Imprest Supply (Second for 2022/23) Bill

I move, That the Appropriation (2022/23 Estimates) Bill be now read a third time and that the Imprest Supply (Second for 2022/23) Bill be now read a second time.

This is the final act in what most people think of as the Budget debate, but it has the initial bonus of also being the debate on the Imprest Supply (Second for 2022/23) Bill. I will address that matter first before moving on to the appropriations.

The imprest supply bill provides interim parliamentary authority for expenditure decisions made, or to be made, by the Government, through to the end of the financial year, that are additional to the amounts in the 2022/23 Estimates. They are a normal part of the parliamentary Budget process. The second imprest bill provides for any operating or capital spending decisions, including pre-commitments against future Budget allowances and expenditure occurred against the between-Budget contingency. It also covers fiscally neutral adjustments which increase one appropriation but decrease another, confirmation of expense transfers, increases in demand-driven appropriations, and draw-downs of existing tagged contingency. Provision is also made for any risks that may materialise, for example, matters covered in the risks to fiscal forecast chapter of the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update.

The amount requested in the Imprest Supply (Second for 2022/23) Bill is $28.5 billion. This is significantly lower than the $41 billion requested in last year’s second imprest supply bill and the $56.5 billion requested in the 2021 second imprest bill. The difference is largely due to a reduction in the size of the Government’s general contingency buffer to reflect the change in circumstances. As the Government’s COVID-19 response evolves and we move from our elimination framework through to minimisation and protection, it is prudent to reduce the size of this buffer. The reduction is also consistent with the closure of the COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund. Although the amount sought in the bill signals a move closer to pre-COVID imprest levels, members can rest assured the buffer is sufficient to cover unexpected spending which may occur in this financial year. All expenditure incurred under the interim authority of the second imprest bill will of course need to be appropriated by Parliament before the end of the financial year, as is the case every year, and that is done through the Appropriation (2022/23 Supplementary Estimates) Bill, which will be introduced on Budget day 2023.

Just before I move off the question of imprest supply, it is important to note that, historically, the level of authority is rarely met in terms of what is actually expended. So for example, in the 2021/22 year, there was slightly more—$25 million in the operating expenses—but under capital there was only $2 billion as compared to nearly $13 billion that was authorised. Similarly, for capital injections, for the $2 billion, there was only around $500 million. So it’s an authority—it’s not a direction—to spend, and all spending that comes under the imprest authority ends up back with the House through the appropriation bills.

It is with great pleasure that I stand to speak in what is effectively the final stage in this debate of the Budget. I stand proud of Budget 2022. It was a Budget that was put together during a very challenging time for the New Zealand economy. When we put this Budget together, we were trying to balance three important things. The first of those was making sure that we began the journey to more of a stable fiscal position. As all Governments around the world have had to do through COVID, we have had to borrow money to make sure that New Zealand got through. I stand proudly by the Government’s record of getting alongside New Zealanders to make sure that they could get through COVID-19. Be that the more than $20 billion that we put in place to support people through the wage subsidy scheme or the resurgence support payments, be that the more than $10 billion of additional health spending that we put in place to make sure that our health system could support New Zealanders to stay healthy. While others in this House change their position, take on hindsight economics as their guiding light, we stand proudly beside what we have done. It is worth noting again that Standard & Poor’s, when they reaffirmed New Zealand’s local currency credit rating and our foreign currency rating, they said this: New Zealand has weathered the pandemic “better than most countries in terms of health, fiscal, and economic outcomes.” That is down to the hard work of New Zealanders and the resilience of New Zealanders through a very difficult couple of years, and we, as a Government, have stood alongside New Zealanders in doing that.

In returning New Zealand to a more stable fiscal position, this means making sure that our level of public debt stays low. On a comparable measure, New Zealand’s public debt remains under 20 percent of GDP. When we look—

💬 Hon David Bennett: What was it when you started?

—at where we were—Mr Bennett, our level of debt is lower than what National left us. Is that right? Is that correct, Mr Bennett? Have we got New Zealand’s level of debt lower than what National left us? Because that is the truth. That level of debt, when we compare it to those countries around the world like the UK, like the US, like Australia, it means that we have a position to be able to deal with the challenges that the world will throw at us that is stronger and better than most other economies.

We also, in this Budget, are able to see a forecast that sees us return to surplus in the 2024/25 fiscal year. That achievement will mean that we have got ourselves back into surplus five years after COVID. Not the six years that the previous Government took after the global financial crisis (GFC), when, arguably, the dip in the economy was not as large as what it was from the first hit of COVID, and that comes from a careful and balanced approach to spending. Not the austerity cuts preferred by the National Party, but continued sustained investment in health and in education while being careful with our spending and getting ourselves back into surplus as soon as we possibly can. So that was an important part of this Budget, getting the balance of that right. Then, alongside that, was supporting New Zealanders with the immediate cost of living issues. That meant extending out the fuel excise duty cut, that meant making sure that half-price public transport was put in place, and then a cost of living payment targeted to the New Zealanders that once upon a time the National Party cared about, those earning less than $70,000 who didn’t get the support from our 1 April package. That has made a big difference for those people. And, on Budget night, we were able to pass the legislation to begin to reform our supermarket sector so we genuinely will have competition and make sure that New Zealanders don’t pay so much for their food.

The third element was to continue the Government’s programme to provide to New Zealanders the basis for a high-wage, low-emission economy that provides security to New Zealanders in good times and bad. It means taking on some tough issues. It means making sure that the health system actually operates in the interests of all New Zealanders, an issue kicked down the road by previous Governments. We weren’t prepared to do that, and we’ve invested significantly in the health sector. It means carrying on with our reforms of our planning system, of three waters—the issues that the Opposition would prefer to ignore; they’d prefer to make sure they didn’t address. But on this side of the House we have done that. We continue to invest in those businesses and get alongside those sectors where those high-wage jobs exist, so there is further investment in skills and in training. I want to echo the words of the Minister of Education from earlier in question time today; I am immensely proud of the fact that apprenticeships are a priority under this Government. I remember after the GFC when the National Party didn’t care about apprentices, they didn’t care that they were laid off. They were the first to go—

💬 Nicola Willis: Keep talking about the past.

—and the National Party did nothing. I’m talking about today, Ms Willis. I’m talking about the fact that we’ve got 50,000 people who’ve gone through the Apprenticeship Boost, and 200,000 people who have benefited from trade training opportunities provided by this Government. That is what this Budget has done. It is invested in the young people of New Zealand and it is invested in making sure that we address the long-term issues.

One of the major one of those is around our infrastructure deficit, and this Budget confirms $60 billion worth of spending over the next five years in our infrastructure. That party opposite did nothing to make sure that our infrastructure kept up to date. Our population grew wildly and the National Party did nothing.

I am hugely optimistic about the New Zealand economy. It has been resilient through COVID and our prospects are strong. Our borders are back open, tourists are returning, international students are returning, our exporters are continuing to earn good money internationally on our behalf. As a Government, we will stick with New Zealanders. We’re not the fair-weather friends the National Party are. We stick with them. We make sure we are there in tough times and we’re there in good times, to make sure that all New Zealanders benefit from a stronger economy. I am immensely proud of this Budget and of New Zealanders.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

When will this Labour Government learn that New Zealanders will judge them not by what they promise to spend but by what they actually deliver? When will that Minister learn that it doesn’t matter how many times he says he’s spending more, it doesn’t matter if he doesn’t deliver more? When will that Minister learn that after five years of failure across the key areas he came to Government on, New Zealanders have learnt to read between the lines of his promises?

Actually, when we look at these Estimates of Appropriations, we see the biggest spending Budget in New Zealand’s history. And this comes at a time when everyday New Zealanders are going backwards. Their real wages have declined by 3.7 percent in the past year. We had the amusing, if somewhat startling, contest today in question time where the Minister of Finance denied that fact, despite the fact that that is a fact provided to me by the Parliamentary Library, where we have a Minister who is seemingly in denial about the fact that prices in New Zealand are rising at the fastest rate they have in 32 years, while wages are not keeping up. For the past eight quarters—that is, for the past two years—prices have been rising faster than wages.

So the context for that Minister’s Budget is a cost of living crisis. And what does his Budget offer to solve that? Does it address the underlying drivers of productive growth? Does it address the underlying drivers of inflation? No, it doesn’t. It proposes more band-aids, more bureaucracy, more spending, no targets, no results.

And if you want a case in point for that, let’s take the cost of living payment, because that is the absolute epitome of a band-aid. The Minister of Finance is smug enough to believe that New Zealanders who are beset by a cost of living crisis will thank him for doing something for just three months—for a $350 payment—when they know that that is the same Minister who is planning to fund his spending by a raid on their KiwiSaver accounts and who, in the next couple of years, is proposing a jobs tax that will levy every single employee such that the average taxpayer will be paying $800 more on tax. And yet the Minister of Finance expects those same New Zealanders to turn around and say, “Thank you so much for that $350 temporary band-aid payment.”

Well, actually, what New Zealanders are saying when they look at this Budget is “Why is it that the Government can’t be just a little bit more careful with its spending? Why is it that they were so sloppy that the cost of living payment ended up going to more than 6,000 people who explicitly told the IRD that their mailing address was overseas?” Well, here’s a clue: when you tell the IRD that your address is overseas, that means you’re not a resident in New Zealand and you shouldn’t be receiving the cost of living payment.

This is the same Budget that proposes massive spend-ups on areas that New Zealanders have made very clear that they do not wish to be prioritised. The billions of dollars for three waters reforms—that is adamantly opposed by dozens of New Zealand councils, that is opposed by tens of thousands of New Zealanders, who see it for what it is: a bureaucratic centralising answer to a problem that will see more inefficiency and more Byzantine governance structures.

And this is the same Budget that proposes to put billions of dollars into a health restructuring at a time when our front-line health workforce have had to cope with two years of global pandemic—a workforce who are exhausted and who have been told that the priority for this Government is another shuffling of the bureaucratic deck chairs. This at a time when our emergency rooms are overflowing—literally overflowing. Here in Wellington, we have had more than one person, more than two people, more than three people waiting more than a day for treatment in their emergency room; where we have had fewer elective surgeries delivered and where we have seen immunisation rates decline.

In all of this, we are expected to believe “Don’t worry, we’ll just pour some billions more into the bureaucracy and you’ll see some results.”—this despite five years of failure. And here we have a Government that says, “Oh well, look, we’re going to get better outcomes by spending 70 percent more.” Because you’ve heard the rhetoric from the Minister of Finance, who says—his actual phrase was “We’re going to begin the journey to more stable fiscal management. We’re going to begin the journey.”

So let’s be clear about where that journey is at. This year, the Government intends to spend $51 billion more than National did in its last year of Government. That is a 70 percent increase in spending. So it feels fair to me to ask, “Where’s the 70 percent increase in services? Where’s the 70 percent increase in results?” Actually, as far as I can see, we’ve got fewer children attending school, we’ve got declining literacy and numeracy rates, we have declining amounts of elective surgery, we have declining waiting times in our emergency rooms, and wherever I care to look, I see failure. We have a State house waiting list that has quadrupled. Last night, around 4,000 families put their children to sleep in a motel room. And yet we are to believe that this Government should be trusted with spending 70 percent more.

And let’s be clear about what’s fuelling that spending. It is being fuelled by the taxes from hard-working New Zealanders, because this year the tax take will be up $41 billion from what it was when National left office—$41 billion more. It is actually clear why that’s happening. It’s because with inflation roaring ahead, New Zealanders are being pushed into hard tax brackets, such that typical New Zealanders are paying more tax than ever. So they’re being robbed twice: once, whenever they face a price at the supermarket, at the pump, when they pay their rent; and the second time, when they go to the tax man.

And what is this Government’s response to that? This Government’s response to that is to see how it can sneakily devise more taxes so that it can continue to fuel the big spend-up. And we’ve had the unedifying spectacle of the IRD taking up to Ministers proposals for a KiwiSaver tax, and Ministers, instead of having the good judgment to say, “Well, you know, this will wipe $103 billion off New Zealanders’ savings; maybe that’s not a good idea.”—instead of Ministers having the good judgment to agree with the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, who said, “We don’t think this is a good idea because it will lead to declining savings funds.”, instead Ministers licked their lips with glee at the thought of $250 million more in annual revenue.

So we have a situation in this Budget where we have a Government that is on an out-of-control spending track and that has lost all sight of delivery. And I would put to you, Mr Speaker, that my words at the beginning of this speech are words that this Government should listen to, because I think New Zealanders are a bit sick of Government by press release, Government by panicked reaction. It is not enough to put out a press release saying you care, with a big number attached; what New Zealanders want to see is that things improve as a result. If you want a really good example of that, look at mental health. A lot of people believed this Government when they said that they cared about mental health and they were going to do something about it, when they got that press release saying that $1.9 billion would be spent. And yet, when I talk to parents in this city here in Wellington, when I talk to New Zealanders across the country, they tell me that it is harder than ever to access specialist mental health services. They tell me it is harder than ever to get the help they need for their children and loved ones.

So this is a Budget that will take New Zealanders further backwards into more debt, more spending, more tax, less delivery, more band-aids, more bureaucracy—it’s more Labour. They’ve already had five years of failure and this Budget is just the cherry on a cake that New Zealanders don’t want.

Listening to that speech from the finance spokesperson from the National Party, you’d think that spending is out of control in this country. This year’s forecast, according to the Treasury, of Government expenditure, as a percentage of GDP, is 31.6 percent of GDP, core Government expenditure. What was it in 2013? It was 32 percent of GDP. Under the National Party, after they had been in Government for five years, spending, as a percentage of GDP, was 32 percent of GDP. This year, it is 31.6 percent of GDP.

We’ve weathered the COVID storm. We’ve come out the other side. Vaccine mandates outside of the health workforce are on the way out. Mask mandates are already gone. The trees are blooming. It’s looking like it’s going to be a good spring and a good summer. There’s so much good news around; I can’t believe the negativity of the other side.

We’ve not just had one of the best outcomes from COVID in the world, we’ve probably had the best in terms of the number of lives that have been saved and the state of the economy. We heard today from the Minister of Finance, as the acting Prime Minister at the moment, about how New Zealand’s economy is already quite significantly larger than it was pre-COVID, and so much better than most other countries are, relative to how their performance is, compared with before COVID.

Even last week, we had great statistics out. Growth is up. Unemployment is very, very low at 3.3 percent. Inflation has peaked. Yes, inflation has been hard—it has been hard; it continues to be hard for people. People aren’t fooled by the rhetoric from the National Party. They see these terrible inflationary peaks overseas: Europe and their problems with their energy sector—spiralling cost of living there, which makes inflation here look low relative, and it is. Unemployment is low at 3.3 percent.

The galling misrepresentation of earnings by the finance spokesperson and deputy leader of the National Party—she quotes some information that she said she got from the Parliamentary Library. I have the official statistics dated 17 August 2022 at 10.45 a.m., if you’re interested, from Statistics New Zealand. It’s titled: “Weekly earnings rise as more in full-time employment”, and it records that median weekly earnings from wages and salaries rose 8.8 percent in the year to June 2022—8.8 percent increase in median weekly earnings from wages and salary, ahead of inflation. Even though it’s true inflation has been high, it has peaked.

Debt is low. New Zealand’s net debt is lower than in Australia, in the US, in Japan, in the UK, and in just about any European country you care to name. New Zealand’s Government debt is lower and peaks on a net debt basis at less than 20 percent of GDP.

A stunning result for our country that shows prudent fiscal management of this country since the last irresponsible fiscal leader of this country, who was, decades ago, the Rt Hon Robert Muldoon, under National. Every Government since then in New Zealand—Labour and National—has been fiscally responsible. It was the Douglas-Lange Government that got it under control, the Bolger Government continued, the Clark-Cullen Government continued, the Key-English Government continued, and this Government is too. There has not been a fiscally irresponsible Government in this country for decades, and it does not behove the Opposition well to pretend that we are, when Standard & Poor’s and other ratings agencies say exactly the opposite and record that, in the face of this incredible challenge brought on by COVID, we have good outcomes in our health result, our fiscal result—that’s the Government’s borrowings—and in the economic outcome for the country.

On delivery, I don’t know what planet Nicola Willis has been living on, but house building has doubled under this Government. The number of houses being built every year has literally doubled under this Government, after the woeful housing crisis left behind by the last Government. They never managed to reform the Resource Management Act (RMA). They didn’t pull any of the levers that we have in the RMA. No fast track. They did help us with upzoning legislation recently. After the global financial crisis (GFC), they cut the number of apprentices being trained.

💬 Chris Bishop: No, we didn’t.

You did. The number of apprentices trained after the GFC, the funding for that was cut by the austerity Budgets—

💬 Chris Bishop: Absolute rubbish.

That is exactly true, and it’s why, when we’ve taken the opposite approach—I was here when Phil Goff was criticising the National Government, post-GFC for cutting apprenticeship funding, which was one of the reasons why there was such a reliance on overseas labour to rebuild Christchurch, because not enough apprentices had been trained in New Zealand.

So, in contrast, we have had 200,000 extra people through trade training; 50,000 of whom have been apprentices, many of those apprentices in the building trades. That’s why not only has the number of houses being built in New Zealand doubled and we’re overcoming this housing crisis and rents in Auckland are lower than the rate of inflation, because supplies, at long last, are starting to catch up; that’s also why we’ve been able to have a record public house build which we’re building more public houses after the last Government sold them off and left a lower stock of public housing when they left—

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: Who to? Tell the whole story.

Now, Michael Woodhouse says, “Tell the whole story.” The whole story is that you do sometimes demolish a house to build more, but we haven’t sold them off and ended up with a lower housing stock than we started with. We on this side are building more public houses than have been built since the 1970s, and public housing stock is going up.

The Budget deficit is already under control. You can see that from the Budget documents. Of course there was a large deficit as we supported businesses and households through the COVID crisis. But that is behind us. We return to surplus five years after COVID; compared with National taking six years after the GFC to return to surplus.

I want to say a little bit about exports. We had lots of difficult decisions to make during COVID. We had to, effectively, ration the amount of moving around during lockdowns, and we decided that we needed to prioritise our export sectors, and we did. As a consequence, notwithstanding COVID, our merchandise exports are up—and our primary sector exports, for the first time, have passed $50 billion.

Now, there’s a lot of reasons behind that, but one has been the enormous and stunningly successful trade agenda that this Government has had to reduce tariffs, to secure access to new markets. We’ve landed huge trade deals. We finished off the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), and there was some good work put into that by National. We’ve done the China free-trade agreement (FTA) update. We’ve done the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. We’ve started and finished the EU FTA, we’ve started and finished the UK FTA, and they have helped us diversify our export sales channels. For the first time in a long, long time, sales of our exports to CPTPP countries are now higher than they are to China. This is a trade-diversification strategy that is working. We have improved secure access to G20 economies: Japan, Canada, Mexico, Germany, the UK, and Italy—none of whom we had secured trade relationships with until this Government got on the road and pursued trade agreements so successfully.

Our exporters have come to the party. They worked through COVID. We helped them with the air connectivity system to keep exports growing. We have supported 12,300 flights; 235,000 tonnes of high-value exports that would not have been carried to market otherwise.

So we’ve opened the door. We’ve kicked those trade doors open. We’ve enabled connectivity and supply lines to be maintained. Our clever exports have taken the gap and they have earned money for the economy. That’s one of the reasons why this economy is so strong under Labour.

Well, quite to the contrary from this Government’s smug and sanctimonious approach to the public finances, New Zealanders know that the country is going backwards under this Government. After five years, they can point to very little substantive achievement and very little to actually show to the New Zealand public what they have accomplished for the massive increase in Government spending.

Now, David Parker wants to tell the story that every Government since the 1984 to 1990 Labour Government has been fiscally disciplined and has paid down debt and been prudent and responsible. That is sort of true, apart from the last five years, when there has been a 67 percent increase in Government spending—a $51 billion increase in Government spending. That is an enormous sum of money—a 67 percent increase in Government spending—and I’d just put it to New Zealanders whether they are 67 percent better off for that increase in Government spending—

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: Are they 1 percent better off?

—“Are they 1 percent better off?”, as Michael Woodhouse says—and I would say that the answer is indisputably no. They are not 67 percent better off. There hasn’t been a 67 percent reduction in child poverty. There hasn’t been a 67 percent increase in hip operations or cancer treatment access or a reduction in emergency department wait times. In fact, emergency department wait times are worse—far worse.

💬 Dr Shane Reti: Every health metric.

Dr Shane Reti makes the excellent point that every health metric is worse.

💬 Dr Shane Reti: Choose one—any one you like.

Choose any one—every single metric is worse. I want to talk briefly later on in my contribution about the housing market and about housing in New Zealand, because I can tell you something for free: housing is not 67 percent better off as a result of this Government’s fiscally ill-disciplined approach to the public finances.

On almost every metric you choose to measure it, things are going backwards in New Zealand and not getting better. The Minister of Finance says, “Oh, unemployment is at record lows.”—yes, it is. That’s true, and we welcome that—congratulations. But, of course, New Zealanders ask the question: why do we have record numbers of people who are under 25 who are on the job seeker benefit at a time of record low unemployment—I mean, riddle me that. How can that be? People know that it doesn’t make any sense, and they say that at a time of labour shortages and in a time when businesses up and down the motu are crying out for workers, we have a situation where the Government is prepared to let predominantly young New Zealanders languish on the job seeker benefit for year after year, and only the National Party has a plan to do something about that.

So, yep, unemployment is low, but what David Parker didn’t want to talk about in his contribution was that inflation is at a 30-year high and, for the first time in a very long time, New Zealanders are going backwards in terms of real wages. It’s a point that needs to be remembered and that the Government needs to be reminded of over and over again, because under the Key-English administration, which David Parker sometimes likes to wax positively about—

💬 Rachel Brooking: Not very often.

Well, you sort of laugh at it, but he’s the one who was talking about it. I mean he gave quite a positive speech about the Key-English administration and how they were fiscally disciplined and this, that, and the other thing. Six months ago, he gave a speech about how the tax switch, which the Labour Party criticised strongly back in 2019—David Parker gave a speech to the Institute of Policy Studies, I think it was, at Victoria University, talking about how it was like a masterful sign of political communication. So you might sort of laugh at it, but you’re laughing at your own Minister.

David Parker needs to know that inflation is at a 30-year high, but wage growth is well behind that. In the Key-English administration, over the time of that Government’s time in office, wage growth was around about double the rate of inflation. In other words, year on year, Kiwis were getting ahead at double the rate of inflation, so when people got a pay rise and they compared that to inflation, they were getting ahead, and, of course, that flows through to superannuation rates as well, because the super is tied to 66 percent of the average after-tax wage. Now we are in a situation where that has reversed, and where inflation is running well ahead of wage growth as measured by the labour cost index (LCI).

Now, I’ve been an MP for eight years; in fact, I was reminded by my colleague Dr Shane Reti today that today is the eighth anniversary of the 2014 election, and what a great election it was.

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: Happy anniversary.

Thank you very much, Michael Woodhouse. What a great election it was and a great Government that kept doing things well and didn’t waste money like this Government. But anyway, eight years ago, I can remember Grant Robertson turning up in Parliament and sitting right here, where Nicola Willis used to sit—I mean, he was actually at various different places on the front bench as he had a variety of different jobs. But anyway, Grant Robertson would be standing up and saying, “LCI growth, LCI growth, LCI growth.” He used to rant on about the labour cost index, which is, of course, a measure of wage inflation, and now, of course, when he’s in Government, Grant Robertson doesn’t want to talk about the labour cost index because it doesn’t suit him, because he knows that when you compare the LCI, which is wage growth, to inflation as measured by the CPI—the Consumers Price Index—for the last two years or so, the CPI is higher than the LCI.

So, in other words, New Zealanders in real terms are going backwards. You can look it up—I got the library to do it the other day, or a while ago—and you can compare all the times that Grant Robertson turned up to Parliament and used to talk about the LCI. Now, of course, he says, “Oh well, that’s one measure. We want to talk about other things.” Well, he wants to talk about other things because his preferred measure of wage inflation doesn’t show what he wants it to show; in fact, it shows that the country is going backwards.

Wages are not keeping up, and that is literally why we in Opposition say—and it is true, no matter what David Parker likes to think—that Kiwis are going backwards. I’d just encourage Government backbenchers and, in fact, Government Ministers, more likely—because there are some Labour backbenchers who get out and about around the country a little bit, sometimes. But Government Ministers are stuck down here in Wellington. They’re in their cloistered offices and they’re taking the VIP limos around the country, and I’d just encourage them to get out of the limo and talk to real people.

💬 Hon Kiritapu Allan: Mostly we use rental cars, bro.

Well, Kiri Allan is someone who keeps it real. I’m not having too much of a go at Kiri Allan. She is someone from the East Coast. She knows that her people on the coast, up in Tai Rāwhiti—she knows that some of them are doing it extremely tough, so she’s out there keeping it real.

But some of her colleagues need to take a leaf out of her book, and get out of their VIP cars and limos and go and talk to real people, because what they’ll find is that people are doing it extremely tough. They stare at their wages not keeping up with inflation, and, in particular, they stare at a housing market that’s come down a little bit, but, of course, it’s rents that are up 140 bucks a week in the last five years.

I think it is a disgrace that this Government in the last five years has spent over a billion dollars on emergency housing. We see the scenes of squalor and human misery and the despair in Rotorua, and we see 26,000 people on the State house waiting list. Again, I remember that in 2014, 2015, and 2016, there was no wait-list. There was no wait-list. I can remember a time in New Zealand history when there was no State house wait-list, and that’s got to be the aim. The aim is to eradicate the State house waiting list.

I can remember the Labour members talking about how it was disgraceful that children were living in cars and that it was appalling that children were living in motels, and I would agree with them. But on every metric, housing is worse under this Government. Things are far worse than they ever were, with 4,000 households living in motels around the country. People who are in the most severe and urgent need of State housing are at A20 on the State house wait-list, in the bureaucratic parlance. People who are in the most severe and urgent need—we give them a number, and it’s A20. They used to wait 45 days for a State house, and 45 days is too long—we accept all that. They now wait 421 days for a State house—421 days. That’s a year and a bit—it’s well longer than a year. It’s a disgrace.

The Government says, “Oh, we’ve built more public houses than any other Government in New Zealand’s history.”, and the Prime Minister rants on about it: “We’ve built 10,000 houses.” That is wrong.

Let me give you the numbers. Kāinga Ora: since October 2017, has built 6,716 Kāinga Ora houses, but guess what? They’ve demolished 4,000, or they’ve sold them. They like to say that they’ve stopped selling State houses, but they haven’t stopped selling State houses. They’re demolishing them and they’re selling them. The net increase in new builds: 2,000. Where does the balance come from to get to the 10,000? Leases, redirects, and buy-ins. That’s not building new State houses; that’s just juking your numbers by buying more State houses. That’s not building State houses, so we shouldn’t believe the Prime Minister.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I’ll start by talking about what was good about this Budget, and it was, actually, quite significant—it was our first real climate Budget. After decades of the Green Party campaigning for action on climate change and proposing practical solutions for climate change, we, finally, have Government taking climate very seriously. I am proud of the work that my colleagues, co-leaders of the Green Party, have done as Ministers in this Government, despite the fact they’re outside Cabinet, despite the fact that it’s a Labour majority Government. They have been in there fighting their hardest for meaningful action on the single greatest issue of our time, and the single most important thing that we need to respond to. You know, $2.9 billion made great strides, and I just want to be totally honest: what the Government is doing on climate change, right now, is not enough. It is not even close to what we need to do to address the climate crisis.

It’s not just the climate crisis. We have a biodiversity crisis. And quite intertwined with that, we have an inequality crisis. To be honest, the Labour majority Government is just tinkering; they’re not doing anything remotely like transformation. In part, it’s just evident from the debate that we’re having here in this House today, it’s a debate about the wrong issues in many ways, about the wrong solutions. We’re still having the debate that started in the framing of the 1980s. We had the Hon David Parker—who I really admire, and I think he works very hard—he was extolling the virtues of the 1984 Labour Government who, unfortunately, started us down this track of a Government approach that was actually undermining Government and undermining our collective public assets. Of course, it got much, much worse in 1991—don’t get me wrong, the National Government in the 1990s definitely made it much worse.

But here we are, we’re still debating, we still have Labour saying, “Don’t worry, don’t worry, we’re not spending any money. Debt is really low. We’ve got less debt than all these other countries in the rest of the world. And don’t worry, we’re not spending too much money. And growth is back, growth is up.” And, of course, the National Party’s scaremongering, saying, “Oh, this Government’s so terrible.” Now, they got a few things right: there is a problem with delivery, and public services could be much better. But they haven’t got a single realistic solution to that problem, because all of the policies the National Party are promising will actively make those issues work. Indeed, the fact that the Labour Government is so concerned about being attacked over Government spending, debt, and wanting to prove GDP is up, rather than measuring what really matters, rather than investing in the things that we need to invest in to address the inequality crisis to help us transform our society and our economy so we can live in harmony with nature, so we can have a stable climate for our children—because, right now, our children need us to be responsible.

We are already seeing the impacts of the climate crisis. I mean, this year, the extreme weather events around the world—the floods, the droughts—it’s only 2022. We haven’t even hit 1.5 degrees increase in warming, and we’re on track for way more than that. There will be some in this House who will say, “Oh, why should we do our part? We shouldn’t do anything. Little New Zealand—we’re just a small number of people, we don’t need to do anything.” That’s what they’ll say. “Oh, it’s the big polluters: it’s the United States and it’s China.” And they’re right. But, on a per capita basis, we are one of the worst. I would never imagine them arguing we couldn’t be the world champions in rugby because we’re a small country, or that we couldn’t have the first person to summit Mount Everest. That’s the true Kiwi spirit. We care about our planet, we care about our people, and we want to pull our weight in the world against this fight. This fight for life—we want to be on the right side for our children and grandchildren.

Now, the biggest barrier—like, we can have this, we can have a New Zealand where children are not in poverty, and where everyone has a secure, dry, warm home. We can have that. And we can have communities where people are able to access everything they need to access, to have that green, open space; schools in walking distance; kids able to walk and cycle to school; and frequent, clean, electric buses and trains available to people. All of that is entirely possible, and there are huge, huge advantages to quality of life from embracing this different approach. But the true barrier to us achieving this is vested interests, who have profited and continue to profit from the status quo, all right. And those vested interests are driving the political debate to try and limit what Government can do with its Budget, right. And that’s why we hear about the limited debt and, you know, “We’re not spending too much”, “You’re spending too much”—all of this debate is set up to undermine people’s faith in us, together as a people, to work together to deliver the outcomes that we need.

They’re doing that—they’re diving and conquering—because they’re saying, “Oh, if you’re struggling, if you’re struggling out there, blame the poor people. It’s the beneficiaries.” We’re going to hear this again, from the National and the ACT parties, in this debate. “It’s the people on the jobseeker’s benefit—they’re the problem. They’re the real problem that the middle class should be worried about.” All while they argue against any policy that would dare touch the wealthy elite who are passing down their wealth through hereditary policies—we’re right back to the aristocracy. But “It’s just the market.” The market has decided who’s best, rather than the divine right of kings. It’s the market and the banks, and “We’re going to ensure that that those people never have to contribute to the collective, that they continue to own their many, many, many homes.” And, you know, God forbid they should pay some fair share of capital—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Ms Genter, we’ve got three minutes to go now, so I’ve tried to encourage you just to—it is a wide-ranging debate, but, at some stage, could we just talk about the Budget.

—gains tax. Yes. Yes. Mr Speaker, I am referring to matters that have been debated, and will continue to be debated, by other parties in this House today, but we need to put it in the context so people can understand. Yes, we can work together to solve our collective challenges. We can do that with a fairer tax system—something that was missing in this Budget, sadly—one where those who own property that’s worth lots of money actually pay their fair share of the income they get from that property.

But the companies who are massively benefiting from the current COVID environment—so we had the Government paying Government support to companies. And, yes, we do see inflation and high prices. At the same time, we see a number of companies posting record profits in certain areas where we do not, and never will, have proper competition. Supermarkets, the energy companies, the petrol companies, the banks—they’re all making enormous profits. So it’s not those on the jobseeker benefit that are preventing the Government from delivering great services and addressing the housing crisis, it is those entrenched, vested interests that are represented by the National Party. They will continue to defend those interests. They will claim that to increase public spending and investment in the things we care about, like health, education, sustainable infrastructure—the type of infrastructure that will enable us to address the climate crisis, protect biodiversity, and address inequality, because all of these things are interrelated.

We can have liveable incomes for everyone in New Zealand. We can have healthy, warm housing. But we’re not going to get it through the economic settings in this Budget, and we’re definitely not going to get it from the National and ACT parties because they’re all about protecting that wealthy, entrenched elite. So as long as the debate continues to be about, “Oh, no, no, no, no. We’re not going to spend money; we’re going to limit Government debt. But we are going to spend money on climate and try to address our housing crisis without fundamentally changing the settings”, like through a capital gains tax or through a wealth tax, which would make the tax system fairer, which would help address both the demand side and the supply side of our housing crisis. If we don’t get proper investment in transport infrastructure that’s going to enable people and goods to move around with less carbon and with less cost, with less energy, then we won’t be able to address this crisis.

So the Green Party stands here as the only party that is going to address the things that matter most to New Zealanders: our environment, our children, and our future.

Mr Speaker, this is the first time I’ve appeared before you so I’d be remiss if I didn’t say: congratulations, the member of Parliament for Ōhāriu, for your ascension to this role. We are very, very proud of you and we can see by your conduct in this House how you command the respect of both sides of this Chamber. So tēnā koe e te Kaiwhakawā.

Turning now to the debate at hand. Listening to the contributions this afternoon, and I feel like I’m living in a twilight zone, to be honest. Because when I woke up this morning, I looked at the rising sun, there were three little birds, and they were smiling at my doorstep. They were smiling because Budget 2022 has provided a case for optimism. Do you know why? Because our Government is building the most houses in Aotearoa since the 1970s. In fact, 220 homes in Gisborne, 100 in Whakatane, over 10,000 across the country.

More homes have been built in this past year than since records began. Budget 2022: an additional $20 billion was invested in housing initiatives and those three little birds singing sweetly at my doorstep reminded me that today is a day to be optimistic. It sounds like a cloud of doom has descended upon this House if you are to listen to the trite contributions from the Opposition.

But returning from the mighty East Coast this weekend and coming in to Wellington, I can tell you: in an electorate like mine that isn’t all paisley red—it’s an electorate comprised of hard-working New Zealanders from all walks of life—the sun is out. The masks are off and people are smiling. You can hear those little birds tweeting at our doorsteps. And I think that’s because our Government has supported the most New Zealanders into jobs. We’ve heard the contributions this afternoon: 50,000 New Zealanders—what a milestone for Aotearoa—have been supported by this Government into apprenticeships.

Here in Aotearoa, on the back of an economic crisis—a pandemic—there’s doom and gloom as far as you can look if you have only looked at the economic times in the early 2021s or the late 2021s or earlier this year. But nevertheless, and despite those storms, 50,000 New Zealanders partnered with the Government, they partnered with private enterprise, they pulled up their socks, they got upskilled, and they are working hard all throughout our country. We have, as a consequence, one of the lowest unemployment rates in the OECD: 3.3 percent.

Again, if you listen to the trite contributions of my friends on the other side of the House, you would think that we were heading nose first into a deep recession. But—and I can say this as a proud rural member for the mighty East Coast—this year, record agricultural exports, $53 billion, came into New Zealand’s economy; $53 billion.

Now, you know, I actually watched the spokesperson on finance from the opposite side of the House last week. She obviously had her pre-prepared lines as what she was going to say when the GDP figures on all of her estimations would come out and showed that we had entered into a technical recession. They were all ready to go, but that’s not what the books showed. GDP had lifted.

We’re experiencing growth, and albeit it is modest. You know, when you look at the backdrop that we’ve had over the last couple of years, I don’t think that many people could have anticipated where we’d be as a country right now.

I’m not trying to say that everything’s all perfect—of course it’s not. There is an inflation crisis across the world. We can look at the war in Ukraine; we understand the impact that that war, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, has had on oil prices and, consequently, to electricity prices across the globe.

I sometimes look at the backdrop to what we’ve been operating in here in New Zealand in the last couple of years. To use a word—and I’ll take it from the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance: he used the word to describe the backdrop as being “a little chaotic” and I think that that’s fair.

But where we’ve gotten to today, I just want to be really clear—and we’ve heard expressions, actually, Hon David Parker gave a good example earlier and contributed to this House, a ray of numbers that showed the state of New Zealand’s economy. And the state that we’re in—with the backdrop that we’re in—is not as a consequence of an accident; this is a consequence of design.

Budget 2022 is the fourth Wellbeing Budget that has been introduced into this House—[Interruption] I hear groans from across the House. Why is it important that we measure more than just mere GDP? Because what matters is how people—we need to assess it, whether it’s the environmental outcomes, whether it’s the educational outcomes, whether it’s the cultural outcomes. New Zealand is more than just a buck in your back pocket. Because the economy doesn’t measure how New Zealanders are faring across the world. [Interruption] So I look on—I can still hear them—they’re so disturbed by the fact that we’re just not where they had anticipated we would be as a nation.

I watched our Minister of Finance diligently—and I call him an ardent student of former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Dr Michael Cullen. He is a diligent student of his, and what he did—and also in the relative high time of 2017, 2018 and that period of time when we see GDP year on year on year was growth, growth, growth: 2019 until we got to COVID.

And he would say to all the naysayers who were saying, “Spend more, spend more, spend more” and he did it. He refused to put his hand into his pocket any more than was required because he said there will be a rainy day. We went into this environment—and that we are still sort of coming through—with books that were balanced and steady and stable. We saw a Government that could invest because it had the flex within its balanced books to be able to make the investments that kept business afloat through COVID. And now, here we are.

Budget 2022 had to walk the tight balance to find economic security for now—and like we said, let’s be fair, inflation rates through the roof across the globe. So we had to find that balance for economic security for now. That’s when we saw those measures like the cost of living Payment: $350 for 2.1 million New Zealanders. We saw the pause on gas—on the petrol excise rates—25 cents for every litre at the petrol pump. We saw things like the extension of public transport, knowing that it was real costs like those that were hurting everyday New Zealanders.

So you saw some interim and temporary measures. But, as my friends from the Green Party just alluded to, we also know that whilst we are holding the line and doing what we need to to wrap around New Zealanders today, we have to focus on the future as well.

We saw over $2 billion to decide to combat climate change. I always lead into the mighty East Coast because, in my world, the be all and end all—I’m sure my friend Willow-Jean might try to tussle me out with Northland and up north there—but you know, what we are seeing in real time are the consequences of climate change playing out in our home towns. Climate adaptation isn’t something of tomorrow; it’s something that’s right now. So we are seeing the investment through our climate change funds—over $2 billion that has been set aside to enable that climate change adaptation.

We looked to all of those areas that New Zealanders are looking to for us to respond. I want to put on very briefly—oh look, it’s too late—just in the Justice portfolio, one of the biggest commitments that we make was access to justice for all New Zealanders. The New Zealand Law Society showed that we had been failing New Zealanders, particularly through legal aid, and that goes back to the Bazley report. Something I’m very proud of is that we’ve lifted those rates for legal aid, and it’s something that we’ll continue to do.

This is part of securing New Zealand’s future. We’ve done that on the backdrop of incredible grey clouds, but when I woke up this morning, I smiled at the rising sun because those three little birds were chirping merrily away.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, that’s a perfect example of what happens when a member stands up in this House and has no idea what to say. I want to inform the member that the cannabis referendum voted no, because I fear she may have broken the law before she gave that speech. You see, when a Minister of the Crown stands up and says that because of the Government’s Budget, she wakes up and sees tweeting little birdies outside her window, you know the country’s in trouble. But that is literally what has just happened here in this House.

Well, these are actually serious matters. We’re debating here today the Imprest Supply (Second for 2022/23) Bill, a bill that allows people to spend—and by people I mean the Government—

💬 Hon Kiritapu Allan: Point of order. Just referring to the contribution and the allegations just made in this House that I, as a member of this Government, had been consuming illicit drugs—illegal drugs—in this House. I take that—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Did the member take offence?

💬 Hon Kiritapu Allan: I did take offence to that comment.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The member will stand, withdraw, and apologise.

Ha, ha! I withdraw and apologise. You know, there’s an old saying—

💬 Dr Deborah Russell: Point of Order. Madam Speaker, I am offended that the member over there laughed through his apology. That undermined it. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. You know, there’s an old saying “They don’t like it up ’em”, and the problem that this Government has is that they are finding New Zealanders are increasingly fed up with them. You look at the right direction - wrong direction—New Zealanders have never been more negative. Morale’s never been lower. And it’s partly because you’ve got a Government that can’t take a joke, as we’ve just seen, but you’ve got a Government that increasingly is a joke. A Government that gets up in a serious Budget debate and talks about the fact that there are little birdies tweeting outside their window because of the Government’s Budget.

Well, just for the record, what we’re debating is an imprest supply bill and an appropriation (estimates) bill. This imprest supply bill allows this Government to spend $16 billion of operational spending, $11.5 billion of capital spending—and that is just for July, August, and the days in September until today. Just two and a half months, and it’s about $28 billion of hard-working taxpayers’ money being spent, and that builds up to an annual Budget where it’s forecast that this Government is going to spend $128 billion. And what’s that up from when this Government was first elected? It is $76 billion core Crown expenses. In just five years, we’ve got a Government that has increased expenditure by $52 billion. What does that mean? Well, that money either has to be borrowed and then paid off by your kids or paid for by taxes today. Perhaps that’s why taxation under this Government has gone from $76 billion when Labour was elected to $103 billion forecast this year—$103 billion of tax. That means, on income tax alone, the average Kiwi worker will pay over $12,000 of income tax—up from under $9,000 when this Government was elected. That’s a 30 percent increase in income tax under Labour—more than twice the rate of inflation.

People complain about a cost of living crisis. This Government complains about the cost of fuel, they complain about the war, they complain about COVID, they complain about every single thing that pushes up prices, but they never start with the man in the mirror. Grant Robertson should be looking at himself, because rampant expenditure and taxation under this Government are bleeding Kiwis dry. And are we getting results for it? No. Do we see shorter waiting lists in the hospitals or for social housing? Do we see more kids going to school and getting better results, investing in the future of this country with smarter, more educated citizens? No, we do not. Every single measure that this Government “invests in”—well, you see, they seem to be going backwards, and that’s a real shame.

This Government has strangled the supply of labour in this country to the point I spoke to a shopkeeper last week who’s worked 156 days straight to keep his shop open and this economy going so these guys can try and take the credit while they tax and tax and tax and spend in this Budget. The ACT Party opposes this imprest supply bill; we oppose this Estimates bill that appropriates money off New Zealanders. Why? Because we have a better way. ACT is the only party in this Parliament that has put up an alternative budget—an alternative budget for real change, and an alternative budget for real change that is based on some real values and is based on the values that hard work should equal reward, that people that wake up in the morning get their kids up, make their lunches, send them actually to go to school, and then go in and put a solid day maybe with an extra shift because their workplace is missing workers because this Government shut the border and can’t bring itself to let immigrants back in to work in the volumes they’re needed.

Those people deserve a better deal, and ACT’s alternative budget for real change would first and foremost stop the run-away spending. We’d reduce spending by $6.8 billion per year. Some people say, “Oh, you can’t do that.” Well, just remember from the start of this speech, we’ve got a Government that in five years has increased expenditure by $50 billion. The reductions in expenditure—not having 14,000 additional public servants with no better wellbeing results for New Zealanders; that makes a lot of sense. The idea that we should no longer be paying superannuation at 65 as people work and live longer than ever and rely on a dwindling number of students—this is the kind of real change and honest conversations about the future of our country that makes it a place that young people want to stay, because the alternative is that people leave.

People see that New Zealand’s productivity is falling behind the rest of the world. They look at countries like Lithuania, they look at the Czech Republic, they look at Slovenia, they look at countries like Estonia and Israel—all of which have just overtaken New Zealand, or are about to overtake New Zealand, in productivity. These countries we used to feel sorry for are now richer than us, and don’t even think about the gap with Australia—now almost $25,000 at the median salary. Do you know what that means for New Zealanders that are actually in touch with the world, not looking outside for the little birdies like the Minister, the Hon Kiritapu Allan, who spoke earlier? What it means is they see their kids saying, “You know what? I love New Zealand, but do I love it enough to earn $25,000 less than I otherwise could?” Increasingly the answer is no.

For the first time in decades, New Zealand had a net loss of people in the year to July—11,500 fewer people. It gives me enormous amusement—Deborah Russell, she’s making notes; she’s saying, “Oh, I think he might have got that one wrong there; I’ll really get him.” Actually, the fact is she’s wrong; people are leaving the country under this Labour Government, and it needs to change. And the change that is needed is real change, the kind of change where we cut taxes, where we cut wasteful spending, where we allow foreigners to move to New Zealand and fill roles so that companies can grow and expand and compete internationally and provide exciting globally connected high-paying jobs for the next generation. We need a country that actually is not afraid of foreign investors and allows them to come in as Damien Smith of ACT’s bill proposes—to be debated tomorrow night. We need a country that does not hold on to businesses that do not make sense for the Government to own, when we know that a mixed-ownership model makes them more productive and pays down all that debt this Government has raised over the past two years of its COVID folly.

That’s the kind of real change we need, and if we get this right, then we might actually make this a country that people want to come and people want to stay, because the alternative is that people will see a Government that has no way forward, that has spent all of their money, that has put them under enormous inflationary pressure, and they’ll decide, actually, they’re going to vote with their feet. The alternative is ACT’s alternative budget for real change, reconnecting effort and reward and rewarding people that work hard, that save, that invest, and that want to make tomorrow better than yesterday, because that’s what this country is all about. What unites us all as New Zealanders—from so many corners of the globe and different walks of life—is that each of us, or our ancestors, made the longest journey of any humans in history to give their kids a better tomorrow. That is aspiration; that is opportunity; that is the kind of future that makes this project of having a First World country at the bottom of the world worthwhile. But if we don’t get that change very soon, then the future we face is very bleak, and it’s there to be seen in the right direction - wrong direction figures where by a margin of 20 points, a majority of New Zealanders now say, “We’re in the wrong direction under Labour; the alternative is ACT.” Thank you, Madam Speaker.

I have heard an extraordinary amount of fantasy, of puffery, of rewriting of reality, of relentless negativity in the House this afternoon. It is clear that the Opposition live on some other planet, a planet in which there was not a global pandemic, a planet in which nothing has gone wrong in the world. On this side of the House, we trade in reality and the reality is that this Government has done an extraordinary job in getting New Zealand through the global pandemic.

The previous speaker, David Seymour, used this phrase: he said, “COVID folly”. He said that this Government had engaged in COVID folly. Was it folly when we rolled out payments to ensure that businesses could stay in operation? Was it folly when we funded businesses so they could switch to digital mode? Was it folly when we worked extraordinarily hard to support the New Zealand economy through a one-in-100-year event? The Opposition may rewrite reality all they like, but the fact is there has been an extraordinary event in the last few years, something we never thought we would live through—a global pandemic, and it had an extraordinary effect on this Government.

But this Government made one critical decision as the global pandemic started to occur. It made a critical decision to reject the politics of austerity and to ensure that we supported New Zealanders through, and that is exactly what our Budgets have done. These are Budgets that have worked to support all New Zealanders.

The reality is we have done extraordinarily well and the facts back it up. Unemployment is at a new near-record low of just 3.3 percent. Incomes are growing—8.8 percent growth in the year to 30 June, on the median weekly income. That is extraordinary growth in incomes. We have built more homes in the last year than in any year since records began. Our debt is going down. And, yes, of course we borrowed in order to get through the global pandemic, just like every other Government around the world, but out debt is still amongst the lowest in the OECD.

We have kept our Government spending under control. As David Parker previously said, back in 2013, spending was at 32 percent of GDP. That was under the National Government five years after they came into office, five years after the global financial crisis. This year, five years after the Labour Government has come into office, after the global pandemic, Government spending is at 31.6 percent of GDP. How can that be spending out of control? It is simply Government spending at the level we have kind of settled at over the last few years. So we are actually doing extraordinarily well.

But it’s interesting, and, you know, I think people in this House are right to point it out. All the macroeconomic indicators do show that we are doing well, that our economy is thriving, that the Budgets that the Minister of Finance has presented to this House have actually worked for New Zealand. But, of course, what matters to ordinary people is a roof over their head; it’s food on the table. And we have worked consistently hard to achieve those things for New Zealanders and to achieve security for them.

Now, in terms of housing, we are continuing to build social housing; we are continuing to work on emergency housing. But I heard a really interesting story a couple of weeks ago when I was visiting some financial mentors—people who provide social services. They had their offices opposite a number of boarding houses, residences of last resort. They said things have changed—these days when someone is in a dire situation, we can actually find them a room for the night; we can actually find them a room to rent. Sure, it’s not great; boarding houses aren’t great—they are residences of last resort—but they can at least find a bed for someone. Five years ago, under the previous Government, they said they couldn’t even find people a bed. So it’s taking a long and difficult time to solve the complex problem of housing in this country. But the solution is starting to work. We are starting to get there.

The other thing that people worry about is food on the table—a roof over their head and food on the table—and we have worked extraordinarily hard to help people with that problem.

💬 Damien Smith: What about inflation?

Now, the member over there is bleating about inflation, and we know that there is inflation in this economy. It is lower than other countries around the world, and every country in the world is experiencing inflation at the moment. No one likes it but it is not as bad as it might be, and we are working to ensure that people manage. That is what the cost of living payment is about. The cost of living payment is about ensuring that people have a little bit of extra money to help them get through. That is what Food in Schools is about. It’s ensuring that children get fed, literally getting food in their mouths. Talk to the principals of those schools in low socio-economic areas and they will tell you that this Food in Schools programme, the ensuring that children have lunches, is making a real difference.

We are working on the supermarket duopoly to try to keep prices under control. So there’s a whole set of work going on in this space to help New Zealanders deal with the worldwide phenomenon of inflation.

And there’s other work that we’ve done in that space as well. We’ve added to the dental grant so that people can get dental care. We’ve had the winter energy payment. We’ve had cuts to the fuel excise. We’ve got half-price public transport, and that’s going to continue for community services card holders. All of this adds to people’s security.

But when the Opposition calls for tax cuts, when they say that we are spending too much, they never ever tell us what services they are going to cut. What security do ordinary New Zealanders have if they do not have a health system? What security do ordinary New Zealanders have if they cannot get their children educated? What security do ordinary New Zealanders have if they do not have a welfare system? Now, we are working on all of those and trying to ensure that New Zealanders get the health, the welfare, the education that they ask for. But I challenge the Opposition—I challenge the Opposition—if the Opposition is going to call for tax cuts, if the Opposition wants to say that tax cuts are the way to solve all our problems, the challenge is to be upfront and honest with New Zealanders and tell us which element of New Zealanders’ security are they going to remove. Are they going to remove healthcare? Are they going to remove education? Are they going to remove welfare? Are they going to stop building houses? What are they going to do in order to pay for those tax cuts?

So when the member over the other side likes to say that it’s all the fault of this Government, I say, you know what? We do take responsibility—we do take responsibility for trying to ensure that New Zealanders get through these tough times. And we are getting there—we are getting there.

I’ve been out and about in my electorate, out and about talking to people, as all MPs do, and I’m picking that there’s an uptick in feeling. People are feeling positive. I was around the Avondale Sunday Market last weekend talking to ordinary New Zealanders—the workers, the people, the caregivers, and the like—and they’re saying, “It’s a lovely day. Things are getting better. We’re getting there.” So I challenge the Opposition. Think a bit positively for a change. Look at what’s going right. Look at the macroeconomic indicators that tell us we’re doing well. Look at the ways we are managing to help people. And I could say, “Listen to the birds singing—the riroriro calling; the pīpīwharauroa calling as well. Smell the kōwhai blooms. Enjoy the spring that is coming, that is on us; the summer that is coming our way.” We have been through a long, hard winter. It’s been wet and cold and it has been tough economically, and it’s not easy. But we are working on it, and what the Government is doing is actually working, and that’s the reality. The reality is that this Government is doing what New Zealanders need and delivering an economy for all New Zealanders.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, you’d think I would learn after 14 years of being in this place, because I worked really hard to come up with 10 intelligent minutes to discuss the Budget, and I end up every year spending those 10 minutes refuting the nonsense that we hear from the other side. You’d think I’d have learnt after 14 years. I’m going to try and do both, because I just can’t resist some of the things that were being said.

Let’s start with the Minister of Finance, Grant Robertson. Those famous words, “We were careful with spending.” Well, they were certainly careful to spend. And, boy, they’ve spent like drunken sailors. As I’ve said in this House before, the difference between Grant Robertson and a drunken sailor is that at least drunken sailors spend their own money. But he is dipping into the pockets of every single New Zealander to fund his profligate spending plans.

And David Parker is not correct when he says that since 1984 we have had successive Governments that have been disciplined in their spending. He forgets that he was part of a Cabinet and a Government when between 2005 and 2008—in good times, when we didn’t need the stimulus—Michael Cullen managed to increase Government spending by 50 percent. We are now dealing with a Government that has increased Government spending on their watch to the tune of tens of billions of dollars, and that has set the economy spiralling out of control.

Now, Deborah Russell wants to know what we would cut. Well, for many of these things, it’s far too late. But as members know, the COVID Response and Recovery Fund spent over $60 billion. Some of it was good. The wage subsidy was necessary and appropriate, and yes, we think it should have been more targeted and gone on for longer for some businesses, but that isn’t a criticism of the scheme overall. But when the COVID fund is being raided to pay $710 million for three waters; $15 million for cameras on fishing boats; when we have a low-carbon future fund, $70 million; the Creative Arts Fund, $150 million; Government House Building, $100 million; here’s my favourite: solvency support for the racing industry of $50 million was paid out of the COVID fund. So anybody that wants to be challenged on the quality of the spend that this Government has gone on, I’m very happy to provide many, many more examples.

Then, Mr Robertson talks about infrastructure spending and accuses the previous National Government of not spending on infrastructure. Well, he must have been Rip Van Winkle - like, asleep for nine years while the Waterview Tunnel was built, while Transmission Gully was built, the Waikato Expressway.

💬 Todd Muller: Eastern Link.

Exactly, Mr Muller.

Broadband—where on earth would we have been without the previous Government’s significant investment in high-speed broadband right across the country? Our COVID response would have been much, much worse. And for the extraordinary claims about no spending in health infrastructure, I have to say this: Middlemore Hospital, North Shore Hospital, Waitakere Hospital, Waikato Hospital, Taranaki Base Hospital, Hutt, Wairau, Greymouth, Christchurch, Burwood, and even Dunedin Hospital, which inherited a legacy of leaks in the operating theatres, a rundown neonatal intensive care unit—there was a disgrace; I should know, my daughter spent days there—they were all fixed under a previous National Government.

Here’s another legacy: a commitment to rebuild Dunedin Hospital. So I want to hear from the Rachel Brookings and the Ingrid Learys and the Rino Tirikatenes and the David Clarks, why they are not banging on the door of the Minister of Health and saying, “Where is our hospital?” Because in five years, all we’ve got is a massive car park and a couple of cranes. And worse than that, the advice that I’m getting from senior health officials is that Treasury has got their nose in again and there are going to be cuts to the capacity of the new Dunedin Hospital. My sources are saying 58 beds fewer, two operating theatres fewer, and no PET scanner.

That’s been out in the public domain for the last three weeks and not a single Labour member, not a Minister, not the Prime Minister, and certainly not the Dunedin-based Labour MPs have stood up and said “That is not true.” And the reason is, it is true. There is a significant cost pressure and their response to that is to cut. Now, that would be OK if those cuts had not already been made to the capacity that was being required of 513 beds, which, thanks to some heroic assumptions about admission rates and length of stay, would cut back to 421, and now they want to cut back another 50. Oh, I wonder if the previous Minister of Health wants to tell the House how much lobbying he’s done to make sure that that capacity isn’t cut even further. Because for all that, we’ve got a tax-and-spend-and-hope Government, they are not spending it in the right places at the right time.

We also had David Parker going on about unemployment, and it is low, but for the life of me, I would just like one of Louise Upston’s questions to be answered. Any one at any time, which is: why are there more than 50,000 people on jobseeker support if the economy is so great? Why is it that there has been a 55 percent increase in the number of people on jobseeker support for longer than 12 months? And why are we spending $6.8 billion more since 2016 on benefits? Now, the benefits have risen, but the real driver of that is not how much individuals are getting, but the volume of people on jobseeker benefits, at a time that the Government crows about low unemployment.

Now, I’ll just segue across to Ms Genter, because Julie Anne Genter and I have had a number of very interesting conversations about what she described today as the “ruling elite”. She also said something about “kings”, I thought that was probably not the most appropriate reference this week. But nevertheless, what she won’t tell the House is that the top 12 percent of income earners in this country pay half of the income tax. And half of the households in this country, thanks to Government transfers, don’t pay any income tax. That’s OK by me, I think that’s fair. What’s not fair is tax by stealth, allowing inflation to erode the income earning capacity and the spending capacity of hard-working middle New Zealanders who have been squeezed by this Government’s refusal on the basis of envy. That’s all it is, as somehow, because I might benefit from a tax cut, they’re not going to give that to the hardest-working middle New Zealanders.

You know what? A graduate nurse or midwife in this country—depending on when they work, if they work weekends or nights—are already, the year they get out of polytech, on a 33 percent top marginal tax. Now, some years ago, that would have been 17.5 percent, and the only reason that’s happened is because tax rates have not been adjusted for inflation, and they should be. But this is the “Tax Party.” It’s the “Tax by Stealth Government”. They tried it on our KiwiSaver; they’re coming after our incomes next year with the jobs tax for the redundancy payment—another 2.8 percent is coming out of the pockets of the employees. I say the employees, half of it directly and half of it will be lost in the next pay round because employers have got to pay for that somehow. That’s billions and billions of dollars grabbed up by a greedy Government that only knows how to tax and spend. So I’m sorry that the Minister of Justice and the member Dr Deborah Russell think we’re being negative. I’d love to be positive. I’d love to be optimistic. But at some point, the Opposition has to call out the nonsense and talk about what’s really happening.

I thought the Minister of Finance’s answers in question time just showed how arrogant and out of touch he is about the state of New Zealanders and the economy that serves them—or doesn’t, as the case may be. Because he, basically, blamed the public for not understanding how great the Government was. Well, I’ll take up Dr Russell’s challenge, because every single member on this side of the House has been doing it for the last five years, going out and listening to what New Zealanders are telling them. And they are telling them that food is unaffordable; that rents are going up way, way higher than incomes are; that oil and gas—which is uncontrollable, I’ll accept—and the transport costs are driving domestic inflation. Yes, there are some things that are not controllable, but the overwhelming majority of the pain that New Zealanders are feeling right now is as a direct consequence of this arrogant and out-of-touch Government.

We can see how the other side of the House think when you have people like David Seymour talking about bringing in immigrants so that we can pay them lower wages to get our economy moving. Or people like Michael Woodhouse, who fail to recognise—

💬 Toni Severin: It wasn’t low wages; it was—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! The member will not interject when she is not in her chair.

Or people like Michael Woodhouse, who fail to recognise that actually—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Ingrid Leary.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. In my view, the hardest-working New Zealanders—amongst them are the parents, the people who do unpaid work, and many, many of those are women. So let’s not forget about those people who work in casual employment, who work in unpaid labour, who work as volunteers, who raise children. They are amongst the hardest-working New Zealanders. But that side of the House fails to see that, because all they want to see are those people that are contributing to GDP. That is how they view the world.

I wanted to talk about the economic context, but, just to apologise to people at home if you’re feeling depressed, because it is really depressing listening to the speeches from the other side of the House painting such a terrible picture of New Zealand. Now, that of course is going to happen. That’s their job as the Opposition—to try to make things look bad. But they know that we’ve been doing a good job because the facts speak for themselves.

Let’s remember that we have been through COVID, through a pandemic that has affected 617 million people. There have been 653 million deaths. Any Government worth its salt would spend money trying to ensure that it would save lives and save livelihoods, and that’s exactly what this Government has done. And it has balanced the Budget to make sure that there is stability after the economic shock, that there is leeway for the cost of living pressures that have come about from this economic shock, but also from the nine years of neglect under National. There was neglect, despite what Mr Woodhouse says: neglect of schools, housing, social housing, and water infrastructure. It has been said in the Productivity Commission report that there is an infrastructure gap and that occurred under the National Government.

We are not just looking at COVID and at the cost of living pressures. We still want New Zealand to move forward. We still want to move to a higher-wage, low-emission economy. And that is why the Budget also looks at the health reforms, planning, infrastructure, apprenticeships, Resource Management Act reform, three waters, and, yes, as Julie Anne Genter pointed out, a really transformational climate change element to this Budget. We are seeing that because the facts speak for themselves.

It’s in the inflation numbers, GDP, employment figures, and that is enabling us to target support to those hardest hit by these tough times. It is the right sort of Budget for tough times. It is a Budget that anticipated difficult times. And thank goodness that happened, because I don’t think any of us here really anticipated that Russia was going to invade Ukraine. That has had a knock-on effect and it is this Budget that has enabled New Zealand to come through that in such a good way, with such good credit ratings from international agencies, with such a low unemployment, and now with a general mood of optimism as we head into summer and we have let go of the traffic light system, we are letting go of all those restrictions that we needed to save lives and save livelihoods.

New Zealand has every reason to be optimistic, but you wouldn’t think so, listening to the people on the other benches. But that doesn’t diminish the tough times that we have been through. COVID has caused illness, anxiety, and lockdowns. We’ve had disrupted supply chains. We’ve had the war in Ukraine. We have had inflation, and that inflation is being felt all around the world. I’ve just been to the US where it is palpable—their rate at the moment is 8.26 percent versus our 4.9 percent, and they are really feeling it there. But do you know what? I don’t hear them blaming their Government. They are looking at the war in Ukraine, they are looking at COVID, they are looking at what’s happening to gas supplies in Europe, and they know that this is a global phenomenon. And for us to be at 4.9 percent compared to their 8.9, or the UK’s 9.1 percent, the Netherlands’ 12 percent, or, get this, Turkey’s 80.21 percent inflation, in Turkey—we have got it pretty good despite the tough times. That is thanks to hard-working New Zealanders. And when I say “hard-working New Zealanders”, it’s those who are working for wages and it is those who are doing the mahi bringing up children, volunteering, working in the not-for-profit sector. It is all New Zealanders that have pulled together to do this.

Now, our inflation rate, as we’ve heard, has peaked and we are actually seeing a wage-growth market correction. So we’ve heard our official unemployment rate is around 3.2 to 3.3 percent; GDP is bouncing back. In the last quarter, our growth rate of 1.7 percent was the best of most comparable economies. Australia and Japan had 0.9 percent, the average of the OECD countries had 0.4 percent, and the US and the UK actually contracted slightly. So Chris Bishop is wrong when he says that the wage growth and inflation don’t make for a good picture, because wage growth is at 8.8 percent and that’s the largest annual percentage change since records began in 1998.

So what we are seeing is actually a labour market correction after years of wage gaps and we are heading into a period where inflation will stabilise or fall and wages will continue to trend upwards. All of that is because of astute financial management. And that is why we have been able to deliver the targeted support that so many of my colleagues in this House today have referred to: things like the cost of living payment, half-price transport for community service card users, winter energy payments, breaking up the supermarket duopoly, free lunches in schools, and so on. Our economy is really well positioned to weather these storms. And let us remember that our debt ratio is amongst the lowest in the world, despite what the Opposition would have you say.

If we look at the alternative, what is the alternative plan? Well, David Seymour said his party was the only one to have a plan. I tend to agree, because I haven’t heard anything from National except for tax cuts for the rich, tax cuts that would give Christopher Luxon—should he become Prime Minister—an $18,000 annual rebate compared to, say, a cafe worker on the minimum wage, who would get around $2 per week more. They don’t have a plan. They’re, basically, a bunch of sad sacks who want to jam tight the public purse and go back to austerity. They want to forget about the infrastructure gap because, to them, who cares if people get sick from bad water or from pollution spewing into Wellington’s harbour? Who cares about inter-generational social scarring? Everything for them is about money for money’s sake. It’s not about wellbeing, and it’s not because they care.

I support the remarks by my colleague David Parker around trade diversification. Every significant trade agreement that has occurred in the last decade has been signed under Labour, and we have seen a $53 billion record in our agricultural exports. That happened under a Labour Government. So we do care about money, but we care about money for the wellbeing that it brings to our families and our communities. We care about having infrastructure that works, because it’s no use having a family in a house if the house is falling down. And that was the house that we inherited when we became Government.

So I also just want to say that those trade relationships that David Parker talked about are so critical, not only because we are getting good income from them but they are helping with our regional peace and security. For the first time, we are diversifying our relationships to make sure that we can maintain a truly independent foreign policy. And as somebody who’s just come back from a meeting about global geopolitics, I think that’s a really important thing for New Zealand to keep its eyes on.

So things are looking up. We’re moving forward with certainty. We’re going into summer with no traffic light system. We’ve got the freedoms that we had pre-COVID times. We’ve removed restrictions that we had to have to save lives, to save livelihoods. We have had tough times, but we had a Budget that was able to futureproof us for a very unexpected war on the other side of the world that did have implications for fuel supplies and for supply chains, and that exacerbated what had happened through COVID. We have had a prudent, balanced, forward-looking, targeted, and fair Budget, and it has taken some of the sting out of the tail of various shocks for those who are doing it the hardest. Our Budget is also empowering people to get ahead. We haven’t forgotten about health. We haven’t forgotten about education. We are making sure that not only is this Budget looking after those who need help now but that it is futureproofing us into the future so that New Zealand can remain the best, fantastic, optimistic little country at the bottom of the world. Thank you.

I had the privilege of going to several events with our finance Minister last week. The first was a business breakfast. It was the day that, in fact, the news broke that we were growing as an economy, and it was a very collegial event. He obviously had the respect of the people at that meeting, and they shared a lot of the optimism. They also shared a lot of the values that were coming through in the way that he’s leading in this area. The businesses involved—places like Westpac—are looking forward and they’re looking to sustainability, and they’re actually part of a process which demonstrates the leadership of the Government, because, actually, we’re changing the way we’re thinking, we’re changing the way we’re investing, and we’re changing the way that we’re building this country.

This is the fourth Wellbeing Budget, and that word “wellbeing” is something that I don’t think the Hon Grant Robertson gets attached to as much as, perhaps, our leader, Jacinda Ardern, because Jacinda epitomises a lot of that caring philosophy. But, actually, it is absolutely clear when you read this Budget that that’s Grant’s philosophy too, because that is where you can see the devil in the detail, and that’s the difference between one side of the House and the other.

What I just heard from Michael Woodhouse was very interesting. It was a playback to the idea that, actually, what he thought, essentially, was the same as what David Seymour thinks: essentially, that hard work is equated with high income. I have lived as an employment lawyer for 25, almost 30 years and found that to be utterly untrue. It’s just not correct. Yes, people work hard and they can earn a lot of money, and in my profession that’s a really good story for them personally, but, actually, the fact is it’s really, really important that the Government lead in a way which focuses on those across our economy and makes sure that everybody is supported in the economy, because, actually, it’s really important to the wellbeing of everyone that the people in our lower and our middle incomes are actually supported well, because they’re our brothers, they’re our sisters, even if we are fortunate enough to earn a high income. They are our people too. That was absolutely essential to the way that this economy was managed during COVID, and it’s essential to the way I want to see it managed into the future. And it’s absolutely hard-baked into this Budget.

I just want to talk about some of those things, because I think this Budget makes a really interesting decision. It tackles root causes. It isn’t afraid of systemic change where that’s necessary, but it also deals with detail so it catches people before they fall. Examples of that are things like health reform. Yes, we might all be tired after COVID, but boy, did we learn a lesson. Our hospitals need to be better. We don’t need leaks in our roof—and yes, Mr Woodhouse, there were leaks in those operating theatres in Dunedin that I was hearing about when I was campaigning the first time, and National was the Government back then. So those leaks were there. They needed to be fixed. We needed a health system that was fit for purpose, and we did not have one. This Budget cements that change, but it also does things like provides for ambulances and it provides for emergency helicopters.

The same is true of something like the cost of living. Yes, it’s very important that we gave people a payment in the right brackets to actually support them with buying cheese while it goes up, but it’s also important that we actually look at the duopolies that have been making it much, much harder for all New Zealanders for a long time. Apparently, a million dollars a day is coming out—that’s above and beyond any justifiable kind of profit in those supermarkets. So we need systemic change and we can’t be afraid of it, and we can’t be afraid of actually tackling an issue like that. That’s not hard-working New Zealanders earning more; that’s actually not OK, because it impacts on everyone. It makes those blocks of cheese more expensive, it makes our groceries more expensive, and it actually hurts ordinary New Zealanders who are working hard too. They just happen to be our nurses. They happen to be our teachers. They happen to be our fish factory workers—oh, I would never want to work in a fish factory; really hard job, so is working as a meat processor. One of the most horrible jobs I’ve ever come across is meat processing—worked for a lot of those workers over the years, wouldn’t want to swap it; would rather be a lawyer, quite frankly, even if they were paying me the same money. So, in that circumstance, we need to make sure that our system supports those people.

The police force: our police force has got more police than it has ever had. That is very important in this time. Our $94 million for gangs is a specific thing specifically being done for getting rid of the problem of gangs—$94 million’s been put in, but so has the broader issue of big money to support our police force.

Climate change adaptation: $2 billion. It’s a lot of money. It’s a huge part of a speech, and I apologise for not giving it more time. I’m pretty sure I’ve got a colleague who’s very passionate about this who may cover that in more detail.

Our crisis is, of course, in our transport sector. So one of the things that I’m proud of the Ministry of Transport doing is actually the electric car subsidies. I was pretty sceptical at the beginning; actually, it’s been incredibly useful—totally sold through the process. It’s actually worked so well. It’s going to transform our fleet over the next little while. The uptake has been through the roof. We’re going to actually get all those cars transferred over, because it’s really, really valuable once those cars become second-hand and ordinary people start to be able to buy them.

For all the whingeing about utes, we have some coming on the market because we’re demanding them. It turns out that all the naysayers who want to say something like, “Oh, we’re just at the bottom of the world; they’ll never give them to us.”—it turns out that’s not true. You actually have to create a demand and then you get these things, and that’s what’s happening. We’re transforming that fleet, and it would not happen under National.

We have also got something like the winter energy payment. Now, that’s actually a Labour invention, and I am really proud of it. You know, my dad is 91, and the other day he said to me, “You know, it’s not going to cover all the bill, but it’s so nice to have the support, that somebody actually has noticed it.” My daughter, she gets the half-price public transport, and she also got the cost of living payment. She’s on a low income. Those two things are actually going to her, and, actually, that helps me. It helps me because I don’t have to support her in the same way.

💬 Hon David Bennett: You are supporting her—you’re paying your tax—where does the money come from, off a tree?

She stands on her own two feet and she’s dignified, and she is using public transport in a way that perhaps Mr Bennett never would, because, actually, that’s her culture now, and she’s proud of it. We’ve moved her into the public transport mode for a long term, and so I am very proud of that.

I also talked to some girls at Auckland Girls’ recently who told me that that half-price transport makes a huge difference to them because their families are out in South Auckland and they travel to school and their families are quite large. All of those kids in that family get half-price transport and they get to school at half the cost they used to, and guess who that affects! It affects their hard-working parents—their hard-working, ambitious parents who’ve sent them to Auckland Girls’ for all the right reasons. We’re giving them support, and I’m so glad we are.

We are also feeding a whole lot of kids who need feeding in the schools, and that is a hugely important thing. I don’t know why Mr Bennett’s sniggering, because I’m pretty sure that National was quite into the idea of lunches in schools, too. I am a total convert to that—

💬 Hon David Bennett: They go into rubbish bins.

—and I don’t think they’re going in rubbish bins at all, Mr Bennett. I think that those lunches are making a huge difference in terms of supporting our poorest families, and it’s no laughing matter. It’s something that actually makes a difference out there. You might hate it, but it’s true. I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. Today, I started the day in Auckland at the Environmental Defence Society and Sustainable Business Council conference with a whole host of business leaders talking about climate change, and I was not alone; there were other member of the House there as well. We were speaking about the emissions trading scheme (ETS) and complementary measures to reduce climate emissions.

So we were, of course, talking about the Climate Emergency Response Fund, and I’ll talk about that a little bit in my speech—that’s called the CERF, for short. In this Budget, it’s at $2.9 billion. That is an incredibly substantial investment in something I’m very proud of. So that CERF provides for a whole lot of the complementary measures that we need to combat climate change in addition to the ETS there. Then, I want to talk about some other things, as well, that are related to that, but go beyond the CERF.

So one of those things is resource management reform. It’s very important to know that in the reform that is coming with the Natural and Built Environments Bill and also the Spatial Planning Build, mitigation measures will be enabled in a way that they’re not in the current regulations. The current regulation, often, prevents good climate mitigation measures from happening, and that needs to change.

We also spoke, at this conference, about adaptation. I think it’s important that we always—whilst climate change, of course, relates to both adaptation and mitigation, and those two things are linked, adaptation is different from mitigation. Adaptation is our response to the climate crisis as the climate changes. This has got a lot of attention in the past couple of months, in the last month even, with what we’ve seen in both Nelson and Pakistan. Of course, these events have been happening for a long time and they’re going to continue to happen. In New Zealand, it’s very important that we address climate adaptation, as well as mitigation, and that is because we live on some islands. Of course, sea-level rise will affect us, but so too does changing weather patterns.

We heard at the ETS conference from a tourism provider in Queenstown and surrounds—Real Journeys—talking about the real changes that wind speed increases mean to their business. How do you moor boats? What sort of ropes do you need if the wind speeds are higher? How can you open your ski fields if you’ve got those high wind speeds, as well? So not only are we talking about sea-level rise and adaptation but there’s a whole host of changes.

Again, the resource management reform is going to be important to that. Then, there’s that third piece of legislation, as well, for climate adaptation. I’ll come back to these—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Can I invite the member just to come a little more closely into the appropriation Estimates bill.

Yes, and I have this all here. Related to climate issues is, of course, biodiversity loss—I’ll come back to the CERF but we can go through some of the biodiversity funding that is in this Budget.

One of the reasons that people care about climate change and not wanting it to happen is because of the biodiversity loss that has happened. The Budget provides $61.5 million for implementing the biodiversity strategy around Predator Free 2050. There’s $30 million there for deer management and goat control. Predator control for those mast years, that’s at $26.9 million. And then there’s also concern about our marine taonga species, and so there’s $7.1 million there for the biodiversity. There’s also funding in the Budget for waste emissions, so that is to decrease waste emissions by a range of factors, including decreasing waste and diverting it from going to the landfill, for landfill gas capture research, and for resource recovery infrastructure.

So turning back to the CERF and what that has in this Budget—so we know that the CERF is that hypothecation of the ETS going back into measures that are really going to decrease emissions. So this includes $73 million for insulation of low-income homes. That’s a win-win, as we see with many climate measures—not only do people live in nicer, warmer homes; they don’t have to pay so much for electricity, and there’s a benefit for the climate.

There’s also money to decrease agricultural emissions. So there’s $338 million there for looking at how we can really reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the agriculture sector, and this includes money for research and development.

Also, we’re wanting to increase our renewable electricity. We’ve got a huge benefit in New Zealand in that a lot of our electricity is already renewable, but certainly not all of our energy. So how do we make more of our energy renewable? We want to add an electricity factor to it, and, of course, then we need more renewable electricity. So there’s $5.2 million in there for electricity market measures, because it’s a complicated system and we want to make it as good as it can be.

Also, you will see, in lots of other countries, there are large offshore wind turbines. We don’t have a regulatory framework for providing that energy and that infrastructure in New Zealand at the moment. So there’s money in the Budget for both that offshore regulatory framework but also a road map to hydrogen, with $17.6 million.

There’s also money in that CERF for community renewable energy projects, at $16 million. So that is when communities are able to use smaller pieces of infrastructure—so solar, maybe some small wind turbines, and that sort of thing—we really want to incentivise that as well.

Related, there’s money for mode shift in transport. Forty seven percent of our carbon emissions relate to transport, so we want to try and not only have electric vehicles, where they’re appropriate, but also encourage cycling and public transport. So there’s $374 million in that line item.

There’s also the important work that’s happened—and I acknowledge the Hon David Clark here—in terms of climate-related disclosures. Just being at this business conference discussing climate, this is a big thing that those business, the banks, are going to have to say what their risks and opportunities are around the climate. And those standards, there’s money in the Budget for implementing and getting those going.

Where I started was about the Resource Management Act (RMA) reform and having this legislation that does enable climate mitigation. It’s important to remember that when the RMA was first made into law, some 30 years ago, $2 million was assigned for its implementation, and we’ve heard now, for the past three decades, about how that Act was never implemented in the way that people imagined it to be. So there’s $133 million in that stream.

Also, one of those important reform pieces is the creation of a strategic planning Act. So that is to enable us to look both at our long-term planning of where we want things to go, but also where we don’t want them to go, so we can link in to the climate adaptation plans that we have, and that we can look at where we want those mitigations to be, as well. So there’s $31 million for that piece of work.

As I mentioned, there’s also this very difficult issue that the climate adaptation Act is to deal with, and that is existing housing and communities that are in areas where climate change is happening and we need to respond to it, and we need to respond to it in a fair way and the equity issues involved in getting over a moral hazard—so not just saying, “Someone’s rich by the beach, so we don’t need to worry about it.”; there’s lots of very poor and vulnerable communities that will need some assistance. So there’s $10.6 million for that very important piece of work.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, you have to give the Labour MPs some kind of applause for trying to put on a brave face in the midst of a Government that’s falling apart. You know, they’re actually speaking the lines that they’ve been told, saying how wonderful this Government has been and how successful, and isn’t Grant Robertson the greatest thing that ever walked the earth, and isn’t Jacinda the kindest person you’ve ever met—you know, all the beautiful lines the Labour Party tries to track out. But the reality is that the polls have shown the Labour Party has gone from—what?—51 percent at the election down to 32 percent, 33 percent, I think the last Labour poll was. They’ve dropped 20 points. The public—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! Order! Can the member come back to this imprest bill. Thank you.

Yes. We’re talking about the impact of that, and the public has said no to this Government’s imprest bill. They’ve said no to it. They’ve said that this Government is on the wrong track; there’s no doubt about that.

The Labour MPs today are trying to resurrect the old issues of the past—“Look how we saved the country from COVID.”, and “Look how great we are.”—but the reality is, the public can see through it. Ask anybody out there what’s happened to their fruit and vege prices in the last year. Ask anybody out there what’s happened to their cost of living in the last year. Ask anybody out there what’s happened to their house price in the last year. It’s gone down. Ask anybody what’s happened to their interest rates. They’ve gone up. Ask anybody what they think about inflation. They know it’s here to stay. And ask anybody what they want from a Government, and that is somebody that is a prudent, economic manager at this time.

That’s what the public demand; they don’t want the unfettered social spending of this Government, and that is the truth of what is out there. That is why the Labour Party is doomed at the next election. That is why members of that party should be trying now to actually change the narrative, to actually look at what they’re spending the money on, and to do it properly.

Some hard choices need to be made. You don’t get away from inflation by looking at it. You don’t get away from inflation by giving it more money. You don’t get away from it by thinking you can spend your way out of it. It requires hard, prudent economic management. There’s no other answer to deal with the problem that we have. Once a household or a business is spending more money than it can afford, it only has one option, and that is to reduce that spending. It can increase its revenue if it wants to increase taxes, but the Labour Party has already said they’re not going to do that. But then they do it on the back ways, through little tax incentives every so often. But the reality is, in New Zealand, it’s where we spend that money that is the crucial thing. The Labour Party members have gone up today and said, “Oh, look, National spent all this money in the global financial crisis and all those things.” The reality is we spent it on things that actually mattered and helped the economy. New Zealand grew through that expenditure. We didn’t get inflation as a result of that expenditure; we got infrastructure that actually delivered for New Zealand, that meant we grew, and then—

💬 Dr Duncan Webb: Like what?

OK: roads in the Waikato—look at those great roads in the Waikato—a new hospital in the Waikato. When we came into Government, the Waikato Hospital had sewage coming through the sides of the walls. The National Party rebuilt that hospital. We put the fibre in New Zealand that enabled us, as a country, to get through COVID when we were in lockdown. Those things were done by National, never by a Labour Government. They were all done by National.

💬 Hon Dr David Clark: Rubbish.

David Clark—he knows they were done by National. He says they were done by National, because he knows they were done by National. We built those roads, we built that hospital, we put that fibre in—we did those things that actually made a difference, and the economy grew as a result.

Labour—all it can do is give money out, chuck money away to people that are overseas or have passed away. They can’t actually do anything good to actually build the economy. Where is this glorious infrastructure spending we’re seeing from the Labour Party? We’re not seeing any roads being built in this country. We don’t see any rail connections being built in this country. All we see is social spending. It’s all spending for today, trying to get through to the next election, and it will never work.

The public know that, and the public have seen through the Labour Party, and that’s why they’re getting smashed in the polls. So the members over there should be depressed, because they’ve ruined this country. This country, when they came into power, had very low debt. They will go and say, “Well, look at our debt levels. They’re low compared to the rest of the world.” Well, they were the lowest when they came in. It’s the percentage of debt that they have increased that needs to be calculated, and that has increased exponentially under this Government. They have borrowed to spend, to try and save themselves through an election process. It will not work.

What we really need in New Zealand is a Government that balances the books, that is prudent with the money, that uses that money for infrastructure so that we have a growing economy, and that actually looks at controlling inflation going forward. We can’t carry on as a country forgetting about those things, and a 1 percent growth rate is not good enough for this country.

💬 Jo Luxton: Better than others.

It’s better than others—well, 1 percent is not going to create an environment where New Zealanders will stay here. It won’t attract people to come here. As long as it’s better than someone else, it’s OK! That’s not the game we’re in. It’s a game for world talent, and our talent, they can easily leave and have left and is leaving now. People are moving with their feet. They are leaving this country in droves, because they know that 1 percent isn’t good enough for them when their costs are going up at a much higher rate than that.

There will be pain ahead for the New Zealand economy. It will be difficult for any Government to turn the ship around. This Government has set a trajectory that can only fail, and with that, New Zealanders will require a Government that actually makes some hard choices around how to get inflation under control. We will have to increase immigration, contrary to what the Labour Party wants. We actually will have to be able to welcome people to this country if we want it to grow. We will have to prioritise where we spend our money, and it won’t be necessarily for short-term spending; it has to be in a long-term economic benefit. We will have to look at our tax system to make sure it’s relative to the costs that people have incurred under the last few years, and the tax changes that the National Party is looking at are really only to give people back their purchasing power that they have lost in the last few years. We will have to look at how we invest in housing and things like that, where rental prices have skyrocketed because of the crazy policies of this Government that have taken away the ability for anybody to go into that business and provide housing.

Those are some of the fundamental things that the Government should have been looking at in the Budget. It wasn’t. What we got in the Budget was a whole lot of platitudes about what will happen in the future: dreams of environmental change, dreams about transport change, dreams about giving away money that they can’t even work out where to spend it on—all those things that will be a fallacy and will not work.

National would deliver a Budget that is what New Zealanders want and that’s why they’re polling so well, and that’s why the Labour Party has lost, basically, a third of its support in the last six months—a third of its support in six months. To those backbenchers there: don’t let the talking notes dictate your futures. Actually be upstanding. Yeah—stand up and actually look at what you need to do. Grant and the rest of them in the front row, they’re still going to be here. You won’t be. Stand up for what’s right for your constituents, because they demand better than what they are getting from this Government. Thank you.

The next call is a split call between the ACT Party and the Green Party.

I’ll take it, Madam Speaker. I’ve been listening carefully to the debate and I’ve been reflecting on how Government Budgets are an opportunity to right some of the wrongs that have been created by successive Governments.

Throughout this debate, I’ve listened to the National Party’s contributions where they’ve berated the Government over irresponsible spending and they keep talking about a prudent Government that will deliver for Aotearoa’s communities that we are supposed to serve. But if we unpack what they’ve been saying, what they’ve been proposing is nothing but tax cuts that will impact the wealthiest, and, at the same time, talking about and complaining on the spending on the things that actually set up people for a good future: things like school lunches and things like increasing benefits—targeted programmes that will help our communities.

What that tells me, though, is that if the National Party had its way with such legislation, what we would be seeing are cuts to the things that ensure that people have a warm home to live in, enough kai to put on the table, and instead talk about just spending things on roads. Let me tell you something, Mr David Bennett: people cannot eat roads. People deserve funding for things that will allow them to thrive.

While there were many good initiatives in this Budget, it is really clear to me that my Labour mates need to aspire for more than just doing somewhat more than the National Party. Our communities deserve a genuine, aspirational Government that will deliver the transformative change that was put out in rhetoric. And there were some good initiatives; you know, I was really stoked to see the Government moving towards the culture of free fares by cutting fares, at least temporarily, by 50 percent—and, gosh, I hope they listen to the campaigners who are calling for this change to be made permanent—and for public transport to be free so that more of our communities can participate in the clean public transport sector that will support people in our communities as we manage the climate crisis.

I’ve also been thinking of how previous Budgets delivered heaps of high trust levels of support for businesses and yet for low-income people, they’ve still had to go through hurdles at Work and Income to get the assistance that they needed. And we saw that reflected once again and the cost of living payment, where the people who are doing it the toughest were once again excluded.

Like, their argument for excluding beneficiaries because they received the winter energy payment—which I note some of the Labour members were talking about—was completely out of touch. We know that the winter energy payment is there because baseline benefits do not allow people to get by on those winter months.

So for us to be experiencing an all-time inflation and then to leave out people on the benefit from the key initiative to address those inequities just felt like a smack in the face, particularly with the rhetoric that we have seen from this Government for so many years.

I also heard, from my Labour friends, talk about addressing the climate crisis and that is something we of course feel very strong about and I know that our Minister—who I’m sure is doing heaps of work to ensure that this Government is on the right track.

Again, if the Government members want to honour that rhetoric around addressing the climate crisis, they’d do good to support my colleague Eugenie Sage’s bill to ban new mines on conservation land. We have to ensure that the rhetoric that we’re seeing in this House is reflected also in the decisions and the votes and other legislation that sets to do what this Budget was intending to do, which is to support our communities and protect our planet.

Every Minister now is supposed to be climate change Minister and every Minister is supposed to also be committed to Te Aorerekura, the strategy to end family violence. We saw some Budget initiatives, but when I’m seeing the Minister of Immigration, for example, ram through changes that will see more migrant families put at risk of family violence, it puts into question those commitments.

So I want to end this contribution by encouraging my Labour friends to put action—that rhetoric that I’m seeing today in the House, which is great, but our communities deserve the policies that will ensure that they’re able to thrive, not just survive.

I call on ACT. Who wants to take a five-minute call?

Thank you, Madam Speaker. The Imprest Supply (Second for 2022/23) Bill and the Budget from 2022/23—I think it’s time for some honesty on the other side of the House. The fiscal and monetary response inside this Budget would probably go down in history as one of the greatest mistakes that has ever been made. We’ve finished COVID, which was conveniently done on the day of Her Majesty’s parting, and we’ve come out of it with more cases than we did when we went into it. So the whole of COVID management strategy is why ACT believes that, after this Budget cycle, there should be an inquiry.

Effectively, the Labour Party has to take responsibility for creating inflation in households through this Budget. Interest rates were set too low, the welfare effect was maintained—now we’re paying the price. It’s not just a mechanical, fiscal response; it’s one where the Budget appropriations have got to show yielding results. It’s very hard to point to a matrix of results—that should be attached to this bill—of what this money is delivering. We believe that it’s essential that the taxpayer gets value for money. The tax take is higher than ever and it’s got us through last year, but I’ve never once heard the Labour Party actually thanking the taxpayer for its contribution. The Government’s job is to divvy it up and it put it in places that are effective, that bring prosperity to the economy, but people out in New Zealand are feeling the pain of rising inflation, rising interest rates, and just a general dispiriting of regulations being too much for them. They look at what the Government’s spending initiatives are and think to themselves, “Well, how does that relate to me, and am I getting value for money?”

Time for a wake-up call, because this year coming will not be easier. The opposition to this bill by ACT is not just because we’re madly fixated on taxpayers—on protecting them—it’s because we know the people out in New Zealand know how to spend the money better than the Government does. The right thing to do in this last Budget was to actually—instead of clamouring at the eleventh hour to give them a dollar a day through the cost of living payment because the polls were bad—give them some stimulus in the back pocket themselves. Instead of giving them dollars, we should have given them thousands. We should have actually come to the party, where they felt that the Government was being sympathetic and was giving them a break; not having the boot at the throat of themselves and their households.

So we will remember this Budget as the one that also has contributed to the brain drain. We can see now the number of people leaving to go to Australia is rising every week. People know that they’re going to get paid more over there. We need to be more productive here. We need to invite foreign capital in here to help us to—we can’t just keep relying on the taxpayer to fund everything. We need to find another leg to the economy.

So in terms of this bill, taking the tax at its pure level, the Government’s skirting on the edge of its fiscal prudence. Talking to the Minister, he can’t move on what he’s collecting. Inflation is helping him because it’s driving up—by 7, 8 percent—his take, but even then, it’s not a lot of room to walk in.

So you can talk about Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s—and the Minister clutches them like it’s Genesis 1 and 2—but when the hard times come, those reports won’t matter at all. So ACT opposes this bill, and we believe the taxpayer has not been rewarded, nor the citizens, in this last Budget.

Kia ora, Madam Speaker. I was looking forward to going after the other Mr Bennett, but this Mr Bennett will just do his thing now because the previous Mr Bennett who spoke earlier seemed to be Mr “Negativity” Bennett and Mr “There is no future” Bennett, but, thankfully, right now, you’ve got Mr “Realistic” Bennett, Mr “Optimistic” Bennett, in the chair, speaking right now, and what is to come. No, it is a challenge, and I understand and am fully aware that we can be optimistic and we can also have those rose-tinted glasses. But, actually, on this side of the House, this Mr Bennett sees that we had to be pragmatic. We had to look at the here and now, but we also, obviously, had to look at our future and where we’re going. So that’s why I’m grateful to be part of a Government that is heavily investing in our people but also heavily investing in our planet. Yip, we’ve got more to do and more to go, but, thankfully, next year, we’ll get re-elected, and we’ll continue on the road that we are travelling right now.

I’m again grateful to be speaking, and as I was preparing for this afternoon—well, firstly, as I was listening around the House, it was definitely a game of two halves, but I thought a lot about Taranaki, where I come from, and the opportunities that are coming to our region because of what we are doing and because of the money that is being invested for our region. In fact, Rachel Brooking stole my thunder a bit earlier, but that’s OK because I’ll just reiterate that $18 million that’s been put into the development of an energy strategy. I’m not full of hot air, but in our region of Taranaki, we have some of the best offshore winds in the country. We have exceptional wind. But we’ve obviously had to do something about this wind, because there aren’t any regulatory things in place currently for what renewable offshore energy looks like. So part of this Budget and part of that $18 million is looking at that regulatory framework for offshore renewable energy, which for me as the MP for New Plymouth—for me as a member of the Taranaki community—is important because we are the energy province and we’ll continue to be the energy province into the future. That is sustainable and that is clean energy. So I am grateful that we’ve put that money in to ensure that we have a framework in place. I’ve regular meetings with those who are looking at this space and are wanting to invest in clean energy. We have the Waipipi Wind Farm down in South Taranaki that’s been successful. But we know that, now, we need to look at what it looks like offshore, because it makes a huge difference to that wonderful renewable resource of wind that is around the coastline that I live on.

On Monday, I was with a group of year 13 economics students at New Plymouth Boys’ High School, and they were doing a project around economic development but were also looking at the policy settings when it comes to the future of energy. They were looking at the policy settings when it comes to the carbon emissions trading scheme and what that looks like for their generation to come and what it means for them as they get older and inherit this planet from us. So that’s why I’m glad that not only is there $18 million in this development—whether it be around wind or whether it be around hydrogen or our energy strategy—it’s also that $2.9 billion in our climate emergency response. I know that many young people in that classroom, as well as many who have asked me to come on Friday as they march and challenge us yet again around what we are doing for their future, can say this is another step in the progress of ensuring that we are a sustainable, that we are a nation that is renewable, and that we are a nation that is going to hand over our whenua and our environment in good hands.

I’m grateful that the Hon Grant Robertson was able to find that balance in a Budget that was pretty tough. There is no silver bullet to fix what is going on in our world right now, but I’m glad that he was able to find that balance around here and now and, then, looking into the future and what that looks like. That’s why there’ve been challenges. I’ve heard across the floor and I’ve heard in the community that there’s been pushback around the cost of living payment. But it’s been really interesting as I’ve got around the electorate and talked to people and heard things around washing machines and new sports equipment and other things that people have actually purchased with this money. You may scoff from across the other side of the House, but that’s a reality for people in my community; $350 is a large amount of money. That $350 for some of us doesn’t seem like much. You can get a second-hand one for that. I did as well. That is the thing: you can. This is where you see the difference with us here in Government as the Labour Party, and those on the other side. “Ugh, $350, what’s that going to get you?” Well, actually, $350 gets you a school uniform; $350 gets you two new tires on your car—things that people actually don’t and can’t get, because they have little. It’s a challenge for us, as the Labour Party, to ensure that we find ways to support those who have little but to also celebrate those moments when a small piece of money for a small amount of time is going to make a difference to several people.

Now, I understand in my community that it is hard. Recently, I had to move house, and I’ve seen and understood what it’s like around our rental market—the prices but also the stock. So, again, I’m glad that we’re investing heavily in ensuring that we are a Government that is solving the housing crisis.

Another thing for myself and Taranaki is, in recent weeks, one of my boys and my old neighbour have both been in hospital—a mix of being in A & E, a mix of being in the ward, and a mix of being in ICU. As I talked to nurses and as I talked to doctors and as I looked around Taranaki Base Hospital, it’s not perfect—it’s not. But as I see a building project going on on the land that is going to ensure that we have a 21st century - fit hospital. As I look at the $11.1 billion—$11.1 billion—

💬 Hon Member: That’s a lot.

That is a lot that we have put into our health system. That shows that (1) there’s been under-investment for a long time; and that (2) we want to make sure that our health system is fit for purpose in the 21st century so that when I go into the ICU ward on Saturday morning, when I went into the A & E on—what day of the week was it?—Monday night, just before I came down here, I ensure and see that there aren’t people sitting in the corridors and there aren’t people sitting without the right equipment—they had what they need. They don’t have all of that just yet, but, again, that’s why we have to pump this money in.

As the previous ACT Party member, Damien Smith, said, he thinks we’re being frivolous in spending money and it’s actually the taxpayers’ money. I agree; it is the taxpayer’s money—absolutely—but it’s taxpayers’ money that is given to us to be wise stewards of in ensuring that we have a health system that cares for people and in ensuring that they get the healthcare they need.

That’s why I’m grateful they put $11.1 billion into our health system. How’s it going for us? It’s a challenge—I absolutely agree—but at least we’re stepping up to that challenge; at least we’re putting money where our mouths are and saying, “We are going to do something because the status quo is not good enough; the under-investment is not good enough.” And that’s why we’re here doing this work.

Finally, I want to speak briefly about conservation. Last week, I had the pleasure of going and catching up with our local Department of Conservation (DOC) staff. I had morning tea with them and got to do the daily quiz—it was fabulous to see that we put $374 million extra into the operating funding of our conservation department and $26 million into capital spending. And as I speak with those members of the DOC team, they are so passionate; they are so driven. Taranaki Predator Free 2050—they’re all over that in terms of our riparian planting around our stream management, around ensuring that our riverways are protected, and around ensuring our Maunga Taranaki is something that is a legacy that is a taonga for all people not only today but tomorrow. I’m grateful that I’m part of a Government that’s investing $374 million—not just but more—into our conservation department.

We have challenges; we have a lot to do. I’m grateful that we are putting money into the places and spaces that need it.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a real pleasure to speak to this Budget; just pause for a moment and recognise what a thoughtful and strategic Budget it is, at this really critical juncture. We have come through the biggest economic shock in 100 years, and yet here we are still with low unemployment, with low Government debt, and with GDP which is growing, where, around the world, we see large economies falling into recession. But we can’t take that for granted. It’s great to see our Minister of Finance thinking about that and putting it into context and recognising the importance in New Zealand of the things that really matter. The thing that matters the most is our people, and that’s where the most money is going to go—into education, into health, and into getting better outcomes for our Māori and Pasifika communities to make us a stronger and more resilient community.

For those people who sometimes say that funds spent on those that need it most are wasted, I say to them that helping people out of poverty is never funds wasted. It is funds wisely spent on building a stronger and more equitable community, and I will never apologise for that and neither will any of our colleagues. That’s why we’re very proud of our cost of living payment, a payment that meant that people who were struggling, people who couldn’t make ends meet—it was targeted to exactly those people. We’ve heard from the other side of the House the quibbling, the pettifogging around a few payments that went astray. But we weren’t going to sit on our hands and devise a perfect system while kids went hungry. We stepped up and did what was needed.

We have shown throughout COVID, and throughout this cost of living crisis, that we will react quickly and effectively. We won’t bandy about ridiculous tax cuts that give the Leader of the Opposition $18,000 while people desperately need assistance. What’s more, if you look at what else we’ve done around cost of living in this Budget, it’s been very proactive. One of the things I’m most proud of—it’s not a huge Budget spend; I think about $270 million—is the half-price public transport. That has shifted the needle on the use of public transport and that’s a change which I think will stick. I know the other thing it’s done, certainly in Christchurch and Canterbury, is to show that if we change the cost structure usage goes up, and when usage goes up we can invest better into bus lanes, better buses, better public transport networks, and that means long-term change which is climate-friendly.

That’s the other key aspect of this Budget: getting a genuine, lasting, and just transition from the high-carbon environment and economy we’re in now, into a low-carbon economy. We need to invest. That’s another significant part of this Budget: shifting our economy away from a high-carbon economy, including transport mode shift, including looking at alternative fuels, and including looking at rail solutions for our regional networks. That’s really important stuff. Shifting industrial heat—encouraging and supporting our industrial users to move away from coal to renewable sources, whether that be woodchip or other sources. And we can’t forget the important agricultural sector, a sector that this Government has supported and continues to support, including funding research.

I’ve got a lot of support for the work that Todd Muller did in the climate change space, getting the zero carbon Act across the line. He did a lot of good work there, and he should be recognised for it. He doesn’t get the credit he deserves on that side of the House for the collaborative work he did with James Shaw getting the zero carbon Act and He Waka Eke Noa across the line. Well done to that man.

Of course, investing in our people means investing in health, and we have done more than any other Government for many years in funding health properly. We came into Government with a decrepit and demoralised health system, and we’ve turned that around, and we continue to do so; $11 billion is a lot of money to spend, but when something is as broken as it was in 2017, we can’t just patch it together. We’ve got to rebuild this system from the ground up. That includes health infrastructure, but it also includes years and years of accumulated debt that we have had to pick up. We must wipe that slate clean, because we cannot cripple the health system, going forward, with the burden of debt that the National Party left it with through a broken system. So we are taking a proactive approach, one that puts the wellbeing of people first, and isn’t some penny-pinching system which was what we had before.

Pharmac—another $141 million. We know the heartbreaking stories we see around Pharmac. Pharmac, though, is recognised internationally, and somewhat looked at sideways by some of the large drug companies in countries that have large drug industries. But we know it’s the right thing to do to have a single drug-buying agency; to have good market power, a good knowledge base, a good skill set to go out there and get the best deals we can for New Zealanders. They do it well. We know it’s always going to be hard when there are decisions made about what’s funded and what’s not. But another $141 million for Pharmac will go a hell of a long way there.

What’s more is the work we’re doing around housing. Housing is a challenge. It’s been a challenge for a while and we know that for many years we were building about 20,000 houses short in terms of what we needed. But you know what? We’ve turned the corner. This Government has turned the corner. It took a long time to turn that tanker round, because what had happened through the global financial crisis? All of our building industry apprenticeships were wiped. We had an industry that had no capacity. So even our work around apprentices and trade training is supporting the construction of warm, healthy homes for people to live in. We continue to do that, including increasingly subsidising warm and healthy homes, including an infrastructure fund to make sure that councils can create the infrastructure that is needed to support the housing developments we need: good, compact housing developments; housing developments which are great to live in. I do give credence to the National Party for joining with the Labour Party in the housing accord and having a plan to go forward to make sure that we have a good supply of houses 10, 20, 30, and 100 years into the future.

The other thing we’re interested in—and it’s really important; I emphasise this—is we’re a party that is committed to equity and we know that there are some parts of our community, some sections of our community, that haven’t done well historically for all kinds of reasons and have been let down. The Māori community is one of those, and the Pasifika community is another. We are facing up to that fact. We are targeting funding into Māori housing initiatives, Māori wellbeing initiatives, Māori mental health, and the same with Pasifika. I’m very excited about the stuff that’s going on in procurement. This Budget identifies that we should be looking to encourage Māori business, Māori innovation, and Māori entrepreneurs by having procurement guidelines and procedures which say let’s buy from Māori business, let’s grow Māori business in this way, not by propping it up but by lifting it up. That’s a fantastic initiative as well.

So this is a Budget which is well-thought-out. It’s a strategic Budget. A Budget that first of all says we need a just transition, a transition that brings everyone along, not just those at the top but everyone. One that puts the physical and mental wellbeing of New Zealanders at the front and foremost in all of our thinking. One that recognises that parts of our community, Māori and Pasifika in particular, need help, but they need to be empowered and lifted up, not propped up. That’s what’s going on in a lot of these initiatives. And, of course, child wellbeing—they’re the future. We’re going to put that first. We’ve got a lot of work to do and we’re going to get on with it. Kia ora.

I must say, listening to that last address from the last speaker, Duncan Webb, saying that the last Budget was a “well-thought-out process”, it was pretty hard to hold back the chuckles from this side. But the reality is, this is no laughing matter, because it is quite the opposite of what we have seen from this Government in regards to the Budget process that was put through in 2022-2023. Quite the opposite from the statement of a “well-thought-out Budget”, because we can look at a number of aspects underpinning this expenditure spend by this Government and pull that apart. And that’s what I’m going to do over the period of the next few minutes or so.

💬 Todd Muller: He did say some kind things though.

Why? Because—well, Todd Muller’s saying he did say a couple of good things, and I think he was referring to where he was complimenting Todd Muller on his superb performance in aspects of his portfolio. But that’s not what we’re here for tonight.

Let’s get back into the conversation around debt, because I think the debt aspect is a conversation that the last speaker, again, was talking about the role in which prior Governments have played. The reality is that financing costs to fund Government debt are going to be in the region of $2.8 billion for the year 2022. That is an absolutely huge amount of money that is going on the interest costs to fund that debt. That amount is looking to increase in the next couple of years to in the region of $4.8-$4.9 billion of interest costs on Government debt. That is the entirety of the law and order funding appropriation for the Public Service in the Budget. And that is the significance of a Government that is addicted to spending, a Government that is addicted to growing our debt, in terms of that pie. As a result, hard-working Kiwis are now, through their contributions of taxes that come out the back pockets of hard-working Kiwis, they are funding a huge portion of that towards interest costs. And the challenge with the conversation where they said this was “well-thought-out” and the reality is it is not, is actually that those finance costs mean that money going into that doesn’t go into other areas.

In particular, the increasing levels of finance costs put at risk, in my view, front-line public services. Because you can’t do both. You can only spend a dollar once. And if a dollar is going in to pay interest costs to offshore borrowers primarily then that cannot go into front-line nurses, police, doctors, etc. So this, and this allocation of appropriation at this period of time has and will have significant locked-in issues in future years from now. And that is what this side has been calling for. We’ve been calling for the Government to be taking a much more prudent and well-thought-out process in terms of the way in which they spend taxpayer money, and making sure that when that money is being spent or invested, that we’re getting benefits and outcomes. I think if you could personify this Government in terms of their performance for the last five years, and when you talk to hard-working Kiwis around this country in terms of where they see things going, and when you ask them, “Do you believe that the country is heading in the right direction or the wrong direction?”, the majority of Kiwis that I speak to up and down this country believe this country is going in the wrong direction. And I’ll tell you why: because they are not seeing the outcomes. They are not seeing the deliverables from this appropriation in this Budget and those Budgets that have come before it in terms of outcomes that they can see day to day in terms of the issues they face.

I believe that not only do we have a cost of living crisis, we have a social crisis that is brewing behind the scenes. And what I mean by that is this Government has provided a cost of living payment—which we heard today from our shadow Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, that the nearly 100,000 individuals that this payment went to in error, that was wrongly done. They come across the side and say, “Well, these payments, yeah, they are well targeted.” That’s not well targeted. One hundred thousand people getting the payment when they shouldn’t have got it is wasteful spending. But the challenge more so is that there are families across this country, families in middle New Zealand that are getting squeezed at the moment because inflation levels in this country are sitting at around 7.3 percent. And I can tell you what: well, early on in the process they said that was just growing pains. The Minister of Finance about 12 months ago said, “Don’t worry, these inflation aspects, they’re just growing pains as we come out of COVID.” Well, absolutely not. Inflation is here to stay. It is going to be here a lot longer than what we expect, and that means that the pain that hard-working Kiwi families are facing around this country is going to continue.

So what do they need in terms of the appropriation from a Government, in terms of its Budget, like the appropriation that this Government has done in this year so far? Well, they need to make sure that that investment is actually going to provide them benefits in terms of the issues that they’re facing. I talked about the issue around a social crisis that I believe is brewing. What I mean by that is when a family cannot afford to fill up the petrol in their car, that means their child might not be dropped off at school, which might be 5 kilometres down the road, and that might happen once or twice. But what we know, talking to front-line service providers in my electorate and parts of the country we have travelled, that is happening today. That social crisis is brewing today. That side of the House have got their heads in the sand that this is an issue, and they believe that a cost of living payment in terms of the cash payment is going to solve all that. We know that that is not a sustainable response in order to deal with the cost of living process and the social crisis. And that side of the House, members on the other side, they’re chuckling away, thinking this is one big joke. But those families that make the decision around whether they’re able to fill up their car each week and the ability for them to therefore take their kids to school and the reality that their kids do not go to school, they’re truant, they’re not part of the education system, and they become disconnected from our communities. That has a social cost that will outlast every single person sitting in those seats on that side of the House. That is what our future National-led Government next year will inherit, and that is the problem at its core that we are going to need to deal with.

Bringing out a couple of hundred bucks here and there is going to do absolutely diddly squat in terms of providing solutions to those Kiwis. And you know what? That’s what Kiwis have clicked on to. People are trying to work out, “Do I trust the Government to deliver the outcomes that I need for my families?” Not in a year’s time. This week, next week, the week after. They want to understand what is going to be. “Where’s my hope? Where’s my certainty about the future?” And these guys think that just throwing that out on a one-off payment is going to solve everything. Well, it’s not. And that is the reality that a lot of families around this country are facing at the moment.

The other aspect that layers on top of that is in regards to the reform agenda. And I just want to pick one example, $2.5 billion in the appropriation in regards to better-off funding for the three waters reform programme, a reform programme that over 60 percent of Kiwis oppose. Just 18 percent of Kiwis in a recent poll said they support, and about a quarter of those are saying that they are still undecided. That must signal to the members on that side of the House that this reform agenda is not aligned with what Kiwis across this country want. It’s $2.5 billion. Imagine the impact of $2.5 billion if we can get that funding to the places that would drive economic growth, that would increase productivity, that would increase jobs and get those people that are feeling the pain a moment out of that, but into an aspirational New Zealand where they have hope for their future. That is the opportunity cost that that side of the House are foregoing, that is what a National-led Government in 2023 will inherit, and that is what we will turn around.

I want to finish in the last minute or so with a little bit of comment around the reality that Kiwis are going backwards. Inflation at 7.3 percent, wage inflation at 3.4; 7.3 minus 3.4 means Kiwis are going back 3.9 percent—round it up to 4 percent. Every single Kiwi in this country every single day is going backwards under this Government by 4 percent. And you can’t get that back, that is lost opportunity. That is the cost, that is the price of a Government that does not have a plan in order to manage this economy and get us from where we are to where we need to be, which is an aspirational country that has hope for the future.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. On the eve of travel with my colleague across the way in that speech, I will do my best to be as kind as possible, but I rebut his points because he is out of touch with Auckland’s North Shore. He talked about a social crisis and said that he cares about the social crisis, but the only thing that Simon Watts is offering anyone is tax cuts for Takapuna—tax cuts for Takapuna. The reality is we look across Auckland’s North Shore, and it is 15 years since we’ve had any other representation than National MPs on the North Shore. Now, we’ve got a wonderful Labour MP in Northcote, and we have delivered more to social services in Auckland’s North Shore than they have seen in 15 years.

If I look in this Budget, the commitment to address domestic violence for women on the North Shore, we’ve just allocated tens of thousands of dollars to support domestic violence on the North Shore—a social crisis, in fact. Secondly, the allocation of supporting, what was it—in there is the half-price public transport. It’s in there, supporting good people to take half-price public transport and that’s making the change that we need, because we know that the cost of living is difficult for everyone. The thing, though, is that we’re in touch with our reality—right? We understand the pragmatic decisions that we need to make to move our people forward—the actual things that will make a difference. This side of the House voted for that; that side of the House voted against it. So when I come back to talking about Simon Watts being an advocate against a social crisis, it’s only under a Labour Government, with a Labour MP on the North Shore, that we’ve managed to make any impact on the bottom end of the people that need it the most—the people that they called bottom-feeders, in fact, I remember. So I just want to acknowledge that.

Also, to the point that he raised around the three waters reform—yes, absolutely. Three waters is a challenging conversation. I’ve sat with my colleagues for full weeks of hearings, hearing across the country people that open up their oral submission with “We agree that we need water reform and we have an infrastructure problem.” We have an infrastructure problem, and anyone that lives in Auckland and those that live on the North Shore understand that our beaches are closed every month in Auckland—every month our beaches are closed. Right across in Takapuna and Wairau Valley, which has some of the poorest—the poorest—water infrastructure and where our waste water goes out to our beaches, in fact, our beaches are closed.

Those are particular points, and so I come back to the Budget and our social crisis that Mr Watts cares about. What about truancy and our allocation of money in this Budget that’s allocated to our local schools? It reminds the National Party that you cut our truancy services on the North Shore—you cut them.

Secondly, we’ve just increased the number of community police teams across both Northcote Kaipātiki, Takapuna, and up to the Hibiscus Coast, because—what?—you cut our community policing team when you were in Government. While this Government has been in town, we’ve added 116 additional police to the Waitematā district. We’ve added to our number of community policing teams. This Budget is making the difference there.

I go now to one of my favourite topics, where I’ll talk about transport—transport and infrastructure—where we start to plan. More recently, I had the Hon Grant Robertson, the father of this Budget, come over to the Shore. He talked to good Shore people to bring into context the amount of work that we are doing, and we can start with the Northcote housing development, the investment in water infrastructure, and the investment in our local schools and the number of classrooms that are being built under this Government. That was unheard of under the National Government. You didn’t deliver any houses in Northcote, you didn’t deliver any schools, and you didn’t deliver any investment in water infrastructure. In fact, you cut our services.

So now is the reality of where we understand that under a Labour Government, the North Shore is much better off. Sixty percent of people on the North Shore are supported by the cost of living payment, and people in this reality are not going to turn down any money, because it’s all helpful. Some might use it for some wheels on a car, as was said this afternoon. Some might use it for an additional loaf of bread. Some might use it for the sports fees to get their kids playing rugby. Those are the differences that we are able to make in a practical way under this Government—thank you, Madam Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! My apologies to Mr Shanan Halbert. This debate is interrupted for the dinner break. We will resume at 7 p.m., and he is welcome to come and complete the rest of his speech. Thank you.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean):The House is resumed. Members, when the House rose for the dinner break, we were in the third reading of the Appropriation (2022/23 Estimates) Bill and the second reading of the Imprest Supply (Second for 2022/23) Bill, and Shanan Halbert had one minute and 51 seconds, should he wish to continue.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, and I spent a good eight minutes talking about the progress that we were making on Auckland’s North Shore under this Government. Having a Labour MP on the North Shore has been helpful to address what Simon Watts, my colleague and the MP for the North Shore, talked about. He called it a social crisis, but, in fact, it’s only under this Government that we’ve invested heavily in social services on the North Shore. I spoke openly about our commitment to addressing domestic violence, which has been a significant issue on the North Shore that hasn’t been resolved. So I’m really proud that we are investing in that.

Under this Budget, we’re delivering the largest police force ever. When I look at the numbers under the Waitematā district, there are 117 additional police on the beat under this Government, and, in fact, the announcement a month ago, when we invested in additional community constables, is something that our community has called for for a very long time. There is an increase from two community constables in the Kaipātiki to six. Similarly, across in Devonport and Takapuna, it’s really important, and it’s something that, actually, in fact, across the House, those members cancelled community constables and community police services in our community under their watch. I’m also equally proud of the investment into our truancy services in our schools. Under the National Government, they cancelled our truancy services and relocated them out west. We are now looking towards the North Shore service to support our young people—our rangatahi—to come back to school.

Lastly, I just want to acknowledge in this Budget the additional commitment under He Poutama Rangatahi. It’s about time that the North Shore gets its fair share, and in that piece of work, we’re supporting young people back into work and into training. Thank you, Madam Speaker.