Budget Debate

Nothing in recent history has brought about such global disruption as the COVID-19 pandemic. Kiwis have sacrificed much through the restrictions of lockdown, but we can all be proud that the collective efforts of everyone have so far worked well.

Today is not just about the Budget but about the direction of New Zealand more generally, because the decisions we make now are generation-defining ones that will affect the next decade and beyond. This is about whether we have a society where people have jobs and growth, or are saddled with uncertainty, debt, and taxes. Tens of thousands of Kiwis have already lost their jobs and similarly large numbers of business people have had to close their doors for good. These New Zealanders have, through no fault of their own, paid a huge sacrifice because of COVID-19. You’ve lost your livelihoods and the nest eggs you’ve worked so hard to build up. National stands with you.

It’s important we take a moment to reflect on the last eight weeks. A lot of our response has gone incredibly well. New Zealanders have self-isolated and social-distanced, and sacrificed. We have flattened the curve. But just having a low number of COVID-19 cases isn’t success when we have tens of thousands of people out of work, and more coming. Figures from the Reserve Bank yesterday estimated that there will be 150,000 job losses over the next six months, and this Budget puts it at 160,000.

First, credit where credit is due: this Government’s speed at getting the wage subsidy scheme up and running reduced early economic calamity. Our lockdown, however, has proved excessively hard. As I’ve said, workers and businesses have watched in horror as week after week of lockdown has washed away the foundations of their businesses that they have spent years or decades building. One thousand people a day are joining the dole queue since lockdown began, and those numbers are increasing. That is 1,000 people a day who are losing their livelihoods, 1,000 people a day who face a very uncertain future, and 1,000 people a day who don’t know how they’re going to pay their bills.

Having gone hard and early on lockdown, we’ve gone soft and slow on the economy. While lockdown was justified, we should have opened up the economy sooner to get New Zealand working again. Having flattened the curve, we must not flatten the economy. We must unlock New Zealand and get New Zealand working again.

Today’s about the future, not the past. We need to lighten the lockdown to save jobs by getting cash to small businesses in need in the very short term. Even now, lockdown of a kind continues. Yes, at level 2 more workplaces can open, but there are many rules, and many workers and business people are still going backwards. I say, Prime Minister, get Kiwis back to work unless there’s an overwhelming reason not to. Put more trust in everyday New Zealanders.

We recognise we’re in the deepest economic recession in our lives. That involves us ensuring we don’t make the economic disaster worse than it needs to be. We must not spend more than we need to in poorly prioritised areas. After health and after education, we need only ask one question with our taxpayers’ money: does it save jobs and create growth? Big spending in the Budget should be focused on saving jobs, because we understand the suffering from a thousand people a day going on the dole queue and businesses shutting up in record numbers. It’s much easier to keep someone in a job than it is to later find them a job from the dole queue.

There’s much that’s good in this Budget: the business support, and the extension in a targeted way of the wage subsidy. But I note the priorities where $400 million is in tourism for 400,000 jobs, and yet rail is $1.2 billion for fewer than 4,000 jobs. I’m disappointed because I don’t see a plan for jobs and growth. I see pet projects, whether rail or pest eradication, and they may have worth, but, added up, they mean colossal debt and they don’t create sustainable jobs for workers from small to large businesses.

There’s an additional $140 billion in debt, taking us to $200 billion in debt in this country. I note Bill English, I think, didn’t really ever have over an extra $1 billion in a Budget in his time as Minister of Finance. That’s an extra $140 billion in debt, taking us to 54 percent debt to our gross domestic product, or what we earn as a country—54 percent—when private debt in this country, we know, is high. That is $80,000 a household—a second mortgage for New Zealanders that this Budget brings in—and $100 billion in deficits over four years, and we know that part of that $140 billion is a $50 billion COVID-19 response and recovery fund. Sadly, a $50 billion slush fund is not a plan for jobs and growth. Spending money is the easy part, but Grant Robertson doesn’t even today know how he will spend it all. It’s not a plan. Much isn’t allocated, leaving over $20 billion to spray prior to election 2020.

We run the risk of turning a deep economic recession from a $50 billion one to an over $140 billion one in debt. Through poorly prioritised spending, the Government risks making this economic disaster worse than it needed to be. We’ve seen it over this term with $3 billion on a provincial growth fund which has created more jobs in Wellington than it has in Wairoa, or hundreds of millions on fees-free, which has led to fewer students at our universities. That unavoidably means much more debt to everyday New Zealanders.

As I’ve said, at $140 billion, that’s $80,000 for every household around our country, and it all needs to be paid back. That, in turn, inevitably means far fewer choices, more taxes, and less money in Kiwis’ pockets. That is why we need discipline from the Government. Weeks ago, the Prime Minister said that we had stopped a wave of devastation, and thanks to the sacrifice of New Zealanders, we have flattened the curve. But, today, we see a tsunami of debt about to wash over us—the greatest burden of debt in our country’s history by a long way.

Last week, the Prime Minister wouldn’t rule out increasing income taxes or introducing new taxes. We know Labour is instinctively in favour of increasing taxes, and now they have their chance to do so for Kiwi businesses and everyday New Zealanders. Vote Labour and—you mark my words—this time next year, the kindness will be gone, and because of wasteful spending, you’ll get more taxes and less money in your pocket. Higher taxes are the last thing New Zealanders need right now, but they are a certainty under a Labour-led Government. What we need now is an economic recovery strategy that gets New Zealanders working again, rather than wayward spending, debt, and taxes. Every day that New Zealand isn’t working again, the debt and the taxes increase. Even now, at level 2, where more workplaces can open, too many restrictions remain. There are too many bureaucrats angsting over every aspect of our lives and, along with politicians, making calls on our behalf. You need to trust everyday New Zealanders, Prime Minister.

It’s relatively easy to go into lockdown. New Zealanders made the sacrifice. It’s much harder to lead an economy back into recovery, but the best thing you can do is make the way back as simple as possible. That takes an understanding of business and the private sector, and a clear economic plan for jobs and for growth. Unfortunately, we know this Government has a poor record of delivering. I worry about the Government’s ability to get us out of this crisis. I worry about their ability to come up with an economic plan and to execute it. Remember, this is the same Government that failed to deliver KiwiBuild, the same Government that failed to deliver light rail down Dominion Road, the same Government that has failed to build any new roads—in fact, has cancelled most of them. This year, it announced a lot, and in this Budget we see a lot of announcements, and it will continue to make those announcements, but nothing’s happening. It’s one thing to have a Labour Government in the good times, but not in a deep recession. We must not let mismanagement, missteps, and missed opportunities continue.

National has the team with the track record of managing New Zealand through times of economic crisis, whether the global financial crisis or earthquakes. We won’t keep on talking with working groups and committees and reports; we will trust everyday New Zealanders and competently, pragmatically implement our plan. We’ve got the competence and the track record to do what we say we will. National will deliver on its promises. It was National that invested in Kiwis getting ultra-fast broadband, which has made the past couple of months more bearable and productive. It was National that started and had a plan to continue the roads of national significance. It was National that built the Waterview Tunnel and gave the green light to the City Rail Link in Auckland. It was National that increased investment in R & D and science during its nine years to help accelerate innovation. I was deeply involved in all of those actions, as were so many of my colleagues here. New Zealanders want a Government that can deliver, and I would back National’s Paul Goldsmith over Grant Robertson, Judith Collins over Phil Twyford, Todd McClay over Kelvin Davis, Michael Woodhouse over David Clark, Louise Upston over Carmel Sepuloni, plus the rest of my team over any of Labour’s team any day of the week.

New Zealanders know that National will get the job done and get New Zealand working again. A National Budget would include a five-point plan back to progress for our country. First, lighten the lockdown: get Kiwis back to work unless there’s an overwhelming reason not to. Second, save jobs by getting cash to small businesses most in need. Last week, we announced that we would introduce an $8 billion GST cashback scheme for businesses. That would allow them to claim up to $100,000 GST refunds and up to $250,000 in low-interest loans. That would do much more—much more—than the Government’s less targeted and less generous loan scheme, or anything announced in the Budget today to save businesses and jobs in the private sector, where we know it’s small businesses through large businesses that actually are the engine room of growth and a plan for prosperity for our country. We also announced we would allow businesses to instantly deduct investments up to $150,000. That would incentivise investment, which would help to stimulate the economy as we recover from this crisis.

Third, we need a bit of common sense and pragmatism around the rules for the one- or two-metre world. It’s one thing to allow bars and cafes to reopen, but if the rules mean that you’d just lose money, what’s the point? Fourth—and I’m serious about this—we would unlock private sector investment, which is the key for growth and innovation. We won’t rely on Wellington committees to reinvent the economy; we’ll trust Kiwis to work out how to get back on their feet. We’ll keep taxes low. We won’t regulate firms to death or keep changing the rules; we’ll back them to succeed. And fifth, we’ll use the Government’s balance sheet to invest in large, high-quality infrastructure, and we’ll actually get it done, like National did with ultra-fast broadband and upgrading our skills, turbo-charging the innovation sector and improving the quality of public services such as health.

We need a Budget that backs New Zealanders. I urge the Government to implement our proposals. They will save businesses and jobs and inject the massive stimulus required into the economy. Instead, when New Zealanders look at today’s Budget, they’ll see some of the bleakest economic forecasts this country has seen in living memory, widespread unemployment, growing debt, a decade of deficits. It’s easy to get lost in all of the big numbers today—the four-year projections of spending, the extra billions in debt, the debt-to-GDP ratio. We forget that each of those numbers—all of the numbers, in fact—represent a bigger challenge: the burden we place on New Zealanders and the responsibility we have to them. We forget that a decade of deficits and debt means fewer choices for our kids down the road. The obligation we as parliamentarians have is to make sure the next generation is better off than we are, that they have more choices, more opportunities, more ability to succeed in the world because we back them, not burden them with debt.

I want my two-year-old daughter Jemima in a couple of decades to buy her first home without having to pay higher taxes. I want the young apprentice from Timaru who emailed me and who wants to set up his own business to do so without having to pay higher taxes and be crippled by that tax. I want all New Zealanders to have the future they want. That means a Government with a plan that doesn’t just accept that debt and deficits are our future. That means a Government with the vision and the determination to get New Zealand working again, and that means we need a plan for growth, we need a plan for saving jobs, and we need a plan for keeping debt low so future generations are not saddled with more debt.

We are yet to see a comprehensive plan from this Government. As I said before, it’s easy to spend the money, but there’s no plan here. We needed to see in this Budget, specific solutions to save businesses and jobs, the growth engine of our country, and a plan on how this Government will responsibly manage that very same economy. We need to put trust in Kiwis to unleash their creativity and their ingenuity. Let Kiwis unleash their potential and plans. Let’s back and trust everyday New Zealanders to succeed. Let’s unlock New Zealand and get New Zealand working again.

Business as usual in this place would dictate that today, Budget day, is the day that the Minister of Finance comes down to this House and delivers the Government’s plan for the next year ahead, and, in fact, the plan for the next three. Business as usual would then have the Opposition stand and give a speech opposing that Budget, including initiatives and funding that has the potential to get our economy growing as early as next year. Business as usual would have everyone in this House retrench into their old patterns that the public know so well but, if we’re all being honest, probably have very little time for. Today, I’m afraid, the Leader of the Opposition has assumed it’s business as usual, but nothing—and I mean nothing—about this time in our history is usual, and so neither should our response be.

We have been a Government that, with the support and efforts of New Zealanders, took us through an enormous health challenge, and we will take the same approach to the recovery of our economy. I see that Mr Bridges did not move a motion of no confidence in this Budget, and I take that as an assumption that the Opposition will vote for this Budget today. I hope so, because this is a period in our history that is a global crisis, and to see this Budget for what it is: a response to the rainy day we have planned for. Now is the time to come together as politicians to say that a rainy day demands of us that we shelter and protect New Zealand to weather the storm. Rather than argue about who gets to hold the umbrella, I hope the Opposition steps away from business as usual and does vote for a Budget that delivers jobs.

A mere six months ago, nobody would have imagined a world that is in the grips of a global COVID-19 pandemic, let alone one that would wreak havoc across health systems and the global economy. I still vividly remember at the beginning of the year reading about the first lockdowns overseas and thinking how remarkable it was to ask humans to stay in one place for such a long period of time; it just seemed unfathomable. And yet here we are, having shut our borders and moved into lockdown and collectively built a wall of defence to a virus that was closing in on the world. There are few things now that I think I will ever consider to be outside the bounds of possibility any more.

Perhaps that is the same perspective we now need as we start our recovery. We have to be focused. We have to be decisive. We have to go into this period knowing that it will be tough but that there is hope and there is possibility. In short, I give my commitment to New Zealanders that they will see us, this Government, apply the same unrelenting focus we have had on our health response to COVID-19 to our economic response, and that work has already started. From the very beginning, we have said that jobs were our focus, and they are. That is why in March we announced a wage subsidy scheme designed to keep people connected to work and to certainty and the dignity that comes with work. That programme has supported roughly 1.6 million New Zealanders to date and has meant that we have thus far avoided the spike in unemployment other countries have experienced while our country was in lockdown and our businesses were unable to open. It helped get many workers and businesses through the toughest weeks so that they now have the chance to reopen and move to recovery.

But we must keep going. The times ahead will be tough. Global predictions are dire. Unemployment will rise, and growth will slow dramatically. We know as a trading nation that will have an impact, and it will be significant and it will be painful. We have never sugar coated what the future will look like, but nor will we pretend that there is nothing we can do about it. Governments have choices, just as we did when we faced COVID-19, and those choices are between sitting back and hoping or sitting up and taking action. We have chosen to act.

Today, we start by extending the wage subsidy. Now, it won’t be the same as the first time round, as we look to make it more targeted. We know that there are businesses who are opening up again, but we also know that there are some who cannot just yet, while others will take more time to recover. It serves no one if in the meantime, while businesses are opening back up, they lay off staff unnecessarily. I know how important this is. I’ve received countless emails from people describing what a difference the wage subsidy has meant to them. In almost all of them, they talk about their staff being their family and how important retaining and looking after them has been. So today we are extending the wage subsidy for another eight weeks, with a focus on providing support to businesses who have been particularly affected by COVID-19. This will mean businesses and sectors like tourism and other small businesses across the country will be supported, and it will ease the recovery for thousands. Like the first round of the wage subsidy saved jobs, this targeted extension will save jobs too. That’s why it’s in such an important part of this jobs Budget. We believe it’s the best thing we can do at this phase of our recovery to help businesses who are getting back on their feet and to support their staff.

But our response must go beyond supporting those still in work. This isn’t enough. Too many people have already lost their jobs, and we need to support their path back to employment. For them, we must be swift, we must be practical, but we also owe it to ourselves to take this opportunity to solve the problems of both today and the problems of yesterday as we go. If I’d asked you before COVID-19 what it is we must address as a nation, what are our current challenges, I imagine that many people would write a very similar list. We have long faced a housing crisis. Our environment has been suffering. Inequality and child poverty have all been issues that we have had to tackle. In three years’ time, I want to look back and say that COVID-19 was not the point those issues got worse but the chance we had to make them better. We can emerge from this crisis stronger than we were before. That’s why we are focused on jobs, but also jobs that solve each of these entrenched problems.

So let’s look at how. We have had a skills deficit, and now, on top of that, we have more people who need the chance to train or retrain. That’s why this Budget will target vocational training and apprenticeships we need most and make them free. I don’t just mean school leavers; I mean everyone. It will mean more people training in building and construction, in agriculture, in manufacturing, community health, counselling, and care work. This will help those who have lost their jobs retrain and others to train on the job. While many have lost work, there are others who have labour shortages. Even through COVID-19, people have wanted to buy our high-quality food and fibre, and that’s why in this Budget we’ll be looking to partner and support 10,000 New Zealanders into the primary sector and the jobs that they need filled now. For our young people, those who so often carry the brunt of crises like this, we will fund 1,000 more places in trades academy; expand He Poutama Rangatahi to support young people into work in west and South Auckland, Hamilton, Porirua, and east Christchurch; and build group training schemes that support Māori apprenticeships. All in all, this is a $1.6 billion investment into New Zealand’s future and into rebuilding apprenticeships, into closing our skills gap.

That will be so important because of our next challenge: housing. Our response to COVID, on the face of it, had a very simple premise early on: stay home, save lives. But that simple, simple requirement forced us all as a country to ask a question: what if you don’t have a home? The answer was simple: we will find you one. Through hard work and huge collaboration between Government, local government, iwi, and the community sector, that is exactly what happened. In the midst of this crisis, we have housed the chronically homeless in New Zealand, and now we need to keep it that way. In this Budget, we are announcing an extra 8,000 houses, providing $5 billion of construction stimulus into the economy over the next four to five years for public housing and transitional housing. When combined with what we have already funded, this takes the number of housing places for those who need homes to 17,000 public houses and transitional housing. This represents the largest public housing building programme in recent decades, and I hope it means that COVID-19 will be remembered as a period where New Zealand didn’t just stay home; it made sure everyone had a home.

Since coming into Government, we have seen countless other examples of the under-investment in New Zealand’s infrastructure. We’ve already invested $12 billion into the New Zealand Upgrade Programme, and our $3 billion fund in this Budget will be squarely focused on projects that are ready to create jobs but also tackle issues like water infrastructure.

But perhaps there is no better example of a way this Budget can bring together the challenges of today and the challenges of yesterday than the jobs it will create in regional New Zealand to restore our environment. Whether it’s working with iwi on pest control to prevent the loss of North Island forests, working with farmers to tackle everything from wallaby to fencing waterways or stabilising riverbanks, or whether it’s working with council, local government, local businesses, and the Department of Conservation to employ thousands of people to restore wetlands, boost predator control, and improve tracks and huts, this is win-win. Wilding pine controls alone require on-foot labour, chainsaw operators, heavy machinery operators, and helicopters. It has a knock-on effect to accommodation, vehicles, repairs maintenance, and even food providers. In total, this Budget creates almost 11,000 jobs for our environment, for our regions, and for our people.

That brings me to the final challenge I wish to speak to today, and that is child poverty. We know this has the potential to get even worse than where we are now. While we moved quickly even before lockdown, providing increasing Government support to those out of work through benefit increases and through the winter energy payment, today again we focus on kids, with a major expansion of the food in schools programme. We already started this programme, and now we expand healthy lunches into schools so that for around 200,000 more children across the country, school lunches will be part of their everyday. Based on what we know, this will also create an estimated 2,000 jobs in local communities—jobs that can sometimes cater for the care requirements of sole parents, of mums and of dads who might have care responsibilities on their own. And equally important: it will mean in the tough days ahead we can guarantee our most vulnerable kids will get a filling, healthy lunch every school day.

I want to finish where I started: on our businesses, on our job creators, on our innovators, and on those who have carried such a huge burden over these last weeks and months. We know they have faced challenges too—challenges that do pre-date COVID. They include the cost of innovation, the need to constantly make productivity gains, and the challenge of growing beyond New Zealand, if you choose to make that leap. Many small businesses do need extra support to look beyond just the domestic borders of New Zealand—to look to export into Australia and beyond.

That’s why this Budget provides incentives and grants to encourage e-commerce, train more digital advisers, and provide information and support for small to medium sized enterprises wanting to incorporate e-commerce into their businesses. This is off the back of the significant work of the Small Business Council, which was made up of small-business owners, operators, and backers, who encouraged us to support small businesses to improve their productivity through these initiatives. It sees significant increase in support for entrepreneurs and businesses looking to invest in new products through research and development. This will help create jobs, and the jobs New Zealand needs.

It also puts $216 million into increasing the number of exporters who will be receiving intensive support from New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (NZTE). It will also increase digital services and tools offered by NZTE. We know at this time that it has been our primary production, our food producers, and our exporters who have been the backbone through the lockdown, and they will continue to be our backbone. We need to support more of them to grow their exports, to bring more into those exports, and to position themselves well in the wake of the recovery. NZTE are well placed to do that, and we will support them to expand the businesses that they give one-on-one support to. We will trade on our brand. It is a brand entrenched in quality, in trust, and in respect of the products that New Zealand trade. Our response to COVID-19 has only further reinforced our brand as a country that invests in its people, that supports the health of its people, and that puts quality first.

I said yesterday that this Budget would be about jobs, jobs, jobs. In total, it seeks to save as many as 140,000 of them over the next two years and to support the growth of 370,000 more jobs over four years. [Interruption] In case the Opposition missed that—370,000 more jobs over the next four years. This Budget sets out a clear plan to generate green jobs, rural jobs, jobs rebuilding crumbling infrastructure, and new training opportunities for those who need it. But even this is just stage one. You’ve heard today about some of our sector recovery funds. We must keep working alongside those industries who have been most gravely affected. Tourism has a package announced today. In coming days we will do the same for arts, for sports, and for large events—those who have been at the front line of COVID and its impacts.

But, just as the science informing our health response evolved, so too will the economic situation both globally and domestically. It is for that reason that the finance Minister has announced today the next suite of actions we are putting in place but has also held back funds to tackle the next phase of our rebuild. That is what will be required to make sure we can be agile—and as agile as we have been today. We know businesses crave certainty in order to plan how they will operate, and, while there is much we cannot predict in these uncertain times, what I can promise is that we know this is not the end of what we need to do. We will keep working with you. We will keep supporting workers and businesses.

You can see the strength of the Government in this Budget, and I do want to thank our coalition partner—our coalition partner, New Zealand First; our Deputy Prime Minister—for the partnership bringing this Budget together today. I’d also like to also thank our confidence and supply partner, the Greens, for their consistent advocacy to be bold in tackling the challenges of both today and tomorrow.

But, finally, I want to thank our Minister of Finance. Grant, thank you for your determination and for your compassion. Through this crisis you have acted to protect the jobs and livelihoods of millions of New Zealanders. Today, you deliver a Budget that will carry us through the crisis and get this economy moving and get us into growth as early as within a year, and that is a remarkable thing. So now we get on with it. We went hard and we went early to fight COVID-19, and that success has opened up economic opportunities. Now it’s time to make the most of the head start New Zealand has with this economic recovery. This Budget shows how we are positioning New Zealand for that right now. It shows that this is not the time for business as usual; it’s a time for a relentless focus on jobs, on training, and on education and the role they all can play to support our environment and our people. So let’s begin our recovery. Let’s rebuild, together.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. Acknowledgments to our Cabinet colleagues and party Ministers: Tracey Martin, Shane Jones, and Ron Mark, under-secretary Fletcher Tabuteau, and to our caucus colleagues. Thank you for your support, your hard work, and successes announced today. We stand here today in support of the coalition Government’s Budget. It’s a Budget that responds aggressively to our present conditions, it’s a Budget that will support our transition to recovery, and it’s a Budget that has our people, New Zealanders, front and centre.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a completely new situation in which the coalition has very few familiar guidelines to shape our response. We are in unchartered waters. In this novel situation, we look to history to help guide our thinking about the Government’s health and economic response and recovery strategies. US President Franklin Roosevelt’s response to the Great Depression is one lesson to draw from. He had no playbook for his response and nor do we. We’ve had to learn as we go, always with the health of our most vulnerable people foremost in our mind.

The first Labour Government, you’ll recall, in 1935, responded to the ravages of the Great Depression with compassion and practical wisdom. The fourth Labour Government, in contrast, responded through ideology and blind devotion to neoliberal economic theory. The former tradition helped the many survive a massive disruption and its success settled public policy, even National Party policy, for the next 50 years; in stark contrast, the revolutionary tradition adopted by Roger Douglas and Ruth Richardson favoured the few and left abandoned a lost generation of New Zealanders, cynically cast adrift as no longer economically viable.

This is a crisis where we need to park our ideology at the door. We can well recall at the beginning of the neoliberal experiment in 1984, its disciples saying “Farming is a sunset industry”.

💬 Hon Member: Oh yes, I remember that.

You remember that? “Farming is a sunset industry.” Well, today—

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: He was one of them.

Well, today—no, don’t tell me it was one of them, because I was in the National Party at the time where they were giving—that’s Mr Brownlee’s lot—the architect of that Budget, Roger Douglas, eight out of 10 for his Budget. They were meant to be in the Opposition; they were acting like a bunch of fifth columnists—unbelievable. I know you hate to remember it, but I remember it with telling concern that here we are in 2020 and they’ve learnt so little. You know, Mr Bridges, my advice in the first day of the COVID crisis level 2 is to get a haircut and get a real job.

Can I just say, “Farming is”—they said—”a sunset industry”. Well, let me ask you up there in the gallery, which industry is standing tall today? Which industry is standing tall today?

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: David Lange—over and over and over.

And for any seeking to defend with blind ideology, like Mr Brownlee, again, opens his mouth, lets the wind blow his tongue around. He uses these occasions to make a constant fool of himself. I want to tell the listeners in New Zealand today, that man shouting like a lunatic is Mr Brownlee from Christchurch—the woodwork teacher. For any seeking to defend—

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: Oh, there you go. Put the boot into the workers, as usual.

Here he goes again. Can you hear him? See noise, he thinks, is volume, and volume, he thinks, is substance. No, Mr Brownlee, I’ll give you the short lessons in life. Just close your mouth, open your ears, you just might learn something for the first time. For any seeking to defend blind economic theory there are countless other examples to destroy the validity of that belief. Desired ends and means need to match, and this coalition Government’s third Budget locates the coalition’s COVID-19 response closer to the first tradition, while it utterly rejects the second.

Did you hear Mr Bridges say, when he said that the Government is going to bring in new taxes? Mr Bridges, it’s 2009.

💬 Hon Members: Ha, ha!

No, no. It’s not ‘99. In ‘99 you were going out, but it’s 2009—Mr Bridges, it’s 2009, and Mr Key had promised no new taxes. Why are you laughing? I’m giving you a reminder of history, and it’s not so long ago; it’s only 11 years. So it’s 2009, he promises no new taxes, and then he put up GST.

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: He dropped income tax.

And dropped income tax for his mates—for his mates, unbelievable. You know, you can’t help some people, but you can keep on trying.

Can I just say, we have the ends and the means to match. We have our eyes wide open about the impact of this crisis. Every ounce of our collective effort is going to be required to fix it right here, right now, in the short term, the medium term, and the long term. Can I just say to the National Party over there—looking somewhat bewildered and saddened—that if they don’t listen, the numbers in that gallery are going to be the numbers who don’t come back to the National Party at the next election. Have a good look. Keep quiet and learn something.

Simply put, the people are our best resource to drive our economic recovery, and we, here, back New Zealanders. We owe New Zealanders nothing less. Their commitment to keep their vulnerable neighbours and families safe is one of the most outstanding community-wide efforts in our country’s history. And in recognition of this, we’ll be taking to our Cabinet colleagues a proposal to create a special COVID commemorative medal—a CCM for service to New Zealand communities. The medal will acknowledge the many New Zealanders who led their communities since the pandemic hit our shores. Front-line health staff such as doctors, nurses, as well as community leaders of all types will be eligible to be nominated for, say, 5,000 medals that will be for a lifetime. The honour would follow the current honours and awards process. Because we’re going through a historical moment in time, we should, as a society, celebrate the many contributions citizens have made to keep our team of 5 million safe. The COVID commemorative medal would be, as I said, for life, and we see it being passed on to heirs and successors long into the future—a permanent reminder of a time in our nation’s life when we drew upon the best of our national character to protect life.

Now, the Government knows that it must balance the immediate needs of our people with long-term needs to refashion a vibrant future economy. When this lockdown started, New Zealand First knew that the country faced a massive economic downturn. We also knew that the Government would need to intervene to keep business running and people employed. We might not always get everything perfect, but the coalition is willing to try anything and do everything to help business survive and save jobs by providing a cushion as the country transitions to a new equilibrium. This year’s Budget is about recovery, and the Government is certainly using its balance sheet to assist the post-lockdown economic phase of our response.

So while all the rules of fiscal prudence are now obsolete, the coalition is committed to maintaining our comparatively low debt position against those countries we compare ourselves with. And you can’t compare the same debt as the previous Government. We’re paying three times less in interest now than three, four, and five years ago, when this group over here, in response to the crisis of corruption and fraud at Wall Street called the global financial crisis, decided that they would go from a Government debt of $10 billion to $82 billion, and they have the effrontery, with those high interest rates at that time, to say that they could do better.

In fact, Mr Bridges today said that we had no experience in how to run a country. Really? I mean, Mr Bridges, what’s your business experience? Dare I say it, Mr Goldsmith, what’s your business experience? And, Mr Goldsmith, if, because of the latest polls, as an MP, your job is gone, I suggest you start looking hard at Epsom, because on the list you won’t make it. I suggest you get real—eyes wide open politically—

💬 David Seymour: Where’s that member’s seat?

—and ensure—what’s this member going to do? Go on to be, again, a responsible, permanent face of New Zealand politics. Where am I going to be? I know, but where are you going to be? Well, he’s going to be applying for one of those applications that we made possible today in the Budget! We even thought of him. We’ve got the application even going till October, when he’s had time to get his three months, and then find out what reality is all over again. Can I just say, I cannot believe somebody over there shouting, who’s been the leader of a party of one since 2011, getting all the parliamentary largesse as a party. Who does he lead? Himself. No wonder he’s confused—no wonder he’s confused—

💬 Hon Member: And he still won’t listen.

—and he still won’t listen. Amazing.

Can I just say that all the rules of physical prudence are now obsolete. The coalition’s committed to maintaining our comparatively low debt position against those countries that we compare ourselves with.

💬 Chris Bishop: Say that again louder!

I beg your pardon?

💬 Chris Bishop: Say that again!

Say again?

💬 Chris Bishop: Say the fiscal prudence thing again.

Well, can I say “Snapchat that”. That’s what the rest of the world says. You Snapchat that, sunshine, all right? We want to get there as quickly as possible, but this is a marathon; not a sprint. We’ll need all of us working together.

The Government initiated a wage subsidy scheme early on. The targeted extension of that, announced today, is an example of balancing urgent need with greater fiscal targeting. Today, we welcome the $4 billion business support package. A significant change in the tax system and low interest-free loans will support businesses to recover and help retain jobs. Even Maggie Thatcher learnt that if you can keep a business going, it costs you a whole lot less than trying to start one new one. New Zealand First understands the crucial role that business plays in creating the nation’s wealth, and today’s announcements, while they will help, are not the end of our support. Where the Government could, and we should, we’ve changed regulations and legislation to increase economic activity.

Most notable is fast-tracking the Resource Management Act consenting process to spur job creation. Congratulations to the Hon David Parker for doing quickly what they wouldn’t do for nine long years—nine long years of utter inertia. They were so desperate that they started blaming New Zealand First for not changing the—

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: That’s right.

—Resource Management Act. Who, Mr Brownlee, was in Government? You, with your other three parties—

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: Well, I hope the Greens are with the Government.

—or New Zealand First? He is so perverse this man that he thinks shouting in some stentorian idiocy substitutes for being an MP.

💬 Hon Anne Tolley: No, that’s your claim.

Oh, here comes the member from the East Coast. Tell me, what happened to the railway line between Wairoa and Gisborne that she is meant to be in charge of? [Interruption] I can’t hear you. What did she do? Hey, I’ve got it: doughnuts—doughnuts for all that time. She’s got these people on the backbench that think that shouting out somehow is going to save them. Gentlemen, I know the polls: it’s not. The latest polls that Mr Farrar gave you say that that bunch up there in number symbolically are all gone. Now, if you are concerned, give me a phone call, I’ll try to help.

Now, the Government could, as I say, change regulations; Mr Parker did. So you’ve heard us say, time and again, that if a job can be filled by a New Zealander—

💬 David Seymour: Ha, ha!

—then that job should be filled by a New Zealander. Oh, Mr Seymour laughs. He finds it a novel precept. He thinks it’s laughable. Here’s the guy from Epsom, Mr Seymour, who sees less every day and he’s shouting out here again. This is a guy from a party of one, these last nine years. That would make me modest if I was in his position, but not him. No, no, shouting out like a fool, and he’ll be opposed and he’ll be gone. National will take him out.

💬 David Seymour: Bye, bye, Winston.

You know, there will be a very large number of people—you know, as Muldoon used to say, “I’ll be around long after you’ve gone, son.” Ha, ha! I’m sorry but—

💬 SPEAKER: Muldoon said that to me, too.

Oh, did he say it to you, Mr Speaker?

💬 SPEAKER: He did.

All right, well he’s wrong there. But I’m right here.

There will be a very large number of people needing employment or redeployment, especially for many thousands employed in battered tourism and hospitality sectors. Budget 2020’s trades training package of over $1.4 billion will provide opportunities for New Zealanders of all ages to acquire new practical skills as they adapt—

💬 Hon Member: Who wrote this?

—to dramatically—I’m able to write my own speech; not like that nincompoop over there, I can write my own speech, always have, unlike him. Ha! He shouts out, “Who wrote this speech?” because apparently he doesn’t write his own.

Now, we’re talking about dramatically changed labour market conditions, and this Budget provides also $3 billion—$3 billion—to infrastructure projects across the country. That’s in addition to $12 billion from the New Zealand Upgrade Programme. Minister for Infrastructure and champion of the provinces, Shane Jones, will be leading the charge on implementation and delivery.

So, in short, we walk the talk; not the other way around—just talk. We walk the talk. We under-promise and we over-perform. When people ask us for help, we turn up with the money; we don’t say to Defence, “We’ll give you $20 billion” and don’t give them a cent. No, no, Mr Mark can talk about the billions that he’s got—4.5—since he’s been a Minister with respect to defence. Dramatically different to their opinion when they had the job.

You know, our focus is threefold: immediate job creation, income growth, and construction activity to be under way within coming months. Government support, however, is not unlimited, so we’re targeting assistance to those who need it most. It means striking a fair balance between social need and personal responsibility. All New Zealanders need to be productive, and if we—New Zealanders—can help in any way to fund our society, then we all should. We owe it to taxpayers, current and future, to do so.

It pays to remember that COVID-19 is a global crisis. But before the COVID-19 pandemic, the global economy was already in serious difficulty. Slow economic growth and massive accumulation of debt reinforced that fundamental factors behind the 2008-2009 global financial crisis and recession were never resolved; they were just plastered over. The global system had received a massive shock, and the chickens have come over to roost, and some of us have been saying it for a long, long time. We are the ones who are going to learn from the COVID-19 experience. Clearly some in this Parliament have no capacity to learn.

Can I just say that New Zealand may be tracking well but many, many countries are not. We anticipate the second order disruptions will kick in as the global economy struggles to adapt and while the risk of second wave COVID-19 outbreaks threatens to prevent an orderly return to economic wellbeing. Thus the notion of returning to business as usual fades by the day as global output collapses and unemployment soars. With that warning, we know our destination: a new normal for New Zealand’s recovering economy.

What does a new normal look like? Well, it means our team of five million will need to draw on each other’s strengths. We need greater autonomy for the New Zealand economy. This means having the ability to grow it and make it and use it rather than waste it and waste valuable offshore funds importing it. As we’ve said, over and over again, it’s time to put up the shutters to offshore ownership of the New Zealand economy, and to go back to owning as much as we possibly can. That would provide us with greater sovereignty over future choices. Overseas investment should be encouraged only where it expands our employment wealth creation and export capacity in a way that is clearly new and not just an offshore takeover of what we’re already doing. Overseas investment can be a good thing, but it must be balanced in terms of New Zealand’s economic needs.

There are lessons in the COVID-19 pandemic and worldwide economic collapse; only a fool would ignore them. The Budget’s a keystone milestone and key milestone in our response to COVID-19. We can liken this moment to something Winston Churchill said in 1942. He said, “Now … is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” Our battle with COVID-19 is momentarily paused, but we can still lose it if we don’t remain vigilant. Five million New Zealanders are winning the battle; now we ask them to fight again, a battle that is even harder—it’s for the country’s economic prosperity. If they show the same resolve that they have so far, we’ll win. Failure’s not an option. All of us New Zealanders need to know that not reaching our goals won’t be through a lack of ability but a lack of commitment. The coalition has the commitment to see it through but we need New Zealand’s help. After observing the country’s brilliant effort to keep the virus at bay, we know we’ll get that help. Our challenge, our quest, and our commitment can be summed up in three words—it’s J, B, and B: jobs, business, and balance. Together we will win.

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

[To the House, greetings. To you, my parliamentary colleagues throughout the House, happy New Year to you all.]

The day that New Zealand declared a national state of emergency and went into level 4 lockdown, there were 50 new cases—50 new cases on just that one day; 50 cases that took the total number of cases from 155 to 205. That’s a one-third increase in the total number of cases from just the day before. At that time, it seemed that we were on our way up an exponential J-curve of human misery, mortality, and mourning. And on that day, as we passed the motion to declare a national state of emergency, I said that everything that we do from now onwards we are doing to protect the people that we know and love and also those that we don’t. And over the past seven weeks, people in every home and every community and every business across New Zealand have done exactly that. There are, today, only a handful more active cases in total as there were new cases the day that we went into lockdown.

Over the past seven weeks, every one of us has protected and cared for every one of us. But none have done more than those we have come to know as our essential workers. These are the people who left their families every day and risked their own health every day so that the rest of us could be cared for and get everything we needed—like the ingredients of sourdough bread: our nurses and our pharmacists, doctors and midwives, paramedics and social workers, aged-care and community workers and caregivers more generally, our police officers, our customs officers, those who worked to get our homeless into emergency housing, our farmers and food producers, our delivery drivers, our supermarket staff and dairy owners—the people who, it turns out, are actually the ones that make our economy run.

These people have always been essential. And yet there are people in this House, members of this House, who still do not believe that these people deserve to be paid enough to live on. I have listened to the Leader of the Opposition thank our essential workers for carrying this country through the state of emergency—and they do deserve our thanks, of course. But they cannot eat thanks, Mr Bridges. They cannot heat their homes with thanks. They do deserve our thanks, but they need our support. And now that the worst of the health crisis does appear to be behind us, let’s make sure that these people have the lives and the livelihoods that they truly deserve. That is what this Budget is all about: livelihoods, jobs—jobs that see us through this crisis and that craft a future that works for everyone.

Actually, Mr Bridges said he’s got a five-point plan. Well, I’m going to do it in four. This Budget is about, first of all, keeping as many people in their jobs as possible. Second, where that’s not possible, it’s about getting people the training and the education that they need to get a new job as soon as possible. Third, it’s about supporting people who don’t have a job to be able to support themselves and make ends meet and provide for their families in the meantime. And fourth, it is about investing directly in the creation of new jobs—jobs that provide a good day’s pay, doing meaningful work, building an even better country than the one that went into lockdown just seven weeks ago.

One of the best ways to create meaningful, well-paid jobs quickly is by investing in nature. From today, our Government will invest $1.1 billion in green jobs, restoring our natural landscapes, our native bush, our wetlands, our coastlines, and our waterways. That’s about 11,000 jobs over the next four years of meaningful, well-paid work for people to access so that they can continue to provide for their families whilst we weather the economic storm of the pandemic crisis. This $1.1 billion investment will not only create jobs in our hardest hit regions, it will help to ensure that future generations now and in the future have healthier forests, rivers, and harbours. And it will help to soak up a fair amount of carbon dioxide too.

Our jobs for nature programme includes $433 million for restoring wetlands, rivers, and estuaries all around New Zealand and, in particular, our country’s largest harbour, the Kaipara. There is $200 million for a new jobs for nature fund, partnering the Department of Conservation with councils, tourism, businesses, communities, iwi and hapū all over the country; $147 million for pest control and eradication advancing the vision of a predator-free New Zealand and working with iwi to save North Island forests; $154 million for the Department of Conservation to work with the Queen Elizabeth the Second National Trust, regional councils, landholder groups, and farmers to roll out jobs that improve indigenous biodiversity on both public and private land—you see, I thought they’d like that one.

There is $100 million for wilding conifer control—also on both public and private land; $27 million to get on top of the wallaby population in the Bay of Plenty, in the Waikato, in Canterbury, and in Otago; $7 million to control pests and weeds in riverbeds and to eradicate aquatic weeds in Lakes Wakatipu and Wānaka. There is so much work to be done in this country making things better for everyone.

All Governments, ours included, should be judged on what they do to improve people’s quality of life in a sustained and a sustainable way. Now, since we came to power, we have been advancing towards that goal, laying the path towards a net zero-carbon economy, building thousands of new homes, and making education more accessible for more people. And then the pandemic arrived. Almost immediately, COVID-19 revealed one particularly troubling aspect of our economy: just how fragile it is. It showed that we have been operating on a very thin margin for many years. We squeezed everything out of global supply chains in the name of just-in-time efficiencies, and the pandemic has shown us just how vulnerable that system can be. But we also squeezed everything out of our people and the pandemic has shown just how vulnerable they are when a crisis strikes.

The vast inequalities of our economy may be easier to see now, but the truth is they existed long before COVID-19 came to New Zealand. So if we want to truly build back better this time, we have to deal with the underlying conditions of inequality and environmental degradation that our economy has for decades made worse. Then, and only then, can every part of the economy go to work to create prosperity that is more equitable, more resilient, and more restorative of the natural world that we depend on for our very survival.

Now, if we are going to bring forward billions of dollars of our children’s money and invest it in rebuilding our economy, then we have both a moral and an economic responsibility to put that money to work on the long-term challenges facing our country that our children would otherwise inherit and have to deal with and pay for themselves. Every dollar that we borrow from them to get through the pandemic crisis is a dollar that they cannot spend getting through another crisis—like the climate crisis or the housing crisis; like the crisis in our rivers and our lakes, our oceans and in our forests; like the failing water pipes under our towns and in our cities; like our ever-expanding landfills; or the need for more and cleaner power to get us through to a zero-carbon economy.

That is why the protagonists of our recovery story are not convention centres but people. Putting people into work restoring nature alongside the huge investment we are making to build 8,000 new public homes will direct money into the parts of the economy where most people earn their livelihoods. Whether it’s selling food in a cafe, running a local business providing services to the community, or providing after-school care, these are the parts of the economy that people depend on. They are the parts of the economy that are sustained when public investment is directed at getting people into work and earning money that they then spend in their local community.

The Green Party has always said that investing in nature is the best way to create good, well-paid jobs. Twelve years ago our predecessors in the Green Party campaigned for a “Green New Deal” in response to the great financial crisis. As an Opposition party at the time, of course, they weren’t in a position to implement it. Put simply, this Budget shows what it means to have Green voices in the Government—like the voice of Marama Davidson, who, when she took on the co-leadership of the Greens, also took up the leadership of our campaign to end child poverty. Well, today’s Budget scales up the food in schools programme, which, when we were in Opposition, we fought for, from 8,000 to 200,000 students, with $218 million of new investment.

Golriz Ghahraman has campaigned for the rights of migrants and the refugees who will find it easier to rebuild their families after Budget 2020’s injection of $33 million into the family reunification system; and Gareth Hughes has for a decade pushed to get people into work insulating homes, making them warmer and more affordable. Budget 2020 has put an additional $56 million into the Warmer Kiwi Homes initiative; and Jan Logie’s all-of-Government response to family and sexual violence has picked up an additional $202 million in today’s Budget. Chlöe Swarbrick’s work on behalf of students, particularly in recent weeks, has helped to secure a $20 million hardship fund to help students to weather the pandemic crisis.

Julie Anne Genter’s work with Phil Twyford has helped to deliver $1.6 billion in this Budget’s infrastructure upgrade for metropolitan rail in Auckland and Wellington, buses and cycling in Queenstown, Auckland’s new SkyPath, as well as extra help funding councils to expand footpaths and roll out temporary cycleways—and that, I have to say, is on top of the $1.1 billion for the intercity rail network and the Interislander that Budget 2020 also delivers. Kia ora, mātua.

And, of course, there’s Eugenie Sage. It’s due to her groundwork over the past 2½ years that today our Government is able to scale up our investment in nature as the most essential infrastructure and the best job creator in Aotearoa.

💬 Brett Hudson: Digging holes in the forest.

Why do you hate nature, Brett? This is a Budget that does what New Zealanders sent Green MPs here to do—improve wellbeing, provide support to those who need it the most, and restore our natural heritage. This is a Budget that understands that the true source of New Zealand’s wealth and prosperity are its natural and its human capital. It is a great start, and it is just a start. The sheer scale of this stimulus that’s required to get us through the recovery means that we have an opportunity now to embrace the potential of good science and good Government to support a clean-tech, high-value economy that works for everyone.

As we plan the next phase of our economic recovery, we have a choice. We can choose to direct this stimulus towards a more circular, regenerative economy, an economy that is not degenerative by design but that is regenerative by design. If we do this, ours can be a future where people have everything that they need to lead fulfilling and meaningful and prosperous lives, where simple everyday tasks like making the morning coffee, or travelling to and from work, or warming our homes are powered by clean renewable energy; a future where, instead of heading for landfill, the leftovers from one production process, be they food scraps or scrap metal, become the source materials for the next, and where the water coming out of our taps is safe to drink and never runs dry, and the roofs over our heads are safe and warm—above all, a future that is more equitable, more prosperous, more innovative, and all within planetary limits. What we need in the long term, then, is not a recovery but a renewal—a renewal of our relationship with the natural world and with each other.

This pandemic has opened a window on to something new, something better. We can see it’s out there, but the question is whether we have the courage to step outside, to find the space that we need to reimagine the economic house of cards that we’ve built for ourselves. There is so much good work to be done making things better for everyone. Of course, we can choose to stay inside and be burdened with the knowledge that the people who keep us well and make our economy run will continue to be underpaid, that our precious wild spaces will continue to be decimated, and our atmosphere polluted, or we can step outside and reimagine our world anew. This Budget is the introductory chapter to a longer-term vision for a more prosperous, more equitable, and greener New Zealand. Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Many countries have faced the challenge of rebuilding from destruction. There are two basic strategies that they have tried to take. One is the path down which this Government is going. It’s trying to plan an economy from the Beehive, and I have no doubt that the MPs on the Government benches are sincere. They really do believe they can get New Zealanders back to work by borrowing, spending, and investing money better than the people who earned it. The other path is an outward-looking recovery led by private sector job growth, and the record of history is crystal clear. Countries that look inward for jobs and growth find neither. Those that replace the private plans of five million individual New Zealanders with their own blunt plan funnelled through the bureaucracy of Wellington make us poorer, not richer.

This Budget, unfortunately, throws so much money at so many problems that we end up with debt that couldn’t have been imagined by any party in this Parliament, even just a few months ago. There’s $5 billion for “KiwiBuild 2”, I’ll call it; Kāinga Ora, I think, is what the Government prefers. You’d think they might have learnt the first time. There’s a $4.6 billion blowout on trains and ferries; that’s Winston Peters’ bauble this year. Now, if you thought that his speech and his rhetoric was old-fashioned, look at the things he’s wasting taxpayers’ money on. The guy doesn’t even know which century he’s in. There’s a billion dollars for some Kiwis to go bush—I call it the “Barry Crump Fund”. So you’re going to have some people planting pine trees, you’re going to have other people pulling down wilding pines, and some other people shooting a wallaby infestation caused by the Government’s ban on semi-automatic firearms. And the only question is whether or not there’s going to be more or less pine trees by the time the exercise is over. My bet is on the wallabies.

There’s a $400 million tourism fund, and the press release, I would estimate, is a million dollars a letter, because there is so little detail, the Minister of Tourism hasn’t a clue. He was asked on the Epidemic Response Committee what tourism was, and—I’m not making this up—he said, “Tourism is hard to define.” No wonder he doesn’t know how to spend $400 million dollars on tourism, but that’s this Government’s plan.

There’s over $200 million to reinforce the message that it’s not a parent’s job to send their kids to school with their own lunch. And the sadness of that is that those kids are going to learn over a long period, the hard way, that there is no such thing as a free lunch, because they’re going to grow up in a New Zealand with triple the public debt—$140 billion, over $70,000 per household borrowed by the Government in their name in this Budget.

The other problem is what’s not in the Budget. I couldn’t believe it. I thought, we’ve got an idea in ACT’s alternative budget that’s so obvious the Government will steal it. Let’s put front and centre investing in public health and having the world’s smartest borders. It should be so obvious. We are an island nation dependent on trade, on export education, on tourism, that’s just been cut off from the rest of the world. We’re a country that had to go into the bluntest lockdown, the bluntest public health approach imaginable that has flattened the economy and the livelihoods of so many New Zealanders. Why? Because we didn’t have the public health technology to fight a virus like Taiwan did. We didn’t have the ability to see what was coming and track and trace a virus like Taiwan did, and we weren’t able to achieve only six deaths with no lockdown. That’s the gold standard. That’s what ACT’s alternative budget calls for. That’s what the private sector needs to get going again and create jobs, and I couldn’t see it in this Government’s Budget. That is an enormous fail.

Treasury is forecasting that there’ll be no COVID-19 restrictions by next April; by April Fools’ Day next year, we’ll have no more restrictions. Well, that’s a heroic forecast and borderline fraudulent when the Government hasn’t made it a priority to control COVID without restrictions.

The other thing that is missing, because there’s so much money thrown at so many problems in such an unguided and wasteful way, is tax cuts. There’s two ways to do stimulus: there’s take and borrow money and throw it at every problem the Government can imagine, or stop taking so much of people’s money in the first place, and the ACT Party’s alternative budget would give a year of GST down at 10 percent, putting $6 billion back in the hands of the businesses and the people that earned it. The ACT Party’s tax cut, which would be permanent, would be $3 billion of reduction in income tax with a broad middle income tax cut, dropping the 30 percent rate to 17.5 percent. That budget would allow the Government to spend only an extra $40 billion. It would have saved the next generation, and the current generation, of New Zealanders $100 billion of borrowing that this Government is about to undertake, and how? The other thing that’s missing from this Budget is any kind of analysis or focus on improving the quality of spending already there. So on the one hand, the Government says, “These are extraordinary times.” That’s their approach to expenditure. Then they say, “It’s business as usual.” That’s the approach to existing expenditure. So we have extraordinary new expenditure, business as usual normal expenditure, and a Budget blowout, and $140 billion—70 grand per household—in extra debt.

Then we have the question of why it’s so hard to get stuff done. The Government has recently discovered what the private sector knew about the Resource Management Act all along. It makes it damn difficult to get things done. And the Government’s solution is to exempt its own projects from the Resource Management Act, leaving the burden on everyone else. Well, the ACT Party says that’s the wrong way round. We should be replacing the Resource Management Act with the better urban planning initiative from the Productivity Commission so that everybody can build more easily to get this economy going.

There’s always been more capital overseas than in New Zealand, and nobody can create jobs—not even the Government—without capital. The Government’s approach of becoming even more xenophobic about foreign direct investment is one of the most damaging initiatives in this Budget. The ACT Party’s alternative budget would lift the restrictions on foreign direct investment for investors originating in friendly, democratic, OECD countries. That’s the kind of initiative that we need in order to get our economy moving.

I’ve nearly run out of time in this speech when there’s so much more to say, and that’s a shame because people need to see how stark the difference is. On the one hand, you’ve got the Government of KiwiBuild that wants to rebuild our whole economy with your money. On the other hand, we have freedom, free markets, and a job-rich, private sector - led recovery that New Zealanders deserve. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

I move, That this debate be now adjourned.

The question is that the motion be agreed to. Those of that opinion will say Aye; of the contrary opinion will say No. The Ayes have it.

💬 Hon Members: Party vote.

A party vote is called for.

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: No, I think you misheard.

No, no, wait, wait, wait. I apparently misheard Mr Woodhouse when he called for a party vote.

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: A hearty bloke, I said!

Do you want one or not?

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: No.

No? All right. OK.

Motion agreed to.

Debate interrupted.