Imprest Supply (Second for 2020/21) Bill

I move, That the Appropriation (2020/21 Estimates) Bill be now read a third time and the Imprest Supply (Second for 2020/21) Bill be now read a second time.

The third reading of the Appropriation (2020/21 Estimates) Bill is the final stage in Parliament for passing the 2020 wellbeing Budget, by appropriating the various appropriations set out in the schedules to the bill and in the 2020-21 Estimates. I will have more to say about the 2020 wellbeing Budget in a minute.

The Imprest Supply (Second for 2020/21) Bill provides interim parliamentary authority for expenditure decisions made or to be made by the Government through to April 2021 that are additional to the amounts in the 2020-21 Estimates. In normal circumstances, the second imprest supply bill for a financial year provides for any operating or capital spending decisions, such as against the between-Budget contingency or pre-commitments against future Budget allowances. It also provides for fiscally neutral adjustments that increase the amount of one appropriation but decrease the amount of another, but because of COVID-19, this is a larger than normal amount. Any increases in demand-driven appropriations are also included, drawdowns into appropriations from contingencies that were set aside in the Budget fiscal forecasts, and any risks that may materialise—for example, matters covered in the “Risks to the Fiscal Forecasts” chapter of the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update.

In this extraordinary year, the second imprest supply bill also needs to provide for expenditure in 2020-21 from the COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund that was included in the Budget 2020 fiscal forecasts but not in the detailed appropriations in the Estimates, and it also includes a larger than usual contingency buffer to account for the economic circumstances and potential for significant changes in policy that have appropriation impacts when, even if fiscally neutral, they would require imprest supply authority. I can assure the House that all expenditure incurred under the interim authority of this imprest supply bill will need to be appropriated by Parliament, as it always is, before the end, in this case, of the 2020-21 financial year. This will be done in the Appropriation (2020/21 Supplementary Estimates) Bill, to be introduced on Budget day 2021.

I want to start my contribution reflecting on this year’s Budget, by thanking all members of select committees who have been a part of the Budget process. It is an intensive process, and it’s one that committees completed this year with alacrity, and the debate that we had in the House as we went through the committee stage of the bill, I thought, was a good example of the new approach to the committee stage working well, with Ministers answering questions as they were raised by members and exploring some matters of detail that perhaps had not been able to be done in the various select committee processes. So I thank all members of the House for that.

This was an extraordinary Budget delivered in extraordinary times. When we put together the beginning stages of Budget 2020, it was in the pre-COVID era. We were very conscious of the fact that, while the New Zealand economy continued to do well, we had seen slow-downs across the rest of the world. We prepared a Budget that was for its time. It was one that was going to keep up our investment in core services and expand our work in a number of priority areas that the Government had laid out in the Budget Policy Statement.

I am very proud that, even in the extraordinary circumstances, we continued that work of funding the core services of Government. That includes the largest ever increase in health spending that New Zealand has ever seen, and in particular for our district health boards, seeing them around about $980 million a year better off as a result of the investment in this Budget. What used to be called the standstill figure for Budgets, the amount that was needed to make sure that we kept up with inflation and population growth, has been significantly exceeded in the investment in this Budget, making it the largest ever investment that we have seen, along with continued investment in education, in transport, in health, in housing, and in all of the areas that are the core of the Government’s job. That investment continued.

I have heard, over recent weeks, people saying that investment in core services is optional. It’s not.

💬 Hon Paul Goldsmith: Who said that?

It’s the very thing that got us—Mr Goldsmith did indeed say that. That is the very thing that got this country in trouble and what we had to rescue it from when we came into Government—long-term underfunding of core services—and the proposal that Mr Goldsmith has would strip out around $80 billion from Budgets over the next decade. That is the operations that take place in our hospital; that is the pay for our teachers; those are the services that are delivered through our Ministry of Social Development and other agencies—all at risk from an austerity plan from the other side of the House.

But what obviously occurred here was a Budget that then had to be delivered in the shadow of COVID-19. I am proud of a Budget that took the efforts of previous Governments to save for a rainy day and put the umbrella up to support our people. We had got debt down to under 20 percent of GDP. We were in a strong position, with a strong balance sheet, to be able to borrow and still, at the end of that borrowing, have a level of debt lower than almost all advanced economies around the world. That is the strong fiscal position that we had put ourselves in, and this Government inherited net core Crown debt at 21.7 percent of GDP, and we brought it down to under 20 percent. So now we borrow to put up the umbrella to protect and support New Zealanders.

It is that borrowing that has enabled us to do the wage subsidy scheme, to help keep those 1.7 million New Zealanders attached to their employer, to make sure that there are jobs there for them when they go back. It’s what’s enabled us to support small businesses through the Small Business Cashflow (Loan) Scheme—over 100,000 businesses now being supported through that scheme. That is what it means to look after our people. This is a one-in-100-year economic shock, and it required a proportional response. We will work with New Zealanders to grow our economy, to be able to reduce down that level of debt, but for now the responsible thing to do, the thing to look after New Zealanders with, is to put that umbrella up and protect them.

What the Budget does is outline the actions we will take to grow the economy sustainably and to support New Zealanders to recover and rebuild. We do that, firstly, by investing in our people—a record $1.6 billion investment in skills: free apprenticeships; free trades training in critical areas, ranging from community and mental health right through to construction and infrastructure, the biggest boost we have seen for apprenticeships. We’ve seen the numbers already, where the number of apprenticeships in June has dropped to just slightly below the level last year. That is an extraordinary achievement when we compare it to the global financial crisis, when we saw apprenticeships lose their roles significantly. We are supporting businesses to keep their apprentices on and supporting more trainees.

The Budget is full of opportunities for job creation and job growth, through infrastructure, through the building of 8,000 new public houses, through our support for the Jobs for Nature programme. All of these things are about making sure more New Zealanders are in work, and the Budget will see, over the forecast period, around 300,000 jobs created. Then there is our support for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). As I said, the Small Business Cashflow (Loan) Scheme and the wage subsidy extension have all been part of making sure that SMEs get through, and the proof is in the pudding. We have seen from Xero just last week, and as I said in question time today, that the New Zealand small and medium enterprise sector has bounced back far quicker than those in Australia and in the UK. We know there are still tough times ahead for our SMEs, but they know that we have backed them through this crisis, and we will continue to back them as they recover and rebuild.

But this Budget is not just about the immediate response and recovery from COVID19; it’s about futureproofing our economy. It’s about making sure we truly invest in sustainable energy systems and making sure that we invest in all of our populations being able to be part of digital transformation, of further support for research and development, the things that will add higher-wage jobs to our economy. Those issues that New Zealanders had around productivity and not being able to produce those higher jobs are still there, and it’s the investment in skills and in infrastructure and in R & D that will get us through.

Finally, the Budget continues to make sure New Zealand looks out to the world. Our exporters have done us proud during COVID-19. We have been able to lift exports in some areas—in horticulture. We’ve kept up in dairy and meat and wine. We are continuing to export to the world, and we have provided further support for that—over $200 million to New Zealand Trade and Enterprise—and we’ve launched our free-trade negotiations with the UK.

I am immensely proud of this Budget. This has been a difficult time for New Zealand and New Zealanders, but this Budget is part of our commitment as a Government to ensure that we support New Zealanders’ lives and livelihoods. The best economic response to COVID-19 was a strong health response. We now build on that to give New Zealanders confidence into the future.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity to talk in this grave time for the country in terms of its economy and what we’re dealing with under the issues that are put forward in this Budget. We all know that COVID-19 is wreaking havoc with not just economies but people’s lives all around the world. Anybody tuning in to this debate will be fully aware, looking at their TV screens and reading the news around the world, of the impact that this is having in the US, in the UK, in Europe, and in Australia, and our good friends in Victoria are really struggling at the moment.

So we’re very conscious that this is a time for extraordinary measures, and that’s why National has been broadly supportive of the very significant increase in Government spending outlined in this Budget and the need to go further into debt. There’s no question about that, and I don’t for a moment acknowledge or respect the Minister of Finance for talking about some people calling for austerity measures. That is a falsehood and is completely wrong. Nobody in this country, right here, right now, is saying, “Oh, we should not be spending anything and we should be going back to austerity.” Nobody is saying that, and for the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister to keep repeating it is outrageous and wrong and inaccurate and sneaky, and it is trying to avoid focus on what they are now not doing, which is actually providing a coherent plan to get us back on track and to get people back into work. The Prime Minister is so arrogant about the state of her support that she thinks she doesn’t need to come up with any policies in this Government, and then she is quite happy to come up with complete falsehoods on the way that National is talking about trying to get this country back into a reasonable position on debt.

So I want to talk about three things in relation to this Budget. I want to talk about jobs, I want to talk about taxes and debt, and I want to talk about infrastructure, and they’re all critical parts of this Budget. On jobs, there’s no question that New Zealanders are losing their jobs right now. Tens of thousands of New Zealanders have lost their jobs because of the lockdown and the following economic disruption. We’ve got about 452,000 New Zealanders currently in receipt of the wage subsidy, and that’s ending in the next few weeks. There is a big question about how many of those people will, in fact, lose their jobs. This will have an enormous impact on them, their families, and their ability to look after their families, and it will have a real impact on their broader, extended family over a period of time.

So the critical question is: where do we get the new jobs to replace the ones that are being lost? How do we get people back into work? The story that we’ve had from this Government—the primary response that they have got—is that the Government will borrow lots of money and will go out and buy jobs. So there’s going to be $1.1 billion spent on paying people to go out and hunt possums and to plant flax bushes and to build pools in provincial towns and to do various other bits and pieces, and that’s all very useful and it’s good. At a critical time like this, Government spending can create a few jobs—temporary jobs. But we all know that it is actually the tens of thousands of business owners in this country—businesses large and small—actually choosing to expand their business and hire somebody and advance that creates sustainable jobs.

The big difference between Governments is the spenders versus the enablers. We in the National Party are focused on enabling that private sector growth to create genuine jobs to employ New Zealanders, like we did in the last two years of the National Government, where this country was generating 10,000 new jobs a month, and if we can return to that level of progress, we’ll be making great gains. So that’s why I’m disappointed not to see in this Budget things like what National’s been talking about, which is allowing people who have been made redundant and they’re having a big pay-out and they’re getting taxed on that pay-out—why don’t we, as National is proposing, allow that tax payment to be used as a tax credit for them in setting up a new business, throw in a bit of KiwiSaver savings and enable those people to get started in a new entrepreneurial scheme and create opportunities, and if they want to hire an extra person, we’ll give them a $10,000 JobStart payment as well, to encourage them to take on an extra person. That’s how you enable and create opportunities for the private sector to invest.

Then, the recipe for success in private sector hasn’t changed. It’s about keeping taxes low, it’s about pushing back the tide of regulation, and, throughout this difficult, difficult economic time, this Government has carried on and said, “Nothing’s changed.” It just keeps on piling on new costs for businesses—every day, every week, new costs to business. Last week, it was higher waste levies; a couple of weeks before, it was higher road-user charges; and right on 1 April, when businesses were absolutely locked down and had zero revenue, they still put up the minimum wage. They have no concept of the difficulty that businesses experience in trying to stay in business, and they keep on adding those costs. So not adding taxes, not adding regulations, being consistent about the rules, and allowing investment to flow both domestically and offshore are the key to getting private sector investment.

The second question is around tax and debt. We had the Minister of Finance banging on, as he always does, about the National Party having this horrendous goal of trying to get New Zealand’s debt level—having a plan to get its debt level—under control over the next decade or so. Well, how terrible is that? What a terrible thing—the idea that a party in this Government might be so responsible that they might think that it makes sense to have a plan to get debt under control. Every day, every speech that Mr Robertson starts off with is about how New Zealand’s in a great position to spend, spend, spend during this crisis because we came into it with low levels of debt. Well, why did we come into it with low levels of debt? Only because previous Governments have been disciplined with their spending and had got on top of the debt. The previous National Government had to borrow $50 billion to get through the global financial crisis and the Canterbury earthquakes. We did that because we wanted to support New Zealanders. Then we continued to be disciplined with our spending and got on top of it, and we can do it again.

This Government’s only experience prior to COVID was to come in, inherit massive surpluses of many billions and billions of dollars, and what did they do? Within two years, they had squandered all those surpluses so that the Budget that we are talking about today, prior to COVID happening, was projected to be in deficit. So they inherited massive surpluses and, within two years, they were already projecting a deficit before we had the COVID situation. Now, after COVID, we’ve massively increased spending and massively increased the debt, and my worry is, and the worry of many New Zealanders, when they look around and they see all the spending from Shane Jones and all the different projects that are being lined up and all the Ministers trooping up in their high-vis for the latest shovel-ready announcement—we support getting those jobs in, but they’re delaying them an extra few weeks so that they can sort of line up the Prime Minister’s photographers and get the media all organised and get the hard hat on and get it all properly stage-managed.

All those announcements, and people are wondering, “Well, hang on a moment, how’s this going to work?” Is it the case that they’ll spend whatever it takes to put off the economic pain to 20 September, and then, on 20 September, if they’re successful, the smiles will drop and New Zealanders will be presented with the invoice? The invoice is higher taxes, and the Greens, at least, are honest about it, because they love higher taxes. They love taxes—“tax is love”, according to the Greens—and they want more of it. They can’t get enough of it, and so they want to have a wealth tax and they want to have higher-income taxes. They desperately wanted a capital gains tax and they missed out on that, but they want more tax.

Labour have been very cute. They’re hiding. They’re keeping their heads down. The Prime Minister doesn’t want to talk about new policies but just wants to sort of keep her head down and cruise to victory. Well, that’s not going to happen, because New Zealanders want to know what the tax policy is from this Government. They want to know how much they’re going to have to pay, because New Zealanders are struggling to get through the week and pay their bills, and they don’t want to be paying more tax to a Government that can’t control its spending. I’m sure there’s no question that Labour will come out and say, “Oh well, we’ll only tax higher-income earners.” Well, I can give you this prediction: a Government that can’t control its spending will eventually come after you—not just the higher-income earners but everybody—because if you can’t control your spending, you need more and more and more and more.

The third area, around infrastructure—well, we’ve heard all about it today in the light-rail down Dominion Road not happening. Big announcements but very little actually happening on infrastructure, whereas the National Party is determined to unlock the potential of this country by connecting, for example, the 2.5 million New Zealanders between Whangārei, Hamilton, and Tauranga in a visionary scheme to connect that region to become one of the most dynamic and exciting areas of Australasia, and unlocking the potential of that great Waikato region, connecting it properly with the great city of Auckland and the ports of Tauranga, and opening up that northern Auckland—

Order! I’m sorry, but the member’s time has expired.

It is a pleasure for me to take a call in this debate. Budget 2020 is a Budget unlike any other that we have seen in recent years. We all know that it was set against the backdrop of the greatest health and economic global crisis of our time and the fact that we were able to deliver this Budget in a level 2 world is a testament to the team of 5 million who sacrificed to get us into the position where we are today.

We said at the outset that the best economic response to COVID-19 was a strong health response. Our strategy was to go hard and to go early, and, in doing this, we now find ourselves in a position that very few countries are in. Our children are back at school, we are able to have mass gatherings, we have crowds at our sports games, we have people at concerts watching live music and live theatre, but, most importantly, we have COVID contained at the border, and this has put us in a very strong position to bounce back. This Budget is the first step in our recovery, and our first priority is jobs, jobs, and more jobs.

I would like to take a moment of this speech to acknowledge the work of the Hon Grant Robertson for putting together this Budget. This was a Budget where he had to rip up the work that Governments start doing in the previous calendar year to put together a Budget to deliver in May. Clearly, that had to be thrown out the window as we entered into a period of history like no other that we had seen together. He did work tirelessly through that period of lockdown to ensure that, as a Government, we were in a position to deliver a Budget for New Zealanders that would take us on the road to recovery. It would be a Budget that could help us begin that very important task of rebuilding. The fact that this Budget was titled Rebuilding Together talks about the kind of thinking that lay behind the work that he put together to get us on that road to recovery. So I think it is important that we acknowledge that work, because it is a Budget that outlines our Government’s plans to create new jobs, to build roads and houses, to develop our hospitals, and to protect and enhance our environment. This is about us investing in infrastructure.

We are also, in this Budget, helping people to get the skills they need for the jobs that we need to rebuild New Zealand through free trades training and apprenticeships. We are investing in our people through this Budget. We are investing in our future through this Budget. We extended the hugely successful wage subsidy in a targeted way and made interest-free loans available to small businesses. We ensured the support was there for our businesses. This is how we get on with the plan to rebuild our economy together. As the Minister of Housing, I was incredibly proud of the Budget that we presented, to be part of a Government that is committed to delivering an extra 8,000 new public and transitional homes through Budget 2020, and this, of course, will be part of a programme of work to stimulate the residential construction sector, create jobs, and reduce housing shortages. As a Government, we are committed to a range of measures to ensure we do not see what happened to the residential construction centre post the global financial crisis—that being the collapse of the building of affordable housing. We are committed to working with our residential construction sector to make sure they have a secure pipeline of work, they can continue to build, and, importantly, from our perspective, they continue to build affordable homes.

Through Budget 2020, we funded a total of $670 million in Income Related Rent Subsidy, which means not only have we made a commitment to the number of homes that will be built as public and transitional houses but there will be families who have access to the subsidies required to move into those homes. Too often we have seen the announcement of houses saying “X number of houses are going to be built” without the appropriate appropriations for that Income Related Rent Subsidy, and I was proud that we put all of that into Budget 2020, because this will bring the total number of public and transitional builds in the pipeline or completed by this Government to 18,350 homes, and that is something we can be proud of. That is more houses than any Government has built in a generation. It is something that we stand with pride and talk about. I am proud of that record of delivery on public houses. We are building them; we are not selling them. We see that as the job of our Government.

We also provided, through Budget 2020, a $56 million boost to Warmer Kiwi Homes, our Government’s insulation and heating programme. We’re increasing the grant proportion available to low-income households from 67 percent to 90 percent of the costs to deliver an estimated 9,000 additional retrofits of homes. Insulation and heating helps to prevent respiratory illness, and the Warmer Kiwi Homes programme protects the most vulnerable people in our communities. We are a Government that started three years ago with a commitment to warmer, drier homes for New Zealanders, and that is what we have delivered.

I also recently announced the work that we will start on the business case for investigating pumped hydro storage options for New Zealand. This is a critical issue that a Government needs to show leadership of. This is the critical issue of dry-year storage and how we overcome it as we move on the pathway to 100 percent renewable electricity. If this business case stacks up, pumped hydro will be a game-changer for securing sustainable, cheaper, low-emissions electricity for the long term for our future. This could be and would be a truly transformational project. It would be a significant step to delivering on that 100 percent renewable electricity generation target.

As the research, science, and innovation Minister, this Budget also provided much needed support to our Crown research institutes. Critical scientific capability was an integral part of our response to COVID-19 and New Zealand’s economic recovery. I am proud, as a Government in the tough times, we didn’t do what we all too often see, and that is people look to the research budget and slash it. We invested in our science. We invested in our innovation to the tune of around $400 million through Budget 2020.One of the many things that we have learnt in recent months is the importance of clear and coherent science communications in a world of disinformation. We have seen the very best of our scientific capability on display. I want to pay tribute to those scientists in New Zealand who have stood with us and explained things to us throughout this year, and we are proud to be backing those scientists. This funding will also assist in attracting and retaining world-class talent in high priority areas such as sustainable forestry science, health research, resilience to natural physical hazards, and primary sector innovation for sustainable productivity.

We could not take it for granted the fortunate position we find ourselves in today. Many countries are still dealing with the immediate effects of COVID-19 on their communities. Budget 2020 is an important first step. Now we have an incredible opportunity to recover from COVID-19, and we are firmly focused on the opportunities in front of us. I am grateful that we have a leadership in our Government that chose to put the umbrella up when the tough times came, as the Minister of Finance explains it. Although the Opposition spokesperson on finance took umbrage at the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister calling out his call to return to deep, deep within 30 percent of GDP within a decade, as saying that austerity wasn’t on the table under the thinking from the Opposition, that was the language we heard very clearly from the speech he delivered. As the Minister of Finance has described it, $80 billion less borrowing means some of the harshest public service cuts we will have seen in decades. We are a Government that are proud that we have invested in our future, and Budget 2020 does that because we are backing New Zealand.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to start by a fake news alert from the other side, quoting outrageous figures. I’m proud of the fact that I’m part of a party that believes in fiscal responsibility, believes in setting debt targets, so that we can actually make sure as a country that we get back on track. Everybody knows in New Zealand the number of crises that our country has faced in the last decade. We need to ensure that the books are in a strong enough position to withstand the next crisis. So this side of the House is very clear about the fact that fiscal responsibility is critical, that the ability to spend money is only at the willingness of the taxpayer to accept the Government of the day can spend it better than they can, and that if debt is taken on there is a clear plan to get that debt back under control. That’s what households do. That’s why New Zealanders trust National with the economy, because we understand that, if you borrow money, you need to have a plan to pay it back. So I absolutely and totally refute the fake news, the disturbing fake news that we’ve seen repeated by the Government benches today.

I want to start my Budget appropriation speech by just providing a bit of context in terms of looking at where we were as a country earlier this year, because I think it is important, and we recognise the significant impact of COVID, but we must not shy away from what the state of play was before COVID. So let’s just have a look at some of that. So the jobseeker benefit, which most would understand as “the dole”—we had 30,000 additional New Zealanders on the jobseeker benefit since this Government came into office. Emergency housing grants: now this is a really interesting one, because this is from a Government who said that every dollar—when they were in Opposition—on emergency housing grants was a waste of money and they would fix it with their comprehensive housing plan. Well, guess what? Guess what? In the quarter before COVID, there was $79 million in emergency housing grants—three times as many as when they came in; four times as much money being spent on emergency housing grants; over 18,000 people on the social housing register. That’s more than three times the number two years earlier. And do you know what’s worse, in terms of housing? This is a Government who said, in Opposition, that they would fix the housing crisis—they would fix it; they had a comprehensive housing plan—over 200 days someone is waiting if they’re on the social housing register.

Now, the other thing that the person before me claimed was the Government’s record on their amazing State house build programme: 3,000. Guess what? Fifteen hundred of those, half of them, were planned, started, consented under National. So thanks, National—thanks, National.

💬 Kiritapu Allan: Sold down the State houses.

Oh, selling State houses. Great, because Labour said they would not sell State houses. Let me look at the number: 146 State houses sold under Labour. “Oh, but we’re stopping the sell-off of State houses”—$30 million brought in—$30 million. So, when National sells a State house and puts three in its place, that’s not allowed. Oh, but when they do it, it’s completely acceptable!

This is the party that was solving every element with their comprehensive housing plan! So what have we got? We’ve got what? Three hundred and eighty KiwiBuild houses, and we’re expecting what? Sixteen thousand—16,000 were promised. So KiwiBuild’s gone. Emergency housing grants were meant to be gone, but actually we’re now spending more than ever before. And this is before COVID—I’m talking before COVID. So it’s quite interesting that that side of the House likes to paint their own kind of picture of what they’ve done, but what we’re seeing is a very common thread. I think New Zealand needs to really pay attention to this, because what they are going to do, what they are trying to do, is blame everything on COVID. Well, I’ve just given you a bunch of examples of how things, particularly in the social policy space, were going backwards chronically under this Government.

Here’s another one: child poverty. So the Prime Minister herself took on the responsibility of child poverty reduction. She promised to reduce it by 20,000—reduce the number of children living in poverty by 20,000 by 2021. Do you know what? We have 11,000 more children living in material hardship, which is the worst type, pre-COVID—pre-COVID. So any time that side of the House talks about COVID having an impact on everything, I would just encourage New Zealanders to look back at their record before the health crisis hit, because as a country we were not in good shape pre-COVID. I accept now the economic and unemployment crisis is absolutely dire: 212,000 people currently on unemployment benefits. Oh, that’s right. The Minister of Finance pretends that those getting the COVID payment, the 20,000 of them, aren’t unemployed. No, no, no. I’m not allowed to call them “on the unemployment benefit” even though they’re out of work and—guess what—they’re getting a benefit.

So the challenge for the Government, my challenge to them, is to face facts. Don’t bury your head in the sand when you’re talking about the size of the economic crisis and when talking about jobs. We hear them talking about jobs—where are they? Where are the jobs? Jobs aren’t in an announcement. Jobs aren’t when you announce something. In terms of the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF), let’s look at the record of that. Are we at 1,400 jobs? Ten thousand were promised. Oh, but no, Shane Jones has been ringing around his mates to try and make sure there’s a few more jobs created out of the PGF. Created and employed and existing are not the same thing.

So, when this side of the House talks about creating jobs, let’s look at some of the jobs that were created through infrastructure projects, for example. The Cambridge section of the Waikato Expressway: 300 jobs; 30 of those were people on benefit who weren’t in jobs prior. So that’s what National means. When we talk about the ability through infrastructure, through a strong economic plan to create jobs, we know we can deliver. If I look at the people in my electorate who are in work because of initiatives we put in place, they struggled through the global financial crisis, but 10,000 jobs a month were created. They were real jobs, real jobs for real people, and I really worry—I really worry—about the next couple of months, particularly when we see the wage subsidy lift. I accept it was a great initiative and great to see money out the door, but there are now 452,000 people on the wage subsidy. Their banks won’t lend them money, because they say anybody supported by the wage subsidy is in a vulnerable job.

So what’s going to happen when that ends? They’ll go on to the COVID payment, many of them. Oh, but that’s not unemployment benefit. Yeah right! They’ve lost their job, and for every person who loses their job, that’s a family unable to provide for themselves. That’s why, unashamedly, this side of the House focuses on the absolute critical importance of real jobs, because real people, in real need, need the ability to earn an income. That’s why, in terms of our plan, it’s a strong economic plan, it’s based on fact, it’s based on reality, and it’s based on our ability to deliver for New Zealanders.

I want to finish on this, because, unfortunately, the Government has completely misunderstood what social investment is. Social investment is actually being able to change the lives of the most vulnerable New Zealanders. Unfortunately, we’re going to see a growing number. This side of the House doesn’t believe that purely throwing money at things solves people’s difficulties. We must completely rework the way that we deliver services to those who need us most so we can change the lives of New Zealand’s most vulnerable. That is why I don’t support this Budget and I love this National Party.

The Minister of Finance has opened up this opportunity for us to talk a wee bit about why debt has grown on the Crown balance sheet, the nature of the challenges that our economy faces, and the contrasting approaches being deployed by this side of the House, and what may come from other political parties.

First, I want to say that the member who’s just resumed her seat, Louise Upston, is identifying the fact that too many people have been in receipt of the wage subsidy, without dwelling on the fact that, of all of the options before any Government, this is the one that we were advised to take with great vigour. So why did the Government decide to use this approach and rack up $13 billion to $14 billion worth of debt? Because to have done anything else would have been to imperil not only the community and societal institutions but to have totally wrecked the economy. The team of 5 million followed the lead of the Prime Minister, moved into a type of social cocooning, parts of the economy were enabled to continue—called “essential services”—but there was absolutely no credible alternative other than to keep people connected with their place of work, to give them a sense of hope, confidence, and reassurance irrespective of how deep the fangs of COVID would bite.

This was a Government that was willing to move from the historical Calvinistic approach to fiscal management into pouring money into the economy. Yes, a lot of it has gone into short-term consumption; that’s because many New Zealanders do not have surplus savings to live weeks on end without regular income. I think why that is important is that, once we leave this House at the end of this week and go out and speak to Kiwis, they’re going to want to know, “Yes, but what exactly are you going to do?” How precisely are you going to replenish confidence in the economy or, indeed—because the economy is just people. The economy is not quadratic equations; it’s consumers, it’s investors, it’s NGOs, it’s firms, it’s institutions.

Now, I’d like to talk about what the Minister of Finance has opened up in terms of the opportunities. Successive Governments have talked a big game about productivity. I think it’s fair to say none of us, as parliamentarians—those of us who stretch back a few years—have seen the growth of productivity outcomes that we’ve always hoped to achieve. In the last 12 years, it’s taken off a bit at the moment, but historically we relied on migrant labour and large volumes of it, whether it came through international education or genuine visa applications, to plug the gaps in industries where they were either unwilling to train a suitably large number of Kiwis or they were unable to invest in more capital-intensive technologies and tools of the trade. The days of unfettered access to those pools of international labour are over. Whilst there may be 300,000 people in our country holding visas of some description, and it is important that they continue to enjoy a level of confidence, as has been the case with the extension, and it is important that we encourage and enable them to move around Aotearoa freely so they can take up roles while we transition ourselves out, the economic model where we outsource a lot of the responsibilities to international pools of labour, or to labour hire firms—those days are over.

Secondly, in order for us to really make productivity gains, let’s take two simple answers—simple remedies. I actually believed in quite a lot of what the old regime was doing in terms of irrigation. However, I accepted, when we formed the Government, that a number of those schemes had led to societal outcomes that were repugnant in many respects, because of the localised and intensive negative effect on the environment when you married irrigation to poor farming practices. But, unless we continue to invest in water networks, water storage, water resilience, we are not—in the post-COVID environment—going to capture enough economic surplus to plug the gap of $20 billion worth of foreign exchange earnings that have disappeared. Now, it hasn’t really disappeared at that volume, because Kiwis aren’t going overseas and buying foreign exchange; so the wedge is smaller. But we are going to have to look back to these legacy industries. So, for those reasons, the work that we’ve been able to roll out with water storage—not on the grand scale of the Waimea Dam, and I hope there’s a solution to that very, very shortly—is something that all parties are going to have to grapple with.

Thirdly, are we going to sit by and watch, over the next few years, legacy industries hollowed out of New Zealand? I, personally, am deeply concerned about that. I’m very persuaded by the notion that, if we’re going to have a transition in a post-COVID environment from legacy industrial investments, whether it’s the refinery near where I hail from, whether it’s the aluminium smelter in Murihiku, whether it’s the steel mill, there’s quite frankly an almost existential question about the character and the nature of our economy. If we’re not going to support, encourage, or maintain those industries, what is going to replace them? And, not unlike the fact that I grew up in a rural environment in the Far North, I look not only to technology; I look at the endowments that surround us in terms of what Mother Nature’s got on offer, which is why, if we are going transition out of these carbon-rich industries, it’s important that we do not end up in a position where we’re exporting jobs and importing carbon. This is going to be a challenge irrespective of who the Government is in the future.

So, for those reasons, if, for example, one of those industries is aquaculture, the leadership of Murihiku, of Southland, told Mr Patterson, myself, the Minister of Finance, the Prime Minister, and I presume the Deputy Prime Minister has been told as well, that unless we put money aside to help underwrite the risk—and that’s an incredibly vital role for the Crown. Now, the other side may pooh-pooh that; they may say you’re endangering, you’re imperilling the Crown balance sheet, but, as with all major transitions in the past, the Crown does pick up the pieces, either through the welfare system or through retraining. The view that I’ve been pushing through the Provincial Growth Fund stewardship role that I’ve been privileged to hold is that, if we are going to transition, the Crown has to move and blend its efforts with the private sector so we de-risk the cost, we de-risk the challenges of the transition. And, as I said, if it is aquaculture, society has to ensure that it gets a return for its entitlement, its ownership interest in the commons. So we have a situation where, if we’re going to create a new multibillion-dollar industry—which I’m very enthusiastic about—in terms of ocean ranching, ocean farming, that we stop, as the last regime learnt, promising these things without making the hard decisions to reform the statutory processes and reform the actual regulatory frameworks.

For those reasons, the things that have been raised by Minister Grant Robertson are actually very accurate. He has set aside some pūtea, $14 billion to $15 billion, and a future Government can dedicate some of that pūtea to this de-risking exercise, because there is no way that we are going to transition without the Crown either being actively involved, helping to de-risk it, or indeed in some cases leading it in provincial New Zealand, which is what we have done. Which is why the Provincial Growth Fund—and it was only ever going to be around for three years, and it’s actually not $3 billion, it’s $3.3 billion; it actually grew under my stewardship. The point that I’m making, though, is that that is an incredibly active and valuable example of how the Crown can take a role of enablement and empowerment. It’s been widely acclaimed in the provinces, it is occasionally subject to shrewish behaviour from members on the other side of the House, but I assure you, whenever there’s an opening, wherever there’s an announcement, they elbow me out of the way to arrive and celebrate the occasion with my good self. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to speak to this Budget and appropriations bill. I want to speak to some of the points that the Minister of Finance, the Hon Grant Robertson, has raised, particularly around the increase in the Vote Health Budget and the appropriation and the pre- and post-coronavirus situation, which he also described in some detail, particularly the contribution to the coronavirus response.

I want to set this, first of all, in a big-item summary of where we are with health: with burgeoning DHB deficits, $2 billion over three years; I think we’ve got more Crown monitors now, as we’re concluding this Parliament, than before the Parliament started; and we’ve got areas of contention around the health system, such as the Christchurch rebuild, which is making very small progress, and, I believe, was in an urgent meeting last night.

Now, the Minister has talked about the Budget appropriation for health and he’s talked about the appropriation for coronavirus. I want to talk to why the figure is so large in the Budget and in the appropriation, because it’s a consequence of previous decisions or, more specifically, it’s a consequence of us not learning as a country. We had three opportunities, three sets of infectious disease that we could have learnt from, that would make this Budget and this appropriation significantly different; we squandered that experience. We squandered the learning from those three episodes, which I’ll describe here now, that make this Budget and appropriation what it is—the Government did not learn from those.

Let me go through them. First, we had a meningitis outbreak, a Third World disease. Six children died. Unfortunately, it was in Matt’s and my electorate—a meningitis outbreak; Third World disease. There were some experiences which we could have learnt from that would have affected this appropriation. It would have been less, I would contend, if we’d have carried that experience forward, and I’ll tie it into coronavirus and the coronavirus appropriation as well, and I’ll tell you what those are.

First of all, we could have modelled the outbreak better. Again, I’ll tie that back into how that would have been useful for other outbreaks. Vaccine supply became an issue—we had a single supplier and, as you’ll recall, Pharmac kept 20,000 secret. Contact tracing for meningitis: really important. We had a training run with an infectious disease on contact tracing, vaccine supply, and modelling, before coronavirus hit us. We could have learnt from that and done better; this appropriation could be different.

Then, about six to eight months later, we had a measles outbreak. A different sort of disease but getting close to what coronavirus looks like, certainly from an airborne situation, and, again, having an impact on this appropriation. There were some things we could have learnt from this second infectious disease that would have affected this and the coronavirus budget that the Minister was talking about that he’s put on the Table, that we’re voting through here today.

It’s very interestingly the same three things that we could have learnt from meningitis: modelling and predicting the outbreak—again, I’ll come to coronavirus and tie this in also; vaccine supply, we ran out of measles vaccines; and contact tracing—really important parts to our coronavirus response. This was our second testing run. This was our second training run here in New Zealand. We had that information. It was our living laboratory, if you like. We had the opportunity to learn from our second infectious disease for this Government and look at those important aspects of modelling, vaccine supply, and contact tracing.

We knew that we needed to do better with contact tracing, because we had the backpacker who developed measles in the Bay of Plenty, who then hopped on Cathay Pacific after doing Air New Zealand, I think it was, to Auckland and then Cathay Pacific back to Germany, infectious all the way. Did we call Cathay Pacific? No. Did we call Air New Zealand? No. Our contact tracing was appalling. We knew that back then, and yet we didn’t seem to learn from it. That would have made a substantial difference to this Budget that’s being put on the Table here today. We did not learn from it. Did officials even call backpackers around New Zealand, saying, “Look, you’re in a high-risk environment for this disease.”? No, we did not.

I think the fourth thing that’s interesting is: modelling, vaccine, contact tracing, personal protective equipment (PPE). We didn’t have the right PPE for measles. We were late with PPE for coronavirus, and that had a huge financial impact on this appropriation that we’re now signing through.

We could have learnt from those two episodes. But, do you know what? We actually had a third run as well, because the flu vaccine 2019 also ran short of supply. Another infectious disease—our third one in the hands of this Government, all in this Government, our third opportunity to learn and do better; we didn’t know that coronavirus was coming. Our third opportunity to do better, and what happened? We ran out of flu vaccines again—the third infectious disease. It also showed us how poor our modelling store was, now 18 months later. It also created perverse behaviours and incentives, some of which I’m not very happy with, which we also saw during coronavirus.

For example, when the paediatric flu vaccine ran out—this is the one that you can pay for privately as a parent—what did big pharma do? Try and get more vaccines? No, they increased the price—they increased the price to manage their inventory. There’s something very wrong with that, and that’s only discoverable through an Official Information Act (OIA) request—with Pharmac, actually. There’s something very wrong with that—that, as the paediatric flu vaccine was running out, big pharma, the sole supplier, increased their price to maintain their inventory. They didn’t manage the children; they managed their inventory. Surely, our mission is to vaccinate more children. Their greater task was to get more vaccines in, not to increase the price—as Pharmac said in the OIA, they successfully managed their inventory by increasing the price. That’s a perverse behaviour; that’s not a good behaviour. I’m very uncomfortable with that, and I suspect we’ve seen parts of that through coronavirus as well.

Now, let’s move to the post-coronavirus situation, which the Minister talked about and said he had allocated a significant amount as part of this recovery. Again, no more than four or five months ago, we were running out of flu vaccines. What is it with flu vaccines and this Government? Why can’t they model? Why can’t we get this right? Why can’t we figure this out so that we have a logistics chain that meets the needs, so that we’ve modelled what the needs are? I accept that we used more vaccines because, by intention, we asked people to come in earlier, and so we gave more of them. That was the correct thing to do. But we must have had some robustness of the logistics chain behind that so that we didn’t run out like we did.

The solution? Well, the solution has been—and this is what part of the Budget will pay for—to get 400,000 flu vaccines from the Northern Hemisphere. That might seem reasonable, except here’s the problem: New Zealand experts at the beginning of the year—in fact, last year—said there are four strains that we’re going to need in New Zealand this winter: four strains in winter 2020. We run out of flu vaccines, what does Pharmac do? They buy the rejects from the Northern Hemisphere—400,000 of them; the problem is that they only cover two of the strains. The four strains that we were told we need—that, if you had your flu vaccine probably up to about June, you got—you do not get today. You get two of the four; you are 50 percent covered. Oh, by the way, I’m wondering if you’re consented for that and if, when you’re getting the flu vac, they say, “Hey, look, I need to tell you, we’re actually only vaccinating you for half of the effectiveness that you should have. Oh, and by the way, I’m actually consenting to give you two strains that will give you no benefit.” Oh, that’s going to raise interesting ACC and adverse reaction sort of questions. Knowingly injecting people with vaccines that won’t work—that’s going to be an interesting dilemma coming down the pipeline if we get problems.

But what it talks to is that we haven’t learnt from three instances of infectious diseases that brings us here today, that brings this appropriation to the size, figure, and type that it is. We squandered the learning we could have had that would have changed this. I’m not saying that it might have changed our overall coronavirus uptake, if you like—I’m not saying that at all, but our response could have been better. This Budget and this appropriation could have been better as well.

I think what I want to summarise, then, is to say that I think it’s been a challenging time for this Government in Government. I think, if we look at their infrastructure, I do quite like the inventory that they’ve done, and I acknowledge there’s work to be done there. It’s not clear to me in this appropriation where infrastructure—the purported $14 billion that needs to be applied into Vote Health to pick up infrastructure—I’m not seeing too much here in this appropriation that’s talking to that. So, yep, identified the problem, maybe, but then what’s your solution? We know that it was $598 million, I think, in the last Budget for capital improvements; I’m not seeing anything of late as a top up or any sort of notices. Maybe it will come down the trail somewhere in the next few weeks, but I just wanted to point that out: fine to identify the problem, but come with solutions as well.

That’s what you’ll see from our health manifesto somewhere in the next couple of weeks. You’ll see the problem well identified, well discovered, well authenticated, with solutions that make sense, that New Zealanders will get, and we’ll proudly stand behind that manifesto and we’ll do a more efficient job than this Budget. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Kia orana. Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, as everyone in this House has been saying today, we, as a country—as a world—have come through a time. So I stand to give the Greens’ support for the Appropriation (2020/21 Estimates) Bill.

Yes, while we have come through COVID, while COVID did absolutely shine a massive light on existing crises and problems and challenges that we have long had, we also recognise that this Government’s Budget 2020 was also a response to some of the new challenges that we have been made aware of, that we have a responsibility to confront face on, head on. So, in my summary of the appropriation bill today, I wanted to remind the House that we have been hearing from the people, from the world, from movements around the whole planet, and certainly here in Aotearoa, that we need to recognise now more than ever that actually right now is the latest possible time that we can recognise taking all action towards having a stable climate, making sure that we have a thriving environment, and making sure that everyone has what they need to live decent lives. So the Greens were pleased and worked hard with Ministers and as Ministers across Government to see some of the outcomes and some of the appropriations that we saw in Budget 2020.

I also did want to recognise and acknowledge that, as a global pandemic came upon us and came to our shores, a lot of quick work was done to pull this Budget back together. There was a lot of going right back to the drawing board that very urgently many of us, and across our parties, had been working on for a year at least—plus—and had been carefully planning all sorts of ideas about how we were going to make good spends with the people’s money. Then very quickly we had to change tack quite a bit. We had to step up very quickly; we had to respond. We also realised that, due to the global pandemic, we were spending up to 10 times more than what we normally would in any one Budget. So this was mammoth work—this was mammoth work.

For example, I was really proud of the quick work that the Greens were able to work with Government Ministers to announce the $1.1 billion appropriation for Jobs for Nature. I just would like to mention that I heard a bit of pooh-poohing going on from across the Opposition benches of the House tonight just now about these important jobs. So I just wanted to talk a little bit more about what these jobs and what this appropriation actually entails. It will make sure that we are restoring our wetlands and improving—they are the lungs of our earth as well—the health of rivers and estuaries and waterways.

The Jobs for Nature fund: that also works and supports councils, tourism, businesses, iwi and hapū, and communities to provide these nature-based jobs. It included an appropriation for enhancing nature and indigenous biodiversity, something that the world has been tracking downwards on, and the amount of indigenous species and the amount of biodiversity that our world has been destroying for decades at an alarming rate. We have to celebrate $154.3 million towards restoring and enhancing indigenous biodiversity. Really pleased to see $147.5 million for pest control and eradication, including advancing the Predator Free NZ vision.

What is not important about all of this work? That is crucial, not just as momentary jobs and employment—especially in the face of COVID-19 job losses—but it actually sets up our country for generations to come. That actually is able to provide decent jobs, to provide people with the ability to look after their families and feel like they are in control of deciding what they want to reach from their own lives and their own communities. At the same time, making sure we are protecting the most valuable asset that our country has ever had, which is our whenua, our waters, our soil, our ngahere, our place.

That wasn’t all. It includes $100 million for extensive wilding conifer control, something which for years many good people in our communities around the country have been battling, and not always successfully in light of the massive challenge. So putting more support towards doing that work—$40 million for pest and weed control on Crown land as well, and $27.5 million to get the ballooning populations of wallabies in the Bay of Plenty, Waikato, Canterbury, and Otago under control.

I did want to spend a bit of time in my reply on this Budget appropriations bill speech because we cannot underestimate the infrastructure that these types of jobs are providing, including in our regions, where, yes, for some decades, if not centuries, we have neglected to see the potential for how our regions and our rural communities—which I have had the privilege of growing up in and belonging to—could actually be leading a modern response, a modern economy, a response to be able to help us all to confront the massive crises of climate change, environmental degradation, and inequality. It can absolutely come from the leadership and the enduring solutions that our people in our regions and our rural communities have long understood and know best about what their places are able to offer.

It didn’t stop there. In this appropriations bill, we also saw a focus put on housing to make sure that we in this House understand housing to be a core public good and a fundamental human right, and not simply just a tradable commodity to increase the wealth for those already wealthy while the majority of this country are finding it hard to put roots down in an affordable, warm, healthy, secure home where they can keep their families and their children connected and forming relationships in their own communities, because people can feel stable and secure in the place that they live. So I was very pleased to see $570 million set aside to support the delivery of 8,000 new homes—6,000 of which will be public housing, and 2,000 which will be transitional homes—and making sure that we are responding to those families and those people who at this moment are unable to find affordable and permanent housing.

We also made sure that there was significant investment in making sure that everyone has warm, healthy homes. So we put $56 million towards the Government’s insulation and heating programme. We know that around 600,000 households are unacceptably damp and cold, that that should not be a reality in this country, that we have enough to make sure this isn’t a reality. So I wanted to highlight, just briefly there, a couple of the initiatives that we were very proud to have worked on and supported this Government to be able to deliver.

I also will mention the extra funding boost for family violence services, led by our amazing MP Jan Logie, and how we will continue to support the Government to work towards its commitment to end family and sexual violence in Aotearoa in a way that works with people, that collaborates across agencies, business communities, NGOs, whānau, Māori, tangata whenua. This is a world-first way of working from a Government perspective. So I wanted to acknowledge the extra funding and the massive injection of that funding to support the essential family violence services, those at the front line who have been doing so well for a long time with barely enough at all.

So the Greens are very proud to have supported these initiatives coming through Budget 2020. We also know that there is a lot more to be done. So our first idea and plan out the door was our Poverty Action Plan, which provides a guaranteed minimum income so that everyone in this country not in full-time paid work has an income that they can rely on, and that we have what we need to be able to provide this security for everyone. It just simply needs to be shared better. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a great pleasure to speak on this and, as is customary, really to offer a few thoughts about the Budget—about, actually, the, I suppose you’d call it, “special” Budget that followed, where $52 billion - odd was spent by the Government—and thoughts from me and, I’m sure, Opposition colleagues about the issues they present. If I can offer a defence of my unsuccessful time as leader: when I gave speeches at both the Budget and on the $52 billion spend following that, I made a number of criticisms and critiques of the Government, and I think actually they’ve aged well. Those criticisms have been proven right. Where I made clear that the wage subsidy was defective, quite quickly after, actually, Grant Robertson, to his credit, made changes to the policies, and the Opposition, in that regard, made what the Government has done stronger, better, more fit for purpose. If there’s a theme, for me, on what we’ve seen over these three years and in the appropriations estimates through the Budget process, it really is simply this: this Government ultimately, after the kind words, the good words, the decent words are finished, doesn’t have serious policies and plans that they can implement for New Zealand.

We see that very starkly throughout this process. When we think about the economy that Grant Robertson talks about, we see a situation where, ultimately, the Labour Party, the New Zealand First Party, and the Green Party in Government are going to saddle this country with much more debt than is required. I’m not advocating—no one on this side; it’s scaremongering, frankly, from the Prime Minister to say so—for austerity. We’re just not making that point. We know, on this side of the House, because we did it—the global financial crisis and the earthquakes, borrowing some $50 billion more—what is required in these sorts of circumstances. But to borrow, as we’ve seen in the Budget and post-Budget decisions and announcements from this Government, $140 billion more is excessive, is bad for future generations, who will pay the bill, and, inevitably, and, I think, inevitably in the next term, will result in more taxes on ordinary, decent, hard-working New Zealanders who play by the rules.

That debt—I suppose there’s at least two points we should make there. The first one is this: if the spending we saw here was basically all, or even mostly all, good stuff, going on real things in the ground that made a difference for productivity, that helped Kiwi families, we might say, “Great.” But I have been flabbergasted by the way we’ve seen announcement after announcement from Minister Jones, from Minister Twyford, from Minister Woods, and from other Ministers on that side of the House—literally every day; $20 million here, $47 million there, $58 million here, $73 million there—with no business cases, with no sense of prioritisation, with no sense of the value of a dollar that has to be earned by Kiwis and paid in taxes for this Government to spend it. There’s just been no sense of that value of taxpayers’ hard-earned money through the Budget and the appropriations, and so on—lots of spend-ups, lazy spend-ups, that I don’t believe are good for New Zealand or are delivering good value for money. And so we say: you know what, on this side of the House, we would be more careful with taxpayers’ money.

It doesn’t mean austerity. It means more investment in health, more investment in education, more investment in infrastructure—

💬 Hon Aupito William Sio: Come on!

And yes, William, sir, more investment in roads, maybe even in your electorate, because we know the value and the productivity that comes with those things. They haven’t delivered any roads in my electorate, but I would in theirs—that’s all I’m saying. So we haven’t seen that.

The second point I would make about debt, in addition to the laziness of this spend, the wastefulness of this spend, and the lack of delivery in real terms and real outcomes from this spend, is just to dwell once again on that quantity of it: $140 billion. We’ve seen nothing like that before in the history of this nation, and we may never see anything, in real terms, like that again. I mean, Bill English, in his best Budgets from that side of the House, when he had new additional spending, we never got much past a bill’ or two, and yet here we’ve got $140 billion over four years. And, by the way, that works out, broadly speaking, at $80,000 a household. So, for a mum and dad or a young couple who don’t have a mortgage, this gives them one. If they’re renting, they’ve already got a mortgage without the property. For that couple that does have a mortgage, this Government is giving them a second mortgage, and I say that’s not good enough. That will result in more taxes, and you mark my words, Madam Speaker: a year after the election, Budget 2021, if there’s a Labour-led Government, there will be more wealth and other taxes coming on New Zealanders. They say, “Well, no, but this person won’t have to pay.” Ultimately, someone does have to pay, and that is ordinary, good, decent, hard-working Kiwis who play by the rules.

I don’t see a plan for jobs, and we know, and we’ll see later this week, the latest job figures. What they will show, those employment and unemployment figures, is—there’s just no question about it—they’re going up. By the way, we know that at the end of this year it will be much, much worse—tens of thousands of Kiwis who were in work who now aren’t in work and no plan for that.

And that leads me, really, in the remaining couple of minutes, to just this fundamental point—I started on it, I alluded to it, and I want to come back to it—about the Budget, about the plans economically and the appropriations and estimates that we’ve seen in this House over the last two to three years: there just isn’t a sense of policy development or plans for the future. We really don’t have, in the last days of this Parliament, any sense of what another term of a Labour-led Government will look like. It’s effectively a Government that is cynically relying on the feel-good factor, the health sense of COVID-19, without any real sense of the problems coming. I give credit for where we’ve got to on health. Look, I am deeply grateful that we are not in a COVID19 situation like Victoria, Australia, but I do say on the future issues: if you go by the track record of the last two to three years, Budget 2020, Budget 2019 and so on, and the decisions that have been made in spending, the debt that’s been piled on, the taxes that, sure as eggs, are coming on New Zealanders, so far we are very light on real policies and plans for the future of Aotearoa New Zealand. Our country, this election, deserves that real contest, and they haven’t seen from the Labour Party benches any sense of what they’re bringing to it thus far.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker.

💬 Hon Willie Jackson: Negative, negative.

TĀMATI COFFEY: Yes, very negative from that side of the House—very negative; too negative, in fact—which is why they’re going to be sitting in Opposition for another three years. Look, we’re here to talk about Budget 2020 and the investment that this Government has put into the people of New Zealand. We’ve gone through COVID-19, we had a strong health response led by this side of the House—led by this side of the House because we knew that the right thing to do was to go hard, to go early. We knew that we’d have to sort out the economic response as well. We are doing that, and when the member opposite, the member for Tauranga, stands there and says, “There is no plan for jobs”, he must have been living in a cave, because there has been so much investment into jobs.

When we talk about the investment, we’re talking about all kinds of things. The wage subsidy scheme: that’s an investment into the people, the many people that found themselves, through no fault of their own, without a job. We extended the wage subsidy scheme; that’s gone and helped a few more people to be able to get back on their feet. The cash-flow loan scheme was also a big help to small businesses that chose to take it up, really favourable conditions on that, and I know plenty—and have spoken with plenty—of businesses that have seen that and said, “Thank you to the Government for actually being able to stand here and help us to get through this incredibly tough time.”

When we’re talking about the Māori spend, there’s nothing that warms my heart more than knowing that we boosted support for Whānau Ora. Whānau Ora, which, during COVID-19, actually helped our people to be able to get through, reached out into small rural communities, Māori communities, and actually delivered for them the basics—the things like kai, things like hygiene packs, things like masks—to be able to give them some reassurance that actually the Government was on their side. Two hundred million dollars was appropriated in a Māori employment package, and that’s what the member for Tauranga needs to hear. He Poutama Rangatahi, Mana in Mahi, Māori cadetships and apprenticeships—all of these, when they’re layered together, are an attempt by this Government to be able to transition people who might find themselves without jobs. Whether or not that happened before COVID or after COVID, we still need to make sure that we’re graduating our people into good, worthwhile jobs, and that’s what we’ve gone and done.

But, I would like to briefly talk about the impact on tourism and the investment that this Government has put in: $400 million. We were pleased at Whakarewarewa, over the weekend, to have the Minister of Tourism there to be able to talk about the significant investment—$400 million—into our tourism sector, to be able to ensure that jobs were kept and people were looked after. This is a great Budget, and this side of the House is relentlessly positive.

Debate interrupted.