Appropriation (2018/19 Supplementary Estimates) Bill, Imprest Supply (First for 2019/20) Bill

I move, That the Appropriation (2018/19 Supplementary Estimates) Bill and the Imprest Supply (First for 2019/20) Bill be now read a second time.

I thought it might be helpful at the outset to let members know exactly what these two bills are. The Appropriation (2018/19 Supplementary Estimates) Bill makes new appropriations and changes to appropriations in the 2018/19 Estimates, to reflect decisions taken by the Government since the 2018/19 Estimates were finalised in April 2018, prior to Budget 2018. The Imprest Supply (First for 2019/20) Bill provides interim bulk spending authority for the first three months of the 2019/20 financial year, until the Appropriation (2019/20 Estimates) Bill is passed by the end of September.

Members should note that a sessional order, agreed to by the House on 8 November 2018, requires that the third reading debate on the main Appropriation Bill should be completed within four months after the Budget day, instead of the previous three months. Accordingly, the Imprest Supply Bill that is now in front of the House now provides for the first three months of the new financial year, instead of the first two months as in previous years.

I will run through some of the specific items in the Appropriation (2018/19 Supplementary Estimates) Bill that are outside of the normal process and are major items around the $50 million - plus mark. They actually highlight a number of the things I was talking about before, which are priorities for the Government.

I do want to start with one that will be noticeable for anyone who gets into the weeds and the detail of financial Estimates, and I welcome Mr Goldsmith to the House. That’s his future: in the weeds of those Estimates, trying to work out if he can understand what it all means in the finance portfolio. One of the things he’ll find, when he gets into the Supplementary Estimates, is that there is an extra $259.5 million to deal with Mycoplasma bovis. I do want to mention that today, as one of the things that the Government had to face up to and deal with that was unexpected. The first time we actually got any kind of indication of the bill for this was just after we confirmed the Budget for 2018, and so it is only appropriate today that when we look at the Supplementary Estimates bill, that amount of money is there.

I do want to put on the record of the House my acknowledgement of those farmers and those in the communities affected by Mycoplasma bovis, because this has been difficult. This has been a very challenging time. There were teething problems at the outset, in terms of the way in which the Ministry for Primary Industries and farmers work together. But, actually, they’ve come together now. Payments are being made, and forms of compensation, and I know around the Fieldays this year, there were still a few restrictions with moving day, but, actually, people had a much better understanding of how that works, and the additional funding provided in here for Mycoplasma bovis is extremely important in that regard.

As we go down the list of extra funding that’s required in the Supplementary Estimates, we come to the injection required to support the school property portfolio. This is an excellent example of the way in which this coalition Government is changing the way that we think about issues like school property. Shortly, the Minister of Education will release a long-term plan and vision around school property, but what we know is that for too long, the annualised allocation of money for school property has created uncertainty for schools, but it’s also created uncertainty for the construction sector. One of the things that we are moving to do is to provide much greater certainty.

Another initiative that’s covered in the Budget this year is the creation of the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission: another thing that the business community have been calling for for years, to have a clear pipeline of construction activity going out 30 years. Again, the so-called “party of business” across the aisle didn’t do anything about that.

Well, in this Budget we’re funding it, and combined with the multi-year capital allowance that we’ve established, there is now a pipeline, there is now certainty, and the construction and infrastructure sector are very pleased to be able to support that.

Another item that we’ll find in the Supplementary Estimates is around the question of health expenditure, and, in particular, the equity required for capital projects in health. Towards the end of my contribution in the last debate, I was making the point that last year the coalition Government put aside $750 million for health capital expenditure. Now, as the Prime Minister has made the point, some of the spending is actually not all that sexy. She’s going to the reopening of lifts. Well, that’s because the lifts weren’t working in a whole lot of our hospitals. And that’s why we have to do the very, very basic maintenance that was let go under the previous Government. What we know is that there were actually some years where there was almost no health capital expenditure set aside. In the year before we came into office, I think it was around about $150 million. We upped it to $750 million, and now we’ve given two years of $850 million for health capital, because we know that investing in the quality of our health facilities will save lives. It will also improve the working experience of those dedicated health professionals that we have. So the money in the Supplementary Estimates to support health capital is absolutely essential.

Another of the initiatives in the Supplementary Estimates is the gun buy-back fund. I do want to make an acknowledgement here of the New Zealand Police and the work that they are doing to facilitate the decision of this House by 119 to one—I’m not even sure if Mr Seymour actually made it for the vote in the end, but certainly the vast bulk of people in the House supported the passing of the law to ban military style semi-automatic weapons. We now have to have a system in place to make sure that those weapons are returned safely. We have done that via the funding that is in this Budget and in this bill. We have acknowledged that it may be that there is some additional funding needed for this. We’re going on the basis of the advice that officials have given us up to this point. But this is a significant moment for New Zealand—that we move not only in response to the events of 15 March but also to make sure that New Zealanders feel safe in their own country, and that those people who go about using guns on their farms or through duck shooting also know that they’re in a position to be able to do that. I am very pleased to be able to say that that funding is in this Budget.

I also want to make a special reference to the support that is in this Budget around tertiary education and, indeed, the funding of tertiary education through tuition subsidies. We made a very conscious decision in this Budget to shift funding across to support vocational education and training. What that means, in laypersons terms, is that we are actually, finally, going to be supporting trades training and apprenticeships in the way that we should have for a very long time. I greatly value the fact that people in New Zealand go to universities, get qualifications, and carry on and contribute to our society, but that will not be the only pathway for people. We need to properly value the trades in New Zealand, and through this Budget, through the allocation that we’ve made of $197 million towards our reforms of vocational education training, we will start to properly value those apprenticeships in our scheme.

The other half of this piece of legislation is the Imprest Supply (First for 2018/19) Bill. I just want to make really clear to members opposite, who, bizarrely, voted against the first reading of the Imprest Supply (First for 2018/19) Bill: that’s what keeps the lights on in Government for the next three or four months. That’s what pays the salaries of the public servants that we have. This is about making sure that money is available, and, historically, I think you’ll find that mostly the imprest supply bills have flowed through this House. But what that shows you is the incredibly negative mindset of members opposite. We’ve seen throughout the Budget debate, and then in that vote on the first reading of this bill, an Opposition party that only knows the negative; they cannot see the positive. Well, actually, that’s nearly true—the Leader of the Opposition actually said, in commenting on the Budget, that there were some things he really liked in it. He hasn’t told us what they are yet, but he did say that there were some things that he really liked in it.

So it is my pleasure to commend these two bills to the House. They represent the changes that have been made in the Estimates over the last year and appropriations, and they represent the next three months of expenditure after 1 July so that the operations of Government can continue. This represents further the implementation of the Government’s wellbeing agenda, and this is a bill that I am very proud to commend to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s my pleasure to stand and speak on this bill. I, up until about an hour or so ago didn’t have this spokespersonship, and so it’s been an interesting afternoon. I’d like to start by, I suppose, acknowledging my predecessor in the role, Amy Adams, who today has announced her impending retirement from politics. She will have had 12 years and made a massive contribution over many years to New Zealand’s politics in her many roles in Cabinet, and through the time in Opposition. Over the past 18 months she’s worked hard to hold this Government to account for its spending decisions and its taxing decisions.

We’ll be opposing this bill primarily on the grounds that it relates to some of the Supplementary Estimates that have been added to this bill, which are a reflection of very poor Government decision-making over the past few months; not all—some. I’ll take the House through this over the next little while, but the point I’d make, first up, as the Minister said, is that these are issues that we work together constructively on and that is, indeed, the case. I’ve taken up the role as finance spokesperson and am very keen to work constructively in support of this Government where it makes suitable decisions, and where it’s working in the interests of all New Zealanders to grow our economy. I’ll also be very focused on holding them to account where things go wrong. We’re seeing plenty of examples of this, because when we look at what this bill is about, it’s about ensuring that we’ve got an extra $150 million that we’ve spent, that we haven’t budgeted for, for the gun buyback, for example, and an extra couple of hundred million for dealing with the Mycoplasma bovis incident.

The point that that shows is that there’s always something unexpected turning up in Government—anything. There’s always something unexpected that you don’t plan for when you do your annual Budget. The previous National Government had, of course, a couple of colossal examples of that, with the Canterbury earthquakes, which sent us from being in a position where we could have got ourselves back into surplus to, suddenly, having an $18 billion deficit in one year. Then, of course, you have the global financial crisis, which is another thing where it came along out of the blue and all of a sudden the accounts that the Government had made for the Budget, suddenly, no longer step up. So it reinforces the importance of having well-disciplined and thought through Government policies in the Budget every year, and that, unfortunately, is not what we’re seeing from this Government.

What we’re seeing so far is pretty much a bog-standard left-wing Government where you come in and say, “We’re going to take the economy for granted and just assume that it doesn’t matter what additional costs and uncertainty that we add to business; business is there to continue to be milked and the economy will just keep clipping along”. That doesn’t happen, and we’ve seen that, in this Government, in this country, at a time when we have got historically high terms of trade, where the prices that New Zealand exporters are getting for their products, with the exception of wool, are at historic highs and we should be booming as a country. When you go around the regions, as Mr Jones does on a regular basis, you go to Hawke’s Bay and places like that and you see that all the mayors will tell you, “I can’t remember a time when the prices that we’ve been getting for our goods have been so high”. So at a time when New Zealand should be booming, in fact, what we’re seeing is the economy slowing dramatically. As the Governor of the Reserve Bank said a couple of months ago, there’s been a “sharp decline” in the New Zealand economy.

So that’s one path. At the same time, the Government is rapidly increasing its spending up to $3.8 billion of new spending, this time. We were spending, back in 2015, for example, a billion dollars. So they’ve almost quadrupled the amount of new spending. So on the one hand, you’ve got a slowing economy; on the other hand, you’ve got rapidly increasing spending, and New Zealanders can work out what’s going to happen as a result of that. They can work out, well, where does all the money come from? Well, it’s going to come from extra taxes somewhere down the line, or increased borrowing, and that’s what worries New Zealanders, and it’s why there’s such low levels of confidence, and such concern, out there.

So given that, when you have a bill like this which reminds you that anything can come out of the blue in the economy and you can, suddenly, be hit by massive unexpected expenditures, and if you’re not budgeting well, you’re not keeping within your means, and if you’re not disciplined about how you spend, then you quickly run into trouble. So this Government, when it came into power less than 20 months ago, inherited an amazing set of books with surpluses out as far as the eye could see, getting bigger and bigger. Already, we’re only in the second year of this Government, and its second Budget, and when we look at the forecasts for next year, the surplus is wafer thin. Wafer thin, zero point—what is the surplus presumed for 2019? As a percentage of GDP, it’s very small indeed.

💬 Hon Willie Jackson: What is it?

Well, I’m trying to find it. It’s so small I can’t see it—so small I can’t see it. Here we go: 0.4 percent of GDP for 2020. Now, we can see when we consider this bill, if you’ve got a projected surplus of 0.4 percent of GDP, then there’s a very high chance we’ll be back in deficit in no time at all. So you’ve come in, you’ve inherited an economy that was booming at nearly 4 percent with surpluses as far as the eye can see, and within 20 months you have halved the growth and we’re looking at potential deficits within a year or two’s time. So that is an indictment on the economic management of this Government, and it’s something we’ll be holding them to account on. It’s one thing just to say you want to spend more; you actually also need to focus on how the wealth is created and accept that Government policies have a real influence upon that.

So if we look at some of the other things that have been done by this bill, which as I, again, explain—the purpose of this bill, the primary purpose with the Supplementary Estimates, is to say that this time last year, the Government brought in a Budget, they said this is what we’re going to spend, this is what we’re going to bring in, and this is what we’re going to spend for this year. But by the end of the year, they figured out, actually, there’s a whole bunch of things that they had to spend that they didn’t plan for. So this bill makes those expenditures legal. So one of things that we’re changing is the extra $167 million for job seekers—for benefits. Well, what an astounding thing. So when this Government came in, they inherited an economy that was creating 10,000 jobs a month—10,000 new jobs a month. We’ve got Willie Jackson in charge of employment, and under his stewardship of the portfolio, we’ve gone from 10,000 jobs a month to negative—we’re losing jobs. We lost 4,000 jobs in the last three months.

We’ve got Shane Jones over there, who’s been given $3 billion in a job creation scheme, and he’s spending all that money to destroy jobs. You’ve got half a billion dollars devoted to forestry, where you convert land that’s currently used for sheep and beef farming, and convert two-thirds of it into native forestry, destroying jobs in the process. So we get to spend half a billion dollars to destroy jobs. It’s very strange. Then, the jobs that actually do need to be done to plant the trees—he wants to bring people from Melanesia to do those jobs, so it’s very hard to work out how that system works in terms of getting value for money.

But the upshot of it all is that notwithstanding the record high export prices we’ve got and the huge job creation we had in the previous Government, we’re now having to spend an extra $67 million on job seekers—on benefits—because benefits have increased. One explanation for it, apart from the poor economic management is the fact that one thing the Government have done in the welfare space is remove sanctions and obligations on people in order to get back to doing work, which I think the average New Zealander struggles to understand.

Then, we’ve got an extra $50 million shifting the underspend in the free fees area for universities, which is another, frankly, fiasco from this Government. They came in, they said that they were going to spend $2.8 billion on tertiary education in order to increase the access to tertiary education for New Zealanders, and then, lo and behold, they found out that fewer New Zealanders were going. That is, I suppose, one of the most dramatic examples of where this Government seem to think that they can achieve things merely by announcing that they’re going to spend more money on it, but, actually, the delivery of quality outcomes is much, much harder.

The other famous example of that, of course, is KiwiBuild, where they said they were going to build 100,000 new homes over 10 years, and they’ve completely given up. Poor old Phil Twyford should be shifted on on Thursday. Nobody’s quite sure if he will be, but in any normal Government that lack of delivery would be curtains.

So this bill should be making the Government think very carefully about—

Order! The member’s time has expired. Before I call the Hon Willie Jackson, can I just remind members—I didn’t interrupt the member. But when members are speaking, I remind members to use the correct honorifics and the correct titles and full names, even in interjection.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. Tuatahi ko taku mahara ki tō tātou rangatira, a Jim Maniapoto. E te matua, haere ki te taha o tō tātou matua tipuna kua riro ki te pō rā. Haere, haere, haere atu rā. Ko tēnei te pō, nau mai te ao.

[May I firstly pay tribute to our revered leader, Jim Maniapoto. Farewell, sir, to take your place alongside our ancestor who has gone before you. Farewell, farewell, fare thee well. This is the darkness; I welcome the light.]

I’m just doing a little poroporoaki there, Mr Assistant Speaker, to someone who passed away last week in your electorate, a man who made a major contribution to Māoridom and to New Zealand: Jim Maniapoto, the last of the Maniapoto line. I mention him because I know how much he supported the type of people who we in Labour are supporting, particularly in that area. He was a brother-in-law, a whanaunga, to Georgina te Heuheu, who is part of the National Party. I suspect a number of the Maniapoto whānau voted for National, but they were supporters of the principles of what we talk about. It was a sad loss last week, the last of the Maniapoto brothers dying, and it was a big tangi up there—legends in rugby, legends in Te Ao Māori—and it’s only right that I mihi to him.

It’s a pleasure to talk today after Mr Goldsmith—the Hon Mr Goldsmith, I should say—because after his big promotion, it’s good to see that he has been supported there in the National Party. They’re looking for talent, and who knows where he’s going to be tomorrow.

But I stand today to take a call on the second reading of this bill. I want to congratulate our Minister of Finance in terms of what he’s done, and I’ve already made a contribution in terms of Māori and the Budget and what’s happened. I’ve covered those gains in terms of Māori, but I’d like to talk about what Budget 2018-19 and what the Wellbeing Budget means in terms of employment. In 2018-19, we announced funding for skills in employment programmes, and at the very heart of them, we wanted to address the skills shortages that were left by the previous Government—a huge hole in terms of the previous Government, a huge hole left in our communities that we have had to go out and fix up. That’s why I celebrate the work done in terms of the Hon Shane Jones and the Provincial Growth Fund.

We have seen, first-hand, regions who have been crying out for help. In the Ngāti Kahungunu area—a classic example—in the East Coast area, and in the Tai Tokerau, we have had regions that have been surviving just on baseline, and we have seen employers who have asked for help. So we can tell you today the type of work that’s been happening there and the type of support that a lot of our regions are getting. In terms of young people, we don’t want young people having to abandon their regions in search of dignified, skilled employment pathways.

We want an economy that works for everyone, and the previous speaker, the Hon Paul Goldsmith, talked about this wonderful economy that was left by the previous Government. Yes, we know employment was going well and things were going well for so many people, apart from Māori people and Pacific Island people and women and disabled people and all the people in all the groups that count in our world.

In our first two Budgets, we have committed funding for our employment programmes, that I want to briefly talk about, and those four programmes have been He Poutama Rangatahi, Mana in Mahi, Pae Aronui, and cadetships through Te Puni Kōkiri. Now, He Poutama Rangatahi received $26 million of new funding from the Wellbeing Budget over two years, focused on supporting rangatahi—young people—across the four existing regions of He Poutama Rangatahi but extending to the surge regions of the Provincial Growth Fund. Existing programmes are working with over 2,500 young people—rangatahi—who are most at risk of becoming long-term unemployed.

Now, these are the people the Hon Shane Jones has talked about. We all remember his kōrero when he talked about getting the nephs off the couch. This is the type of programme that is backing that, giving young people an opportunity where they never had an opportunity. They are young people, sometimes, who have come from intergenerational unemployment. Sometimes, they’ve come from families that struggle, families that have had too much drug use, too much alcohol. These are the sorts of whānau that we’ve been hitting. The Hon Shane Jones talked about them, and it may have been a provocative kōrero about a year back, when he said he wanted to get his nephs off the couch. That was not exactly embraced by some of the politically correct, but it was a message that rang home the fact that we had too many of those young people just wandering around doing nothing. So we have been able to get to them through He Poutama Rangatahi and Shane Jones’ Provincial Growth Fund.

The new funding will allow for further investment into these young people in the community in which they live, meaning they don’t have to move away from their support networks in order to have strong employment futures. I want to give some of those examples out there of the types of groups we’ve been funding: the Northland College pine plantation, completed with 12 of the 15 participants still in full-time work; Tupu Ake, a forest protection service with 30 rangatahi, developing skills and employment in forestry and ecological management; and a Hastings District Council youth connector programme, with more than 45 rangatahi into full-time employment and with 17 employers engaged in that programme. Everywhere we’re looking, we’re getting the support and the encouragement from people in the regions, and sometimes we get National Party MPs coming to our releases, which we embrace and we support, despite the criticism I’m hearing today.

Also, Mana in Mahi is a major kaupapa for us. Formerly seen as working for the dole, I changed that name. I changed it because there is mana in mahi. There is mana—whatever type of job you’re doing, whatever type of work you’re doing, at least you’re working, at least you’re being productive, and at least you’re supporting yourself and your whānau. That’s why Mana in Mahi fits the bill perfectly. We budgeted $49.8 million from the Wellbeing Budget over four years in terms of Mana in Mahi participants. Mana in Mahi is an existing programme that supports people, particularly in the 18- to 24-year-old area. With the $49.8 million, we want to extend Mana in Mahi to an extra 1,850 places. It was funded through baseline during phase 1 for 150 places. That number has been met and phase 1 was intended to strengthen the settings of Mana in Mahi, particularly around partial care both for participant and the employer. Mana in Mahi will contribute to lifting Māori and Pasifika income, skills, and opportunities by assisting participants to achieve and maintain employment, and will motivate them to participate in formal industry training. It’s a scheme that I think we should all be proud of, because we’re getting our young people productive and we’re supporting employers and we’re supporting our communities.

I’ll read again the next part. More than 225 young people have commenced employment—225 people—through Mana in Mahi placements, with 385 employers registering interest in the programme. Where someone is unable to complete their Mana in Mahi placement, the Ministry of Social Development will work with both participant and employer to see if they can do things differently, to ensure that their participant is supported further.

Also we have what’s called Pae Aronui. Now, that’s funded through Budget 2018. It’s a programme aimed at tackling the number of Māori young people who aren’t engaged in earning and learning—very similar to Poutama Rangatahi. [Member knocks his microphone] Excuse me, Madam Speaker.

💬 Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki: Passionate.

Very passionate, yes. It’s very similar to both Poutama Rangatahi, looking after our young people in the urban areas, in the south, in the Aucklands, in the West Aucklands, in the Hamiltons, in the Poriruas, in the Hutt Valleys—young people wandering around not doing enough, not being productive enough, but we’re getting them engaged, getting them into training, and getting them into possible mahi.

Also, there are the cadetships through Te Puni Kōkiri (TPK). We’ve got $6 million, from the Wellbeing Budget, over four years to expand the cadet programme through TPK. This is achieved by providing funding to employers to support the employment, development, and mentoring of Māori candidates.

It’s clear that when we became the Government there was a tremendous amount of work to do, but I’m proud of some of the initiatives that we now have out on the table. This is a Government that cares. This is a passionate Government who inherited nine years of no investment. We believe in dignity for our people, dignity for our young people, dignity in terms of jobs, and I’m proud to support this kaupapa. Kia ora, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s very nice to be able to talk in this debate. It was good hearing that Minister talking about work, and, of course, that’s his key responsibility. I think the first thing I would say is that we also support the ideal of working, because of all the dignity that comes with that. That is an essential role. But I just couldn’t but help, as I listened to the Minister talk about his portfolio—you know, he talked a good shop about all these wonderful proposals they’re doing. It sounds really nice—Mana in Mahi, and all that sort of stuff—but the reality is, I think, the essence is: what are we delivering—what are we delivering? That is the issue with this Government.

This is a Government that is failing to deliver on its promises. The very point that he’s chosen to talk about—we have seen a wholesale decline not only in economic activity over the last 19 months; we’ve seen a $3 billion loss of economic activity per annum—per annum. That is a huge impact on every small business in New Zealand, with the consequential loss of preparedness to go and employ someone. And that’s why we’re seeing the trend in the loss of new job creation. It’s nice talking about the platitudes and the new policies, and it sounds wonderful, and lots of money. That’s just talking about outputs and putting money into new programmes because we want to be seen to be doing lots. But the issue is: what are the deliverables and what are the targets and what are the outcomes?

What I know is that when we were in power, only a short 19 months ago, we were creating 10,000 jobs a month, and we actually created 240,000 jobs over a period of three years—an incredible number of new jobs. And since this Government’s come into play—since this Government has come into play and in operation—we have seen a wholesale decline. In fact, as the newly appointed finance spokesperson noted—and the Hon Paul Goldsmith will be excellent in the role—that’s come about through people losing confidence. And it’s not hard to understand why that is.

When you think about what it means for small businesses, and I’ve got our spokesperson beside me, the Hon Jacqui Dean—you know, when you bring in much more union-friendly labour laws, and there is always a role for unions, but when you talk about higher minimum wages, which will ripple right through the employment of a business, and when you talk about capital gains tax and when you add all the other uncertainties, that’s what leads to people saying, “I’m not going to take on new people.” That’s the issue about job creation, and that’s why I think that Minister’s not going to be able to deliver anything in this term of Government while he is in charge. [Interruption] He is failing; that is right.

Yesterday, I had a fascinating day. I happened to be in Auckland and I’d been asked to go along to quite an interesting conference. It was actually called the BuildNZ conference, and it had a whole stack of components, actually. It had KiwiBuild, and a very exciting and interesting discussion going on there. It had a suite of rooms at the Auckland showgrounds with all these people who were demonstrating all the fantastic products and services that are taking place in the housing and building and construction industry. So I was very lucky because I was able to be asked, and I was given half an hour, to talk about what National might do in the area of building and construction. Of course, I accepted that invitation very readily when it was sent to me, because why would I not go and be proud of what we’re going to do and what we’ve done? That’s why when I went there and there were, I think, probably about 200 people in the room—I don’t want to exaggerate, but of that order. It was good to be able to traverse a whole range of issues about what needs to be done and what we will do. I’ve got to say it was a relatively friendly sort of atmosphere.

I also had the opportunity to go into the KiwiBuild section and actually got asked a question while I was there, because people acknowledged me. Duncan Garner, who was MC’ing, gave me the opportunity to briefly respond to some questions. It was interesting—it was interesting—it was interesting. It was interesting that the Minister wasn’t there. I just was at a loss—I was at a loss because there were so many excited people in that room who were saying, “Look, get on with it. Get on with KiwiBuild.” But, unfortunately, there was no one there. There was no there to answer that question at the time when it was raised. Now, I do want to acknowledge the Hon Jenny Salesa. I do have to acknowledge you, Minister, because you did have the courage to turn up at one o’clock, I think. Unfortunately, I had to go just before you turned up, but I know you came for I think about 40 minutes—for about 40 minutes. What you should have been, Minister—and I know you were very careful not to talk about housing, because that’s not—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Address your comments to the Chair, thank you.

Sorry. I know the Minister was very careful not to talk about housing, even though she was asked on a number of occasions, because, you know, that’s not your portfolio. But that’s right. You are certainly building and construction. I think the Minister of Housing and Urban Development should have been there. I really do. There were a lot of people asking about it and it was a missed opportunity. Do you know why—do you know why? The question is that this is the Government that promised 16,000—I have to repeat it to myself; 16,000—new homes in their first term—

Tim van de Molen: How many?

16,000, and there’s 140, I think, done. There are 140 built. And of course those owners of those building firms in that room who rely on the housing market to make a living, to look after them and pay for their families, and create a living for new people to get new jobs—oh, sorry. They’re not employing people at the moment because they were so concerned about the conditions of the housing market and the signals that are coming out of this Government.

I actually had one woman come up to me and she asked a public question about the stresses that they were facing in their business. They had had no orders for four months. The stress coming out of that industry because of the concerns about what’s going on—she talked about the liquidity, the banks toughening up. She was even talking about what she might do with her house. This is a market that is not working at the moment, and that’s why the people were there. They wanted to have an honest conversation. I think it was a very disappointing thing that the Minister didn’t show up.

But the worst thing, I think, is the claim that this Government is making: you know, they talk about all the different shops and different things they’re doing. They talk about Hobsonville Land Company—and I know Chris Aiken personally from a long time ago. He has done a great job. But that was a project initiated under the National Government. And then there are all the projects that they’re talking about that they’re doing, which I find slightly disconcerting, because Minister Twyford is very, very keen to talk about further developments at Mount Roskill, Northcote, Porirua, Māngere—a total of 27,000 houses, but unfortunately all those were commenced under a National Government.

In this Supplementary Estimates debate, one of the things that has come into these Supplementary Estimates is the issue of the buying off the plans cost. Now, we had Minister Twyford in before the select committee, and when we asked him publicly what is the cost of the underwrite, which is in effect the cost of buying houses from developers, should they not be in a position to sell, he repeatedly says that it is a zero cost. However, in this Budget—in this Budget—there is $210 million set aside for the cost of the underwrite. I struggle to reconcile the comments of the Minister. But the other issue that came out is that this Government is paying and buying those houses off the developers after 60 days. That’s a current sell time for a house, yet they’ve allocated $200 million to do that underwrite.

Ordinarily, it’s midnight when you hear howling. But the word “howl”, which is a verb, a doing word, is actually a protracted, prolonged cry of distress. That is not a cry for what was; it’s for what’s lying ahead. And in the context of this Budget, it is difficult for our colleagues on the other side of the House to understand it, because it’s got such a long-term vision they can never envision themselves being on this side of the House until the new leader of the National Party—leaving Air New Zealand—arrives. That’s got to be at least 2029.

I just want to remind the member Andrew Bayly, who’s sat down, that this is the Imprest Supply (First for 2019/20) Bill. This is the imprest supply bill which actually enables us to enjoy interim spending authority until such time as the magnum opus has been passed. Now that I have explained that technicality to my colleagues on the other side of the House, let me focus—

💬 Chris Penk: You voted against it in the last Government.

—let me focus. Ah, I hear further noises from the back. Those are the noises actually inversely related to TV ONE on Friday, where the sitting member of Northland gushed enthusiastically. There was a torrent of congratulatory remarks in the National Party as to how well I’m doing in the provinces—how well I’m doing in the provinces. He’d better go and tell the new guy Christopher Bishop that he’s already agreed with a lot of what’s covered in this particular bill, in the sense of what the Budget represents—that he’s already conceded—but, of course, Christopher Bishop will soon understand, when he stands on his feet, that I’m not a Māori like Wally Haumaha. I’m not a guy to be bullied. I’m not a guy to be lied about. However, let me come back to transforming the economy, for fear of your issuing yet another admonition in my direction.

There’s a lot of fear amongst the people who wanted to tarmac—tarmac—New Zealand’s economy into the treacherous zone of climate change danger. Now, we have taken a more balanced and fair approach, which is why the interim authority that we seek is necessary, because, as a consequence of this morning, we’ve already started in terms of projects, employing people, rolling out the strategy for KiwiRail. Of course, the rail vision is not only in the regions. We are redressing the neglect in Auckland. And, today, Mr Twyford spoke about something that I do agree with, actually, in Auckland, which is providing another track to cope with the congestion. But, in relation to “Where is rail” in this Budget, and going forward, going to stand, it gives New Zealand businesses, investors—both domestic and foreign—a new opportunity to create both improved freight strategies but tourism as well.

Now, of course, the other side of the House aren’t interested in reducing emissions; they are creating them. But the pollution isn’t to the climate; the pollution is to the body politic. Now, of course, there’s a lot of cynicism expressed on the other side of the House about our extension services for agriculture. Now, we know that the farmers, we know that agribusiness leaders, do have a lot of anxiety about the future, and I have agreed to meet with the “Shady” group and I’ve said, “Come to the office and talk to me about your problems pertaining to the conversion of farmland into trees.” I have acknowledged that it’s physically impossible for them to channel Nathan Guy, because that would be a public health warning. So I look forward to them coming and working constructively on the projects currently covered in the Budget and in the interim authority we are seeking and passing as we wend our way through this process. Forestry has an incredibly important role to play not only in biodiversity, not only in catchment consolidation, not only in employment and exports but in providing an option to buy time while the heavy emitters—the heavy industry—seek ways to invest in science, technology, and improvements to their business in the context of our new climate change challenges.

Now, of course, research and development is something that our party regards as a key enabler, and we’re looking forward as the farmers come forward and say, “OK, we know that we’re being dragged along on a journey. We’ve mucked around. We tried to destroy Peter Hodgson in the days of Helen Clark. We knew we’d get a free pass from the John Key - Government.”—I shouldn’t mention the former Prime Minister’s name; I might receive the ire of my own leader. I’ll leave him and Mr Key to their unfinished business. But if we don’t have focused research and technology investment in areas such as gene editing, it’s very difficult to see where the farming community, where the agribusiness community, is going to find the solution. So I look forward to working with them. There’s considerable scope in that regard.

Of course, I should finish, as would be required of me, by talking about the Provincial Growth Fund. Now, just to remind the tiny group of New Zealanders who may not have heard me speaking about the fund in the past, the fund is dedicated, over a three-year period, to turn around the fortunes of the provinces by identifying deserving projects in terms of infrastructure. And, of course, recently we opened the Kerikeri Airport, Māori language mishaps aside, and then we have proceeded to invest in enablers within the agribusiness sector, because we like water storage; water storage is very important for the rural economy, and Hawke’s Bay has enjoyed our attention in that regard. Then there are specific injections of equity. I tried unsuccessfully on behalf of the Government to do something with Westland dairy. I didn’t know that Westland dairy was going through a process of being offloaded, but I’m sure others will talk about that at another time. But the most important thing is that the Provincial Growth Fund is going into territory that the earlier Government was unwilling to invest money in. They were prepared to take the money that we have used and are recycling into deserving projects, and they were going to give it away in tax cuts, and those tax cuts were going to benefit a tiny minority of New Zealanders; whereas our focus, quite frankly, is boosting equity in the provinces.

An area where that equity is now coming to pass is in digital connectivity. Now, there’s one thing I’ll say for Steven Joyce, despite what the Minister of Finance might say about him; there’s one area that did work out well—he may not have come up with this—and that was the investment in digital connectivity. An area, however, that has been overlooked is those particular spots around rural New Zealand that have not been able to attract attention. Therefore, the significant amount of money that we’ve dedicated—nigh on $80 million to $100 million—through the Provincial Growth Fund will provide an opportunity to create regional digital hubs, continue to connect those areas with there are black spots, where ordinary things that we take for granted in this House are denied our rural folk because we haven’t been able to attend to those areas of neglect.

And, on the Māori side—obviously, I’m very interested in this—is digitising the connections with marae to bring the young people back to the marae so that the marae represents a modern opportunity for them not only to celebrate identity but to remain connected all around the world. Now, of course, I accept that as more marae are connected, there’s going to be an increased awareness about how important security is, because a lot of the marae are in neglected areas, but that’s a specific case where we’re doing things at the big end of town with the agricultural sector, we’re doing things at the largest end of town with infrastructure and KiwiRail, and we have not forgotten about the people in the kūmara garden, down in the weeds and seeds. And when you have a Government that seeks to join all of those elements together, then you have sustainable economic development. You don’t have the self-induced feeding frenzy that we’re seeing in our largest bank. You don’t have that culture of entitlement which we’re seeing in the ANZ, our largest bank. I’m sure the Governor of the Reserve Bank will have more to say about that, and, hopefully, he penalises the directors, not unlike those who have paraded around believing their corporate virtue is beyond cavil. So watch this space. I’m sure there’s bad news on the way for them. Thank you very much, Madam Speaker.

It’s a pleasure for me to take a call on the Appropriation (2018/19 Supplementary Estimates) Bill, and I want to start with a bouquet to the Government. I want to acknowledge that, in the Supplementary Estimates, there’s a belated appropriation of $259 million for the Government’s effort and the farmers’ efforts and the meat industry’s efforts to do away with Mycoplasma bovis. This is a very large appropriation in the Supplementary Estimates, and I think it’s a good call. What the Government and the industry are embarking on is, potentially, a world first—to eradicate a disease that’s known to have recently arrived to New Zealand.

So I want to take this opportunity to thank the Government for agreeing to be part of the programme. It’s a Government that farmers don’t often see as being attuned to rural New Zealand. It’s a Government that certainly hasn’t got a lot of credibility within the farming community. But this was a call that was made by the Government. It’s a brave call; it’s not a programme that’s guaranteed to succeed, although, at this stage, the information we’re getting on a relatively regular basis via the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) suggests that the programme is on track. It hasn’t been enacted without huge frustration amongst some of the farming community, and anybody who’s incurred this disease on their farm has certainly had some frustrating moments dealing with MPI. I think one of the biggest challenges has been around compensation when animals have been forcibly culled from properties. The compensation issue is not an easy one, and it does require realistic applications and realistic anticipation by the farmers of what is fair and reasonable compensation.

Can I just say, while I’m talking about Mycoplasma bovis, that one of the things the Government needs to grapple with is the current NAIT system—the National Animal Identification and Tracing system. It does not work satisfactorily, and I can say that from a personal perspective, as a Banks Peninsula farmer. We were recently required to re-register on to the NAIT system and identify the properties that we owned. I went on well before due date to do so only to be told by the NAIT programme that I no longer owned my farm; somebody else did. Well, I’m paying the rates, I’ve been there for nearly 40 years, I know which land I own, and the NAIT system is wrong. I emailed the NAIT people immediately to say their system was wrong. The email bounced back, and I’ve had no further communication with them. So for Damien O’Connor to blame farmers for not using the NAIT system correctly, he needs to get his officials in and have a good look at the system, because unless it’s user-friendly, farmers will struggle to use it properly, and until we get that right, then this disease and any other that may occur in New Zealand is very difficult to fight.

I want to refer to the earlier remarks of the Hon Grant Robertson, Minister of Finance, when, in his Budget closing speech and in the debate on the Supplementary Estimates, he made the comment that this Budget that he’s presented is fundamentally different. He then went on to talk about it being a wellbeing Budget. Well, I can say to that Minister, having listened to the presentation of the Budget, having now been around many parts of New Zealand listening to New Zealanders’ impressions of the Wellbeing Budget, it’s nothing but rhetoric. This Budget in many ways is no different to most of the other Budgets I’ve seen over my period of time. I guess there is one big difference—yes, it is fundamentally different: I never recall a Budget being given to the Opposition two days before it’s to be officially announced by the Government. So, in that respect, it’s fundamentally different, and I want to thank the Government—this current Labour - New Zealand First - Green Government—for their promise to be open and transparent, but to release Budget documents to an Opposition two days early is taking openness and transparency a little too far.

The next point I wanted to comment on was with regard to Vote Social Development and to say to this Government: this economy is contracting, and contracting fast, and if you want evidence of that in the Supplementary Estimates, look no further than an appropriation in the 2018-19 year of a $167 million additional money for job seeker grants. For those listening, job seeker grants are the old unemployment benefit. So what you’re seeing is an economy that was strong under a former National Government—10,000 jobs a month in the period leading up to the last election—and we now have, in the last quarter, under this Government, 4,000 jobs lost from the employment sector. And that’s because employers haven’t got confidence.

When you look at the terms of trade—the way this country should be trading—it should be booming. Meat prices: the highest I have ever seen. Dairy prices: good. Fine wool: good. The economy based on agriculture is in as good a space as it’s ever been. But go to the Fieldays and talk to the farmers and, while their confidence should be high, it’s not, and the reason it’s not is that they don’t trust the current Government. They don’t have confidence that they’ll get a fair deal out of the current Government.

I guess, in my closing comments, I wanted to talk about Vote Building and Housing. Of course there’s a large transfer there of $84 million, and I guess it’s around the ability of the Hon Phil Twyford to talk about KiwiBuild. I noted the Prime Minister, during a post-Cabinet speech on Monday night, saying the Hon Phil Twyford has done an incredible job. I want to know what she means by “an incredible job.”, because KiwiBuild was meant to deliver 100,000 houses in 10 years and 10,000 houses each year. To date, 19 months into this Government, it’s delivered 141 houses via KiwiBuild. So I say to Mr Phil Twyford, “Bye bye. You’ll be pleased to be getting some new portfolios, I suspect, when the Prime Minister does a reshuffle on Thursday afternoon.”

As a Christchurch MP, the last comments I wanted to make were around Vote Finance and Christchurch facilities following the earthquake. Can I say that the convention centre, started well and truly under the former National Government, is making good progress. It’s going to be a very impressive facility when it is completed and opened, but there is the Metro Sports Facility which appears to just be stalled. There’s a huge fence around the site that’s been apportioned to it, and I didn’t see anything happening from the time that this Government was elected. There is also the red zone—this massive area that’s now been depopulated to the east of Christchurch. Talk about some ambitious plans that were meant to be released months ago. I haven’t seen them, and I think there was a tremendous opportunity to utilise that land properly. It requires foresight, it requires ambition, and it requires things like a multi-international rowing arena that could really be used in the future and put Christchurch on the map. But, again, under this Government those projects are stalling.

So—

💬 Dr Duncan Webb: That’s rich coming from you.

Sorry?

💬 Dr Duncan Webb: That’s rich coming from you. What did National do for nine years for Christchurch?

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

That is Dr Duncan Webb, the member for Christchurch Central, whose electorate these projects I’m talking about are in. He should be standing up, speaking for Christchurch Central and Christchurch generally, but he’s one of those people who, in Opposition, or before he came into this place, was an absolute lion about a lack of progress. He’s been an absolute lamb since he’s been here in Parliament.

What you see is an economy that’s declining. You’ve got employers right around the country worried about the direction of this economy. You’ve got terms of trade that are never better. We should be exceeding the growth rates of most of our trading partners and we’re not. That is because this Government’s not attuned to what drives an economy. What drives an economy is business. Business needs confidence to operate. It needs certainty. It needs sensible policies, and it needs a Government that’s prepared to tax reasonably and spend reasonably. What you get with this Government is one that taxes hugely, spends hugely, and when those figures don’t add up, it’s now going to be intent on borrowing more and handing a bill to the next generation.

Kia ora. I apologise to the member; your time has expired.

Kia ora, Madam Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. Oh, moan, moan, moan—that’s what we heard from that side of the House. You’d think it’d be a pretty negative place to hang out, on the Opposition benches. Moan, moan, moan—I haven’t heard so much negative doom and gloom in an awful long time. Basically, David Carter spoke to a couple of people at Fieldays and he’s diagnosed all the issues of the country. Moan, moan, moan—that’s all that National was doing, moaning about roads, moaning about tax cuts. Moan, moan, moan.

Now, I’d like to start with something positive. I’d like to congratulate Paul Goldsmith for taking on the role as the shadow finance spokesperson for National. Now, if I was Paul Goldsmith, I’d be very happy that I gave that speech after I got the job, rather than before, because it was an incoherent, rambling exposition from the new finance spokesperson, who can’t even name an economist who he respects, apart from Bill English—who I don’t think was an economist. We heard a rambling, incoherent speech. I don’t think that should give the National Party much confidence. Maybe that’s why they’re so doom and gloom and depressed about everything in New Zealand.

What I heard that National member say was that he used the term a “Bog-standard Left Budget”, but then I just heard the last speaker, David Carter, say it was a “Nothing New Budget”. It was a type of Budget that National could have done. We had Paul Goldsmith say it was all about inefficient spending, when, actually, then National says, “It was the kind of things we would have done.” Now, it’s absolutely incoherent, because then National says that wellbeing’s nothing new, but then they’re criticising it. So what is it? Is it the worst Budget ever or is it nothing new? That’s why National was just focusing on the leak, because there’s actually nothing of substance to criticise in the Budget.

Actually, when you look at the economic indicators of New Zealand, it’s incredibly positive: incredibly low unemployment—4.2 percent; growing business confidence and optimism, the forecasts are looking positive—a forecast surplus of $6 billion. But, crucially—and this is what you won’t hear National MPs talk about is how the economy is reorienting to the future. Previously, it was built on massive migration, it was built on massive commodities, dairy intensification, and some sort of Beverly Hillbillies, Wild West fantasy of finding oil, which has never been found. We’ve seen a succession of oil companies leave New Zealand. What the Government is doing is reorienting towards the future. With the innovation in the R & D tax credit changes and with the investment in infrastructure, you are seeing growth in the productive sectors of the economy, not just trying to chase the lowest dollars when you’re trying to chase commodities.

Now, National, they don’t have a great economic track record to stand on. What we saw, actually, was a massive underspend in infrastructure, which this Government is having to catch up with; I’m thinking about our schools, our hospitals, our Public Service. We saw a National speech which focused on the desire and the wish for tax cuts. Now, what those tax cuts would have delivered was super profits for the Hiscos world and nothing for the people doing it hard in New Zealand. Under National, we saw growing homelessness, growing child poverty, and growing environmental degradation—the things this Government is turning around.

Now, why I think National is so incoherent and negative and focused on the petty politics of the leaks rather than the substance is because it’s incredibly popular. It’s exactly what the country needs, which has a focus on wellbeing. Now, this was something new. This is something which has received glowing international attention. The focus on wellbeing, rather than just gross domestic product, is a new concept. Treasury—all the spending contained in the imprest supply and Supplementary Estimates process for Budget 2019 actually went through Treasury’s processes, which asked how does it improve wellbeing. Previously, the Government would have asked how does it just improve GDP. This Government’s asking how does that improve wellbeing.

So that’s why you’re seeing the decisions contained in this legislation like the minimum wage—that’s up to $17.70. You see the indexation for benefits, which is going to make a real difference in the medium term to those families reliant on a benefit. You see the Families Package helping 384,000 Kiwis—more than 50,000 Kiwi kids lifted out of poverty. I see the member Jacqui Dean sneering—speaking under her breath. What I’m talking about is lifting 50,000 Kiwi kids out of poverty. Rather than just ignoring them, this Government’s acting and lifting them out of poverty as part of the Families Package and the tax changes.

Now, when you look at the actual substance of the Budget, the $1.9 billion extra in mental health is going to make a real difference for Kiwis. They’ve been doing it tough. They haven’t had access to the services because of the underfunding. This massive investment in the free front-line services and the massive investment in addiction services will help reduce the mental health challenges Kiwis face and will increase the country’s wellbeing.

As a Green, part of where I find my wellbeing is knowing that the environment which we love is protected and not being opened up for mining or drilling or fracking, knowing that threatened, endangered species are protected. That’s how I and many New Zealanders respect wellbeing.

Now, in this Budget you see an additional $180 million for the conservation estate. That’s on top of the single largest increase in the Department of Conservation’s history, which you saw in the last Budget. An additional $180 million is going to make a difference for the kakapo, the kiwi, the Māui dolphin, and the special places that we love. Economically, of course, this is the golden goose which so many tourists come from all around the world to experience, this beautiful natural environment of ours.

When you look at the sustainable land use package—this was something I was talking about this morning in Blenheim at the organic winegrowers conference. Here you’ve got the biggest organic conference in the country: 350 attendees from around New Zealand. What they heard was the good news that there’s an additional $229 million going into sustainable land use. When you look at their sector, organics in New Zealand in the last two years has grown 30 percent domestically to a $600 million industry. Organic exports are up 42 percent in the last two years. So we’ve got a massive growth opportunity in what’s a growing global market, and it’s that brand integrity, the credentials on sustainability—which our international customers are so discerning of and demanding at the moment—and the sense of a national story. That’s exactly what you see with the sustainable land use package, of which they were glowing.

Now, to get those products to market, you also need a modern, balanced transport network, and that’s why I was so rapt to see the billion dollars extra going into rail infrastructure in this Budget. Now, I will give the former Government credit. There was a little bit of money invested in KiwiRail, but not nearly enough to actually turn it around to make it economically self-sufficient. Yet at the same time, we saw, you know, the Hillside works closed down and some pretty retrograde policies. So this billion dollars extra for rail is going to help keep trucks off the road, which improves road safety, it reduces pollution, reduces congestion for people who have to be on the roads, but more importantly, it builds the national infrastructure transport backbone, which our exporters rely on. Coming from the East Coast, I was absolutely rapt to see the opening of the Napier to Wairoa rail line. I want to see it all the way up to Gisborne eventually, and there’s a feasibility study, thanks to the Provincial Growth Fund, looking into that area.

But we have to invest in infrastructure if we’re going to go forward as a country, and transport’s always going to be a mix between coastal shipping, rail, road, and air travel. What we did see under the previous Government, though, was a myopic focus on the seven roads of National Party significance. Here, National borrowed up big, with billions of dollars for just seven mostly urban motorway projects. What this Government is doing is finding a balanced, modern, smart approach.

When you look at the energy component of this Budget, of course there’s the winter energy payment, which is making a huge difference for Kiwi families, but, importantly, it’s also transitioning New Zealand into the future. Now, I don’t know if members are aware but National threw more than $200 million at one very wealthy industry, the oil and gas industry, as special financial treatments—$235 million over the preceding nine years. What this Government is doing is actually looking towards the future, because when you listen to, say, the former Saudi Arabian oil Minister, he says, “Well, the Stone Age didn’t end for want of stones; it ended because we found something better.” That’s exactly what’s happening with the global economy, where there’s more net international investment in clean energy than fossil fuels. In fact, what we see with the forecast is the price decline. I mean, just across my lifetime, the cost of solar panels has dropped 99 percent, and that’s going to keep going into the future.

So if National wants to keep being the cheerleaders for coal and fracking, go right ahead. The future, the markets, and the public all want to focus on clean energy, and that’s why the money for the clean energy R & D centre in Taranaki and the winter energy payments will help transition New Zealand towards the clean energy economy. When you couple that with the other work the Government’s doing, from the zero-carbon bill, the massive increase in public transport, walking, and cycling funds—the work to help grow a low-carbon economy. So across the Wellbeing Budget, you see this great focus on people and the environment and the economy going forward, which, of course, is built upon the people and the environment. So this is legislation I’m very proud to support on behalf of the Green Party. We have been very privileged to play a role with our focus on protecting people and the environment, and it’s a good day for New Zealand, despite all the moan, moan, moans from that side.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Despite the best efforts of the previous speaker, Gareth Hughes, where I come from, you can’t get the train to Wellington, you can’t get the plane to Wellington, you can’t bike to Wellington, you can’t walk there—well, you could if you walked better than me. But that’s one of the problems we have in rural New Zealand.

Anyway, I want to talk about a few things in respect of this bill, but the first issue I want to raise was a very interesting thing that happened to me last week when a young woman from Taihape, who came into this House for the first time with a group from Taihape, as I just said, asked me what made me think I could represent the Rangitīkei. Well, I nearly sat down, I suppose, but it was a very interesting question. I think every MP should ask themselves what makes them think they can represent the people they come here to represent, because it does take a bit of thinking about. So, having thought about that, I thought I would talk about the issues in this bill that actually impact on the electorate that I come here to represent.

Like David Carter, I think there’s some things in this bill and in this Budget that actually have quite a positive impact on my part of the world. Of course, the Rangitīkei has the three big defence bases in New Zealand in it. Well, I call them the three big ones—can’t worry about Auckland or Christchurch—in Ōhākea, Linton, and, of course, Waiōuru. The significant spend in defence and the increase in personnel that will follow that spend in defence I think is not only positive for the Rangitīkei, it’s positive for New Zealand. So I commend the Government on that, and I think it’s good to see faith in our defence forces. From our perspective, that’s a hugely positive thing. From my electorate’s perspective, it’s positive as well.

Of course, we, like every other electorate in New Zealand—every large rural electorate—have some special challenges with health, education, and things like that, and a lot of them relate to transport. It’s very difficult—and going back to the last speaker’s words on transport—for us to find other ways or alternative forms of transport when you’re as remote as places like Taumarunui. I was a bit intrigued by Minister Jones going on about his railways. If he gets the Taumarunui railway station up and operating like it did in the 1950s, he really will have achieved something. But I’m not sure how he’s going to do that, because, of course, Taumarunui on the main trunk line was a very famous railway station in its day. You always got a good pie there.

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: Will the pies be better?

They will be better now. The meat quality’s a lot better than it used to be. Of course, my electorate also runs on the sheep’s back, so to speak. But I wanted to get back to one or two other things that impact the Rangitīkei, and the tertiary sector is one of those, in that Massey University is part of the Rangitīkei electorate and the Universal College of Learning (UCOL) serves a large part of my electorate from Taumarunui—where Unitec comes in at the top end, as well—to Palmerston North, and, of course, it goes across to Whanganui and down into the Wairarapa. So I have a very large tertiary sector either related to my electorate or sitting in my electorate. The fees-free scheme, which was designed to boost that sector, didn’t really have the outcome it set out to achieve, and, of course, money has been returned to the Treasurer as a result of that. But the tertiary sector is none the less very important for me, and I’ll be watching with interest the changes to UCOL, which is, of course, the tertiary institute in Palmerston North. It will be significant and it will be very important for my electorate, the result of that, but it’s equally as important to those remote towns because they do provide services into those towns—hugely necessary.

So I wanted to now turn to the gun buy-back scheme and the $150 million - odd that’s allocated in this document for that purpose, and, of course, it’s a bit more than that now with the top-up from ACC. We supported the legislation around the gun legislation, with some reservations but certainly we supported it, and I think the legislation achieved what it set out to achieve. There’s some areas that, with hindsight, could have been done differently and perhaps better, but that’s all very well. The heat of the moment brings out some interesting decisions. But the reason I want to comment on the gun buy-back is because I think we have, in a way, undermined the work that was done by that bill, because I think the lack of confidence in it is going to be significant and I think it’s going to take some getting over. I just hope when they start to come in, which will be any day now, that it does work, because I’ve got my grave doubts about that.

The other thing that seriously challenges me about the gun buy-back scheme is that there’s no real provision for all those guns out there that are held by people with no licences or are held illegally. Now, just because someone’s got a licence doesn’t necessarily mean they were held illegally before this bill was put in place. Those people will not be able get anything for those guns. Are they going to hand them in? Who knows, but it certainly could well force those guns underground. So I think that, effectively, our gun buy-back scheme looks like it’s going to—I was going to say it’s going to penalise gun owners; it won’t penalise every gun owner but it will certainly penalise a number of gun owners unless some reasonable recompense is reached. It’s certainly not going to penalise all those people that hold illegal guns in the country, because if they don’t take advantage of the amnesty—well, if they take advantage of the amnesty, they don’t get any money for the gun, so are they going to do it? Probably not. I think it’s going to force a whole lot more guns underground and I think it’s very unfortunate.

I think it’s interesting, because the other thing that happens in rural New Zealand—and I saw the list of venues that they’re going to host these things at, and they’re quite well spread, so, I think, in that respect at least, they’ve got a spread that will enable rural New Zealanders to hand those guns in when required. But none the less, I’m hugely, I guess, disappointed in the way they’ve got to the point of pricing those guns and the way that they’ve encompassed the guns that aren’t necessarily legal in New Zealand.

I want to talk about a couple of other things. David Carter touched on one of those, and that’s the M. bovis situation. I think I’ve said before in this House that I go back to a time when I saw large numbers of cows going out the gate in the early days of the TB clean-up in New Zealand. It was much easier in those days because it cleaned up the TB—well, it hasn’t cleaned TB up yet entirely, but it’s done a great job, really. But there was a payout and the meat was valued, and it worked in that extent. There was never a compensation for milk or anything like that. The world’s different now, and so it’s a much more complex compensation system we’ve got to go through. But I want to congratulate the Government for carrying that on. Very difficult circumstances—I think they’ve done pretty well. It is difficult for those families and those people who are in that situation, particularly in the South Island. In the Rangitīkei, it’s not nearly such a serious problem but I do have great sympathy for those people caught up in that, and I think it’s an issue that the Government is managing about as well as they can.

I want to move on to, I guess, what I think is a very interesting issue. So I attended the national Fieldays on the first day of the Fieldays, and since then have had a number of meetings in the rural parts of my electorate. Last night, there was quite a large meeting run by the dairy section of Federated Farmers in Palmerston North, really about the climate change bill and the legislation around that—the methane situation. The speakers, I think, did a very good job, but I’ve never known in my time in rural New Zealand—particularly with prices like they are; as good as I’ve ever seen them—where there’s kind of like an air; it’s almost a sombre air, so an air of nervousness, and there’s no confidence in rural New Zealand to invest in anything. It’s an unusual circumstance, I think, we’re in, because there’s so much change up in the air, but none of it’s definitely been confirmed. I think farmers and rural towns are very nervous about where we’re getting to with the future, and I think the Government needs to make some positive decisions and make them pretty quickly. Whatever the decisions are, they need to be made, because I think the air of uncertainty is certainly going to drive our economy backwards and it’s certainly providing significant nervousness in rural New Zealand. So I’d urge the Government to move in that area.

I just wanted to talk very quickly about the tree situation in respect of that as well, because we’ve got a situation in rural New Zealand where trees are being planted about as quick as they can be bred, actually—in fact probably they’re not going to get bred quick enough to plant the trees that are wanting to be planted. I think that there’s some issues with that, and I know the Government’s aware of those issues, but I think the real problem for us is where there are going to be trees planted, and there will be large tracts of them planted that will never be harvested because they’ll never be economic to harvest. Now, some of those trees that are being planted will be economic and they’ll do a great job for New Zealand and they’ll be planted in the right places, but there are some problems with some of that and some inhibitions in the way they can be planted in the right areas. I think we need to seriously consider how that happens moving forward, and it’s urgent that we do it, too, because we could see some land use change that we don’t want to see, and in 25 years’ time the country will be paying the price for that, because carbon’s only—you know, basically, if the trees aren’t cut down, its use is going to expire and the trees will, effectively, rot away. That would be very unfortunate, and I don’t think they’ll revert very easily, because pine trees don’t have a great impact on the rest of our community.

So those are a few things I wanted to touch on. There’s other things going on in our community which I think are pretty positive, but there is that air of nervousness that I think the Government needs to move quickly to get over. I think that a lot of the issues that are included in the Supplementary Estimates papers are issues that are sort of unknown and are things that we need to get on top of quite quickly, so I urge the Government to get on with that. And that’s my words on the bill. Madam Speaker, thank you.

I understand this is a split call. Dr Deborah Russell, you have five minutes.

This is actually a highly technical bill. It is actually designed to ensure that we have ticked all the boxes and gotten all the words correct with allocating money for expenditure, partly for the past year but also for the future year. I think something that demonstrates just how technical this bill is comes from the Supplementary Estimates for Vote PCE, or Vote Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, where, if someone takes the time to actually read the document, they’ll see that $1,000 is allocated—an extra $1,000—and carefully recorded as a “1” in the correct column. I think what this demonstrates is the care and attention which our public servants bring to the jobs that they do to ensure that we actually get all the money right, that we record it properly, that we ensure that it has been properly endorsed by Parliament. So as I open with these few words, I would like to pay tribute to the public servants who have done all the work behind the numbers on this Budget in getting them all together. I think it’s very important that we acknowledge their work, because Government doesn’t happen just in this room. It doesn’t happen just in the Beehive. It also happens with the work from our public servants, and I commend them for what they do.

I wish to address some of the issues that have been raised by other speakers in this debate. In particular, I want to think about the strength of the economy. Again, we can see some of this by looking at some of the actual appropriations that are sitting in these documents that have been so well prepared for us by our public servants. In particular, I’m looking at extra appropriations for child support payments and decreased appropriations for the family tax credit. They actually point to increased strength in our labour markets, that people are getting more and better-paying jobs, because the appropriation for child support payments has changed due to stronger-than-forecast labour market growth. It means that if you’ve got an improved labour market, then their non-custodial parents are receiving more money, and, quite appropriately, more of that money is being passed on to their families.

So that actually demonstrates, through looking behind the numbers, the increased strength in our labour market. Again, sitting in this Budget, in these appropriations, with respect to the family tax credit, as people’s incomes go up from their employers, then the amount they receive in family tax credits does go down. So if the amount being received via family tax credits is going down, it does indicate increased wages, increased workforce, a stronger labour market. So those numbers indicate something very, very important about our economy, and digging into them, what we see there is a greatly strengthened labour market under this Government.

Turning to some of the issues raised by the previous speaker, I really want to address some of the issues raised by Mr Ian McKelvie, who has a great deal of affection for his electorate, as we all do for our electorates. But he also has a huge affection for rural New Zealand. As someone who came from rural New Zealand myself as a child, I retain a great deal of affection for it too, and I understand the worries that rural communities have about the increased numbers of trees and what that might do to rural communities. The question for the Opposition, however, is do they wish to interfere in sales between willing buyers and willing sellers? I think that needs to be addressed. Now, we do need to think about what is going on in those rural communities, but there are more ramifications than just a wall of trees.

Of course, those trees are going to be critically important because of climate change, and I think that is one of the critical issues that this Government’s Budget has started to address. Again in the Supplementary Estimates, we see more money being allocated to advice around climate change, to actually ensuring that we do start to take action with respect to climate change. That is an action that we all ought to be concerned with and that this Government is attempting to do in a fair and just manner—none of the outrageously rapid changes of the 1980s; instead, a fair and just transition so that our children may live in a carbon-neutral world. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I just want to start by commenting on a couple of the comments which were raised by the member who’s just sat down, Deborah Russell. She talked about these bills, the Appropriation (2018/19 Supplementary Estimates) Bill and the Imprest Supply (First for 2019/20) Bill, as ticking all the boxes and making sure we get all the things right. So let’s talk about some of those boxes and actually whether this is getting it right.

I’d like to start by talking about some of the broken promises that this Government is actually making. Firstly, there was a promise, I think, of no new taxes. Well, I don’t think they tick that box, because, from what I can see, there have been seven new taxes so far to date—seven new taxes. Twenty cents per litre more is what people are paying in petrol tax every time they fill up their car in Pakuranga—

Tim van de Molen: How much?

Twenty cents, Mr van de Molen, and just wait till the Waikato brings in their regional fuel tax. That’s something to keep an eye on. Well, let’s talk about doctors visits, promised $10-cheaper doctor visits for all—not in this Budget. Promised $20 million for access to life-saving medicines—I can’t find that box being ticked. Promised an annual health and eye check for seniors—well, I can’t see that in this Budget, either. The list goes on, and I haven’t even got to KiwiBuild.

If we’re going to talk about KiwiBuild, let’s talk about the massive broken promise and the failure to deliver for New Zealanders in terms of what they said—10,000 houses per year, then it was 1,000 in the first year, and how many did they actually deliver? Well, 130. That is a tick box which was not ticked.

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

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I would like to continue to speak to the Appropriation (2018/19 Supplementary Estimates) Bill and Imprest Supply (First for 2019/20) Bill, and, as I was saying, this is a Government which is failing to deliver on its promises to New Zealand. One of those promises, as I said, was that they promised there would be no new taxes, but there has been seven new taxes brought in by this Government: fuel taxes, regional fuel tax in Auckland, ring-fencing of losses, Amazon tax, GST on overseas goods and services, the brightline test, and the increased WorkSafe levies and cancelled tax relief. The list goes on, and I predict that this won’t be the end of this list of broken tax promises by this Government. There will be more taxes coming with this Government as it continues to try and find more ways to take money off hard-working New Zealanders and what they are trying to do—going about their lives, trying to make ends meet, but this Government will be continuing to try and find new ways to take money off them.

As I said, one of the biggest promises which has been broken by this Government has been the failure around KiwiBuild—an absolute failure, and now the Government won’t even mention its name. They won’t even mention the name of KiwiBuild because even they are embarrassed by it. But this party on this side of the House will continue to hold them accountable for the promises that they have made to New Zealanders.

Lastly, I’d like to talk about the fees-free reassignment in this imprest supply bill, where we see $49.5 million of underspend is being reallocated—$49.5 million of taxpayers’ money being reallocated. That says two things. One, this money is being reallocated because the fees-free policy has been a failure. It was designed to increase participation in our tertiary institutions but it has failed to increase the numbers. In fact, the numbers have gone backwards. There have been fewer students going to university, going to tertiary study, than were under previous years, and that is a failure on behalf of this Government. That money is being reassigned to the review of vocational education, and just last week we saw—

💬 Andrew Bayly: Another review.

Just another review—300 and something reviews now, Mr Andrew Bayly, and we are seeing the review of vocational education taking place, which will further threaten our tertiary institutions as it seeks to amalgamate our institutions into a monolithic beast, one institution across the country. What we will see is we will see fewer students, we’ll see fewer people going to our polytechs and studying those important skills and trades that we need in our economy, and that will continue to put pressure on hard-working New Zealanders, on our economy. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

It’s an absolute delight to rise this evening to speak in this second reading of the Appropriation (2018/19 Supplementary Estimates) Bill and the Imprest Supply (First for 2019/20) Bill. By passing these bills, we are starting to give effect to—it is very loud, and I apologise, but please turn it down—this Wellbeing Budget, this globally world-first Wellbeing Budget.

Before I turn to the substantive parts of my contribution this evening, I want to pay homage and applaud the leadership of the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern and our Minister of Finance, the Hon Grant Robertson, for delivering what New Zealanders have been seeking, and they have been seeking for the last nine years.

I’ll tell you what. Just yesterday it was, I was in Whakatāne, and I went for a little drive around with Housing New Zealand. Now, what those Housing New Zealand staff told me, they said that for the first time since the last Labour-led Government was in—for the first time—all around Whakatāne right now, we can see house upon house upon house going up, the first social housing that has been built in over nine years—

💬 Andrew Bayly: Shh!

—is being built right now, and we are excited. Mr Bayly, there is no reason to be quiet about what we are doing. You know why? Because for so long, under the previous Government, people had to yell, they had to shout to be heard, because they were not being heard.

Now, on this side of the House, after community hall after community hall after community hall, this side of the House has been tromping up and down the nationside, and what the people are saying to us is thank you to this Government. Thank you to this coalition Government, whether it be over in places like the Hawke’s Bay, where some of the members on that side of the House are—they all got to sit just last week in the first-ever trains from Napier to Wairoa. Those lines had been mothballed for 15 years. The people have been calling for those lines to be reopened, and this Government has turned its mind to and has invested $1 billion into the likes of KiwiRail, and that has been an exciting journey for our regions.

But this Wellbeing Budget—we all know across both sides of the House, and I don’t think that there’s any politics to be made of this, that there have been significant mental health challenges across the board. We know that there has been a significant underfunding, systemic for decade upon decade now. We had the mental health report come out, and there were a whole range of findings that that review that was undertaken came out with.

Now, what our Prime Minister said and what our Minister of Finance has agreed and what our Minister of Health, the Hon David Clark, and amongst our esteemed senior colleagues in the executive—what they did is they pooled together their heads and their resources, and they sat together and they said, “You know what? Right now, there is a call on this Government to deliver a plan to address the mental health challenges that our communities see.”, whether that be in the urban populations in the Aucklands, the Wellingtons, the Christchurch, or whether that be up in little towns like Ruatōria, Minginui, or Murupara. This Government put its heads together and made the most substantial investment into addressing the mental health challenges of this generation.

Now, I want to acknowledge that there is a whole multitude of ways that this Government is going about doing that, but the front-line services—

💬 Brett Hudson: Really? Raising taxes, mainly.

—that will be available, to that member’s family who just called from across the aisle, to our families, to every single family in this country—whether you wear a blue cap or a red cap, a black cap or a green cap. But right now, we know that mental health does not discriminate based on your class, your gender, your race. We know that there is a systemic and endemic issue that we are having to face as a nation, and that’s why I know that the Opposition might heckle here and there because they’re probably a little grieved that their side of the House never got around to making the substantial investments into this area that our communities have been calling for.

I want to pay homage as well to the hard-working women in the rural women’s support trust. They, to me, have been an absolute bastion in regions like mine up in the East Coast, but also my colleague Kieran McAnulty—he has a very strong group of women down there in Wairarapa. I look across the House to my colleague the Hon Stuart Nash down there in the Hawke’s Bay, my colleague in front of me, Mark Patterson from Lawrence. Look, I just want to acknowledge the women within our rural communities that have been an extremely loud voice calling for a fundamental investment in this area. We spend a lot of time with them—I mean, we all do over the course of time, but we just spent quite a bit of time with them over at Fieldays, and I made the point of making that address there, and I want to make it again. They have been absolutely incredible.

Now, the other significant thing—I mean, we’re doing a whole range of immeasurably wonderful things for our communities—is in the area of our schools. Our Prime Minister, when she came in—and I, like, I’m sure, many others in this House have, watched that maiden speech—we saw her undertaking her commitment to alleviate child poverty. It was a big part of her aspirations when she came into this House. One of the things that, I guess, I’ve been so impressed with, myself, with this Wellbeing Budget is the fact that eliminating child poverty has been one of the core drivers of what we’re trying to achieve here. There’s a whole range of ways that this Government has gone about doing that. I want to acknowledge the work of the Hon Tracey Martin alongside the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern in pulling together a package that delivers for our children.

But one of the things that, I guess, gets me, and has gotten me every single time that I go into any old school—yesterday, for example, I was in a little school in my hometown of Whakatāne, Allandale Primary School. The principal there, Drew Manning had invited me in to come and talk about Duffy school books. But he pulled me aside and he said, “Kiri, I just want you to understand the impact of the Government’s investment in terms of the school donations. I want you to understand what that’s going to mean for a school like ours, a decile 2 school like ours in a little town like Whakatāne, with a school roll of 344 students.” Our Government’s policy means that there will be an additional $51,000 in that school’s operational budget—

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: Wow, $51,000.

—if they choose to take it up. That’s exactly right—$51,000. Now, for a school like the size of Drew’s school, Allandale Primary, that is going to have a monumental impact.

I cast my eyes up to Tolaga Bay. A little school, 237 students; they come from throughout the region. Now, it might not seem like huge sums to some others but to this school—an almost additional $40,000 in that school’s operational budget to be able to deliver, at the discretion of the principal, for those kids.

I turn my mind to one of our larger high schools, just down the road from me. You know, the kids that go to Trident High School come from a whole range of backgrounds. It’s a decile 4 school, just over a thousand kids at that school. But that’s $158,000 through the school donation programme if that school chooses not to ask for donations from those parents. That will make an immeasurable difference. I know my colleague here, Jan Tinetti, was a principal at a decile 1 school, and I’m sure she’s made a number of contributions in this House to attest to the fact of how monumental that Government contribution will be to all of these smaller under - decile 7 schools throughout our regions. So I want to acknowledge, of course, the Hon Chris Hipkins whilst I’m on my feet.

I guess, just in conclusion, I want to acknowledge as well that we know that there have been some fundamental disparities in the way that the neo-liberal policies have impacted a range of people, but in particular our Māori communities throughout the country. This Budget delivers over half a billion dollars of targeted funding for Māori communities up and down this country. That’s no mean feat. I want to say with my hand over heart, how proud I am of this Wellbeing Budget, and I commend it to the House.

It’s a pleasure to speak on the Appropriation (2018/19 Supplementary Estimates) Bill and the Imprest Supply (First for 2019/20) Bill second reading. Really, what I want to start with saying is that this is really just the last example of a Government failing to deliver on many of its promises.

A previous speaker on our side—Mr Bayly, I think it was—referred to the fact that GDP and the New Zealand economy have dropped by about $3 billion in the last year—$3 billion. We were creating 10,000 jobs a month; we’re now losing 4,000 jobs a month. At the very same time, this House has been told this is a year of delivery of the Budget, but the amount of money appropriated for the job seeker benefit has gone up by $167 million. You see, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to work out what is going on here. The New Zealand economy is slowing. A lot of our sectors have lost a lot of confidence. While we have incredible terms of trade at the moment, it doesn’t appear to be flowing back to those businesses and those people that need to make decisions; many of them have been frightened off.

That being said, I do wish to congratulate the Government on the Mycoplasma bovis amount, which is in these accounts—the $250 million is supported across this House. While it got off to a shaky start, I know of constituents in my community who are grateful for the way in which the Government has responded and assisted. It has been difficult for them. Heart-wrenching. Mentally tormenting for them. But in many cases they’re through the worst, and I remain optimistic as a rurally based MP that we can beat this problem.

I also wish to congratulate the Government on the money that’s being spent on mental health. I think it’s a need that the community has seen, the country has seen, and I wish to give credit where credit’s due.

I also acknowledge the $150 million that is put in the gun buy-back scheme; and I give credit for that, the Hon Stuart Nash. I do ask the question, though, when, on top of that, the Minister and the Government starts adding $40 million from ACC to fund future cost, does that not cause a precedent to be set? People could argue, Minister and members of the Government, that a future Government could go after and spend ACC money on traffic measures, as an example, on the basis that it would save lives. So I do think the Government may have been more honest if it had simply said it needed to put $200 million into the gun buy-back scheme, than actually pinching $40 million - odd out of ACC.

A lot has been talked about of rail. The previous speaker, Kiritapu Allan, commented on the Napier to Wairoa railway line having a train on it for the first time, I think she just said. Well, maybe it’s her age, but I remember when a rail car went from Gisborne to Wellington. It was called the Endeavour, and it did have—and you’ll know this, Madam Speaker; it was well-used and it went out of fashion and was unviable. What’s actually been reopened is the Napier to Wairoa link of that railway line, principally for forestry—principally for forestry. The billion dollars on rail is a complete sop to New Zealand First. That’s what it’s about. It is part of the coalition agreement. When you gave a billion dollars to rail, and you give $40 million—[Interruption]—no, no, hear me out. When you give $40 million to Pharmac over four years and a billion dollars to rail, you ask average New Zealanders what they think of that—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Not me. Not me.

Sorry. We should ask average New Zealanders what they think of that—and I have, and many of them aren’t happy.

I also look at this appropriation bill, and I look at some of the extra money that is going into housing. It would be remiss of me not to remind this Parliament that so far this Government has delivered next to nothing in my home town of Hastings, where there is a chronic need for more Housing New Zealand houses. Now, in Napier, where they have a Labour member, there has been a whole lot built, but in Hastings there has been none—none so far; none. The Hon Stuart Nash has managed to get 100 and something, but in Hastings in the last year, we’ve actually lost houses. That’s the total number of Housing New Zealand houses in Hastings has gone down. So I look in this bill, and I look at what’s being proposed, and in my own city there is very little that I can say, “I proudly support this.”, other than the money that is going into mental health.

I now wish to come to the district health board (DHB) deficits. The DHB deficits—and everybody says there’s never enough money—well, this appropriation increases the support to fund deficits by $95 million, and that says that the deficits are likely to be $234 million. DHBs around New Zealand are swamped in a sea of red ink. I see it in my own electorate. In the last week I have had five people come to me to talk about delayed elective surgery; some people have been on the waiting list for years. When I look at these budgets and I see the amount of money that these deficits are going up to, in other words the increase of the $95 million in this Supplementary Estimates bill and the $569 million allocated in the Budget is hardly even enough to break even, to keep the lights on. The Minister estimated to the Health Committee on 12 June that he cannot expect financial viability from the DHBs. That is a pretty stark admission, when this extra money’s been put in there in the year of delivery that actually they’re going to get on top of this. I don’t believe they will. Three DHBs—Waikato, Counties Manukau, and Canterbury—still haven’t even filed their annual plans to be approved for the year. In my view, that’s because they are stressed and don’t understand how they’re going to fund everything.

The other thing I’d like to say is—and it was sort of alluded to in the Prime Minister’s speech on the day of delivery of the Budget—this sort of concept that you can somehow buy the economy growth. So, in other words, the Government can spend money through the Provincial Growth Fund—$3 billion has been allocated over three years—and other investments can be made in infrastructure, and somehow you can make the boat go faster and the economy improve. I think that is really the fundamental difference between both sides of this Parliament. This side strongly promotes individual growth, freedoms, business confidence and support, and exports. The side to my opposite, they really talk about how they can manage things, stimulate things, and use taxpayers’ money in a different way.

While the Hon Christopher Hipkins is in the room, I am going to talk about the polytech sector and education. It’s been referred to by a previous speaker, by Ian McKelvie, because I cannot stand in this House without mentioning some of the stress that’s going on in the Hawke’s Bay community because of the changes that have been made to the polytech sector—the loss of identity, the potential loss of reserves, the loss of land that was gifted to our community, and the loss of control. In a year of delivery, I want to know what is that delivery? The delivery, according to Minister Hipkins, is this: you get all the cot-case polytechs in New Zealand and you put all the really good ones together and somehow you’ll fix everything. All you do in a community like mine, Madam Speaker, and your own actually, which is connected—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Don’t bring me into it.

Sorry, Madam Speaker. The Tairāwhiti Polytechnic—no, it’s not yours, and I apologise again, Madam Speaker. You make it more difficult—you make it more difficult.

I have given some plaudits here for things that have been done well. But in this Budget, for me, and the things that are brought up in this Supplementary Estimates bill, I would score this Budget a three out of 10. For a year of delivery, I think this Government is spectacularly failing to deliver on its promises. I think the way in which the release of the Budget and how it was handled was so low key, following the fact that we had most of the Budget before it was released, is testament to the fact that the Government has lost some confidence in this space. In closing, I’m happy to take a call on this; I’m not happy about what I read in this appropriation.

I call Michael Wood. You have seven minutes.

It is always a very tough act—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: 8.52.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’ll make every second count.

It’s always a very tough act to follow on from the honourable member Lawrence Yule. He is the most dangerous man in this Parliament. You know you’re in real trouble if he offers you a glass of water, so I’d be looking out, Andrew Bayly, over there.

I’ve been listening very closely to this debate and I was a little confused when I came into the Chamber because as far as I was aware we are, in this debate, set to be debating the Appropriation (2018/19 Supplementary Estimates) Bill but I actually heard very little from Opposition speakers about the Supplementary Estimates. I recall my time in Opposition, and one of the things that a diligent Opposition does is to actually do its homework and work its way through the Supplementary Estimates and actually find the areas that might cause some political mischief for the Government. Actually it’s not just a political issue, it is actually a constitutional issue in terms of how this place operates. This Parliament appropriates money to fund the business of Government. The Supplementary Estimates, which we are here to debate, are the additional appropriations required to meet Government expenditure that were not appropriated in the year before. And so it is actually a fundamental duty of the members of this House, and in particular the Opposition, to actually do the work of going through the Supplementary Estimates and hold the Government to account and actually say something about them, actually say something about the over and underspends that are detailed in the Supplementary Estimates produced by Treasury, heard by the Finance and Expenditure Committee, and presented to this House. But that Opposition simply hasn’t put the work in and has had not a dicky-bird to actually say about those Supplementary Estimates.

As a member who does care about these things, I’m going to help them out by actually speaking about some of those Supplementary Estimates that they haven’t put the time into actually having a look at. One that I want to pick up on was, in fact, referenced by Mr Yule over the previous 10 minutes or so; it felt like longer. This relates to the fiscal situation of our district health boards (DHBs). Now, if Mr Yule had looked on page 15 of the Supplementary Estimates document produced by Treasury, he would have seen that, in fact, there has been an additional $95 million of equity funding put in to fund our district health boards. Of course, it begs the question, why is this? Why is it that the Government is having to put additional funding in to support our district health boards? What New Zealanders are aware of is that it’s because of nine years of neglect. Nine years in which our public services were run down by that previous Government. Nine years in which fundamental public services, such as our DHBs, weren’t given enough to do the basics on. That is what this Government is cleaning up. These Supplementary Estimates reveal we had to put an additional $95 million into those district health boards to ensure that they could keep the doors open and do the job that they have to do. On this side of the House, we’re proud of the fact that we are willing to make those investments, but we’re not happy about the fact that we have to do so through this process because of the neglect of that previous Government.

I might note that up until pretty recently, in general terms, the people who have been overseeing the governance of those district health boards have been appointees of the previous Government, so there’s no call to say that they haven’t been governed well. The simple fact is that those entities are underfunded, and this Government has a plan to deal with it.

I might note that as much as the Opposition might try and make a point out of this—and over this very week of the Budget debate we have had those members complaining about that additional investment needed into the health system to plug the deficit—at the same time, those members have been arguing for tax cuts; at the same time, those members have been arguing that debt should be paid down at a faster rate. So they want it all. They want taxes cut. They want lower debt. They want increased expenditure. It simply doesn’t add up. Those Opposition members have no fiscal credibility. The figures don’t add up. The evidence on the basis of this debate is that they don’t even engage in the most basic elements of the work that an Opposition should to understand what is going on in the Government finances and hold the Government to account. It’s just the same boring old line about tax cuts. That party can simply not get over the fact—they simply cannot get over the fact—that there is more to life and more to running a good Government than cutting taxes.

Carrying on in the Supplementary Estimates, I want to acknowledge the fact that in the Supplementary Estimates there is additional funding here by way of capital injections into the Defence Force, carrying through on the good work of our Minister of Defence, the Hon Ron Mark. He is, in fact, picking up on some of the work that was carried out under the previous Government, in terms of the defence white paper, making sure that our defence services have the equipment that they need to protect and preserve New Zealand’s interests, particularly in the Pacific and in the southern seas. I want to acknowledge that and put that on the table, some of those additional capital injections into defence that are in the Supplementary Estimates.

We’re also debating the imprest supply bill, an important piece of legislation that ensures that the business of Government goes on until the Budget process is complete. I’m very pleased that we’re able to support this bill, because what it does is make sure that some of the important initiatives that this Government funded through its Wellbeing Budget are able to get under way. I’m very proud of this Budget and I don’t think there is an area that I’m more proud of than the investment into mental health.

This is a Government that is finally taking mental health seriously. For too long our society, and, let’s face it, successive Governments, haven’t dealt adequately with this issue. I remember when the Minister of Health in the previous Government dismissed New Zealanders who came to this Parliament putting forward the people’s mental health inquiry as politically motivated and mischief-makers and basically turned them away at the door. This is a Government which has brought together people from the sector and said that we will prioritise the mental health of New Zealanders, because that is what a Government that is concerned with the wellbeing of its citizens does. This is a $1.9 billion package that comes through in the Budget that we are supporting through this piece of legislation in getting that investment under way. It will ensure that New Zealanders have access to community-level mental health services. It ensures the beginning of a $40 million investment into reducing suicide in our country. Isn’t it absolutely appalling that the single biggest cause of death of our young men under the age of 25 in this country is suicide? No member in this Chamber would believe that that is acceptable; no member of this Chamber would want to see that carry on as it is. This Government is doing something about it.

I am very proud of those investments. I’m proud of the investments in here, as well, that we are supporting through this legislation which are going to lift between 50,000 and 70,000 of our children out of poverty. No society that values the wellbeing of its people, that values the notion that our children should be able to achieve their very fullest potential and flourish in their lives could or would accept the level of child poverty that we have in this country. This Budget and the legislation that we are supporting has been shown to lift between 50,000 and 70,000 of our kids out of child poverty. The Children’s Commissioner, Andrew Becroft, last year told us that the single biggest thing that we could do to help our kids who were in poverty was to index benefit rates to wages. That is done in this Budget, and that will make an absolutely enormous difference.

This is also a Budget which invests in the public services that are so important to New Zealanders. I just want to touch briefly on health. Over each of the next two years, $850 million dollars of capital expenditure is going into health to make sure that we don’t have the shameful spectacle of sewage running down the walls of Middlemore Hospital again. That was preceded last year, in the 2017 Budget, by a $750 million capital investment. Under National the year before that, it was $100 million; the year before that, it was zip. This is a Government which is investing in the wellbeing of its people. Whether it’s pulling our kids out of poverty, whether it’s giving our people access to the mental health services that they need, whether it’s investing in the public health system for our people, that is what this Budget delivers.

This is a Government which is here for the many, not just the few. I’m immensely proud of this Budget and pleased to support these pieces of legislation in the House tonight. Thank you.