General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business.

New Zealand is in a cost of living crisis with middle Kiwis squeezed to bursting, so there are big stakes for tomorrow’s Budget. You can see it on the faces of the backbench. They know—they know. They’re asking themselves: has Grant Robertson listened? Does he know how tough it is for New Zealanders out there? So I’m going to make a prediction—I’m going to make a prediction. In tomorrow’s Budget, there will be some big promises, but what will New Zealanders be looking for? They know that this Government gets an A for announcements but a D for delivery. And you can see it—you can see it on every single member of the Government benches.

You’ve got Grant Robertson there. Did you hear him in question time today? He said New Zealand has the best economic approach. Never mind that he’s delivered record high inflation, more deficits, more debt, rising interest rates, and lagging wage growth. New Zealand is going backwards, but he expects them to “Believe me, this time. I promise it’s going to get better.” And you know what? Do you know what his answer is? His answer to our economic challenge is more spending. He can’t manage the economy, but he’s not worried because, when the cash runs out, he and his handmaiden David Parker will tax Kiwis more to pay for it. The “see no evil, hear no evil” approach to economic management.

I’ll tell you who else will be making big promises tomorrow, and that’s Andrew Little. Now, never mind that we need to believe that they’re doing a great job in health. Never mind that the first thing they did was get rid of the health targets to measure the performance of the health system. So they’ve papered over those cracks. They’ve slipped back across every measure. Never mind that this is the Minister put in charge of the big spend-up in mental health, the $1.9 billion, but he didn’t manage to offer one single additional specialist health service. But don’t worry, New Zealanders are expected to trust him with a massive restructure of the bureaucracy. The health workers may be striking, the hospitals may be crumbling, but don’t worry. We’re meant to believe that this is the time for Andrew Little to rearrange the back office.

Now, if he wants some tips on transformational change, he needs to talk to Megan Woods, because she had the task of solving the housing crisis. Well, how’s that going? A hundred thousand KiwiBuild houses? Not quite; 1,300 delivered. But don’t worry. They’ve hired more housing bureaucrats than they’ve delivered KiwiBuild houses. Mind you, there has been some transformation. The State house waiting list has been transformed from 6,000 New Zealanders without a home to 26,000 New Zealanders without a place to live. Rents are up $150 a week. Housing’s the most affordable it’s been! It’s been a transformation.

Then let’s take a look at immigration. Well, Kris Faafoi promised this week that he was going to sort out the skill gaps. He stood up and he said, “We’ve got it all sorted. Here’s our new plan.” And what he wanted New Zealand to forget was that in the exact same location, in January, he promised 20,000 more critical workers would be gracing our shores. So I asked Erica Stanford, “How many did he deliver of that 20,000? Is he halfway there yet? Has he got to 6,000 yet?” “No.”, she said. “Has he got to 600?” “No.”, she said. Actually he’s delivered six. So at this rate, Kris Faafoi will be calling every ex-pat friend and family member and begging them to come home.

Meanwhile, you’ve got Michael Wood, who likes to claim it’s an achievement that he keeps talking about light rail, without a single metre of it laid.

You’ve got Chris Hipkins in education, who promised to revolutionise education. Well, how’s that going? As far as I can see, the biggest revolution is the kids who are leaving school in droves; 20,000 more chronic truants under Labour. That’s the revolution happening in education.

But I just want to spare a moment for credit where it’s due: Poto Williams, because, actually, she has got a huge fan club. The Mongrel Mob, Black Power—they love her. And in a country where lots of things are going backwards, she’s got things going forwards fast: ram raiders hitting dairies in Auckland every night.

But, not to make light, New Zealand is in a cost of living crisis. New Zealanders are facing extremely challenging times. It is a time for discipline and care and the Government should remember this: they won’t be judged by the announcements they make tomorrow; they will be judged by what they deliver. The report card is already in: D for delivery.

I am very proud to be part of a Government that makes health quality and public health system a priority—something we did not see for nine years under the previous Government. Tomorrow is going to be a very important day for our health system and for the public and publicly funded health services right across the country. Tomorrow is an important day. Tomorrow marks another foundation for the work that this Government is doing in rebuilding our health services that we started nearly five years ago.

We inherited a system that was not funded for population growth, a system that in funding terms just went backwards, a system where the buildings were left to run down, a Government that put roughly a billion dollars into the system over nine years. This Government has put nearly $6 billion into buildings and into rebuilding our IT infrastructure across health in the nearly five years that we’ve been in Government. We inherited buildings that were literally left to rot. We had buildings announced—new buildings announced—but with no funding, like the new Dunedin Hospital that we are now getting on with and doing.

We had nurses’ pay going backwards. Nurses’ pay went backwards under the last Government. The pay increases didn’t even cover the rate of inflation. And we had mental health services totally and utterly ignored, turned their back on by that previous Government. The reality is: National in Government does not care about health. They don’t care about public health services. And the important thing is this: all their talk about—they demand tax cuts, which is what they did previously in Government, and then people wonder why things like our health services are left to run down. New Zealanders are more canny than that. They now see what the price is of a party that insists on cutting taxes for the wealthy and enriching them and running down our public services like our health services.

The other thing, of course, that we saw under the previous Government was hideously worsening equity in our health services. Māori life expectancy now is seven years less than the rest of the population—Māori health services struggling to provide the services that their people need.

Well, it’s going to change. Good health services are vital to strong communities and strong whānau and families. Already, this Government has increased core health funding by 25 percent—that’s before tomorrow. We’ve increased Pharmac funding by the same amount, by every year we have been in office. Compare this to the three-year freeze under the previous Government. We’ve committed nearly $6 billion in capital spending for buildings and IT across the health sector. We’ve started rebuilding mental health services with the investment of $1.9 billion, and, man, what a difference that is now making: more than 900 people and new roles across the front-line health systems and GP clinics and community clinics, roles that were not there two years ago; roles that now thousands of people every month are turning up to to get the benefit of, because this is a Government that does not turn its back on the hardest problems, whether in mental health or any other part of the health system.

That’s what National does. They don’t care about public health services. They don’t care about New Zealanders’ health. They don’t care about their mental health and wellbeing. What they did to ensure there was no accountability was they abolished the Mental Health Commission. In 2012, they abolished the Mental Health Commission. They did not want an independent monitor telling them what was going wrong and what was needed and what the improvements were. They just cut it. They stopped the voice. That’s what National Governments do when they don’t want to hear the bad news.

Well, it’s changing. Yesterday, I was very proud to announce the new investments that this Government is making. We’ve started with the front end of mental health, the big gap identified by the He Ara Oranga report, of those with mild to moderate mental health issues. And we’ve started that work now, started the roll-out halfway through it. Now we get to work on the specialists in the acute end of mental health services—not more beds in the mental health ward, which is what the National Party talks about, but what the real gap is in community services, community residential spaces. Everywhere I go, that’s what the mental health specialists tell me we are desperately lacking. And now we’ve got an investment plan behind it—$100 million over four years to start to pick up and fill that gap. That’s the stuff you do when you care about health.

This is a party whose history is rooted in actually supporting public health services, back to the first Budgets of 1935 and 1938. That’s what Labour Governments do. And this Government is committed to health services that actually provide the care that people need, committed to health equity. That’s why we will have a Health New Zealand and a Māori Health Authority working hand in glove together; a waka hourua—working together to deliver a public health service that this country needs and has so long deserved.

I had this crazy feeling of déjà vu during Andrew Little’s speech then. It was like he was the Labour leader all over again back in 2016, where he spent almost all of his time talking about the National Party and all the things that National was allegedly doing wrong. The only difference is: it’s not 2016; it’s 2022, and he’s been a Minister in this Government for 4½ years. So it’s not good enough to stand up in Parliament and talk about 1935 and the first Labour Government and the long history of health funding and the welfare State, and talk about the problems of the National Government five years ago. He’s been a Minister in that Government for 4½ years, and it’s time the Government took some accountability for the massive increase in spending—particularly in the health sector—without any improvements.

Matt Doocey points out $1.9 billion appropriated in Budget 2018 and—as the Mental Health Commission found—no material improvement in mental health services, and that’s emblematic of the Government’s approach, which is that they’re really good at the talk, they’re really good at the tax, and they’re really good at the spend, and they are utterly, structurally incompetent at actually delivering better services for New Zealanders. So Election 2023 is only 18 months away, and they’re not going to be judged on how many 1 p.m. press conferences have been held, they’re not going to be judged on how much social media monitoring the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has done, they’re not going to be judged on how many versions of the traffic light framework that the Government can come up with. Election 2023 is going to be judged on traditional economic metrics. Is the economy going forwards and are Kiwis getting ahead or are they going backwards? Has the Government delivered on its promises and their commitments in housing, in child poverty, in transport, in light rail, and in all of their big commitments from elections 2017 and 2020? And are they good stewards of taxpayers’ money?

Because what has happened in the last five years is we have seen an increase of 68 percent in Government spending, and I put it to the House, and I put it to New Zealanders we have not seen a 68 percent increase in results and effectiveness. We’ve not seen a 68 percent reduction in congestion. We’ve not seen a 68 percent increase in cancer services. We’ve not seen a 68 percent increase in midwives around the community. We haven’t seen a 68 percent increase in hip operations. No, no, no. We have seen waste driven throughout the Public Service to the point where the New Zealand Transport Agency has a ten-fold increase in communications staff earning over $100,000. Corrections got a 400-person increase in Corrections staff in the back office, even though prisoner numbers are falling. So, Mr Speaker, I put it to you there’s been a big increase in spending but not the appropriate increase in effectiveness of results.

And there is a squeezed middle out there, and there is a cost of living crisis, and what they’re looking for in the Budget tomorrow is not the biggest increase in Government spending in New Zealand history, which is what will be delivered, a $6 billion new operating allowance, the single biggest increase in Government spending in New Zealand history. They’re not looking for that; they’re actually just looking for some relief from the endless pressure that they face out there in this economy with inflation at 7 percent and wages only rising at 3 percent per year.

I’ll tell you what else they’re looking for—particularly young Kiwis. They’re looking for a bit of hope, because they stare at a housing market where rents are up 150 bucks a week and it costs 200,000 bucks to get a deposit to buy an average house in New Zealand. They look at a State house waiting list that has quintupled in the last four years, and they look at the shameful fact that 4,800 Kiwi kids tomorrow will wake up in a motel room. Nearly 5,000 Kiwi kids will grow up in a motel room, and the Minister says, “Better than a car.” Well, that’s the standard. One of the housing Ministers—there’s five of them—stands and says, “Oh, it’s better than a car.” This is the pathetic standard that we have come to in this Government. This is the pathetic, shameful standard that this Government’s come to—“It’s better than a car.” This is the level of ambition; this is the poverty of ambition of the Government that it’s better that kids grow up in motels than cars. This is the level of the poverty of ambition. We started with 100,000 KiwiBuild homes. Five years later, the Government’s been reduced to, “At least they’re not in cars.” How pathetic. How shameful. And in 18 months’ time, Kiwis get the chance to throw out this useless lot.

I woke up this morning to hear that member—Chris Bishop—on the radio, talking about Hutt Hospital. But what he didn’t do, unlike my colleagues, was commit to rebuild and reopen the Hutt Hospital. Will he do that? That’s the question I ask of him.

It’s an honour to stand up here as Minister of Agriculture, as someone that’s been brought up on the farm and lived farming most of my life. Sometimes you get things wrong—actually, when I go home, often I think it’s all the time. But, look, I marched in the 1980s against the removal of subsidies from farmers. I was wrong. We move on to the 1990s. Many farmers opposed the formation of Fonterra. They were wrong. We move into the 2000s. Farmers marched on Parliament against the carbon tax. They were wrong. Some still oppose the announcement of the carbon reduction plan yesterday, and they are wrong. We’ve got it right, finally.

What happened yesterday was a commitment by our Governments, by this Parliament—we hope, eventually—to an emissions reduction plan that will meet our targets to meet our international obligations and be part of an international emissions reduction programme. Because if we don’t—and the farmers were sometimes the most sceptical, because they live with changing climate every day, so they said, “The climate changes. We can’t have climate change. That’s a ridiculous proposition.” They’ve seen for themselves the acute events that they face almost on a monthly basis now, and they realise that they have to be part of the reductions programme.

This Government has committed $710 million from the Climate Emergency Response Fund to help agriculture; to help land users; to plant a few more trees—native trees; to make some biofuels out of trees, if possible; to work on how we can reduce carbon from trees but, more importantly, how we can put some money into research and development, in a centre for climate action, to reduce agricultural emissions so that we can be the best farmers in the world and the best farmers for the world. We will set up the centre of excellence, the centre of research and development, in conjunction with the industry, and many of the major corporates across agribusiness are going to help fund that and be part of that partnership. Let’s get that technology out the door as quickly as we can.

We await the report from He Waka Eke Noa. This is an industry partnership group who will make recommendations to the Climate Commission on how we can price our agricultural emissions. We will be the first country in the world to do that, just as we were the first country to ship refrigerated meat across the world, just as we have been the first country to do many things across our economy—leading things that have proven to be right and successful. We want to be the best farmers for the world. We want to produce sustainable, quality food and fibre products.

There is some concern about livestock protein. We rely on livestock protein for our economic wealth creation. If those concerns can’t be addressed, if we can’t prove to be efficient producers—as we have been, but become more efficient into the future—we may be shut out of some of the valuable markets that we see across the globe. Some of the things that are happening out there that we have to take on board are things like Tesco, Sainsbury’s, and Waitrose all committing to carbon reductions, making sure that their suppliers are committed to net zero over time. Nestlé, a company that takes a lot of produce from Fonterra, our single biggest company, is committed to halving its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 by having half of its produce come from regenerative farming systems. We have to make sure that we’re not shut out of those markets. Our EU-UK trade agreements have all had requirements around emissions reduction, sharing technology, sharing services around environmental management, high standards of animal welfare, better commitment to biodiversity protection, and, as I say, a low carbon footprint.

Our agricultural sector has an exciting future. We’ve laid the groundwork for that. We’re committed to a system to reduce our emissions from agriculture and be the best farmers in the world and the best country for the world. I’m proud to be the Minister of Agriculture. I’m proud to be part of this, and I look forward to He Waka Eke Noa and the partnership that we will develop to price emissions, to reduce our emissions, and to ensure that we do the best for the planet.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, as we keep being taunted, one more sleep. I have to say, we Cantabrians are expecting big things tomorrow after five years of neglect from this Government. Since 2017, the powerhouse of New Zealand’s economy has been overlooked and ignored repeatedly—time and time and time again. Well, we say, enough is enough. We want to see some real, tangible investment into our region.

One of the first tasks that this Labour Government did in 2017—does anyone remember when Phil Twyford was the Minister of Transport? One of his first jobs was to shave $5 billion off the roading budget. That, unfortunately, included the four-laning of the highway from Rolleston in my patch down to Ashburton—that included three bridges. It was a $2 billion job that would have poured thousands of jobs into our local economy. The first thing he did was run the red pen through it and it just kept going. Poor old Matt Doocey and the good folks of Woodend are patiently waiting for their bypass that was never going to be done.

But this Government will spend $50 million on planning a cycle bridge over the Auckland harbour, but it will not put $30 million into the Ashburton river bridge, the main thoroughfare of the South Island. The appalling response that that Minister, who just spoke, was partly responsible for—for the flood-hit farmers in May last year—was absolutely woeful. This Government should not forget: when Grant Robertson writes those cheques, he is writing them on the back of our agricultural industry.

Tourism businesses—yet another sector to be overlooked in our region. They have been wiped out by the border closures, but the $200 million tourism recovery fund—we did not qualify for it. Kaikōura, Mackenzie District, lakes district, Fiordland, South Westland; they have been pitted against our Canterbury operators.

Then there is the $3 billion Provincial Growth Fund (PGF). Greater Christchurch, a place that has been plagued by earthquakes for 10 years, was not deemed suitable. We were not deemed to be in support of any PGF funding. I would have thought, of any region, it would be ours. It’s taken a decade to recover; we should have qualified.

Do not even get me started on immigration. The lack of care or attention from that Minister has also been disgraceful. The Canterbury harvest has reduced; it has rotted because of this Government’s tin ear and refusal to listen to the pleas from industry that we need people through our borders and we needed them last year.

What about the health sector? In my own patch, we have two hospitals that have been closed. The Ellesmere Hospital and the Darfield Hospital have been closed because the Canterbury District Health Board simply does not have enough staff to keep them up and running—an absolute disgrace; it has ripped the guts out of those local communities and Leeston and Darfield.

You know what? People talk a lot about the red wave, the so-called red wave that hit Canterbury in the last election. But I have lost count of the number of inquiries, the number of visits from people, from constituents, members of the public that have come pouring into my office asking for help. They have MPs, they are from Rangitata, they are from Christchurch Central, they are from Wigram, they are from Banks Peninsula. They’re coming into my office saying their MP is missing in action—or even worse, will not take their calls and will not respond to them.

You know what? It is time. We are so tired of being overlooked. It is time for this Government to step up to the plate and start delivering for Canterbury because we are not going to stop demanding until we have run out of breath.

Tomorrow, the Minister of Finance is going to deliver his fifth Budget. He had the audacity last year to criticise Ruth Richardson in the so-called “mother of all Budgets”. Well, this man is about to have the “mother of all spend-ups”. We in Canterbury, we in the South Island, want to see some results. We want to see some tangible investment into our people, into our region, because never ever forget: it is our people that are doing the work, that are writing the cheques that this Government so casually spends. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m going to concentrate my speech on delivery but, first off, I just want to talk about the delivery of a certain member across the other side of the House in his question time today, which, you know, I like Mr Mitchell, he’s a very personable man. You know, he’s got great personality. It’s unfortunate that he can’t add up to three. And I just want to help him because, you know, a couple of Sundays ago, I delivered a pre-Budget announcement that was $562 million—that’s a little bit more than three; it’s quite a lot to count up, Mr Mitchell, but I can help you out with this. That was a record investment in police. We have delivered 35 percent more funding in our time in Government than those guys. We’ve delivered 16 percent more cops on our side than those guys did. And all of that with us adding funding, to make sure we’ve got $94 million not just to deal with gangs but to supress and enforce, and also to deal with those young people that we can divert out of the gang culture in the first place. We are delivering for New Zealand.

I want to just say that is a stark contrast to the National Party when they were in Government. Let’s just have a look at their record on investment in police, and what that meant. June 2010, they had 8,768 cops. By the following year, they had lost—they had lost—70 cops. Oh my gosh! The following year—the following year—they had 9,000 police, and then June 2013, they’ve got 8,711. And—get this—in August of 2016, the then Minister of Police, Judith Collins, said, of her 8,898 police, “We need more cops.” Do you know what she did? The following year, she lost another 60 police out of the police force. Now, those numbers don’t lie. You cannot do more with less. We have invested in this police—not only to make sure we increase their numbers. We keep them safer. We’ve invested in a gun register to keep our communities safer. We’ve invested in programmes that help our young people stay out of criminal activity—unlike those people who, with their tax cuts, will go back to the way they’ve always been—

💬 Hon Mark Mitchell: More ram raids.

—funding cuts for the police. Now, Mr Mitchell says “ram raids”. Now, I have got one question for him that nobody has asked him: what would National do? What would National—[Interruption] Just a moment, my friends. Let’s listen to it: absolute silence, that’s right. It’s intense, isn’t it, Mr Mitchell? It’s intense because National would do nothing, because their record shows that they are hopeless—hopeless. They freeze budgets and they cut police numbers. They are absolutely hopeless. Next week, alongside police and the work that has been done with the national crime unit and Retail NZ, we will announce our delivery to the businesses of New Zealand about how we support them about ram raids. And what will National do? They will do nothing. They will sit on their hands and they will criticise this Government, when this Government is all about the delivery.

💬 Hon Mark Mitchell: Consequences. That’s what we’ll do: consequences.

Now here he is, he’s barking over there—a personable man; he’s really nice but he has the odd bark—but will he commit to the one thing that will give me some confidence that he will be effective in police, the one thing that Chris Cahill has challenged him to do? Will he commit to it—commit to the population ratio? Will you commit to that, Mr Mitchell? Will you commit to that, Mr Bayly? Because it means funding and, if we look at past performance of the National Party and the National Government, there will be no funding. No, no. The National Party will not support the ratio. [Interruption] Oh, he’s saying yes. Well, he’d better ask his boss, because his boss is delivering tax cuts, my friend, and tax cuts mean cuts to Public Service. It means you cannot deliver—you cannot deliver. Not like the Labour Party. Do you know what? We’re going to have more cops. They’re going to be better trained, there’s going to be better intel, better deployment, and I’m grateful that I have been able to deliver a record—get this—$562 million and that member cannot even count up to three.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I ask those at home to imagine waking up in an energy-efficient, lovely, warm, affordable home. Imagine everyone in our beautiful country has access to such a secure place to live. Imagine leaving home and making one’s way along a wide path lined with native plants, native trees, we can hear birdsong, we can hear kids laughing as they make their way to school on their bikes or their scooters. Imagine reaching the intersection where the local farmers market is humming, and an electric tram or bus departs every few minutes, electricity in our country is 100 percent renewable, and no matter what people do—whether they care for children or the elderly, maybe they’re a marine scientist, maybe they’re helping retrofit or build new environmentally sustainable buildings, maybe they’re working in forestry, a teacher, a hospitality worker, a student—no matter what their situation, they have a livable income, and everyone in Aotearoa does. Imagine our oceans teeming with life, native forests regenerating. Imagine our rivers clean enough to swim in again, and growing our food and our timber and our other materials in a way that protects and enhances our soil and our natural ecosystems, our waterways.

The cost of living, the escalating climate crisis, the loss of biodiversity—none of this is inevitable; it is the consequence of powerful vested interests and political choices made by successive Governments for decades. It has enabled a very small number of people to become exorbitantly wealthy, while exploiting people and our planet. We can change it. It’s 2022. It’s time to do things differently. The Green Party knows that we have the ability to come together and to build an equitable and sustainable future together, starting with honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

A Green Budget tomorrow would have shown leadership and it would start to support people in communities to build this future together. It would address inequality. Here’s just a few ways that we could do that: a commitment to overhaul the welfare system before the end of the term, low-income families can’t wait; an in-work tax credit; and a package to eliminate child poverty.

A Green Budget would make housing affordable faster. We would expand the income-related rent subsidy to councils, we would build more sustainable homes, and we would ensure that Kāinga Ora was able to do this in partnership with iwi and hapū and communities and local government. We need rent controls while supply is catching up. We need 100 percent universal design in our publicly built housing supply.

A Green Budget would extend ACC to all birth injuries, including stand-alone mental injuries, injuries to the baby, and all disability and illness. In the interim, the Green Budget would extend and increase disability allowances. A Green Budget would have money for allied health workers. It would back nurses on pay equity and back-pay. We would ensure safe staffing and fair pay for care workers and early childhood education teachers.

A Green Budget would have hoki whenua mai, land-back fund. We have to start the process of decolonisation and a process of building an equitable future while realising the injustice of the past and making it right.

It would have investment in real evidence-based alternatives to prisons. We know that our overcrowded prisons are filled with members of our community who are suffering from brain injuries and serious mental illness. We know that rehabilitation and community-based solutions work elsewhere in the world.

It would have a commitment to fill our annual refugee quota for the first time after the start of the pandemic.

It would reprioritise the huge sums of money earmarked for a few new expensive highways that are going to be entirely counter-productive, and put it into sustainable transport options for people around our towns and cities, between our towns and cities, surface light rail in Auckland and Wellington, regional rail, rebates on utilities, and e-bikes and cargo bikes.

A Green Budget would invest in helping nature, protecting our oceans, more funding for fisheries research, marine science, more funding to stop bycatch, and investment in Jobs for Nature.

It would do all of this—incredible investment in our people, our nature, and our climate—by taxing wealth properly. A wealth tax would mean super-rich paying their fair share and giving us revenue for better health funding, the public services that we need, and so many practical opportunities to get better outcomes for people and our planet.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. Thank you very much for this opportunity to contribute to the general debate. We’ve heard 15 minutes from the National Party of no solutions, and while I applaud the enthusiasm of some of the members, I cast my mind back to when I was in Opposition and how, despite all the enthusiasm in the world, a stark reality soon kicks in that you’ve actually got to come up with solutions. So I encourage those on that side of the House who haven’t been in Government to lean forward and speak to Mr Mitchell or others who have had the experience of actually having to do the hard work to meet the needs of our country.

I am really proud that on this side of the House, we are getting the mahi done. Sadly, though, today, in the official death toll of those who have passed away, sadly, due to COVID-19, we have just passed 1,000. Now, that’s a grim number, and I’m sure the House will continue to express our condolences and our support for the families during this time. But I can only imagine how much higher that number would have been had we not invested like we have on this side of the House into the services that matter to our people.

As an Associate Minister of Health, when I looked across the Māori health provider network in this country, I was blown away at the work that they did. But what was interesting was the work that they did; they did it literally on the smell of an oily rag. They were borrowing money or asking for money from the community simply to travel up the coast to deliver vaccines. That is a sign of under-investment in an important part of the health sector.

Under this Government, I’m proud to say that there has been record investment in Māori health providers up and down this country. The feedback from those providers and the communities that they serve has been hugely positive. I’m ashamed to say that it’s taken COVID for us to get there, but what I am proud to say is that as we build the health reform and the health sector that our people deserve, there is going to be more opportunity for services to be delivered in our communities to the people who need it the most, and the statistics are quite clear: our Māori population needs that support.

When I look towards the remote places in our country—a beautiful place like Te Tai Rāwhiti and beautiful places on the west coast in Taranaki—housing has become, clearly, one of the biggest challenges in those regions. As a housing Minister, I’m really proud that the announcements we’ve made recently with Ka Uruora and Te Toitū Tairāwhiti will look towards providing over 400 homes in those places.

Now, many of us travel around the country, and I can tell you that when you drive through small towns like Tikitiki or Ruatōria, it’s very rare to see a new house. It’s rare to see a new build, and I’m excited that we’ve enabled by Māori, for Māori solutions to be able to build new homes in places like Ruatōria, Tikitiki, and Ōpunake. In fact, one of the locals in Ōpunake said to me that the only new homes that go up in Ōpunake are multimillion-dollar holiday homes. Well, what our housing programme does with Māori iwi and hapū is deliver housing to the people who need it the most and in places where it’s needed the most, and I’m really proud of those particular investments. That’s because this Government invested $730 million in the Māori housing sector, which has been ignored for far too long.

For far too long, we’ve relied on big developers to make sure that they can meet these needs, these local needs of community. I’m proud that we’re developing that particular sector with the Māori population.

We talk about mental wellbeing. Mental wellbeing: many in this House will know Te Whare Tapa Whā. Sir Mason Durie provides the blueprint for wellbeing, not just for Māori but for everybody in this country. I’m really proud that just the other day, I launched, alongside Mr Mark Kopua and Dr Diana Kopua, a programme, or a kaupapa, called Mahi a Atua. That builds on mātauranga Māori for the spiritual wellbeing, the cultural wellbeing, and the mental wellbeing of Māori communities. This is something that has been ignored for far too long. Developing and using mātauranga Māori as a way to heal Māori population and, indeed, the whole population, I think, is an important part of our future.

Just finally from me: very shortly, we will be celebrating the first Matariki weekend. It’s absolutely awesome, and everywhere I’ve been around the country over the past few months, communities are saying to me how excited they are to welcome people into their homes to celebrate Matariki. But, more importantly, they are super excited about learning about Matariki and what that means for us as a country, and I’m proud today to stand alongside my colleagues here and I look forward to sharing that time with our people across the country.

Well, tomorrow is Budget day and the accountants could not be happier. But I must say, sadly, for Kiwis out there, there’s not too much to be excited about. We’re debating in the House today as out there in New Zealand, Kiwis are facing an economic crisis—a cost of living crisis with economic challenges that are impacting the hardest-working Kiwis. I want my kids to grow up in a New Zealand with a stable economic future, but, right now, New Zealand is a place that is going in the completely opposite direction.

The Budget that Kiwis need tomorrow is one that deals with the cost of living crisis, prioritises the squeezed middle, and makes sure that those Kiwis get the support they need. When National left office, we left the books in a state whereby there were going to be surpluses for successive years, but under this Government, Minister Robertson is not going to get our books back into the black until 2025, and what this means for Kiwis—it’s an absolute fact—is that they are going to be saddled with a huge burden of debt that is going to have to be paid back over generations and generations. I tell you what: that is not fair for my kids or my grandchildren.

And it isn’t just the balance sheets of the Government that we need to be concerned about. We need to also be thinking about the balance sheets of hard-working Kiwis out there, because, last week, it was announced that food prices had gone up nearly 8 percent year on year—that’s significant cost increases for Kiwis at home. Don’t even mention the cost of fuel in Auckland and other places—it is over $3 a litre. Lastly, the inflation element that we’re seeing is going to mean that Kiwis are going backwards under this Government. We need more focus on fiscal discipline and making sure that every cent the Government spends is getting the outcome and is delivering results. We need to stop the massive inflationary pressure of spending when there are no outcomes.

Families and communities across the country are finding it very hard to get ahead under this Government, and yet they are seeing wasteful spending in all areas and a Government that fails to deliver. ASB Bank predicted that New Zealand households will face an increase in costs of $150 a week. That is the reality of a cost of living crisis in this country.

In local government, we saw, last week, the Government spending $34 million on the failed three waters reforms. It’s trying to sell those failed reforms with an advertising spend but hasn’t put one single metre of pipe in the ground to deal with the wastewater and stormwater infrastructure. And while that’s great news for PR consultants who get to pay off their mortgage early, courtesy of Nanaia Mahuta, introducing reforms that are so poorly planned and spending money and wasting money around advertising brings no value to Kiwis. I expect that we’re going to see even more of that in tomorrow’s Budget—more spin, no delivery.

To me, three waters represents the attitude of this Government. They have ignored the alternative models. They have ignored the feedback from organisations like Communities 4 Local Democracy, and they are not willing to listen to hard-working Kiwis in our councils and our communities. And today, we hear that councils are considering withdrawing from Local Government New Zealand and withdrawing their membership in parts of this country. That is an indictment on reforms that have failed.

I live in the most beautiful electorate in this country, the North Shore, and I’m very humble to be the member of Parliament for that electorate. North Shore people work very hard, and I see unlimited potential for the people of the North Shore and the people of Auckland. But this Government has failed to deliver much-needed infrastructure in that part of the country. We are seeing businesses in our communities facing nightly ram raids, increasing crime, and that is impacting hard-working families across my electorate. Those families are going backwards under this Government. New Zealand and the North Shore are great places to live, but they can be better, and, unlike this Government, National has ambition for this country.

Under National, we’ll get this country back on track. We need to restore fiscal discipline that emphasises outcomes and doesn’t just throw money at something. We need a Government that puts struggling Kiwis at the heart of the Budget, not inflationary spending and not failed reforms like three waters.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. One of the things that I liked the most about my last job, monitoring child health, was you had the opportunity to sit back and look at the bigger picture. You could look at the trends underlying child health, you could look at the economic drivers that were driving some of those changes, and you could think about what you might do to achieve change. I think back in 2009, when the effects of the global financial crisis (GFC) were starting to be felt, it meant I had the time to sit down with colleagues and work out how we were going to monitor the impact of that economic downturn on child wellbeing. As a result, we produced the Children’s Social Health Monitor to track those impacts. And what we saw was, basically, as we were expecting, unemployment rose, and because there were no real buffers or shock absorbers in the system, that tracked through immediately to changes in child poverty and the knock-on effects to families in terms of health and wellbeing.

So, basically, when we started to see COVID coming through the country, and the Treasury back in April 2020 was starting to predict that we’d be seeing large rises in unemployment, and some of their models were really quite concerning—so in some of the scenarios, they were saying between 8 and 22 percent unemployment through to 2021—and so, basically, the question was: what was our Government going to do in response? And, thankfully, our Government chose to take quite a different path to what we saw during the GFC, and, as a result, many of those things that we were predicting never came to pass, because what we did is we put in the wage subsidies, and what they did is they made sure that workers were connected through to their employers and they stayed in their jobs.

We had COVID support payments to help out businesses, we increased benefits, we doubled the winter energy payment, and we also looked at, potentially, people that would need to retrain, and so we had the free trades training and also looked at providing that support for employers so they’d take apprentices on. So we saw some really good things that were happening as a result of those changes that we’d made.

The other thing that we didn’t notice so much and we’re not thinking about is the legacies that this time will leave across the country, and, for me, thinking about what’s happening down in Invercargill. Many of those projects that the Government invested in to bring forward jobs and to rebuild our infrastructure are going to have a lasting legacy. I was out in Bluff a couple of weeks back for the opening of six new kaumātua units out at Te Rau Aroha Marae, and the ability for kaumātua now to live adjoining the marae, and then to, basically, be able to mix with the kids in the kōhanga every morning—some really, really positive changes as a result.

Every week, as I drive to the airport, we’ve got these big stopbanks, the Stead Street stopbanks, that protect our airport from inundation because it’s pretty much at sea level. And, basically, what they’ve done is, with some COVID response, shovel-ready funding, they’ve put in place this massive sheet pile wall to stop the waves overtopping with high tides and with sea-level rise. So it doesn’t come across the road, and, basically, we’ve got better protection for the infrastructure in Invercargill—so some really permanent legacies.

But also thinking forward about how we can create jobs but at the same time manage our response to climate change. So I was at a couple of different nurseries that local iwi are involved with—native tree nurseries. The Jobs for Nature have assisted with the funding. So not only does that create jobs but it means that we can start to restore some of our region’s biodiversity. It means that we can start to improve our water quality and take us further forward in terms of our climate change response. So it’s wonderful to see how many of the innovations are actually doing those dual-purpose jobs, but also climate change but also permanent infrastructure for our region. So, basically, there’s a whole lot of stuff that I think’s going to be very positive out of the previous years.

But the problem we’ve got is nothing ever stands still, and I think the problem we’ve got is that we’re looking forward to the ongoing supply issues with the COVID pandemic. We’re looking ahead to the impacts of climate change on food production, and we’re also seeing the impacts more immediately of the war in Ukraine and the impact that’s had on cost of living.

But looking again at what we had in terms of buffers in the system when we went through the GFC, our Government in the last few years has put in place incredible—we’ve increased the minimum wage. We’ve increased benefits. We’ve got the winter energy payment. There’s a whole lot more buffers in the system that are going to help families as they negotiate that very difficult time, and then even much more recently looking at 25c a litre off fuel costs and also half-price public transport.

So, for me, we’ve only got one sleep until the Budget, and I’m looking forward to hearing more about what the Government is going to do next to take us through the year ahead. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. This week is Budget week. It is the time when the Government tells us how much of your money it wants to spend and on what. Over the past few days, the Government has drip-fed little details of how much will go to whom. The media has, of course, lapped it up, and we’ve already seen them ask that inevitable question: who will be the biggest winners in this year’s Budget? Will it be billions spent on subsidies for film companies or millions on jobs that nobody wants, like the Jobs for Nature scheme, which has been a complete failure?

One group of people that I know will be watching are patients and their families, the New Zealanders wondering will there be enough money in this year’s Budget set aside for the medicines that they need to survive or live healthier lives—people with breast cancer, blood cancer, Crohn’s and colitis, spinal muscular atrophy. There are so many conditions.

New Zealanders have access to fewer modern medicines than in 19 other comparable OECD countries. We have publicly funded the lowest number of modern medicines in the past decade. I suspect the Government will announce a funding increase for Pharmac and medicines this week, as they did last year, pat themselves on the back, and congratulate themselves for seeming wonderful and compassionate, but they are not. Not only did they rule out funding from the review into our drug-buying agency Pharmac after ACT pushed them into a review, they have had that review for months, and patients are still in the dark. They haven’t seen it. The Minister should release it to those patients desperate to get their hands on it.

Any announcement this week is simply political theatre, and it doesn’t address the underlying issue. How have we fallen so far behind the rest of the world? Why can our cousins in Australia afford so many more medicines than us? It’s because every Budget, the Government and the media focus on who are the biggest winners, who receives the biggest hand-outs. But if we keep thinking of wealth as a fixed pie that’s divided up every Budget, we will keep gradually declining down the world rankings. Instead, we need to ask: who do we want to be as a country? Do we want to be a country with access to the same newer and modern medicines so New Zealanders can live longer, healthier lives? The ACT Party says yes. So how is it that we have fallen behind the rest of the world, and how do we change it?

It comes down to culture. We need to be a country that says to Kiwis: if you work, save, invest, and aspire for more, you will be rewarded, not punished. I spoke to a young kid last week about what he was going to do when he finished school. He said, “Engineering, and then I’ll move to Australia.” His friend said the same but said that he’ll move to the UK. I also had an email from a mother who said that she’s moving her four kids to Canada because “anybody who works hard, saves, and budgets is just punished here”. The Budget should give hope to that mother that if she strives for her family, if she works hard, she’s not going to be fodder for a hand-out culture, and that her kids can aspire for more. It also needs to create an environment that leads to more productive jobs with higher wages so that our best and brightest feel like they can have a future here.

ACT’s alternative Real Change Budget would deliver just that. We would reduce taxes, make them more competitive, to bring aspiration back. ACT’s tax rates would be 17.5 percent up to $70,000 and 28 percent from there. We’d reduce wasteful spending by cutting policies like the Jobs for Nature scheme, which has cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in a job shortage. We’ve found billions of dollars of wasteful spending that we can cut. We need to make sure our spending is high quality, our tax system is competitive, and our regulatory environment is welcoming, because that creates a more productive economy. Australia has a more productive economy. Their workers’ wages have grown $6,600 a year more than Kiwi workers’ here since the Government took over. We would make it easier to invest in New Zealand. It’s easier to invest in Myanmar and China than here. We would reintroduce 90-day trials. All of this would make New Zealand a more productive economy. That’s the only way that we can fund more modern medicines.

ACT’s alternative budget takes on these issues that politicians run a mile from because they’re scared of big, bold change. The question is not whether we can afford big, bold change; it’s whether we can afford not to. Do we want to be a pretty island nation that people visit or one where people stay?

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Thank you for the chance to make a contribution today in this general debate on one of the most exciting weeks—Budget week—of all weeks. And what a start to the week it’s been. On Monday, we had climate change Minister James Shaw talking about the emissions reduction plan. Yesterday, we had the Hon Andrew Little talking about mental health investments, and if we think about today—obviously, this afternoon’s contributions from the National Party haven’t exactly been aspirational, but we’ve certainly had some examples of magical thinking, certainly some fuzzy economics, we’ve had some rewriting of history, and a couple of examples of things that simply never happened.

But getting back to the good stuff. Yesterday, it was a real pleasure to be with the Hon Andrew Little as he announced a $100 million investment in the specialist mental health and addiction area. I want to shoutout to Sally and the team at Te Ao Mārama for hosting and for their manaakitanga to really making us feel incredibly welcome and for showing us all of the amazing work that they do. The package includes funding for crisis services, for intensive residential and home-based support, mainly centred around the strengths of peer-led services and the aroha that’s out there to be had, and for us to make the most of in our communities. So I really want to acknowledge the Minister for his unwavering commitment to mental health and for his absolute leadership towards doing mental health differently and for understanding mental health differently—including building a new primary model from the ground up which improves access and is for the betterment of all.

One of the things I’m looking particularly forward to next week, after Budget week, will be catching up with Peter and his team at the Ara trades campus in Woolston, which is in my patch—the beautiful Banks Peninsula. Amongst the many things that, no doubt, we’ll talk about and catch up about will be the Apprenticeship Boost and the fact that this Government—the Labour Government—have extended that Apprenticeship Boost until the end of 2023, and what that means in terms of supporting an additional 38,000 apprenticeships. The key message that we heard from business is that they need more skilled workers, and unlike National—after the global financial crisis, and particularly after the Christchurch earthquakes—we understood and we understand the importance of investing and training New Zealanders to build our houses, to rebuild our houses, and to upgrade our infrastructure. And, importantly, we understand that these things are the things that actually help accelerate our economy and help accelerate our economic recovery. Importantly—and actually, vitally—it helps ensure that there’s good jobs for all New Zealanders.

Our economy is one of the strongest in the world, and we’ve heard from our excellent Minister of Finance—who is well-known as a safe pair of hands—that we have record low unemployment at 3.2 percent, and our economic activity is up on what it was compared to pre - COVID-19 levels. And that’s, in a large part, because of the investment that this Government has made in training, supporting, and helping New Zealanders into work.

Earlier, I mentioned the emissions reduction plan and the announcements that were made on Monday. And on Monday, the climate change Minister, James Shaw, announced New Zealand’s first three budgets, which I think is an absolute milestone on our journey towards a zero-carbon future. In actually meeting the budgets and in the process of meeting the budgets, what we’re actually going to create is new industries, which is exciting; higher-value jobs, which is exciting; lower household energy bills, which is exciting; and we’re going to achieve a more climate-friendly agricultural sector. We’ll have warmer, drier homes, and the by-product of a lot of that stuff is exciting new technologies, which we understand is the driving force for productivity in our economy—not to mention the protection of native species and our ecosystems.

So, as I said, this week is almost certainly one of the most exciting weeks in our parliamentary calendar as we usher in the Budget tomorrow. Despite the fact that—as my colleague Peeni Henare mentioned earlier on—we’ve heard very little solutions from the other side of the House, but, on this side of the House, we are absolutely focused on the things that we know make a real difference to the lives of everyday New Zealanders. There will be cost savings for businesses and a greater resilience in the face of increasing global uncertainty, and I look, very much, forward to hearing all of the other fabulous details that we will all share in tomorrow.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.