Budget Debate

It is my great pleasure to take a call in this debate. Budgets are a chance for Governments to spell out their priorities and their vision, and I am proud to be part of a Government that set out the vision and the priorities that it did in this year’s Budget. This was a Budget that put wellbeing, the wellbeing of New Zealanders, at the centre of everything. It was a Budget that had the courage to govern for the next generation, and not just the next election. It was a Budget that delivered a plan to address the mental health challenges that are facing this country and have been allowed to go on for far too long. It was a Budget that delivered housing to the homeless. It was a Budget that lifted tens of thousands of Kiwi kids out of poverty. It was a Budget that will deliver low unemployment. It was a Budget that delivered low debt, and it was a Government that has delivered a strong surplus.

When I have gone around my electorate of Wigram and spoken to people about this year’s Budget, I know that these are the things that are important to them. These are the things that are important to New Zealanders. We’ve tackled those long-term issues facing New Zealand, and we’re balancing record levels of investment in this year’s Budget over our long-term challenges while maintaining fiscal responsibility, delivering strong surplus, growth well ahead of the OECD average, and near record low levels of unemployment and low debt. That is something that I know, when I’ve spoken to people, that all New Zealanders are rightly proud of.

If we look at the money that we have put into mental health, in many ways the centrepiece of this Budget, this is something that I think there is not a member in this House, on either side of it, that doesn’t have strong personal stories and connections to the struggles that many New Zealanders are facing in the areas of mental health. I know in the city that I come from, Christchurch, the last nine years have really taken a toll on people’s mental health. There are many people in my city struggling with their mental wellbeing, and their mental health, as there are all over the country. This is why this Government set aside a record investment in our mental health services with a new universal front-line service, making it as easy as possible for people to get help early before those small issues become major problems. The Budget includes new funding for suicide prevention, addiction treatment, and housing for almost 300,000 homeless people.

Then, if we turn to the issue of child wellbeing, it is so important that any Government—and I am so proud that our Government has put breaking the cycle of child poverty, and family violence right at the centre of what we’re doing. Our Families Package and Wellbeing Budget are projected to lift 50,000 to 74,000 children out of poverty, and this is something that we can all be proud of. We’re providing record funding for services to break the cycle of family and sexual violence, and new funding to stop kids falling through the cracks. We’re extending the nurses in schools programme, meaning it will reach an additional 5,600 students, and this is something that is so important. We’re doing this while we’re sketching out a long-term vision of how it is we can transform our economy, and how we can grow and modernise our economy while ensuring that we are setting ourselves on the pathway to a just transition to a low-emissions future. We’re backing KiwiRail, to get trucks off the roads. We’re fixing our schools and hospitals, and we’re investing to meet the challenges of climate change. We are not a Government that is content to leave this without adequate provision.

One of the things that I do want to spend some time talking about is mental health services. For all of us, we know that it is something that has been left by the wayside for too long. In Christchurch, we had looked when we first came into Government at some of the critical areas of need, and they were our children. In February last year, only a few months into being in Government, we put additional funding in to help our children. I am pleased now that we have been able to roll out additional support for children and people all over our country who do require those services.

When I speak to my constituents, one of the things that I know families have struggled with has been the increased costs associated with a so-called free education. The school donations have been seen as an increasing burden that families have had to face every January. They’re just getting over that Christmas hump, they’re just getting on top of things again, and school donations come into play, so it is especially satisfying for me that we are looking to offer the help to schools so that they don’t have to ask families for those donations. It is $150 per student, targeted at schools from decile 1 to 7—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Not what you said; a broken promise.

—just as we promised in our election costings.

In my electorate of Wigram, there are 18 schools that fall within this decile rating. There are 18 schools that will be eligible to not ask parents for $150 a year. There are 18 schools that, instead, will be able to apply to the Government for $150 per student. In my quick, back-of-the-envelope calculation, that means that $900,000, if every school takes that up, will be put back into the pockets of families of Wigram alone, and I know that that will make a difference. I know that for those families, that will make a huge difference, and I am proud that we are targeting it at this area of need first.

But it is important that while we address these long-run issues, we also address the pressing problems that face us in the 21st century and make sure that we are grasping the opportunities that sit alongside that. Transforming the economy is something that this Government believes passionately in, and we can see this all through Budget 2019. We’ve got the productive and sustainable land use package boosting funding to protect and restore at-risk waterways and wetlands, and providing support for farmers and growers to use their land more sustainably. It is critical that we invest in this and that we get this right.

But one of the things that I am most proud of, as both the Minister of Research, Science and Innovation and the Minister of Energy and Resources is that we are investing in the long-term transition to renewable energy. There is $27 million for a new energy centre in New Plymouth, where we can get right the way in which New Zealand can put in place the plans to get off fossil fuels and plan for a 100 percent renewable future. In addition to the $27 million for the new energy centre, another $20 million fund is being put into renewable energy research, and this is vital. We need to ensure that as we go through this transition, we are ensuring that we are setting up industries that will provide high-paid jobs for people. We don’t bury our heads in the sand and just wait for industries to run out of steam, as it were. This is a Government that is not prepared to leave workers and communities by the wayside as we go through the transitions that economies all around the world are finding themselves facing.

It is critical that we have a Government that is brave enough and that has the courage to look at these long-term problems and put in place the kind of long-term thinking that we need to address these issues. We cannot afford to ignore the problems, like the previous Government did for nine long years. Our Budget this year, built on last year’s Budget, is putting New Zealand on a path of having a very clear plan for the future and a very clear way forward, where we can take advantage of the opportunities and our people are placed at its centre.

Budget 2019 is going to for ever go down in history as the botched Budget. It’s not just botched in its delivery but botched in the sense of the lost opportunities, the broken promises, and the way in which it has failed to deliver for New Zealanders.

Wasn’t it fascinating listening to Megan Woods talk for 10 minutes in the Budget debate without mentioning the word “KiwiBuild”? She couldn’t speak for a minute prior to the 2017 election without reciting the KiwiBuild promise of 10,000 homes a year. She didn’t mention it, because I’ll tell you how bad it is: she promised 10,000 houses a year, along with her colleagues, but 18 months into the programme, they’ve delivered 81. If a building company pulled off that sort of a dirty trick, they’d be in the courts for fraud; such was the failure of the delivery of that policy.

Then, of course, a Budget is about financial management. You can put all the lovely piccies on the front cover, but, actually, it matters as to how we’re managing the country’s finances. I nearly choked on my Kornies when I read the Budget speech and I read that we’re going to borrow an extra $20 billion. Forget the rhetoric about the future—who do we think is going to have to pay back the $20 billion that we’re borrowing at a time when New Zealand’s terms of trade are at their best?

I talked about broken promises. Does anybody remember Jacinda Ardern and Grant Robertson talking about the Budget responsibility rules? They said that they were set in concrete. This was a guarantee. Even after the coalition agreement was signed, we were told that the five Budget responsibility rules were absolutely set in rock. Actually, I think they used the term “concrete”—my phrase today would be “It must have been pretty wet concrete.”, because we’re now told that the debt limit is not 20 percent any more; it’s now 25 percent. That’s another 20 billion bucks of debt that members opposite want to rake up on the future of New Zealanders.

You want to talk about wellbeing? One of the most important things for the wellbeing of Kiwi families is a job. In the last two years of the National Government, every month another 10,000 jobs were created for Kiwis. You know what’s happened this year? Over the first five months of this year, the number of jobs in the New Zealand economy, for the first time since 2011 and the global financial crisis (GFC), has gone backwards by 4,000. Here’s the bit that really worries me: Treasury projections around the level of job creation for the next four years are the slowest that they have been in two decades. Fewer jobs do not mean better wellbeing for New Zealanders.

Then let’s go further in to the broken promises. Do any members of the House remember that wonderful moment during the leaders’ debate in 2017 when the Prime Minister said “There won’t be any strikes on my watch.” Well! The number of strikes in the last year is now at 20 times what they were. We’ve had the mega-strikes in the schools. We have patients turning up at our hospitals being turned down from operations. As a constituency MP, I’ve seen more people this year in grief over getting access to operations than what I have seen since the Clark years in Government, and they have the cheek to talk about social wellbeing.

Then we go to an area like education. Megan Woods was so cute in talking about the policy of removing donations in schools. I have Labour’s policy here. It’s very explicit: all schools will have access to a $150 payment for each student in exchange for not requesting parental donations. I want the next Labour member to say why they have ratted on 200,000 families who were promised $150 and didn’t get it.

Let me tell you what it means for my community. I’ve got four great colleges. My children go to Nelson College and Nelson College for Girls. They’re getting it. They’re decile 7. But Waimea College, my country school, is being deprived of $250,000. They’re creating a two-tier education system in my community of Nelson, and that is wrong. It is not what they promised, and it’s grossly unfair on those 12 schools in my area that are not getting what they were promised.

Then let’s look at health. I remember when David Clark said that the bare minimum—the bare minimum—that was required in Vote Health for district health boards (DHBs) to be able to keep up with health services was $1.4 billion. And what do we see in this year’s Budget? Less than half of that, at the same time our DHBs are pouring out record deficits. Our health boards are in a financial crisis because of the incompetent management, only 18 months into this Government.

They want to talk about wellbeing. If you want to talk about wellbeing, tell me about the patients that are being denied access to cancer drugs. Don’t lecture me about wellbeing when you have not provided a single extra dollar for Pharmac to be able to provide those lifesaving drugs. It truly has nothing to do with wellbeing.

💬 Hon Julie Anne Genter: What did National do?

The member asked: “What did National do?” National increased the Pharmac budget every single year, including in the GFC, because we recognised the importance of those drugs, and I’d love to recite for that member the sort of commitment that we made to women that suffered from breast cancer and others during our period in Government.

Finally, I want to come to the issue of both the incompetence and the dishonesty around the presentation of this year’s Budget. I have never witnessed the level of incompetence around the presentation. It is a very serious matter when you can openly google access of a Budget that is meant to be confidential. That was completely incompetent in Roger Douglas’ case and in the case of Michael Cullen—there were rightly calls for the resignation of Ministers for not keeping the Budget confidential. And Treasury has hard questions to answer about that.

But, as always, it’s not the mistake, it’s the cover-up, that actually gets people into more difficulty. The dishonesty that occurred in the week of the Budget speaks volumes about the moral character of the Government. Remember the Prime Minister said on the Tuesday that the numbers released on the Budget were false. That was not true. Those numbers we now know were absolutely accurate and accessed from Treasury.

Remember the statement from Grant Robertson. We now know that after he was told that there had been no illegal access to the information, he continued to run that line and, even worse, reported the Opposition of this Parliament to the police for investigation. Now, I expect that sort of conduct to go on in ratbag fringe democracies, but the exercise of this Government trying to take the Opposition to the police for investigation and the sorts of comments from the Deputy Prime Minister drag the New Zealand democracy down to a level where it does not belong.

But the incompetence went even further than that. This is the first Budget ever in New Zealand history where, rather than picking up detailed financial tables and information, on the cover we have a pretty picture of a mum and her child. Now, if you went to Public Relations 101, you might have checked that the person that you were symbolising your Budget and wellbeing with might have been able to speak a positive word about the Government.

I have put out dozens of documents in my years, and one of the 101 rules was to make sure that, actually, it was an authentic story. The story of the woman on the cover of Budget 2019 actually speaks volumes about the gap between the presentation of the Budget and the reality. That woman’s choice to leave New Zealand last year—

💬 Hon Julie Anne Genter: Her problems were because of the nine years under National.

—and move to Australia actually speaks volumes about the failure of this Government and the failure of the member screaming over there, who does nothing while over 80 people die from drug-drivers each year. The Budget is a botched Budget. It’s a Budget of broken promises.

It is a pleasure to speak in this Budget debate. It’s always tempting to rebut nearly all of what Dr Nick Smith has to say, but let me start with the point that he made finally about the person on the cover of the Budget. That person was a Green Party supporter, actually, who left just months after the election because of the struggles that she had for the five years that she lived in Auckland. She left New Zealand because of the time that she struggled to pay her bills under the previous Government.

💬 Hon Members: That’s right!

That’s right. And I bet that if some of the initiatives that we have introduced in this Budget this year had been around in her time, she could have stayed, but, no, the previous Government was in power then, and there was no hope for that young lady and her family. Just months after the general election, she’d had enough because of the five years of struggle of trying to live with rising house prices and rising rents under the previous Government. So let’s just look at the reasons why she was actually a perfect example of what was going wrong with the previous Government and of the initiatives that we are taking within this Wellbeing Budget to make sure that that kind of stuff doesn’t happen again—to make sure that young mums with children have hope in New Zealand and can say to their children “Yes, we can pay the rent.”, “We can make sure we can pay the bills.”, and “This is a great place to live.” And that’s what this Wellbeing Budget is about.

This time last week, I was in the Tararua and the Central Hawke’s Bay with my colleagues Deborah Russell and Kieran McAnulty—not necessarily heartland Labour territory, but at the meetings that we went to on that day, which were post-Budget meetings, let me tell you how many people cared about the way in which the Opposition was carrying on in the days before the Budget was delivered: zero, nil, zilch, nada, none, not one sausage, because they actually care about the things that matter to them and their families—like whether their families are healthy, whether they can pay the rent or afford a house, whether or not their families and their children have a classroom to learn in. They are the things that I am extremely proud to stand here and say that, while we are dealing with business-as-usual infrastructure issues, we have also tackled some large issues which went unanswered by the previous Government for many years, which we have taken seriously in this Budget. It has had almost universal positive outcomes in the community.

I want to go back to our trip to Central Hawke’s Bay and Tararua, and I want to talk about the announcement of $1.9 billion of funding for mental health. When we were there in rural areas, they were very thankful to the Government for finally taking seriously an issue that isn’t just an urban issue, that isn’t just a city issue, but that has been a rural issue for many, many years. As we know, there have been large mental health issues in rural areas and, under the previous Government, I think people who were supportive of that Government were crying out for some action—the likes of Rural Support Trust, who we met this time last week, who was saying, “We need mental health services delivered in a way that will effectively make a difference to our communities.” And I think that they see in the $1.9 billion investment in mental health some real hope for their communities.

They did have some questions which I think are fair and valid questions about making sure that that funding is meaningful to them and their rural communities—that they can access it and that it is accessible given the distances that some of these farmers and people in rural communities have to go to access primary healthcare in their communities. I think they are valid issues, but what I think we saw last Thursday was some real hope that, finally, a Government was taking mental health seriously. I am extremely proud to stand in this House to say that I think that is going to be a policy and an investment in health that will make a generational change here in New Zealand, because I think, whether you’re in central Auckland or whether you’re in Waipukurau or whether you’re in Pāuatahanui, in my electorate, access to those basic mental health services will be there, and I’m extremely proud of that investment.

The Chamber of Commerce in Dannevirke also asked us about training opportunities for young people. They are struggling to make sure that their small businesses can get the likes of apprentices. We were more than happy to tell them about the investment in Mana in Mahi, making sure we can get young people into apprenticeships and helping those small businesses who are struggling to pay the bills to afford an apprentice to get help from further investment from taking the Mana in Mahi approach from just 150 places to 2,000 paces, with an eye on making sure those numbers go up to 4,000 at some stage. I know that I’ve got builders in my electorate, in Porirua, who have been crying out for something like this for some time because they’ve struggled to get staff. They have struggled to pay for apprentices. They liked the look of Mana in Mahi when it was announced in Porirua last year, but 150 places they thought wasn’t enough. Well, I’ve got good news for them because, in this Budget, we’re going to extend those 150 places out to 2,000 places nationwide. I think that will give hope not just to those businesses who want to take on young people and train them but also to those young people who are looking for an opportunity to get skills in a trade.

Now, before they get there, they have to learn in a classroom, and it’s fair to say that the previous Government didn’t see this demand coming and underinvested in capital to make sure that there were enough classrooms in our schools. So I’m extremely thankful for the $1.2 billion investment over 10 years by the Minister of Education, Chris Hipkins, to make sure, quite simply, that there are enough classrooms for our children to learn in.

You would think that would be something that a responsible Government would do, but when we came to power after nine years of the previous Government there was serious under-investment not only in training teachers but in ensuring we had enough teachers and classrooms to make sure that when more children come into our classrooms we have got the infrastructure to deal with it. So I’m proud to say that not only are we going to train more teachers, we’ll have classrooms for them to teach in, which is going to be extremely good for them.

In my ministerial portfolio areas, in commerce, I’m glad to say there’s more funding for the Commerce Commission to do more enforcement and advocacy work, and around the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act, as we take action against the likes of loan sharks and make sure that we protect vulnerable consumers.

In the area of civil defence is an investment to establish a new national emergency management agency to make sure that central government and central civil defence functions are beefed up to assist our civil defence groups around the country.

I also want to point towards something that Megan Woods, my colleague from Wigram, pointed out too—the way that we are helping parents of schoolchildren. She talked about school donations, but, also, I think, before the election the Minister of Education, Chris Hipkins, was talking about some relief that we will give to students around fees for NCEA exams, which I’m sure those people across the hall will scoff at. But sometimes it’s the little things that mean a lot to a family that is struggling to make ends meet. That is certainly the case when it comes to my electorate, around NCEA fees. Soon after that announcement came out, I got a letter from our local Society of St Vincent de Paul—St Vinnie’s; I’m sure most of us have got those in our communities.

💬 Greg O’Connor: Good Catholic organisation.

Good Catholic organisation, thank you, Mr O’Connor. It was addressed to me, and if I can, to finish off my speech—as many people will be hoping—I would just like to read from it. “Dear Mr Faafoi—as the branch of the Society of St Vincent de Paul based at St Theresa’s Church in Plimmerton, we are writing to say that we applaud your Government’s decision to scrap exam fees for students at secondary schools in the upcoming round of NCEA exams.” They go on to say: “We deal all the time with families who are struggling in the Porirua basin and know that this will be one area which will make a big difference to both pupils and parents. Could you please convey our thoughts to your colleagues. Yours sincerely, Margaret Baker.” It’s those kinds of stories—the small ones and also the big ones, when we invest $1.9 billion in mental health—which makes me extremely proud to say that I’m here to stand and support this Wellbeing Budget. It will make sure that people who have struggled mentally will have the help available to them. It sounds like a simple thing but we are doing it.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. In a rare show of unity amongst this House, I think the last point that the member Kris Faafoi just raised around the school exam fees is something that I think most members of this House will actually support, because, you know, we don’t want to actually make it harder for people to get an education and go for that next stage. A lot of our families are in very difficult circumstances and those school fees and costs, especially costs of exams, can be a detriment to them doing that. I think that that is one good thing out of the Budget.

But it isn’t all of this Budget, and if that’s all that that member can find in this Budget to really go for and support, then I think that that shows the true nature of this Budget. It was a missed opportunity for New Zealand. New Zealand is about to enter very difficult economic times, and these economic times are not caused by international pressure. You’ve got the US economy booming. You’ve got an Australian economy that’s going to take off again after the election. This is not a poor international economic condition that we are entering. It is all created by a failure on that side to invest in the things that actually make New Zealand strong. That is why the New Zealand economy is slowing down.

It’s only a matter of time before it slows, because in New Zealand we have a very delicate economy. We’re not like the Australian, American, or British economies, that can withstand a stupid Government every so often. The New Zealand economy will tip over as soon as the fundamentals are changed. You are in that spiral now. The Labour members just need to wake up and acknowledge that that debt spiral has already started because of their policies. That cannot be stopped in the New Zealand economy until you reach a low point. Time and time again we have seen that, and we don’t know what that low point is going to be, but it is coming.

People out there in the business communities are not investing now. People in the farming communities, at the field days, where I was yesterday, are dead scared of what this Government is going to do. The banks are running for cover, the investors are running for cover, and the people that actually make the productive decisions in this country are running for cover. They know what is coming, and it will come, and it will come in the next year or so. Now, I hope it’s before the next election, because the true colours of that party will be shown to New Zealanders and they’ll be able to make an economic judgment as well as a political judgment when they go to the polls. Potentially, it might happen after the next election. Then the Labour Party will go into that election saying what great economic managers they are, when they’re not. It will happen, because they have set it on that motion.

That was the opportunity that was missed, because this Budget should have been a Budget to invest in New Zealand and to promote the growth of this country. Where is the infrastructure investment in this Budget? It’s not there. Where are the tax cuts that would have given New Zealanders a reward for hard work? Not there. What have we got instead? We have got an economy that is falling down. We have got a Government that just wants to control everybody’s emotions, control everybody’s thought processes, and control their income streams. That is what they are doing. They are dumbing down New Zealanders. This Budget is another example of that.

What was progressive in that Budget? Nothing. What was out there to say to somebody—I look at our two fine new members of Parliament, that have come in to represent two new communities in New Zealand—some not new, actually. They represent the future of New Zealand that is aspirational and wants to achieve. What was in that Budget for those communities? Nothing. What was in there to encourage someone to come to New Zealand and work hard to invest and go ahead? Nothing. What was in there, if you’re in the Labour Party and you want to control and dictate—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’m not—I’m not.

That’s what the Labour Party was doing.

This Budget is a missed opportunity for New Zealand on two levels. First of all, in the current economic situation, we needed to make some serious, smart economic decisions. We needed to invest in the infrastructure in New Zealand and we needed to get the economy going with those tax cuts. They didn’t do those. The second one, which is the one which really hurts, is that they did not give the direction, the aspiration, and the ability for New Zealanders to make their own future. Everything now is reliant on a Government deciding that “It is your year to get paid out, that it’s your year for us to show some benevolence, that it’s your year for us to come and support you.”

We don’t want that. Kiwis don’t want that. Kiwis want to know that a Government enables them to support themselves. They don’t want to know that it’s Labour’s year to pick you or somebody else. They want to know that it’s their future that they make. That’s why people come to this country, that’s why people stay in this country, and that’s what this room should be about. It shouldn’t be about trying to pay off everybody every year to keep them in their power base.

I want to say, look at the great region of the Waikato. What did we get out of this Budget? Diddly squat. We got nothing. We got absolutely nothing out of this Budget. We are one of the most productive regions in this country and we got nothing. Now, I want to tell you a little story—a little story. Now, this is only a small thing in Hamilton. It’s not a big thing, but it is indicative of what this Government has done to Hamilton. Now, for the last couple of months the Mayor of Hamilton has been running around saying what a great Government they are because they’re going to give us a drug and alcohol court in Hamilton.

We have many people that actually have addiction issues, going through our court system. We have a very high Māori population in our community that are afflicted, just like in all parts of the community, with these drug and alcohol issues. These drug and alcohol courts have been shown to work. They’ve been shown to work overseas, and in Auckland they’ve been very successful. I know that the mayor came down here and met with the Prime Minister, and the mayor advocated for this drug and alcohol court. We’re not talking about $10 million or $20 million; we’re talking about probably one $1.5 million, if that, and it would have made a huge difference to our people. Guess what happened? Six weeks before the election, suddenly there was no response from the Government. They would not ring back. They would not return emails. They would say nothing. And then when we look at the Budget, nothing is in there.

Louise Upston comes from a seat that has an amazing potential to grow if that motorway had continued through, that had been taken away by this Government. That expressway was actually approved by the New Zealand Transport Agency before the last election. It was taken away by that Government to pay for infrastructure in Auckland, which won’t actually happen because you can’t actually get ready to do that rail investment yet—and the Waikato people lost that investment. What do they get in return, in this Budget? They got to pay another 8c on every petrol dollar they buy, just to keep that Government paying for its promises. That is not right. We are 9 percent of this country and we will not stand to be taken advantage of by the Labour - New Zealand First Government any more.

When I came into this House, I made it my desire and passion to make sure that we got our share of money. I was sick and tired of the Waikato being walked over and used as a cash cow for this country. We got our money. We got our share and we’re not going to let these guys get away with taking it back. The Waikato deserves more. We deserve our money. We deserve to be paid. We deserve to get a share of the growth of this country. And we’re not going to take it any more. That’s why Labour don’t win any seats in the Waikato. They will never win any seats in the Waikato, because the people there know that they want to be looked after and they want to be well and truly looked after.

This Budget is a disaster. It is a failed opportunity for New Zealand. It does not create the New Zealand that we need, going forward, and for one of the most productive regions in New Zealand it is an insult that we got nothing out of this Budget. In fact, all we got out of this Budget was the ability to pay for other regions, and we are sick and tired in the Waikato of paying for other regions. We will not stand for that any more. So that is what is going to happen. We wish to see a Government that is actually aspirational for New Zealand and commits to that infrastructure, the taxation system, and also with kindness and compassion so that people can achieve their full potential. That didn’t happen this time. I know that Nanaia Mahuta is going to get up and stand now. I ask her to say what was in it for the Waikato. Name something that was in it for the Waikato specifically, and I’ll bet you she can’t. She can’t because there was nothing.

I move, That this debate be now adjourned.