Imprest Supply (Second for 2025/26) Bill

I move, That the Appropriation (2025/26 Estimates) Bill be now read a third time and the Imprest Supply (Second for 2025/26) Bill be now read a second time.

I would like to offer a few more remarks about that if I could.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Absolutely—you’re more than welcome to.

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Thank you. Members, we have two bills under consideration here, and both of them are very important to our public finance system. In that system, we have appropriation bills, and we have imprest supply bills. Together, they ensure that when the Government spends money, we spend that money lawfully and with the authorisation of Parliament. These bills allow us to incur expenses and capital expenditure during the year with the authority of Parliament, which is, obviously, a very important constitutional principle. The Public Finance Act makes clear that the Government can’t incur expenses or commit capital expenditure without that authority.

In terms of the two bills under consideration, the Estimates bill is the one right at the centre of the public finance system. It’s the vehicle that sets out the details of our Budget, but the point about that is that the Budget is typically delivered in May, before the next financial year kicks off on 1 July. Obviously, we’re here in September, and we’ve already had a lengthy Estimates debate, and we’re now considering the third reading of the Estimates bill. What has happened between May and September to ensure that the Government can lawfully spend money? Well, to bridge that gap, that’s why we have imprest supply bills. We’ve already passed the first one in June, before the new financial year started. That provided interim financial authority for the three months of the 2025-26 financial year. Now, we’re considering the second imprest supply bill, which seeks interim parliamentary authority for expenditure decisions made, or that could be made, by the Government through to the end of the financial year, additional to the amounts in the Estimates bill.

The second imprest supply bill provides for operating or capital spending decisions throughout the year, including pre-commitments against future Budget allowances and expenditure incurred against the between-Budget contingency, for example. It also covers fiscally neutral adjustments that increase one appropriation but decrease another, confirmation of expense transfers, increases in demand-driven appropriations, and draw-downs of existing tagged contingencies, and it makes provision for risks that may materialise. Those are matters covered in the risks to the fiscal forecasts outlined, transparently, in the Budget update.

For the House’s information, the total amount of authority requested in this imprest supply bill is $59 billion. That’s made up of $16 billion of expenses, $42 billion of capital expenditure, and $1 billion of capital injections. I want to point out that that number of capital, $42 billion, includes a provision for the potential—and I just want to note that it’s only potential—one-off transfer of around $30 billion of school property assets from the Ministry of Education to the newly formed New Zealand School Property Agency, which has been charged with the responsibility for managing and administering school property. If you exclude the provision for that potential one-off transfer, the amount requested is similar to the amount sought in the last three years’ imprest supply bills. I can reassure the House that the full amount will almost certainly not be required, because Treasury reporting indicates that actual expenses charged against imprest supply Acts are consistently lower than the authority provided by those pieces of legislation. In that sense, imprest supply is a safety net to allow spending to occur without having to have recourse to Parliament.

The final part of the network of finance bills is the Supplementary Estimates bill. It tidies everything up for the year and ensures that all expenditure incurred under those interim authorities is properly appropriated by Parliament and made transparent and that that occurs before the end of the financial year. That will be introduced at the next Budget, but that’s an issue for next year.

Today, really, the main event is the final reading of the Appropriation (2025/26 Estimates) Bill, which sees our Budget becoming law. Let me remind the House what our Budget was all about. Our Budget was all about delivering Kiwis the jobs, incomes, and opportunities that they seek, and raising productivity to lift incomes and to drive long-term economic growth—all of the things required to create jobs and address the cost of living and lift incomes. New Zealand needs business, and some of them, my Green Party friends who are rather noisy today, we would like to see be profitable, even though that upsets your leader very much.

We want businesses, big and small, to invest in machinery, tools, technology, equipment, vehicles, industrial buildings, and other capital assets, because when they do that, they are better able to provide jobs and better incomes for the people who work in those businesses. How do we make that happen? How do we encourage businesses to make more of those investments in their own growth and the incomes of their workers? Well, that is why this Budget introduced, as a centrepiece, the Investment Boost initiative. Investment Boost is a tax incentive to increase capital investment in New Zealand. I don’t mind telling members that when I was in Australia last week, the Investment Boost policy was raised with me by a number of Australian business leaders who said, “That’s exactly what we want.” I said to them, “Well, don’t worry. If you don’t have it in Australia yet, come and set up business in New Zealand. We would welcome you. If you want to create some jobs in our economy and if you want to ensure that workers have more opportunities, we would welcome you to our country.”

The way that Investment Boost works is it allows a business to immediately deduct 20 percent of the cost of a new asset from its taxable income on top of depreciation. The advice that we’ve had about all of this is that more investment opportunities will, therefore, stack up financially and it is likely that, over time, more investment will be made. That makes a difference to the level of activity in our economy, which will increase as a consequence. The advice that we have received is that it will lead to a higher rate of wage growth than would otherwise be the case, meaning that this truly is a tax policy for the workers. I want to note and acknowledge, in the spirit of bipartisanship that does sometimes break out in this House, that actually both Deborah Russell, the Labour Party revenue spokesperson, and Barbara Edmonds, their finance spokesperson, have made comments praising this Investment Boost policy, noting that it is indeed a sensible and sound initiative, which it very much is.

I am proud of my Cabinet colleagues, who have made this long-term reform possible, not simply by saying to New Zealanders, “Don’t worry, we’ll just throw more debt at that.” What, in fact, the Ministers went off and did was find savings and find other areas across their portfolios that meant that we were able to ensure that this tax policy was possible. That is how it was funded.

What this Budget also does, of course—and it has been of recent discussion—is it enhances the role of KiwiSaver, which is very important. The way that it does that is it increases, in a gradual, phased process, contributions from employers and employees with a matching contribution regime from 6 to 8 percent progressively, over time, and it brings 16- and 17-year-olds into the KiwiSaver scheme, making sure they can get those matching contributions.

The Budget, of course, goes further than that. It makes investments in the things that are required to make this a faster-growing and better economy. In particular, I want to highlight, in the minute and a half left for me, the significant investment that it makes in education. I believe that when you look at the future productivity of an economy, you have to worry about your education system and whether it is delivering kids with the numeracy and literacy skills needed to contribute. The sad fact is that under the last Government, despite their great relationships with the teacher unions, actually, the results for too many kids were going backwards fast. We now have an education Minister who’s fixing it. This Budget has the biggest package of support for learning support in our schools that any Government has delivered. Why? We recognise that some kids have additional learning, physical, or behavioural needs that mean that they need a bit more support. Now, those kids have immense potential to contribute to their families, communities, and our economy. In fact, some of them, I bet, will go on to be the next Peter Beck, but what they need is a little bit of help to get there.

This Budget ensures that we make that investment up front. It’s a really good example that the reforms this Government’s making won’t all deliver tomorrow, but they are very important for delivering the economy that we need for the longer run. As any kid getting learning support as a result will attest, this is a Budget for the people. This is a Budget for workers. This is a Budget that strengthens the foundations for New Zealand.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I think we’d have to go back a long time to see a Minister of Finance less enthusiastic about her own Budget than we just saw in that contribution from Nicola Willis. Watching the clock, because that’s about all there was to do during that contribution, it took nearly five minutes for the Minister of Finance to stop reading off what the process that we were undertaking was all about and get to the substance. This is the final reading of the Budget—this is the final set piece of a Budget—where one would expect Ministers of Finance would come in proud of a Budget that they had delivered and would be excited about what their Budget, which they’d brought to this House in May, was delivering for New Zealanders. But it is no wonder we saw that lacklustre contribution from Nicola Willis.

She called her Budget the “Growth Budget”—and what growth are we talking about? Well, we can certainly talk about growing unemployment; we can talk about the tens of thousands of New Zealanders who have lost their jobs. We can talk about the growing queues of New Zealanders who are giving up on this Government and leaving New Zealand. Yesterday, we had figures out showing record numbers of New Zealanders are giving up on this Government and looking for the nearest exit. We certainly can point to growing homelessness, and this Government should hang its head in shame for what is happening under its watch. We have never seen more people living on our streets, and what we have is a Government gloating that they’ve cut spending on motels, all the while they have fellow New Zealanders who are sleeping rough, who are living on the streets. That is the reality.

We certainly have growing grocery prices under this Government. This Government says it’s created a fast track for supermarkets, but what is it doing around the fact that New Zealanders are paying more for their groceries than Australians? We’ve seen the kinds of premiums that New Zealanders are paying, and what are we hearing from the Government? “We’re creating a fast-track process.”—well, where are they? This is a Government that has been in Government for nearly two years, and things are getting worse, not better, and New Zealanders are seeing that. New Zealanders see that they were promised the earth, and they are going backwards under this Government. Things are getting worse. There is a growing gap between rich and poor, and there certainly is a growing gap between the wages of men and women.

Let us not forget that this was a Budget that was delivered on the back of women’s pay. This was a Budget that robbed billions of dollars that was set aside for hard-working women workers in pay equity. The Government was planning it all along, and not only did they ruthlessly cut that money, but they didn’t even bother to tell those groups that were investing time and resource into preparing those claims that there was no point—“We’re ripping that money away to pay for tax cuts for landlords and tobacco companies and a Budget that’s being delivered on your back.” They didn’t even have the courtesy of doing that.

Then Nicola Willis stands up and says it is a Budget with tax policy for the workers and for growth. The centrepiece of this is Investment Boost. Now, accelerated depreciation is not a new concept, and it’s not something that Labour will disagree with necessarily, but when it’s your only idea and is going to deliver 1 percent growth in GDP over 20 years, I think you’d better find something else to crow about—not you, Mr Speaker; I suggest the Government finds something else to crow about. The Budget for workers that is delivering 1.5 percent wage growth over 20 years—that’s what this mean little document that is Budget 2025 is delivering for working New Zealanders. What are we seeing in terms of the lifting of incomes? We certainly are not seeing that.

Of grave concern to us is the tens of thousands of New Zealanders who have lost their jobs under the watch of this Government. Thirty-six thousand jobs have been lost—19,000 of them in construction—and the Government needs to take ownership of that. Kiwi families are doing it tough. They are losing their jobs, and what do they get from this Government? Well, from the Minister of Finance, they get told not to take it personally. It’s very hard not to take it personally when you cannot pay your mortgage, you cannot pay your rent, and you cannot feed your family. To have a Minister of Finance glibly say, “Oh, don’t take it personally.”, shows how out of touch this Government is and how it has given up on the interests of ordinary New Zealanders and the struggles they are facing.

We also see the number of businesses that have gone into liquidation: 2,700 businesses, in the last year alone, have gone into liquidation. This is roughly a doubling from the 2023 figure. There’s not enough time in this contribution to go through and list all those businesses, but, in the last few weeks alone, we’ve seen Smiths City, Sealord’s Nelson factory, and, this week, 85 Auckland staff have lost their jobs after a big Auckland traffic management company has gone into liquidation. I feel for each of those workers individually who are going through that. They deserve better than a Government that tells them not to take it personally. That simply is not acceptable.

It is no wonder that people are giving up on this Government and leaving New Zealand. What we’ve seen is that we’ve got people that are waiting longer to see the GP. We’re seeing more people living on the streets. We’re seeing people that are losing their homes. A Government needs to look after jobs, it needs to make sure that its population is housed, and it needs to make sure it’s got a health system that is fit for purpose, and that is not something that Budget 2025 is, in any way, shape, or form, delivering for New Zealanders. Even more concerningly, from the “But wait, there’s more” files, we know that the advice that was delivered to Government alongside this Budget was: “We’ve only just begun.” The kinds of cuts that we’ve seen that underlie Budget 2025—the cuts to public services—are not over. They’re far from over.

After that advice was delivered to Government, we must admit that $12 billion was taken from pay equity—money that was destined for the pockets of hard-working women in New Zealand. What we’re seeing is the stopping of things like inflation adjustment of Working for Families, and I’d like to hear if that is something that the Government has on the go, because I can tell you what that will mean for New Zealand families. Over 300,000 households in New Zealand will face a cut to their incomes if that is what the Government decides to do. Or is it going to take its scalpel to health yet again? We know that National Governments have form in this area. Is it going to be education?

We’ve already seen it in terms of housing. I know that Government members of Parliament sitting on the backbenches are going to have a progression of people showing up at their electorate offices who suddenly find themselves having their accommodation supplement cut—cut from a move put in place by a Bolger National Government to give a bit of relief to families in terms of the accommodation supplement. If you have a boarder, this Government is going to cut your accommodation supplement; if you have two boarders, this Government is going to cut your accommodation supplement. The Bolger National Government put in place the ability to have two boarders for a reason, but this is a Government that has no idea of the reality of working people.

It is not putting people’s jobs at the forefront. We are seeing mass layoffs. It certainly is not putting New Zealanders’ health first, and we are seeing far too many of our fellow New Zealanders living on the street. It is a Government with no plan, it is a Government with no heart, and it is a Government under which the lives of ordinary New Zealanders are getting worse, not better.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek leave to table official data that shows that New Zealand’s gender pay gap has narrowed to its lowest level on record.

Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? [Interruption] There are far too many people taking at the moment. Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection?

Camilla Belich: It’s public.

SPEAKER: Just say “Yes”.

Camilla Belich: Yes—object.

SPEAKER: Right.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. I’m glad the Minister of Finance tabled that data, or attempted to, because the reality is that is the result of actions taken by previous Governments, and we have yet to see the stagnation in women’s pay caused by this Government’s actions in cancelling all of those pay equity settlements.

Look, the reality is that almost every single thing the Government Ministers and Government backbenchers say now is the opposite of reality. They come out and they say that their actions are somehow helping the economy, that when the Reserve Bank drops interest rates, that’s a sign that the economy is recovering. News flash: Reserve Bank drops interest rates when the economy is tanking. That is pretty frickin’ obvious to anyone who’s ever studied economics, which, obviously, the Minister of Finance has not. I don’t blame her. She’s obviously been poorly advised by some neoliberal hacks—the ones who probably told her that she could get some second-hand Toyota Corolla ferries and, therefore, it would be worthwhile to cancel the amazingly good deal that we had with the Hyundai shipyard. Look, I don’t blame her. How would she have the ability to—

Hon David Seymour: Point of order, Mr Speaker. Like all Governments, we are fortunate to be advised by public servants who remain neutral and cannot defend themselves in this House. I just invite you to consider whether having members of a House use epithets like “neoliberal hacks” to describe the finance Minister’s advisers is actually helpful.

SPEAKER: Well, unfortunately, it is a debate and becomes a debatable point, but I’m sure that there’d be very few in this House who would label the Public Service in that way.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Thank you, Mr Speaker. May I continue? Just to clarify for the benefit of Mr Seymour, I wasn’t referring to public servants; I was referring to other people who advise the people in Government. It’s evident, in everything they say, that they fundamentally do not understand the real economy. The real economy is about natural resources and people, and we as a country can invest in our people.

Here’s an example: they’ll come out and say that paying essential workers who do some of the most important and difficult and valuable work in our society—like nurses, like teachers, like early childhood educators, like caregivers—a fair wage is unaffordable. That’s what these people believe—that that’s unaffordable but that giving tax breaks to rent seekers who own rental properties is somehow affordable. Somehow, it’s affordable to give money to those who already have the most but not to pay people doing the valuable work in our society.

It is unaffordable to them to properly look after the environment. In this Budget, they’ve cut $650 million from environmental protection—never mind that that’s one of the most critical, essential bits of infrastructure that we need to live good lives. It’s something that New Zealanders love. We love our natural environment, and we rely on it to live well. Our economy entirely depends on having a sustainable, natural environment and natural resources.

They’ve cut $650 million, but they’re spending $750 million on one highway interchange at Melling. Are you joking? These people pretend like they understand value for money and economic benefits. It’s such a joke—$750 million for a highway interchange, one interchange. What benefit is that actually going to deliver to our urban transport system? Look at them—look at them. They don’t understand a single thing about transport productivity. Transportation is an area where this country could actually improve productivity, because we are spending an absolute fortune as a percentage of our GDP just on getting around and the majority of our urban trips are short distances.

Hon Nicola Willis: Tell us about the Mount Vic Tunnel.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: And yet—oh, the Mount Vic Tunnel. What a beautiful example. I’m so glad the Minister of Finance asked about that, because she should know very well—and if she doesn’t, I would say it demonstrates how ignorant she is—that the benefit-cost ratio of the Mount Vic Tunnel is 0.2 at best, and that means the cost of the project massively outweighs the economic benefits. They can’t understand. If we went to other countries, they understand urban—[Interruption]

Hon Nicola Willis: What do your voters in your electorate think?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Oh yeah, says the MP for Rongotai to the list MP who didn’t win a seat and who has never won a seat. Look, I respect list MPs, but it’s pretty rich coming from the National Party—

Tom Rutherford: Look at the three people round you!

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: —that the Minister of Finance—

SPEAKER: Looking this way would be good. The rest of the speech will be heard in silence.

Hon David Seymour: Oh, no!

SPEAKER: Don’t push me.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: I digress. Look, the reality is that the cuts they’re so proud of to public investment and public services mean a reduction in front-line public services and a reduction in wellbeing for New Zealanders. They pretend that somehow letting the richest get richer and cutting environmental protection is going to improve wellbeing for all New Zealanders. New Zealanders aren’t stupid. We can see homelessness increasing. We can see small businesses collapsing.

I was speaking to a small-business owner in my electorate of Rongotai yesterday. I’m sure he’d love to tell the Minister of Finance in person how he realises that the Investment Boost does not benefit small businesses like his. He’s running an awesome, delicious restaurant—fantastic food—but he’s had to massively reduce his operations in Wellington. We’ve had a scale of job losses in Wellington that he says, in 30 years of doing business, he has never seen, and that is a direct result of Government decisions—this Government—and the cuts that they’ve made to public services. He realises that if you lay off a bunch of people, you end up paying more to consultants to come in and do the work. It’s all pretty short-term and extremely irresponsible. The fact that that party campaigns on a brand of being caring about cost effectiveness, caring about economic growth, and caring about workers or people out there in the street is such a joke—it’s such a joke.

I feel really bad for the people who go and present to select committee right now. I spoke to someone who said she presented to select committee for the first time ever yesterday. She’s a qualified early childhood educator, she’s doing her PhD, and she’s highly involved in the kindergarten association here, Whānau Manaaki, in Pōneke, in Wellington. She knows a lot, and she went and presented to select committee on the proposed changes to early childhood regulation. Here you have really hard-working, well-meaning, educated people who look at the research and just want the best for our kids. They want the best for our kids. Ultimately, the biggest investment we can make in the future of New Zealand is in their education and wellbeing. What’s the point? These people put all this effort in, and they’re kind of nervous to present to the select committee, but the reality is that the Government members on that select committee will probably not be listening. If they are listening, they’re probably not capable of understanding, and they certainly won’t be influencing the person who is ideologically pursuing changes that will benefit people who own for-profit early childhood centres who want to run little baby and kid farms to make money—not employ qualified teachers and not invest in wellbeing—and potentially leave our kids in a position where they’ll be exposed to a lack of safety.

Most countries in the world have figured this out, and they invest in things for public good. That’s why we do it together. They invest in public education, and they invest in infrastructure that’s actually going to improve productivity and reduce pollution and reduce household costs and business costs. They don’t do it just because they have some silly, blind ideology. Sadly, the people who are currently governing us are extremely wrong about most things.

Luckily, there is an alternative. There is a fantastic alternative, because the Green Party sat down and presented their own Green Budget, which has been costed. We are going around the country and talking about this with a lot of people who have never voted Green before, and what are they glad to see? They’re glad to see somebody doing some actual work and showing some vision about what we could be as a country—not a country of property investors who are somehow making lots of money out of increasing rents, but a country, actually, that is investing in real wellbeing, looking after our nature, looking after our water or wai, looking after our oceans, and sharing in the benefits of the things that we invest in together. Investing in our young people is one of the best investments we can make, which is why we showed we could have free, universal, high-quality early childhood education. The economic benefits of that, I absolutely promise you, far outweigh the economic benefits of one highway interchange. We could be doing things like ensuring that we have high-quality, energy-efficient public housing and also iwi and community housing providers who are ensuring that we have homes.

Instead, this Government, of course, wants to build more prisons. They’ve got plenty of money for prisons, for war, for military helicopters, and for tobacco companies who will put more cost on our health system. They have plenty of money for landlords. We have an alternative, and that is that, when we work together, we can actually look at the things that we care about most, the things that are the most important to New Zealanders. That’s what the Green Party has proposed.

I rise on behalf of ACT in support of this Appropriation (2025/26 Estimates) Bill and the Imprest Supply (Second for 2025/26) Bill. We’ve seen a spirited debate so far, but I would like to take just a moment to acknowledge the very strong feelings many New Zealanders have today after the passing of Charlie Kirk. To see somebody who was not elected lose their life because of violence when they were trying to promote the freedom to speak without violence is a bitter irony, but one that I hope will help people understand the difference between free speech and the right to receive ideas freely, on the one hand, and physically preventing them from doing so, on the other, particularly at the point of a gun. It’s a great shame that the House was not able to unite in condemning political violence earlier, because some parties refused to have such a motion put before the House.

I turn now to this debate, where we do enjoy free speech. I have to say that the contribution of our Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, was exactly how you’d want a finance Minister’s contribution to be: sound, taking responsibility for the nation’s finances firmly, and ensuring that the amount of money taken by the Government slowly shrinks as a proportion of the economy, leaving more for the firms, for the farms, for the families, and for all those people who do the hard work to earn the money in this country, and leaving more for them so that they have a bit more money left at the end of the week.

Then, we had a contribution from Megan Woods, which made me think of an old rock band that had quit touring—in fact, they’d retired—but then all the revenue from the record sales dried up, and they thought, “Hey, let’s go out on tour.” The songs were old and familiar, but the voice was just a little bit tired, leading me to wonder, “Why are you still on the stage?” Of course, it’s because she didn’t have another source of revenue. She said that a 1.5 percent increase in income was somehow not worth anything. Well, let me just put in context what the 1.5 percent increase in income forecast from this Government’s Investment Boost means for a family that is, say, earning $80,000—around the median for one earner. It means that they’re going to be about $1,200 a year, or $24 a week, better off. You might say, “Well, that’s forecast over 20 years.”, but that is real growth in income that comes from doing policy smarter and that means that people have more money left at the end of the week—$24 a week for a median earner. I think that is pretty impressive when you don’t have any easy choices, but we’ve made a choice in Investment Boost that means that people will be investing more in the capital equipment that raises productivity and, therefore, raises wages.

Then, we heard a contribution from Julie Anne Genter, for which there are so many things that could be said but I won’t say them, except to pick up on her commentary about talking to one business owner who said that Investment Boost would not help their business. Now, think about that for a moment; it sounded like the business was a restaurateur. Well, in actual fact, restaurants need capital expenditure. Investment Boost means they can write off 20 percent of the cost of a new industrial dishwasher or industrial oven or any other equipment that a restaurant might have. They can write off 20 percent straight away and pay less tax, which means that they can afford to invest more and do a better job and get more revenue and pay their staff more—all of the things that need to happen in order for economic growth and wage growth to occur.

In just surveying the contributions from the other side, they’ve taken just one topic that the Minister of Finance mentioned, and they’ve tried to belittle wage growth and then shown no understanding of how it happens when this Government is actually taking steps to fix what matters, get more investment, and make it easier for New Zealanders to take home more money from higher-paying jobs. That’s what we want, and that’s what this Government and this Budget is actually doing through Investment Boost alone.

This Budget will also see the completion of a promise to deliver 100 percent mortgage interest deductibility on rental accommodation. Now, the other side continually say that the Government has “given” $3 billion to landlords. I think what they’re trying to say is that the Government will take less tax from landlords. If they wanted to be really accurate, they would say, “They’re reducing the tax on property that is rented out where one person allows another person to live in property they own in return for a rental.” You see, the thing is it’s actually normal to deduct interest expense from your bottom line when you calculate your taxes. All this Government’s done is make the business of rental accommodation the same as the rest of the economy. There’s nothing unusual about that. What’s been the effect of it for real people? Well, the effect for real people is that, for the first time in a very long time, rents have come down, because when you tax something less, generally, it gets cheaper. None of this is complicated. I’m proud that, for renters and landlords alike, this Government has aligned normal tax policy with everything else so that people can get on and pay less tax.

There’s something else about this that I think is important. Too often, we hear that landlords and tenants are somehow enemies to be set against each other with more and more restrictive rules and taxes on landlords to punish them. Actually, landlords and tenants both want the same thing: to get on, to have more affordability, and to enjoy their life. Generally speaking, that’s what most people, most of the time, are trying to do. By reducing taxes—actually, just restoring normal tax rules so that they pay less tax—we have allowed landlords and tenants alike to do that.

This Budget continues a massive increase in funding to Pharmac. We’ve never had more spending on medicines. We have gone from $1.1 billion a few years ago to $1.7 billion. This is a Government that has increased the amount of money on medicines by over 50 percent, and every day, I hear from people who are worried about medicines and who believe this access is taking us towards having a First World supply of medicines.

There’s a major investment in school attendance, because the one number that really matters today—if I was to have to pick one number today that will tell us where New Zealand will be in 20 years, 30 years, 40 years—is the number of children that actually went to school. No matter what your culture is or your background or your time in history, how much knowledge is passed from one generation to the next determines your future, because an educated population can solve and overcome any problem but an uneducated population can squander great prosperity. The number one indicator of how much knowledge is being passed from one generation to the next today is how many children went to school. That’s why we have dramatically increased the amount of funding for attendance services and retooled the whole attendance service to get greater value. By next year, every school will have an attendance action plan under the stepped response scheme. This is the kind of practical difference that we make to New Zealand so that we can be a more prosperous country in the future.

Independent schools will be funded just a little bit more after being neglected for so long. I see members on the other side wrinkling up their noses as if those children—whose parents pay their tax and choose to send them to a better school so they can reach their potential—somehow should be left behind and neglected and as if helping them is, somehow, a great sin. Well, actually, they get a tiny fraction of what they would get in a State school and what their parents pay in taxes. What we’ve done with that small increase for independent schools can only be fair.

I could say a lot more about this Budget, but the bottom line is that we are responsibly managing the Government’s finances in order that we can see more for everybody else, with lower inflation, lower interest rates, and higher wages so that this country can keep the promise of New Zealand to all New Zealanders. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Well, firstly, I should acknowledge the architect of this largely misunderstood and misrepresented piece of legislation, that being our finance Minister, and acknowledge also those of us who have sought to provide assistance, because, at one level, we are endeavouring to maintain the confidence of the people throughout the world who fund the deficit that we have inherited; on the other side, we’re dealing with the fact that there are a range of Kiwi businesses and Kiwi households for whom—because of the COVID overhang, because of the legacy of excessive red tape, and because of the splurge of expenditure—all those fiscal chickens have come home to roost. For those who have unfairly criticised our Minister, they overlook the fact that unless we maintain a certain level of credibility in the eyes of the people who buy the bonds issued by Treasury on behalf of the Kiwis who rely on these ongoing publicly funded services, we are not going to be able to meet the costs associated with the quality of life that we take for granted as being citizens of our nation and endeavouring to keep a First World quality of existence.

I want to pick on a couple of things where we did make some difficult but valuable decisions. Let me look no further than the vexed area of oil and gas. I only raised that because within this Budget was an attempt to stabilise our energy sector—a sector, sadly, that has had gallons of red ink poured over it by the last regime; a sector that, sadly, spent a lot of money on policy seances such as the Onslow project, which may or may not have potential, but sadly was never ever legislated. This Budget took a hard decision and took $200 million in contingency to accelerate the delivery—accelerate the delivery—of fresh streams of energy. Now, people might say, “Oh well, that’s not a heck of a lot of money.” At a time when we are deliberately running a fiscal consolidation strategy—once again to ensure that we maintain credibility with the sources of international capital that we rely upon to fund the Government’s activities—we are about to make further decisions, but those decisions are only relatable in the sense that we made a pragmatic decision and secured some money, and, now, we’re going to work in the short term and the medium term with investors who are willing to take a risk.

Sadly, they’re taking a risk in the face of threats and intimidation of a political character from the Opposition spokeswoman Megan Woods, who stood in this House promising in a very, very reckless way to overturn our legislation, which negated the ban which drove the oil and gas industry to the margins of our economy. I’m deeply concerned, for the future of our investment reputation, that a senior member of the Labour Party can stand and indiscriminately intimidate, undermine, and taint the good reputation of our nation State, because without gas and without coal, we will not have a feasible or a viable energy system. Unlike that particular politician, we, on our side of the House, were willing to make a hard decision. We were willing to ride to the rescue of the Taranaki economy. We were willing to provide some level of reassurance to the men and women who, this very day, depend on those jobs for the solvency of their households, and to the businesses that are threatening to close because they don’t see a future.

At one level, the fiscal trajectory we’re on is one of consolidation, because we cannot rely on, because we don’t command, monetary policy in this House—that’s with the Reserve Bank—we can’t rely purely on monetary policy to come and rescue the day, and we cannot be profligate, as the Minister of Finance is wont to remind the Matua from time to time, on matters of fiscal allocations. Let’s just go a little bit further: this particular Budget has got to be seen with the backdrop of an ongoing campaign to reduce red tape, to reduce unnecessarily cumbersome rules and intrusive regulations. It is not the easiest of tasks. Why? Because you have to change culture. We have to change the culture of the people administering the Resource Management Act and other pieces of legislation, including the Wildlife Act, which I hope to see the rear end of before I leave this place permanently, and also other pieces of legislation that govern the pace at which investors, users, and other risk takers seek to develop outcomes by using our natural resources.

We should celebrate the fact that this side of the House is willing to roll back that creep of regulatory nullifying activities. It’s not for the fainthearted, which is why I am very happy that, on the back of the $200 million, we are also advancing some work that reopens the coal mines of New Zealand in the area of Waikato. In fact, I’m meeting with the CEO of Genesis this afternoon, and without us having that as a back-up plan, what will happen if the coal from Indonesia is blocked? I’ll tell you what will happen: the lights will go out. Therefore, we need a strategic reserve, and we need something with more certainty than what happened over the last two or three years with a lot of policy ink spilt but with no certainty and with no clear direction on energy policy. Now, I’m only warbling on about that because I can think of nothing, at this stage, that is more important than securing certainty and a clear sense of direction. I look forward to working with my senior colleague the Minister for Energy to articulate it, but it’s very difficult to have a lucid exposition from this side of the House whilst it’s being thwarted with these reckless, cavalier threats coming from Labour. Quite frankly, it’s a bleak day when the major parties, or the pro-development parties, of this Parliament are unable to join forces.

Of course, housing remains a key feature of what we’ve funded, but housing can only happen if the legislative processes deliver those outcomes. It should come as no surprise how blown away I was as to why on earth a project in Auckland is teetering because the panel under the fast-track legislation is contemplating turning a housing project down. If any area needs housing, it is Auckland. If we need housing now, it is absolutely beyond debate. I look forward to a sensible set of outcomes for those who are pursuing housing, because our Budget is a pro-housing Budget. Our Budget also wants to put the asset of people who are occupying State houses to observe obligations and duties, rather than to feed apocryphal stories to the Green Party, when they come into this House as a proxy for people who refuse to abide by levels of social responsibility, which you and I as taxpayers should expect them to do, if not on a consistent basis, certainly for the majority of the time.

It’s a Budget that lies between the poles of fiscal responsibility to maintain confidence with the international capital markets and those who need assistance as we move through the transition of coming from the COVID fiscal overhang and then moving into a position, over the next 12 months, where the green shoots come through. Evidence of our deregulatory zest bears fruit, and we have something that is practical, measurable, and, hopefully, electable. Thank you very much.

Madam Speaker, tēnā koe, a tēnā tātou. Ka tū au ki te kōrero ki ngā kōrero mai i Te Pāti Māori [I stand to convey the statements from Te Pāti Māori] on the third reading of the Appropriation (2025/26 Estimates) Bill and the second reading of the Imprest Supply (Second for 2025/26) Bill.

For nearly 200 years, we’ve lived with the reality that no Government will ever adequately fund Māori aspiration, and yet despite that, or perhaps because of it, we’ve built something extraordinary. We have not only survived under these conditions; we have thrived. Our economic platform stands as a testament to Māori intelligence and foresight. In just five years, Māori entities have grown their contribution to Aotearoa’s GDP from $17 billion in 2018 to $32 billion in 2023, increasing our share from 6.5 percent to 8.9 percent. These are good things, and I want to direct our particular discussion in that way.

Our collective Māori asset base has surged from $69 billion to $126 billion, an 83 percent increase. Of that total, Māori businesses and employers hold $66 billion in assets, self-employed Māori control $19 billion, and Māori trusts and corporations and other collectives manage $41 billion. This is Māori excellence in motion, evolving every single day.

Kei te huri taku kōrero ki tō tātou kuīni, ko Te Arikinui Kuīni Nga wai hono i te po.

[My speech now turns to our Queen, the Monarch Queen Nga wai hono i te po.]

I want to turn mind to our Queen Nga wai hono i te po and her speech, and I’m going to refer to that now. Her first address to the nation, a year after the passing of her pāpā—our Kīngi—was more than a speech; it was a challenge to us all, a call to reimagine what it means to be Māori. She reminded us that despite our current experiences under this Government, our identity does not depend on opposition or struggle. It lives in how we care for te taiao, in how we learn our history, in choosing to be known by our Māori names, and in walking through this world as Māori every day—not just in protest, against the waves of resistance from politicians, political ideologies, or whoever governs at the time. She called on us to stop letting external forces define our limitations and to walk a new path. That path begins with vision, an economic summit to forge new Māori opportunities and a capital fund, seeded by Māori entities, and to uplift our people and all who choose to live on whenua Māori. Her words echo in my stand today.

The path forward for Māori will not be carved out by this Budget or any Budget; it will be shaped by us, so, yes, we oppose this Budget. We oppose the $110 million cut to Māori development. We oppose the fact that Māori development receives just 0.27 percent of the total Budget while Māori make up over 20 percent of the population. We oppose that the last two Budgets represent a $757 million reduction in Māori funding and that the total education budget for 2025 is $23.7 billion but that Māori-medium education receives just over $100 million—only 0.42 percent of the total. It’s not a good look.

We do not oppose from a place of despair; we oppose from a place of conviction, guided by leadership and strengthened by the legacy of the Kīngitanga movement that has guided us since its founding in 1858. I stand, today, grounded in the knowledge that our Arikinui—our Queen—is leading us into a new frontier of health and wealth, not just for us but for all who call this whenua home. This Budget will not build a strong future for Māori. It never could. Only we can do that, and we will.

As we always intended, we signed Te Tiriti o Waitangi to walk forward together but also in our own right as a people. We will move forward into a future where, in the words of my colleague Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, our mokopuna will walk hand in hand with yours, where both will understand and respect the importance of one another to this whenua. This future requires a movement. Te Arikinui, Nga wai hono i te po, has called on us to not be weighed down by the immense work ahead but to leave those burdens to her so we may walk forward unencumbered. I stand here confident in the strength, skill, and expertise of our people. Alongside our growing economic power, the nature of Māori working is transforming, and our whānau are moving into higher-skilled roles in record numbers. Today, 46 percent of Māori workers hold high-skilled jobs, compared to just 37 percent in 2018. Our people are as capable and resilient as ever.

Under the guidance of te Arikinui, we are ready to shape and realise her vision—I most certainly am—here within these walls of this House. Pass this Budget without our support, but do so knowing that Māori will continue to grow our economic platforms and nurture our identities, untouched by the resistance of this House. Tēnā koe e te Pīka. Tēnā tātou.

Madam Speaker, it’s a pleasure to speak in this debate and to acknowledge my colleague David Seymour for restoring the decorum of this place. I think it was getting a bit out of control beforehand. Thank you to him.

I just want to talk through the economic reality that this country is facing. We’re in a long COVID hangover and a long Labour Government hangover. For the public at home tuning in, here are some facts and figures for you. We’ve got one of the largest structural deficits in the developed world. We’ve got skyrocketing Government debt—currently sitting at about $283 billion and growing at $75 million a day. We’ve come out of the deepest recession since 1991, and we’ve got declining labour productivity growth and one of the slowest growth rates that we had in the last year.

Now, this is the result of a long hangover from the previous Labour Government—

Nancy Lu: Yes, six years.

DAN BIDOIS: Six years, as my colleague Nancy Lu pointed out—and from the COVID era. Now, what does this all mean? Well, all this means is that it’s all about economic growth. Our only viable option for New Zealand’s future is to ensure higher wages, better jobs, and a viable fiscal foundation for our future.

Now, there is another option that I hear from the other side, and that option involves $88 billion of extra taxes—higher taxes left, right, and centre. There you go. There’s an Opposition member holding up the book outlining $88 billion of extra tax revenue. They’ll want to tax more, spend more, and borrow more for our future. That’s what a finance Minister Chlöe Swarbrick would want to do. In my view, the Opposition has no ideas and no policy to stand on.

That brings me to this Budget. This Budget, as we all know, was focused on economic growth. I want to touch on three key areas that I think are of significant benefit in terms of delivering that economic growth. The first is savings and investment. I’ve got all my colleagues here; we’ve all talked in our own communities and heard the great benefits that Investment Boost will have not only for over 10,000 businesses in my community of Northcote but for over 600,000 businesses right across and up and down New Zealand.

Then we’ve got the KiwiSaver policy of lifting that KiwiSaver contribution. That is key for New Zealand’s future investment potential. Also, another thing that I’m really proud about is Invest New Zealand. Invest New Zealand’s just been established under this Government by this Budget, and we’ve just hired the CEO of Invest New Zealand. He’s been talking about the importance of foreign direct investment for New Zealand’s future growth and productivity.

Next, let me come to education. This Budget was great for education. As is known right across this House, this country’s got no future unless we’ve got a great education system. Under the leadership of Erica Stanford, our Minister, we had some significant wins in this Budget for education—the biggest package of learning support in a generation. For my area in Northcote, there are some fantastic wins for learning support coordinators that have just been announced for many of our local schools. I do want to highlight them because they’re great local schools. The Ministry of Education just went to one the other day—Beach Haven Primary. They’re getting a new learning support coordinator from this Budget. Birkdale Intermediate, Glenfield Intermediate, Birkdale North School, Birkdale Primary, Chelsea Primary, Glenfield Primary, Kauri Park Primary, Marlborough Primary, St Mary’s School, Sunnybrae, Verran Primary, and Windy Ridge—these are all schools in my local community that are going to be better off in terms of their learning-support needs.

Under this Government and this Budget, we’re going back to basics in education. I’ve heard from principals, board of trustee members, and parents up and down our community of their backing of this Government’s approach to getting back to basics. We’ve announced a new curriculum. NCEA is gone—“gone-burger”—and we’re putting in place a new foundational education qualification, which is excellent news.

Also, I want to talk about something that’s happened in the early childhood education space. It’s not well known, but they got an operational funding boost under this Budget, and that’ll enable them to do what they really do well, which is helping to make sure kids, at an early stage, get the support and learning that they need.

Now, let’s talk about the third area. Camilla Belich, in Northcote Point, wants to talk about the third area, which is infrastructure development. We’ve just had an announcement recently that, over the next six months, over $7 billion of infrastructure development is hitting the ground and hitting the pavements. I do want to highlight some of the great things that are happening in Auckland, because, as you know, you can’t hold the Treasury benches without winning Auckland and maintaining Auckland.

There’s some great stuff happening in Auckland: the Kidz First and McIndoe buildings recladding at Middlemore Hospital, the linear accelerator’s replacement at Auckland City Hospital. There’s the State Highway 22 corridor upgrade happening at Drury, and there are many more projects in terms of education, school upgrades—actually, in my colleague’s electorate of Upper Harbour, you’re getting some great wins in your local neck of the woods as well. There’s some fantastic foundation in terms of the infrastructure growth that we’re seeing as a result of this Budget.

Really what I want to talk about, and spend the last few minutes of my contribution on, is beyond policy, because I think policy in the Budget has been important, but how do we actually get a high-income, high-wage society in New Zealand? What determines that kind of growth? I think, if you could look across the world at all the successful countries, it’s not Governments that determine growth.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: It is! No, it’s actually public investment.

DAN BIDOIS: It’s actually hard-working people. It’s hard-working people that go out there. I’m getting a lecture from a member who said at the start that we don’t understand the real economy. I don’t think New Zealanders would agree that a Green MP understands the real economy any more than this coalition Government. It is hard-working Kiwis that go out there, that take the risks, and that actually work hard to get ahead.

I want to focus on a couple of local examples in Northcote. One of those is a place called The Gelato Workshop. For those of you who don’t know, we’ve had pretty miserable, wintry, cold weather in Auckland, but we have this place called The Gelato Workshop, owned by two Kiwi Indians in my community. They bought the business at the height of COVID, and they’ve now expanded their business. They’ve got about eight stores across Auckland—from Whangaparāoa to Ellerslie, Glenfield, and Birkenhead—and they’ve done really well. What’s got them to be successful? It’s, ultimately, their own hard work and innovation that has got them to that level. I want to congratulate the hard-working people at The Gelato Workshop for the work that they do.

Next, I want to talk about BFM Global. We actually took the Prime Minister to BFM Global, which is a company based in the heart of Beach Haven. They do fixtures for industrial manufacturing. It’s really niche, but they are a global leader in this, and they sell products all across the world to the major manufacturers. It was just so fascinating to see the Prime Minister really excited about their opportunities and what they’re doing in the innovation space.

The third company I want to talk about is Allproof Industries, which was set up by a former plumber who just decided to go into plumbing manufacturing. Now, they’re so advanced that they export all across Australasia and they’re doing so well.

I think that is what growth looks like in New Zealand. What we need is more hard-working Kiwis that go out there day in, day out to innovate, to think outside the box, and to think, “How am I going to beat the world in this particular segment or category?” I think the Government’s role is to have sound policy, set the rules, and get out of the way so that these businesses can get on and create better lives. That’s what this Budget is about, and that’s why I commend this bill to the House.

It’s a worrying time for New Zealand. I want to check some of the numbers here. There have been 10,000 jobs lost in the last three months. In the last year, 2,700 businesses have gone into liquidation. I’ve talked about some of them already—Smiths City; Sealord in Nelson; a traffic management firm in Auckland. That means fewer road cones, but it actually also means 85 fewer jobs. Of course, those fewer road cones are a sign that work is not going on. The number of people on jobseeker support is up to 216,000. That’s a lot of people out of work.

In the latest Monetary Policy Statement from the Reserve Bank, there was a discussion about labour force, about spare capacity in the New Zealand economy. It says, “A broad range of indicators suggest that significant spare capacity in the New Zealand economy persists.” It’s called spare capacity, but what that means is there are people who do not have jobs. It means there are people who are in work but do not have enough hours of work—they simply do not have enough hours of work; they simply do not have enough work to pay the bills. It not only means that; it also means, according to the Reserve Bank, that firms are not using their capital equipment to its full value—so there’s underutilisation of capital. The monetary policy committee noted that, while credit is generally available—banks are happy to lend—growth in business lending is slow. The economy is very, very uncertain.

Now, let’s stop to think about what Government’s job is. We had a view from the previous speaker that Government’s job is to make some policy and then get out of the way, but, actually, I think it was quite a sterile vision of what Government’s job is. Government’s job is actually to make life good for New Zealanders, not just in terms of the economy, but to really and genuinely try to structure our economy and our society in such a way that New Zealanders can do well.

If we go back to that famous quote on what New Zealanders want—“someone to love, somewhere to live, somewhere to work, something to hope for”—it’s actually a misquote, which is quite interesting. George Andrews, writing in The Spinoff about four or five years ago, gave the original quote, and he knows it because he was the one who conducted the interview in which it was said. These were former Prime Minister Norm Kirk’s words: “Basically, there are four things that matter to people: they have to have somewhere to live, they have to have food to eat, they have to have clothing to wear, and they have to have something to hope for.”

Let’s think about that. Somewhere to live: homelessness is up. There are more homeless people living on our streets, and that’s because this Government has cut down on emergency housing and has started to kick people out of Kāinga Ora. Not only that but they have also brought the construction of new Kāinga Ora homes to a screeching halt. There is great need for housing out there, but that Government has stopped building homes.

Let’s think about food to eat. The cost of living is up. In fact, we’ve just found out that it costs about $25,000 a year to feed a family of four people. That’s a lot of money. More disturbingly, in April this year, some research came out from Consumer New Zealand, reported by Radio New Zealand, that a third of New Zealanders have needed help with food in the last year. One third of New Zealanders have needed help with food. In a rich nation, a food producing nation, one third of New Zealanders have needed help with food.

In terms of clothing to wear, we know that there are kids who are living in poverty, and, in fact, that Government has changed the settings on the poverty indicators. That Government is putting more people into poverty. There are kids who don’t have shoes to wear to school. The Government talks about the importance of education—they’re quite right: education is important; but there are kids who stay home from school because they do not have shoes to wear, because they do not have a lunch to eat, and because they do not have period products to use. We need to fix that.

We need something to hope for and to trust that it will get better. Now, there’s been a great deal of talk of green shoots in the economy, but where are they? We’re not actually seeing them. I want to talk about a very, very obvious indicator of that, something that shows that those green shoots that people are very uncertain about are going to be very hard to come by. There’s another stat that I haven’t quoted yet, and it’s quite an important one: 19,000 jobs lost in construction. Let’s pick that apart. The reason that jobs have been lost in construction is that that Government stopped construction. That Government called to a halt the projects that were under way. That Government created huge uncertainty in the construction sector, and so, quite reasonably, people have voted with their feet—they’ve left the industry, they’ve left New Zealand, and 19,000 jobs have been lost.

Here’s the problem with that: they talk about economics and how it works, but have they not heard of the multiplier effect? It’s the simple thought that a person who has a job spends that money in the local neighbourhood—they buy the groceries, they buy the clothes, and they buy from local businesses. It pumps the money back into the economy. Those local retailers employ other people. Money spent going into jobs is money that circulates around the economy, and when that Government called a halt to construction, they caused a permanent decline in New Zealand’s production GDP.

There’s a graph that’s sitting in the Monetary Policy Statement; it’s been there all this year, in the—what was it?—August quarter Monetary Policy Statement. I’m going to direct you to—I can’t see the page number—chapter 2 of it and a graph which shows production GDP. It was going up; there was a dip for COVID, but it’s going up fairly steadily, and then after that Government came to office, there is a dip in production GDP. Not only is it a dip, but it is a permanent dip—it has carried on. Production GDP is now permanently below where it was going, thanks to the way that that Government behaved when it came into office.

This Government has not given people hope. They’ve come up with a couple of measures in the Budget, and they said, “Well, we’ll have this partial expensing.” It’s probably a good move to try to get investment going in business, but they’re not collecting the data on it, so we’re not going to know whether it’s actually having the effect they’ve promised or not.

The other major move in the Budget was to cut women’s pay equity claims. Now, not only is that a shame for the women—and for the men—who work in those industries, whose future potential was just gone, and who could no longer think that they might at least get paid fairly, but let’s go back to that idea that people who have money spend it in the local economy, that it holds up jobs elsewhere, and that it holds up local businesses. Cutting pay equity was a very, very short-sighted move on the part of that Government.

When I think about this Budget, what I see is an empty gap. There seems to be no vision for New Zealand in this Budget. Now, under the last Labour Government, we had a vision for New Zealand that was about fair pay for workers, that was about working on child poverty, and that was about considering New Zealanders’ wellbeing. That Government is cutting the wellbeing indicators in the Government financial statement, it has cut the focus on child poverty, it has cut fair pay agreements, and it has cut all the measures that might help to make life better for ordinary New Zealanders. In fact, all they seem to want to do is to try to scold people into happiness. We need a change. We need a step change. We need to think about the future of New Zealanders.

When we are next in Government, those fair pay agreements will be back, and the reason they will be back is because they make wages better, and it goes right through the economy. Pay equity will be back; we will work to ensure that women are paid fairly. When we are in Government, we will have hope for New Zealand.

Hasn’t Budget 2025 got a very long tail? Aren’t we pleased about that, because we’ve got a lot of good things to talk about. Here we are, four months after Budget 2025 was delivered by our fantastic Minister for Economic Growth, our Minister of Finance, the Hon Nicola Willis. She did a superb job. Not every finance Minister has to pull together Cabinet Ministers and Ministers outside Cabinet, but for the first time—or the second time, I suppose; it was her Budget—she mastered it again. That was pulling together winners from three parties for this Budget and putting a Budget together that struck a beautiful balance—a beautiful balance—between responsible fiscal discipline and investing in our public services, whether that’s health, whether that’s education, and whether that’s law and order. We struck that balance, and we know it because everyone said, “Is this Budget going to be criticised? How are they going to do it?”, and it came off pretty well.

In fact, I will say that the Investment Boost policy is one initiative that has probably captured the imaginations of New Zealanders and small businesses more so than any other initiative I can remember in and around this building over the last quarter of a century—Investment Boost. When all of us are getting around electorates around New Zealand and visiting accountants, visiting small businesses, visiting shopkeepers, and visiting farmers, they will tell you that that’s been a really, really good announcement that they’ve acted upon. And Fieldays—remember Fieldays? On top of depreciation and on top of the ute tax, the farmers were beside themselves that they could get 20 percent off their taxable income to put on assets. All the stallholders at Fieldays—and correct me if I’m wrong, guys—said, “This is the best decade, if not longer, we’ve had at Fieldays.”

I don’t know what the Federated Farmers political opinion poll said about this Government, but, man, there was a lot of confidence in this Government. Farmer prices, particularly dairy, are at an all-time high, and the forecast for this coming season at $10.15 even tops that. Fieldays is always a good indicator of how people are feeling on the ground. People were, I would say, queuing up at the National Party stall and saying, “Thank you for all the things you are doing. Thank you for not making us villains. Thank you for not actively working against us. Thank you for backing us.” As Dan Bidois said, over 600,000 businesses in New Zealand, most of them small and medium sized enterprises, really, really appreciated this Budget. Investment Boost was a winner.

Can you imagine the other side if they had to pull together a Budget—can you imagine that?—Labour, Te Pāti Māori, and the Greens? Now, the Greens have been waving around their alternative budget, haven’t they? They’ve been waving it around—[Hernandez holds up Green Budget booklet]—there you go, over there. They’ve been waving it around, but, jeez, it makes for heavy reading—heavy, heavy reading: $88.8 billion worth of additional taxes and lifting core Crown net debt to nearly 55 percent of GDP by the end of this decade. They stood up before and said that this will enable everyone to get most things for free. Oh, holy smoke, it won’t be free—it won’t be free. That is the alternative budget because Labour haven’t got any policy—Labour haven’t got any policy. These guys will be saying, “We want our alternative budget. We want to saddle New Zealanders with all this debt and all these taxes—inheritance tax, wealth tax, whatever you want; tax, tax, tax.” It’s the “Axis of taxes”—it’s the “Axis of taxes”. It’s a very stark alternative.

OK, well, let’s give Labour the benefit of the doubt. Let’s pull out the latest Treasury insights report as to how they managed the COVID-19 economic response and how they worked so effectively with Treasury and listened to Treasury advice. Have you read that insights report? It is damning. Treasury are normally pretty conservative in their opinions, but they said that the Labour Government, last time, spent too much and for too long—spent too much and for too long. Even when the economic situation wasn’t as bad as Treasury had forecast, they kept spending. They ploughed the investment in. Even post-COVID, their spending and their borrowing and their taxing just continued to accelerate. That’s the best thing that we can see from the Labour Party. Read that Treasury insights report from last month as to how they handled COVID.

Actually, the best indicator is this: they never mention Grant Robertson; they never mention Jacinda Ardern—only at valedictory speeches. I actually think that that is very telling of how they’re trying to run away from their legacy, whereas we’re over here, celebrating our past leaders—whether it’s Bill English, whether it’s John Key, whoever it is. We celebrate—

Tom Rutherford: Steven Joyce.

CAMERON BREWER: Steven Joyce. We celebrate our members.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Can you celebrate the appropriations bill we’re debating?

CAMERON BREWER: They don’t mention their past leaders, because they know the hole they got us in that we’re now trying to dig out of.

KiwiSaver—wow. The late, great Michael Cullen—if only we could bring Sir Michael back and maybe even Helen Clark, because they ran surpluses and they were relatively responsible, so when the John Key Government came in and there were the Christchurch earthquakes and everything else and the global financial crisis, there was some money in the tin to deal with this.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Moving forward, Mr Brewer.

CAMERON BREWER: KiwiSaver. Let’s get on to the KiwiSaver. Wasn’t it good that we decided to lift the default rate, gradually and sustainably, for small business, over the next two financial years, from 3 percent to 4 percent for employers and employees. I actually think that that’s what Sir Michael Cullen talked about—that he wanted that default rate lifted over time. He also wanted 16- and 17-year-olds to be enabled into the system, and now they are. They’re now eligible for that Government contribution and for that employer contribution. We also got rid of the Government contribution for those earning over $180,000. Why wouldn’t they do that? Why wouldn’t they back 16- and 17-year-olds as well to get into the KiwiSaver scheme? The Green Party, Te Pāti Māori, and Labour queued up in 2006 when Michael Cullen passed the KiwiSaver Act—they queued up—in support, and yet they voted against those KiwiSaver changes that the very architect wanted. They should be ashamed of themselves. The Green Party call themselves the party of the “youff”—double F, “youff”—and yet they didn’t back 16- and 17-year-olds into getting the Government contribution and getting the employer contribution.

Finally, I want to talk about learning support. It’s the biggest investment in learning support in a generation, as the Minister of Finance said—in fact, ever. That means that it’s now going to be demand led. Any child with higher needs will finally get the support they need. We all saw that across every electorate, learning-support coordinators are coming to a school near you. That is a fantastic, fantastic addition.

If we want to talk about Upper Harbour, well, there’s a lot of investment there. We’ve pulled the lever on the dedicated busway—the Upper Harbour State Highway 16 busway. There’s a bus interchange being built at Westgate at the moment. Also, there’s sod being turned on a school at Westgate—a brand new, 600-pupil primary school at Westgate. There’s also a whole new 10-classroom block at Scott Point School. Get this: Massey High School are getting another eight classrooms. Lincoln Heights School is getting another six classrooms. The investment in Upper Harbour is seriously solid. The investment in the New Zealand economy and the investment in Kiwis and in small businesses, from this Government backing New Zealanders, is phenomenal. I commend this third reading with accolades and adulation. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I want to acknowledge all the people around this country for whom times are tough, who are facing and hearing the propaganda spewing from the Government benches and the overheated optimism, which isn’t actually according with the lived reality of what’s happening in the economy right now, where we’re living through the worst economic conditions that we’ve seen in recent memory, with the annual growth rate as bad as it was during the great financial crisis and with unemployment as high as it was during the great COVID crisis. No wonder, because, while the Government claims to stand for jobs and growth, what they actually have done to the economy shows—and what the statistics actually show—anything but that.

We’ve seen—and it’s been well canvassed by the comrades in the Labour benches—is 19,000 jobs lost in the construction sector, and we’ve seen 10,000 jobs lost in the public sector. We’ve seen that this Government has presided over the hollowing out and deindustrialisation of not only middle New Zealand but regional New Zealand and the people that rely on these services. We’ve seen recently 142 jobs about to go at the sawmill in Nelson. We’ve seen thousands of jobs go in regional New Zealand from the sawmills that keep closing. We’ve seen 600 jobs go at the meatworks over at Ashburton and, within my colleague the Hon James Meager’s electorate, in Timaru. We’ve seen that tens of thousands of New Zealanders—the best and brightest—are leaving; 75,000 have left.

Look, I’m hearing heckles from this Government that I should cheer up. This accords with what the Acting Prime Minister said yesterday—that New Zealanders doing it tough should just actually put a smile on their face. He said, “Just putting a smile on it can actually in itself improve the circumstances. One of the things that people who have struggled through this winter, through this recession, need is some positivity and some positive leadership. Because, actually, things are getting better.” That’s not what people are feeling. Look, that is what we’re getting from this Government. We’re getting thoughts and prayers. We’re getting platitudes and culture wars. We’re hearing the finance Minister saying that all of the New Zealanders in this record-high unemployment economy who’ve lost their jobs shouldn’t take it personally.

What they’re trying to do—by repeatedly invoking the mantra of economic growth and jobs in their speeches but not actually backing it up with policy—is they’re trying to “meme-ify” economic growth into existence. They’re doing a vibes-based approach and saying, “Oh, if we talk up growth and if we talk up jobs, it will happen.” In reality, that’s not actually what’s happening. What we’ve seen is a fundamentally distracted Government that is too busy fighting culture wars to actually deliver what New Zealanders need.

We’ve seen the foreign Minister busying himself with minor things like the tikanga role at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. We’ve seen him do that at the same time that New Zealand got slapped with 10 percent and then 15 percent tariff rates—despite their efforts to suck up to America and despite their efforts to sell out this country by installing an FBI headquarters here in Wellington. We’ve seen Ministers at the bench over there get distracted with changing the language on passports rather than focusing on the economic growth that they claim to actually stand up for. Well, I have a news flash for this Government: sucking up to rich foreigners and fighting culture wars isn’t actually an economic development strategy.

What we’ve also seen from this Government—[Knocks over water] Oh, shit! Sorry, my water spilled over. Apologies, Madam Speaker. What we’ve seen from this Government is a desire to blame the Opposition and actually attack the Opposition rather than present real and genuine ideas. In the Budget debate, the Prime Minister mentioned the Green Party or the Green Budget seven times; David Seymour mentioned the Green Party five times; and Shane Jones mentioned the Green Party seven times—

Cameron Brewer: What about me?

FRANCISCO HERNANDEZ: —during this appropriation debate—I’m coming to you, Mr Brewer. Over this appropriation debate, we’ve seen Mr Seymour mention the Greens three times, we’ve seen Mr Jones mention the Greens two times, we’ve seen Dan Bidois mention the Greens three times, and we’ve seen Mr Brewer mention the Greens four times. Do you know what else was interesting about those speeches? They mentioned the finance Minister several times, but only in one speech—Mr Bidois’ speech—was the Prime Minister mentioned. We’re seeing the factions lining up in the National Party. They’re seeing the poll ratings go—they’re lining up the leadership changes. Mr Bidois is obviously a Luxon loyalist, but, alas for him, they’re all “Willisites”; they’re all backing the finance Minister.

The fact of the matter is that this Government’s economic strategy, which is epitomised in this Budget, is a combination of austerity politics, slash-and-burn cuts, handouts to their mates in big fossil and big tobacco, and the prioritisation of the short-term extractive economy, funded at the expense of working people, particularly working women, who they stripped rights from right in the dead of the night without any consultation. Not only is it damaging to working people, but it’s been deeply damaging to our nature and climate.

What is the Government the actually doing? What the Government is actually doing is harming the long-term basis of our productive economy, which is, fundamentally, nature and our planet, because you cannot have an economy on a dead planet. It’s also harming the other things that make up long-term productivity: innovation, a diversified economy, and investing in productive capital, particularly human capital.

What has the Government done instead of that? Well, what was particularly telling when they first came into office was their replacing of the Productivity Commission with the Ministry of Regulation. That really tells people how much they care about the so-called productivity that really, fundamentally, drives economic growth.

We’ve seen this Government undertake slash-and-burn cuts to science and tertiary funding, which undermines innovation and is leading to our best and brightest fleeing this country due to a lack of opportunities. In Otago alone, in Dunedin, we’ve seen 50 out of 140 doctoral scholarships lost thanks to this Government’s chronic underfunding of the tertiary sector. We’ve seen this Government strip away funding from working people through their changes to pay equity.

It’s damaging our nature and climate. We’ve seen $650 million worth of cuts to environmental funding and monitoring over this Budget. It’s having really dark consequences, according to the latest environmental report. We’ve seen indigenous biodiversity declining at an alarming rate. We’ve seen the highest levels of species extinction rates in the world. At the same time, this Government keeps promoting and keeps trying to greenwash their policies, when, in reality, their changes to the policy settings of the previous Government have been deeply regressive. Electric vehicle uptake has crashed thanks to the changes to the feebate scheme.

We’ve seen this Government’s changes to the waste sector and the deprioritisation of the circular economy lead to the dropping of critical things that will actually reduce the waste. New Zealanders care about reducing waste; New Zealanders care about our environment. We’ve heard the previous members praising John Key, but John Key actually invested in cycleways. John Key invested in environmental protection. That was a smarter, more reasonable National Party, one that was not enthralled to extremists in their flanks in the same way that this Government is.

In conclusion—with 50 seconds left of my time—I want to build on what my colleague Julie Anne Genter has already said: there is an alternative that’s being presented, in the left. Look, we’ve already had free advertising from members opposite about the Green Budget, so I’ll spin it again. [Holds up a Green Budget booklet] In reality, we can actually have lower taxes for 90 percent of working people if we rebalance the economy so that the 311 richest families, who hold the same level of wealth as the bottom 50 percent—it’s outrageous that economic inequality is such that nearly one in three people are having to go to food banks. Help is on its way. The election is next year, and we will change the Government. Kia ora.

Help is indeed on its way, and I’m proud to be part of the team that is delivering that help, and I’m proud to speak also on this Appropriation (2025/26 Estimates) Bill.

Before I get into the mighty meat of what we’ve got to talk about, I think it’s important to provide some context-setting to what was said. We had one of the previous speakers pointing the finger at us and saying, “Under your watch—under your watch.” Not you, of course, Madam Speaker, but under our watch—and what they failed to realise is that they were in Government for six years and did a whole lot of stuff that set in force momentum.

I want to give you an example. When I was about four years old, I used to watch my mum drive a car, and it was one of those stick shifts, but it was all up in the dashboard, and she’d pull off the handbrake and set it into reverse and go down the hill. At four years old, I thought, “I can do that.”, so when she wasn’t looking, I got into the car, and I adjusted the handbrake and put it into neutral, and the car started rolling back down the hill. Of course, she started freaking out. I don’t know what I was doing; I thought I was on to something pretty special. She had to jump in the car and, essentially, save it before I rolled out on to the main road.

That’s a little bit like what this Government’s had to do. It’s had to jump into a moving car going downhill and try and get the handbrake on. The only difference is that that Government wasn’t a four-year-old who didn’t know better. It did stuff that it should’ve known better. That provides a context of a car going downhill in the wrong direction. We’ve come in two years ago—this being our second Budget—to try and not only correct some of that behaviour but implement and introduce some new initiatives that will get New Zealand in the right direction.

We’ve talked a lot about productivity. We’ve talked a lot about economic growth. We’ve talked a lot about education, and, of course, we’re delivering on that in terms of literacy and numeracy, and learning support—some of the biggest investments in a generation, as some of the previous speakers have talked about. Of course, with tourism, we’re bringing back international students, because we want them at levels that were pre-COVID again, because we know how important tourism and international students are to the economy.

One of the things I heard a lot this week from one of the co-leaders of the Greens is the $200 million co-investment we’ve been making in oil and gas, and she keeps referring to it as a subsidy. Our Minister Responsible for RMA Reform tried to educate and enlighten her and break it down, but she still didn’t get it, so I’m going to try again. Say someone’s buying a $10 gift from the shop, and someone says, “I’ll pay $3 of that, and then you only have to pay $7.” That’s a subsidising effect on that gift. A co-investment is when you put an investment in alongside another investment, and you share in the reward. That is a co-investment, ladies and gentlemen, and that’s what we’re doing as part our reinvestment into oil and gas to try and keep the lights on in this country.

Our previous speaker, Mr Cameron Brewer from Upper Harbour, talked about Investment Boost and the uptake that’s had. Some of the Opposition will criticise that and say, “Oh, that’s only 1 percent over five or 10 or 15 years.” It’s a step in the right direction. It’s another lever of many multiplying effects that we’re doing, and it’s had a dramatic impact in terms of investors, farmers, and businesses employing or making investment in capital and, sometimes, new builds, fleets, tractors—stuff that improves the productivity of their business and, therefore, their employment and the employee and wages, and it has a corresponding effect. Cause and effect is something that we’re very cognisant of—when you contribute towards productivity, it has an impact at the receiving end, and that, in turn, supports our economy.

What about KiwiSaver? As was mentioned, 16- to 17-year-olds can now get employer and Government contributions, which is fantastic. We’ve got our young people who started work, often at 15 in fast food joints or working for their mum and dad or at takeaway shops or at the local Subway or wherever. Now their employer can contribute alongside them—kind of like a co-investment, if you will, a co-investment along with the Government contribution—and they can start putting that towards a nest egg for their first home, or, of course, later on in life, their retirement, so they can retire with dignity. We’re all about reinforcing the good thing that is KiwiSaver.

Some of the other good stuff that’s been happening out of this Budget, of course, are, on the one hand, that we’ve had the economic restraint—I think over the last two Budgets we’ve saved $6 billion to $7 billion last year and $6 billion to $7 billion this year. It’s not just about spending money but it’s about restraining and refraining on the things that we’re spending on and reprioritising. It’s not just about producing more expenditure, but what are the things that we’re spending that we could reprioritise and get a better outcome for? We’ve reinvested a lot of that in the front line, through our nurses and through our police, and we’re starting to see that impact, bearing in mind that we’ve only been in here barely 24 months and with a car going backwards downhill, it takes time to turn that around. There is good news: the trend lines are starting to emerge and appear.

Let me begin with health. Budget 2025 delivers a $5.5 billion increase in funding for hospital and specialist services, primary care, and public health. This includes over $1 billion for health infrastructure such as the redevelopment of Nelson Hospital, upgrades to Auckland facilities, and a much-needed overhaul of Wellington’s emergency department. Infrastructure alone doesn’t heal people; workforce does. That’s why our Budget also funds urgent care expansion, aged-care transitions, and mental health reform. Shifting 111 mental distress calls from a criminal justice response to a health response. I know first-hand that’s been really well received from the local police, where their job has had scope creep, and they’re having to deal more and more with stuff beyond their control. This enables them to focus on some of that core business.

What about the Waikato medical school? I have to acknowledge our coalition partners here that supported it as well, because this is not only great for Hamilton and the Waikato but for “New Zealand Inc.”, in terms of doctors. I’ve shared previously how this nearly happened in 1950 in Hamilton but then they realised they didn’t have a university, so it became the start of Waikato university.

Hon David Seymour: Still don’t.

RYAN HAMILTON: We do—we do. Thank you for that slight constructive criticism. It’s going well, and this medical school will only add to it.

The new model of medical education is graduate entry. Often, on the American sitcoms, we’ll hear, “I’m going to grad school.” We don’t hear that a lot in New Zealand, because we’re very immature in terms of graduate schools, but at Waikato, now we’ve got a grad school in nursing, grad school in midwifery, grad school in pharmacology, and soon, a grad school in doctor and GP training. What does that mean? Instead of your traditional six-year degree that 18-year-olds will engage in, it means that someone wanting to go back to work after they’ve done a Bachelor of Arts or a BSocSci at 25 or 30 or 35 might say, “I want a change of course in life.” and do a medical degree and be a GP and contribute to the welfare of New Zealand, and that’s a pretty special thing.

In fact, it’s a good thing in terms of competition. I heard Pro Vice-Chancellor Lane talk at a public meeting about the benefits of the medical school recently. He said that one of the interesting skills you can appreciate when you’re doing med school is you’ve got to work on cadavers—i.e., dead people. You cut them up, and you learn—that sort of thing—but the trouble with doing that with students is you can only do so much work on a cadaver, as you’d appreciate. If you go home that night and you think, “Oh, what was that issue? What was that thing that I was trying to learn about the lymphatic system?” Well, the good thing is that with this investment in the Waikato medical school, they’re investing in new technology—

Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Are you volunteering? I don’t know if science needs this donation.

RYAN HAMILTON: —virtual reality where they can actually work on a cadaver with new technology. This is all the stuff you could have had but you missed out on, Ayesha Verrall.

Anyway, these students can now have this technology at home and get better education at scale. What has it done? Now, some of the other medical schools are starting to say, “Oh, we’d better invest in that technology, too.”, so there’s a little bit of competition, which is good for “New Zealand Inc”. Finally, I want to touch on the broader themes of this Appropriation Bill. This Budget’s not flashy; it’s not filled with election year giveaways. It’s a Budget of discipline—

Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: What did you get for the Waikato medical school?

RYAN HAMILTON: —direction, and delivery. How did we get the medical school? Thank you for asking. Well, the Crown’s only investing $82 million, and the university and the philanthropic sector is investing $150 million. Have you got any other medical school propositions that meet that dollar for dollar? It’s an absolute no-brainer, and it will change the GP space in this country and support rural health—another missed opportunity from the last Government, but don’t worry, we’re delivering it, with spades in the ground in December. So thank you.

Back on to the Appropriation Bill. I support it because it invests in those things which matter—health, education, and all those good things. Hamilton and Waikato are only a small part of it. “New Zealand Inc.” is going to benefit, so I’m very pleased with these wonderful things that we’re contributing to. I’m proud of our coalition partners. I’m proud of our Minister of Finance and her associates. This is a great example of a coalition Government working and delivering for New Zealand.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a real pleasure to take a call in this debate on the Appropriation (2025/26) Estimates Bill and the Imprest Supply (Second for 2025/26) Bill.

It’s been a really interesting afternoon listening to the different contributions across the House. I know the Green members are going to get excited because I am going to talk about them just briefly, for a moment. Firstly, I just do want to acknowledge that New Zealanders have done it tough over the last few years. We, on this side, recognise that, and that is why the finance Minister worked with her Cabinet colleagues and her other friends and colleagues across the coalition to pull this Budget together. We are realistic, and we do acknowledge that it’s been very hard times for New Zealanders. Inflation was running high—and I’m going to come to that again in a moment.

Look, the Greens had some very interesting contributions this afternoon. What I started to hear from them was something that we tackled when we came in. They’re, again, trying to pit different groups of New Zealanders against each other—whether it’s landlords versus tenants, employees versus employers, or farmers versus townies. We, again, started to hear about that. It also appears that the Green Party think that business and entrepreneurs and employers actually don’t create wealth in the economy—that it’s all done by Government. Well, that is just not true. Governments can only tax what people earn, and if people and businesses aren’t creating wealth and prosperity, then there’s nothing for a Government to take. The other interesting contribution from Julie Anne Genter was that she’s against roads. Well, I’m not sure what I’m going to drive my electric car on if we’re not building more roads. Again, one of the important things that this Government has actually tried to speed up is the investment in infrastructure. I know fast track is actually going to deliver more renewable energy projects. Rather than just talking about them, we’re getting on with them. Again, that is, actually, the difference between this Government and what we’re hearing across the other side of the House.

I do want to acknowledge Dr Deborah Russell, because she is actually very sound on tax measures—well, tax law. When we work through very detailed propositions in the Finance and Expenditure Committee, she is often the one who knows the details, but her speech today wasn’t inspiring.

Cameron Luxton: It’s not supposed to be.

TODD STEPHENSON: No, it was actually very depressing. It was like she had amnesia about what had happened over the time she was in Government and her party was in Government driving up inflation, interest rates, and actually hitting Kiwis in their back pocket. She didn’t actually talk about where New Zealand can go or offer any hope for the future.

That’s what we are trying to do: offer hope through the future with this Budget. I just picked up the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update 2025, which is obviously issued at the time the Budget’s handed down, and there’s just a couple of great graphs in here. They say the economy is going to recover, following a sharp contraction in 2024, and we are starting to see a glimmers of growth. Lower interest rates will take time to filter through the economy, and that is a very important point that the Treasury makes in this document. We are seeing sustained cuts by the Reserve Bank to interest rates that obviously flow on to commercial banks and their mortgage rates. That is slowly flowing through to Kiwis, so they are going to be seeing more money in their back pocket. That, obviously—tagged to some of the other cost of living measures that we have put forward in this Budget—is slowly starting to help Kiwis.

There is another thing that I loved in here. It says that an export-led recovery is emerging, supported by higher export commodity prices. We are seeing some amazing recovery in our rural sector.

Cameron Luxton: Backbone.

TODD STEPHENSON: Yeah, rural backbone—that’s a good way of putting it. They’re getting really incredible dairy prices in the world dairy market, which is great, and there’s even a beef and sheep recovery, which is amazing. You know, I’m from down south; I know the province of Southland is really seeing some growth. Look, again, we accept that the growth isn’t uniform across New Zealand. It’s going to take time to undo the damage, but we are seeing that.

The other great thing is we are seeing some tourist strength again in this document. That is what we are seeing. We are seeing tourist numbers starting to recover strongly. We saw the great announcement in the last 24 hours of more flights coming to New Zealand. Really, we are now starting to see some of the things that were talked about in this document many, many months ago.

The other thing I just want to touch on is that we have invested in the things that matter for Kiwis in this Budget: justice, policing, and, really, the whole criminal justice system. Kiwis wanted to make sure that they are safe and that they feel safe and that criminals are being prosecuted, people are being locked up, and there are more cops on the street. Well, that’s what we delivered in this Budget. Look, we make no excuse that we actually do need, unfortunately, to increase some of our prison capacity, but New Zealanders need to feel safe, and we need to make sure we have that capacity backed up by our investment in policing. Again, we are seeing some early signs that crime rates are reducing, which is really great, and we want to see that trend continue.

The other big area of investment is, obviously, education. I know the Minister, in her speech, outlined the amazing efforts we are doing to invest in education. It’s, actually, in a number of areas: it’s obviously front-line investing in teachers and the resources they need, but it’s also in the infrastructure—the school classrooms they need and, actually, building the facilities—that we can make sure our children get a good education in. We’re doing it in a fiscally responsible way. I know this House would have heard, many times, how we’ve standardised the building programme around schools, lowering the cost, and we’re actually delivering new classrooms.

Then we’ve got innovations in education, like charter schools. Again, the Associate Minister is here this afternoon. I know he’s very, very proud of that programme, because we don’t think the State can just deliver an education system that’s right for all children and we actually want to allow people who have entrepreneurial schools, skills, and education to deliver for our kids.

We talked a bit this afternoon about economic growth, and that’s really what we do need to be focused on as a Government. Investment Boost: again, the Minister referred to that, and it’s good to hear she’s getting some feedback from the Aussies on there being such a policy, because it actually does encourage businesses to invest upfront and just get on with buying the capital and the plant they need and to just get on and grow their business. That’s what we really need, because we need more jobs. Again, we acknowledge that there’s weakness in the labour market, but policies like this are actually going to build to employing more Kiwis for the long term in actually sustainable jobs.

Then another big area, again, is health. We know Kiwis are concerned about our healthcare system. We saw that it was being not properly invested in but, more concerningly, actually not properly managed with targets and outcomes for what we want to see in our health system. Also earlier, the Associate Minister mentioned our record investment in Pharmac. Again, that’s an area I’m very proud of that this Government has actually got on with doing, including some of the cultural change and other change we’re doing with Pharmac. Next week, excitingly, we’re going to have our new CEO for Pharmac here in New Zealand—the first time a person has been appointed as the Pharmac CEO from outside the organisation. I look forward to her bringing some new ideas and thinking and making sure Kiwis get the innovative medicines they need.

Look, I’m very proud to be on this side of the House. We are realistic about what we can do and deliver, but we are upfront about it. We’re not trying to claim we’re going to be building things and then not delivering them. We’re actually getting on with investing in what Kiwis need, want, and expect, and doing it in a fiscally responsible way. Yes, there are three parties in this Government, and we probably all would have done things slightly different, but the good thing is that Cabinet came together, supported each other, and delivered a Budget that will actually deliver for the future of New Zealand.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s often said that Budgets are moral documents. They represent the ethical choices and the values of the Government of the day. This Government has made choices that leave most New Zealanders worse off than when they took office. They were elected because a large part of their 2023 election campaign—and, arguably, their Budget has also claimed to back this up—claimed to focus on addressing cost of living increases for New Zealanders. The Prime Minister promised people would be better off by $250 a fortnight. Today, they can’t show us one family who has benefited from the full entitlement that was promised willy-nilly by the Prime Minister on the campaign trail.

Instead, what have we seen? Instead, we’ve seen the cost of living continue to rise under their watch, and, in fact, I would argue that it has worsened directly as a result of decisions that this Government has made—a lot of those outlined in their Budget this year. Rent, power, and food costs are going up for most people, and wages are not keeping up. There are two ways of addressing cost of living: either they could put in place decisions that would reduce the cost of things, like food, rent, power, transport—but direct results of their decisions have led to the increase in all of this, and we’ve seen that this year.

Job losses: if we look at just the construction sector—just the construction sector has 19,000 fewer people working in it since this Government took office. Now, what they could have done through the Budget was invest in job creation. Instead, what have we seen? Cancelled infrastructure projects and cancelled housing development projects. Just in the Maungakiekie electorate alone, there have been 11 Kāinga Ora housing projects that have been cancelled. That is hundreds of houses that will no longer be built. That is people who otherwise would have been in construction jobs no longer in those jobs, and we’re seeing homelessness increase at unprecedented rates this year as a result of decisions made by this Government.

We’ve also seen there is a report—the Fairer Futures report—that was put out not too long ago that talks about the specific decisions that this Government has made that have directly led to the increasing cost of living for many people. It also focused on disabled people, but in keeping with the changes that they’ve made, it impacts everyone—the cutting of free prescriptions, for example; free lunches in schools; the cutting of transport subsidies that were otherwise free or half-price for those under the age of 25; and, as I have mentioned, the cutting of infrastructure projects that has led to job losses. All of this put together, in context, has meant that people are worse off, and they are starting to see it as well.

It is no wonder, then, that over 73,000 people have left New Zealand in the year to July 2025—73,000 people—a record high of New Zealanders fleeing New Zealand for other shores for pay and better conditions. It is also no wonder that we are seeing strikes. Teachers are striking, and nurses are striking. Doctors saying that increases aren’t keeping up with cost of living increases, even for them. People are choosing to skip doctors visits because they can no longer afford the fact that GP costs have increased. Is any of this addressed in this Government’s Budget? I would argue that it’s not.

Instead, what have we seen in the Budget? We’ve seen money—millions—that has gone to offshore oil and gas companies. We’ve seen millions go to overseas speculators, while, at the same time, the Government has also cut the first-home grant scheme—that was completely cut. What are this Government’s choices and what are the values that are reflected in this Government’s Budget? No support for those who need to be helped into their first homes. Instead, there’s support for overseas speculators—fine—for foreign investors who want to come and buy houses in New Zealand. Fine. “But we won’t help those who need to be housed here. We won’t build Kāinga Ora houses.”

Quite recently, the housing Minister came out and confirmed that this Government has built 45 public homes—45 homes, at a time when, over a period of a few months in Auckland alone, homelessness increased by 90 percent. There’s been a 90 percent increase in homelessness in Auckland but only 45 public homes that this Government has built.

When the previous speaker, Todd Stephenson, said that this Government is investing in the things that matter to New Zealanders, I would argue that they’re not. New Zealanders need jobs to be able to afford the increasing cost of living that we’re seeing under this Government; New Zealanders need homes that they can live in that are warm, dry, and affordable; and New Zealanders need to be able to access healthcare when they need it, in a way that is affordable. On all those fronts, this Government is failing.

Let’s talk about pay equity, because when we’re talking about cost of living increasing and people needing to be able to afford to live—rent, power, and food—we also need people to have jobs that pay them decent wages. That is what the pay equity issue was about. Instead, we saw, just before the Budget this year with no heads-up to New Zealanders, legislation that was introduced and pushed through this Parliament and that gave New Zealanders no opportunity to have their say, and yet it was legislation that impacted about 180,000 people—mostly women; all of them underpaid—not because the jobs they do are not valuable, because they are. These are women, largely, who work as teachers, nurses, and Plunket nurses. They work in our mental health facilities; they work in our disability facilities; they do work that is incredibly difficult and crucial to the running of our society and our economy. What does this Government do? They kneecap them. They have taken money pretty much out of the pockets of the women who need it the most. For once, David Seymour said something that was illuminating. He said that Brooke van Velden, the Minister in charge of that change, singlehandedly saved the Budget, so this is a Budget that, firstly, does not make life better for New Zealanders and is also balanced on the backs of women who work the hardest and are the lowest paid in New Zealand.

Very quickly, let me look at also what they’re doing in disability. Under the fiscal risks for 202526 and the outyears, the Budget notes that Disability Support Services is likely to face significant operating pressures to maintain the delivery of existing services. Yet, just last week, we had an announcement from the Minister responsible, who said, to much fanfare, that she will be bringing flexibility back—the very flexibility that this Government cut 17 months ago, which, over this period of time, disabled people have been struggling to cope with as a result of. She’s bringing flexibility back, but there’s been no significant increase in the funding for disability services in this Budget. What does that mean? That means the tools that this Government has said that they’re going to introduce shortly will lead to smaller packages and smaller-funding budgets for disabled people, less support for disabled people—within which they will have all the flexibility they can get, but what is the use? If you have $10 to spend on supporting your health and your disability and you are then told that, within that $10, you can then spend it how you like. That is of no use to disabled people. Yet this is a Budget that did not significantly increase funding for disability communities.

Finally, with the environment, they are cutting of Jobs 4 Nature—that is 14,000 jobs in the environment sector gone. Through this Budget, there was the disestablishment of Predator Free Ltd—again, with no heads-up and no consultation. That’s gone under this Government through Budget 2025.

All of that is incredibly short-sighted. This is not a Government that is working either for the people of New Zealand or the environment. All of the decisions they’re making are just going to make life harder, to make life tougher, for those who are doing it the hardest in New Zealand. It will strip the environment in the name of economic growth and recovery. This is a Government that is weak, that is out of touch, and that is taking us backwards. Nothing that they are doing will see any of us better off, and yet, we hear members opposite stand up and say they support this Budget, because they think they are investing in what matters. They’re investing in their mates and not in New Zealand, and we don’t support it.

My goodness gracious me! Listen to that last contribution. What a negative, negative story on an afternoon of a Thursday. I am very, very proud of what I refer to as a wonderful Budget by this Government—a wonderful Budget, a Budget that covers off a huge amount of aspects that are beneficial for our country. I’ll let you into a little secret: I’m a proud member of the National Party. You might not know that, but the foundation of the National Party is built on the values of ambition and success and lower taxes and reward for hard work and equal opportunity for all of it, at its core. I tell you what, when I read this Budget, I thought, “You could not get much closer to the underlying values of our party.” That is why it is an honour and a pleasure to rise to speak as a Minister for this Government—a Government that is delivering for Kiwis at the heart of everything that we do.

I tell you what: gee, does time not go fast in this place! Do you know that today is day 654 of this Government—654, maybe, give or take one or two. Time flies, and when you reflect on what we have delivered in that period of time—this is a Government that is getting inflation under control, we’ve got interest rates back down into band, we’ve got growth positive, we are really getting a handle on dealing with the cost of living crisis that we inherited, and we are getting this place back on track, which is great. I tell you what, with the two Budgets that have been delivered by this Government, and everything else that the Government is doing, this Government’s number one priority is ensuring that we are dealing with the cost of living—that crisis that we inherited.

Let’s talk about a few components of Budget 2025 and what it has delivered and, in particular, the areas that are relevant for the portfolio aspects that I have responsibility for. I know that tax and revenue is an area close to everyone’s heart in this place, but as the Minister of Revenue, the single biggest thing that I am most proud about in this wonderful Budget is Investment Boost. I tell you what: Investment Boost—doesn’t it just roll off the tongue—is absolutely stunning. We heard from Cameron Brewer before. Cameron was telling us about the Fieldays and the mood and the vibe on the ground as a result of that Investment Boost policy; it was awesome. It was gangbusters out there, wasn’t it, Cameron Brewer?

Cameron Brewer: Amazing.

Hon SIMON WATTS: I tell you what, the farmers liked it. Investment Boost is a very sensible policy. Why? Because it gives that injection of activity, that injection of energy, that injection of confidence in the arm of our hard-working farmers who are the backbone of our country, and it gives them the confidence that they were so badly crying out for to get on and invest in their businesses. As a result, our economy is now getting paid the dividends of their hard work, and that is something we should all be very, very proud of. As we know, that economic growth, and that boost in the arm coming from our primary sector particularly, is all going to be very helpful in terms of raising those living standards. Importantly, we want to see more higher-paying jobs, which, of course, as we all understand on this side of the House—maybe not everyone in this House—are what we need to pay for those public services, don’t we, right? It is important, but we know New Zealand’s got a good growth trajectory.

I want to acknowledge our superstar Minister of Finance, the Hon Nicola Willis. I tell you what, a rockstar in terms of that role. But she led us into a little bit of economic analysis this week. Do you remember that little statement from Westpac—you know, that Australian bank which has got, obviously, a good presence here in New Zealand. It turns out, as a result of the hard work on this side of the House, that New Zealand’s growth is actually going to be greater than on the other side of the ditch. Economic growth in New Zealand’s going to be higher than in Australia. I tell you what, we should be pretty proud of that. We’re starting from a lower base because of we know why—but as a result of the actions, as a result of the hard work and the hard-working New Zealanders and Kiwis, we’re going to see increased economic growth on this side of the Tasman, higher than the other side by about 1 percent, actually, Cameron Brewer, which is not nothing to be scoffed at in the context of that.

Let’s get back into that Investment Boost, because there are a lot of people sitting at home going, “I’ll tell you what, that Investment Boost, maybe I haven’t got all the detail on that.” Well, let’s just go through the detail again, just to remind them. Immediately, you can deduct 20 percent of the cost of a new asset on top of the depreciation. That means, in real simple terms, that you are able to get a much lower tax bill in the year of the purchase of that asset.

I tell you what, I was talking to someone—it might have been Tim Costley when we were cooking burgers in his electorate at Burger Wisconsin. I don’t endorse any products, of course, but we were in that neck of the woods. The lady who owned that store said, “Does that apply if I want to buy a new cooker?” I tell you what: we said, “It sure does—absolutely it does.” Funnily enough, do you know what? It applies to everything. If you want to build a new hydro dam—and on this side of the House, we want to see more renewable energy; we want to see more energy full stop—you can apply that to building a new hydro dam. I don’t know if anyone’s in the market for a new hydro dam, but I tell you what: if you are—we’ve got a couple in the House—this policy applies to that. That’s just a little bit of an insight.

When we thought about the design of that policy, the number one principle was that it’s got to really put a shot in the arm around economic growth, tick; it’s got to be simple, tick; and it’s actually got to achieve the outcome which is what we want to do to rise those living standards, get higher wages, and get that economic growth. I tell you what: what a beautiful policy that is. I’m looking forward to seeing that continue to grow in popularity as we go around for our farmers, our tradies, our business owners, and, actually, anyone considering investment. There will be more money, as a result of that, for manufacturing and, of course, those people that provide all of that equipment that feeds into our economy. Of course, when you can get and upgrade that equipment, as we all know, that means higher productivity. I tell you what: that is another area of major focus, all unlocked by this wonderful Budget that has been released this year.

The challenge is that I haven’t got another 30 minutes, but I’m going to have to cut it back a little bit for the two that we’ve got. Cameron Brewer, again—I’m sorry, I’ve mentioned your name about four times in this speech, but it’s only because you’re sitting right next to me—you talked about KiwiSaver, didn’t you? You raved about that. I tell you what: we should be very proud of the changes in this Budget, of increasing the contribution rates up to 3.5 percent by 1 April 2026 and then up to 4 percent by 1 April 2028.

That is not all, folks—that is not all. We also ensured that those 16- and 17-year-olds that are out there in the workforce—those young people that are coming in and that are wanting to work—are now eligible for KiwiSaver, and so they should be. Shame on all of those on the other side that didn’t support that. Isn’t that awful. On this side of the House, we support young people; we support the youth; we support them. I tell you what, if you work, you deserve to be able to get a KiwiSaver contribution. As a result of the changes that we have made, we’re going to incentivise young people to get into that scheme. As we know, if you start investing early, then you’re going to get the benefit and the dividends when you’re a little bit older. That’s good, common-sense financial literacy. On this side of the House, we understand that. A couple of the heads are down at the other side. They’re still trying to work out what I just said then, but I tell you what: we’ll do a one-on-one session maybe next week to cover off the detail.

Lastly, we can never forget, on this side of the House, our SuperGold card holder population—our retirees. We are big fans here. Here are changes there that we made: we’ve obviously increased the thresholds for that rebate. We’ve got a number of people that are now going to be eligible for that. I acknowledge the Hon Casey Costello for her work on that policy. It was a great little bit of teamwork across the board. Of course, that was one of the aspects in the coalition agreement between the National Party and New Zealand First, so well done there. We’ve also got the rates rebate scheme and a whole range of other wonderful interventions that drive economic growth, that drive prosperity, that raise the living standards of New Zealanders, and that raise incomes. I tell you what: that’s a great Budget, and we’re very proud of it.

Madam Speaker, thank you. I want to kick off by actually responding, as we should do more in these debates—these should be real debates—to my friend who just stood up and talked about how he valued the reward of hard work. I do, too; absolutely I do. I think that I can say that from a place of experience, having spent most of my career, for well over 25 years, working in employment law, and that was because I value hard work.

I see work as one of the most essential parts of how we can make people’s lives better. If we have well-paid work and if we have decent work, then we have a lot of people who can do things for themselves and their families and who feel empowered. That is an absolutely rock-solid commitment of the Labour Party. While the Labour Party was in Government, we saw record employment in this country, and I saw the result of that in some really fundamental ways. We saw people who had been unemployed for generations—one generation after another—back in work. We saw training programmes that brought people into the workforce in those circumstances, and it was so, so important. That is game-changing stuff.

Unfortunately, what we saw when the Government changed was a tanking of this economy on the backs of workers. One of the first things that I saw happen, when I was in this situation—one of the first things—was a change in the Reserve Bank Governor’s mandate. They were no longer allowed to look at maximising sustainable employment. That was not supposed to be one of the criteria. There was such a focus on other things that I was worried, and then we saw work actually pulled away all over the place.

People had been promised tax cuts and relief from the cost of living crisis, and all that was being promised while the very same people who were struggling lost their jobs. In my area, in Mt Albert, I have talked to many people who have lost their jobs in those circumstances, but there aren’t even—

Hon David Seymour: The streets of Epsom begged not to be put into Mt Albert.

HELEN WHITE: They might be a bit more insulated in Epsom. That might be because of the ridiculous prices of the houses, but it’s not so insulated if you get around Mt Albert.

There are a lot of people who are hurting as a result of losing their jobs and are despairing, and some of the people who are most despairing are our youth. People who are young are the ones who are the first to not get jobs in an economy that’s tanking. They lose out because they haven’t got a lot of experience. They lose out, and what has the response of this Government been to that? “We’re going to make the parents pay.”, is one. Two: “It’s your fault. Get off the couch.” That has been the response of this Government—it has been to blame those very people. Those are the kids who went through COVID. Those are the kids who’ve had a damned hard time and need to connect through work, and it’s extremely important that this Government’s policies actually make that happen. What we are seeing is skyrocketing unemployment in those groups. It’s affecting our youngest, with over 20 percent, in many cases, of our people being unemployed. It’s affecting them in the cities, it’s affecting them in the rural areas, and we will pay the price for many years.

Of course, the ones who are able to move to Australia do, don’t they? That’s what we’ve also seen—an absolute exodus to Australia. Record numbers of people are going to Australia, and will they come back? I have been in that situation myself. The other day, my daughter, who had been in England for three years, said that she was going to come home. She looked and she looked and she looked for a job. She got one in Sydney, and that’s where she is. That’s where she is today. She spent only two weeks in New Zealand, even though I’d dearly love her to come back, because there isn’t the work here, and it’s at very, very many levels. People are missing out—we are missing out on our best and our brightest. We are missing out on the growth of our workforce, because this Government chose to tank the economy so they can bring down interest rates. That is the logic. For the benefit of people who do not understand this crazy logic, the crazy logic is that if you create unemployment, wages will go down, and there will be less demand and you will have lower interest rates. Well, that’s a hell of a price to pay. That’s a very big price and that’s a valuable price to pay because it’s very, very important that the money that goes around in our community goes through everyone, and that’s through high-paid work or even reasonably paid work. I’ve bargained for reasonably paid work, but we need work to pay well. Instead, we have frittered it away.

We have given huge tax cuts to landlords. At a time when housing was already too expensive, we decided to incentivise private landlords—that’s what we did with the money. What we did was we also took that money out of the kitty that was supposed to pay for pay equity. Who’s on the hook again? The lowest-paid workers in New Zealand are the ones who missed out. We raided the kitty that was to pay for pay equity for our lowest-paid workers. That is an absolute shame.

Now, I was out this week in my community at my local Plunket. I remember turning up to my Plunket when I had my first son, Max, and Max was born and was immediately in intensive care. I had my first child, and I didn’t really know what I was doing. I was no expert, and Plunket got me through that. It wasn’t easy. It was a time when I just really had lost my confidence, and I had a baby that just screamed all the time and was in quite a lot of difficulty, and it was the Plunket nurses who got me through. Those nurses are worth their weight in gold, and yet, this week, they have had to file another claim for pay equity because they got knocked off the list. What have I heard this Government say about those kinds of workers this year? I have heard them disparaged. I have heard the Minister talking about how the comparators were just so unfair and so crazy, and saying that librarians were being compared to traffic engineers. That is a totally misleading statement in terms of why those people were—there’s no explanation that comes with it. Why was that the comparator, and was it a just comparator? That needs unpacking.

Actually, saying that sort of thing is inflammatory, and it leads people to misunderstand what was a genuinely sensible comparison in those situations, because our hospice nurses and our Plunket nurses are of value to the Labour Party; they are of value to our communities, and they are a valuable resource for people like me as a young mother. They probably stop a lot of extra cost coming through the system, because, actually, if I couldn’t have got that help at that point, I was probably in a situation where it would have escalated into the health system. They are the important people in our community who do jobs that require judgment and sensitivity and require intelligence. When we bring out a comparator and make disparaging remarks like that, all we are doing is perpetuating a myth that that work is not valuable, when it absolutely is.

For people who suggest that this was a fair and reasonable Budget, I say that was the least fair and reasonable thing you could do to more than half the population of New Zealand. It was an attack on women who had been underpaid and underpaid and underpaid for many, many years. It was an absolute attack, and why this Government has got to the point where it is so unpopular—it is so unpopular—is because it has not listened; it has been insensitive to a whole lot of people who were already struggling; and it has prioritised wealthy people over ordinary New Zealanders who work hard.

I’m going back to the beginning of the speech: hard work should be rewarded. Do those nurses not work extremely hard? They do—absolutely. They work hard, and, so far, they have absolutely not been rewarded. We had a plan in place to do that. This Government scrapped it under this Budget.

Look, it’s time for a little bit more positivity on this side of the House, looking at the growth Budget and how we are investing in the future of New Zealand, investing in things that matter: investing in education; investing in health, police, and defence; investing in our hard-working Kiwi families; investing in our hard-working businesses, the rural sector, and provincial New Zealand, by cutting that red tape; and investing, most importantly, in our children, in the future of this country.

We are making a record investment in education. We are focused on lifting performance in education, ensuring every one of our Kiwi kids gets the chance to get ahead and reach their full potential. We want to lift kids up over the bar, and this is how we create equality across New Zealand, by getting higher performance in education. That is why this Budget sees the largest investment in learning support that we have seen in a generation, an investment of $646 million to support kids with additional learning needs. Key investments include a substantial annual increase to teacher-aide hours, building up to over 2 million additional teacher-aide hours per year from 2028; learning support coordinators for all schools from years 1 to 8; expanding early intervention services from early learning through to the end of year 1. Every child who requires the Ongoing Resourcing Scheme will receive it. It is this kind of investment in our children, in our future, that makes a difference.

Early intervention is important so that we can identify those kids early and give the support that they need. Some kids learn differently—kids with dyslexia, ADHD, those neurodiverse kids that actually have superpowers in many ways—and they should not be held back. If we can provide that learning support early, they have that potential to have their abilities realised and to reach their full potential. I have 61 schools across my electorate, and I’ve heard from the teachers, who are struggling, that we need to do more. This additional learning support will mean that they can focus on teaching in the classroom, teaching the basics brilliantly—reading, writing, maths—and delivering in education so that we can create equality. I know kids with learning difficulties have huge potential to contribute to New Zealand; they just need the kick-start to do it, and our record investment in learning support will mean every child has the opportunity to reach their full potential.

Also, it has been great to see the huge record investments in health: $5.5 billion for hospitals and specialist services, primary care, and community and public health; $1 billion for health infrastructure. I would just like to acknowledge the investment in Hawke’s Bay healthcare, with our Hawke’s Bay Hospital getting over $100 million to upgrade our radiology department, an investment in our cancer linear accelerator treatment machine, and a 28-bed in-patient unit. This is a significant investment in Hawke’s Bay. Our Hawke’s Bay Hospital has been calling out for investment, and our Government is delivering to improve the healthcare outcomes of patients and people in Hawke’s Bay.

Speaking of investment, let’s talk about Investment Boost, which has been talked about a lot in this debate today. It’s a new tax incentive encouraging business investment to lift wages and to grow our economy. Investment Boost is encouraging businesses to invest and to go for growth. Of course, this is fantastic for an export and trade region like Hawke’s Bay, where our apple industry, for example, is growing. This year, we have met $1 billion worth of exports for the first time ever, because, finally, our apple industry has a Government that backs them, that supports them, and that’s cutting the red tape and letting the growers get on with growing and growing our economy.

Not so long ago, I was grabbing a coffee, and I was speaking to the cafe owner, and he was telling me about the great Investment Boost package, which was motivating him to actually invest in another cafe, because he was going to be able to use the Investment Boost to invest in the machinery and all of the things that he needed to set up that cafe. Of course, this means 10 extra jobs, and it means supporting other local businesses, and it is growing our businesses and our economy across Hawke’s Bay. That’s why Investment Boost is so good; it is encouraging investment.

We’ve already touched on the Fieldays; of course, I was up there as well, and it was so good to see that farmer confidence back. Farmers felt confident again. They were loving the Investment Boost. The rural businesses were loving the Investment Boost. This is the type of logic and common-sense approach that grows our economy, because, of course, agriculture and our primary sector are the backbone of this economy.

Look, I’d also like to touch on the cyclone recovery investment that we saw in this Budget, because we saw $219 million contributing to the Hawke’s Bay area, where, of course, we were devastated by Cyclone Gabrielle and we still have a lot of rebuilding to do and we still have a lot of investment in our roading and our infrastructure that is required. I would just like to acknowledge the Puketapu community, where I was just a couple of weeks ago, opening the Moteo-Puketapu Bridge after 2½ years. This is really significant for that community, where we’re providing connection again, because infrastructure isn’t just bricks and mortar; it is about connecting our communities, and infrastructure plays a really, really large role in connection, getting the wheels moving in our economy.

Of course, we have invested in our 17 roads of national significance, and I would just like to acknowledge, also, the very first road of national significance to be starting, the Hawke’s Bay four-lane expressway—over $600 million was just recently committed to that project. This is really exciting for our region. It means over 300 jobs, and it’s starting in November. That is super exciting for Hawke’s Bay.

Let’s now talk about law and order, because our Government came in with a very big focus on restoring law and order, and this Budget sees a real commitment to that. Remember, for six years under Labour, it was a very common theme: every day, we were seeing ram raids, we were seeing rising crime, and we were seeing very unsafe communities.

Miles Anderson: Gang patches.

CATHERINE WEDD: And gang patches—gang patches everywhere. Actually, I’m from Hawke’s Bay; we have one of the highest rates of gang membership in this country, and so cracking down on crime was really, really important. Of course, some of the laws that we’ve brought in to ban gang patches have made a real difference, as well as the investment in our front-line police officers—$1.1 billion of additional investment to support front-line police in this Budget—and initiatives to respond to child and youth offending and tackling organised crime.

I was just out with our police in Hawke’s Bay, the other day, where we have a gang disruption unit—over 20 extra police officers making a real difference to making our community safer and ensuring that we restore law and order in Hawke’s Bay, because this really makes a difference in our communities, when people feel safe. We’ve really seen some progress in Hawke’s Bay when it comes to making our communities safer and ensuring that we are cracking down on the gangs. We have more police on the beat, and we are focusing on ensuring our children, our grandparents, and our families are safe in New Zealand.

Hon Kieran McAnulty: Madam Speaker!

CATHERINE WEDD: This is an amazing Budget that is going for growth.

The member’s time has expired.

Thank you very much, and thanks for your support. Look, it’s quite clear to anybody that’s been watching this debate that the National Party MPs have been told what to say. They’ve all said the same thing. It all meets the same pattern, and it is actually quite clear why. They’ve looked at the situation: polling isn’t going well, New Zealanders have clicked on to the fact that the health system is in a shambles; the economy is going nowhere like they said it would; they borrowed for tax cuts; the education system is a mess, where they don’t value teachers; they don’t value the health sector. There are two quite telling things: they were all told to say that they were proud and they were all told to give glowing praise to Nicola Willis, and they were all told to stay well clear of Christopher Luxon.

Not one person has mentioned the Prime Minister, and that’s extraordinary. That is extraordinary. We have a debate about the Budget, and not one National Party MP has mentioned the Prime Minister. Now, normally, if things were going well, they would be full of praise, but what this says to New Zealanders is that even uttering the name Christopher Luxon affects their polling. They do not want to be associated with this absolute dud of a Prime Minister. They just want to ignore the fact that he is their leader, and they’ll talk about everything else.

There’s also something quite telling that none of them has mentioned. That’s housing. I wonder why. It actually doesn’t take much thought to figure out why. It’s because they have presided over the largest and fastest increase in homelessness in our country’s history. What a record! They haven’t even been in Government for two years, and they have contributed to the largest and the fastest increase in homelessness in this country. This is all linked to what it is that we are debating today. Nicola Willis could not make her Budget add up; they went on tax cuts that they could not afford and that left billion-dollar holes in their Budget, and they had to find the money somewhere. Why? Because they gave a $2.9 billion tax cut to landlords.

This is directly linked to housing. As it stood, the policy was that, if an investor built a home, they could deduct their interest, but, if they purchased an existing home, they could not. What that led to was investment being driven towards new builds—exactly what we need in this country—and, for the first time in a very long time, we saw the proportion of first-home buyers entering the market starting to increase. This lot didn’t like it, because their mates wanted to be able to deduct interest on existing homes. Of course, it’s easier to buy an existing home than it is to build a home, so they changed it. Is it any surprise? Is it any surprise, really, when we see Carl Bates has got an interest in 25 properties? Of course it’s not a surprise. Of course it isn’t. They are the party of and for landlords. They are not the party for those that are struggling to buy their first home. As soon as they made that change, we saw investment in new builds essentially fall off a cliff and go straight back into existing properties. The proportion of first-home buyers has dropped, and if you look at the figures for bank lending, it is going to investors, and it is not going to first-home buyers.

Then, once they looked after their landlord mates, they cut Kāinga Ora off at the knees. We had a record level of house builds at a time when we most desperately needed it, and they have stopped the expansion of Kāinga Ora homes, and they have stopped the money going to Kāinga Ora. The only way that they are funding new houses is by selling houses, and there will be no increase whatsoever in the number of State houses in this country. They are selling houses in places like Invercargill without any plans whatsoever to build more houses. The number of State houses are going down in places, and, as long as this Government’s in, they will never be replaced. The money that they’ve put into community housing providers is a fraction of what they were receiving under the previous Government. What this equates to is very little houses being built by comparison to what has happened.

Now, let’s look at what this Government promised New Zealanders they would do. Tama Potaka said that this Government would build more houses than the previous Government. That was his promise. That is a lofty ambition given that the previous Government built a record number of State and community houses—the most since the 1950s—but that was his promise. Nicola Willis signed a pledge that said that there would be a net 1,000 increase of community housing in Auckland every year. Have they done that? No way near. They funded 750 houses this financial year for the whole country, 750 houses next financial year for the whole country, and an additional 550 for Auckland. It doesn’t add up to 1,000, and it certainly doesn’t add up to the level of investment that was happening under the previous Government. They have cut social housing off at the knees.

The most egregious thing is that in order to fill the holes in Nicola Willis’ Budget, they have stopped those in the most genuine need, the most vulnerable people in this country, from entering into emergency housing. Why does this relate to this debate? Well, it is quite clear. Before the Budget, the Government issued a press release, in extremely bad taste, celebrating the fact that they had saved a billion dollars by keeping people on the street. They celebrated that they were able to make their Budget add up because more people are sleeping in tents and in garages and in parks and on the street. There is a 90 percent increase of people sleeping rough in Auckland, 24 percent in Wellington, 34 percent in Tauranga, and we could go on.

Jan Tinetti and I were in Rotorua recently. We had a 15-minute gap, so we went for a walk around the block in the CBD—just a walk around a block of shops. We counted eight homeless people on the street. This is what they are celebrating in this Budget. No wonder they are not talking about housing. Why would they? Are they proud of housing? They’ve claimed to be proud of everything else. Are you proud of people sleeping on the street? Silence. Of course it’s silence; but that is their record. That is exactly what this Budget, which we are debating today, amounts to: people in the most vulnerable positions unable to get help.

I have asked both the Minister of Housing and the Associate Minister of Housing on numerous occasions about this in question time. They dismiss it. Just yesterday, Tama Potaka claimed, in this House, that reports of increased homelessness are hearsay. How arrogant can you get, when those reports are coming from those on the front line? Now, I said three statistics earlier in this speech—a 24 percent increase in Wellington, 34 percent in Tauranga, and 90 percent increase in Auckland—and the Minister says it’s hearsay. Well, here’s the thing: every single one of those, each of those three stats, is in the Minister’s own homelessness insights report issued in June this year. That’s the ministry’s own data. The Minister is so arrogant that he dismisses his own figures as hearsay because it doesn’t add up to this rhetoric that we’ve been hearing all day. It is fact. They are deliberately keeping people out of emergency housing to make their Budget add up. They changed the entry criteria to the extent where women and children escaping domestic violence could not get in, because they were deemed to have contributed to their own circumstances. It is heartless; it is disgusting.

When we pressured the Minister on this, he said, “It is not happening.”, and then he quietly went and told the Ministry of Social Development to make sure it doesn’t happen, admitting that it was. He just didn’t want to say so publicly. If they are willing to accept that the changes that they made led to women and children escaping domestic violence not being let in, maybe they should take a breath and recognise that their quest to squeeze out any possible amount of money to make Nicola Willis’ Budget add up has gone too far. They cannot admit that. They have made one announcement to try and address homelessness—300 places. The problem with that is that homelessness is increasing beyond that. It is a drop of water into an empty bucket. Homelessness will continue to increase, and it is down to every single one of them, and when we are about to vote on this, they are voting for exactly that. Shame on every one of them.

I’m proud of this Budget, I’m proud of this team around us, and I’m proud of our Prime Minister. We don’t operate as a team where you have to get told what to say and where you have to get told what to believe. I like Christopher Luxon as a Prime Minister and as a leader because he backs his team. He’s the kind of guy that would show up on the night of a by-election and actually stand with his team. That’s the kind of leader he is—not the kind that would just run and flee. He’s with us through it all. I don’t have to be prompted to say that. I don’t have to be prompted to say how proud I am of the Hon Nicola Willis and what she’s done as finance Minister in bringing this Budget to the House—and in difficult times. What I’d like to hear the Labour Party say is that they are proud of their legacy. I’d like to hear them own up to the high levels of inflation, the massive amounts of debt, and what there was to show for it. I’d like to hear them show a bit of pride and actually stand here and talk about that. To see them front up to something like a COVID inquiry—that would be nice—but they won’t front up to that either, will they?

That’s what the context of this Budget is. When it comes to setting one, we have to work with some big numbers, some numbers like the $9 billion that we spend every year just on the interest on the debt that they racked up. Before we can go and pay for a doctor, in this Budget, or a nurse or a social worker or a police officer, first we have to pay just the interest on their debt, and that number is more than we spend on our entire defence force, more than we spend in this Budget or any Budget on actually protecting our national sovereignty and security. In fact, it’s more than we spend on our defence force and our police force combined. It’s more than we spend on our defence force and our police force and our customs, and then add in our corrections. That is the issue. This is why Budgets take balance, because that is what we inherited. That is the system. You don’t hear any pride from the other side. You don’t hear anyone willing to stand up and acknowledge the truth about the situation that we inherited.

Often, I think, with Budgets, we focus on some really big numbers. We talk about how there’s $2 billion for defence on new helicopters—we can talk about them in a moment; I might geek out a bit, so I’ll try and hold myself back. We can talk about $16.68 billion for health. I think sometimes these numbers feel so big that it’s hard to understand at the personal level what they mean. How does that make my life different?

Health’s a good example. We could talk about the billion dollars in health infrastructure funding. I think about the emergency department in Wellington Regional Hospital that’s getting revamped over the next four years, funded in this Budget. That makes a meaningful difference. When you add 34 more beds to the emergency department and you add another 34 consulting spaces for outpatients—an almost doubling in the capacity there—that’s what it means. What it means is that people spend less time sitting in that waiting room.

Our target—because we brought back health targets—is that you should be seen within six hours within the emergency department (ED). That doesn’t seem unreasonable to me. That doesn’t seem outrageous, but, in 2018, the last Government got rid of all those targets, and from 2019 onwards—if you look at the figures—wait times got longer and longer and longer. Instead of 87 percent of people being through in six hours, it dropped down into the 60s—the low 60s. Well, we brought those targets back. It’s back to 74 percent. It’s this kind of combination where you have a target and then you go and fund and resource it. That’s what the health infrastructure fund for a new emergency department in Wellington adds to it, which increases the flow of patients coming through, and that means less time. I think of my daughter with a broken arm, sitting in the ED. That means less time for people like that, whatever their condition, sitting in that waiting room.

When you couple that with the investment in this Budget in things like after-hours care and urgent care, and a new day service in the Hutt—we see protecting and saving the after-hours in Kenepuru. In fact, across the lower North Island, there is a significant amount of new after-hours and urgent care services funded directly in this Budget. That makes a difference to people on the ground because they can go there and they can avoid the emergency department altogether now, when there’s somewhere to go in the middle of the night. Think of Palmerston North with a new 24/7 service. I think of Levin with a new daytime service. That means they don’t have to make the trip to Palmerston North Hospital or to Wellington Regional Hospital, to sit in their emergency departments. Not only are we building a new emergency department in Wellington, but there will be shorter waits and better levels of care.

There are more nurses than there were two years ago, at the election. There are more doctors. We’ve increased the funding for GPs. That capitation—the amount that they get per patient that’s enrolled—makes a difference. We had a great speech from Ryan Hamilton before, waxing lyrical about the new medical school. I can’t believe that people would be opposing this. Why wouldn’t we want to train more doctors and, particularly, doctors for provinces?

Hon Member: Helicopters.

TIM COSTLEY: But this isn’t just—helicopters are coming. I did want to acknowledge education, because education is another area of concern, I think, for parents like me. We’ve heard a little bit about the learning support coordinators, but I wanted to read an email that I received that was sent to the Minister, the Hon Erica Stanford—a copy was sent to me—from a local school.

Hon Cameron Brewer: Willow-Jean’s email?

TIM COSTLEY: No, no, no. These principals know how to reply to email, so that’s quite a difference. “I would like to thank you”—this is to the Minister—“for the recent allocation of a learning support coordinator to our school. This will make a significant difference”—this is the principal—“to our learners, staff, and whānau.” It’s quite a long email—I won’t read the whole thing, in view of the time—but he says, “Thank you for your support, for the work you’re doing, that you and your staff are doing, for education, and for listening to the voices of school leaders.” That’s what it is.

I think of every school I’ve been to, in Horowhenua and Kāpiti and then northern Porirua and the Whitby area, and they all tell me one thing. They say it’s about learning support. We need more support in the classrooms. These learning support coordinators are qualified teachers; they are the experts in navigating the system to help the neurodiverse, to help those students with extra learning needs to navigate that process and to bring it in. Teachers have told me that that’s a game-changer. Some have said, “Look, we would rather have more support in the classroom, a learning support coordinator in the school, more teacher-aide hours and ed-psych, a speech therapist—we’d rather have that than a pay rise.”, and that’s what got delivered in this Budget.

When you hear about the up to 2.8 million hours of teacher-aides and other support for learning support—that’s cool; that’s a phenomenal number from the 700,000 hours of teacher-aides there are now. It’s four times as big. Actually, what it means is that your child at school gets the help that they need. They get those extra learning needs picked up earlier so that it makes a difference and so that they get better outcomes. It’s not about throwing money around and who can boast that they spent the most money—even if it was us. What it’s about is making sure kids are leaving school with the best chance in life. That’s what this is all about.

Now, I don’t want to aggravate the Greens by talking about the new expressway to Levin that is funded during this.

Suze Redmayne: Yes, let’s go!

TIM COSTLEY: Suze Redmayne is a huge fan of this. She has been fighting hard alongside me to make sure this road gets built properly with the right design. It is a fantastic thing. Ignore what we heard earlier from Julie Anne Genter. Every other Kiwi, including those in the Rongotai electorate, actually wants new roads—quality roads that save lives, that get people there fast, that help us lift productivity, and that get this country moving. It is a fantastic road. I can’t wait to be part of the sod-turning very soon, as construction really swings into gear.

I have to geek out on the helicopters, because defence, finally, for the first time ever, is on a pathway to 2 percent of GDP. There’s $12 billion of new spending that’s been announced. The $2 billion that the Minister announced just the other week—she had the model helicopter in here; I saw a few people flying it around. I confess, I flew it around in the corridor. The Speaker wanted it. I saw Minister Goldsmith getting stuck in next to it. It was fantastic. These are world-class. This is exactly the right decision that our navy needs, in this case, but also aircraft for the air force. It puts us on par with Australians, with Americans, with South Korea, with India, and with a number of countries. It is a fantastic investment, and it’s good just to see a Government that believes in the defence force, especially after what we heard in this morning’s debate, with Opposition parties showing a complete disregard and disrespect for our defence force, I thought.

Fundamentally, more than anything else, the thing that motivates us, I think, on this side of the House, is making life better for Kiwis. It is tackling the cost of living. Whether it’s Investment Boost—and of all my examples of people, I’ll just give you one to finish, because I’m running out of time. It was Kelly. I met her in her business the other day. I said, “Have you heard about this thing called Investment Boost?” She said, “I’ve already bought a new car for one of my staff because of it. The numbers didn’t add up, but you brought in this policy, and they did. It’s been a game-changer for our business.” It’s about helping Kiwis. I’m proud of this, I’m proud of our leader, I’m proud of the Budget, and I commend it to the House.

The Imprest Supply (Second for 2025/26) Bill is set down for third reading immediately.