Robertson Grant; Salesa JennyAPPROPRIATION (2023/24 ESTIMATES) BILLThird ReadingIMPREST SUPPLY (SECOND FOR 2023/24) BILLSecond ReadingHon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I move That the Appropriation (2023/24 Estimates) Bill be now read a third time and the Imprest Supply (Second for 2023/24) Bill be now read a second time.This is the conclusion effectively of the Budget debate and I will return to the Government's Wellbeing Budget in a moment. But firstly to deal with the Imprest Supply (Second for 2023/24) Bill what this does—as all imprest supply bills do—is provide interim parliamentary authority for expenditure decisions made or to be made by the Government through to the end of the financial year that are in addition to the amounts in the Estimates in this case the 2023/24 Estimates.The second imprest bill provides for any operating or capital spending decisions including pre-commitments against future Budget allowances and expenditure incurred against the between Budget contingency and national resilience plan. It also covers fiscally neutral adjustments which increase one appropriation but decrease another confirmation of expense transfers increases in demand-driven appropriations and draw-downs of existing tagged contingency. Provision is also made for any risks that may materialise during this period.The amount requested in the Imprest Supply (Second for 2023/24) Bill is $28.5 billion made up of about $16 billion of expenses $11.5 billion of capital expenditure and $1 billion of capital injections. This is the same amount sought in last year's second imprest supply bill and significantly lower than the $41 billion sought in the Imprest Supply (Second for 2021/22) Bill. The amount sought in this imprest supply bill will be sufficient to cover any expenditure that may occur in the financial year that is in addition to what is in the 2023/24 Estimates including responding to extreme weather events.Treasury reporting indicates that actual expenses incurred against imprest supply Acts are consistently lower than the authority provided for by the legislation. For example the June 2023 controller report indicates that the actual expenses incurred against the Imprest Supply (Second for 2022/23) Act 2022 totalled approximately $11.4 billion. That's less than half of the authority provided in the Act which totalled $28.5 billion. All expenditure incurred under the interim authority of the second imprest bill will need to be appropriated by Parliament before the end of the financial year as is the case every year. This will be done through the Appropriation (2023/24 Supplementary Estimates) Bill which gets introduced on Budget Day 2024.In addition to the imprest supply bill as I said earlier this is the final reading of the Appropriation (2023/24 Estimates) Bill. The Budget debate comes to a conclusion. Can I reiterate as I have said several times during this debate at different readings how proud I am of Budget 2023. Because what that did was strike a balance an important balance for New Zealanders facing cost of living pressures but equally knowing that the Government needs to return to a more sustainable fiscal approach after the significant investments made during the COVID period also knowing that we need to balance that against making sure that public services are provided to New Zealanders in the way that they both need and expect them to be provided and that we responded to the weather events of January and February.It's there that I want to start. I am proud that this Government stepped up straight away with the kind of emergency response that New Zealanders need in these moments. That we were able to be there and provide hundreds of millions of dollars of support in that immediate emergency response phase is both a tribute to the people on the ground in New Zealand—those who work within our civil defence apparatus—but also the marae the local communities and those who do that work. We are for ever grateful for that and as a Government we have backed them. We can only do that as a result of the balanced and responsible approach that we take. But we added to that in this Budget with a further close to a billion dollars making a total of $2 billion that has gone towards the recovery and the rebuild from that cyclone. That is made up of many many different things. I just want to highlight a couple of those. The fact that we now have transport networks across the affected regions reopened—virtually every part of the network now usable—is a tribute to some extraordinary work. And when we see the Bailey bridges being deployed and how much that meant to the communities around it I am proud that we funded that in this Budget. But it goes all the way down to smaller initiatives as well: the work that's been done to roll out mental health support in the regions that have been affected by the cyclone particularly for children as well. As we're working day in day out to improve the delivery of those services we know that they make a difference as well. So that was a big part of Budget 2023: to step up to use our balance sheet to make sure that we look after New Zealanders in times of need. That is what New Zealanders rightly expect of their Government and that is what we have done in this Budget.But alongside that we have sought to ease the cost of living pressures that New Zealanders face whilst doing that in a way that does not exacerbate inflation unnecessarily and achieves other goals that the Government has. That includes for example the $5 prescription fee being scrapped meaning that the 135000 New Zealanders who didn't pick up a prescription because of the cost last year will now get the health care that they need. The important thing here that Dr Ayesha Verrall was indicating today is what that means is that many of those people end up in our emergency departments because they haven't picked up their prescription. So this is actually a win-win in terms of the Budget just as I might say making free public transport is for under - 13-year-olds and half price for under 25year-olds because that is not only relieving a cost of living pressure; it is also good for our environment to see more people in public transport.Then there is the early childhood education commitment that sees the 20 hours' free policy extended to two-year-olds. As I went around the country promoting this Budget it was that initiative that was raised with me time and time again by people who knew that this would make the difference for them. [Interruption] This is an example where members on the other side of the House who are interjecting might actually think about the fact that this policy is not only good for families; it's also good for our businesses because this means that people can return to work earlier than they might otherwise have done. That was the comment I got from young parents particularly young mums saying this is the chance this is the opportunity because this Government and this Budget delivered that cost of living relief.The other significant part of the spending in the Budget is around public services and making sure that we invest in our teachers in our nurses in our hospitals and in our schools. That investment does not happen by accident. Sometimes when we're in this House it appears that members opposite believe that it is a given that that sort of investment will be made. Well it's not. And the reason we know that it's not a given is because it didn't happen the last time that National were in office.This brings me to the other theme of the Budget and that is around fiscal responsibility. It is always a balancing act putting a Budget together. There are hard and tough decisions to be made. We know New Zealand households are making hard and tough decisions and we have been doing the same thing as we bring our spending back down from the necessary levels of COVID. To get that balance right to be able to provide public services to be able to ease the cost of living pressures that people are facing to be able to make our country more resilient to climate change—to do all of those things and make sure that we're being careful fiscally is tough. The thing that would undermine that is proposing huge—billions of dollars of—unfunded tax cuts tax cuts that would see millionaires receiving a thousand dollars a year while those on the minimum wage get two bucks a week. That kind of tax cut worth billions of dollars can only be funded in this environment by making sure that public services are cut. That's the only way it can be done because otherwise it means increasing debt and that's been ruled out by the National Party; they're not going to do that. So apparently they're going to do it by cutting services—billions of dollars—cuts to education cuts to health cuts to housing cuts to the services we rely on.Nicola Willis: No no.Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The member opposite says no it's not. Well she should have a chat with her coalition partner David Seymour. She should have a chit chat with David Seymour because what he says is we can get rid of thousands of public servants. Well that's one thing that's bad. But the second part of it that's bad is that actually that would be the end of the screen sector which is funded in this Budget. That would be the end of the game development rebate funded in this Budget. There would be the end of the major events fund that brought us the FIFA Women's World Cup. All of that gone. So there will be cuts—there will be cuts if there is a change of Government.This Budget is something I am extremely proud of. It is a Budget that got the balance right in tough times. We continue to face those tough times and as a Government we will step up to meet our fiscal rules to get back into surplus across the forecast period to keep debt under 30 percent but all the while we will invest in our people and we will support them through these tough times. That's what Budget 2023 does and I am very proud to present it back to the House.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The question is that the motion be agreed to.