Woodhouse MichaelHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker—an inspired choice thanks to my lobbying. I must say my sense of esteem for the voters of Northland has just gone up exponentially as a consequence of that speech. But I do congratulate the Deputy Prime Minister and his ministerial colleagues—one day he'll get to know their names—on their election to Government office. Having been there for the last nine years and five as a Minister I get some insight into the challenges and the opportunities and I wish them all the best.In particular congratulations to Messrs Curran Parker and Clark—those Ministers in this Government who hail from the deep South of Dunedin. A lot was said over the last few years about Dunedin's challenges and the opportunities that they would take to improve things like the flooding issues in South Dunedin the setting up of a gaming centre of excellence I think and of course the issues around the Southern District Health Board and Dunedin Hospital.While we didn't see eye to eye on all of those things by any stretch I certainly commit to working as I think we have in the past in a collegial way to ensure the best for the city of Dunedin. I'll even go as far as to say this of the Minister of Health Dr Clark. He has said some significant things about the speed and nature of the Dunedin Hospital rebuild that in the advice that he's likely to get he will probably need to retract and cool down and slow down.I would say to him this: I'm not going to be too critical of that if indeed he has to do this. The project is too important. Both parties committed more than a billion dollars to upgrading the physical infrastructure to ensure that there is a modern fit for purpose facility well into the 21st century. I will know well enough how difficult that is and how the drum-beating rhetoric in Opposition might not be matched when he sees the reality of the challenges of finding a location devising service specification and actually envisioning what the future of healthcare for the South is. As I say I won't be too critical if it's necessary for him to cool his heels somewhat and I look forward to working with him to getting the best outcome for the South.But in respect of the reflections that one has in Opposition I guess it's fair to say that we have a little more time on our hands to reflect on the political philosophies that brought us to this place. Sometimes in Government one gets so caught up in the day-to-day development of policy and the implementing of programmes it is difficult to find the time to sit back and reflect on why it is we are here. I have certainly appreciated—it's one silver lining—the opportunity to do that to reflect on the things that are core to National Party people: liberty freedom individual responsibility the right to live independent from the State and to live well and in the manner of that person's choosing.Indeed in the Speech from the Throne we heard a little bit of a nod to that when it was said: This government aspires for this country to be a country where all are accepted no matter who they are where they come from how they live or what their religious beliefs are"—noble sentiments; only the actions of the Government are completely the opposite of the freedoms that are espoused in the Speech from the Throne. But there was a nod to it actually in the page before that—indeed around tax. I think the battleground is best fought in the attitude towards tax where the speech says—I think it's at page six—"There will be a progressive tax system." Well we already have a progressive tax system so that's code actually for a more progressive tax system "where everyone pays their fair share according to their means." Now where have we heard those words from? Karl Marx: "from each according to their means"—the socialist propaganda is embedded in the Speech from the Throne. Let there be no doubt of the goal of the Labour-led Government to socialise the freedoms and the liberties that they already talked about but won't follow up on—a progressive tax system according to their means.I think we've seen another nod in all of the sorts of approaches we're seeing where the previous Government through their Family Incomes Package in Budget 2017 were going to increase the tax thresholds that would benefit the lower-income families the most: increasing accommodation supplements and Working for Families that would have paid some families over $150 more a week and lift 50000 children out of poverty. But because those tax changes were going to give me a tax cut they're going to get rid of it. And 50000 children will stay in poverty. What will they be replacing it with? A Best Start package which means that the very high-income earning colleague of mine who is about to have his third child is going to get a baby bonus. Well I'm sorry—and I don't speak for him—but if it were me I would say "No thanks. I don't need the State's help. There are many more families and children in this country that need it more."Again a nod to this is in the Ministry for Vulnerable Children. The name is going to be changed now to the Ministry for Children. Well I'm sorry; the Government does not need to minister to my children. I am their father; I will look after them as every responsible parent in this country should. But if they can't—or won't—and that puts those children at risk then it is absolutely right and proper for the State to intervene in a targeted way that restores that child and those families to the independence that they themselves aspired to in the Speech from the Throne.Hon Tim Macindoe: That's absolutely right. That's what it's all about.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: It is not about that unfortunately Mr Macindoe; it is about universality and it is about treating classes of people as classes. Oh that it were the case Tim Macindoe that that were the aspiration. Indeed in my reflections that is the country that I aspire to: a country that keeps the Government out of people's lives when it's unnecessary to intervene.Now let's talk about promises because indeed we heard the promise to be more transparent and to deliver transparent mechanisms to hold the Government to account: "This government will foster a more open and democratic society. It will strengthen transparency around official information."—it will strengthen transparency around official information. Well that should be withdrawn and an apology made to the people of New Zealand because only five weeks in and we are seeing roadblocks being thrown in the way of the right to know what the plans of this Government are and the equivocation and the obfuscation around an agreement that I understand was signed and was given to Ministers and it matters not one bit whether they had been sworn in at that point or not: it is their road map for how Government administration will be undertaken and the public has a right to know what's in those 33 pages. In fact my guess is that it will be the size of a postage stamp by the time they get back to the office this afternoon. It will be shrunk and put out of sight because they talk about transparency and they don't act on it.But the saddest thing about the first five weeks in Government is the retractions and the withdrawals of the commitments that they made to this country prior to coming to office. I'll mention just three: a billion trees. It was pretty unequivocal: a billion trees. Only what they didn't say was that half a billion of those billion trees were already going to be planted anyway. A hundred thousand KiwiBuild houses—only they're not; they're going to be bought off the plans of existing developments. It's one forward and one back on house supply. And the really really big rort was 20000 to 30000 fewer migrants. Well they've backtracked on their immigration policy at 100 miles an hour and Iain Lees-Galloway is now saying there'll be virtually no change to tertiary education visas to essential skills visas to long-term partnership visas and to parent visas—they're all there and that was entirely different from what they gave the public an expectation on. I am sad about that. We've got two years 10 months and two weeks to go before the public gets another say on whether or not they're doing any good. Well I hope they last that long."