Simpson ScottHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Well thank you Madam Speaker. I'm not going to talk about showers whether they be long or short because my colleague Stuart Smith—Hon David Bennett: Whether they're cold or hot.Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: —has done a very good job on that—whether they're cold or hot as well says David Bennett.But Grant Robertson's last Budget as finance Minister was a typical Labour Party socialist Budget: big spending. Tax tax tax; spend spend spend. That's what it was all about—a last desperate throw of the dice to try and bribe New Zealanders with their own money. We were told in the lead-up to Budget 2023 that there would be $4 billion having been found down the back of a couch somewhere that Grant Robertson had somehow miraculously managed to save somewhere. Well what we found was actually a Government that in their last year of office is actually collecting $100 million a day extra tax—$100 million a day in extra tax—from hard-working New Zealanders who can least afford it during a cost of living crisis.This is a Government that is spending a billion dollars a week more—$1 billion a week more—than they did when they came to office in 2017. So where is some of this massive spending going? Well some of it's going into the massively bloated Ministry for the Environment a policy advisory department that is twice as large as it was five and a half years ago employing now nearly 1000 people most of them mired in the minutiae of resource management reform. I want to put it to you and to members of this House that actually our environment is no better—arguably far worse—than it was five and a half years ago. For all the big words and the highfalutin talk there has been actually mostly a reversal of environmental benefits that have occurred during this Government's term. Extra funding has been required to feed the beast and the beast is the policy bureaucracy that has actually achieved very little—had an awful lot of meetings an awful lot of hui but very very little actual positive results.On first glance people would think that probably the budget for the environment had gone up massively. Well actually if you drill down into the weeds of the Budget line $500 million of the increased spend in Vote Environment has gone to prop up the collapse of the emissions trading scheme (ETS) unit price. That ETS scheme requires an extra allocation of a massive $500 million because of the loss of sales on the emission units. Now that's just a sad indication a policy decision made by the Government to have that impact. But there was some good news—well I hope it's good news—because for my area of the Coromandel still with munted roads the main highway closed there was an allocation of extra money for the repair of local roads. And that's good news—and that's good news—but I'm very sceptical because this is a Government that's very good on announcements very good on the press releases but absolutely hopeless on the delivery. So what I want to see as the member of Parliament for Coromandel is that money allocated quickly so that the roads administered by the Thames-Coromandel District Council can be fixed and fixed quickly. The Tapu Coroglen Road a council road that is still closed after the cyclones from earlier this year in January needs a lot of money spent on it. Now the Thames-Coromandel District Council doesn't have the resource to do it. We are hoping that central government will quickly allocate some of that money from Budget 2023 to do that. So far no sign. All we've had is the press release and nothing actually happening. That is typical of this Government—no sense of urgency no sense of actually understanding the needs of people in electorates like mine that are still suffering and doing it tough because of the consequences of the cyclones earlier this year. State Highway 25 remains closed with no prospect according to the current Government of it being opened this side of Christmas. That is a shameful and devastating prospect for the people of my electorate who are going to face the fourth consecutive miserable trading summer that they have to face if that road isn't open. So I call on the Government to actually pull finger get on with it. They've allocated the money in the Budget. Why don't they just get on with it do the job get things done and get regions like mine back on track?