Imprest Supply (Second for 2024/25) Bill

Thank you, Mr Speaker. 大家好，我是 Ryan Hamilton，中文周快乐. Happy Chinese Language Week to everyone who’s listening. Mr Speaker, with your indulgence, I’d also like to acknowledge one young politician of the year—Miss Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke—who was one of four selected to represent the world. I think that’s a significant achievement and would like to acknowledge her, also a fellow Waikato MP. She’s certainly got a challenge in front of her as she maps kotahitanga in the path forward, but she’s certainly got some great legacy and leaders like Pita Sharples and Turiana Turia. We wish her every luck and look forward to advancing Waikato with her.

In the context of this imprest supply bill, we must remember the situation with which the Budget was made. Of course, the first one was cost of living, a flat GDP, high inflation, high interest rates, and, of course, all those things lead to a recessionary environment. Now, of course, we’re seeing some of the lag effects of those, with things like increasing unemployment. I think, if we could name this Budget—certainly, it’s not the “mother of all Budgets”, but I’d like to call it the “Berocca Budget”, because it’s what you take to help when you’re slightly hungover. I think this is the hangover that we’ve been passed, and so this is the “Berocca Budget”.

Obviously, this House will be well versed in the 14-year gap and fiscal drag in that which we know as tax relief, and so it was very pleasing to see that after such a long, dry time, we were able to adjust those tax brackets and thresholds from that fiscal drag, the minimum one going from $14,000 to $15,600, and the second from $48,000 to $53,500, and the last—

💬 Camilla Belich: How many of those years was National in power?

Thank you for bringing up National. Actually, we tried in 2017, but you voted it down. We would have increased the tax brackets a lot sooner, had Labour not intervened, but the good thing about this is that now, with FamilyBoost, families can also receive up to $75 a fortnight more for those with kids in childcare, as one of my colleagues elucidated earlier, which is a fantastic achievement for those families doing it hard. We’re really excited about those tax adjustments.

Three key things that the Opposition was quite quick to criticise earlier was that this actually tilts the benefit—the benefits of the tax package are tilted towards lower and middle income families in New Zealand and it puts $3.7 billion back into the hands of New Zealanders. I’m pleased my good friend “Piketty Pirate” Parker is over there; he was often challenging where this came from. It was actually from both revenue measures and tax reprioritisation, so it’s fully funded—those two key “f” words. The other great thing about this Budget is two-thirds of it is actually going towards some of the priorities we campaigned on, those being health, education, and law and order. That is two-thirds of this Budget.

Let me start with healthcare, if I may. We contributed an extra $8.2 billion towards the budget, and $665 million of that was from a reprioritisation. One of my colleagues earlier talked about how we went line through line and we saved something like 240 items. We were able to claw back revenue and put it back towards those front-line services. Of that $8.2 billion, $3.4 billion was earmarked for hospitals and specialist services and $2.1 billion for primary care. We know only too well the benefit of funding in primary care. In fact, we were able to support capitation for medical practices by an uplift of 4 percent and an average allowable fee of 7.76 percent. I was approached by several GPs who were struggling to make ends meet because their revenue stream was, effectively, capped. The capitation was locked and they were unable to reduce the fees for patients. Now we’ve seen a slight uplift in capitation and in fees, which is not the complete cure, as you’ll appreciate, with the “hangover Budget cure”, but we’re making steps in the right direction.

The other key thing in health, of course, is the appointment of the Minister for Mental Health, which is absolutely fantastic, and $24 million towards Gumboot Friday. Might I also just pause here to acknowledge we’re in Mental Health Awareness Week. Nāu te rourou, nāku te rourou, ka ora ai te iwi—with your food basket and mine, the people will flourish. I just want to give pause to the purpose of this week, and acknowledge the great mental health Minister sitting here. We all know someone who is either directly or indirectly affected by mental health, and I think it’s just a moment for us to think about the person that’s been a little bit quiet in the last week or two, the person that’s missing in action, or the person that’s on the end of a phone that you may not have called in the last week or two or month. May we just acknowledge those that have struggled or are struggling with mental health, and may we all do our bit to help them.

While I’m on the subject, last week, in the good electorate of Hamilton East, I met Sarah, who’s the CEO of Mental Health First Aid Aotearoa, New Zealand, where they actually equip people to deal with first aid signs and, if someone’s suicidal, how they can have just some tool box tools to help them. I’d also like to acknowledge Mike from Male Survivors, Jane from Child Matters, Mike from Vinnie’s, and Jo from Te Whare Korowai—great organisations which all help people in our community. They’ll be the first to say that trauma is often one of the underlying causes of mental health. Again, with this Budget, I was so pleased to see the social investment. Time permitting, Mr Speaker, I’d love to indulge you in some of the wonderful things that are happening in that space as well.

I alluded to the investment in education: $2.9 billion in schools and early childhood education, including kōhanga reo, Playcentre, kindergartens, kura kaupapa Māori, special schools, intermediate schools, secondary schools, charter schools—the work goes on and it’s just fantastic. Of course, we know that Budgets aren’t just about money; we’ve also had some incredible success with the cellphone ban, and it’s been a pleasure to go around the schools and hear the activity at lunch times and play times of kids laughing and enjoying each other. One thing we know is social cohesion is key towards healthy communities and healthy play groups. Of course, education is one of our key pillars of productivity, which we’re hearing a lot about. We’ve got to educate our next generation, our rangatahi, our tamariki. It’s so important. I’m pleased to see that education is one of those key pillars of our productivity.

Of course, we’re investing $2.9 billion in restoring law and order. This House has been actively involved in some of that work in the last few weeks, with legislation going through the House in the justice and the law and order sections. Waikato, in particular, is grateful for the extra 14 cops on the beat that have been announced in recent times, a proactive measure to help calm the community so that they can feel safe and also to reduce the serious levels of violence and abuse and theft we’ve seen in recent times. I’d also like to acknowledge the appointment of Andrew Coster, a former Police commissioner, now the CE of the Social Investment Agency, which I alluded to earlier.

There is $51 million to accelerate social investment, a social investment fund to directly commission outcomes for vulnerable New Zealanders. We get a little bit of flak from the Opposition in terms of being tough on crime and being hard, but, equally, we’ve actually got very big hearts on this side of the House, and we know the importance of getting in front of the problems before they become crime. If crime does eventuate, there do need to be consequences, but, of course, if we can prevent that at the very front end—from childhood, from family cohesion—well, we’re all about that. I wish Andrew Coster as the new CEO of that organisation every success.

I’m looking forward to the Resource Management Act (RMA) reforms that will be coming through in the next few months, particularly fast track. Certainly, I’ve had developers and entrepreneurs and people that are just frustrated with the stymied confusion, delay in getting things off the ground—

💬 Hon Willie Jackson: Lobbyists, tobacco companies.

I bet even the Hon Willie Jackson, if he’s honest, has had a few people coming and saying, “When’s that fast track going through? Because I’m really keen on it, eh.” Like, even both sides of the House are really keen—

💬 Hon Member: Lot of iwi leaders want it.

Iwi leaders, yep. Even though they’ll pretend that they’re against fast track, secretly they’re quite looking forward to it. We’re really excited about that fast track, and, of course, the RMA reform, ably led by the Hon Chris Bishop. I’m pleased to say that fast track will be here “fastly”. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Kia ora to the House. The Labour Party, obviously, stands opposed to this terrible legislation and this appalling and dangerous and selfish Budget. It’s not a Budget for the people; it’s a Budget for the rich, and I think we’ve pretty well established that, on this side of the House. It’s not a Budget for Kiwis; it’s a Budget for the donor class of National, ACT, and New Zealand First. Treasury warned National they needed to spend $3 billion a year to halve child poverty. The Government responded cruelly by ignoring that advice. They don’t have money to halve child poverty, but they do have it for borrowed tax cuts.

I just want to come to, obviously, the Māori area, because it’s an area that I’ve put a lot of time into, as our party has, of course. I want to comment, particularly after last week, that we had Māori Language Week, and that’s a week when there should always be a lot of investment by Governments. It was a wonderful week in the House. We had Tama Potaka not speaking English—you know, sticking to the kaupapa. Good on him, kia ū ki te kaupapa—aye, Peeni? Pai tana reo, rawe! Rawe ki te whakarongo ki a ia. [Good on him, commit to the theme—aye, Peeni? His reo is good, excellent! Awesome to listen to him.]

He was lovely to listen to, and we had Shane Jones giving us beautiful recitals of whakapapa and history. Oh, it was all so beautiful, and then we had Minister Goldsmith. All of a sudden, he was so passionate about the language, and oh, it was just incredible, really, watching Minister Goldsmith and his new-found love of the Māori language. Do you know, it was just beautiful. I thought he was really from Ngati Porou, the way he was going on, and he was being tutored by Tama Potaka and Shane Jones. But it was interesting, coming from Minister Goldsmith, given his negativity towards our language, towards our reo, about three weeks earlier, when he felt too embarrassed to put our language on a simple letter to his counterpart—

💬 Ryan Hamilton: Back to the Budget.

Oh no, this is all about the Budget. The point is, I say to that other side, that it’s all good to talk about the language, but how about putting some funding and resourcing behind it?

The very week that these three were parading around the House that they all love Māori Language Week, we had the Māori Television chief executive, Shane Taurima, telling our select committee downstairs that he’s making a 25 percent cut in terms of his staff, which is huge for Whakaata Māori. Why? Because the great lovers of the language—Minister Goldsmith, Minister Jones, and Minister Potaka—haven’t put their hands up in the Budget rounds to get more funding and resourcing for Whakaata Māori. It is a disgrace. They are a disgrace. The beautiful language—beautiful; yes, we loved their reo. Peeni Henare, who is one of the real experts, sat there—“Oh, yes, wonderful.” Former Minister Henare knows that it’s all very good to speak the reo, but how about fronting up at Budget time and getting some funding for your people? Shame on all three of them, because that’s sort of our lot for Māori.

This Budget represents the worst outcome for Māori in a generation. The Government has slashed $40 million from Māori housing providers, along with cutting $20 million for young people/rangatahi transitional housing. In our view, Māori have been ignored in this Budget. Māori development has received zero funding for core services, along with no new initiatives for Māori communities. It’s a disgrace that Māori are being used to pay for tax cuts—pay for tax cuts—at a time when whānau across the country are struggling. Almost $100 million has been saved by the Government choosing not to invest in supporting Māori. Tairāwhiti has been neglected, with no funding to support projects on the East Coast. All funding for mātauranga Māori - based approaches to agricultural emissions have been cut.

It is embarrassing what this Government has come out with. When I think about what myself and Peeni Henare, our Māori caucus, and our Labour Party supported over the last few years, we were averaging $1 billion a year, and $32 million we got for Matatini; $1 billion a year—$1.2 billion in our last year—we thought was pretty reasonable. Now you will hear the arguments from Te Pāti Māori, who talk about 20 percent of the funding. Good on Te Pāti Māori, but, realistically, any Government should be funding Māori kaupapa at around what we were doing, which represented around about 6 percent of the new funding. I was proud that Labour was able to do that over three years. Yes, I hear—and we all hear—Te Pāti Māori talking about 20 percent because we are 20 percent, but the reality is there’s only 5 or 6 percent of “by Māori, for Māori” providers.

The type of funding that we were rolling out, I think, was perfect, and we were funding the right providers and the right people. Of course, the National Party weren’t ignoring Māori altogether; they put a bit of funding behind Paula Bennett, who took over the chairmanship of—what did Paula Bennett take the chairmanship of?

💬 Hon Member: Pharmac.

Pharmac? Oh, yes. There are some Māori they fund and support: Paula Bennett. Paula’s got a flash new job with Pharmac. The first thing she did was get rid of all the Treaty clauses in Pharmac. Well done, Paula! They don’t always ignore Māori. Simon Bridges has also got a flash job, too, I believe. Yes, he’s going to look after Minister Simeon Brown and make sure that the Māoris don’t get too big for their boots in the transport area, because you don’t want too many Māori names in transport! Simon will make sure that things are OK for the Government in the transport area. So it’s not right to say that this Government ignores Māori altogether; they look after some of their favourite Māori, as we all know. It’s a sad time for not just Māori but everyone.

As we know, as a party, they don’t have money to properly fund health, but they do have $5 million for a bootcamp virtue signal that we all know won’t work. They don’t have money for more food in schools, but they do have $4 million for ACT’s racist Treaty referendum bill. It’s a shocking bill that has been rubbished not just by our side but by the National Party side—good National Party people like Jim Bolger, Doug Graham, Jenny Shipley; they’ve all said how shocking this is—but we have a National Cabinet that lined up and supported David Seymour for a waste of $4 million. Despite what judges have said for the last 30 to 40 years, despite what National and Labour Governments have done, they rolled out $4 million for the most divisive type of legislation you could ever have. They’ve also given $30 million for David Seymour’s red-tape ministry—but not the beneficiaries who need that more.

It’s a Budget that rewards the polluters while the climate burns. Shane Jones hasn’t met a coal mine now that he doesn’t want to marry, and this Budget allows him to do that. I mean, Shane is just so in love not just with himself but with this National Party and with coal mines, as we all know. It’s a Budget for higher speed limits and more road deaths; I think that’s been pretty well established. It’s a Budget for landlords at the expense of renters. It just goes on and on. I know the other side—I’m picking up from them that they’re a bit embarrassed by this, because that’s why they’re listening intently tonight. I’m pleased about that. If the Budget had pronouns, they would be “me” and “mine”! This is a Budget that celebrates selfishness at the cost of the common good.

A Budget from Labour that went beyond donor interests would ensure our public services weren’t hacked back. Nicola Willis’ demands that public servants return to the office is a sad attempt to jumpstart the Wellington economy, when the reality is that the 5,000 public servants the Government sacked is why this Wellington economy is suffering. It’s a ghost town at times; it pains me to see it. This Budget enables that suffering. This Budget funds the mega-prison that our underfunded social services help produce. Rather than focus on the cause of crime, this Budget only funds the symptoms. This isn’t a Budget for the people. I talked about Māori, but it actually isn’t a Budget for workers. It’s not a Budget for women. It’s not a Budget for Pasifika. Our people in the regions are suffering. All around the country, our people are upset. It doesn’t discriminate in terms of colour. It is not good for your average Kiwi. Labour rises to denounce this Budget for what it is: a Budget for the rich, by the rich, and in the interests of the rich. Kia ora, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Jackson. I just was going to mention about reading a speech, but in some members’ cases, having a prepared, read speech is actually an advantage—so well done.

In my 11 or so months here so far, there’s been a couple of things I’ve always looked forward to, and one of them has been to provide the rebuttal or the speech straight after the Hon Willie Jackson. But, actually, I don’t need to say anything in response to that because, Mr Speaker, you said it all for me. You said it all for me around reading the speech, getting into the detail, particularly at the last minute, because he’s used the first nine minutes with all the bluster and everything he needs to say, and then, “Oh, yup—last minute. I need to get to the talking points.” The “me/mine” Budget, as he coined as well—very smart, Mr Jackson, very smart, well done.

The key messages, particularly about this Budget, have been that this bill is a testament to our Government’s commitment to fiscal responsibility. It shows that we are strongly in favour of having a transparent allocation of resources. Additionally, it ensures that essential public services and infrastructure projects have that necessary funding to operate effectively and efficiently.

There’s a number of crucial components that I’m going to dive deep into through my contribution, but just to remind people what Budget 2024 actually delivered: we delivered a fiscally responsible Budget that delivered on our commitments from the election campaign; tax relief that gave average-income households up to $102 a fortnight, plus FamilyBoost childcare payments of up to $150 a fortnight; targeted investments in public services, including healthcare, education, and law and order; savings across Government to responsibly fund tax relief and boost front-line services; infrastructure investments for growth; and fiscal discipline to get us back into surplus and to lower debt.

That’s one particular point I really want to highlight, because, in 2019, Government debt sat at around $5 billion. In 2023, it had ballooned to $100 billion. The other side of the House was simply an “Afterpay Government”, paying for fine things today and paying for it in the future. It’s my generation, and the generations to come, that will feel the full effects of the “Afterpay Government”, of the “Credit Card Government”, of the “Just Appropriate it Government”, that simply said, “We can spray the problem away by throwing more cash at it.” Actually, that doesn’t resolve the issues that we’re facing, because if it was just as simple as throwing money at things, we would solve numerous problems. It’s actually about diving deeper into what the real issues are. Government spending on the other side increased by over 80 percent. Show me a New Zealander today that says, under that six years, they were 80 percent better off. Show me 80 percent better off. Show me it—show me it—because we’ve got Government debt at $100 billion and we’ve got Government spending increased by 80 percent but nothing to show for it, nothing that we can see tangibly improving New Zealanders’ lives.

One of the things I’m really proud about from our Budget that we delivered this year is FamilyBoost. One of the stories I want to share was just from the weekend at the Women’s Lifestyle Expo in the Bay of Plenty. A young mum came up to me and said, “Oh, I just want to say thank you for FamilyBoost and what it’s going to mean for our family.” I said, “Oh, OK, tell me a little bit more about that.” She said, “Oh, I’ve got a couple of young kids. I’ve got them in early childcare. For us, the extra $975 we’re going to get every three months is going to make the world of difference. My husband and I, we own our own small business. Times are tough. Our kids need early childhood education. This $975 every quarter, nearly $4,000 a year, is going to make a world of difference for us. It might mean that we can keep sending our kids to their swimming lessons. It might mean that we can go on that one holiday that we’ve been hoping for. We just want to say thank you because this really has made the biggest impact for our household.” I said to her, “Well, thank you so much for sharing that with me. I’m keen to understand if it has been easy for you, with your childcare provider, to get your access to FamilyBoost.” What she said was, “Yes, my local provider in Pāpāmoa, in the Bay of Plenty electorate, has prepared for us a three-monthly statement that I can simply upload on to the myIR website.” I said, “That’s fantastic.”

It’s stories like that, and hearing those daily, that really hammer home what impacts a fiscally responsible, smart decision-making Budget can have for everyday New Zealanders. I want to thank that young mum for coming and sharing that story with me because it’s something that I’ve carried from having spoken with her over the weekend. For those families out there thinking about FamilyBoost, simply my suggestions to you are to jump on to the myIR website, gather your ECE invoices, and be ready to submit your claim from 1 October. FamilyBoost is our Government’s commitment to helping New Zealand families. We’re making it easier for parents to manage their household expenses while ensuring that their children get a quality education.

As we move on, I want to talk about tax relief. One of the things that we changed and adjusted in this Budget was to do with the bracket creep that we had seen for the last 14 years. We hadn’t seen our tax brackets in New Zealand adjusted for 14 years and there had been this bracket creep that had grown exponentially over that period of time. On this side of the House, we believe New Zealanders know how to spend their money and can be fiscally responsible, whilst on the other side of the House, they’re having a crisis at the moment, trying to work out new ways to find taxes, new ways to take it off New Zealanders, new ways to put it into the Government’s pockets because they believe they can spend it better than anybody else. Fundamentally, we do not agree with that. The difference couldn’t be starker for the New Zealand public. This side believes you keep it; that side believes they should take it. And they are making that abundantly clear now, two years out from the next election, and the New Zealand public in 2026 will know what the clear differences are between this side of the House and the other side of the House.

The other key part about this year’s Budget was the investment in infrastructure and roading, particularly our 17 roads of national significance—17 roads of national significance. One road for every Labour MP elected in a seat around the country—one road for every Labour MP elected around the country. I say to the communities across the country: would you choose the Labour MP or the road of national significance? They’re picking the road of national significance every day of the week.

I think about my Bay of Plenty electorate; two roads of national significance for us locally. State Highway 29 over the Kaimai Ranges, connecting Tauranga with Waikato and Auckland—the “golden triangle”—and connecting New Zealand’s largest port with the Port of Tauranga; 40 percent of New Zealand’s exports leaving it. That vital road will play a key link for us to the rest of New Zealand, particularly with the Waikato and Auckland. Then the Takitimu North Link, through Te Puna and Ōmokoroa, connecting the Tauranga, Bay of Plenty, and Coromandel electorates. That is going to move a huge amount of freight and people off local roads and onto State highways.

Let’s just recall, in 2017, that road was ready to go, consented, funded, and ready. What did Labour do when they came into Government in 2017? They cancelled it—they cancelled it—then they scaled it back, they brought it back in, and then they delayed it again, and they only did stage one. Stage one would have been delivered by now. I say to the people of Te Puna, Ōmokoroa, Waihī Beach, Katikati, and all the communities through there: the road is being delivered by National for you, to enable you to get where you want to go quicker, safer, and faster, because that’s what this side of the House believes. That’s what we fundamentally believe: that we actually need roads to drive on around this country.

We hear people across the other side of the House who say, “Oh, just put more cycle lanes in. Take out the car parks outside our offices and just put the cycle lanes in. That’ll help everybody get around the country.” Well, it doesn’t work. It simply doesn’t work. It’s the roads of national significance—as I said, the 17 of them; one for every Labour MP elected in a seat around this country—and they’re really going to be delivering for the New Zealand population and allowing people to get around our country in a better way and make us—make us—a more productive country. That’s what we’re fundamentally here to do—

💬 James Meager: Grow the pie.

—make us a more productive country and, as we’ve talked about tonight, grow that pie.

You heard Deborah Russell: she was sick of the pie—she was sick of the pie—she hated the pie. Well, she would have loved the movie Chicken Run. She’s sick of hearing about the pie and growing it, where, on this side of the House, we actually want to grow New Zealand, both locally and on the international stage. We can’t do it by just sharing things with each other; we have to get out there internationally, share what we’ve got with them, bring in what other countries have that we don’t have, to ensure we are the best country in the world. That’s what we’re here to do—to make us the best place in the world for people to live, work, and play. For me, that stands most importantly for my local community of the Bay of Plenty but also for New Zealand—to make it the best place for our next generations that are coming through, so they’re not saddled with debt, so they’ve got a Government that believes in them and wants to make it the best place in the world.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I’ve been following this debate, and the sad fact is that it hasn’t actually been a debate at all. This is supposed to be a talk about this bill and the Budget that this Government has passed that every single one of these MPs have voted for. I would have thought that they would take the opportunity to stand up and not just read what is in front of them, not just read what’s been given to them, but actually respond to the points that have been made.

Throughout this debate, members have pointed out that the Budget that we’re talking about today, the Budget they voted for, removed $1.5 billion from housing. The Budget they voted for has removed $1.5 billion from health. It has imposed significant costs on to ratepayers and there’s a $6 billion hole in their transport budget. Now, if a left-leaning Government produced a Budget with deficits like that, they would be screaming from the rooftops about how irresponsible it was. Could you imagine what their response might be if a Labour finance Minister borrowed more than five out of the last six Budgets, and borrowed even more irresponsibly for tax cuts? They would be out of their minds with rage about how irresponsible it is. Yet they stand here today and they read the comments that have been prepared for them in defence of this Budget. Not responding to the points that have been made. Not actually debating it, just trying to rewrite history—trying to put a positive spin on a Budget that doesn’t add up.

I just wonder why the Government just can’t be upfront with New Zealanders. When they campaigned in the election, they were told it didn’t add up. Everyone said it didn’t add up. Not just other politicians but economists and bankers: “It just doesn’t add up.” “Oh no, no, no, no, no; it adds up.”, they told us. They knew it didn’t add up. Then they delivered a Budget where they had to borrow more than five of the last six Budgets. That’s responsible, supposedly. Then they call around and they look New Zealanders in the eye and they say, “We have not borrowed for tax cuts.” It’s just not true. Listen to the independent people if you don’t believe us. They’re saying that it is a fallacy, and yet they look New Zealanders in the eye and they say so.

They stand in the House, as they have many times before, and they celebrate the fact that there are fewer people in emergency housing. Where have they gone? Not into houses that they’ve paid for. Not after pulling $1.5 billion out of the Budget, and not after making the criteria more difficult to reach in order to qualify for emergency housing. It was quite telling today. One of the questions trying to celebrate lower numbers of people in emergency housing was “How much money have we saved as a result?” And there it was. That is exactly what sums up their approach: it’s all about the money. It’s not about wellbeing. It’s certainly not about the working people of this country. In fact, it’s not about most people in this country. To them, they’re quite happy to stand up and gaslight the country and tell them everything’s OK and tell them that they’re good at balancing the books, when it’s not OK and they haven’t balanced diddly-squat. Nothing in this Budget matches up to the PR spin that we’ve heard from the Government members today.

They have withdrawn so much money out of the housing budget that they are only projecting to fund 750 homes a year—750. Last year, Kāinga Ora alone built 5,000. These guys have stripped money from Kāinga Ora and have stopped them building houses. Homeless rates will rise, so will poverty, so will crime because they had to find a way to pay for tax cuts for landlords. Everywhere you look, there are examples where that money would have made a material difference to people’s lives, and they’ve given it as a tax break to landlords.

What they never mention is that the settings of interest deductibility were such that you could still claim it on a new build, but not on an existing build. Why? Because we want people to build houses, and it was working. Investment was being driven to new homes, the proportion of new homebuilders was growing, the number of consents was growing, and now what’s happened? They’ve taken it away. Consents are through the floor. The proportion of first-home buyers is going down, and 8,000 construction workers are out of work, and what do they do? Not take responsibility. They blame absolutely everybody else—everyone that they can see except themselves. Yet this is a direct result of decisions that they have made. They don’t front up. They certainly don’t defend their decisions.

Go anywhere in the country and talk to health workers. You saw it on the news tonight, we’ve seen it in the news for the last few months; this is the worst state that they have seen the health sector to be in. It was only a few years ago—and they laugh. That is the typical arrogance that we can expect from Matt Doocey and others, when we are relaying the accounts of health professionals and they laugh—that’s the arrogance. That is the arrogance that we can expect from this Government. They don’t care.

When they are confronted with facts, like the nurses at Masterton Hospital that say that they are 40 nurses short, and they are not allowed to recruit, and what’s their response? “There’s no hire freeze at all.” One of them is not telling the truth, and I bet it’s not the workers. I bet it’s not the nurses and I bet it’s not the patients who are having to wait at emergency departments all around the country, longer than they ever have because there aren’t enough workers because they’ve cut $1.5 billion out of the health sector.

Everywhere you look, they are scratching around for money to fill the hole that they themselves created. The previous speaker, Tom Rutherford, spoke at length of National Party roads of significance. He didn’t talk about whether they were funded or not. I’ll tell you why, because they’re not—a $6 billion hole. They’ve gone around the country in order to get elected, telling regions everywhere that they’re going to build them a new road, except, I note, in the South Island—not a single road of National Party significance in the South Island. Matt Doocey’s quiet now. There’s a $6 billion hole because they promised too much, and now they need to fill it.

What are they going to do? They’re going to sting the people that they have the arrogance to look in the eye and say that “We’re looking after you.”—and no better example of this than the Manawatū Tararua Highway. They’ve even tried to claim credit for something that was nothing to do with them. Simon Bridges closed the Manawatū Gorge for safety reasons back in 2017, and their proposal as a replacement was the Saddle Road. That’s all the National Party ever did. They never put up plans and they certainly didn’t fund it, and that’s a fact. They can write as many columns and post it around telling people that they started it; it’s not true.

Yet here we are, looking at a road—a replacement highway that is nine months from completion, that is going to be a game-changer for this region, that the region has waited patiently for seven years. It is the largest earthworks project in the country, and it’s going to make all the difference to that region. This Government, because they can’t make their books balance, because there is a $6 billion hole in their transport budget, have decided to put a toll on it: $4.30 one way; $8.60 if you’re going to Palmerston North to work. What good is a $2.50 tax cut when the Government’s going to turn around and put $8.60 on those households? The median income in the Tararua District is $26,000, and they want to sting these good people to the tune of $40 a week because they can’t make their books balance. It’s a disgrace. It’s an act of bad faith.

There was a public meeting in Woodville last Tuesday. Two National Party MPs were there: Mike Butterick and Suze Redmayne. At no point did they stand up and say, “I will join you and oppose this pulp.” All they said was, “I’m here to listen.”, and they sat down. Those people are going to be stung because there’s no one in the Government that’s fighting in their corner. All they have to say is, “We’re listening.” Well, prove it—prove it. Prove it that you’re listening and scrap this ridiculous toll. This is going to hurt people.

This is what this Budget is actually about. It’s not about all the big claims that they’ve made. It’s not about all the untruthful claims about budget responsibility. It’s actually about the impact on real people. Examples like this proposed toll that is directly as a result of this Government’s policies and the hole in this Budget is going to hurt people. I think that sums up this Budget more than anything else.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Vanessa Weenink, with six minutes and 55 seconds left.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s an honour to speak in this final speech for the Appropriation (2024/25) Estimates) Bill and Imprest Supply Bill. I have the honour of bringing it home. We’ve had a great afternoon listening to a range of speakers around the House. For those people in the Banks Peninsula electorate who are watching at home, I’m going to give a bit of a summary, because they’ve probably been waiting—I know there’s at least one person who’s watching!

We kicked off this debate with the Minister of Finance describing the context for this bill and the requirement for it: for the Government to be provided with the authority to make the spending decisions throughout the year, and it allows operational and capital expenditure to carry on throughout the year in between the Budget spends. Doing this is kind of a safety net, is how she put it, of the Public Finance Act. It’s a way to make sure that the Government is doing things within the law with the authority of Parliament. This is the last phase of the Budget legislation for the 2024 Budget, and the first for the Hon Nicola Willis.

In that Budget, we have delivered the first tax relief in 14 years, and this will help more people to keep money in their own back pockets, and we’re delivering FamilyBoost to help families with the cost of childcare, which my colleagues Catherine Wedd and Nancy Lu also spoke about, as did others. They spoke about how easy it is for people to sign up to be able to get those payments, and we’re delivering on our promises within our first year of Government. We have delivered tax relief and we are seeing inflation come down. We’ve got interest rates also coming down. We’re working to grow the economy. As many people have mentioned, we are growing the pie. So many of my colleagues have mentioned that.

We heard from Stuart Smith. He spoke about many things, including the energy sector, and energy feeds the economy. Something he also spoke about was some of the ways that he’s heard that everyday New Zealanders understand that this money that we’re talking about is everybody’s money; it’s not just the Government’s money. Who’s paying for it? Actually, we’re all paying for it, and people in New Zealand understand that, and they know that this Government is going to be much more fiscally responsible.

Stuart also mentioned that gangs are a cancer on our society, which I think is apt, given the surgical excision we are seeing of that organisation out of some of the neighbourhoods in my electorate. Law and order is about creating confidence. It’s about allowing us all to get on with our business and conduct our affairs peacefully. I see a direct link between law and order and economic growth, and I have also witnessed the opposite in Afghanistan.

Catherine Wedd spoke very eloquently about the industries that she sees out and about that will help us to grow their pie, and, no doubt, it will be an apple pie, given that her electorate is the fruit bowl of New Zealand. Nancy Lu told us about the incredible potential in our ethnic communities, and highlighted a fantastic symposium that’s happening in Auckland soon to showcase that. Ryan Hamilton also spoke about some of the impacts in his electorate in Hamilton, which is great.

I do want to highlight one other colleague’s contribution, and that was Todd Stephenson, who spoke about Pharmac. I’m very, very glad to be part of a Government which has stabilised Pharmac and also stopped them from having to de-list medications, and then gave one of the largest injections of money into Pharmac that has ever been received. I know very, very well how hard all of the people within Pharmac work to assess the impacts and make sure that the benefits of medication are known, and to get to the heart of the science behind the medications so that we can get the best value for New Zealand, and I thank them for that. I think Pharmac is one of the treasures of our country that we should support.

As always, Tom Rutherford gave us some great insights into what he has been hearing from around the electorate, and he did talk about those roads of national significance. I was listening to the other side, and I did hear what they had to say, and I have got a few things to point out to them. I think the honourable member who spoke before me, Kieran McAnulty, is one of the best advertisements for structured literacy and structured numeracy that we could ever have, because he kept talking about $1.5 billion taken out of health. Well, I don’t remember seeing that; I remember the $16 billion extra in funding. I remember seeing that this is one of the most extensive Budgets we’ve had for health ever, and I’ve had quite a close watch of that. Now, $2.1 billion into primary care—that’s one of the greatest uplifts in primary care that we’ve ever seen. We’ll wait to see how Te Whatu Ora operationalise that, and I really look forward to it.

The Hon Barbara Edmonds lectured people on looking up on the internet on where we might see how things have been spent. Well, the other thing you might look up on the internet is the Auditor-General’s report, especially the one that talks about the ways in which some of those little projects that she mentioned were chosen. Some of those projects were very poorly managed, there was a lack of transparency, and there was no measurement of the impact, no focus on the outcomes of their project, and no way that we could measure whether or not we were making a difference. I don’t know if she’s read any of those, but she can look them up on the House website if she cares to.

Chlöe Swarbrick also mentioned social determinants of health, especially those like stable housing and decent incomes, and that’s exactly our point too, and when it comes to social investments, we’re not going to sit by and let whānau languish in emergency housing, and that’s why we’ve improved and reduced the number of people in social housing by 57 percent.

This Government cares about outcomes, we are fiscally responsible, and we don’t just talk about nice ideas; we have practical ways that we can get them done. The other side of the House likes to try to paint a story of us being mean and nasty, but actually we are being careful with New Zealanders’ money, we are being respectful, we are laying out what we’re going to get for our money—because it’s all of our money; we were talking about that—and we will hold our Government departments to account. We will be doing that consistently. Now, health is a debacle because of the previous Government. Thank you. I commend this bill to the House.

The Bill is set down for third reading immediately.