional fuel taxes too, and this bill actually gives the Minister, through the parliamentary legislative process, the ability to put regional fuel taxes elsewhere in the country. People in Tauranga that Clayton Mitchell purports to represent will be paying a regional fuel tax if that council gets its way and Phil Twyford signs up. The Wellington mayor is saying he wants a regional fuel tax—to fund light rail, most probably, which has an appalling benefit-cost ratio that Phil Twyford doesn’t seem to care about. These regional fuel taxes will be around the country, because Phil Twyford is giving himself the power.

Let’s go to price spreading. Price spreading is another issue with this bill. Phil Twyford was told by his ministry officials that price spreading would take place. It has taken place before, and we’ll see fuel prices going up around the country as a result of a regional fuel tax in Auckland. Well, what are we seeing? We’re seeing fuel companies, in anticipation of a regional fuel tax, increasing prices around the country. What’s the biggest reason why prices are ramping up in Southland, and not so much in Auckland? It’s because of the Auckland regional fuel tax. The fuel companies are doing exactly what the ministry said they’d be doing, but they’re giving themselves that ability in anticipation of a regional fuel tax. I think that’s appalling, as well.

Let’s go to the consultation that the Auckland Council had in place, and did before the bill was passed. Firstly, it’s pretty unusual to see consultation take place before a bill’s even passed, but in this case the Ministers even had to write into the bill a bit of a “get out of jail” clause, because the Auckland Council got its consultation wrong and didn’t follow the bill in the first place.

This bill is about taxing Aucklanders more in a way that is unnecessary, a way that is regressive, a way that will hurt those lowest-income people the most in the city—the people that probably won’t get much benefit from it. It lets the Auckland Council off the hook. It says to the Auckland mayor that he doesn’t need to find the savings that he said he would, and it also leads to a situation where Aucklanders are paying more at the fuel pump—up to 25c a litre—when it simply isn’t desirable and isn’t required, and this will hurt people in the pocket. The Labour Government no longer cares about those low-income people that will be paying more tax. The Labour Government is ramping up taxes on Aucklanders, and they won’t be forgiven for it.

Second Reading

We have just heard from the one-trick pony, Jami-Lee Ross, the one-trick pony who reminds me of that figure in Dickens—he’s got the look, he’s got the excitable language—otherwise known as Scrooge. There’s nothing Scrooge-like on this side of the House. We realise that if you want to fund infrastructure—if you want to fund infrastructure—you need to be bold; you need to take a risk and stand up and meet the challenges.

Let’s just recite a few of the facts: $28 billion committed by this side of the House over 10 years, in comparison to the miserly, stingy approach characterising the last nine years. Those days, Auckland, are over. Aucklanders know that if you want to meet the costs of modernising infrastructure, trains, or transport, you have to pay for it, and they realise that the burden has to be borne by all users of the service, because this is an investment in a transition. So this bill most certainly has the support of the first citizen of the provinces.

Now, we realise that it’s a gift that I might be bestowing on the Auckland-based fuel buyers, but in order for us, over a 10-year period, to enable Auckland to meet the targets that they were denied—denied—under the last nine years, unfortunately, investment, and not only investment but commitment, are required. I find it very interesting about the younger members—the sophomores—and even their younger cousins of the Auckland political community that have come here. They come with loud voices, but they come realising that they have nowhere to go if they want to actually themselves solve these problems in Auckland. Now, let’s just think what my senior colleague Mr Twyford is offering. He is saying that not only will we utilise the monopoly powers of the State to impose an overdue opportunity for Auckland to contribute to its own works—great step forward. Secondly, he’s going to provide that opportunity for other regional centres, but there’s such an arduous process that other centres will have to go through that there’s no guarantee that Whangarei will have such an opportunity. That all lies in the future.

In addition to that, the infrastructure required in order for users and the contributors via this tax—how are we going to fund that? He makes reference in his speech that we are willing to look at market mechanisms through to classic public-good failure mechanisms. That is something the other side of the House failed to do. How long did they take to build the loop? How long did they wait before they made a decision? That decision was made by Mr Bridges while Mr English was out of the country. That shows that not only did they not be straight up with Auckland but there’s a deep division in themselves, because I know from the provincial members on the other side of the House that they happen to believe that Auckland ought to do the heavy lifting. Auckland ought to contribute to solve the problems that are a blight on broader New Zealand society, but they do deter regional creatures, such as myself, from spending too much time on such jobs as from time to time I might be called to respond to in Auckland, which are to share with Aucklanders the justification of trees and provinces.

But I’m being distracted. I need to come back to the underlying purpose of this piece of legislation. This legislation is actually traceable back to the work that Labour did eight, nine, 10 years ago, and why New Zealanders in Auckland are quite excited about it is it shows a willingness to be bold; a willingness to put political rhetoric into legislative action. Now, we’ll hear some loud voices and caterwauling cats, etc., but the reality is that this will soon pass and it will be in the law, and Mr Twyford and Mayor Goff and the other councillors will now have a treasure trove to dip into to meet the overdue costs to upgrade the infrastructure of Auckland. And for that they will be suitably rewarded in 2020. Thank you very much.

Second Reading

It’s a pleasure to follow the so-called, self-proclaimed first citizen of the provinces, and it’s interesting that a tax that’s going to affect Auckland is now defended by the Government by the Hon Shane Jones, the person who went to a select committee late last week saying, “The winner takes the booty.”—the winner takes the booty. And that shows the man to a T. He’s prepared to take any amount of money from any taxpayer at all and spend it blindly in the hope that it might get them another term after 2020. I think this will be the legislation that actually makes New Zealanders realise what they’ve got in the way of a Government of three parties that’s intent on taxing, taxing, taxing. And it is, of course, yet another broken promise by the Labour Party.

💬 Hon Phil Twyford: We campaigned on this.

Mr Twyford interjects that they campaigned on it. I know his campaign pledges better than he does. What he campaigned on was an Auckland regional fuel tax, and what this legislation does is give the ability for Christchurch and Wellington and Waikato and Tauranga all to have a regional fuel tax after 1 January 2021. Mr Twyford never went round the country campaigning on a regional fuel tax for just about every region in New Zealand. He said it would be for Auckland and Auckland only, and then he surreptitiously introduces this legislation into the House.

It is another broken promise, Mr Twyford, and at this stage Mr Twyford has stopped interjecting, and the rest of his Labour caucus hang their heads in shame because they know they’ve actually, one of two of them—Jamie Strange I see over there. He’s been in Northcote. He’s been knocking on the doors, doing what he can to get the odd vote for the Labour candidate. I was knocking on the doors too, Mr Strange, and they were saying to me, “We’re voting for Dan Bidois. We’re voting National because we’re fed up with this Government, seven months on, breaking election promises and introducing yet another tax.”

We heard it all today in question time from the Hon Phil Twyford, and this is why his colleagues are worried. He acknowledged this will collect each year approximately $150 million, and then he, remarkably, said, “We’ll spend $4.5 billion of that money on roads.” He’s the only member on the front bench of the Labour Party—now, I admit the Hon Shane Jones has got a similar ability to just manufacture money from anywhere. But how the Hon Phil Twyford reckons that $150 million will automatically turn into $4.5 billion defies logic.

The other interesting thing that Mr Twyford—

💬 Hon Phil Twyford: NZTA subsides.

He’s wound up again—he’s wound up again. The other interesting thing Mr Twyford said in the Chamber today at question time was that this isn’t a very good tax and we’d be better to be congestion charging. That’s what Mr Twyford said, and I agree with him. Aucklanders are fed up with being locked in traffic jams. It’s totally unproductive. It’s—

💬 Hon Phil Twyford: After nine years of neglect.

Well, after nine years of neglect—I’d say the problems built up over 20 years, Mr Twyford. But let’s find a way to fix it that works. Let’s find a way to fix it that works.

I listened to the submissions. I carefully went through the submissions. Mr Twyford probably hasn’t even bothered to read the submissions. But, all in one, they said there’s a problem in Auckland and we need to find a way to fix it. We need money to fix it. Everybody agreed with that. Congestion charging was popularly submitted to the select committee. It may take a couple of years to bring in, but it was a solution, and it was a solution far better than this particular regional fuel tax.

But the submission that struck me as very, very sensible came from the Hon Ken Shirley. The Hon Ken Shirley, of course, started his parliamentary career as a Labour member of Parliament. He spoke for the Road Transport Forum, and he said there’s an easy solution, Mr Twyford, if you only wanted to listen: find some money to fix the infrastructure, and do it simply by raising road-user charges (RUC), and raising the excise on petrol. That would have brought in more than $150 million. It would then have given the Government, with that money—to distribute it regionally, as indeed the regional fuel tax will do after 2021. And it would have been simple to administer.

The other thing that struck me as we went through the submission process was a very good submission from Federated Farmers. They came along and pointed out that there was already a fuel excise tax for which they legitimately claim a rebate for the petrol they buy on to their farm, which is then used on the farm. I’m one of those farmers that applies for that rebate, and it’s a nightmare. Kieran McAnulty was in the select committee the day Federated Farmers came along—

💬 Hon Phil Twyford: Help’s on the way.

Mr Twyford’s got more to say. I’m surprised he’s got anything to say. Federated Farmers came along and showed us the forms that had to be completed by hand, put back into the mail, and sent to the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) in Palmerston North to claim this rebate. It’s a nightmare of a process. We got some sort of promises from NZTA that they’ll find a way to meet the modern world so we can do it by internet. But once we put a tax on diesel—

💬 Hon Phil Twyford: Stand by, help’s on the way.

He’s just said, “Help’s on the way, and we’re not going to put a tax on diesel.”—that’s the whole purpose of the regional fuel tax, Mr Twyford. Get to know your own legislation. What we’re going to have is a nightmare whereby those that use diesel off roads now also have to apply for a rebate.

💬 Hon Phil Twyford: Help’s on the way.

“Help is on the way.”—say that to any farmer who already frets night after night, after they’ve worked hard all day, now having to fill in more forms to get legitimate money back on their diesel. And he’s nodding and noting that it’s going to be a nightmare, because that’s what this legislation does. It imposes more impediment on people who use diesel, the majority of which is not actually used on road—it’s used in marine, it’s used on farm services, it’s used by contractors, for instance.

We had a very interesting question put to the officials, who have no idea how this works—they don’t support it anyway. We said, “What about a contractor who trims hedges?” “Oh, no, that person’s allowed. It’s off road. They can certainly apply for and get a rebate.” We said, “What about the tractor going from one farm to another on the road?” “Oh”, they said, “we haven’t thought about that.” And then we said, “What about the hedge trimmer who comes off the farm and trims the hedge along the road?” “Oh, we hadn’t thought about that either.”

This is a nightmare piece of legislation, and it hasn’t been worked through. If you want to see it—

💬 Kieran McAnulty: You’ve never been the party of hedge trimmers before.

—accepted by the public of New Zealand, Mr McAnulty, have a look at Saturday’s results. Jacinda Ardern can go to Northcote as many times as she wants. She was never going to win that by-election because the dominant issue was this is a tax that is imposed on Aucklanders to fix a problem. It’s a complicated tax and it won’t work.

Can I conclude with a little bit of good news, because we had one win in this select committee process. I refer members to new section 65ZE(2), in clause 5. Even the Labour members acknowledged to us that this tax should not apply to any non-road use, yet nowhere in the legislation did it say that. So we argued, and with passion—all the National members argued with passion—to get a clause introduced into the legislation which said, “The responsible Minister must consider whether to recommend the making of regulations under subsection (1)(b) and, when doing so, must have regard to the principle that regional fuel tax is intended to be borne only by those who use fuel on public roads.”

I say to Mr Twyford, if he needed the money—because I think it is justifiable to argue that you needed the money—to fix the infrastructure of roading in Auckland, do it the way Ken Shirley suggested.

💬 Hon Phil Twyford: Tax the whole country.

Stop creating another bureaucracy and do it by increasing RUC and fuel excise. When he says “Tax the whole country.”, that’s exactly what this legislation does. It’s not exclusive to Auckland.

Second Reading

I stand here, I think, probably more proud to speak on this than any piece of legislation that I have spoken on in my time in this House. I say that because I am a proud Aucklander, a citizen of Tāmaki-makau-rau, the first city of the South Pacific, and one of the most beautiful and dynamic places to live in this country and in the world.

This bill is about unlocking the potential of our city. It is about recognising that our city is a place that people want to come to and live, that they want to come to and do their business, that they want to come to and grow and thrive. We can either treat growth like something that is going to choke us—because that is what it is doing now—or we can treat growth as an opportunity by putting the investment into appropriate infrastructure to make sure that we harness that growth for the benefit of the people and the businesses that make up our beautiful city. That is what this bill is about.

I’m going to come to some of the comments from our colleagues on the other side of the House, but I want to front up by asking this simple question: where are the solutions? Where are the solutions? Have we heard a single solution to Auckland’s chronic congestion from that side of the House? For goodness sake, we had the transport spokesperson—I believe it’s Jami-Lee Ross these days—standing up and speaking on this bill, and I don’t think I heard a single point of recognition that Auckland has a problem with traffic congestion let alone a single solution to that problem, which is rated by most people in Auckland as our city’s single biggest problem.

So I say to the National Party: that’s fine. You continue with the negativity. You continue with the yelling and the screaming and the carping and the scaremongering. This Government’s going to focus on the solutions, and that is what this bill is all about.

💬 Brett Hudson: You’re going to focus on fleecing the taxpayer, particularly the poor ones, because you hate them the most.

It’s about recognising the problem. It’s about putting forward the solutions, and then—and this is a new one, Mr Hudson, because your Government never got to grips with it—it’s about actually funding them.

Here’s a bit of credit—here’s a bit of credit I’ll give the previous National Government. The previous National Government—I do give them genuine credit for this—sat down with the Auckland Council last year, and they said that we do need an agreed plan, and it was called the Auckland Transport Alignment Project (ATAP). That was a good idea. The only problem with it was they left a $6 billion funding gap right in the middle of it, so it was nothing more than a glorified wish-list. What this Government, under Minister Phil Twyford, has done is come in and said, “We are actually not just going to come up with a better plan. We are going to do the hard work of funding it.”, and that is what the regional fuel tax that is enabled by this bill delivers.

This bill is about getting Auckland moving. Last year, we received a report—and I’m sure most members of this House read a report—which was put together by the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research, that was supported by many of the key business groups in Auckland, that estimated that Auckland loses something like $2 billion in economic activity every single year because of the chronic congestion on our roads. So it’s costing real money. But, even more than that, what I see it costing the residents of the city that I live in and the city that I love is their time. It is their time: their time to enjoy their lives; their time to spend with their families. The amount of sheer frustration that Aucklanders have sitting in their car hour after hour in gridlock is simply untenable, and our people—the people of Auckland; the 1.6 million people of that region—deserve so much better.

So I want to talk about the vision, and we’ve heard none of that from the other side of the House. The vision that this Government has for transport in Auckland is to finally build a linked-up transport network that lets our people and our freight move around our communities in Auckland freely and efficiently. It’s a vision for thriving local community centres that aren’t clogged up by traffic every single hour of the day. It’s a vision for kids being able to walk and cycle safely to school, like they used to be able to but they’re afraid to now because the traffic is so bad and there aren’t safe options for them. That is what this bill helps us get to, and that is what this bill pays for.

I want to deal with those questions around the paying for it. There’s no doubt—there’s no doubt—that’s the difficult bit to bite. We’ve got the vision here; we’ve got to find a way of paying for it. There was a $9 billion gap that this Government had to plug, and this regional fuel tax bill creates $4.3 billion of additional revenue to help us plug that gap over the 10 years. The impact is $5 per week per household, and, obviously, most people would rather not pay that—I would rather not pay that, and most of my constituents wouldn’t either. But when I sit down and I talk with those residents, they know the problems that they have in Auckland, and they would rather that we had the courage, collectively, to face up to those problems and to fix it at this point in time.

I want to address some of the alternatives that Mr Carter spoke about in his address. Actually, as I come to Mr Carter, can I acknowledge the members of the Finance and Expenditure Committee across the House, who did work on this bill. It was a constructive select committee process, notwithstanding the fundamental disagreement on the bill. Most members of the committee did engage constructively on a number of the issues that Mr Carter highlighted in his comments, and I do want to acknowledge them, as well as the very good submitters and the officials who supported the bill as well.

The reality is, if we want to shift to congestion charging, we had one very excellent submitter—who I’m sure Mr Carter and other members of the committee will recall—who were experts in this field, and who, in fact, would be one of the companies who would financially benefit from the implementation of congestion charging because their job is to implement such systems in international cities around the world. What they told us is that we’re probably six years away from being able to fully implement the kind of congestion charging solution that we would really need to fund Auckland’s transport. So it’s an option that pretty much everyone agrees with around the table, but to say that we’re going to sit back and wait for another six years as the congestion gets worse—well, maybe that’s the Opposition’s solution; that’s not what this Government’s going to do.

The question of maybe applying road-user charges across the country—really? Well, I invite the members opposite who are promoting that as a solution to go back to their constituencies and tell their residents that their solution is to have a road-user charge to fund Auckland’s transport infrastructure. This bill is about Auckland taking responsibility for itself and fronting up and funding the solutions that we need.

Let’s come to the fundamental choice here. The fundamental choice is do something and deliver ATAP or not. That’s what it is, and I’ve yet to hear from members of the Opposition whether they’re actually brave enough to front up to the residents in their constituencies in Auckland and tell them that if they were the Government, the projects would be off. That’s the reality. If you can’t pay for them—remember, as we’ve been told from that side of the House many, many times, there’s no magic money tree. If we don’t fund them, the projects don’t happen.

I have here the list of projects that—[Interruption]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! I’d like to hear this debate.

—the regional fuel tax funds. One of the good things about this bill is that it’s very specific. The money that is earned through the regional fuel tax can only apply to the particular projects that are in the proposal, and that’s really important for people to know.

So let’s talk through these. Let’s talk through the fact that there are major improvements to city centre bus infrastructure. Are we going to hear from the Hon Nikki Kaye that, suddenly, we’re not going to implement that? We’ve got projects here to improve airport access from Onehunga and Botany. I’m waiting to hear Denise Lee and Mr Ross say that we’re not going to go ahead with those projects. We’ve got projects here, funded by the regional fuel tax, to enable 15 new electric trains and to enable electrification to Pukekohe, My Bayly. Mr Bayly, wouldn’t you love to have electric trains running to Pukekohe? Well, here’s the good news, sir: help is on the way, and the regional fuel tax is going to help fund it. What about the downtown ferry redevelopment? Once again, the Hon Nikki Kaye’s been pretty quiet about that one. I’m sure she supports it.

My colleague immediately to the front of me, Marja Lubeck, I think, erupted with glee earlier on when we heard about the funding from the regional fuel tax for Penlink, a project that was promised and promised over nine years of that Government but never actually delivered.

💬 Andrew Bayly: Two lanes.

You can talk about as many lanes as you want, Mr Bayly. The bottom line is you delivered zero lanes with Penlink. This Government is actually fronting up with the funding, and I look forward to Mr Mark Mitchell going to his constituents in Rodney and telling them that he doesn’t support the regional fuel tax and he doesn’t support the implementation of Penlink.

Here’s a really good one: the Mill Road corridor. Let’s wait to hear from the Hon Judith Collins about that one.

The one I want to end on is actually a very, very serious point, and that is the issue of road safety, because over the last six years, we have had an increase in the road toll of 78 percent in Auckland—78 percent more people dying because of a failure to invest in road safety initiatives in our city. Real lives on the line. This plan delivers road safety initiatives that will save lives. I challenge that Opposition to say that they’re not going to front up and fund that through the regional fuel tax either.

I want to end on this great quote from the New Zealand Herald editorial—they’re full of crackers. “The country’s growth and productivity cannot continue to be held ransom”—

Second Reading

Order! The member’s time has expired.

Second Reading

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. Well, that was quite a revisionist approach from the Government on their bill. There must be another marked-up copy of the legislation here, because, hearing Mr Wood talk, it seems like he’s added some new amendments in the second reading speech that aren’t there in the report from the Finance and Expenditure Committee. One of them he says—when he’s contrasting with the road-user charge that Mr Carter suggested—is that this legislation will not see people around New Zealand faced with extra fuel taxes and not with taxes that’ll pay for Auckland roading and other transport infrastructure. Well, that’s patently wrong, unless he has actually amended the bill further. We’ll get to that.

I’d like to note Shane Jones made a comment in his contribution. He said, “This Government is not Scrooge-like.” Actually, I can agree with that—they’re not. They’re extremely fast and loose when it comes to spending other people’s money. They’re taxing like you wouldn’t believe, at a rate of new taxes and a level of new taxes I don’t think we’ve seen for an awful long time, and they’re very loose with where that money’s going. This regional fuel tax is a good case in point, because, already, other regions are looking to get their hands on that money, and they’re looking to spend it on very poorly economically performing proposals, such as in Wellington.

I sat on the select committee for part of the evidence hearing for this bill and I was fortunate to be there when the Greater Wellington Regional Council came to make their submission. So I asked the chair of that regional council, “Are you intending to apply for a regional fuel tax?” In a heartbeat, he said yes—in a heartbeat. We’ve seen reports since then that also Christchurch, Hamilton, Tauranga—apparently, the chair of Local Government New Zealand wants all councils to be able to get a piece of this.

So this is not just a regional fuel tax to help with Auckland transport needs. This is an additional tax on hard-working Kiwis, probably across most, if not all, of New Zealand, that will then be spent on transport whims of those regions—

💬 Hon Julie Anne Genter: Ha, ha!

—many of which do not make good, sound sense. Wellington is a really good example—as Ms Genter laughs. Wellington’s a really good example. You see, Wellington regional councillors have been all excited since this legislation was introduced, as have many of the city councillors, because they see this as a way for them to fund their dream of light rail in Wellington from the city to the airport. Now, the estimates that have been made on that project have the cost at approximately $950 million and the total benefits over the lifetime of that project at $93 million. So, remarkably, these people want to use levers like this regional fuel tax to make an “investment” where it would actually be economically more sensible to have a bonfire of $800 million in the middle of Frank Kitts Park than actually build the light rail, which will burn 95c of every dollar spent. It has a benefit-cost ratio of 0.05. It is in the toilet when it comes to any sort of rational economic modelling.

But it’s worse. It’s worse, because it’s not just the regional fuel tax that would pay for that nightmare, or their dream—our nightmare, for the people who actually live in Wellington—because, as a public transport system, it will be subsidised by taxpayers all across New Zealand. So not only are they going to fleece motorists in Wellington 10c a litre, plus GST, but they’ll take money from hard-working New Zealanders in Timaru, in Kerikeri, in Invercargill, and they will spend it on an initiative that burns 95c of every dollar spent, and this Government is enabling that behaviour.

It’s enabling that thinking by putting in extra tax measures such as this regional fuel tax, which, as I say, is not limited to Auckland at all. They’ve spent almost all their time talking about the Auckland Transport Alignment Project and Auckland’s needs, but the reality is the regional fuel tax is a lever that is open for any regional council to apply for, and already they are lining up to do just that.

But still they think, and they want us to believe, that somehow this is good for New Zealand and it’s good for Aucklanders. Well, here’s a thing too I noted, as Mr Wood was speaking: they talk about how this is going to be good for people. Well, how is this going to be good for a family struggling to get by in Manukau, or down the line in Judith Collins’ electorate—Papakura? How’s it going to be good for people in Mr Twyford’s electorate of Te Atatū? These are not high-income earning and they’re not high socioeconomic areas of Auckland, and yet all of the evidence shows that it is more likely that the people who are lower-income earners, who will be more reliant of private transportation—on cars. They are less likely to be able to afford newer and more fuel-efficient cars and they are likely to have to travel further from home for both work and leisure, so they will consume more fuel. They will pay more. They will buy more litres; therefore, they will pay more tax. It is a deeply, deeply regressive approach to try to deal with funding for transport options. What’s more, it’s transport options that those very people who are going to hurt the most are least likely to get any benefit from.

You know, it occurred to me, particularly as Mr Wood was speaking, that this is a Labour Party that Michael Joseph Savage would not recognise. Now, it’s quite possible, because the man, as a Prime Minister, made some pretty big infrastructure investments. I couldn’t know for certain, but it’s quite possible that Michael Joseph Savage might have agreed that investment should be made into the transport system in Auckland, but he would absolutely not have agreed that it should be the lower-income earners of Auckland—the people in South Auckland and west Auckland, who are paying the most in terms of their disposable income—hurting the most to pay for it. It is not the Labour Party that he led. It’s not the legacy that he wanted to leave behind.

This is a Labour Party that has lost its roots. It’s lost its way. It was born of support for the working New Zealander and the lower-income New Zealanders, and with this very action, it is showing that it no longer cares about those members of our society, because if it was true, then they would look for means to fund these programmes which hurt those people least. They just don’t care.

💬 Kieran McAnulty: Take some notes from Mr Carter. He can act. Take some notes from him.

We’ve got a visitor from Canberra here—that’s interesting! What are you doing in the New Zealand Parliament, sir?

So here they are, wanting to hurt those people most. Why would they do this? Why would they do this? You really have to wonder. Well, it’s because they are an extraordinarily patronising Government. Mr Twyford has made the comment—and, I believe, so too has the Prime Minister. What they said was that it will be good for them in the long term. So their answer to those poorer New Zealanders—those people who are struggling to get by—is “We know better than you. It’ll be good for you in the long term. Sit down and be quiet. We’re going to hurt you for a while, but in the long run you will thank us for it.” Well, that is an absolute disgrace—absolutely shocking.

This is a bad measure. It’s a bad measure also because it is absolutely not required. As Mr Ross pointed out, if the mayor of the Auckland super-city had actually done what he committed to do on the campaign trail when he was going for the mayoralty and had actually addressed the waste and addressed cost savings in the council, he could have saved more than this fuel tax will deliver his council—a lot more—but he hasn’t done that. So this fuel tax, in effect, lets him off the hook. It also lets every other regional mayor—and, to a degree, therefore, a local body mayor—off the hook as well, because they can now get some free money. They can all apply for this. They can all put up some transport plans. They can all get an amount of regional fuel tax—it’ll always be 10c plus GST—that they can levy, and because they can extract this from the back pockets of their local citizenry, then they will not have to have the same fiscal discipline on their spending.

It is disgraceful, and what’s more, it’s not just going to be people in their own regions paying for their own fuel tax, because competition will compete away the additional charge in, say, Auckland, and we’ll see, by default, that having to be spread across the country as participants—as fuel companies in Auckland—are meeting the local market price. But the cost of the product’s gone up, so they’ve then got to counter for that somewhere else, and that means that people from Timaru pay for Auckland’s transport worries. This is an atrocious bill from a very, very bad Government that’s lost its way.

Second Reading

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. I’m very proud to be part of this coalition Government that is finally listening to the people of Auckland, because it has been more than a decade that Auckland hasn’t been getting the investment in the public transport infrastructure that it desperately needs. During that time, Auckland has experienced very rapid growth, so there is an urgent need to catch up on the infrastructure deficit that was exacerbated by the last National Government, who cancelled the regional fuel tax which would have funded electrification two years earlier.

The last National Government dragged their feet on investment in the City Rail Link and claimed that we weren’t going to hit 20 million passenger trips by 2020. Guess when we got 20 million passenger trips on the rail line? Three years earlier than 2020—in 2017. So if that Government had been paying any attention to what was actually happening in Auckland and what was affecting ordinary people in Auckland, they would have gotten on to it and invested in electrification of the rail network. They wouldn’t have delayed it. They would have invested earlier in the City Rail Link and they wouldn’t have denied the need—the urgent need—to invest in other rapid transit lines all over Auckland.

I mean, it’s pretty hilarious listening to the Opposition members’ speeches. Brett Hudson, the member who spoke previously—I suppose he knows a lot about the economic evaluation of transport projects, because he was referring to benefit-cost ratios of light rail. But I can tell him that, in fact, he’s quite mistaken about the economic case. Now maybe he’s never been overseas to the literally hundreds of other cities in the world who benefit economically from investment in transport infrastructure like light rail.

💬 Brett Hudson: Maybe the member should look at the data that’s in the book Keep Wellington Moving.

Hmm, well, actually, Mr Hudson, my Master’s degree with honours was on the economic evaluation of transport projects, and what I can tell you is that the economic evaluation method used by the New Zealand Transport Agency overstates the benefits of road projects and understates considerably the benefits—and, you know, I can give him reams and reams of papers written by a chief scientist at Transport for London that explain exactly why the economic evaluation understates significantly the benefits of light rail. But people in Wellington know, because they’ve been overseas and they know that if you invest in a rapid transit system and it takes cars off the roads, that’s the best way to reduce congestion in the city. It’s the best way to improve the amenity of the city. It attracts businesses. It attracts development in the city.

But, you know, OK—look, obviously, the National Party are living a little bit in the past, and are a little bit unaware of what’s going on. But, you know, it’s amazing how they were willing to tax future New Zealanders all across the country to pay for some of their pet projects that had considerably worse economic cases than what this Government is doing, which is listening to the people of the local areas and saying, yes, we are going to empower you to allow your locally elected officials to determine the transport projects that the community actually wants and to raise that revenue locally, rather than putting a hold on the projects that people want to have funded.

💬 Brett Hudson: Tax and spend.

Now this is the amazing thing. Somehow this Government is tax and spend, and yet the National Government raised petrol tax across the country, took it out of the regions, spent less money in the regions, and spent it on incredibly poor-value, short links of motorway that didn’t do anything to reduce congestion—of course it didn’t, because all the data shows that urban highways don’t help people get around. At the same time, they had the incredibly regressive move of cutting income tax for the highest income earners and putting up GST. Now, if the National Party actually cared about the lowest-income New Zealanders, they wouldn’t have put up GST and cut income tax.

But let me just say—because I know that they suddenly, in Opposition, are very concerned about the lowest-income New Zealanders. Well, if we look at how the regional fuel tax is going to affect, say, a decile 2 household in Auckland based on actual data of how much petrol they consume, it’s going to be about $2.80 a week for decile 2. That is what the data says—$145 per year—and, as a percentage of the income, that’s 0.5 percent. So a 0.5 percent increase in petrol tax. Of course, at the same time, we are looking after those low-income households by benefiting them with a Families Package to a much greater extent.

💬 Brett Hudson: Then you take it off them with a fuel tax. That’s disgraceful.

Now, for a decile 9 household—so that would be one of the richer households that Mr Hudson’s not concerned about at all—they might be spending about 0.25 percent of their income. So that’s the difference—that’s the regressive difference: 0.25 percent of their income versus 0.5 percent.

So what I would say is that if we want to address the problem of access to opportunities and employment—

💬 Brett Hudson: No, no, no. I think the member underestimates her costs on lower-income earners.

💬 Hon Members: What’s your Master’s in?

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! Please don’t bring the Speaker into the debate, even in your comments. Sorry for interrupting.

The best way to do that is to actually invest in both housing and transport infrastructure that enables people to access those opportunities, and that is clearly what this Government is doing. So with rapid transit across Auckland, safe walking and cycling across Auckland, and improvement to bus services, reducing fares, all of that is going to massively benefit everyone—everyone—in Auckland, but particularly the lowest-income households will benefit from this investment. South Auckland—well, actually, the Māngere light rail is all about South Auckland and it’s just one part of what we’re doing there. Puhinui to the airport is giving people access to a major employment area. It will go right up into east Auckland. And then, of course, Te Atatū—well, that’s where the north-western light rail’s going, Mr Hudson.

So this Government has a very practical, evidence-based vision and is going to invest in the infrastructure that I know New Zealanders have wanted for decades, and that party, the National Party, when they were in Government, refused to invest in the infrastructure that was desperately needed. But yet they did raise taxes—oh yes, oh yes. They raised fuel taxes, they spent them on about seven projects, which were in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Hamilton, and Tauranga. There was a promise of some roads in Northland, but it was going to be about 30 years before they actually reached Northland, and, even then, they weren’t going to actually make it easier for people to reduce the amount that they spent on transport.

So it’s hard not to spend your entire speech responding to completely bizarre, other worlds that the Opposition seems to live in, where on the one hand they’re going to cut tax and not raise tax, and on the other hand they’re going to invest in roads, and somehow that’s going to help people, but the roads weren’t actually in the regions you guys were talking about. So look, I know that you in your little groupthink get very carried away, but let me just assure you that your constituents in Auckland are going to be extremely pleased with this Government for finally showing some leadership and enabling the local councils to raise revenue in a way that is fair and that enables the investment in the infrastructure that we need so that communities can be connected, so that kids can walk and cycle safely to school, so that everyone has access to frequent, affordable, reliable, modern public transport, and that those decisions can actually be made at a local level, not entirely dictated by central government, as the previous National Government did. Their approach to transport was very much about dictating to local government: raising taxes across the country, dictating to local government what the money would be spent on, and some eye-wateringly expensive and poor-value-for-money roading projects that did nothing to reduce the road toll, that did nothing to reduce congestion, and that did nothing to reduce pollution.

So I am very proud and pleased to support this bill. I don’t doubt that we can come up with even better ways and fairer ways of raising revenue for transport infrastructure in the future, but this is actually quite a good fix and is going to be very much supported by people in Auckland.

Second Reading

It’s a pleasure to be talking on the Land Transport Management (Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill, and particularly just to listen to that previous speaker, Julie Anne Genter, who I heard was an expert in transport matters—something I never heard before. She did make the point that we all have to go back to our Auckland constituencies—and, of course, I am an Auckland MP—and tell them about this issue and tell them why we’re not supporting this bill.

So I was just looking at the public opinion results. Back in May, we had the One News Colmar Brunton poll—58 percent opposed. Another one in May: final consultation on draft proposal for regional fuel tax, Auckland Council, 51 percent did not support; May, Auckland Council Facebook, 74 percent against; May, select committee, 89 percent of the 500 submissions opposed; April, 10-year budget plan, 48 percent opposed; and the Colmar Brunton poll—another one, in April—52 percent opposed. So I’m going to talk about my electorate soon, because I can assure you that many of my constituents are very unhappy with this bill.

I think we have to ask ourselves: why is the Government pursuing this agenda? As we all know, the National Government worked closely with Auckland Council to develop a $28 billion plan over the next 30 years to deal with a scheduled, planned, well-considered transport plan for the Auckland area. Of course, that was called the Auckland Transport Alignment Project, or what people referred to as ATAP. Now, out of that $28 billion, all of it was funded except for $4 billion. When you talk about $4 billion, it sounds like a lot over 10 years, but, in fact, every time you talk about a brand new motorway, it’s basically a billion-odd dollars.

So, in context, Mill Road, which the National Government committed to just before the election, is a billion-dollar project if it was to be done. So, actually, the essence of the regional fuel tax is about making up that shortfall of the $4 billion over 10 years. And, of course, we have tried regional fuel taxes before and they have shown to be not a great mechanism. In fact, last time they were tried was back in 1990. Of course, where we were trying to go, as the former Government, was actually to look at congestion pricing, and I think there is a great deal of support for congestion pricing in Auckland, and I’ve been in many seminars. As a Government we were trying to do it, and I know the deputy mayor and a number of councillors and people from Auckland Transport went to places like Singapore and looked at congestion pricing. Now, the issue with congestion pricing, of course, is that it’s going to take a little while to implement. But we have heard from many of the submitters that this should be the key priority if you are to put in this type of funding. The emphasis and the incentive to put in congestion pricing should be of paramount concern.

The third option that the Government may have considered was charging at Marsden Point, and one of the submitters—Mr Ken Shirley made a very good submission, the very first one we heard in Auckland—said if you’re going to charge a fuel tax make it easy, do it at Marsden Point. Really easy.

Or the fourth option was you could’ve put pressure on Auckland Council. As we all know, Auckland Council costs have gone up dramatically over the years since it got formed, and, of course, this regional fuel tax puts no further pressure on the council to do that.

The fifth option was for the Government to take over the funding of key projects. Of course, that’s where the central government was under National. Increasingly, we were looking at major roads in Auckland where we would take them over as the Government, which gave us the advantage of being able to consent them in a short time period of up to six months or nine months, depending on their priority, and actually get them built—and actually get them built—rather than talk about getting the council to work through their own processes. That, in my view, was the most important option that should’ve been considered in terms of looking at this issue.

But what did we end up with? We ended up with this fuel tax proposal, which is collected at the distribution level, which means if fuel is imported at Tauranga, as an example, it is a distribution company that then accounts for it. That fuel may end up in a petrol station or it may end up in a farmer’s tank. Consequently, it is quite complicated.

The second thing is we’ve now ended up with two fuel taxes, which I think the Government hasn’t really been that clear about. We’ve got the 11.5c that this Auckland fuel tax will generate, on top of the new tax of 12.5c—on the fuel tax increase that has been implemented by this new Government—making a total of 25.3c per litre. Every time you go to the pump in Auckland, you will be paying on average, depending on the size of your car, about $15 extra per tank load. I put it to you that this is quite a significant cost—$15 every time you fill up the tank.

The third thing we’ve ended up with is a bill that promotes a 10-year window with a right to the council to actually extend it beyond that. So if you are saying “Let’s have the incentive to put in place a much fairer system around congestion pricing.”, you wouldn’t put a 10-year time frame, and a number of the submitters suggested that we should put in a much shorter time frame. But, of course, that was overruled, and we actually made it even more permissive in the sense that Auckland Council, prior to the end of the 10-year period, do a review and it can be extended. Of course, in the Act, which wasn’t—what was partly talked about in the election, but has now been incorporated in the bill, is it expands this legislation to all other regions. So, of course, we had Hamilton City Council turn up in Auckland and they were saying, “Yes, we want to do it too.” When we asked them how much that would raise they said, “$15 million a year.”—$15 million a year. Then we had a whole raft of other councils talking to us about raising money. Of course this is going to proliferate around New Zealand.

So we ended up receiving 520 submissions, 20 of which we heard. To be honest, I have been a member of the Finance and Expenditure Committee now for five years and I found it quite embarrassing to listen to the submitters coming in thrashing the committee about this bill. Of particular concern to my electorate in Hunua—south of Auckland, a farming and large horticulture industry—was we had one of the submitters, Horticulture New Zealand, come and talk about the implications this will mean for the many, many horticulturalists who drive their tractors, trucks, loaders, and fork hoists in their factories. A large number of equipment all running on diesel power will now be caught under these arrangements. We talked about a dispensation, but, of course, that was overruled. I think it adds an incredible amount of complication to an industry that is incredibly productive and helpful to the New Zealand economy.

The second thing we heard about, and we’re already seeing the impacts of, is price spreading. This occurred in 1990, when a fuel tax was in place. We are now seeing that—and we talked about the boundary of Auckland stops at, basically, the Bombay Hills and cuts down through my electorate on the other side at Pōkeno. We had a number of the fuel companies turning up talking about the issue of price spreading, and, of course, we now have seen that in evidence happening.

But the worst thing about this bill, in my mind, is the regressive nature of this bill and how it will hurt the poorer members of New Zealand. I know that the Labour Government like to say “Well, our tax proposals are going to deal with them.”, but, unfortunately, their tax proposals that they ripped off average New Zealanders are being directed to those families with children. What does it mean for young adults who are going to university? What does it mean for those couples that don’t yet have children but are busy buying for their house? What does it mean for the superannuitants who are out there driving around, going to their bowling club—all that sort of stuff? All those categories are not going to have any benefit by the tax reforms that this Labour Government has put through. What it’s going to mean is that these guys will be paying $15 every time they fill up their car. I think that is the worst aspect of it.

So, in my area, I just want to deal with this issue around Mill Road. The Minister of Transport keeps saying that he’s going to deliver Mill Road. Well, let me be clear, I’ve been, since this announcement has been made, trying to educate my constituency because they’ve been, in my view, misled to the extent that they believe that they are getting the entire Mill Road, $1 billion project that the Hon Judith Collins and I were successful in getting the National Government to commit to. They’re not. They’re only going to get the first stage: Redoubt Road—Redoubt Road, which will stop at Alfriston School. It will be a road to nowhere—a road to nowhere. It does nothing for my constituency.

Second Reading

This is a split call—five minutes.

Second Reading

Tēnā koe, e Te Mana Whakawā. Noisy, directionless, polluting, stop-start—that was Mr Bayly’s contribution. And here we have the member for Hunua, as you would expect, listening to Mr Shirley, lobbying for the Road Transport Forum, who would have every other citizen in New Zealand pay for the woes that that Government left us with.

One of the many things that is good about this excellent piece of legislation is that it has an Auckland solution to an Auckland problem—as it should. The deficit in the infrastructure there is enormous. We are, as Minister Genter pointed out, taking an innovative approach, not one based on cars. There’s $28-billion-worth of works to be done to solve this problem.

This regional tax framework will allow the raising of around $4 billion. That’s not to say it will raise $4 billion, but leveraged off this tax will come $4 billion—a modest contribution to that, and here, the tax itself, a little over $1 billion. So, look, it’s not too much to ask to say to the people of Auckland “Can you chip in?” There’s still a lot of central government money going to this and a lot of ratepayer money.

But in terms of a regional fuel tax, it’s minor, it’s minuscule—as we’ve heard before, it’s around $5 a week. But, let’s be clear, for a lot of people $5 a week is important; it’s not trivial. Five dollars a week counts. I’ll tell you what else counts: $75 a week for Working for Families counts; $31 a week in the winter energy payment counts; $20 cheaper doctors’ fees, that counts; $30 a week rise in the minimum wage, that counts—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! Sorry to interrupt the member but the time has come for me to leave the chair for the dinner break.

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

Tēnā koe, Madam Deputy Speaker. Before dinner, I had pointed out that Auckland has a problem, left to it by the National Government, and Auckland has a solution. I’ll tell you what that solution is: under this bill, under the transport plan proposed by Auckland City, it’s a plan around public transport. It’s public transport, public transport, and public transport—not more roads, not encouraging people to get back in their cars and create more congestion, a failed plan that the Opposition would have us go back to. Well, no. We have rail, enhanced cycling routes, park-and-ride, walking, safety—this is a Government that will look after people, not like the Opposition, who would simply build motorways to nowhere and have safety issues falling over themselves—a rail-bus interchange, integrating a public transport network. What we have here is an actual plan that looks forward, that doesn’t look based on old ideas, old technologies, and a solution that doesn’t work. You know, I’ll tell you who a car-centric city hurts: a car-centric city hurts people who can’t afford two cars. What this will do is turn Auckland into a city where people can have low-cost transport solutions. These are the very people this Government stands for.

💬 Andrew Bayly: There are no options in Waiuku.

There are no options, Mr Bayly, because your lot left Auckland in a debacle, an absolute mess, and it’s time for a change—and change is here. And you know what? Auckland is happy about that. Auckland is relieved that, at last, there’s a plan. There’s not some $11 billion hole in the transport network; there’s a plan to fund it. The solution is not encouraging more cars on the road. But, look, Mr Bayly’s there yapping away, as he is wont to do, and I’m surprised about that because, in fact, in select committee he’s much more intelligent, you know. He’s not the imbecile he makes himself out as here; he has some quite good ideas. I’m grateful not only to the great leadership of the chair, Michael Wood, but also to the National members for pointing out ways in which the bill could be improved, because it is absolutely right that we don’t want to tax people who are using their fuel off-road. Regional fuel tax—it’s a complicated tax. It has regional boundaries; it’s about taxing fuel within that region for road use, because this is about funding the deficit in roads, and that’s what we’re going to do.

Second Reading

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. It’s a pleasure to be able to take a call on the Land Transport Management (Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill. The speaker who’s just sat down, Duncan Webb, is another example of someone in Christchurch trying to tell Aucklanders what’s best for them, and this is what this Government is doing: telling Auckland what they want. They have come to the House this afternoon, and we’ve all heard all the rhetoric. We’ve heard the rhetoric about how this is an investment in Auckland, a down payment by Aucklanders. They’ve said, “Help is on the way.” Well, this is a tax, and this Government is taxing, taxing, and taxing.

I heard the member for Mt Roskill say this is the moment he has been most proud of in this Parliament. The moment he’s been most proud of is to tax people in his electorate and across Auckland. Well, this tax, as we know, is regressive in its nature, and it is going to hurt the people who will get the least benefit from it. Those lower family income households are the stakeholders who are most likely to hurt the most from this tax. They’re the ones with the less fuel-efficient cars, they’re the ones who have to travel further in their cars, and they’re the ones who vote for that crowd over on the other side of the House and now are going to get punished by them on one hand. They talk about what they’re giving them, but they give with one hand and take with the other, and they have no plan.

I would just like to quote the words of Sir John Walker, who was speaking around the governing body when he voted against—he represents the communities of Manurewa and Papakura. He said we give people a wage increase and we then take it away with another hand. Well, that’s what the people on the other side of this House are doing: giving with one hand and taking with another, with a fuel tax, and I find that to be reprehensible.

The real reason for this tax is to enable the funding of some tram up through the Prime Minister’s electorate, a tram which has a benefit-cost ratio of something which is uneconomical and which is displacing the funding from projects which we had funded on this side of the House—funding for projects like the East-West Link and Mill Road, funding for projects like the Eastern Busway—Auckland Manukau Eastern Transport Initiative. And now they’re going to fund them with a fuel tax. Well, those projects were funded under the regional land transport plan. They were funded under the Auckland Transport Alignment Project last year, which we, the National Government, put in place, and now they’re replacing that money with a regional fuel tax, going back to the community and saying, “Well, we’ll give you your projects back, but you have to pay again so that we can build a tram up through the Prime Minister’s electorate, all the way to the airport.” Well, that tram will take 60 minutes to get from the airport all the way to the city centre, and it will be easier to get an Uber—

💬 Andrew Bayly: What? How long?

Sixty minutes. It’d be easier to get an Uber—easier to get an Uber, Mr Bailey. Just get an Uber into town. And we’ve got something called the Waterview Tunnel, which we are proud to have delivered when we were in Government and which has unlocked Auckland’s transport.

The point I’d like to finish on is the lack of consultation. I’d like to finish on the point that this Government has truncated the submission process. Right from the start, they haven’t wanted to listen. I heard the Minister Julie Anne Genter—she was saying that we wanted to give local communities the ability to have their say on the projects which they wanted to invest in. Well, they have not listened, every single step along the way. The first thing they did was truncate the select committee process. They gave submitters who were going to be impacted by this tax less time to be able to make submissions. Well, that was truncating the process and cutting out the people who are going to be impacted more.

Secondly, the people who have submitted through the Auckland Council process and through the submission process have said no, no, and no. They said no when they asked the people across Auckland—51 percent. And of the people in my electorate, in Howick, the electorate of Pakuranga and the Howick Local Board area, 62 percent did not support it—62 percent of the people in my part of Auckland did not support this.

I have just been up and I’ve just found a sign which was used by the Rt Hon Winston Peters a little while ago. He said “NO” then, and they should say no now. Thank you very much.

Second Reading

Madam Deputy Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to contribute tonight. As somebody who lives in Hamilton, a list MP based in Hamilton, we love Aucklanders. You know, they drink their lattes, they’ve got their boats, they go out on the shore, they’ve got their terrible rugby team—you know, we get that. We love Aucklanders, but we don’t love them that much that we want to pay for all their infrastructure challenges. Why should us Hamiltonians have to pay for Auckland to fix some of their transport issues?

💬 Matt Doocey: Good question! That’s what we say.

Matt Doocey—he’s in the Waimakariri. Do your members want to pay for Auckland’s transport issues—sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker; not yours, but do the member’s people want to pay for Auckland? Stuart Smith, the member from Kaikōura—do members in Stuart’s electorate want to pay for Aucklanders’ issues? So here’s the point. Why should people in Masterton have to pay for Auckland? We’re talking about a system here of personal responsibility.

Now, I had nothing else to do before, so I just had a quick look on the National Party website. The National Party website talks about two things: loyalty to our country—OK, sure—its democratic principles and our sovereign principles and the Sovereign as head of State. Well, that’s debatable. But here’s one of the key values I saw on the National Party website: personal responsibility.

So my point is, why shouldn’t Aucklanders take personal responsibility for their transport challenges? They’re the ones that got themselves into this mess. So what the Opposition are saying is that the rest of the country should bail them out. What I’m saying is that the Aucklanders should take personal responsibility, and that they can pay for some of their challenges. Sure, we’ll help out, because we’re nice like that—us Hamiltonians are nice like that—but the point here is that we care about Aucklanders, but they need to look after some of their challenges. And that’s what this bill does. This bill says that Aucklanders will pay for their infrastructure. Yes, we’ll help out, but the Aucklanders will be paying for it.

Now, as some people may know, I tend to like to sometimes put a little lyric into my speeches.

💬 Matt King: Please don’t.

And tonight the lyric is—just for Matt King—Sterling Simms, and the lyric says, “I’m stuck in traffic, trying to get to you. I’m stuck in traffic, trying to get to you.” I’ve been up to Auckland a few times recently and I’ve been stuck in traffic. And where’s the singer trying to get to? Family, work, maybe for leisure, anywhere, but the productivity aspect—sitting in a car, on a motorway that’s gridlocked—is a big challenge. And members from this side of the House have made that quite clear, that there are huge challenges in Auckland around transport. This Government will address those issues, and this bill is the start of doing that.

So we talk about Auckland being a world class city, and there are many aspects of Auckland that are absolutely world class, and it’s a desirable place to live and we’re proud of it as a country, we’re proud of the city. But we’ve got a long way to go in terms of transport. When we look at cities like Canberra, who are just in the process of building light rail; Adelaide; some of the countries over in Asia; many of the countries over in Europe—some of these countries and these big cities that we look at—we haven’t kept up with population growth. The infrastructure hasn’t kept up.

So I’m excited that we’ve got a Government who will put their money where their mouth is. Because the previous Government talked about—let’s have a look at this. Back in 2005, the previous National Government said they’d put money aside for Penlink. In 2005, they said, “We’ll do Penlink—yes, we will.” It was an election promise. Did it happen? No. In 2017, they popped up again, “Oh yeah, that’s right, Penlink. Yep, we’re going to do it.” But they didn’t budget any money for it. Whereas this Government, we are putting our money where our mouth is. So yes, we are saying that we will fix the transport issues, but we will pay for it.

We heard from the Rt Hon David Carter earlier tonight with his contribution. And as an esteemed gentleman—a very intelligent gentleman—but I wonder what is his plan? He gave us a speech for 10 minutes which was full of excitement and rhetoric, but there was no plan. And that’s the point; this Government does have a plan. And I do wonder if the Rt Hon David Carter—maybe he might be looking to jump off a sinking ship, but that’s up to him. He mentioned the Northcote by-election. I was up at the Northcote by-election on the weekend, and when I was talking to people up there, the people up there were telling me, “We need a plan. We need a plan. We’ve heard for years that they’re going to fix these gridlocked streets, but we need a plan.”

💬 Hon Member: And who did they vote for?

In the Northcote by-election the majority was cut from 6,000 to 1,000. I would see that as a failure. If I had 6,000 and it dropped to 1,000, I’d be very disappointed with that result.

I’d like to speak for a moment about the Eastern Busway. So the Eastern Busway is one of the projects that this regional fuel tax will fund. The Eastern Busway will not happen without this policy—it will not happen. And the member for Botany who shares two-thirds of my name, he is against this policy, but when the Eastern Busway is built and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern cuts the ribbon, the member for Botany will become very quiet because he knows that this was a good idea. And the reason this is a good idea is because Auckland is paying for Auckland’s infrastructure.

So just to summarise, we have huge issues in Auckland. It’s at a standstill. We understand the frustration of its ratepayers who are spending hours of their day stuck in traffic. There’s a huge loss of productivity when you’re sitting behind the wheel stuck in traffic. Maybe in a few years we might have driverless cars and people will be able to do some work on there, but at the moment, the reality is that productivity is being lost. And Aucklanders want action. They’ve been talking about this for years. They want action and they want it quickly. Congestion is a handbrake on the New Zealand economy.

So what’s the solution? This bill is the solution. This bill is about taking personal responsibility—which is something that I know the member’s opposite believe very strongly in. It’s about Aucklanders taking personal responsibility for their transport challenges, and for them paying for it. And people in Hamilton, people in Masterton, and people down in Southland—we’re going to chip in a little bit, OK? We’re going to chip in as well, but the Aucklanders should pay for their challenges. So, Madam Deputy Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to speak on this and I commend this bill to the House.

Second Reading

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to speak in the second reading. What can we say about the Government’s idea around a regional fuel tax, in cahoots with Auckland Council? First of all, the Government introduced this legislation before Auckland was consulted on it—strike one. Strike two: they shortened the committee process and designed the legislation to suit council’s proposal. This Government has moved heaven and earth to make Auckland pay more at the pump, and I know that it’s going to come back to haunt this Government.

💬 Stuart Smith: And we’ll pay, too.

Yes, we all pay—that’s right. Thank you, Mr Stuart Smith.

Polling and consultation shows that Aucklanders do not want this tax.

💬 Hon Willie Jackson: That’s not true.

It’s quite simple, it’s quite plain, and it’s quite clear. There have been at least six polls—thank you, Mr Jackson—and only one poll shows that there has been any result other than opposition to this fuel tax. That one poll was at the very beginning, from Auckland Council, and that one poll cost $200,000. It was designed and crafted by Auckland Council—a smaller sample—and before we knew that the Government was going to add on a national excise tax. A $200,000 poll by Auckland Council, and that’s the only poll that the Government can clutch on to, to prove that there is support when there isn’t support.

Back in May, at the select committee process here in Parliament, 89 percent of the 500 submissions were opposed. Also in May, in the draft proposal for the regional fuel tax—the consultation that Auckland Council undertook—51 percent did not support and only 42 percent did. Back in May, again, in the One News Colmar Brunton poll—there we go, Colmar Brunton, again, but this time a much bigger sample—58 percent were opposed. Here are the rock-solid results, and still the Government arrogantly pushes on with a tax that undermines the debate.

You see, the point of this debate is to make clear, I think, from the Government that this result’s inevitable. Well, it shouldn’t be inevitable—it shouldn’t be inevitable—that Aucklanders will end up paying more at the pump.

Now other cities and regions are lining up for this, and it’s really interesting to hear from a member who lives in Hamilton, because you too will be paying at the pump. Just wait, your council wants it, so do all the other councils in New Zealand, and Local Government New Zealand has confirmed this. It’s a matter of time.

We heard from Minister Genter earlier in the evening, when she said that the Government is listening to the people. Need I repeat those poll results? The Government is not listening to the people. The polls are showing what the people think, and how inconvenient that time after time, the more this debate has gone on and the more time has gone on, the more the poll results are getting clearer. It’s not going their way; it’s going by way of people speaking and trying to exercise their mandate on what they do and what they don’t want to do with their wallets.

The member Duncan Webb said earlier that this was an Auckland solution to an Auckland problem. Well, that’s not going to be the case if Mr Jamie Strange or your councils will want this solution for all of their problems. Again, that’ll be coming. Local Government New Zealand have confirmed that this is something that they want.

Now if we think that this bill’s about investing in transport projects, well, we were able to do that in our last Government—in the National Government. This bill is actually about Auckland looking to pass the burden of transport projects and funding to Aucklanders and their wallets. Is it right that soon the country will end up having to take on the same burden as well? I don’t think so. If councils were able to responsibly prioritise their spending, would this tax be needed?

Of course, I’m going to head on to Auckland Council very soon, having been an Auckland councillor myself for four years. There should be a higher bar in place for councils to justify the imposition of a new tax on ratepayers—simple as that. Councils should be required to demonstrate clearly that they’ve exhausted all avenues for funding before they get to this particular tool in the tool kit. Where are the clear benefit-cost ratio business cases for the projects that they’re proposing? How can they demonstrate where the revenue will go—to which projects—before they authorise and impose this sort of new regional fuel tax?

Speaking of new revenue, it wasn’t that long ago when I was on the council and the idea, the concept, of an interim transport levy came up. “Interim” ended up being three years. This has a theme and a feel to me like the interim transport levy, which I did not support when I was in council. Council went for Aucklanders’ wallets then, and they’re doing it again now, but this time you’ve got a Government that is supporting them to do it. That’s the difference right now. When it was the interim transport levy and I was around the council benches, that was an internal discussion and very much an eleventh-hour solution that I didn’t support. This time, you’ve got council and Crown in cahoots, working on this together.

There are unintended consequences for business—and I’m going to touch on that soon—but let me talk about the unintended consequences for council. Do the Government know what they’re about to set off in terms of trust ratings in Auckland Council? Do you even know or listen to what it’s like to be an Auckland councillor and to experience the level of low-trust environment that there is? They’ve quantified it in their own reports, and what the Government is doing is going to set it off one more time, in a new way and on a new angle. The Government is going to—well, perhaps it’s not unintended, I don’t know. But the Government is about to send Auckland Council and Aucklanders into another spiral of a low-trust vortex. It is simple and it is clear. I’ve been there before, and this is just going to do it again. Wait until 1 July.

You see, Councillor Mike Lee said in the debate, “The problem here”—and I’m quoting—“is the lack of trust in the way Auckland Council spends its money, to be frank.” Other speakers said the same thing. The Government is contributing to the problem. Trust is low, they’re doing a hand-holding initiative with the Crown, and the consequences will be dire for our biggest, most prosperous, and bustling city.

Now, I just want to talk a little bit on some of those unintended consequences for business. As we know, the cost of shipping—that’ll just simply be passed on to consumers through higher prices. Shipping costs, food costs, clothing, household goods—those are the unintended consequences of this.

We also know about family impact. How many times does the Government have to hear from economists, from the New Zealand Initiative, and from speakers from their own ministries around the impact on low-income families and on those who can least afford to pay more dollars every time they fill up their petrol tank? It was actually another councillor, Fa’anana Efeso Collins from Manukau, who said in his speech, and I think he was very eloquent, that he could not in good conscience—this is a Labour councillor—vote for the tax that would hit the poorest families the most. “The tax is taking food off the table.”—that’s what he said. How does the Government answer that?

I want to finish in my last seconds by strongly objecting to the argument from the other side that you either do the fuel tax or you get congestion, that you either have a regional fuel tax or you do nothing, or that you have less revenue, and if we get less revenue, we’ll have to cancel all the projects. That’s rubbish. It’s a funding question. The projects are going to happen. In fact, they were all outlined in the Auckland Transport Alignment Project when we were there. It’s about the funding—about how you get the funding.

Now I know—and I’m going to finish in just a very short amount of time. Here’s some funding options for you from a former city councillor. Non-strategic assets—Auckland Council, take a look at those. Procurement strategy, a whole-of-Government strategy—which doesn’t happen at Auckland Council—take a look at that. Staffing levels—take a look at that too. We oppose this and we will repeal it.

Second Reading

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Well, that was a shocking speech—shocking speech—and Denise, go back to council now. Go back to council now. First of all, I want to congratulate Phil Twyford. What a brave and courageous Minister. Against all the silly and poor and pathetic attacks from the Opposition, we had him here standing brave today, courageous, talking about congestion—something the Opposition would have no idea about.

💬 Simon O’Connor: Indigestion.

Well no, indigestion for some of them. The problem is if you don’t live in Auckland, particularly in South Auckland, you wouldn’t know. It is terrible, and so you have to do something. The Opposition did nothing over their nine years—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: I didn’t do it.

Nothing. All they did—of course, not yourself, Madam Deputy Speaker, but your mates—was invest in their rich friends; tax cuts for their mates. They forgot about the infrastructure, forgot about the basics, forgot about Middlemore Hospital, forgot about the roads, the streets—it was shocking, shocking what you did.

And here, we are always thinking about the poor people, the working-class people. I want to be a little bit humble today because I believe myself and my friend Anahila over here have represented more poor people than the whole National caucus combined. I sincerely believe that and I say that very humbly. The National caucus has no idea about poor people’s needs. And here’s the crunch: not one—not one—poor person has said anything to me about the tax. Not one word, not one line, and the same with Anahila. We live in South Auckland; we don’t live in east Auckland. We don’t live where a lot of the National Party live. We live in South Auckland, and not one poor person has said anything about what the National Party’s talking about tonight, basically, because they don’t care. All of a sudden, the National Party cares. Why do you care? Why does the National Party care so much now for poor people? Poor people don’t give a stuff about this—not one person.

The only time I’ve been attacked—and I need to say this—was in Northcote. In Northcote, I was attacked by a National Party supporter of Dan Bidois. It was clear as a bell. I thought there was going to be violence towards me over the tax. This is in Northcote where Shanan was—the fantastic Labour candidate who cut back that huge Northcote majority and made the National Party look stupid on Saturday night.

I have been to gang patches; I have been to Mongrel Mob patches, Black Power patches, done all the door-knocking, but over there in Northcote, knocking on a National Party supporter’s door, I was threatened. Of course, I backtracked because Labour Party people are peaceful people. We’re not going to engage in aggression or violence with National Party rabid, maniacal supporters. No, we’re not going to do that. I backtracked and I said, “You vote for Dan Bidois. You vote for Dan Bidois.”

I was attacked, but in South Auckland they all support this levy. They all support it. You know why? They want to get into the houses where all the people were kicked out by your Minister Paula Bennett, Judith Collins, and all of you, because you all thought that they were smoking meth. Do you remember that time? Then you invested $100 million in all your National Party mates so that they could all have jobs. We recall that time well, don’t we? Remember that time—$100 million being invested into National Party supporters and friends, while you kicked the poor and working class out. You kicked the poor and working class out, and made up stories, and you had Paula Bennett in cahoots with the Housing New Zealand Corporation. That’s what the National Party did. That’s how much the National Party cares about poor people. We all know this, thank you very much. That’s how the National Party looks after poor people.

So I want to say today that Twyford is leading the way—and it’s good to see you’re all silent now, because that proves to me that guilt has overwhelmed you in terms of this kaupapa. But we are brave; we are courageous. There is $28 billion going into this—more money than you could ever think of—and into fixing up roads, and fixing up what poor people want done, because poor people can’t operate on rotten, crummy roads that were laid out by the National Government. Kia ora tātau.

Between 26 February and 4 March this year, 1,000 New Zealanders were asked in a Victoria University public trust survey if they trusted the Government—this Government—to do what is right for New Zealand and 65 percent said yes, which compares with 48 percent in 2016. That is a huge increase.

It’s a huge increase, and it shows that the hallmark of an authentic, purposeful, and forward-thinking Government is its willingness to confront the hard issues—to front them, to establish the facts, to make decisions, to deal with the issues, and to build public confidence and trust. The most recent example of that was this Government’s willingness to confront the issue of methamphetamine residue in State housing from smoking it, and whether there was evidence of health effects of that. Commissioned by the Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Phil Twyford, and delivered by the Chief Science Advisor, it found no evidence of health effects at all—which was confronting the demonisation of people who live in social housing.

What does this Budget do in 2018? It stops the sell-off of State housing. It will commission the build of 6,400 more State homes with 1,400 more emergency housing places. There is $143 million for insulation and heating for low-income home owners, which complements the healthy homes guarantee, and it requires rentals to be warm and healthy to live in—also complementing the winter energy payment scheme for more than 1 million Kiwis and their children.

Another example of a Government willing to confront the hard issues is the Government inquiry into mental health and addiction, confronting the tsunami of mental health issues that has beset our country in recent years. That is not in the Budget, but what is in the Budget—and while we’re waiting to have that inquiry reported to us in October—is $10.5 million over the next three years to pilot an integrated therapies programme for 18- to 25-year-olds, $28 million to better support Canterbury children, and $17 million to expand school-based health services. That is the hallmark of a responsible Government prepared to tackle the hard issues.

Another example is the just transition to a carbon-free economy by 2050. All of this goes to a plan for the transformation of our economy and public services, and how we work together to improve the lives of all New Zealanders. This requires fiscal, social, and environmental responsibility.

Budget 2018 is a foundation Budget which tackles the big issues in housing, in health, and in education to set the foundations for the transformations that are needed going forward. This requires joined-up Government. It requires a modern, agile, and nimble Government that sees digital government as being the key to increasing productivity, higher skills, export growth, and social inclusion. It is a Government that knows that digital transformation will spur innovation and productivity growth; it will transform public services and improve well-being. These things go hand in hand. They go hand in hand with the challenges to jobs and skills, and these are critical challenges that face our country. The challenges to privacy and security, to markets and taxation, to social security systems and public financing—this Government will tackle all of those challenges, which is why we are putting in place a foundation Budget to set the scene to be able to do that.

We recognise that we can’t fix with just one Budget all of the problems that we face. We have said that over and over again. We have been honest with the people of New Zealand about this, and they have listened. It’s why it’s called a foundation Budget. It’s why we are appointing a Chief Technology Officer (CTO). It’s why I have appointed a digital economy and digital inclusion advisory group to bring the good ideas and expertise outside of Government—

💬 Chris Bishop: How’s the CTO going?

It’s going well. The CTO appointment process is going well, thank you. It’s why I’ve appointed a digital economy and digital inclusion advisory group to bring those good ideas outside of Government closer to Government.

We are deadly serious about the transformation of our economy and our public services. It’s why we are appointing advisory groups to bring the good ideas from outside Government closer to Government. This Government is deadly serious about its agenda, and it knows that there are good ideas outside Government that we need to bring closer to Government. We’ve acknowledged we can’t do it all at once.

We’re being up front and honest with the public, and they are responding. A good example of this—it’s a small example, but it’s quite a stark example—is within the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), in the communications policy advice area. Under the previous Government, that part of MBIE was facing cuts. It was facing cuts of 16 full-time equivalents. That advice that would’ve been cut was needed for work on the digital economy, improving digital inclusion, and ensuring resilient communications infrastructure. Instead, what this Government has done under Budget 2018 is provide $6.2 million of new operating funding for policy advice on digital economy, digital inclusion, and improving communications infrastructure issues, such as 5G mobile networks and ultra-fast broadband.

What this Government is doing is being honest with the public, showing that we are deadly serious about the transformations required. We’re deadly serious about investing in the ideas that are required to do it. What the former Government was doing was a mirage. It was saying it was doing things, and it was cutting them. So, therefore, if it was committed to the digital economy, why was it cutting the key advice that was required to build up that area of the economy—the engine room of our economy? So I’d be keen for them to answer that.

I’d just like to touch on another issue, around how this Government is deadly serious about transformation. It’s an issue that’s been heavily neglected by the previous Government, and that is funding for public media. That side of the House does not believe in the value of telling our stories, which is why they froze the funding—

💬 Chris Bishop: Oh, rubbish.

—for nearly a decade of public media. Rubbish, Mr Bishop? Rubbish that the funding was frozen for nearly a decade? The previous Government’s approach is embarrassing. Internationally we are ranked as one of the lowest in terms of funding for public media. Thankfully, this Government has the vision to start investing properly in public media. It’s going to take time to repair a decade of neglect; we don’t shy away from that challenge. The $15 million allocated in this Budget has been described by the Minister of Finance as a down payment, and I’m excited about what we can do with this funding. The details are being worked through. It won’t be long before you find out how that money will be distributed and New Zealanders can see some real demonstration of the changes ahead.

This is about ensuring that our stories get told. It means focusing on what’s important to us as New Zealanders around the country, rather than what will bring in the most advertising revenue or what has the best clickbait title. This is about who we are as a nation. It’s about investing in telling our stories, something that the former Government froze and took no account of, put no value on, for a decade. That’s the whole point of having a strong public media ecosystem producing content that is relevant to our national identity, investing in quality investigative journalism, and telling stories that would otherwise not be told. That is the hallmark of this Government. That’s something that we can be proud of, and we won’t shy away from dealing with the tough issues.

It’s a bit rich to be lectured on competency and transparency from Clare Curran, the most secretive and incompetent Minister in this Government, and that really is saying something when you see the line-up of these noddies. I want to make three points about this shabby and pedestrian Budget: first, that the Budget represents a triumph for the bureaucracy over front-line services; secondly, that Māori lost big time; and thirdly, that the only winner has been New Zealand First.

Let me go to the first point, which is that the Budget represents a triumph for the bureaucracy. The previous speaker admitted the amounts of money in her area that were going into the provision of policy advice. I just want to take one small area in relation to arts, culture, and heritage, because I have a personal, as opposed to a political, interest in the arts—a long-time lover of the arts—and if one was to believe what all the luvvies were saying, the advent of the new Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage and her six or seven Associate Ministers represented the new dawn. Nirvana had come.

Well, I have to tell you, round the country at arts events, a chill has set in because they know that that is not the case—that all the promises have come to nothing. And where has any additional expenditure in arts, culture, and heritage gone to? Well, unbelievably, it’s gone to the bureaucrats: an increase in the provision for money set aside for policy advice and monitoring of funded agencies; incredibly, more money spent on ministerial servicing, notwithstanding that there are about, as I said, four or five Associate Ministers; monitoring of funding agencies; and policy advice. I find that kind of additional expenditure simply incredible.

In the six years I was the Minister for arts, we had very tough economic times, but I could always go to the now Sir Bill English and say that the ballet was in trouble, they needed additional expenditure, and they got help. Front-line services always came first. We were able to do a huge number of things on very little money—like, for example, being country of honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair and having the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra tour through Europe. These are the sorts of things where money should have gone. Instead, it’s gone to policy advice—looking after the bureaucrats, but not the front line. And, in what could only be described as a very pedestrian and mediocre defence in her Budget speech, the Prime Minister said this was the start. But that was simply unacceptable. That’s where the money has gone across the board. The bureaucracy wins out, rather than front-line services.

The second point I want to emphasise is that Māori have lost big time—no more eloquently stated than by John Tamihere, who said there’s a caucus of 13 MPs in the coalition caucus, and, basically, all of them failed, because the expenditure set aside for Te Puni Kōkiri (TPK) has been slashed. And, incredibly, they stand up and recite in a formulaic, generic way, as the previous speaker did, the kinds of expenditure that have gone across the board. But they can’t get away from the fact that funding for TPK has been slashed and that all the promises that were made before the election have turned to ashes.

The particular area where a huge amount of work was done by the previous Government was on reform of Te Ture Whenua Maori, and through shabby deals with various people they opposed that legislation, even though they themselves, in previous manifestos, had promoted reform of Te Ture Whenua Maori. And not only has the bill gone for a skate, but expenditure into the way in which Māori land could become more productive has gone for a skate, as well. I see the Minister of Forestry in the House, who talks grandly and at length—sometimes like a barrage balloon—about promises of planting a billion trees. It will not be achieved in this country unless we can deal with te ture whenua, and nothing has happened there. John Tamihere is so right—their empty words, their promises, come to nothing.

And then we have the only real winner—and this is the third point I want to make—and that is New Zealand First. An American humourist, Will Rogers, once said, “I never tell jokes. I just look at the Government and report the facts.” And he was saying that in the last days of the Hoover administration, but it applies with equal force to this shabby, incompetent coalition Government. It so applies here. Let us look at the facts and we can see what Will Rogers was really talking about—for example, that Tracey Martin and Ron Mark are Ministers, that we have tax breaks for good-looking horses, that we have $191 million for diplomats and massively increased overseas aid at the expense of the poor in New Zealand, that we have the oil and gas industry destroyed in New Zealand so that the Greens will support the Peters waka-jumping legislation.

We have a real need within the precincts of this place for rebuilding part of the Parliament—I refer to the proposals for the office building that was going to be situated behind Parliament. We all know that the old press gallery in the Beehive was a serious earthquake risk and has been yellow-stickered. Every party in the Parliament, bar New Zealand First, was in favour of that sensible development, but it’s been held up by one small, irrelevant party and their small leader. And so what we have is all those proposals put on hold because of one person.

💬 Rt Hon David Carter: Why?

We have a regional development fund of—but “Why?”, the Rt Hon David Carter asks. That’s a question, the answer to which will be developed over the next couple of months.

Then we have a regional development fund of $3 billion where there are no criteria, there are no tests—it’s all discretionary. It’s Hundertwasser one day, it’s the Taranaki Cathedral the next, it’s a forest in the central North Island the day after that. We have the three-strikes repeal dead, but the process is a metaphor for the chaos of a Government which has simply no coordination whatsoever.

And who does it come back to? Who is, as it were, the Mephistopheles behind this shabby Faust? Well, we all know who it is. It’s the failed member for Hunua, for Tauranga, and for Northland—our new great acting Prime Minister. He was a failure in the 1990 administration—Jim Bolger had to get rid of him after nine months. He was a failure in the 1996 administration—he walked out before Jenny Shipley could fire him. He was a failure in the last Government, where he needed to be propped up by Margaret Wilson so that he didn’t answer questions in the House. Everything he touches turns to dust, and that is the person who today is acting Prime Minister. It would be funny, it would humorous, if it wasn’t so sad for our beloved country.

So there we have it. Three—only three; there is a litany of them—points that need be made: that the Budget represents a triumph for the bureaucracy, that Māori lost big time, and that the only winners in this exercise have been New Zealand First. And we, who worked so hard over nine years in the toughest of economic times, facing the kinds of challenges we did with, for example, the Christchurch earthquake, produced prudent Budgets, got this country back to sound economic health. We were starting to produce Budget surpluses, and it’s one of those dreadful tragedies that we all see it going to waste because, ultimately, a Faustian deal was done with a very unpleasant and nasty New Zealand First Party, led by a very unpleasant person in Mr Peters, and we are all going to have to suffer the consequences of that grubby little deal.

So that’s the Budget. That’s the way things are. Mr Jones may laugh, but, unfortunately, the laugh is going to be on him in 2020.

It’s an honour to talk about this exciting, progressive Budget, which is the opposite of what we’ve heard from the honourable member Chris Finlayson opposite, who, I recognise, will be hanging up his boots soon. But if he keeps sucking sour grapes, he’ll be out before we know it.

But I’d like to inform the House that I’ve been sleeping very well lately. In fact, I’ve been sleeping very well for the past few weeks because every night before I lay my head on the pillow, I pick up the coalition Budget and I have a read through the Budget and it puts a smile on my face. It warms my heart, and as I lay my head on the pillow, my dreams are bliss. So maybe some of the Opposition members may wish to follow that course of action if they’d like to be a little bit more positive.

Some of the reasons that I have been so excited about this Budget are around housing. Dave Dobbyn once said “Welcome home, from the bottom of our hearts”, singing in one of his songs “Welcome home, from the bottom of our hearts”. This Budget says “Welcome home” to 6,400 families, because we are building 6,400 more State houses. These houses will be for people—they’ll be for families, they’ll be for individuals—who have, for whatever reason, fallen upon difficult times. But we are saying, “Welcome home, see we’ve made a place for you.” This Budget, once again, puts New Zealanders at the heart of our economy. And I am very proud that we’ve got a Minister of Finance, Grant Robertson, who said that it’s the people that matter the most, and this Budget clearly articulates that in a number of areas.

Another area is around education. As the House knows, I’ve had experience in this area, and I’ve been told for years and years that the education sector has been having to do more with less, similar to the health sector. They were told by the previous Government, “You must keep delivering.”, but they weren’t being funded in order to do that. This Budget restores funding to education. There are a lot of challenges in this area, but we’ve made a start. One of the key areas that we’ve made a start in is around teacher supply. We’re employing 1,500 more teachers, and there’s provision for that in this Budget.

💬 Hon Tim Macindoe: Where are they coming from, Jamie?

We’ll build hundreds of new, modern classrooms. And to answer the member, “Where are the teachers coming from?”—so this Government will value teachers. What’s happened in the past is teachers have been more like administrators teaching to a test, testing, retesting, and retesting. But we’ve removed national standards so that teachers can once again go back to that wonderful curriculum document we have and to be able to teach from that, and teachers can get on with the job of doing what they’re passionate about, which is teaching young people. So we’re lifting the status of the profession.

Some other ways that we’re going to lift the status of the profession is by special needs. So we will provide ongoing resourcing scheme funding, which is funding for some of our most vulnerable students who require extra support. We’re going to add funding for 1,000 more students. This has been issue for a number of years—the funding in special needs. We have special needs students integrated into the classroom, and that’s wonderful and that’s the way that it needs to be. But the teachers need to be supported in this area, so we will provide that support.

We’ve provided extra funding around tertiary education and around supporting Māori students, with a programme to identify and support talented Māori students and initiatives to lift capability for delivering high-quality Te Reo Māori education.

So I’ve talked about housing, I’ve talked about education, and, in the last 30 seconds, I’d like to talk about health. The health sector has struggled under the previous Government—everybody in society will admit that. I met with 50 nurses from New Zealand’s largest hospital, Waikato Hospital, about a year ago, and they were holding back tears as they told me that patients were sleeping in the hallways on mattresses because they were 400 beds short. But we’ve started to address this issue, and I’m proud of this Budget. Thank you.

I’m honoured to take my first call in the Budget debate this afternoon. I commend—absolutely commend—our Minister of Finance, the Hon Grant Robertson, for this fabulous Budget. This is a positive, future-focused, and outcomes-focused Budget, and it lays the fundamental foundations for the future of this country, and I am really excited by that. This is a reassuring Budget that focuses on strengthening the fundamental pillars of this Government’s work programme, from rebuilding critical public services, promoting economic development, and supporting the regions to taking action in child poverty, housing, and homelessness. This Budget values these foundations and their place in providing a secure, prosperous, and reassuring future for New Zealand.

Today, I want to focus my speech on education, which is something that I am incredibly passionate about. With that, I would also like to commend our Minister of Education, the Hon Chris Hipkins, for the hard work and advocacy he has put into Budget 2018.

Budget 2018 recognises the importance of ensuring every child and young person gets the best education. In fact, this coalition Government’s three-year work programme for education places a high priority on lifting and sustaining achievement for every child and young person through championing a high-quality public education system. Despite the rhetoric of those on the Opposition benches, Budget 2018 delivers a funding boost for our education system that it not only needs but deserves.

Firstly, I would like to pay particular attention to the increase in funding in building new schools and hundreds of additional classrooms. With this expected to take place in 2018-19 and 2020-21, there’ll be a capital investment of $394.9 million. Whilst we are having to play catch-up, this vital piece of investment aims to bridge the disconnect between the spaces in which our children and young people learn, and lifting and sustaining achievement.

What is even more exciting is this coalition Government’s consideration to accelerating the Canterbury recovery and the Christchurch Schools Rebuild programme. Budget 2018 delivers $62 million in new capital investment for this programme, with children and young people in Christchurch also being able to benefit from a share of increased funding for behavioural and learning support in early childhood services, teacher-aides, and specialist services for high-needs children. We are committed to addressing the increasing demand placed on each of these areas.

Secondly, another area that I am hugely passionate about is the area of learning support. I am excited by our investment of $272.8 million, which, might I add, is more than triple the operational spending compared to what was in the previous Budget. But what I am mostly excited by is the fact that we are now delivering for students who have been severely and poorly served by an underfunded system. If that wasn’t enough, over the next four years, Budget 2018 will provide operating funding in the learning support space for the Ongoing Resourcing Scheme. This will receive an extra $133.5 million for about 1,000 additional students. Sensory schools and New Zealand Sign Language will receive an extra $30.2 million to support about 2,900 deaf and hard-of-hearing students and approximately 1,500 low-vision students.

I want to talk about our investment in supporting Māori students to succeed as Māori and, in doing so, tautoko the work that Minister Davis is leading to make achievement a priority in education. At the very heart and absolute core of our approach to lifting and sustaining Māori achievement is our strong belief that Māori students deserve to succeed as Māori.

What I find particularly heartening from Budget 2018 for Māori tamariki and rangatahi is the $1 million of new operating funding which will be used to investigate how we can better support Māori students to achieve as Māori in English and medium-term settings.

I am proud of Budget 2018 because it provides the investment in education that is necessary to support our education system so that it brings out the best in every child and young person. I’m happy for this coalition Government to be judged, as the Prime Minister has said.

It’s a pleasure to stand and take a call on this, the Budget debate. I have to acknowledge the previous speaker Jamie Strange and his passion for the Budget—telling us all that he takes it to bed as bedtime reading. That’s taking it to a new level of commitment, so well done.

I want to take a call, first of all, on defence—and I’m conscious of the fact I’ve only got 10 minutes and I’ve actually got two important portfolios, one being defence and one being justice. I want to address defence first, and first of all acknowledge all our Defence Force personnel, all the personnel in the Ministry of Defence, and the work that they do. No greater privilege have I ever had than actually being their Minister, prior to our coming into Opposition.

I want to address some issues with the defence Minister and just say that when I came into Opposition, I made it very clear to him and I said, “I will support you in making sure that you advance some critically important investment that the Defence Force needs around capability.”

That relates directly to the replacement of the P3 Orion, which has been an incredible and faithful workhorse for our air force and defence forces and country over 50-plus years. But it’s no longer possible to do upgrades on them, and, actually, they just need to be replaced.

We received a letter from the American Congress saying it was last orders for the P8 Poseidon under the military sales programme. The P8 Poseidon, after going through our procurement process with the Ministry of Defence—led by Mike Yardley, who’s done an outstanding job—emerged, without a doubt, as our preferred option in terms of the P3 replacement. It would give us an enhanced capability. It would allow us to do more and extend our capability beyond what the P3 could do. It would mean that we would close our capability gap with our partners, and particularly our Five Eyes partners and coalition partners. And it would actually provide that interoperability that we need too when our personnel are deploying overseas.

This was a critically important acquisition, and I knew it was going to be tough, because I was working it through the process myself. I’d had meetings with the Prime Minister, I had meetings with the finance Minister, and I had meetings with Treasury to find out how we could actually book the cost of this, because it’s a big expense for the Government. But I was committed to it, and I was determined that we were going to make sure that we procured the P8 Poseidon.

Part of that process also meant getting support from our partners, and the US Secretary of Defense, Jim Mattis, was extremely supportive in terms of working with us and working with Mike Yardley and the team at the Ministry of Defence to be able to smooth out the payment schedule. They also gave us an extension on the decision as well, which is important, because they’re committed to us, and they can see the importance of us having this type of equipment in the future as well.

But what I’ve been very disappointed about is that it appears to have stalled. I can’t get any clear information about whether or not the Minister has taken a Cabinet paper to Cabinet. We’re now nine months into the new administration; this should have been done right at the front end. Actually, now it’s starting to affect the morale within the New Zealand Defence Force—not just the procurement, actually, of the P8 Poseidon but also the literal capability, and the decision has been delayed on that as well. It just creates uncertainty for people that join the defence forces with an expectation that they will be supported by the Government and an expectation that, actually, they will be given the best-possible equipment that, of course, we can afford as a small nation. These things have stalled.

I was really concerned because during the election campaign, when Grant Robertson was asked where he would find savings, the only area he really highlighted was defence. I’m fearful that that is going to come to pass, because during his Budget debate speech, the only thing that he could point to—the only thing that he could highlight—in terms of investment into our New Zealand defence forces was $1 million going into the Limited Service Volunteers programme. Now, I’m a huge supporter of that programme. It’s very important. The staff on it, whether it be social development or defence, do an outstanding job, and I just want to pay tribute and acknowledge them—but $1 million? If the finance Minister can only stand in this House and talk about $1 million going into the Limited Services Volunteers programme—which is not actually a core business of defence at all. It’s a very important programme that defence support and run alongside social development. It’s not one of their core objectives or part of their core business, and that’s all that the Minister could get up and talk about.

So I just want to put it out there and say that we were very disappointed with this year’s Budget. The only real expenditure was around operational costs, and that’s the growing operational costs that any Government needs to meet. That’s, basically, all that’s being done, and this is from a Minister that said before coming into Parliament that they should be moving towards 2 percent of GDP and that there should be a reinstatement of a strike capability and a heavy investment into personnel, property, and equipment. That is not happening. We are not seeing that at all in the defence portfolio.

I just want to come quickly to justice. This week, to me, has been astounding. We had our Estimates hearing yesterday on justice, and it’s become very, very clear that the incoming Minister of Justice just simply does not have a plan. Now, I found it extraordinary yesterday in the Estimates hearing that he was attacked by one of his own MPs—a Labour MP—about the lack of investment that’s going into community law centres. I mean, there is a 0.3 percent increase in funding for the justice sector when they’re talking about doing massive justice reforms. We’ve seen, very early on, the Minister, yesterday, fail—fail at the first hurdle—at taking the first part of the reform, which he believes deeply in. He takes it through a Cabinet committee process. It’s obvious that he had support from the coalition parties, and then on the day of the Cabinet paper being taken to Cabinet, there is a meeting with the Rt Hon Winston Peters, and he has to cancel the process, withdraw the paper, and withdraw the repeal of the three-strikes legislation.

We were happy about that, because in the last three weeks, you would’ve seen our leader, the Hon Simon Bridges, run a passionate campaign around preventing that three-strikes legislation being repealed. There’s a simple reason for this, and I’m going to give an example. There was an offender—he was arrested in Hawke’s Bay—who broke into a home and sexually assaulted a lady in her 80s. He then committed a home invasion with the intent of sexually assaulting a woman in her 70s. Had they been successful in repealing the three-strikes legislation, that offender would have been eligible for bail and been back out in the community in January of this year. With the three-strikes legislation remaining in place, he’s not eligible for bail until 2026. That’s why we were so passionate about running the sort of campaign that you saw that, effectively, in the end, saw New Zealand First bend to that pressure and come out and say that they would not support the repeal of the three-strikes legislation.

The thing that really came home to me yesterday in our Estimates hearing was this: the justice Minister doesn’t have a plan. There is no new funding in terms of reducing crime. There is a confused set of policies that are emerging from corrections, where you’ve got a corrections Minister that seems to be paralysed in terms of indecision, and where there’s a growing need for capacity within corrections and there’s a policy that’s come out around 600 pop-up beds. That’s not going to meet the need. You’ve got a justice Minister that’s talking about repealing the three-strikes legislation and diluting our bail laws so that we’re letting out more dangerous, violent, recidivist offenders—because that’s who’s in our prisons. It’s not low-level—not shoplifters, not people who are found with a cannabis cigarette. The offenders—the people who are in our jails—are ones that have got multiple convictions and are normally violent.

Then you’ve got a police Minister that’s standing here in terms of the justice portfolio and saying, “We’re going to recruit 1,800 more police officers.” but can’t actually define what a front-line police officer is. He is telling us that it’s someone that sits in a back office doing a forensic accounting role—and I’m not diminishing the importance of that. That’s an important role, but I’m telling you right now that they’re not capable of deploying to someone’s house when they’ve got someone trying to break in through the back door for a home invasion. We’ve had no clarity around how those police officers are going to be recruited and trained.

So all that we’re seeing coming out of the justice sector at the moment is a confused range of policies that are counterintuitive and work against one another, and that probably highlights very clearly in the House today why you saw the justice Minister and the New Zealand First justice spokesman unable to agree in the House.

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o tēnei Whare, rau rangatira mā, te whānau whānui o Aotearoa, te hunga whakarongo.

[Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, distinguished colleagues, New Zealanders, and people who are tuned in.]

Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, kia ora anō tātou katoa. This is actually the first Budget that I’ve got the pleasure of being able to stand and talk to, and I do that with enthusiasm and passion because I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to have come off two weeks of recess where I’ve been out there, pounding the pavements, talking to voters in the Waiariki about exactly what the Budget is. I can understand there’s a wee bit of confusion out there, especially because they hear one message from our side, they hear another message from that side, and somewhere in the middle there, they get a little confused. So there’s nothing like a little bit of kanohi ki te kanohi to actually iron out some of those things and to talk about the things that are making a big impact for Māori, and this Budget delivers in that.

They were pleased to see me because there’s been a severe lack of engagement over the last, say, nine years out there, especially with regards to how we—the Government—are spending their taxpayer dollars. So I was pleased to get out there and talk about the fact that we, as the Government, are getting back to basics—real basics. We’re talking about housing, we’re talking about jobs, we’re talking about education, and we’re talking about health. Because of that severe lack of investment in the last nine years, we have come in on a very strong platform. On the campaign trail, people were looking for us to actually deliver on outcomes for Māori, and that’s exactly what we’ve done.

You see, the previous Government oversaw a housing and homelessness crisis. Interestingly enough, they are not prepared to admit that it was a crisis. They’re more likely to refer to it as a wee bit of growing pains and a bit of a challenge that we needed to sort out. They thought the answer to the problem was that they would sell off our State houses. They thought that was a really good idea. They thought they would turn our economy from one where we looked after each other to one where we just looked after the few at the top.

So, because of all of those things, what we did oversee was thousands of tamariki, both Māori and Pākehā, living in unacceptable levels of poverty. For that reason, the public gave their votes to an alternative, and that is us. That is the Government of today. That is us: the Labour Party, with our coalition partner, New Zealand First, and with our confidence and supply partners, the Green Party of Aotearoa. We campaigned on a new direction for New Zealanders, a new direction for Māori, and a new direction for the leadership of New Zealand too, of which our Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, is doing a stunning job. Although she’s off to do a few things at the moment—and, you know, we’ve all been on that journey, too—she’s made it very clear that she wants this to be a Government that brings back manaakitanga and kaitiakitanga, and that’s exactly what this Budget does.

So let’s break it down. These are the things that I went out there and I talked about over the last couple of weeks at the rugby clubs, at the marae—talking to our whānau about what we’re doing. There is $2 billion worth of investment over four years for the future of Māori. This year’s Budget will deliver for our people, and, as I’ve said over the last few weeks, this is really resonating with our voters out there. This Budget continues to improve the lives of our whānau. It continues to strengthen our communities around Aotearoa while rebuilding our core public services—things like health, things like education—and all to provide a better future for our whānau and for our tamariki. We have allocated $58.5 million for Māori-specific funding, with whānau development at the core, which is going to improve outcomes for Māori.

We’re going to provide a boost to Māori whānau incomes, with $1.2 billion allocated in the Families Package. Now, when I went out there and I talked about the Families Package, you’d be surprised just how many people had forgotten about it. It was released in December. We are paying for it this year in the Budget, but it was worthy of slowing it down and really talking to our whānau out there about what exactly the Families Package was. So I got great pleasure in sharing with them that 384,000 families were going to be lifted out of poverty with a hand up and a handout of $75 a week, on average.

We’re talking about extending paid parental leave—at the moment, 22 weeks this July, and 26 weeks that’ll be lifted to by July 2020. The Best Start payments, as well, were also a lift for all of those families out there, especially grandparents, who knew just how much the struggle was for their children to be able to bring kids up in this world. While house prices have gone through the roof, wages haven’t been keeping up, so there’s been a lot of concern about the impact of that on families. So, you can imagine, grandparents were stoked to be able to hear that this Government was actually going to be helping out our new families. They say that if you take care of baby in the first 1,000 days of life, you’re setting that baby up for a future—a strong future—and that’s exactly what that Best Start payment is geared towards.

I would love to slow down just for a moment and talk about the winter energy payment, because you would be surprised just how many people didn’t know about it. When I went out there and I spoke about it, they had no idea, so I got great pleasure in standing there and talking to them about the winter energy payment, which is $450 over the winter to help out with the cost of heating your house. Koroua, kuia, pakeke were all very excited about this because, as we all know, we’ve heard stories over the years about some of our elder members of society not actually wanting to turn the heater on because it’s a little bit too expensive. So what do they do? They sit in their very cold houses, they put on a jacket, they go and put on a scarf, maybe even a beanie as well, just to try and keep themselves warm and to save on the cost of the heating. Well, I got great pleasure in standing there and telling some of the older members of our society, of our community, that, actually, this year the Government is going to help them out with a winter energy payment so they can be warm.

More than $700 million in funding in this Budget will have a high impact on Māori households around the country. So we are all about rebuilding core public services. We are all about manaakitanga and bringing that back to our people. That $2 billion of investment is on top of the $42 billion in spending over the next five years to rebuild and properly fund our infrastructure and our public services. Now, to do that, we’ve got to keep our country strong. We’ve got to be ready for the future challenges that our tamariki, our mokopuna, are going to face, and that’s very important—so many things that we could rave about in this Budget.

I also got the pleasure of having meetings back home in Rotorua to talk to whānau there about what we’re doing in terms of housing those people that don’t have any houses. Our homelessness crisis is real. Rotorua boasts the statistic, sadly, of the second-highest rate of homelessness in the whole of New Zealand. It’s not something that our people are very proud of back home, so I got great pleasure in talking about the expansion of the Housing First policy and what that’s going to do to be able to enable our people that have no houses—that have, for whatever reason, found themselves without a house over this very cold winter. We’re going to start finding some solutions for them. We’re going to build long-term solutions, and not just short-term, band-aid solutions to the homelessness problem. We’ve actually got the goal of ending homelessness—what an admirable goal that is. How about that? We’re aiming to end homelessness and we’re trying to do that through our Housing First programme, so I was stoked to be able to go back and tell the community that we have a goal, and it is to end homelessness.

I was also quite happy to go back home and to talk about the Crown-Māori relations portfolio, which has reared its head in this Budget for the first time, and I’m proud of that. I’ve been to a couple of meetings—one in Rotorua, one in Taupō—about the Crown-Māori relationship, and lots of people are highly engaged in this particular portfolio, looking for opportunities, trying to understand what our steer is when it comes to Crown-Māori relations. There are a few themes that kept coming through quite strongly, one being the relationship that Māori, that iwi, have with their local council. That was something that kept coming up again and again and again. I look forward, actually, to our Minister for Crown/Māori Relations feeding back to us, giving us the report back on what exactly the feedback has been around the country and what we can do going forward, especially as a Government.

One more thing that I’d like to tick off just before I wrap up is the excitement that people had when I told them that this Government was going to raise the minimum wage—that we actually have taken it up to $16.50 an hour, which is going to make 28,000 Māori better off. We’re looking to increase that even more over the coming years, and I think that that is a signal that, actually, we’re doing a good job. We’re taking care of our people. We are indeed bringing manaakitanga back to our Government.

I just want to start by acknowledging Sir Bill English. It’s the first day we’ve rejoined, come back to Parliament, after Bill was knighted as a Sir. Bill, being the previous MP for Clutha-Southland, gave me some reasonably good advice. He said, “Hamish, listen 80 percent of the time; talk 20 percent of the time.”—something the Government on the other side there could learn.

I just want to talk about the Budget debate. I want to talk about two things in particular. One is what is happening in health services in my electorate, Clutha-Southland, which is a wonderful electorate. It’s got roughly 2 percent of the population, yet we produce close to 15 percent of the country’s GDP, and judging by this Budget, this Government simply doesn’t care about the regions. Mr Jones over there—of your billion-dollar growth fund, $62 million has gone to Northland; the remaining $42 million has gone to the rest of New Zealand. In Clutha-Southland, we have got $250,000 out of a total $104 million that’s been allocated so far, and, Mr King, up your way it’s $62 million.

I just want to talk about this Government’s campaign messaging last year: “We are going to increase health and we are going to look after rural New Zealand.” If we talk about health, over the next four years there’s been an increase of $3.2 billion; over the next year, roughly $782 million. Last year, National increased health by just under $900 million, and this year we were planning to by around about $932 million. So an increase this year of $782 million compared to what we were planning—$932 million—doesn’t really stack up with the messaging last year, does it? Over the next four years, an increase of $3.2 billion; National had pledged to increase it by $3.9 billion. Why is that? The man I mentioned at the start of my speech, Sir Bill English—in 2008, we were hit by a huge global financial crisis, and we had the Christchurch earthquake. He managed to steer us through those tough times without cutting any services.

If we take Clutha-Southland, I just want to talk about our services just for a couple of moments. Let’s look at health services, for example. Several months ago it started for me after I saw the Minister of Health, Dr David Clark. He appointed a Dunedin Hospital rebuild advisory panel. What do you know? There’s no one from Southland and rural Otago on that panel; they’re all from Dunedin, and they have North Island consultants. That’s when it started to go wrong.

Then I sort of started to question: “Why doesn’t this Government care about the region? Why doesn’t it care about Clutha-Southland?” And what do you know? All of a sudden the Lumsden maternity hospital, which is bang-smack in the middle of Southland, is facing, right now—it’s been a birthing unit for decades, a very successful birthing unit—being downgraded. Why? Because this Government doesn’t give a toss about the regions.

For anyone that doesn’t know Southland, Lumsden is literally the heart—it’s right in the middle. Hundreds of babies have been born there, and this is like the glue of the community. If you downgrade this wonderful facility, it’s like ripping the heart out of Clutha-Southland.

I was there six or seven weeks ago, on a Friday afternoon, meeting a lovely couple from Queenstown. They’re in their mid-20s. They were very excited. She gave birth that morning. She drove from Queenstown, driving through to Invercargill—a 2- to 2½-hour drive—to give birth. Anyone that knows the area, Five Rivers—and baby had started to come—knows that Invercargill from there is about an hour and a half. Luckily, they got 15, 20 minutes down the road. They made it to Lumsden and, within five minutes, baby was born. Now, if that facility wasn’t there, this baby, without a doubt, would have been born on the side of the road.

I just want to highlight a letter, and I just want to highlight the good works. People like Sarah Stokes, who’s a midwife there, has been doing an amazing job, along with the board of directors. They are fighting. I started a petition; we had 5,100 signatures presented to the Minister of Health. We had a protest march through the streets of Lumsden; we had 300 or 400 people turn up. This is what the centre means to the people of Clutha-Southland. So every day for the last month, the directors have been sending emails to the Prime Minister and phoning her office, and she’s not even acknowledging them.

I just want to read out a letter from them: “Dear Jacinda, I am writing to you with regards to the proposal which has been put forward to downgrade the Lumsden Maternity Centre. If Lumsden Maternity Centre is closed I believe there is a huge risk that babies will be born on the side of the road. I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to use the facility for my births, and six weeks ago I gave birth to our second son at Lumsden following a quick labour. We left our house at 7.27 p.m., and I drove towards Lumsden. With favourable road conditions our estimated travel time was 40 minutes. My husband had tried to time my contractions during the drive, but he gave up as we had travelled five kilometres and he had counted six contractions, all with less than a minute between the next one starting. An un-forecast tail wind reduced our travel time to 33 minutes, and when we arrived at Lumsden there was nothing to do but give a wee push, and our beautiful baby was born at 8.15 p.m.

“As my first birth was also very quick, I’d been warned to make haste the second time round, but I really struggle to see how I could have left for a birthing facility any earlier than I did, and had Lumsden not been available, there is every possibility that I would have had to deliver my beautiful baby on the floor of my husband’s dirty Hilux somewhere in rural northern Southland. Our closest staffed ambulance is 45 minutes’ drive away. As I haemorrhaged during the birth of my first child, there is every chance that I could have been left to deliver on the side of the road and bleed out while I waited for emergency services to attend me. Closing Lumsden Maternity Centre will achieve nothing but endanger the lives of our most vulnerable for a grand total sum of $370,000 per annum. I’m disappointed that the Minister of Health is not concerned about this matter and that requests to meet with trustees of the Lumsden Maternity Centre have been declined.”

This is just absolutely disgraceful. What this Government is doing is basically degrading women to give birth on the side of the road.

While we’re talking about health services in my electorate, just over the border in Waitaki, Jacquie Dean’s electorate, is the Roxburgh children’s camp. Now, if you care about the most vulnerable children—some of these children have been sexually abused, physically abused, emotionally abused. This is a wonderful centre. I spoke to a boy three or four weeks ago, who is now 20 or 21, and he said to me that the reason why he’s still here is the fact that he got to use that centre numerous times. Before using that centre, he had no confidence, he couldn’t make friends. After he used the centre, it was just enough to give him a wee bit of confidence.

Now, the fact that I have a problem with this is that just a few months later, along came the rescue helicopter base bid. A couple of months ago, it was said to us, “Well, if a mother’s giving birth in Te Ānau, they can just catch the chopper from Te Ānau to Invercargill.” What do you know? The Te Ānau rescue helicopter base is now on the chopping block as well. If you truly care about rural New Zealand, don’t—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Don’t bring me into the debate.

Sorry.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): You were going very well.

Oh, thank you. If you truly care about rural New Zealand, now is not the time to cut health services such as the Te Ānau rescue helicopter base, the Lumsden maternity hospital, and the Roxburgh children’s camp, which looks after the most vulnerable. We saw $600,000 be gutted just a few months ago from the Rural Health Alliance, yet they’re quite happy to go and give $2.8 billion to some of our most fortunate people—those are students who are so fortunate they get to go and study at university. Now, I did the maths: $2.8 billion for students would keep, roughly, 2,100 Lumsden maternity centres home. So, at the moment, it’s all a bit much for my electorate.

The people of Clutha-Southland are actually wondering what they need to do to get a meeting with the Minister of Health or actually be acknowledged by people like the Prime Minister. It’s an absolute disgrace. I hope the Government take a look at themselves in the mirror. If you rip the heart out of Lumsden by degrading the Lumsden maternity hospital, you will see mothers give birth on the side of the road.

What an absolute privilege it is to stand here and talk about—

💬 Hon Grant Robertson: Well, it’s a privilege to listen to you.

Thank you, the Hon Grant Robertson. I appreciate the feedback only three seconds into my speech. This is a marvellous Budget. This is a Budget that is typical of a first-term Labour Government that sets up the foundations for nine, 12, 18 years of success because, unlike the previous Government, we don’t waste the opportunities that are in front of us. We don’t inflict nine years of neglect on to the nation. We take a responsible approach to setting up appropriations into key areas that are important to this country.

Now, we have just had two weeks’ recess. What that means, of course, for those watching at home, is that’s two weeks away from Parliament. I can assure the good people of this nation it is not a two-week break.

What you would think, if we were leading up to a two-week recess, is that the National MPs in this House would use that opportunity to actually listen to people’s feedback on this Budget. They would test the rhetoric that they applied, leading up to that break, in response to the Budget to see if it rang true. They had an opportunity to talk to people, to get some feedback, and to then come back, buoyed with passion, excited about what they had heard back from the people that they represent, and what have we heard today? Nothing. We have had deflated speeches from bored Opposition members who have run out of ideas. We have seen members from that side of the House who really should be holding this Government to account and, instead, we have heard people that are just making up the 10 minutes because they’ve got a job to do, and, in fact, it seemed to me, anyway, that they did not believe what they were saying.

Now, going out and about in the last two weeks in the Wairarapa, I’ve heard some very positive feedback about this Budget, and that doesn’t reflect the speech that we’ve just seen from the good member for Clutha-Southland. I was down in Clutha-Southland recently, at the Century Farm awards with the great Minister the Hon Shane Jones, and I ask—

💬 Hon Shane Jones: Yes, provincial champion.

That’s right—that’s right. It is a great honour, as perhaps the second citizen of the regions, to acknowledge the first citizen of the regions and the impact that he is having in our regional and rural areas. So there we were down in Lawrence, the heart of National country. You’d think that having two New Zealand First MPs, the Hon Shane Jones and Mark Patterson—the local boy—and myself go down there, as three MPs from the Government—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! I wouldn’t refer to a member in that way.

Oh, I assure you he wouldn’t mind, but I take it on board.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): No, well, I mind.

I appreciate that. I apologise.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Thank you.

“The locally based MP”, I should have said. You’d think that having three representatives from the Government go to the heart of National Party territory would be a prime opportunity for these people—all of whom, pretty much, were farmers—to come and talk to the representatives of the Government and tell them about the Budget. Did we hear the negativity that the National Party MPs have been outlining today? No, we did not. What we heard was that the Budget that Grant Robertson brought forward and produced to this House did not live up to the fears—the fearmongering—that the National Party MPs on the other side of the House laid down in preparation for the Budget. It’s set the foundation for a strong economy, because, of course—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: How’s business confidence?

I appreciate the contribution from the soon-to-be former MP for Nelson—thank you very much. That MP must be very disappointed to see the results from Northcote. That MP must be very disappointed to see the results from Northcote, because what the Northcote result said is that that member cannot bring about a by-election because the National Party can no longer stand on their record of nine years. If there was a swing of 4 percent like there was in Northcote, we would have a new MP. So, as sorry as I am to say it, it looks like we’ll be looking at Dr Nick Smith for at least two years longer.

What I was about to say was about the strength of the economy. It is indeed forecast to continue to grow through to 2022. There is a surplus this year of $3.1 billion, forecast to increase to $7.3 billion in 2021-22. These are the things that matter to people in rural New Zealand, and that is why people in Lawrence and people in Wairarapa are not mirroring what we’re hearing from the National side of the House today.

I went to the Great Eketahuna Cheese Festival of a couple of weeks ago—my tūrangawaewae. The people there are true National Party supporters—except for the McAnulty family, of course—who took the opportunity to come to see the Hon Damien O’Connor and congratulate him on his approach to Mycoplasma bovis and to congratulate this Government on its commitment in the Budget of $85 million, plus a contingency to cover the cost if we chose to go for eradication, which, of course, we have. This is a decision that has been celebrated in rural New Zealand. It is yet another example of this Government investing in the things that are important, not only to this country but to rural and regional New Zealand as well.

Now New Zealanders have a choice. They can listen to the contributions of the member for Clutha-Southland and fall into the trap of assuming that the Labour Government is not committed to rural New Zealand. I could not disagree more. This Government is deeply committed to the benefit of rural New Zealand, and you only need to look at the Provincial Growth Fund to see why, with $1 billion per year committed to encouraging economic growth in the regions.

We could have done what the previous Government did in the last nine years—we could have left this to the market. We could have—as Simon Bridges has said very recently—believed in the trickle-down effect, but of course this side of the House and the majority of the voters in the country know that the trickle-down effect lost any credibility 20 years ago. You only need to travel around rural New Zealand and see the lack of opportunities leading into the last election for our young people living there, the struggling regional manufacturing base, and the threat through underfunding of biosecurity and a lack of investment in the regions to see that the trickle-down effect—the “leave it alone and she’ll be right” approach of the National Government—failed regional New Zealand.

But now, they have a Government that is committed to making sure that economic development, economic growth, and the benefits of economic growth are distributed fairly, not just in the cities—not just in Auckland, Wellington, or Christchurch—but where the heart of the economy lies, which is in our rural areas, in places like Waipukurau and Waipawa in Central Hawke’s Bay, Dannevirke and Pahīatua in Tararua, and, of course, the beautiful and the mighty Wairarapa Valley. It’s areas like this that need the support of Government, and, of course, it is a founding principle of the Labour Party—and a principle that our coalition partners in New Zealand First and our confidence and supply partners in the Green Party adhere to as well—that the Government has a responsibility to ensure that the economic activity benefits everyone, regardless of who you are, who your parents are, or where you live. It is vitally important that economic benefits flow down to our regions and that just like when my parents grew up in Eketāhuna or when my grandparents grew up in the wider Wairarapa, the opportunities that were available to them continue to be available to the next generation and the generation after that.

It wasn’t that long ago that leading economists in this country predicted zombie towns in proud areas like Whanganui. With Budgets like this one, delivered by this Labour coalition Government, the regions can actually have faith that in this House, there is a Government that’s going to put its money where its mouth is and actually look after these regions, look after the people that live there, and make sure that there are opportunities there, so that we are indeed a Government for all New Zealand, not just for big business and not just for those who live in the big urban areas.

This is a foundation Budget that’s going to set the scene by reinvesting in health, education, and housing across the board. This is setting the scene for a very long and successful tenure of a Labour-led Government. I’m very proud to speak in support of the Budget.

Before I call the member, I just need to advise you that this will be a shortened call to allow the Minister of Finance his reply.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I just want to reflect, in my comments this afternoon, on some reflections that I had when I listened to the finance Minister give the speech that kicked this all off—and now, of course, I have to sit down and listen to him follow me—a few weeks ago. The thing that struck me when I listened to him is how much it was like we were still back in 1992. You see, I met this man 25 years ago, when he was a student politician. He was a student politician in Otago and I was in Waikato, and he was as likeable then as he is now—I’ll give him that credit—but back then, the two of us used to hold the view that education, above all else, was a right and not a privilege. When we used to reflect on that as student presidents, I would test him with: “And so does this apply to the wider needs of society?” He’d say, “Absolutely. I come from a philosophy that every single issue in society, the Government can solve. I come from a philosophy that whenever there is a need in society, Government will step up and provide the solution.”

Twenty-five years on, I would like to think that over that period—perhaps through the experience of being out of Government, being out of the bureaucracy—some of my perspectives in life have matured, but I am sad to say, listening to this Minister talk to this Government, that they haven’t in his case, because when the Minister stood up and put this Budget on the ground for us to see, you could see that there was a philosophy, above all else, that everything that they had talked to as a crisis in this country would be acknowledged with just a little bit of money. There was no plan, no coherence whatsoever.

And what was the very first thing that this former student president did when he had the opportunity to frame up a vision for this country? It was, “You know what? I want to go back to the Grant Robertson that I still I am at heart, the Grant Robertson of 1992, which is free education. Despite the official advice that it would not make a difference in terms of accessibility for New Zealanders, I still want to do it.”—$2.8 billion over four years, and the advice is that, actually, there’ll be less students enrolled this year than the last three.

There is no coherence—there is no coherence. There is no plan. It is a little bit of cash for everybody to try and keep a sense of momentum. There is no expectation around the investment on behalf of taxpayers of New Zealand—$80 billion of expense. There is no expectation around delivery, around outcome, or around actually making a difference for the money that you spend, because for the Labour Party, success is how much you spend, not the difference you make in people’s lives.

There are no Better Public Services targets. The previous Government was forensic on behalf of the taxpayer in saying, “We will spend this money judiciously. You have earned it, we have taxed it; we will spend it judiciously.” We will stand and fall on the record of a Government that delivers for people. We will not stand up and say “Vote for us because we know how to spend.”, because the function of success in a modern economy is not how well you spend; it is the difference you make for people, and that requires a coherent plan.

There was no coherent plan in this Budget—none at all. It was tied together by a whole lot of spending initiatives; their only coherence was they were in the same document. There was absolutely no strategic thought into how to drive an economy to be more productive, to deliver more for New Zealand, and, more importantly, to stand behind the specifics of “We will spend this money and we will make a difference for you, and you can hold us to account on how we have fundamentally changed your families’ lives.” I do not think that the test of this Budget around making a difference has been anywhere near passed. In fact, it is a failure when you consider the legacy of economic performance that that Government, that finance Minister, inherited. In my opinion, it’s a disgrace, it is a failure of leadership and of strategic coherence, and it deserves the reaction that it is getting from New Zealand. Sir, I don’t know which community you’re listening to when you’re testing this Budget—

Order! I apologise to the member; your time has expired.

It is a great privilege to stand here today, at the end of this Budget debate, and reflect not only on the contributions that we’ve heard in here but indeed on the reaction in the wider community. And I do want to thank all members of the House for their contributions to the Budget debate. It’s an important occasion for members of this House to be able to express their values and how those values turn into action. Mr Muller and I have, indeed, known each other for the best part of 25 years, and I’ll give Mr Muller this: he’s always been a “soft Tory”. He’s always been someone who’s actually got a kind enough heart, but he just can’t quite bring himself to believe that the privilege of being in Government offers the opportunity for the Government to be a partner in the economy and a partner in society.

As I go around the country, and I’ve done about 14 public meetings about this Budget, the message that I’m getting back from communities as diverse as the Pasifika community, local government representatives, and business representatives is that they are welcoming a Government that actually wants to listen—a Government that sits down and engages with them about what is possible for our communities today. After nine long years of being told what to do by the previous Government but not being given the support to do it, there is now finally a Government in place that will listen and that will partner with our communities, and I am very proud and privileged to have delivered the Budget that begins that work.

Can I say at the outset that I want to acknowledge, as I did in the Budget speech, the support of our coalition and confidence and supply partners. I want to acknowledge that in a Government like this, we are not always going to always agree on every single detail of what comes in front of us. But the three parties that make up this Government believe in one thing for sure: we can do so much better than what we have seen for the last nine years. We are a better country than one that leaves so many people out and so many people behind, be those the people who have found themselves homeless or be those the regions of New Zealand who have found themselves neglected by the previous Government. We know we can be better, and this Budget is the foundation for a better, fairer, and more prosperous New Zealand, and one where that prosperity is enjoyed and shared by all New Zealanders.

It’s easy when reflecting on the Budget to talk about the big numbers, and there are some big numbers in this Budget: a billion-dollar Provincial Growth Fund, a billion-tree programme. There’s $590 million going into early childhood education (ECE). But what I want to spend some time doing right now is talk about a different kind of number, and it’s a number that relates to people.

I’ll give you a few examples. Next year, a thousand extra young people are getting access to the ongoing resourcing scheme (ORS) that we use for learning support. I was on an aeroplane, going to do a Budget speech recently, and there was a mother of a five-year-old autistic boy there. She didn’t have the confidence to talk to me on the plane, but she sent me a message on Facebook straight afterwards, and she said, “I haven’t voted for your Government before, but I did at this election because I know that my boy needs more support and all the people like him need more support.”

And I am incredibly proud that in this Budget, we have over $270 million more going into learning support, that we have 2,900 deaf students and 1,500 low-vision students getting more support out of this programme, that we have an extra 1,900 ECE students getting more learning support, and that we have 1,000 more students getting ORS support. That means those people and their families can truly participate in school life, and that’s the kind of number that means something to me when I look at this Budget.

It’s the same with the 200,000 children in our early childhood education system who, for the first time in a decade, every single one of them, will benefit because there is an across-the-board funding increase for ECE—the first time in a decade. And what we know, on this side of the House, in the Government, is that those first 1,000 days of a child’s life are so, so critical, and we will be continuing to invest in that throughout the three terms in Government.

Some other numbers that are about people: 1,500 new teachers—1,500 new teachers funded in this Budget to make sure that we continue to ensure that every child is getting a world-class education. We need to do this.

When we look to the health sector, 56,000 young people are now getting free doctors visits as a result of the extension to the age of 14 for free doctors visits, and 540,000 people are paying $20 to $30 a week less to go to the doctor. The very half a million New Zealanders who put off going to the doctor because it cost too much last year now know that it will be cheaper because we, as a Government, have invested in it. That is what a good Government does.

There are the 150 front-line providers of family violence services who get their first increase in a decade, as well. When I was in Christchurch, I toured a community centre, along with the Hon Megan Woods, and we met the people from Shakti. This is the refuge service that provides services to people from ethnic backgrounds, Middle Eastern backgrounds, Asian backgrounds. They have struggled, year upon year, to get support, and this Budget delivers that support for the first time in a decade. That’s what Budgets are about—making a difference in the lives of New Zealanders—and we are very proud to have done that.

In the housing area: the 34,000 extra families that will benefit from actually getting existing transitional housing; the 1,400 people who will be part of the Housing First programme, extending out that programme that actually says, “We’ll house you first, and that’ll enable us to sort out the other issues that are in your life.” And we’re very pleased to do that in Auckland, Christchurch, Tauranga, Hamilton, Wellington, and Lower Hutt—all of those places where too many people are seen on the streets.

That is what a Budget can do when a Budget focuses on people—when we recognise that it’s not the end of the road just to generate economic prosperity but that, as a society, we use that prosperity to invest in our future to make sure that our focus is on future generations. It’s why, when we look at this Budget, when we put together the 100-day plan and the Families Package, and when we put that alongside the foundational investments in health, and housing, and education, we can say for sure: this Budget marks the beginning of a transformation in the way that we understand what success is in this country. And I am very proud of that.

What I have heard as I’ve travelled around the country since the Budget is that New Zealanders understand that this is a Budget that is also about the foundations of a new economy—an economy that is more sustainable, more productive, and more inclusive. In order to do that, we invest heavily in research and development. We invest heavily in our regions. We invest heavily in the Green Investment Fund, promoted by the Green Party, to leverage those new opportunities in technology. And we make sure that we continue to support our small businesses, and we make sure that we continue to support all of our communities to thrive.

That is the foundation of the economy of the 21st century. The alternative is to look backwards. The alternative is to say, “Everything in New Zealand was perfect on the 22 September. Everything in New Zealand was perfect.” On this side of the House, we know that we can do better. We know that we need to look to the future economy where we train all of our New Zealanders to be able to adapt to a changing world of work, and where we support our industries and our communities to evolve in a just transition to a lower-carbon economy. That’s what we are focused on. And we’ve got the balance about right, I think, because we’ve been careful and we’ve been cautious.

We have made sure that we have ticked off each of our Budget responsibility rules. That means that there is a surplus. We can put money aside for a rainy day, and that rainy day, in the case of Mycoplasma bovis, came pretty quickly for us. But, by making sure we have the surplus and by keeping our debt levels low, we can respond when there is a community that is in need. And I can say this to the rural community of New Zealand: we are here for you as you go through Mycoplasma bovis. We are a partner in making sure we’ll give it our best shot to eradicate this disease. That’s what we can do when we get the balance right.

This is the first Budget of three in this term. My staff wouldn’t let me call it “Part One of a Trilogy: A New Hope”, but what it is is a Budget that sets foundations for the future, and the next two Budgets will build on that. They will build on improving those critical public services on which New Zealanders rely, and they will build on making sure that we have an economy that is fit for purpose for the middle part of the 21st century. That’s what a progressive Government does. That’s what this Government is doing. I am proud to have presented this Budget to the House.

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