Appropriation (2024/25 Supplementary Estimates) Bill, Imprest Supply (First for 2025/26) Bill

I move, That the Appropriation (2024/25 Supplementary Estimates) Bill and the Imprest Supply (First for 2025/26) Bill be now read a second time.

These two bills are technical but also very important for New Zealand’s public finances. I think it would assist the House if I explain at the outset what each of them is and what purpose they serve. The overriding constitutional principle, as set out in the Public Finance Act, is that the Government cannot incur expenses or commit capital expenditure without authority from Parliament. Parliament must agree to the spending that the executive incurs.

Of course, there are instances in recent history where Governments have fallen foul of that rule. I think back to the Ihumātao land deal, in which the Auditor-General found that the Government incurred expenditure without the appropriate parliamentary authority to use imprest supply, as the funding used was intended to deliver more housing but was instead used to stop housing development on that land.

Imprest supply is an important principle. The new financial year 2025-2026 starts very soon, on 1 July. The Budget for this year was announced on 22 May, and the main Appropriation bill had its first and second readings on that day, with excellent speeches from members on this side of the House. However, this legislation will not have its third reading until later this year, so that means that there is, effectively, a gap between the start of the new financial year and the point at which the House at law confirms the Budget.

The purpose of the imprest supply bill is to bridge that gap and to do this in a way that is essentially temporary. More precisely, the imprest supply bill provides financial authority to incur expenses and capital expenditure for the first three months of this financial year—the 2025-26 year—before the passing of the appropriation estimates bill, when new appropriations for the financial year are authorised by Parliament.

The overall amount being sought in this bill is consistent with the amounts sought in previous years. The imprest supply bill seeks authority for the Government to incur a maximum of $39 billion in expenses, $7 billion in capital expenditure, and $1 billion in capital injections. Part of this amount is to cover the possibility that fiscal risks materialise and to allow for the uncertain timing and spread of expenditure, as is standard practice. These are matters on which the Treasury advises, and there are longstanding conventions about the way these numbers are formulated, conventions which this Government has adhered to.

Overall, that’s the purpose of the imprest supply bill—it’s an interim spending authority. As its name reveals, this is the first imprest supply bill for 2025-26. There will be a second imprest supply bill later this year.

Notwithstanding the routine nature of this legislation, I’d point out that even when it comes to imprest supply, Governments face choices. It is simply the case that Governments who commit to more extraordinary levels of spending than this Government is prepared to would also have to incur parliamentary authority for many billion dollars more in imprest supply. For example, if our Government hadn’t taken the prudent and responsible step to deliver $23 billion worth of savings in our first Budget, $21 billion worth of savings in our second Budget, and hadn’t taken a number of steps to provide fiscal constraint, then the Government would be in a position of having to ask Parliament for much more money in order to tide New Zealand through this period. This is important because these are actual choices that Ministers need to make, and I am conscious that there are members in this House who oppose every measure the Government takes to control its own spending yet who also wish to hold the position that they care about debt and they care about taxes.

The simple reality is that while we and members of this House vote for what spending and taxation occurs, we do not do so with our own money, a point that is often lost by members in this House. In fact, you heard it in the member the Hon Ginny Andersen’s question today where she tried to infer that particular spending was Labour’s money or Labour’s funding. There is no such thing as National Party money, Labour Party money, Te Pāti Māori money, Green Party money; it is all taxpayers’ money, and those of us who are stewards of that money, I think, have a serious responsibility to ensure that we are as careful with every dollar as mums and dads struggling with the cost of living at home are. The question that this Government asks itself before it incurs expenditure for “doolally” exercises like three waters mergers and co-governance reforms, hundreds of millions of dollars on doomed light rail projects, and huge amounts of expenditure on hiring more policy analysts is: can we look New Zealand taxpayers in the eye and say, “We’re taking that money from you in higher taxes so that we can pay for the little things that we think are exciting.”? Our test is that we should always ask ourselves, “Could those dollars do more work in the bank accounts and wallets of very hard-working Kiwi people?”

It is the case that our imprest supply bill and, therefore, New Zealand’s borrowing requirements at this time and, therefore, our taxation requirements at this time are less burdensome for New Zealanders because of the careful choices that Ministers in our Cabinet have made about what spending they commit to on behalf of New Zealanders. Those who wish to oppose every measure to do with saving, who wish to say that every dollar should be spent on every idea that everyone has had, need simply reflect on a simple lesson that I have found easy enough to explain to my 9-year-old, which is this: there isn’t actually a magic money tree; there isn’t a place where the free money comes from. It comes from hard-working people who get up in the morning, go to work, sometimes not because it’s the thing that gives them joy that day but because they know that they need to earn the dollars to put food on the table, to pay the rent, and to fill up their car. Then what we do in Government is we take a big chunk of that in tax, and we commit to spend that for the public good.

So those who like to pretend that we can just spend as much as we want are really saying to New Zealanders that they want an open call account on New Zealanders’ back pockets, and we on this side of the House do not agree with that approach. We think it is important to be prudent and to be responsible to ensure that we keep the economic recovery that is under way going, through responsible fiscal management; that we don’t overtax New Zealanders; and that we don’t over indebt our kids and future generations. Our spending choices, as reflected in this imprest supply bill, do just that.

The thing is, it’s very easy to oppose Government Budgets when you have absolutely no alternative plan, when Chicken Little cries at the sky falling at every move but has no alternative plan except to fantasise about a magic money tree—what you have is an Opposition lacking all credibility. The thing is, I’m given great heart because those same hard-working New Zealanders I just spoke of are smart people and they can see through the antics of the other side. They know that that approach of pretending that there is fantasy money and a fantasy locker that doesn’t come from their back pockets failed them. It delivered the worst cost of living crisis in a generation, from which many households are yet to recover. It delivered masses of debt, a huge spike in inflation, and price rises. And it delivered very little that New Zealanders can speak of now except for an almighty recession.

And so I proudly speak in support of this imprest supply bill, a reflection of a return to good, responsible fiscal and economic management. I dare the members on the other side to explain exactly where their magic money tree is planted.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Before I actually go into the Supplementary Estimates bill and imprest supply, I’d ask the House’s indulgence for a moment. I want to acknowledge the passing of a senior kaumātua and rangatira ko Ātiawa ki Whakarongotai Charitable Trust, Rakauoteora Te Maipi, or Koro Don, as we know him up on the Kāpiti Coast. Koro Don passed away this weekend, and he was a beloved kaumātua who led with wisdom, honour, and music. He served as the Kāpiti Coast District Council kaumātua for 25 years. He was deeply committed to our community. Our thoughts are with Pat, his wife; his wider whānau; and Ātiawa ki Whakarongotai. Moe mai rā, e te rangatira, haere atu rā ki te okiokinga mutunga kore. [Rest in peace, noble leader; go on to the eternal resting place.]

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I want to turn my attention now to both the Supplementary Estimates bill and the imprest supply bill, and, once again, we hear—from the Government side of the House and, in particular, from the Minister of Finance—a focus on the Opposition. We saw that again right throughout the lead-up to the Budget, we saw it on Budget day, we saw it after Budget day, and, again, all we’ve heard about is this side of the House in the debate on the Supplementary Estimates and the imprest supply bill.

It’s quite interesting because when you talk to New Zealanders on the ground, they say to themselves, “Well, I didn’t see anything for me and the cost of living in this Budget.”, and that’s why the Government spends all the time talking about this side of the House. We’ve seen both in question time and in the Minister of Finance’s speech just now—which I want to respond to—the talk about high inflation at the time when we were in Government.

As I asked the Minister the question during question time, we had high tradeable inflation during the period when we were in Government—particularly post-COVID—because there was a global pandemic and because there were supply chain issues. If you look at the data around tradeable versus non-tradeable inflation, you will see the major difference, and so it’s important to set that out today because what we know is that going forward, as a result of this Budget, this Budget and the Treasury documents talk a lot about the geopolitical uncertainty that’s happening in other jurisdictions. We’ve seen that, obviously, from what was debated in the House today with the ministerial statement from the Rt Hon Winston Peters, and New Zealand is not immune to those global shocks or impacts that happen overseas.

That’s exactly what happened during the COVID pandemic, and that’s exactly what’s happening now, which is why it’s even more important to think domestically about what we can do as a country to support each other during a cost of living crisis and during a time when there is super-high demand. In a number of our non-governmental organisations, there is huge demand for food banks, there is huge demand for mental health services, and there is huge demand for housing, and yet what we see through this imprest supply bill, which, effectively, gives temporary authority for what’s in the Budget—what we, again, go back to is that the Budget did not provide enough support for everyday New Zealanders.

The Minister of Finance talks a lot about this magical money tree—the magical money tree which, unfortunately, doesn’t have much for everyday Kiwis or everyday New Zealanders, but it has a lot of money for landlords, it has a lot of money for tobacco companies, and it has $200 million for the gas industry. Again, there is a magic money tree with big branches and big flowering blossoms for these different industries, but what do families get? What do families get?

Some families, if they’re entitled to Working for Families credits, get $7 a week, but to pay for that, they had to strip away Best Start from 61,000 families for the first year. That first year of having a newborn is one of the hardest periods, which is why, when we were in Government, that first year was not income-tested, because we knew how hard it was for families in that first year to, first of all, deal with a newborn and the huge life changes that that makes for your family. That’s why we never income-tested it in the first year, but in the second and third years, income testing and abatement thresholds were introduced. But we’re seeing with this Government and their Budget that 61,000 families will be $43 worse off per fortnight because of this Government’s choices, and it all comes down to choices.

We heard a lot of words from the Minister about choices and money trees, and, yet again, the magical money tree seems to happen for lots of big corporates, but not for the everyday Kiwi battler who is on the ground every day and who is trying to, basically, make ends meet because inflation is not coming down for food—it is still increasing. Again, what happens overseas does have an impact here, but, once again, all we hear from the Government is, basically, that it’s not OK when Labour is in Government, but it is OK when National is in Government.

I do want to look at the Supplementary Estimates. We received a briefing from Treasury as part of scrutiny week that went through the actual line-by-line changes in the Supplementary Estimates. Again, the magical money tree seems to give—let’s have a look—$7.25 million to deliver new ministerial suites in the executive wing, at level three. The magical money tree there has $7.25 million, and yet for food banks, those get only $15 million. So, basically, the magical money tree gifts $7 million to ministerial offices so that ministerial offices can be redone on level three, but food banks only get $15 million, and yet when you talk to food banks right across the country, they are saying that demand is super high—higher than it’s ever been. They are crying out for the Government to support them, but the Government is saying, “We’ll give you $15 million, and, by the way, the magical money tree blossoms for ministerial suites.”

The other interesting thing from the Supplementary Estimates is in Vote Social Development, in relation to emergency housing. The appropriation for emergency housing decreased by $225.79 million to $78.849 million for the 2024-25 year, and so when Treasury set out why that is, they said that there is a lower number of grants than previously forecast and it’s a lower average payment per grant than previously forecast—OK, that’s the magic money tree, which is in motion again. Again, the Government chose to tighten the criteria for emergency housing assistance—so much so that this Government saves money from it.

Yet again—I say it once again in this House—this seems to be a Government that knows the cost of everything but the value of nothing, because we have growing homelessness across all our major districts. Even in Rotorua, we saw media reports out from the Salvation Army of there being a number of homeless people, and the Salvation Army at the time were trying to manaaki them, but their hands were tied because they had no choice. So, again, we see that, basically, the appropriation for emergency housing assistance has been reduced, but we have growing homelessness.

The other interesting thing which we saw in the Supplementary Estimates was to do with the jobseeker support and emergency benefits. Well, that appropriation increased by $276.236 million, so it’s gone up to over $4,711.258 million. I know that those are all just numbers, but, ultimately, there’s a person behind that number, and the reason why it’s gone up by over $282 million is because, again, there is a higher number of people than previously forecast who are now on the jobseeker support and the emergency benefit.

Once again, these are people in our society who have no choice but to have to come to the Government to ask them for support, and it’s increased. They’ve had to increase that appropriation because this year, there are more people on the benefit than Treasury had forecasted last year, which is why I stand in support of what Ginny Andersen said during question time, which was that the forecast has increased by 13,000 people—that is 13,000 people. Again, members of the House on the Government benches say, “Oh, the magical money tree.” Well, the magical money tree is having to give more to those people who don’t have jobs, because this Government has tanked the economy.

Last year, there were two periods of recession. As much as that Government believes that it didn’t cause the recession, it was still growing in the early quarters of the financial year, and Treasury confirmed it. There was modest growth until the last two quarters of the financial year, and that was because that Government paused, reviewed, and cancelled huge infrastructure projects, which led to a loss of construction roles—which, again, Ginny Andersen talked about during question time; 15,000 construction sector roles—and then, what happens when you have less people spending money in the economy? All those little suppliers, all those retail shops, and all those restaurants don’t have people going there to enjoy part of what working does to help people live with dignity and to live with integrity.

This Government can crow as much as it wants, but the facts are in the numbers. This country is going backwards under that Government.

Chlöe Swarbrick: E te Māngai, I can’t hear you.

Yeah.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Good to go?

Yeah, DEPUTY SPEAKERChlöe Swarbrick—yeah.

E te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. Apologies, Madam Speaker, your microphone wasn’t on.

Bills like this represent really important—in fact, some of the most important—Government decisions. That is: how we collectively and democratically use our collective resources to build the kind of country that we want to live in, here in Aotearoa New Zealand. What I find really interesting about parties of the right and those that currently occupy the Government benches—

Mark Cameron: Ideology.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: —is that we hear a lot of rhetoric about freedom. I hear just now some heckling about the notion of ideology. I would inform that heckler that all of us in this place have ideology. It simply means that we believe in things and that we stick our neck out on that basis. What we don’t want to be, in response to that heckler, is dogmatic—that is, so immovable in the things that we believe that we are not willing to reconcile with the experience of others whose shoes we have not walked in.

Back to that point around the rhetoric of freedom, which members of this Government talk about a lot, let’s be really, really, really clear: you only have illusory freedom that is not real freedom if you do not have economic freedom—that is, the ability to make meaningful decisions about how you live your life. It is incredibly hard to imagine that any New Zealander could claim to have real freedom if they cannot afford to put food on the table, which Government Budget decisions have made a heck of a lot harder for regular people.

We in the Greens unashamedly believe in universal basic services. Just to give people a snapshot or an insight into what it is that we’re talking about when we’re talking about universal basic services, we’re talking about things like free schooling, we’re talking about things like free hospitals—those things which now are considered rather undebatable. They are things that we consider to be normal and as though they are immovable. But, once upon a time, these things were impossible to fathom. Indeed, if we were fighting for these things today, for free schooling and for free hospitals, I believe—make no mistake—that this Government would call it wasteful spending and that they would say that this is about envy politics, about how we choose to tax certain groups of people who are doing pretty all right and decide to channel those resources into our collective public resources and services.

This Government is running the trickle-down economics playbook. It is to defund public services, to watch them wither and ultimately fail, point that out to the public, and then say we should privatise that. The next step of that logic is that those privatised services are then sold back to regular New Zealanders for a far higher cost in order to account for the profit that this Government so wilfully champions, which in turn increases the cost of living. You only need to look at the decisions made by the former National Government with the electricity sector to get a clear indication of where it is that we are heading.

This Government, if you’re to read between the lines of their rhetoric, wants everyone to only think about themselves. They encourage people to fight each other in this rampant, dog-eat-dog competition and especially to punch down on those who are not doing all too well, while they shred the services that all of us ultimately need, that all of us ultimately rely on. That is not how you build a country. That is how you destroy one. We are not 5 million random individual people running around this country; we are New Zealanders, and we get to choose to make decisions that benefit all of us.

But what we are debating specifically today isn’t even the full Budget; it’s just a microcosm of that, with their interim spending. Let’s put the microscope on some of the cruel penny-pinching that the Government has decided to do, hurting our communities and destroying local economies. In the environment, climate, and conservation space, they have cut $16.4 million from services for conservation. They have cut $13.9 million from identification and implementation of protection for natural and historic places. They have cut $6.1 million from managing climate change in Aotearoa New Zealand. They have cut $1.8 million from the Climate Change Commission. They have cut $95 million from waste minimisation. They have cut $6.5 million from greenhouse gas mitigations research and development funds. They have cut $4 million from sustainable land management and climate change research. In the transport space, they’ve cut $121 million for school transport. They have cut $16 million from mode-shift - planning infrastructure services and activities. They have cut $29 million for decarbonising the bus fleet. In housing, they have cut $1.3 million from transitional housing, and they’ve cut $226 million from emergency housing assistance.

The Prime Minister and the Associate Minister of Housing had the gall to stand in front of TV cameras in January of this year and announce that the Government had met its targets early to kick people out of emergency housing, when, in December last year, they had received a briefing that said that homelessness was visibly increasing in our major centres. It just really, truly, honestly boggles the mind. I think that that is the sense of frustration, the sense of gaslighting, the sense of living in an Orwellian world where we’re told one thing and the reality is another, that the Opposition is experiencing—and, indeed, I might say, I hear frequently from New Zealanders all across this country.

This Government tells us that they are all about productivity. Meanwhile, they actively undermine that very productive investment which stimulates that productivity. Indeed, this was actually identified just two weeks ago in a report from the International Monetary Fund that I asked the Minister of Finance if she had read, at scrutiny week just last week. The IMF—known Marxists at the International Monetary Fund!—pointed out that some of the major barriers to our productivity challenges here in Aotearoa New Zealand are the distortions in our tax system that see money flowing into real estate and away from productive investment in small and medium enterprises. The IMF told us that we need to see more Government investment in productive research, which this Government has cut. These things do not add up, and we’re imploring New Zealanders, here—with the transparency that we are offering, in the world between what the Government is saying and what they’re doing—to understand that this Government is not operating in their best interests.

Then, there’s all of the rhetoric about growth. Well, the question has to be: who is that growth actually for? What we can see represented in the reality of the data and the evidence that we are getting out of the consequences of Government decisions is that that growth is only benefiting those who are seeking rents or those who are seeking profits. It is not for the children that they have decided to keep in poverty. It is not for the 15,000 construction workers who their withdrawal of investment saw lose their jobs. It is not for the half a million New Zealanders who are now having to access food banks every single week. It is not for the 191 New Zealanders who are leaving this country on a plane every single day, three quarters of them between the ages of 18 to 34.

The Government is not a household; it is the democratic manifestation of all of our nation’s households. It can, and it does, borrow money on all of our behalf, and it should do that to make productive investments; the opposite of which, I might add, is what this Government is doing by borrowing for unproductive tax cuts which have not generated one job and have in fact kneecapped that growth and productivity. That borrowing that a Government can do comes with interest repayment rates that are a fifth of the cost of what a household repayment rate would be. Government spending also has positive multiplier impacts, and when a Government withdraws its spending, particularly on the infrastructure and the services that New Zealanders rely on, the experience and the evidence show us that private household debt goes up. But these facts, this truth, the experience of New Zealanders on the ground, seem to be absolute anathema to this Government—they’re just not interested in hearing it. They either don’t care, or they’re so ideological and dogmatic that they’re not that interested in engaging with that reality.

At the end of the day, the thing that I just really can’t reconcile the most in my head is the rhetoric that they use around hard-working people, who they pretend they are playing this game for, all the while further entrenching a tax system that sees those hard-working New Zealanders—regular, average New Zealanders—paying double the effective tax rate of the wealthiest in this country. And this is not Green Party reckons; this is IRD research, which is one of the first things that this Government cut in their first hundred days, repealing the enabling legislation.

I just—I’m at a loss. Very clearly, we oppose this legislation, and we oppose this Government. They’re not operating in the interests of the regular New Zealander.

Now, this is a split call, I understand—yes. I call Mark Cameron, and it’s good to see you back in the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I just inform the House that dialysis and kidney disease is a terrible thing, but I am here.

Hon Member: You’re looking great.

MARK CAMERON: Thank you very much to my colleague.

I’m saddened by some of the remarks by my dear friend Chlöe Swarbrick over the other side of the House—and I’ve got a lot of respect for her—as she talks about ideology in this imprest supply bill that we’re discussing and where we see targeted funding by this Government, speaking loudly, as she does, about what I’d maintain is collectivism. Ideology, certainly, is something that she referenced. Yes, this side of the House has a slightly different aspiration for its New Zealanders. We speak to the individual rather than the collectivism of the left, and we certainly don’t beat up those that are successful. Targeted funding, I wager, Chlöe Swarbrick, has been felt by the primary sector, which, by the way, is the backbone of the very country that you speak to and should be supportive of.

I want to speak to a couple of targeted funding measures that you might choose to support—there would be a novel idea. The primary sector afforded itself $246 million in Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures funds to help on-farm profitability and productivity. Now, I say to Miss Chlöe Swarbrick, how on earth are you going to tax a society when the country, especially the primary industries, affords itself an activity and produces nearly 60 billion bucks? And yet collectivism on the left just likes to beat up those that are successful. Well, I maintain this side of the House has done marvellously well in this bill, accounting for the primary sector and all the work that those people do. We don’t go and come into this House and evangelise and offer sermons about how the primary sector should live from those from central Auckland—gracious me, that’s nonsense.

Another thing I’d like to address that I think is very salient in this House is rural wellbeing and community support. Now, this is a very personal issue for me. Most people in this House know that my son committed suicide a year ago, and yet I came here, and I looked at this imprest supply bill and what was in the appropriation. I buried my boy a year ago. Now, this has afforded $2 million as a contestable fund. I would argue it’s not enough, but it surely speaks to the issues that we face in rural New Zealand. I am sick to death of that side of the House beating my side up for what we do every day to try and make rural New Zealand a little bit better for all of us, because, gracious me, some of the members on the other side of the House know what it’s like living in a remote area in rural New Zealand. The wellbeing that I see in this contestable fund will help my people address these very salient issues that only some of us understand. We’re over the sermons. We’re over Chlöe Swarbrick and her clan beating us up when we come to do the very best, which is supply a food product for all of us and access a market that keeps the whole country out of the economic doldrums.

Four hundred thousand for A & P Shows—what a wonderful investment. Everyone here, I would suggest, should go to an A & P Show. You will learn what it’s like to be a cow cocky, a wool grower, a farmer, or a horticulturalist. What a wonderful thing—400 grand to keep that reality of iconic rural New Zealand alive. How cool is that? Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for rural women and their support.

Now, I just want to highlight one thing about these good people. I was asked, when I went to speak to these people, what a rural community was, thinking of this fund as I speak to this. They asked me what a community was and what a community meant to me? I offered this: in all the difficulties I’ve personally had in my life, these people in rural New Zealand are lesser so a community, because we are a rural family. Everywhere up and down New Zealand, we are a collective of rural people that believe in what we’re doing. We believe in this country, we believe in feeding a nation, and, most of all, we believe in being the fiscal spine that keeps the country alive.

This bill is a damnably good piece of legislation. It absolutely helps rural New Zealand do what it’s done for so long—keeping the country out of the economic doldrums and in the black. I support it. I think it’s a wonderful piece of legislation, and “Hear, hear!” to rural New Zealand.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, and thank you to my good mate Mark Cameron. It’s great to have you back in the House. Unfortunately, you’ve got to get the radiator flushed tomorrow, I think, but, yeah, look, it’s great to have you back here.

Look, I just want to back up the comments from the Minister on this one. We live in a reality world where we’ve got to make the books balance. If you’ve been in charge of your own business, you know that the reality is that if you’re only getting so much in, you can only afford to spend so much, otherwise you’ll go out of business pretty quickly. It’s pretty simple stuff, and businesses up and down the country—small and large—wrestle with that challenge day in, day out. A key thing that we’re focusing on here is ensuring that we’re spending the money where it needs to be spent to get the best bang for buck and to deliver the best outcomes.

I hear a lot about “Oh, you’re not throwing enough money at this. We used to throw more money at that.” Throwing money at something doesn’t necessarily mean you’re delivering something and that you’re getting something in return. I’ve seen that a lot of the spending that has happened in the past has been completely and utterly ineffective. Sometimes, it’s not how much you spend, but it’s how you spend it and how you take other actions to make sure it does the job well that it needs to do. It’s thinking outside the square. Sometimes, when you’ve run a business, you learn that—“Money’s tight. What else can I do? How can I do this differently? How can I get the best bang for buck from what I’m spending?”

On this side of the House, that’s what we’re focusing on—how do we get the best bang for buck? And the Budget—on this side of the House—is about enabling New Zealand to do well. It’s not about giving stuff to people. It’s not this magic lolly scramble of “You get something, and you get something.” No, a Budget, mainly, is about us taking from New Zealand, and then it’s about redistributing it in the most effective manner. Now, obviously, we benefit New Zealand more if we take less. If we interfere in New Zealanders’ lives less and enable them to live the life most productive to them, that is to their benefit.

And I hear, “Oh, you’re only giving so and so $3 or $5 or not this amount.” No, it’s about having the settings right in the first place. It’s about getting inflation under control. It’s not about destroying our energy sector and pushing up electricity prices. The previous speaker mentioned that there’s $200 million going to oil and gas drilling for joint ventures there. Well, we need to, because the previous Government created a massive sovereign risk here, and we need to do something to keep the lights on. This country will not function if we cannot get reliable energy happening in this country, and so this is an imperative. It’s not something that, on this side of the House, we necessarily want to do. We don’t necessarily want to rush off and do joint ventures with various businesses, but it’s a reality that we are left with and that we have to do.

Look, finally, I just want to talk about a couple of areas in my portfolio. It was good in the biosecurity space. We were able to keep the money that we’ve got and ensure that it’s spent wisely and effectively on the front line keeping New Zealand safe. As my colleague said, agriculture is the backbone of this country, and protecting it in the biosecurity space is what protects that backbone. We need to make sure that we’re spending that money wisely and that we’re investing it where it needs to be invested, protecting our borders.

It was really good that we were able to find savings and direct an extra $2 million toward wilding pine control. I know that’s an issue that many farmers, particularly in the central South Island, are concerned about, so having an extra $2 million there—I’d love to have more; I’d love to spend more, certainly, because I can see it’s an important thing, but we’ve got to be fiscally sensible.

Also, in food safety, we’re spending the money wisely. We’re looking at how we can reduce the complexity and red tape in that area so that, in that future, hopefully, we can run a leaner system that reduces costs for businesses and that allows them to invest more, which obviously leads to improved outcomes and incomes for New Zealanders. I wholeheartedly commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First for the Appropriation (2024/25 Supplementary Estimates) Bill and the Imprest Supply (First for 2025/26) Bill. I must say, trying to put a speech together for this was quite a hard feat when you stare at, I think it was, 960 pages of appropriations. Being a first-term MP and having the opportunity last week, through our Estimates debates and our scrutiny week, to revise that over just the hour we had in the Finance and Expenditure Committee—960 pages, and it was over $10 billion worth of expenditure. What I would say is I remember, before becoming a local-body politician, the family budget, where you’re dealing with dollars and hundreds and thousands; and then going into local government and dealing with millions; now, standing here and having to talk about billions. So those budgets change.

The one thing I did learn from the last week’s review was the difference between what the Budget for 2024-25 said and what was achieved was only a 5.4 percent difference. Why I raised that issue is, when a Government sets a Budget, you would expect the Government to stick as closely to the Budget as you can. I will talk to some reasons why you do change a Budget, but what I thought was quite impressive was how close we were to the original Budget spend. If you actually looked in the information given to the select committee, that difference in the last couple of years has got closer. Under this Government, we are sticking closer to what we are saying we’re going to spend, and we’re not blowing out the Budget. That 5.4 percent—which was $9.8 billion—was how close the Budget was. That took the Government spending up to $192 billion—that’s what we are actually here to speak about.

Also, the imprest supply bill—and the finance Minister introducing that into the House today has said it’s a temporary measure. We support that. It allows the authority of Government to start spending money, and that’s important. As the process of the Budget goes through and is adopted, at the moment we need that imprest supply bill to be able to spend money and keep the country moving and doing all the things the Government of the day wants to.

Also, as the finance Minister said, we face choices. Those choices have been set out in the Budget. We’ve heard a lot about a “magic money tree”. I’ve been told, yes, money doesn’t grow on trees. But where I come from, it actually does, because my portfolio is horticulture. In horticulture, money does grow on trees in that sense; it’s just not real money. You’ve got to pick that fruit and actually take it to market. The one thing I’ve learnt in recent times, travelling around the country, and especially at the Fieldays, is how great our horticultural industry is doing at the moment—our apple industry, cherries, and also kiwifruit and Zespri. That thing with horticulture is such an important thing. I’d say to the other side of the House: “Yes, money does grow on trees. We just need to put more of those trees in the ground, put the hard work in, and actually get the rewards from there.”

Again, going back to the home budget—the home budget—where all of us and people out in TV land will be able to understand, we have a certain amount of money, we budget for it on expenses and different capital things, and it’s no different from this Government. We have our expenses that must be paid for, and then we have our capital items as well. That sometimes changes, and the reason they can change is we need to reprioritise. We’ve heard from the Government how well they and the Ministers have been able to reprioritise spending. That’s been really important in that appropriation of $9.8 billion, actually reprioritising spending and actually not always finding new money but using existing money.

Also, during a year, we know, even with the home budget, there are new incentives. Ministers do have new incentives, and sometimes they need to be funded. How do you fund them? Again, through these appropriation entries. Also, you need to respond to unforeseen events. And we all know in a budget at home, things crop up—the car breaks down. Well, imagine running the Government, the different departments, and the different things that happen. Those unforeseen events are why we have the need for these Estimates.

The major reasons, we’ve learnt through the select committee last week, for some of the changes were infrastructure. Infrastructure is a key element to this Government’s priorities. Sometimes, as we know, timelines change. Timelines change for a number of reasons. And we’ve heard a lot about consenting. We know this Government is going to change the Resource Management Act (RMA). We’re going to get things moving quicker. We’ve got fast track on the cards. We’re going to make sure that infrastructure projects—where we’ve got a number of different projects out in a programme for the next 10 to 20 years, that’s all going to be done through fast track. Also, consenting just your ordinary infrastructure projects is going to be a lot simpler under the new RMA reforms that we’re putting through.

Also with infrastructure, you have supply chain disruptions. We’ve got different things in the labour market that make things not as timely, sometimes, as we want them to be. You have things with funding, with different infrastructure projects, that you need to change from your timelines and your priorities, and, as we know with infrastructure projects, there are also increased prices. The Regional Infrastructure Fund is a key element of the New Zealand First manifesto and through our coalition partners. The Regional Infrastructure Fund, that $400 million a year—$1.2 billion over the three years—in the appropriations, was needed to be brought forward. We had over $100 million for flood protection. Those flood-protection projects with local councils that were announced were an appropriation that was done through these supplementaries here.

We’ve also had global economic uncertainties. We know the uncertainties in the world at the moment. New Zealand’s not immune to that. Sometimes in Budgets, for one reason or another, you need to find money and place that in different areas. Something we’re really proud of, on this side of the House, was the help with cancer treatments and other medicines. Extra money needed to be found for that, so appropriations were brought forward for those cancer treatments. We had the community housing and finance agency group set up for community housing, which was $180 million. That was an extra appropriation put in that part. We also had some decisions through our veterans’ entitlements that actually increased the Budget by over $3 billion just in that one area that we needed to take care of.

New Zealand First is voting for this bill because it upholds the integrity of the financial system while enabling the necessary amendments. We are particularly encouraged by the targeted increases in funding for regional development that got touched on, for infrastructure resilience, and for bolstering the front-line services that this Government has talked so passionately about and is actually putting into place. These also reflect New Zealand First’s priorities of strengthening rural and provincial communities, fostering economic security, and preparing New Zealand to meet tomorrow’s challenges today, instead of having to wait further down the track. The bill also reflects practical governance, not ideology, and those are the principles New Zealand First will always stand for. On that basis, I commend the bill to the House.

This call is a split call. I call Mariameno Kapa-Kingi.

Tēnā koe e te Pīka. Tēnā tātou e te Whare. I just wanted to firstly acknowledge Mark being back in the House: tēnā koe, and also, I guess, your own health and particularly you sharing your personal matter, Mark; I just want to mihi to you. We come from rural areas, you know; we get it, I get it. I don’t know whether I get it exactly the same way you get it, but, nevertheless, I do want to bring some of these ideas to the House. I want to speak about rural Māori, if I can, Madam Speaker—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Of course you can.

MARIAMENO KAPA-KINGI: —because I want to bring that into the minds of people as we discuss and decide on these particular bills this afternoon. I think, to open it up, really, it comes down to—because I was listening to the Minister and the range of debate, and the words that come to mind mostly for me are “trust” and “verify”. The verification part is probably not going to come for a little while, so we sort of go, “Can we trust what we’re hearing?” I don’t know; I don’t know whether we can. I’ll make these statements as I start.

Te Pāti Māori will not be supporting either of these bills, and this is why: because what we recognise is that it will legitimise a Budget and a policy agenda that protects power and not people. This is how we see it. When I say, “not people”, I’m talking about it not protecting the hard-working people, the people that can work, and the people that cannot work, and the people that cannot find work. Does this help those scenarios? I’d say no. I’d say this Government needs to pass these laws because, under the made-up rules, you cannot spend our tax dollars without the consent of Parliament. This is a hypocrisy of this institution: the Government needs the consent of Parliament, where they themselves make up the majority, but they do not need the consent of our Treaty partners to decide how they spend the revenue earned off our whenua.

The past two Budgets, in our mind, are a betrayal of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. They have slashed our ability to protect our lands, our waters, and our futures. They are defunding our climate solutions, defunding our housing solutions, defunding our health solutions, defunding our solutions to poverty, and giving tax breaks and handouts to the already wealthy. There is no respect in this Budget for Māori. I know some of you might have feelings when I say that, and I’m happy to take that discussion outside this room. But that is how we see it, that is how we how we perceive it, and that’s how we recognise it when we’re meeting with our families across the motu. They do not respect Māori for our babies, for anyone, except the Government and their mates, it seems. Despite tangata whenua making up 20 percent of the population—that’s 1 million people—Vote Māori Development is receiving only 0.27 percent of the total Budget—the lowest in a decade; the lowest in a decade. How can I trust that? How can we trust that? Well, we cannot.

This Budget didn’t forget our tamariki; they ignored the unique culture, language, custom, and lifestyle of our mokopuna. They ignored our wāhine, our iwi, our hapū, and our whānau. This Budget takes $13 billion from our hard-working wāhine and gives it to the military. This Budget takes $3 billion from all of our retirement funds and gives that money to the already wealthy and happy landlords. We cannot support any bill that enables the systematic erasure of our constitutional rights, the defunding of Māori-led solutions, and the transfer of wealth from those who need it, from the have-nots to the haves. If this Government’s Budgets cared about everyday tangata whenua people, we would support them. We would like to, but we cannot, because we do not support the bills as the ones we are discussing today. Since they only care about lining their own pockets and those of the rich mates, we do not and cannot commend this to the House. Tēnā tātou.

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Listening to the Minister of Finance deliver her speech on this bill, I was really struggling to tell whether she is just deeply cynical or wilfully ignorant. When she talks about responsible spending, almost every statement she makes about her Government is actually completely the opposite of what they are doing. A responsible Government that was looking after hard-working New Zealanders would not have ensured, in their Budget, that over 300,000 hard-working nurses, midwives, care and support workers, and other people in historically female-dominated professions were going to lose a pathway to fair pay. Putting more money in the pockets of those hard-working New Zealanders who do so much of the mahi that holds up our communities and our society, the glue that makes all of this possible—by not doing that, we actually hurt ourselves as a country.

If the Minister of Finance actually cared one bit about what was good for the economy and hard-working New Zealanders, she would not be giving billions of dollars to landlords. That is an irresponsible choice that this Government has made that is actually bad for productivity. It’s bad for our economy. But it is good for that small number of New Zealanders who happen to own a certain amount of property or happen to be borrowing to own investment properties. That doesn’t increase the supply of housing in our country, but it makes it easier for some people to earn money through rent-seeking behaviour. For those who haven’t studied economics, rent-seeking is not a good thing in economics. Rent-seeking is the opposite of productive activities that make us better off as a country.

It’s either deeply cynical or wilfully ignorant on the part of most of the Government MPs when they stand up and claim to be the responsible fiscal managers, when they’re giving away billions of dollars to landlords and hundreds of millions to the fossil-fuel industry, at a time when we know—we’ve known for decades now—that we cannot afford to find and exploit new fossil-fuel reserves and still have a livable climate. That’s just basic.

I remember back in the days of the John Key Government when they signed up to the agreement at Paris. That was a National Party that was somewhat in touch with reality. They weren’t doing much to actually address climate change, but at least they stood on the world stage and signed up to the Paris Agreement, which acknowledged that we cannot afford to carry on exploring for new fossil-fuel reserves and exploiting them. We cannot.

When the Minister of Finance says , “There’s no magic money tree”, it’s actually just projection. She’s accusing Opposition parties of not having a plan when she doesn’t have a plan. Let’s look at their transport policy—completely unfunded. This is what is so infuriating about listening to the Government members. They claim certain things, and then they do the exact opposite. They’ve got a totally unfundable plan and a complete denial of that. The New Zealand Transport Agency comes to select committee and tells us. Treasury comes and tells us. They’re promising tens of billions of dollars of spending in the future on a handful of projects, and they don’t have the revenue to pay for it. When they accuse this side of the House of not doing the math and not doing the numbers, they’re actually talking about themselves.

Finally, when we talk about taxpayers’ money, that is a really loaded term. In fact, it’s public money for public good. Members opposite—most of them; not the members of the ACT Party—members of the National Party and the New Zealand First Party, I think, would say that we should have public hospitals, we should have public schools, and we should have public investment in roads. They admit all of that. Why is it that we can’t recognise that the purpose of public money is to invest in public good? That’s exactly what the Green Party is proposing and being realistic about: what the limitations are on our ability to keep using fossil-fuels and putting greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere and still have life functioning on the planet as we would like it to.

The member’s time has expired.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s great to rise on behalf of the National Party to talk about this imprest supply bill. One of the things that it will be giving authority to is Vote Disability Support Services. That is one Vote and one announcement that hasn’t really had the airtime that it deserves. I’m going to give it a bit of airtime.

You won’t have heard the Opposition criticise us about our investment—our significant investment—into the disability support services this Budget. Has anyone heard that?

Hon Members: No.

CAMERON BREWER: Has anyone heard that? Has anyone heard the Opposition hit us on disability support?

Hon Members: No.

CAMERON BREWER: No. Why is that? I was kindly invited by a good friend of mine Sonia Thursby, who is the CE of YES Disability and a leading youth and disability advocate. Shore Junction is something that she has a lot to do with as a youth centre in the North Shore.

I was very, very happy to turn up to this I.Lead conference. I.Lead is a disabled youth movement, and the conference is all about ensuring that young disabled New Zealanders have the skills to lead in the communities that they represent and live in. One thing that many of them kept repeating was just how much they appreciated the support in Budget 2025 from this Government. What support was that? That was a billion dollars—a billion dollars. They were telling me this, and I was standing there, kind of taking the credit, going, “Oh, yes, no problem.” I went back and googled it, thinking, “Surely it wasn’t a billion dollars of new money.” I went back to the statements from our disability issues Minister, the Hon Louise Upston—and, man, they’re loving the work that Louise is doing—and, yes, there is a billion dollars in extra funding over four years.

Some of that is going into improving the residential care service that 7,000 disabled Kiwis rely on. But most of it is going to address the many cost pressures that the disability support services face, as do many others across many sectors in New Zealand. I just thought that that was worth highlighting, and that was something where the Opposition haven’t been able to land anything on us. I don’t know who their disabilities issues spokespeople are, but they haven’t been able to touch us on that, because that is a billion dollars of new spending over four years—additional spending; additional spending.

Another major investment: Erica Stanford said at the time that the extra money that she was putting into learning support was the greatest investment within a generation. We all go to primary schools in our electorates, and the principals say, “We are sick of having to play God, frankly, with the future of children; deciding who gets Ongoing Resourcing Scheme funding and who doesn’t.” Well, the Hon Erica Stanford, as the Minister of Education, has introduced a system that will be demand-led; any child in New Zealand with higher needs will get the help and support they need. I’ll tell you what: we’re going into primary schools now, and they’re loving that announcement—they’re loving that announcement.

Have we heard much about the learning support from this lot? No—no, because that’s gone down very, very well. Building new schools and classrooms: geez, that’s gone down well, too, for kids across New Zealand. I know in the Upper Harbour electorate, the Hon Erica Stanford has come to my electorate, and she’s announced a 10-classroom block for Scott Point School—a brand new 10-classroom block. In the same day, she wandered over a couple of kilometres, and for the area of Westgate, the fast-growing north-west in Auckland, she announced a brand new school that people have been advocating for for about six or seven years, but it was the National Minister who delivered it—a brand new school on Fred Taylor Drive for Redhills, Westgate, for 600 primary school kids, opening in Term 1, 2027. These are the kinds of announcements that we made on Budget day that didn’t really get the noise that they deserved, largely because the Opposition didn’t have anything to say about them.

Now, improving KiwiSaver—who was the party that stopped the Government contribution for those earning over $180,000? You’d have to think that that was the 1916 party for the workers on the West Coast of the South Island that would stop that contribution of those earning over $180,000 and stop wasting taxpayers’ money. No, it was the party for the real workers; it was the party for small business; it was the National Party that stopped that Government contribution for those earning over $180,000 to KiwiSaver. Who lifted the default rate from 3 to 4 percent? It was the National Party—and, of course, our friends in the ACT Party and, of course, our friends in New Zealand First. Who wanted that default rate to be lifted—employer-employee contributions—from 3 to 4 percent, gradually, incrementally increased over three years? Well, it was the late Sir Michael Cullen, but it was this party, this Government, that delivered that.

Who also enabled 16- and 17-year-olds to access KiwiSaver, to access those Government contributions, to get those employer contributions? Who was it? Was it the self-proclaimed party of the “youf”—with an f—the Green Party? Was it the Green Party? No. It was the Green Party who opposed 16- and 17-year-olds getting into KiwiSaver, getting the Government contribution, getting the employer contribution. It was the Green Party, joined by Te Pāti Māori and joined by the Labour Party, who opposed all our KiwiSaver measures, despite them, in 2006, with the KiwiSaver Act, piling in behind Sir Michael Cullen and supporting KiwiSaver—and now they’re against those initiatives that so many New Zealanders have said thank you to.

I want to also acknowledge something else that hasn’t had the publicity that it deserves, largely because the Opposition don’t want to talk about it. They don’t want to talk about this. That is increasing the council rates rebates and extending it to 66,000 more SuperGold card holders. That is something that you won’t hear much about.

Another thing that we would have heard a lot about—and we’ve heard a lot about it as constituent MPs—is extending the prescription length to 12 months for those that are getting prescriptions from their pharmacists, from their doctors, meaning less time, less money, visiting the doctor. That is something, again, that has gone down very, very well.

Our smaller operating allowance—hasn’t that proved to be very, very timely? Hasn’t this Government arrived at a very, very timely time in global history? Thank goodness we’ve got a Government that’s taking a very responsible fiscal management approach to this economy. We are working on our debt so we can start bringing it down over the decade. We are bringing down inflation, that was over 7 percent under the last Government—it’s at 2.5 percent now. Our fiscal policies are working hand in hand with the Reserve Bank’s monetary policies, which are seeing the official cash rate reduce—I think it’s 225 basis points since August. Interest rates don’t have a “7” in front of them like they did two or three years ago; they have a “5” in front of them, and, in fact, in many cases, they have a “4” in front of them.

This Government is perfectly timed to take control of this economy. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is my pleasure to take a call and outline exactly why it is that Labour is opposing this bill. The Appropriation (2024/25 Supplementary Estimates) Bill and the Imprest Supply (First for 2025/26) Bill sound like dry, dusty pieces of legislation. Within these very dry documents are some very powerful stories. There are powerful stories that talk about the choices that Governments make. They talk to the values of a Government. They talk to where the priorities of a Government are.

If we take the Supplementary Estimates for a moment just to set the scene, we have a Government that lists, as an achievement, how much it has cut out of emergency housing assistance. They set this as a benchmark for a Government’s success—the fact that the Government appropriation decreased by $225 million. Supplementary Estimates are where the changes to the appropriations that were originally envisioned when the Budget was put into place in the 2024-25 year appear. In Supplementary Estimates, you’ve got to come back and say how the plan changed. What was different? Well, what was different was that we had a policy from a Government where they would control the spending on emergency housing by simply not letting people in. What have we seen? We have seen an explosion of homelessness in this country. We have a Government that has shown, in these documents, that it is not a priority for them to ensure that the most vulnerable in our communities have the dignity of a roof over their head, albeit a motel.

I look at my hometown of Christchurch. I look to one month in Christchurch and what the agencies were telling us, and that’s December 2024. Let’s bear in mind that December is a month where, famously, people could find shelter when needed. But, in that month of December, in my hometown of Christchurch, Ministry of Social Development (MSD) figures show that that over 300 people were sleeping on the streets. In that month, 372 households left emergency housing; of those, 54 households—MSD have no idea where they went. They did not go into State housing, they did not go into transitional housing, and they certainly didn’t get any assistance with an accommodation supplement. Nobody knows where they went. This is the policy that is adding to the explosion of people rough sleeping in our country—in their cars, in the doorways, and not having somewhere they can call home. These are the priorities that this Government is setting, and it is showing through these appropriations.

As we’ve heard through many, many contributions in this House, Budgets are about choices about whether a Government makes the decisions to fund or cut. And what have we seen from this Government? We certainly have seen a Government that has cut. We have seen a Government that has cut nearly $13 billion set aside for the pay packets of hard-working women in New Zealand to pay for this Budget, and what did we get in exchange for that? “A Working for Families increase”, the Minister of Finance told us in the House, was the big cost of living relief that was contained in the Budget—142,000 families are going to receive an extra $7 a week from next April. That’s the big cost of living measure that the Minister of Finance can point to in this Budget.

Best Start will be cut. It will be income tested for the entire three years from 1 April. There are going to be thousands of families that will no longer receive those payments. Jobseeker: the age of eligibility has been raised. Then, if we look into the documents and we see what the changes were that happened in terms of jobseeker support and emergency benefit numbers between Budgets 2024 and 2025, we can see that that appropriation increased by $276 million. That figure rose because of the policies of this Government, a Government that is not putting the jobs of New Zealanders at the centre of the choices it is making. We have seen 30,000 jobs in construction disappear because this is a Government that has cut infrastructure programmes, that has slowed down the State house build, and that has stalled our housing market in New Zealand. Instead, we had to have an increase in the amount that was paid out in jobseeker support.

What have we seen in terms of housing? This was a Budget that not only trumpeted the fact that it was cutting people out of emergency housing and motels, but we are also now seeing that 3,500 State house builds that were planned under our Government and funded for under our Government are being cut. These are the choices that this Government is making.

I really want to talk about energy, as we finish up. The Minister for Energy presided over a Budget that cuts support for New Zealand businesses and households at a time when they are struggling with their power bills. This is a Minister for Energy that not only could not gain more support for New Zealand households and businesses; he couldn’t even sustain what was already there. He let that Budget be cut at the very time when New Zealand businesses and New Zealand households could do with that support for their power and energy costs. He’s a Minister for Energy that could not even withstand holding the line on the money that was already there, let alone have the ability to go and get more in the Budget.

What was in the Budget was $200 million put aside for the fossil-fuel industry—for the fossil-fuel industry.

Grant McCallum: To replace coal.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Let’s unpack this. I can hear some chirping on the other side—some very ill-informed chirping on the other side.

Even if you believed that there was oil and gas to be found and you should find it, how long would that take to come on stream? Well, on average, in New Zealand, around 10 years. We are not talking about relief for New Zealand households and businesses if this was to be found. We are also talking about bringing on stream some of the most expensive marginal cost of electricity that you could, through gas. We certainly are not talking about cutting the costs of energy for New Zealand businesses, and we certainly are not talking about security of supply, because, after our Government proudly ended oil and gas exploration in 2018, over $1 billion was spent on existing permits and they came up dry.

The Minister came to select committee dressed in his costume that he’d spent more time picking than actually preparing to tell New Zealanders how he would spend $200 million and what the criteria for deciding who he would hand that subsidy out to would be. He came to select committee and told us that it was needed for security of supply. Now, this just does not stack up. What we have is a Government that has no plan for energy security in New Zealand and has no plan to help New Zealand households and businesses. Instead, we have a Minister for Energy that allows the Budget to be cut. Money that had been put aside by previous Governments to assist households and businesses, he blindly stood by and let the knife slice through and had no plan to put in place instead about how it is that we could support this.

Now, the Minister for Resources came and said that the whole of the South Island could be opened up for exploration. Someone should tell the Minister for Resources that billions of dollars have been spent looking for oil and gas in the South Island and that exploration has come up dry. There is no plan. This is a Government that makes choices to the detriment of New Zealand, and it is a Government that is not putting the jobs, the homes, and the health of New Zealanders at the first, and it certainly is not one that puts them first.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. He pai rawa tēnei pire mō ngā tāngata katoa o Aotearoa, ā, tae atu ki te iwi Māori—this bill is very good for all New Zealanders, including Māori.

Probably about now, I’d be depressed if it wasn’t for such a great Budget and a great imprest bill, after the Chiefs’ narrow four-point loss on Saturday night. I know most New Zealanders are grieving right now, but, fortunately, we’ve got good news today—good news that cheers me up—and it’s not just ACT’s psilocybin prescription!

Hon Dr Megan Woods: Talk about how good the Crusaders were, Ryan!

RYAN HAMILTON: Oh, that can wait for another day, indeed. But, credit where credit’s due, I must acknowledge the Crusaders.

I do want to focus my comments on some remarks that have been made. My great chair on the Finance and Expenditure Committee, Cameron Brewer, already alluded to the things that we’re hearing and the things that we’re not hearing. We’re not hearing the acknowledgments for learning support investment and the Ongoing Resourcing Scheme (ORS) funding, which is the greatest in a generation. We’re not hearing about our support for our disability sector, which we got a lot of grief for, a long time ago. We’re certainly not hearing about the increase to KiwiSaver, which we supported.

There are some very good acknowledgments. I do want to touch on some of the things in the Budget: the changes to KiwiSaver; the investments to health, education, law and order; the launch of Investment Boost and Invest New Zealand, which will pass its third reading later today; funding to support defence, which is so crucial, as we heard today, and our part to play in those global shifting sands; new infrastructure; $1 billion in hospitals and $700 million in schools; and, of course, our targeted cost of living to middle and low income earners.

Let me start with KiwiSaver. We’ve reduced the Government contribution. In a way, we’ve means tested it. As Mr Brewer pointed out, the Opposition could have done that, but we’ve done that to those who have incomes over $180,000. We’ve reduced that amount because it’s no longer required at that income level. Also, we’ve halved the $1,000 contribution to $500, because when KiwiSaver was introduced, it was a bit of an incentive, but now, with millions of people in KiwiSaver, it’s no longer fit for purpose.

I also want to draw attention to the fact that we’ve opened up KiwiSaver to the 16- and 17-year-olds that can now contribute through their employment package. My non-solicited financial advice to those young people would be: ratchet your KiwiSaver contributions up, do a good deal with your employer, and put in as much as you can. If you can do 10 percent of your PAYE income into KiwiSaver, crank it up and even top it up more. If 16- to 17-year-olds can start lifting their KiwiSaver contributions early and compound that, by the time that they’re 22, 23, 24, 25, and potentially with a partner, they’re going to have much easier access into their first home. If you do that in the context of the Resource Management Act reforms, which Minister Bishop is doing, which is to flood the housing market with supply, it’s going to be much more easy and attainable for our young people to get into homes, which is just fantastic. I’m really excited about that. I’d also like to draw attention to Investment Boost very quickly. We’ve heard a lot about it since Budget day, but that accelerated 20 percent depreciation on top of normal depreciation—so, in many cases, nearly 30 percent.

We had great success out at Fieldays. We know the coalition Government were out there in force. We had a lot of positive feedback. People were saying, “You guys are everywhere.”, and we’re only pleased to support them. People were giving us lots of feedback, like “Someone’s listening.”, “A Government that supports farmers.” That’s great feedback both from exhibitors and the farming community, and on the back of the official cash rate dropping, the banking inquiry putting sunlight on rural lending, good Fonterra payouts, and now this accelerated depreciation—Investment Boost—it was great news. Over 110,000 people attended Fieldays, despite wet weather, on the back of some great Government policy. It was truly a satisfying four days out there.

I also want to draw some attention to health, because we just had some announcements from the Minister of Health this morning. It was derived from some of that allocation that had been set aside in that Budget. I mentioned the investment in the learning support workers, ORS funding—the largest in a generation; the largest in a generation. But wait, there’s more: we’ve also now had the largest funding towards capitation for GPs in a generation. That’s two generational increases on the back of our second Budget.

This Government is focused on results. When you’re able to see your doctor or your nurse earlier, you stay healthier and out of hospital, and we all know that’s better for the system and better for New Zealanders. Too many New Zealanders have struggled to get care because their local GP just isn’t taking more patients or the next available appointment is weeks away. This funding boost is about to turn things around. It’s part of our $1.37 billion investment in Health New Zealand. This was the agreement that the sector reached with Minister Brown only a few days ago.

Under this agreement, GPs will receive a 13.89 percent—so nearly a 14 percent—funding increase for capitation, and that’s on the back of the 4 percent capitation funding last year. That’s a nearly 18 percent capitation increase for GPs, which is just incredible. Not long after I was elected, I met, in 2024, with one of our local GPs in Hamilton, and, like a lot of GPs, they were actually mortgaging personal property to prop up their clinics. They were capping patients coming in, and they were actually personally subsidising their business because the capitation hadn’t been lifted much, I think, in a 20-year period. This is significant. This is an 18 percent increase in two years. We know the importance of delivering healthcare in those primary sector, front-line suburban areas, and of course rural too. I’d like to acknowledge Vanessa Weenink, the MP for Banks Peninsula; she herself is a GP and has advocated very hard for a capitation increase for some time. The challenge that doctors have had is this supressed capitation and their inability to raise fees, and they’ve been trapped in the middle. For our very GPs that we want to support, this is some fantastic work for them.

A $59 million capitation increase for the number of patients enrolled with individual general practices, $60 million for improved patient access to appointments and to encourage practices to provide more data to enable more performance-based funding, $30 million for performance-based funding for improved immunisation outcomes, and $26 million in additional outcomes for GPs to keep fees capped on community services card holders and those on low incomes and to prevent fee increases for those under 14 years. It’s really good news for GPs and our health. This is the largest investment in general practice in decades, but, more importantly, it’s tied to better results, shorter wait times, higher immunisation rates, and more patients getting the care they need in the community.

I just want to reflect on this investment that builds on the Government’s comprehensive primary care package announced earlier this year, including increased access to urgent and after-hours care, 100 clinical placements for overseas-trained doctors, recruitment incentives for up to 400 graduate nurses annually for five years, 100 doctor training places over the course of this Government, up to 50 graduate doctors training in primary care, up to 120 training places for nurse practitioners in primary care, better access to 24/7 digital services, and accelerated tertiary education for up to 120 primary care nurses. So, despite the Chiefs losing, despite the Blues losing, despite the Crusaders winning, there is some good news, I’m pleased to announce.

Finally, just to talk about Invest New Zealand, which, I believe, we’ll have our third reading on later today—this is going to be the one-stop shop for foreign investment being able to invest in New Zealand.

Dan Bidois: City of the future.

RYAN HAMILTON: We want to make it easy to bring—that’s right, the city of the future: Hamilton. Thank you for that, Dan. I hadn’t mentioned New Zealand’s fastest-growing city, Hamilton, now with international flights out of the Gold Coast and Sydney! But I digress.

Investment Boost is going to be fantastic for New Zealand, led by our Minister—Minister “Trade McClay”—attracting foreign direct investment, encouraging corporations to set up operations in New Zealand, acting as a one-stop shop, facilitating collaboration, supporting existing investors, and acting as a source of expertise to improve the policy and regulatory environment.

Mr Speaker, there is so much to unpack in this Budget, and I hope you’ll appreciate that I focused on health and the announcement around capitation and general practice around New Zealand. It’s good news. We should hold our heads up high. This Government is proud to deliver its second Budget. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

The next call is a split call.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, I say to 16- and 17-year-olds around the country: do not take financial advice from that member Ryan Hamilton or this Government. They’re saying, “Well, all they have to do is crank up their investment into their own KiwiSaver to get into a home later in their lives.” Well, that might be OK, but it’s hard when this Government, through their decisions in this Budget, have shrunk the economy. It’s hard when you look across a squeezed job market right now where young people cannot even get into the job market. It’s hard when this Government, through their choices, have actually made it even harder for pay increases for young people right across this country. I say to 16- and 17-year-olds, as they listen to this particular debate, do not take financial advice from this particular Government.

I stand in opposition to these two bills that are being debated right now, the Appropriation (2024/25 Supplementary Estimates) Bill and the Imprest Supply (First for 2025/26) Bill. I want to pick up a number of words that I’ve heard from the Government benches on this matter. The first one is “an increase of productivity”. Well, we know that when you shrink the economy and when you take money out of important sectors that see productivity lifted in this country and pretend like you’ve invested it elsewhere—well, productivity does not simply lift because of an announcement. I can also say this: productivity’s primary driver is people, but people are turning their back on this Government and their Budget. We know that despite their announcement around the Investment Boost, right now, Kiwis across this country are keeping their hands in their pockets because they know that the world climate for investment right now is not a good one. They know, and their banks told this Government that, despite their announcement, most Kiwis are going to sit on their hands because they know turbulent times are here and even more potential turbulent times are coming.

We heard an admission in the House today that nobody has spoken about: that is, this Government has finally realised that global matters impact on New Zealand’s economy. Throughout the entire 2023 campaign, we heard that side of the House, from the National Party, saying it was because of the Government’s decisions that the inflation rate was so high. Well, with a quick look at the trends and a quick look at all of the statistics right across this country around productivity and interest rates, they’ll see that global matters matter. I say to this Government, with what’s happening now, as sad as it is, it’s going to get even harder. This Government might crow all they like about what they’re investing in these spaces, but it means nothing when people are not investing.

I also want to talk about another term I’ve heard from that side of the House: “fiscal responsibility”. Well, say that to the Kiwis who are stranded either here in Wellington or in Picton because of the ferry decisions made by that Government. They want to talk to us about fiscal responsibility, and here we are listening to that side of the House say that they’re here, making sure they can manage our fiscals responsibly. Ultimately, there has been a lot of money wasted, there has been a lot of money taken out of the pockets of New Zealanders right around this country, and my colleagues have done a great job at pointing to a number of those factors. One, pay equity: we know that in order to get more productivity and to make sure our people are paid a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work, you’ve got to invest in them. This Government has decided, through these bills and through their choices here in this Parliament, that do they do not back our wāhine and they do not back our low-paid workers right around the country.

Ultimately, Budgets are about choices, and I heard the member’s opening remarks in his contribution. Pai tō reo Māori. [Your reo Māori is good.] It’s fantastic to hear Ryan Hamilton speaking Māori; he talks about how fast Hamilton’s growing—well, he whenua Māori tēnā. [that is Māori land.] That’s fantastic. It’s great to see te reo Māori growing in the rhetoric of the National Party, after they’ve turned their back on it over the past 18 months.

That member talks about investment in Māori. Well, look at Māori housing investment and the money that, through this Government, has been taken away from Māori housing investment. They talk about Treaty settlements. Well, we’ve seen what they’re trying to do to Ngāpuhi, to my relations, and I can tell them—and Grant McCallum can tell them too—they’re in for a fight. They think the Musket Wars were bad—you take on Ngāpuhi and it’s not going to end well.

I stand in opposition to these bills. I want to make clear to that side of the House that they can spout all the announcements that they want—like those that they’ve given over the past three months—but they’ll realise that Kiwis see right through that garbage.

I have to first address and actually correct what was spoken before me, particularly about the economy shrinking, because I believe the member who just spoke before me, Peeni Henare, clearly didn’t watch the news last week and clearly didn’t watch the news another quarter ago. Stats New Zealand last week reported that the economy of New Zealand grew 0.8 percent—grew—in the first three months of the year, twice the rate forecasted by Treasury and the Reserve Bank a short time ago.

There is more: this is the second consecutive quarter in which growth outstripped the assumption by the forecast. Let it be clear, New Zealanders: the economy is back on track. The Government is back on track. The adults in this country are now in Government, cutting wasteful spending and actually reprioritising so we can put the useful resources, the very hard-earned New Zealand taxpayers’ money, into the places where it’s needed the most, and so that we can make sure that we are not spending on wasteful projects, on things that don’t drive delivery, and on things that don’t deliver us any efficiency or impact. Actually, maybe we should start building something for the country, because, in the last six years, the Government clearly—clearly—spent a lot of money, but I don’t see any single new bridge, new tunnel, or new highway. Where has the money gone? Anyway, Stats New Zealand now have confirmed that New Zealand is back on track, with the economy growing 0.8 percent in the first three months of this year.

Now, I do rise to support the second readings of the Appropriation (2024/25 Supplementary Estimates) Bill and the Imprest Supply (First for 2025/26) Bill. While these are very technical bills, like the Minister of Finance has explained a bit earlier, they are very important because they underpin a fundamental principle in our democracy, which is that the Government of the day cannot spend a single cent, particularly on capital expenditure, without the authority of this Parliament. More importantly, these bills reflect the kind of Government that the National Government is. We are disciplined, we are careful, and we are relentlessly focused on delivering outcomes for New Zealanders. We’re not here to spend like there’s no tomorrow, like the last Labour Government, but we are here to deliver for New Zealanders and to do that without further indebting our children and the future generations.

Now, we inherited rising debt and persistent deficits, and that’s why Budget 2024, under the great leadership of the Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, was designed not as a wish list but actually as a deliverable plan, one that would actually demand better outcomes and one that will deliver better outcomes for every taxpayer dollar.

Take health: $5.5 billion in new funding is being invested into hospital services, primary care, and community health. Actually, today, that was a great, great announcement to all the GPs out there. I have a really, really close friend who is my personal GP, who had texted immediately and said, “Oh my God, finally—finally a Government that listens to us and sees the critical need to further support us.” Take education: the Government is investing $464 million to lift school achievements, including support for additional learning needs, and another $100 million for targeted maths support. Let’s take law and order. In law and order, extra money has been prioritised for front-line policing and serious youth offender intervention.

Now, take it back to another one: what are we doing to grow the economy? What is this Budget doing to help the Government to grow this economy? I just take us back to one thing: Investment Boost, the new tax incentives that got the market and people so excited. As a chartered accountant myself, many of my former colleagues have called me and said their practices have not been this busy for the last seven years. Businesses call them and say, “Oh my God, tell me about this. Can I do it today? What can I do it with? What is it that I can spend on? Tell me about it today, because I am ready to do something, but I need to understand: are we serious? Is this Government serious about backing the growth of Kiwi businesses?” Here, to them: yes, we are serious. We are backing you to grow. This is why I support this bill.

The previous speaker, Nancy Lu, began with a correction, so let me begin with one, too. The previous speaker correctly pointed out that on a quarterly basis, the economy was up 0.8 percent in the first quarter of this year. That’s what the Stats New Zealand data told us. They also told us that on an annual basis, to March this year, growth in the economy was down; in fact, it was negative 1.1 percent. It fell 1.1 percent on an annual basis. More tellingly, in the last month or so, there has been data coming out showing that if there was growth in the first quarter, it has stalled in the second quarter. Retail card spending was down 0.2 percent in May. The Business New Zealand’s Performance of Service Index strayed below 50 in its most recent index.

What does that show? It shows an economy that is waiting, waiting, waiting, not sure. It shows a service sector where there is no growth occurring, and the service sector makes up about three-quarters of our GDP. I’m just going to suggest to the previous speaker that while one might crow about the last quarter, it would be advisable to wait for just a wee bit more data to tell whether anything has really changed. It’s too soon yet to know.

In terms of the debate that we are having today on the imprest supply and the Supplementary Estimates, the Minister of Finance opened the debate and told us a lot about what these bills are and how they operated. Then she made some very telling remarks. She said, “Governments make choices.”—she said, “Governments make choices.” I say that, yes, Governments do make choices, and their choices let us know what kind of people they are.

The Minister of Finance talked in broad terms. She said that in the first Budget they had presented, they saved $23 billion; in the second Budget they presented, they saved $21 billion. She used words like “fiscal constraint”, and she said then that these were the “choices” they have made on behalf of New Zealanders: to cut, to do away with, to undermine, to underfund. Those are the choices she said that they had made on behalf of New Zealanders. But it does beg the question: what do New Zealanders want?

Like Mr Hamilton over there, I spent time at Fieldays the week before last, and as we usually do, we had an issues board at our stall—at the Labour stall. The number one issue for people attending Fieldays, rural people and urban people alike, was the cost of living. That was the biggest issue for them; the one thing that they saw as a huge issue was the cost of living. What did New Zealanders want? Well, they wanted help with the cost of living. What has that Government offered? Well, they’ve offered $14 a fortnight, starting in April next year, for families.

Now, let’s carry on with that, thinking about what’s going on right now. You see right now, food prices are up 4.4 percent, year on year. That was the statistics release that came out just a few days after the Budget—it came out last week: 4.4 percent, year on year. This is from last year, since when this Government has been at the helm. Beef has gone up 16.2 percent, year on year; lamb has gone up 20.3 percent, year on year; cheese is up 17.3 percent, year on year; milk is up 13.7 percent, year on year; electricity has gone up 8.7 percent, year on year. What is that Government offering? What is that Government offering? It’s offering—

Tom Rutherford: What about rent? Talk about rent.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: Up 2.1 percent, year on year. It’s offering $7 a week starting in April next year. How have they paid for that? They’ve paid for it by taking Best Start away from 61,000 families. That’s the kind of response that that Government has had to the daily cost of living problems faced by ordinary, everyday families in New Zealand—$7 a week, next year. If we ask New Zealanders what they want, it turns out they want some of the basics. They want health, they want welfare, they want education. These are some of the great agreements that were forged in this country as far back as the 1920s and 1930s when the welfare State was formed in this country and we agreed that we were better off doing health and welfare and education together.

This Government has not chosen health and welfare and education. We know that hospitals are not being built; they’re being downsized. We know that patients are queuing in the corridors. We know that people can’t get the mental health assistance they need when they want it. We know that this Government has cut emergency housing. We know that there are more people on welfare at the moment but that the increases in the benefit have not matched increases in wages—people on benefit are going backwards. We know, in terms of education, that that Government has cut pay equity for teachers. That Government is undermining the great things that New Zealanders want: health and welfare and education. The Government has not chosen those.

One of the speakers over there talked about the hard work of running a business, and he was quite correct. It is extraordinarily hard to run a business. Those business owners do it tough. You see, the thing is, in terms of running a business, they just want to get on with it, and they don’t think there’s any magic money tree to run their business. But there is no magic worker tree either to run a business. There is no magic worker just out there who is going to turn up day after day in a business without a decent wage, and more importantly, without the support of the health system, without the support of the welfare system, without the support of the education system.

You see, that’s how workers get to turn up to support business owners day after day after day. They do it because they have the security of the health system, and the welfare system, and the education system. That was the great compact forged in the 1920s and the 1930s by the Labour Party. In the face of the destruction from the right, we forged a compact that said that in this country, we will all pitch in together and look after each other. That is why business owners can have workers in their businesses, because those workers have the health and welfare and education systems.

The line that was coming from over there was the line about there being no magic money tree to pay for all this. Well, there is also no magic teacher tree; there is no magic nurses tree; there is no magic police officers tree. If we want these sorts of people working to support us, then they don’t come from nowhere. We actually need to have an economy that supports them, and that Government has chosen to contract the economy, chosen to undermine the economy.

Now, they say they’re interested in growth. And there was one measure in their Budget which they said would add to growth. It was going to maybe add 1 percent to growth over the next 20 years. It took until the eighth speaker in this debate for anyone to even mention partial expensing. They kept on talking about being proud of their Budget, but the key point of their Budget for businesses, it took them right through until the eighth speaker to mention, and even the Minister of Finance didn’t mention it at all. And yet it was one of the key points of their Budget.

That is not a Government that is proud of their Budget. You can see why: sitting in the Supplementary Estimates of appropriation, sitting in the revenue section, there’s a section that forecasts a $324 million increase in the forecast impairment of debt and debt write-offs due to debt—forecast debt growth across all tax types. That Government is predicting that they are going to write off more tax debt than ever before. Then we look and see why that is the case. It is as a result of the global economic environment.

This is an economy that is in trouble. It’s seen in those figures there—those tax debt write-off figures—and it’s seen in the increased numbers for the jobseeker benefit because more and more and more people are out of work. That Government has done nothing to support ordinary New Zealanders in the Budget and is doing nothing to deal with the fundamental problems that they have caused by undermining the economy. They should be utterly ashamed of this Budget.

It’s a pleasure to be the last speaker in this debate and to round off this exciting discussion of the imprest supply bill and the Budget Estimates bill as well. I do want to go back to some comments from the other side—in particular one from Megan Woods—and say to her, look, we don’t measure our success as a Government based on how much we appropriate; we measure it based on the outcomes that we are actually able to achieve. If you take housing and homelessness, like what Megan talked about, we’ve got a great Minister here, Tama Potaka, who’s managed to turn that around in a very short space of time. I’m really pleased to announce to the House that more than 1,000 families are no longer in dark, dingy motels. That’s over 2,000 children that are no longer in hotels—

Tom Rutherford: Remember it costed a million dollars a day.

DAN BIDOIS: A million dollars a day. There you go. Thank you, Tom Rutherford. For those of you who’ve monitored the situation in Rotorua, I remember the days in the last Government where Rotorua became a bit of an emergency housing city. I was really pleased to see an item on the news the other day saying that they’re on track to have no emergency motels by the end of this year. That is really great testament to the work that we’ve done and the work that we continue to do.

Now, I just want to reflect, because we have just come out of a week of scrutiny of the Government—

Hon David Seymour: Didn’t feel like it.

DAN BIDOIS: Doesn’t feel like it. That’s right, David Seymour. I just want this House to know that I felt that there was a general level of flatness amongst the Opposition members. There were no knockout punches, I should say—only F-bombs and S-bombs. There was no “gotcha” moments—only props and empty rhetoric. To me, it showed an Opposition that hasn’t done the work. They haven’t done the mahi. They haven’t put in the work to understand what is in the Budget, and they don’t get the rewards. They don’t get the rewards. Now, don’t do the mahi; don’t get the treats. That’s a clear adage that I try to apply when I’m at the gym.

On this side of the House, we’re focused on really two things: growth and delivering better outcomes. I’m really pleased to see Ryan Hamilton; he had a great speech talking about all the extensive things that are in the Budget that are focused on growing better outcomes in health, education, law and order, and you name it.

My focus is really around growth, and I want this speech to be focused on growth. Just take a step back and understand where New Zealand’s economy is at the moment, we’ve come out of the worst recession since 1991. Why were we in that recession? Because interest rates were jacked up and because of the cost of living crisis and the debt that the previous Government had doubled. Now, we have a recovery under way.

It was great to see Deborah Russell at Fieldays—and a lot of my colleagues as well. I must say it was a really positive, upbeat environment amongst our rural communities. I had my gumboots from Birkenhead on, and it was a really great, upbeat environment. I think—

Tom Rutherford: Did she stand in my seat?

DAN BIDOIS: That’s right—no, Tom. Look, I think there’s actually a real positive growth trajectory, particularly in our rural communities, which is real positive to see.

I do want to acknowledge—and I want to put this in the House, today—that I think there’s a two-stroke economy that we’ve got in New Zealand at the moment. We’ve got the rural economy, which is driving our economic recovery, but in parts of Auckland, like where I represent in Northcote, we’ve got some tough times at the moment. I do want to acknowledge that people are still struggling with the cost of living, and we have a construction sector that’s still understanding how that pipeline looks. We’ve got some real big challenges, and I do just want to say that we’ve got a lot of work to do on this side, in Government, so that the other side of New Zealand sees that economic recovery like the rural sector does.

I want to turn my attention to debt, because out of every aspect of this Budget, I think the most important number is how much debt we’re in as a country. Right now, we’re forecast to have a debt that is $277 billion this year, and that is very concerning. In fact, if you put that on a per-household basis, that’s about $136,000 per household. Let me break down the fiscals for those of you on the other side that haven’t read the Budget documents. This coming year, we’ve got a forecast revenue of $175 billion. How much are we due to spend? We’re due to spend $191 billion, which leaves us with a deficit situation—according to this new measure, the operating balance before gains and losses, excluding ACC revenue and expenses—of about $12 billion. Now, that’s $12 billion that we’re going to have to borrow from overseas, and we’re going to be borrowing that money every year until we get back to surplus. This Government has certainly got a path back to surplus in the 2028-29 period. That is the state of our economy. That’s our fiscals. We are growing again, but it’s a little bit uneven.

I do want to acknowledge that, actually, it’s been real positive; growth on a per-person basis is now 0.5 percent, on a quarterly basis. That is positive, but we want to see more from that. I would encourage every single one of my colleagues on this side of the table to think it’s not just about growth; it’s actually about growth relative to our peers, because no one cares about growing. It’s actually about growth relative to Australia, relative to America, and the UK. We’ve got a lot to do to make sure that we are growing faster than our peers so that my son doesn’t have to leave to go overseas and can have a great future right here in New Zealand.

That turns me to the Budget, because this Budget was all about growth. I don’t think in my time understanding Budgets that there really have been Budgets that are transformative. I think the most important role of Budgets is setting the general direction, the direction of the boat.

Hon David Seymour: Some of the Labour ones transformed us.

DAN BIDOIS: In more ways than one. That’s right. Certainly, I think the most important part of a Budget is setting the direction of the ship and where the ship is going. I think, with this Budget, what we’ve found is that Nicola Willis, our finance Minister, has tried to steer the ship in a direction that’s pro-growth, pro - returning to surplus, and is actually trying to get this fiscal ship under good management.

That’s why, in terms of growth, my colleague here Cameron Brewer, ably chairing the Finance and Expenditure Committee, has talked about Investment Boost, KiwiSaver, and Invest New Zealand. No one here has talked about the investor visa that Erica Stanford’s got. I think that’s excellent news. There are people that want to pay to come here—and pay a lot of money—and invest in New Zealand. That is great news. We should be encouraging more of that and unlocking the bottlenecks in the way to make that happen.

In terms of cost of living relief, that is by far the top issue in this country. There were some good wins in the Budget. The 12-month free prescriptions: if you’re one of those who needs those prescriptions, you’re having to renew them every 90 days, and that, of course, has a cost associated with that. The eligibility thresholds for rates rebates: I think anybody over 65 would definitely be appreciative of the work we’ve done there. The commitment to no new regional fuel taxes: that’s also very, very positive. We have a lot of work to do on cost of living—we know that—and the best thing we can do for the cost of living is improve our economy. That is, by far, the number one thing. The last thing we need is an alternative approach, which is to dish out money. That is what we’re focused on here.

I just want to spend the last minute talking about our long-term challenges, because, in my sense, beyond the forecast period, we’ve got some real big challenges to face. Treasury’s own forecasts say that debt-to-GDP is going to balloon to over 100 percent of GDP by the time I’ve far left this world. I think we need some greater bipartisanship from across the House on things like superannuation, raising the age, putting in means testing, and other things like that. Infrastructure: we have some fantastic infrastructure projects, but we need the other side to support them because, sooner or later, they may be in office, sadly, and we need them to support those projects.

Education: we should all agree on the things that are actually making a difference to improve our kids’ educational performance, healthcare, and the like. We’ve got some big challenges here. I would encourage those members from across the House to come to a bipartisan consensus with our side. We’re up for it, we’re ready, we’re focused, and we’re getting our economy back on track. I support this bill in the House.

Those bills are set down for third reading immediately.