Tabuteau FletcherFLETCHER TABUTEAU (NZ First): I just want to address a statement from the Minister who was in the chair Judith Collins. She spoke about the electricity sector. It was not what I was going to get up to talk about but I just want to point out that since the reforms electricity prices in New Zealand have gone up 146 percent. I give her credit in that she acknowledges the efficiency of big business. I will tell you what it has been really efficient at: it has been incredibly efficient at cost saving and not passing a cent of that on to New Zealand households. How do I know this? It is because prices this winter have already gone up or are pegged to go up yet again. So what the Minister is actually proud of and what she is extolling in this Committee this afternoon is a tax by stealth. Yes Government revenues have gone up because those dividends have gone up because of the efficiency of big business to take money away from households create those savings and pass them on to essentially what will in the main be overseas investors.What I wanted to talk about was the Reserve Bank. I want to congratulate it on acting independently—I speak specifically to loan-to-value ratios. I want to acknowledge it because it was running counter to the Government's ineptitude and casual disregard of what is causing this country's housing crisis. If it were not for the Reserve Bank's actions—and we see this in the report from the committee earlier this year—we would be in dire straits right now. This country and its people are suffering from a market that is shutting them out. New Zealanders are not able to buy homes and to add insult to injury effectively what that means is rental prices have gone through the roof. So if you cannot buy a home—which is almost impossible in Auckland because what is it it is still over $1 million despite the quietening of the market and that is only thanks to the Reserve Bank. It is so expensive to rent.So here we are struggling through the situation—a housing crisis is just one example—and what does the Government do? It continues with unsustainable immigration numbers it blames councils and it describes the scramble by private developers to build homes next to none of which will be affordable as a success of the Government. I think now the continued denial coupled with the absurd spin has angered the everyday people of New Zealand enough for them to at least question their historic loyalty to that tired and out-of-touch Government.That Government's disdain and disregard for people is perhaps best typified in one of the reports we received and that was around the $1000 kick-start package to do with KiwiSaver managed by the IRD. At the time New Zealand First got up and spoke to the detrimental effect that it would have on the uptake of people signing up to KiwiSaver. We were literally laughed at and abused by that side of the Chamber yet not a month later—and this continues to be proven to be true—sign-up rates have decreased. And what do you know; it is actually the children who have been missing out as parents are now opting to not sign their kids up to KiwiSaver because they are not getting that kick-start package.The National Government is shirking its responsibilities with regard to bank guarantees—another Vote issue brought up in select committee. Kiwi depositors are now missing out. Clearly the National Government could not care less about ordinary New Zealanders and their savings. I say this because—and I quote Mr Mortlock a banking expert who says: Depositors in New Zealand have no protection in a bank failure. [We are] the only advanced country in the world without any form of depositor protection." That typifies the thinking of the National Government today.And so it is that I say in closing that the National Government has lost leadership. It has lost the ability to shirk off the responsibilities and the decisions that it is not making. Those three or four examples that I have given the Committee this afternoon are just a small snippet from the appropriations debate that highlights that fact. Thank you."