Budget Debate

I move, That all the words after “That” be omitted and the following substituted: this House has no confidence in this bungling and incompetent Government because they are overseeing a slowing economy, declining job creation, a rising cost of living, and they are failing to deliver on their promises to New Zealanders.

This is a botched Budget by a bungling, incompetent Government. But it’s what this Budget isn’t that is the real tragedy for New Zealanders. It sure as heck isn’t a wellbeing Budget. It isn’t a Budget in the Prime Minister’s so-called year of delivery—delivering for New Zealanders—and, most tragically of all when you consider what we’re all trying to achieve, it has no plan to grow our economy and deliver that wellbeing for Kiwi families, for mums and dads, for middle New Zealand, who get out of bed every morning and work and make this such a great country. They are worse off under this Budget, from a slower economy, from higher taxes—and I’ll come to that—debt and more of it, and wasteful spending. But before I get to that, I want to come back to the botch, briefly, because this Government is embarrassed—

💬 Hon Amy Adams: Which one?

Which one? Good point. This Government is embarrassed that, as with our economy and our health and our education systems, they’ve lost control of this Budget, and so they’re lashing out unfairly here, there, and everywhere. Well, I’m going to explain a few things to them about the so-called hack. Someone went to a website and they looked at the top right of the website, and what did they find? A search bar—that is what they found. And when they typed in things like “2019-20 defence” the money came up. There were no tricks and nothing clever; it was on the website for anyone, including my 7-year-old son—if he wanted to; I’m sure he didn’t—to find. I can hear “Old Naughty” ringing in my ears. Maybe his locus of control is a little out of kilter. Grant Robertson’s is today.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Reluctant as I am, there should not be a case where someone can use a phrase like that, otherwise I might refer to “Young Stupid”, and you wouldn’t like that either.

💬 SPEAKER: There’s a tradition, as far as the Budget debate is concerned, to let debates run, to have much less interjection than we have had in the last three minutes, and also not to make unnecessary points of order. I just want to say to the Deputy Prime Minister that a number of us may have taken slight offence at that interjection, but it wasn’t bad enough to interrupt the House, and he is warned not to do it again.

This Budget is the “botched Budget”. It’s about as safe and secure as the gun cabinet at the Palmerston North police station. Jacinda Ardern did say that the world would be watching this Budget, and they sure are—it’s just for all the wrong reasons. I was watching TV last night—we were on the BBC; we were all over the place, watching Jacinda Ardern. But as I’ve said it’s what’s not in this Budget that, sadly, matters. We have been, haven’t we, promised this new thing that is transformation, revolutionary, and spectacular—drum roll please. What is it? Wellbeing. That’s what we’ve been promised. It’s as if other Governments haven’t had this at the heart of what they’ve been doing for decades and decades, and it is a nonsense. But we were told that this Budget, for the first time, would be strategic, that there’d be no silos, and that everything would be done in accordance with evidence and according to wellbeing principles that the Government’s set out.

Well, if that’s true—[Interruption] exactly right—I’ve got just one question for the Prime Minister when she speaks: why is there money for defence and trains and not teachers’ pay and a 1 percent increase for cancer drugs that keep people alive? And that means people are going to Australia. That’s the emptiness of the wellbeing principles and the spin we’ve seen in relation to this Budget.

I’ll tell you why: because New Zealand First stole the shrinking cookie jar. And be clear: it is shrinking. Over time, with a weakening economy, that’s what we’re seeing, and Jacinda Ardern knows that is the price of this Government. Like this Government generally, this Budget is all glossy pics and spin.

But what it isn’t—don’t go looking for real wellbeing inside it. Real wellbeing doesn’t look like jobs from 10,000 a month to negative 4,000 this year. It doesn’t look like 13,000 more beneficiaries. It doesn’t look like hardship grants up $50 million a year. It doesn’t look like emergency housing tripled, when Phil Twyford promised us no one would be sleeping in cars last year and it’s worse. Those at the bottom are doing worse.

The Government talks about indexing of benefits, but the reality is that doesn’t even keep up with rent increases. That’s what we’ve got here. Kiwi families and mums and dads who go to work each day—middle New Zealand—they are going backwards.

I said I’d come back to tax: $71 million tax snuck into this Budget on GST on mobile roaming—several million bucks. Just another tax hidden in the fine print; didn’t see that in the press releases. Fifty-six million dollars in tax on a WorkSafe levy. That takes the taxes by this Government to eight and counting. All the while, for middle New Zealand the costs are going up and they are worse off. Rent is up $50 a week to $450 a week, the highest ever for the third of New Zealanders who rent in New Zealand. That’s not kind, Jacinda Ardern. Those taxes and regulations, they are not kind.

Fuel is up—the highest we’ve seen, I think, in at least six months—to $2.20. Again, it’s the tax and the regulation that is in the Government’s programme, and more to come, that are doing this. Without those taxes, it would be some $2, much more affordable. It would mean Kiwi families had more for the essentials that they need. That’s not kind, Jacinda Ardern.

Electricity is going up. Don’t ask me; ask the retailers. That is what they’re doing, and that, again, means less in essentials for Kiwi families who work hard, who pay their bills, and who actually don’t have enough to do that, thanks to this Government and their programmes. You can’t mess around with oil and gas. You can’t play around with the pricing of electricity, as this Government does, in a study and have no effect. That’s not kindness.

You know what the best example of all of that is? Actually, it sums up this Budget: it’s right on the cover of this. One of the young women in this didn’t want to be on it. Do you know what she’s done, Clayton Mitchell? She’s moved to Australia, because the costs of living under this Government have gone up more than ever before. That tells you all you need to know about this Budget. It’s glossy pics, it’s spin, but, in terms of real wellbeing for New Zealanders, it just isn’t there. That tells you all you need to know. This is many things, but it isn’t a wellbeing Budget.

In the so-called year of delivery, it’s not just wellbeing that’s not being delivered. Anything promised has been broken. Anyone want to talk about capital gains tax or fiscally responsible debt targets? [Interruption] Oh, I can hear something again. It’s that locus of control flying around the room—oh no; that’s locusts. Does anyone want to talk about immigration, welfare reform, fees-free, or KiwiBuild? All reset, which is code, we know, for no delivery—broken promises by that Government over there. Let’s go through it—they’re recalibrating; that’s right.

💬 Housing: I don’t know if Phil Twyford’s actually read the Budget—or hacked it, as Grant Robertson calls it these days. Do you see any mention of KiwiBuild? Not a whisper. Not a single thing in Grant Robertson’s speech on KiwiBuild. It’s about as popular as Gabs Makhlouf in the Beehive these days—talked about as much, I suspect. Housing First—that’s the one thing that’s here. Here’s the problem: that’s ours, Jacinda Ardern. The only policies in this Budget that work are ours.

In transport: not a single new road anywhere. If all there is is Winston Peters’ ghost trains—containers carrying nothing and carriages carrying nothing because the customers don’t want them—that’s simply not good enough when all the roads are cancelled and there’s not a single new one being built—well, except for the roundabout at Shane Jones house; that’s true. That’s it in transport.

In law and order, the tragedy is crime—serious crime—is up some 25 percent. They use the fake news on that, but Andrew Little’s figures make it so. It’s very clear—it may in fact be more. Gun buy-back: $168 million. It’ll cost them—you heard it here first—at least half a billion dollars. They haven’t remotely covered the cost on that. Drug-driving regime: not there. If they were serious about this stuff that Nick Smith and others have championed—71 million dying a year—they’d do something about that, and they’re not. Here’s the other little thing I saw when going through this Budget. The drug and alcohol courts of New Zealand: no more funding—in a wellbeing Budget, no more funding. I say shame on that.

Then the big two, which you’d really expect to see the transformation, the revolution, in this Budget: education and health. In education: yep, there are some buildings that any Government would do. But $1.2 billion over a decade isn’t enough. It’s smoke and mirrors in relation to that. I say to Chris Hipkins: what’s the use of classrooms without teachers? What’s the use of classrooms without teachers? It’s tanks and trees not teachers that this Government, in this non - wellbeing Budget have prioritised. Some 40 broken promises in education, my colleague—40—Nikki Kaye has told me. This isn’t a wellbeing Budget; it’s a broken Budget.

In health: mental health, sure. I acknowledge what’s there is good, and I celebrate that. But there’s double-counting. There’s smoke and mirrors. They’ve put Housing First in it and double-counted that. It’s not transformative—more broken promises in this sector, as with others, in what matters so much to our families. Fewer surgeries—less new money in that than we saw the year before. A 1 percent increase in cancer drugs.

People like this are moving to Australia because they’ve seen the cost of living issues, they’ve seen the stronger economy, and they’re voting with their feet. I say to Jacinda Ardern: how can it be a wellbeing Budget when there really are only crumbs under the table for cancer drugs in this country?

💬 Midwives: nothing. Dental care: nothing. St John Ambulance: look, it’s islands got more than ambulances in this Budget. Where, Jacinda Ardern, is the $10 dollars off the GP visits? Weeks before the election at the Ōtara markets, she was there with the Tua man behind her, and she promised it and a transformation. “Let’s do this!”, she said. I’d say it’s more like “Let’s botch this!” by Jacinda Ardern. Where are the annual free health checks that are mentioned, Rt Hon Winston Peters, in this—free health checks annually for seniors, dental, and also eye checks? Not there. In fact, nearly all the things he promised aren’t. He’s prioritised other things that he cares about. It’s broken promises. All this Budget does in health is keep the lights on, and it barely does that.

They’ve delivered one thing: the “Shane Jones political slush fund”. Actually, I’d like to call it the “Shane Jones memorial fund”, because it’s the last one he’ll ever get. It’s given a loan to a dairy company that’s been sold—Winston Peters—to foreigners. He wanted to give money to an airline that didn’t even want it—160,000 seedlings mulched, and about the only thing that looks any good is a roundabout to Shane Jones’ house.

But here’s the bit that really is the most important thing—or lack of anything—in this Budget, and that’s no plan, zero real plan, to grow New Zealand’s economy for New Zealanders, which means there will be less wellbeing for Kiwi families all around this country, less real delivery by the Government. That’s why they can’t meet their promises. And this lack of plan is why we have a weakening economy—Stuart Nash—from 4 percent growth to 2 percent growth in little under a couple of years. If we need any evidence of that and the shrinking tax take—and the capital gains tax they didn’t get and they were counting on—it’s the $17 billion more they are borrowing in the next three or four years, and it’s in the numbers there, on New Zealanders’ credit cards. But it’s the grandchildren that will pay. That’s what we’ll see there. More debt, more taxes, more wasteful spending, and the Reserve Bank cutting interest rates as well to prop up this Government and the economy.

Indeed, we’re no longer arguing—Jacinda Ardern and I—about that sharply weakening economy; we are simply arguing about who’s to blame. Jacinda Ardern, what does she say? It’s all about the global conditions, except all the evidence is contrary. And Grant Robertson, he’s like that Shaggy song on the economy—“It Wasn’t Me”. Grant Robertson: “Wasn’t me”, but the evidence is clear. We caught him red-handed, and it is him. It’s his responsibility. Growth from 4 to 2 percent: “Wasn’t me”; $17 billion more in debt and wasteful spending: “Wasn’t me”. A cut in the official cash rate to prop up the Government: “Wasn’t me”. And jobs down and benefits up all around this country: “Wasn’t me”. Well, we saw it, Grant Robertson. We caught you red-handed. It is you, and you’re responsible for this economy.

The real reason for all of that is because business confidence and certainty have taken such a hit. As Amy Adams here says to me time and time again, “That is simply New Zealanders, who get up out of bed, who go to their workplaces, and they’re making decisions about whether they hire another staff member or whether they buy that extra bit of kit or equipment.” Right now, with employment law changes, overseas investment changes, the banning of oil and gas, the talking down and the doing away with parts of the international student regime—you can’t do those things, Jacinda Ardern, and it not have an effect. That effect is 4 percent to 2 percent, it’s more taxes, it’s a slowing economy, it’s more debt, and it’s more waste.

It’s worse than that, because the New Zealand economy has gone from reasonable real growth to zero. The only thing that keeps us going, “Old Naughty,” is population increases from immigration. That’s what’s keeping this economy going at the moment. Where is the plan to grow our economy? We need one, and this botched Budget isn’t it.

The Budget’s a bit like a fairy tale I read my children: The Emperor Has No Clothes. That’s what it’s like. Underneath the gloss and the spin, it is a naked, botched, no real wellbeing, no delivery for New Zealanders, and no economic plan—“Wasn’t me” says Grant Robertson, but we caught him red-handed.

Our plan would ensure we did away with wasteful spending and failed spray and walk away policies. That would mean less debt. We would prioritise health, education, and infrastructure. And it’s Kiwi families—middle New Zealand—that have got nothing in this Budget. In fact, all they’ve got is a couple of taxes, higher rents and the like that take more money out of their pocket—we would make sure they get to keep more of what they earn.

We’d ensure business confidence and certainty. In our first 100 days, we would provide for tax relief, for business-friendly employment laws and overseas investment rules, bold Resource Management Act and planning reform, the repeal of the oil and gas ban, and public service targets that actually held officials accountable and delivered real performance for New Zealanders. We’d do Lumsden Maternity Centre—Hamish Walker—and greater maternity care for mums and dads all around New Zealand. As the hardest-working Opposition New Zealand has ever seen, we will be ready to go with wider plans as well.

Don’t worry, New Zealand. In less than 18 months, this bungling, incompetent Government will be gone, and we’ll be ready to lead.

What can I say, other than that was uplifting! I want to start with going right to the heart of this issue, because today we are debating wellbeing. I have to say, I find it somewhat galling to hear the Leader of the Opposition say, “Well, every Government does wellbeing.” I make the assumption, therefore, that that member believes that when he was in Government—indeed, when he was in Cabinet—that his Government did wellbeing.

Why is it then that we are dealing with mouldy, leaking hospitals? Why are we dealing with schools that need more classrooms, that weren’t even funded for population growth, where there was a 40 percent decrease in teachers learning to become teachers, and we are picking up the pieces of that. Why were we left then with chronic homelessness?—people sleeping in cars and on the street. Not just people, children living in cars and on the street.

I make no apology for the fact that, unlike that Government, we have not turned people away from our lists. We have not turned people away. Yes, special needs grants have gone up, because we told Work and Income to give people the help that they need, and I am proud of that.

If that was a Government who cared about wellbeing, why did we inherit 250,000 children living in poverty? Why did we inherit Oranga Tamariki facing cliff-face funding? They weren’t funded beyond their out-years. We’ve had to make sure that they can keep the doors open, plus we’ve added extra social workers. If they really cared about infrastructure, why did they let rail go into the absolute state that it is in now? If you want to talk about safety on our roads, get freight off it and get it on to rail. If they genuinely cared about the wellbeing of our environment, we wouldn’t have heard one of the most mentioned things in that member’s speech, the reversal of the oil and gas future exploration ban. That seems to be his only response to climate change, which does worry me.

It is just not credible to say that the Opposition somehow have invested in all of their time in Government, when this Budget has had to reverse the under-investment that we have experienced. It is not credible to say what they would have done and would be doing, when they were here only 18 months ago. If they cared so much about all of those issues, why did they not do it then? I’m very pleased to hear about their new-found interest in dental care, for instance.

But this Budget does something about all of those things—those areas of under-investment that we inherited. It is about genuine wellbeing. But sometimes what is not said gives a bit of an indication about what’s going on as well. The member mentioned mental health once. And he mentioned it in order to call a billion-dollar investment in mental health services “Smoke and mirrors.” I have to say, I don’t think I heard the member mention children almost once. If there’s one thing I learnt in Opposition, sometimes it is OK to agree. Sometimes it is OK to acknowledge that there is a problem, and that it’s worth facing it and it’s worth investing in it. And I would hope, when it comes to child poverty and mental health, that it might have been one area where the Leader of the Opposition might have just said “I agree.”

Finally, as for the cover image, I’d liken it to the situation somewhat similar probably to the Opposition caucus room. Regardless of the smiling faces on the front, it’s what happens on the inside that really matters.

Today we have laid down the foundation for not just one Wellbeing Budget but a different approach for Government decision-making all together, and for that I want to thank Grant Robertson. The vision for this Budget started many years ago when our finance Minister was in Opposition. He created this piece of work not because it was an interesting project, which it is, but because he heard many an economist say that GDP wasn’t enough to measure success, and he agreed and did something about it. I want to say thank you, Grant. This was a first in so many respects, and its legacy won’t just be a document, but the hundreds of thousands of lives that will be changed as a result.

I also want to thank our coalition partner New Zealand First, and especially the Deputy Prime Minister. There are elements of this Budget, including, for instance, the investment in rail, that have been a huge focus for New Zealand First, as a party. But there are other elements where your Ministers have taken on portfolios and delivered important agendas that are central to wellbeing like our Minister for Children, Tracey Martin, and for that we thank you.

To our confidence and supply partners, the Green Party—in this Budget we fulfil many of our commitments to both you but also to the environment. That includes making sure that the economic transition required to deliver emissions reductions is effective, is efficient, and is just. But more than that, today we further our shared ambition to lift the wellbeing of all New Zealanders, and particularly our tamariki.

Thank you to all the parties in this Government for your collective commitment to being a Government that is not satisfied with the status quo, and is instead tackling our long-term challenges, and we’ve demonstrated that commitment here today.

It is here, with these words of thanks, that I’m actually going to depart from a traditional Budget day speech. Now, usual practice would have me traverse over various and disparate initiatives, the many areas of need and investment, but not today. Today I want to pick up the first thing that I talked about when I took on the leadership in the Labour Party. I want to talk about mental health.

Roughly two or so years ago there was an event on the forecourt of Parliament. It was a weekend so we didn’t have the usual crowds of onlookers and gatherings of people. Instead, it contained a group of bereaved people—family and friends who had lost loved ones to suicide. They brought with them pairs of shoes to represent the number of lives that had been lost in that year alone. I knew one of those pairs of shoes and who it belonged to, just like every single member of this House will know someone. We in New Zealand have two degrees of separation to each other, but there is no separation when it comes to New Zealand’s experience of suicide. It affects all of us.

But suicide is only one part of the story. The issue of mental health and wellbeing more generally is a challenge that the World Health Organization says will be the world’s biggest health problem by 2030, and we can’t wait or afford to wait for that to happen. Today we take mental health seriously, and that means starting right at the beginning. Now, let me share with you today the end-to-end journey that this Budget will create for mental health and wellbeing in this country, and what better place to start than at the very beginning, with our mothers.

Some years ago I visited a programme in the Hawke’s Bay that had been started by a Plunket nurse called Nicky. She was a passionate believer in the power of good, strong relationships between nurses and new mums, so she started a trial. She paired up a well-qualified nurse who related well to young people with a group of young mums who were considered to be vulnerable. That nurse met them before their babies arrived, and she didn’t just see them for her contracted visits; she connected them with other services and whatever they needed. The result: higher rates of breastfeeding, immunisation, and the uptake of other support like dealing with the consequences of trauma or family violence and even budget advice. She helped these women not just survive for those first 1,000 days.

I absolutely believe in early intervention. I believe in the power of relationships and I believe that when mothers are supported and given the best chance possible their children will thrive. So in this Budget we begin the journey by putting $10 million into extending Nicky’s programme across three sites in New Zealand, which I hope is just the beginning.

But what about our next generation, children who are already in school? How do we build resilient kids in a day and age when there are so many pressures on them, and even at the youngest of ages? Thankfully, this question has already been asked and answered in small pockets around the country, with programmes that have an evidence base behind them, like one called Sparklers. Sparklers is about helping educators to improve children’s emotional and mental health at school. For instance, a teacher can go online and download an activity that helps a child to manage their stress and to relax. We know that these resources make a difference to children’s mental health, and that’s why from now on, as a result of this Budget, those resources will be available to every school and every teacher across New Zealand.

But even the most resilient kids can experience difficult times, and that’s why, as of April this year, we finished rolling out Mana Ake, a programme that puts a mental health support team in every primary school and intermediate school in Canterbury and Kaikōura. It already has helped 2,000 kids and will keep doing that this year.

For older children, who we know experience additional stress through the years of adolescence—in the last Budget we started the roll-out of nurses in schools. Evidence tells us that these health teams are often the front line for mental health issues, and that’s why in this Budget we continue the roll-out into more schools, taking the total number of young people covered by this programme to almost 83,000 young people.

Now, not every child or young person—in fact, not every person, generally—will want to reach out to someone face to face. Some would prefer the phone. Some would prefer a text service, or some can’t reach services quickly, such as those who are in rural and isolated communities. That’s why we are making an investment into tele and digital health, of $21 million this Budget. This will be a service for everyone, no matter what age you are or where you live in New Zealand.

I said before that during the election campaign I had a number of people share some really personal stories, but there was this really common theme in all of them. For all the work we do to build resilient young people and communities, there will always be a need to help people in times of distress or at the beginning of dark clouds rolling in. Yet, I constantly heard the message: “We don’t know where to go for help.” That became one of our key tests this Budget. Will someone in the very early stages of a mental health issue be able to get the help that they need? To create a network like that, where would we possibly start? With this Budget, we start in people’s neighbourhood, in the health services they use most often.

A few months ago now I visited a medical centre in South Auckland. It was your usual GP clinic, but with a twist. It didn’t just house doctors; it was also a home to mental health workers, and for a very simple reason: GPs were discovering that in their very short 15-minute appointments, patients were opening up. They’d share issues that often went just beyond their medical expertise, but they never had the time or necessarily the experience to help, so they’d do what they could. They might give a referral to another service and hope that they would go and see them.

I spoke to one of the patients at the clinic that day. She had a good job, she had good friends, she was part of a close family, but she suffered from deep and dark depression. She told me she had been one of those patients that came to see her GP in a moment of distress, when she struggled to leave the house, but when the doctor referred her on to other specialists and gave her referral letters—quote—“I knew I would never go.”, and she never did. So her doctors brought the service to her. They brought in mental health workers who were trained and could take appointments right away due to the flexibility in their working day. The doctor would hear their story, then walk them down to someone who could support them right then and there. Now, that woman who had previously ignored those appointments didn’t ignore the service. She told me how it literally changed her life. In fact, she had brought family members to that clinic for the same life-changing support. That is why today we will ensure every person in New Zealand will be able to access the support they need by rolling out a new workforce of trained mental health workers in doctors clinics, iwi health providers, and other health services across the country. It is a new service targeted specifically at the mild to moderate mental health support that so many in the middle miss out on. It is for all of us and it will be a game-changer.

Now, we also know from the mental health inquiry that we need services that meet the needs of Māori and Pasifika. Kaupapa Māori services will receive $62 million to ensure that the primary mental health service is offered in kaupapa Māori providers and we will do the same for the Pacific health workforce as well. In total, it will cost $455 million. It will take us a full five years to get the workforce we need to have the service running at full capacity. But I absolutely believe that when we do, this new layer of early care will transform mental health services in New Zealand.

But even with early intervention care, we still need more investment for those cases where intensive services are needed. That’s why the Wellbeing Budget, again, delivers a three-pronged approach. We’re increasing mental health capacity of staff already working in emergency departments (EDs). We’re putting additional staff into those departments who help people who present with mental health issues, and we are providing further follow-up services for people who are in ED in crisis, because we know that’s when many come. And for those who have lost loved ones, we know more care is needed, and a result of this Budget is it will provide a free counselling service for up to 2,500 bereaved as a result of suicide.

This Budget is not just about mental health support. Thanks to the mental health inquiry we also know about how vital and under-resourced our addiction services are. Now, I still remember hearing first hand about that, last election, and those who work with me will probably know this story—I’ve shared it a few times since. I was in Gisborne with a group of front-line workers and volunteers from the social sector. Included in the room was the mother of a young man who had experienced methamphetamine addiction. There’s a lot that stood out from her talk, but there’s one thing I remember the most, that in an area that was experiencing such huge need, there was not one residential drug treatment facility available and one bed available in Tai Rāwhiti—not one.

Well, today in this Budget, that changes. A total of $200 million has been allocated to build further facilities across the country and that will include Tai Rāwhiti. Of course, in order to tackle mental health issues we have to look at the complex and interwoven issues that contribute to them. There is no point in targeting mental health if we don’t also invest in drug and alcohol addiction, which this does, without investing in homelessness—which this Budget does—family violence, poverty, and issues that contribute to stress in life. We do all of that in this Budget.

I have to, though, focus, as the Minister for Child Poverty Reduction, on a particular area that means a huge amount to me. There is no ignoring the stress and strain that material deprivation causes our families. We’ve already made a huge dent in child poverty in this country, as this first child poverty report in the Budget shows. Through family tax credit changes, accommodation supplement changes, the Best Start programme, the winter energy changes, changes to abatement rates, and initiatives in this Budget, we are projected to lift between 50,000 and 74,000 children out of poverty, but there is more work to do.

Today, we make a systemic change. This Budget acknowledges the work of the Welfare Expert Advisory Group and those who have stood and campaigned for a long time, to make sure that we index benefits to wage increases. Now, we already Consumers Price Index adjust, but it hasn’t stopped families falling further behind. The last Government knows that. That’s why they had a one-off benefit increase when they were in Government. This Budget, whilst making a modest change this year, will make a significant long-term difference in relieving a major stress on low-income families in the future.

There is so much more to say about this Budget, but I want to repeat just this. I’ve said this before: Budgets are all about priorities. You have limited budget and limited money, but we need to make sure that you balance the economy, grow the economy, balance the books, create jobs, look after your people, and look after the environment. This Budget shows that you can do all of those things. We said we would deliver this Budget and we have. We have delivered a surplus. We are delivering low unemployment. We have delivered low debt. We’ve delivered a plan for addressing mental health challenges. That means every New Zealander will get the help they need when they need it. We’ve delivered cheaper education for families. We’ve lifted tens of thousands of children out of poverty, and we are delivering housing to the homeless. That is what a wellbeing Budget looks like. That is what we came into politics to do and we are doing it.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. First of all, we had the courtesy to hear Simon Bridge’s speech, but he never had the courtesy to hear the Prime Minister’s speech. It tells you a lot about some people—

💬 Hon Member: And took a point of order!

And can I just say, as well, I didn’t say anything that was contrary to the Standing Orders. The point’s very clear. And then, of course, on Tuesday he released this document [Holds up document]. This is fake news. I want to ask Mr Chris Bishop: is it James Ballantyne out of your office that has accessed the Treasury website? Perhaps you could tell us before this debate goes much further.

Can I also say that I’ve been here for some time, and anyone that’s been here for some time would have heard a lot of Budgets—good ones, bad ones, cruel ones. There was the “mother of all Budgets”, a “packet of cheese Budget”, a “chewing gum Budget”—Budgets which have torn the social fabric of our very society asunder, and they’ve taken generations to recover. Those members over there will recognise those Budgets because they largely were either responsible for them or they supported them even when they were in Opposition. Oh, I can remember them giving Rogernomics 9 out of 10 inside of caucus and I was wondering, “What on earth are these turkeys around me going to do if they ever get the job themselves?”! And they were—like, it was, “Oh, we agree with the theory; only we can do it better ourselves”, except that they can’t run a university tuckshop, in the main. Most of them have got no commercial experience at all—at all.

💬 Hon David Bennett: Like you—ha, ha!

Oh, yes, I do. I make far more money in my business than you make with your five farms—with your five farms—and I never paid my staff Third World wages. Now, we’ll get over that, because I’ve got the evidence to prove that, and I don’t want to spend too much time on your loss of civic contribution.

Can I say, today, that there have been politically calculated Budgets, cynical Budgets, Budgets of neglect, but today the Labour - New Zealand First coalition has delivered the Wellbeing Budget. It is, from someone who should know, the best Budget delivered to the people of this country in 40 years. The very first conclusion anybody can make about this Budget is that it would never have been written by today’s National Party. It could never have been written by today’s National Party. Perhaps very close, with respect to Keith Holyoake and people like that, but most definitely not by this disorganised rabble over there. They would never have had the vision, they would never have had the foresight, the planning, or the will to produce such a Budget: a Budget for all the people in this country. History’s going to judge this Budget, and it will be judged as a defining moment in this country’s political history. It will be judged as a Budget of delivery. It will be judged as a Budget from a coalition Government which has sought to invest in the people and the land—all parts of it.

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: What’s in it?

Now, you know, this bombast and noise can go on there, from someone whose record in business was five weeks as a director of an illegal casino in Christchurch. Five weeks, before he got outed by somebody very close to me—oh namely, yours truly, actually. Five weeks as the director of an illegal casino, and his bombast and noise and his lack of humility knows no bounds. He shouts out every day. This woodwork teacher from St Bede’s all of a sudden is an expert on the economy—unbelievable. Jeez!

I want to say that New Zealand First is in coalition with the Labour Party because we would not tolerate the patterns of the status quo, the pattern of managed decline. We wanted change, and today, we saw from Mr Robertson’s Budget that we are achieving it. We wanted change that would protect our people, invest in our neglected provinces, grow our economy, enhance our environment, and protect our national interests.

The Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance and our coalition Government Cabinet members and parties can be commended, because history will applaud today’s Budget. They can laugh over there, but history will applaud this Budget, and future Governments, dare I say it, will seek to emulate it. It’s a Budget of delivery. We seek to improve the wellbeing of New Zealanders and to tackle cycles of poverty and deprivation. We seek to invest in the infrastructure of our country, after many years of neglect, and to truly boost our economy.

Look, for example, there they were, these people on the other side. Many of them represent the provinces, and they’re laughing at a billion-dollar investment in rail—laughing at a billion-dollar investment in rail. Do you know that Vogel, in the space of nine years in the 1880s, built more rail in that one decade than the rest of us have built in the 139 years after it, and they sit there and they laugh and jeer as though they know something. Well, they don’t. When I say that for too long, rail was run down, they were even going to go for diesel over electrification—thank heavens we stopped that.

You know, rail’s in our national interest, and, as the Prime Minister said, it makes our roads safer. It gets the massive leviathans going down the roads to be less frequently on the roads. It gives us a chance to have a balanced, strategic transport policy of sea, road, and rail, and I want to make it very clear that the announcement that was made pre-Budget today has got one summation: rail is back on track.

You know, when you look at it, our colleagues have made it very clear that the Wellbeing Budget seeks to tackle—

Tim van de Molen: Somebody point out where he is up to.

—a range of areas—what’s that? What’s that? Did you say something about yourself? Does anybody know where he’s from? Does anybody know where that chap over there is from? No. He’s “Mr Anonymous”. He makes his speeches by way of interjections, but they never ever put him up. Guess why? Even with their lack of talent, they’ve got better than that. Unbelievable—unbelievable.

The fact is we are a Government prepared to deal with massive mental health concerns, and I want to say to the National Party and its financial backers that mental health can be a concern in any family. It knows no economic barriers, and there but for the grace of God can go you and I. This Government understands that. We don’t turn a blind eye to it. In fact, it’s up front and central to our future considerations.

We support Māori and Pasifika. We support, for example, having a foreign policy that is a step up. It’s a real refresh. It’s a refit for the circumstances and challenges that we face. But all we hear from these people there is the despicable comment about the need for money to be spent in our country and nothing spent abroad at all, as though we haven’t got a neighbourhood and as though people don’t look over our shoulders and say “So you’re New Zealand. Who’s with you?”

Our commitment gets the response where we are a highly respected nation internationally, growing at tremendous speed now our potential and concern and cooperation with countries like Japan and Indonesia, the biggest Islamic country in the world. That’s what smart policy does. But it begins with our neighbourhood and it begins with the place where our DNA has been there for a thousand years—just in case some of those ones who arrived later haven’t got that clearly through their minds.

Can I say also, you know, that the transformation of New Zealand’s forestry sector—

Tim van de Molen: Lost, again.

—or the one billion trees, is a magnificent—no, no, I’m just abbreviating it. I’m abbreviating it because I took some time out to deal with you.

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order!

I know that was a mistake, but nobody else would—nobody else would.

💬 Hon Member: Wake up, Winston.

Oh, the other fellow—that fellow from Helensville, again. John Key’s successor—unbelievable. He’s a real beaut, that fellow. I know that he’s most likely to be the one that sheers off to form a conservative or a Christian party. I’m not so sure about the Christian side of it, because I think these guys are all in the Old Testament. They don’t know about the New Testament, and forgiveness and love. They don’t realise that that is the shape of future politics, not their Old Testament, eye for an eye behaviour, and he will be one of your classic guys who are going to do that, and perhaps the guy from Pakuranga. Those two guys are the fly-by-nighters who will shoot through.

But back to the billion trees. Not only are we ahead of our programme on a billion trees but we’ve put in a further $58 million to ensure that the case and preparation of this tree-planting goes on and that Forestry New Zealand, or Te Uru Rākau, increases its regional presence to ensure ongoing, close work with foresters and landowners.

Now, did you hear this comment on Tuesday about tanks being supported instead of teeth—tanks being supported instead of teeth? As my friend James Shaw pointed out in the question time, there aren’t any tanks in this Budget. Well, there’s—

💬 Hon Kris Faafoi: There’s one tank over there.

There are some people tanking—that’s true—but there’s not one tank with respect to this Budget. But here’s the point: every time there’s a crisis in Samoa or a tornado or cyclone in, for example, countries like Tonga or, dare I say it, all the way to Indonesia, and our support is needed and we put our planes in the air and we show what a responsible country we are and we get there hours and days before anybody else, that’s what our defence force does, as they did in the Kaikōura earthquake and everything else. So here comes the National Party, which have had their support all these years, and they’ve spent all their time dumbing down on expenditure that makes us a responsible First World country.

I’m going to make sure that every defence guy out there knows this and that every defence woman knows, as every policeman and policewoman knows, that they’re being called bullies by people like Chris Bishop. We need to have these farmers out there know what double-talk emanates from their so-called representatives in this Parliament. There will be no letting up on exposing hypocrisy.

Now, we’ve devoted over $700 million for the SuperGold card becoming a super-SuperGold card. We’re going to make sure—now, you make sure you tell grandma that, won’t you, and grandad that a new card’s coming. If they get on a plane and go down to Dunedin or go way down to Gore or some place like that, they can step off and open their card up and know exactly what service is within five metres, 500 metres, or 500 kilometres. It’s going to be a great new card where your doctor will tell you on your phone “Look, your appointment’s three weeks from now.”, and then on the day beforehand—just to make sure we don’t have wasted capital here—they’ll remind you that you’re in tomorrow, and tomorrow morning they’ll tell you, at 8 o’clock, “Be there on time.”

This is the kind of thing that’s coming. We’re going to have a super-SuperGold card because under the National Party, they did nothing about it whatsoever. [Interruption] Oh yes, well, what they did was they put a cap on the transport component. They didn’t mind about 90,000 people coming in here, getting full super after 10 years, whether they qualified or not or paid any taxes, actually no. No, they didn’t give a rat’s derrière about that, but then they attacked every old person in this country, with respect to the travel concession, and very shortly, I’m certain I’m going to be able to persuade my Finance Minister colleague of the correctness of giving a bit more help there. But first of all, we’re going to get the card right, and it should be going and operative by the end of this year.

Now, look, we had a visit from St John Ambulance. This is a service that is now the repository of the National Party’s claims that it should be fully funded. Hardly out of here, what, 18 months, and they’re shouting out that it should be fully funded. When they left them, it was only funded 71 percent. Their arrogance knows no bounds. Oh no, it’s fully funded now, and I know that St John only asked for 95 percent funding, because the charity and other componentry will be a check against fiscal certainty and fiscal responsibility. So 95 percent, we’ll get there one day. But there’s a huge change, since we put in the $21 million and also the rest that is going to be funded for the next four years that was already agreed by the previous Government. Here’s the point: we did it. They talked but New Zealand First and the Government has done it.

Can I just say that you’ll remember back on 19 October 2017, when we announced why we were going with the New Zealand Labour Party. I think the Prime Minister remembers. I remember the photographs that I’ve seen of that day. We said we were going to go with the Labour Party because capitalism needed to regain its human face. We did not want a modified status quo where the wrongness of fiscal, economic, and social policy just persisted; no, we wanted a real change which had in mind all the people of this country, which was founded on sound economics, and which was founded on turning around exports. Look at the dramatic lift in exports. It was going that way under the National Party, and we’ve only been in 18 months and there’s been a tremendous turn-around of over 10 percent. Now, guess what that means? It means if we can keep that going, then far more enterprises will be offshore, earning money to bring home for the family in New Zealand, and we’ll be able to fund our social policies. But the first thing you’ve got to do is make the money—which is a very, very key part and componentry of this Government; and New Zealand First understands with great simplicity—and that’s why exporting had to be turned around.

Now, there are rural members over there who were sitting in an administration where the dollar was bouncing around—the most volatile dollar in the whole world—and it was heading to 80 percent sometimes, and it got past 80 percent; and they never raised a murmur. Oh, no King Country—not a word. Ōāmaru, Timaru—not a word. While the country was run for their downtown big-end banking mates, and farming was in serious strife, they wouldn’t raise a finger. In comes a new Government; where’s the country now? It’s around about 65. That is a massive improvement in the wealth of farmers and every exporter. Do we hear them cheering from the rafters and saying “By heaven, why didn’t we do that when we’re in Government?”

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: That is straight out impoverishment.

Then we’ve got Gerry over there—

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: That is impoverishment. What a silly understanding of currency.

💬 SPEAKER: Order!

Well, you know, he’s got some idea, Mr Speaker, that all you’ve got to do in this House is open your mouth and let the wind blow your tongue around. It requires a whole lot more effort than that—a whole lot more effort than that.

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: The member should sit down.

Oh, no, no, no. Oh, I’m not sitting down—no, no. Oh, no. There are hundreds of thousands out there wanting me to stay right here and make sure he doesn’t get this job. They write to me every day. By the way, I’m sick of hearing from the National Party with letters and correspondence saying, “Winston, please come back. All is forgiven. We need a leader.” I get that from all sorts of people all of the time; walking around the streets, I can’t fight them off. It’s not easy—it’s not easy being me.

Could I say, I’m also proud of the fact that against all the advice, we increased the minimum wage again. Between 2005 and 2008, we took it from $9 to $12—in three years, in fact, which is an all-time record. We’re doing the same again. Guess what? The same naysayers came out with the same arguments and said it would cost jobs. Well, if that’s true, how come unemployment’s at 4.2 percent? They never stand up for the worker, they never stand up for fairness, and somehow they’ve got no understanding that out there in New Zealand, without this Government putting the support that we are putting in, it would be serious Struggle Street for hundreds and thousands of families. That’s what we’re trying to do in this economy, and that’s what we’re trying to do in this Budget. That’s why Grant Robertson deserves all the congratulations, because as the Prime Minister pointed out—I didn’t realise we worked on this project for so long, but it is a gear change; a serious one.

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: Every social statistic will look worse this time next year.

Can I just say, here’s the evidence, Mr Brownlee, and it’s this: the IMF says that New Zealand’s going to perform far better than every country in the eurozone—indeed, they say we’re going to do far better than China, the USA, Australia, the UK; that we’re going to outperform them all. All those forecasts are very disappointing for the National Party, because, as we warned on 19 October 2017, there were a series of storm clouds gathering on the horizon. We said so that night. We said that we were going to confront difficult times, but if we went with the right Government, the right party, and the right policy, we would better protect the people of New Zealand. That’s what we’ve done today.

So in my closing seconds, I want to say to those beltway commentators and neo-liberal partisans—most of whom can’t understand what the word “philosophy” is, or they’ve got some conditions that are very difficult to pronounce—that this has been a magnificent Budget today, and in the history that we are forming for the future, it’ll be long remembered. I want to say one thing to the National Party: all these lessons are being given to you for free.

E Te Māngai o Te Whare, tēnā koe. Ki a koutou ōku hoa Pāremata huri noa i Te Whare, ngā mihi o Te Tau Hou ki a koutou katoa.

[Greetings, Mr Speaker. To my parliamentary colleagues throughout the House, greetings of the New Year to you all.]

Mr Peters says that it’s not easy being him, but can I just say it’s not easy being me either, because I have to follow him. One of my regrets—and there weren’t many—about the 2017 election campaign is ending up with one fewer MP than him, and therefore I have to follow him every single time. It’s not an easy act to follow. In fact, I could sell tickets to this. I could fund the next election campaign off the back of it.

For many, many years, the Green Party and our predecessor, the Values Party—and Mr Peters will remember this—have advocated for an approach to economics that delivers human prosperity within ecological limits. A growing gross domestic product does not, by itself, deliver a fair society or a healthy environment. Our economy here in New Zealand has grown, even while homelessness increased dramatically and our waterways became too polluted to swim in; but GDP growth has been treated as if it was the ultimate goal for decades. Members of this House who have been around for a while will remember my predecessor, Dr Russel Norman, talking about a smart, green economy that works for everyone. There’s a saying: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, and then you win.” We are winning. New Zealand is winning. New Zealanders are winning, because fundamentally the way the Wellbeing Budget has been put together is, at its heart, what the Greens have been talking about all this time.

What gets measured gets managed—what gets measured gets managed. This Wellbeing Budget starts to change how we think about our economy. Every single bid considered for this Budget had to pass the usual business case, but it also had to stack up against a set of environmental and social and economic indicators as outlined in the Green Party’s confidence and supply agreement. The Green approach to sustainable economics is finally starting to take shape through this Wellbeing Budget. I want to acknowledge and thank the Minister of Finance, Grant Robertson, for his leadership in bringing this thinking to this and to future Budgets. It is a sign of how things are changing and how they have changed over the years that this thinking is becoming mainstream. The Crown has a duty of care to all New Zealanders and a responsibility to tangata whenua under Te Tiriti o Waitangi to deliver on policies that deliver wellbeing and enable us all to thrive. Now, I have to say, we are still a long way off from a genuinely holistic approach that places the wellbeing of our environment, of our communities, and our culture at the heart of decision making. But this Budget, the Wellbeing Budget 2019, is a critical first step on the journey and we are delighted to be part of the Government that is delivering it.

Earlier this month, the United Nations published a report telling us that there are a million species at risk of extinction around the world as a result of human activity. Humans are the source of the single greatest mass extinction event since an asteroid wiped out three quarters of all life on Earth 66 million years ago. It’s extraordinary to be living in this time. Our growing horror at this ecocide has actually sparked its own movement—the extinction rebellion. Here in New Zealand, even here in New Zealand, there are 4,000 species threatened or at risk of extinction. Yet the Department of Conservation (DOC) has to look after a third of the country’s landmass and all our marine protected areas, off our shores, with one percent of the Government’s Budget. So, last year, we increased Vote Conservation by $180 million over four years. That was the single biggest increase in DOC funding in 16 years. This year we estimate we will be able to double that commitment with an additional $180 million dollars in conservation funding through the international visitor conservation and tourism levy—$180 million over four years in last year’s Budget and another $180 million over four years in this year’s Budget. The Green Party campaigned in Opposition for a tourism levy to help protect the natural heritage that people come here, all this way, to see and I have immense pride that now that we are in Government, we are delivering it. You add in a new marine protection area the size of Auckland on the south coast of the South Island, add in to that the biggest addition to a national park in New Zealand’s history, the 64,000 hectare Mōkihinui addition to the Kahurangi National Park and we’re starting to make some progress.

Now, there’s also been an extraordinary showing of commitment to climate action by the school strike for climate. Tens of thousands of our own teenagers have taken to the streets to protest years of dithering over climate change by the very adults who should have exercised a duty of care over those teenagers’ futures. It is time for the dithering to stop and the doing to start. By the end of this year New Zealand will have, in primary legislation, for the first time, a commitment to living within 1.5 degrees of global warming.

In today’s Budget—Budget 2019 provides $107 million to transition our economy—

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: Property boom in Invercargill coming.

—towards a low-carbon future. We will have independent expert institutions to help guide Gerry Brownlee on the way there. There’s $42.7 million for the climate change commission to provide the advice, the guidance, and monitoring that New Zealand needs to reduce our emissions.

Since I got into this job 18 months ago, I have been to farms all over this country. Everywhere I have been, farmers have told me that they dearly want to help to clean up our rivers and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but they don’t feel that they have the information that they need and the tools that they can use to get the job done. Now, our confidence and supply agreement says that we will provide assistance to the agricultural sector to reduce biological emissions, improve water quality, and shift to more diverse and sustainable land use, including more forestry—lots more forestry. Now, over half of the $229 million sustainable land use package will fund exactly the kind of support that farmers and councils have been asking for. It includes on-the-ground advice and tools to support farmers making the change to more environmentally sustainable and higher value production. Once again, the Wellbeing Budget delivers. There’s over a third of a billion dollars, in fact, on climate change, clean water, sustainable agriculture—the Wellbeing Budget delivers.

Now, on the campaign trail in 2017 I was struck by the breadth and the depth of feeling right across the country about mental health. The phrase “mental health crisis” kept coming up over and over in a way that it hadn’t in any of the campaigns that I’d been involved in before. The Prime Minister has devoted almost the entirety of her Budget speech, in this Budget, to this today. It is the first priority of this year’s Budget. Now, our confidence and supply agreement commits us to increase funding for addiction services, to treat drug use as a health issue, to ensure that everyone has access to timely and high quality mental health services for New Zealanders, particularly 18 to 25-year-olds. I want to thank the Hon Dr David Clark for working with us to get those services, such as the mental health pilot Piki, off the ground. Thank you, David. The Greens are proud to be part of a Government that has committed, fully, $1.9 billion—$1.9 billion—of operating and capital expenditure over the next four years to turn the crisis. The road will be long; it will be. It’ll be hard, but, as of today, it gets better.

It also gets better for families who are affected by the plague of domestic and sexual violence that is so prevalent in our society that it’s frequently referred to as “New Zealand’s shame”—a plague that is closely associated with the mental health crisis. Now, on top of the $1.9 billion going into mental health services is a significant programme for ending the cycle of violence in our communities. The package to break the cycle of domestic and sexual violence highlights how the Wellbeing Budget pioneers the way that Government Ministers and agencies are supposed to collaborate together to deliver social, environmental outcomes. The domestic and sexual violence package is a $320 million investment in a joint venture of no fewer than eight different agencies and, more than that, many Ministers, led by my colleague Jan Logie. It’s a ground-breaking approach to joined-up Government where the focus is on the outcome—on the outcome—not on the individual Minister or budget appropriation line. We’re very proud that this approach was the prototype for the rest of the Wellbeing Budget.

Not long before we received the mental health report we also received the report of the welfare expert advisory group. Now, the Greens negotiated the review of the welfare system in our confidence and supply agreement. We knew that the social safety net had frayed and broken over the years, and the advisory group’s report confirmed that. It made for heartbreaking reading. A couple of weeks ago Phil O’Reilly, who was the former head of Business New Zealand, said in an interview: “If you look at the evidence on benefit payments, we are simply not paying people enough to survive”. By his own admission if there was ever an award to the person least likely to be a secret pinko socialist, it would be Phil O’Reilly. But he’s right—he’s absolutely right. We have become a nation with a group of people so disadvantaged and so excluded that not only do they have no hope of getting ahead, they also had no hope of having a roof over their heads.

The Greens are really pleased that this Budget includes over half a billion dollars for reintroducing the indexation of main benefits to the average wage, for removing deductions, and for changing abatement thresholds. These are three of the most important changes that we campaigned for in election 2017, and that $535 million dollar commitment builds on the $5.5 billion Families Package that this Government introduced in the post-election mini-Budget. But we know we have a long, long way to go. The advisory group’s report tells us that this can only be the start of a sustained campaign over the coming years and in future Budgets to ending poverty in this country. I want to thank the leadership of Carmel Sepuloni in working with us on that.

The Green Party’s confidence and supply agreement with the Labour Party is fundamentally different from most arrangements in most previous Governments. Previous agreements have ring-fenced a handful of priorities that are important to the support party and have given that support Party ministerial responsibilities and Budget support to deliver them.

💬 Chris Bishop: That’s not different—that’s the same as before.

In return, that support party—I wouldn’t speak up too much, Chris. Remember where all your support parties ended up—signed up to the major party’s policy programme as the basis of Government. Our confidence and supply agreement goes much further. It outlines 20 priorities—and you have to remember that only a third of those 20 priorities are actually delivered by Green Party Ministers; the rest of them are delivered by Labour and New Zealand First Ministers. Our confidence and supply agreement is a programme of policy for the Government—

💬 Hon Phil Twyford: We’re doing your work.

—not just for the Green Party. Thank you, Phil. In fact, several priorities appear not just in our confidence and supply agreement but also in the coalition agreement of New Zealand First and in the Labour Party’s manifesto.

💬 Hon Andrew Little: We’re all of one mind.

We are all of one mind. That includes the massive investment going into rail being led by the Hon Shane Jones, a $1 billion investment in freight and commuter services all over this country. So I want to thank and acknowledge our partners in Labour and New Zealand First for working with us to deliver, yes, the Greens’ priorities and those shared priorities of our Government through this Wellbeing Budget. Our people and our planet will be better off as a result.

Now, last year, I think of our 20 policy priorities—seven were funded through that Budget. This year, 16 of our 20 priorities are funded through Budget 2019. The Budget initiatives across the Government that deliver on our confidence and supply agreement total up to $2.7 billion of operating expenditure and $2.2 billion of capital expenditure, and that is extraordinary. So if anybody had any doubts about whether the Greens would be able to make more of a difference in Government than in Opposition, well, I think this removes any doubt.

Fundamentally, the Wellbeing Budget is based on an approach to economics that delivers human prosperity within ecological limits. It has been a long time coming. There’s a long way to go, but this is an incredibly important first step. I’ve spoken today about this Budget’s investments in conservation and clean water, climate change, sustainable agriculture, mental health, tackling family and sexual violence, and poverty. But this Wellbeing Budget goes much further than that.

Members of this House who have been around a little bit longer—perhaps like yourself, Mr Speaker—may remember Jeanette Fitzsimons calling for our success to be counted not by the size of our GDP and our incomes but by the warmth of our relationships with each other and with nature, by the health of our children and our elders and our rivers and our land. We want more people to share the secret of real happiness and satisfaction in life, which comes not from having more but from being more, and from being part of a society that values all its members, that values the land, the water, and the other species with which we share them. Against those measures, this Wellbeing Budget delivers. Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

I move, That this debate be now adjourned.