Webb DuncanDr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Thank you Madam Chair. Can I say it's with real pleasure that I rise to speak on the Estimates and in particular on finance. Sitting through the Treasury Estimates was quite enlightening in particular because it gave me a real insight into the role that Treasury plays in giving an independent voice and an independent oversight of Government finances and when we listened to Treasury we got pretty much unedited the great state that New Zealand's finances are in. Now that's not to say there's not challenges ahead and that things don't change but when you get constant year-on-year growth you know you're in a good position to face the international storms that may be ahead. So whilst there has been a drop-off in GDP growth Treasury could tell us why that happened and it wasn't due to things that those on the other side would carp on about but it's due to entirely explicable reasons such as slowing immigration a policy which this Government has implemented. So we have what Treasury described as solid growth and to be quite frank I'd rather have solid growth year on year than the erratic kind of growth that the policies of the last Government would have given us. What's more is we heard that our economy is at full capacity—that is to say that there wasn't a whole lot of extra space in there for utilisation. We know that employment is pretty much full: 3.9 percent. There's a few people out there who could get jobs and I know we're working very hard on that but there's not a whole lot of people out there to come into the workforce. So that's really good and the fiscal outlook is good. We were told that in fact core Crown debt is tracking down as had been predicted and in fact we are now in the much needed position Treasury tells us that Crown expenses can go up to meet the deficits in things like infrastructure and social spending. So core Crown expenses will in fact go to an 8.3 percent increase this year—and that's very much needed—and will then still increase by slightly less next year to 6.8 percent. So that's really good because we know there's a whole lot of work to do—a whole lot of catching up to do on fixing our hospitals fixing our schools and improving the welfare of our citizens—but against that background we hear that revenue is increasing. In fact our surpluses are going up. There's going to be an extra $25.4 billion in tax revenue. That's great news—that's great news. What it means is that we've got a whole lot more activity. Despite the naysayers out there and despite the harbingers of doom and gloom we've got a growing economy where tax revenue is going up and Crown spending is going up. So we can do things like the Families Package: spend billions of dollars looking after our families and our children so that they're warm and cared for and they can meet their expenses on a day-to-day basis. Of course we heard about the Living Standards Framework. I must say that the Minister spoke eloquently about the Living Standards Framework and what a great innovation it was—the whole idea of across-department bids for funding. So we know that if we're going to apply for funds we don't simply want the Ministry of Education applying for funds for the mental health but we're also getting the Ministry of Health coming for those funds or Whānau Ora—a whole lot across the range—so that parties are working together and are not at cross purposes. It's that whole idea of not simply saying how much we're spending and what the outputs are but what are the real mental health outcomes of a spend for example. So it was really good to hear that and to hear an explanation of the distinctions between human capital and social capital. The idea of education being partly human capital increasing the nature of us as individuals but also being part of social capital—the idea that we're a better society for it. If for example in our schools we learn Te Reo we're a better more connected community. So it was really good to see the Minister of Finance explaining that innovative approach and talking about what a strong position our economy is in. CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): I call the Hon Paul Goldsmith.