Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBudget Debate[Sitting date: 01 June 2016. Volume:714;Page:11559. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Budget DebateDebate resumed from 31 May on the Appropriation (2016/17 Estimates) Bill.Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Economic Development): The 2016 Budget of Bill English is a truly excellent Budget. How do we know that? We know that because of the way the Opposition has reacted to the Budget. Instead of challenging the Budget instead of actually going through the Budget instead of questioning the Budget it has decided to do a diversion—a little diversion in the political environment. In late-breaking “stop the presses” political news of the last 24 hours Labour and the Greens have announced that they are going to campaign against the National Government at the next election. That is the news—they have decided that they are going to campaign against the Government at the next election. That is the news. They are not going to share policy they are not going to have any arrangements around seats there will be no commitment afterwards—no commitment afterwards—they are just going to campaign against the Government.Do not take it from me. They went on the television this morning to explain what they were about with this big announcement yesterday. Mr Paul Henry said to them “So nothing has changed at all—nothing changes at all?” and Andrew Little said: “No. Actually what the agreement does is confirm what’s been happening for the last few months.” Metiria Turei said: “The first step is telling people that we’re going to work together.” Mr Henry said “But you must have had a discussion. You must have worked together to now.” and Metiria said: “We’ve actually been working together for the last 18 months but today we’re announcing we’re working together.” So there you have it: the Labour Party and the Green Party have announced that they are going to campaign at the next election against the Government.The Labour Party has given the Greens a rose—it has. Do not just take it from me: they literally tweeted love hearts to each other on their Twitter accounts. They tweeted love hearts to each other on their Twitter accounts. Labour has given the Greens a rose which makes Winston Naz. It does make Winston Naz. I feel a bit for Naz. I feel a bit for Naz.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It is a longstanding requirement in this House that you cannot refer to someone by their first name and in his case he should put “Sir” in front of it.Mr SPEAKER: I want to make a comment. [Interruption] Order! There have been a number of times in the last 2 days where Ministers particularly have referred to members by their Christian names only. It is unacceptable. It is against the Standing Orders. Members will be addressed by their Christian name and surname or as Mr or Ms and by their surnames only. We cannot have the informality of speaking to members across the House using their Christian names alone.Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Thank you Mr Speaker. Therefore that makes the Rt Hon Winston Peters Naz and that is sad for Winston Peters but probably sadder for Naz to be fair. So there you have it—the announcement that wasn’t.Except there was one interesting thing about this nonsense. Despite the fact that there was nothing new there was one small thing that was new. Despite the fact that those members said all bets are off after the election and there is no deal after election day they felt obliged to say that Grant Robertson would be the finance Minister if they won. Who was feeling insecure? Who required his leader to go out and speak for him because he was feeling a bit insecure? What we know is that this discussion occurred last Thursday night. It occurred last Thursday night. The two of them Andrew Little and Grant Robertson were sitting having a beer—on YouTube as it happens. They were sitting having a beer on YouTube. Mr Little said to Grant “I’m going to announce a deal with the Green Party.” and Grant said “Well that’s OK although—Mr SPEAKER: Order! I have just mentioned to the House that we cannot have the informality of referring to members simply by their Christian names.Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Thank you Mr Speaker. And so Grant Robertson said to Andrew Little “I need to be announced as the finance guy as part of this deal.” while drinking his unfinishable beer that he had on the YouTube video—the beer that never finished the beer that just kept going and going. So anyway the only thing we know out of this deal is that Grant Robertson would be their finance guy because he was worried that he would not be.I worry about Julie Anne—what about Julie Anne Genter? What has happened to Julie Anne?Mr SPEAKER: Order!Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Julie Anne Genter has been forgotten. She has been forgotten in this. She has become errant. She has been thrown under a bus by this Labour-Greens deal. Julie Anne Genter has been thrown under a bus by this deal which is ironic. It is ironic actually because she is in favour of public transport. But she was thrown under the bus by this deal.The whole show that we have seen in the last 24 hours is much less than it seems. It is The Bachelor but there is no happy ending for these guys. They are doing it because they cannot respond to Bill English’s Budget which is a strong Budget that invests in a growing economy that delivers results for New Zealanders and that invests in innovation health and public services. This is a strong Budget. The reaction from Labour and the Greens is absolutely worse than pitiful. It is a complete diversion. It is an announcement about nothing.GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): That is how proud Steven Joyce is of this Budget: he mentioned the word “Budget” twice in 6 minutes and nothing else—there was nothing else whatsoever about the details in the Budget. He is obsessed with the reality TV show The Bachelor. The show he should be talking about is The Biggest Loser. That is the show that he should be talking about and Steven Joyce knows who that is.In regard to this Budget I take the word of Dominick Stephens the Westpac economist who produced a publication the day after the Budget entitled New Zealand Government Budget 2016: Fiscal mirage. That is what he said—he said it is a fiscal mirage. This is why. He said: “it’s clear that the improvement in the fiscal outlook has largely come from economic projections … rather than from policy decisions.” That is the point. There is no plan here to grow jobs. There is no plan here to get New Zealanders back into work to get young people back into work to transform the regions. There is just a fiscal mirage. Bill English is like some kind of Moses on Mogadon stumbling about the desert for 40 years trying to find an economic plan and it is not there. That is why Steven Joyce had nothing to talk about when he stood up today because there is nothing in this.There is nothing in this Budget but the thing is to call it boring is actually an insult. It gives it too much credit. It is not boring; it is useless. It is a failure. It is hopeless. Another economist Ganesh Nana described it as breathtakingly visionless—breathtakingly visionless—and that is exactly what this Budget is. It has failed the key tests that New Zealanders would put on a Budget. What will it do to make their lives and their families’ lives better and easier?If we take a look at the core things that are the building blocks of opportunity which every single Budget should be built upon this one failed. In health the Budget once again failed to meet the basic test of keeping up with demographic change from an ageing population and an increasing population. It falls short again adding to the $1.7 billion of effective cuts in the health budget. Every member of this House knows that district health boards (DHBs) around New Zealand are not keeping up. They are not keeping up with hip and knee surgeries. They are not keeping up with mental health services. Every DHB in this country is struggling and this Budget failed to deliver an increase in funding that would see New Zealanders get the health system they actually deserve. And so New Zealanders will pay.The New Zealanders who are parents will pay as well because we have an education budget that amazingly freezes operational funding. Hekia Parata can stand up in this House and tell us: “Actually we are targeting the funding.” Well no they are not because it turns out that the targeted funding actually just goes to the schools. So it is not social investment; it is social disinvestment—Carmel Sepuloni: Divestment.GRANT ROBERTSON: —divestment. Thank you Carmel Sepuloni—divestment. It is not saying “There are 150000 people in need and we are going to get something to them.”; it is actually reducing the amount of money that schools need and then claiming that it is targeted. It is disingenuous and the Minister of Education should stand up in this House and say the truth to New Zealand parents: they are going to pay more. New Zealand parents will pay more. They are already paying 10 times the rate of inflation in terms of the increase in so-called voluntary donations and a frozen Budget like this will not help.Then we come to housing. Everyone in New Zealand was expecting the Budget to say something about housing—the biggest crisis facing New Zealand—and Nick Smith he came up with the goods for the Government. He came up with the goods: another 25 hectares to go with the 12 hectares that he got from the last Budget—37 hectares out of a promised 500 hectares. Dr Smith’s maths might not be fantastic but even he can work out that he is failing Auckland when it comes to actually doing the one thing that this Budget needed to do. Three words Dr Smith: build more houses.Hon Dr Nick Smith: We are.GRANT ROBERTSON: That is what this Budget needed to do. He says: “We are.” We have been through this. A consent is not a house Dr Smith. It is just not—you cannot live in a consent. What Aucklanders need and what the rest of New Zealand needs is a State-sponsored housebuilding programme. It is the only way that we will get affordable homes built in New Zealand. Bill English in his pre-Budget speech said it: only 5 percent of homes built in New Zealand in the last 10 years have been affordable homes. It is not going to happen without the Government behind it.The Labour Party has been saying since 2012 “Let’s do KiwiBuild. Let’s build 100000 homes so that New Zealanders can actually get on to the homeownership ladder.” rather than having the worst homeownership rates in 64 years which is what we have got today in New Zealand.Hon Dr Nick Smith: Not true.GRANT ROBERTSON: It is true Dr Smith. It is absolutely true. We have the worst homeownership—and this is the problem.He is so out of touch. He sits in the House every day tut-tutting saying that it is not true. Get out into the real world Dr Smith. Get up to Auckland. I think they have gotten over seeing your face on the billboards. Get up there and listen to Aucklanders about what is happening in the housing market.But here is the issue. Fundamentally the housing system is a system and when people cannot afford to buy houses that pushes them into the private rental market.That pushes the cost of rents up and that pushes New Zealanders out of the private rental market into having to find social housing which is already overstretched and that in turn pushes people who would get into social housing out looking for emergency housing. Right now today in Auckland there are people living in cars and garages crying out for help and for emergency housing. Last weekend in Auckland there were no emergency housing beds available—none whatsoever. The wonderful whānau at Te Puea Marae stepped up and I want to say on record congratulations on that whānau for stepping up and saying: “We will look after that.” But what kind of indictment is that on New Zealand that today we rely on Te Puea Marae to be the social service provider? That is the core moral responsibility of a Government: to ensure that its citizens are housed if they cannot house themselves.This Government has lost its moral compass. It has lost its ability to responsibly govern when it comes to housing when there are people queuing up—people coming all the way from Whakatāne because they are so desperate to find a house somewhere and more than that to find someone who actually cares. That is what they went looking for at Te Puea Marae—someone who cared—because they did not find it in the National Government. They could not find anybody over there who cared enough to step up in this Budget and provide the emergency housing that is needed because this Government has lost its way. It is out of touch. It does not understand the plight of New Zealanders.And it is not just Auckland. In the last couple of weeks there has been story after story about homelessness. Homelessness in my old home town of Dunedin—I do not remember that when I grew up there. I do not remember people living on the streets then. Dr Smith said that ever since he has been in Parliament people have been coming to him. Well I have got news for Dr Smith: it is worse and it is getting worse and worse and worse under his watch. This Government has completely failed New Zealanders with this Budget.In this Budget we also see that in the next 2 years real wages will fall. Real wages will fall—they will go down. All the promises in the world from the Government cannot get around that. Wages are not keeping up. Unemployment goes up. Anne Tolley sits over there—one in 10 people in Gisborne are out of work. The Government does not care. It is not doing anything about it. The Budget fails those people.Well I have got good news for people: a change of Government is coming. A change of Government—built on health education and housing—that New Zealanders can be proud of. A Government that is actually prepared to invest in the future have a proper programme for infrastructure build roads build rail and not pretend that the Inland Revenue Department computer system is infrastructure as the Government has done in this Budget. A Government that actually says that wherever you live in New Zealand you have the right to expect that there will be a decent job for you to do a decent house to live in a good hospital and good schools because they are the building blocks of opportunity in New Zealand. That is what the next Labour Government will bring. A Budget that we would bring to this House would be one that was about a fair share for all New Zealanders and prosperity—not just the very few at the top doing well but every New Zealander getting a shot at success. That is what a future Labour Government will bring and that is what a change of Government will bring.Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment): I am delighted to join in this Budget debate—the 26th that I have participated in as a parliamentarian—which if you look at the core economic statistics is the best Budget in a generation. It does not matter whether you look at the issue of the balancing of the books whether you look at job growth whether you look at income growth whether you look at the state of the Government’s level of debt or whether you look at the issue of inflation. I challenge members opposite to tell me a Budget in the last 25 years that has had a better set of core economic statistics than Bill English’s 2016 Budget.Let me go through each of them.Economic growth—3.3 percent 2.6 percent 2.8 percent—3 strong years both now and into the future. Tell me an OECD developed country that has its economy growing stronger than ours. I can remember Budget after Budget after Budget in this Parliament where we have had depressing numbers about our economy scratching to make 1 percent growth let alone those strong numbers.Let us look at the issue of jobs. When I came to this Parliament unemployment in New Zealand was 11 percent. We all know that there are countries in the world right now—the US Europe—where unemployment numbers are up at 10 11 12 15 percent. There are countries where 25 percent of young people are unemployed. And what this Budget shows is that not only is unemployment set to go lower than 5 percent but also over the next 4 years there will be another 170000 jobs in our country. I again challenge the members opposite: show me a Budget in the last 25 years that has been as strong in terms of job growth.Let us look at the issues—the hard issues—around living within one’s means. I have sat in this House so often listening to Budget debates that are riddled with red ink—billions and billions of dollars of deficits right through the 1990s. Look at those Budget figures in 2009 when Treasury said this country was going to run deficits for the next 10 years. Let us look at that Budget figure only 5 years ago when the Budget presented in this House had a deficit of $17 billion.I say to Mr English that to deliver a Budget balance last year again this year and next year is a stunning result and so too are those future surpluses that are going to give this country choices.Dr David Clark: You borrowed more than Muldoon.Hon Dr NICK SMITH: And then take an issue—the member raises the question of debt. When I came to this Parliament this country had debt of over 90 percent of GDP—90 percent. What this Budget shows is debt levels of 25 percent. Do you know what—Hon Annette King: Who got it down?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Well Annette King asked this question. Do you know what level of debt for New Zealand was projected by Treasury when I picked up my ministerial warrant and joined Cabinet in 2008? It said that New Zealand’s debt in this year 2016 was going to be 110 percent of GDP—110 percent of GDP. Annette King it was your legacy and Bill English has it down to 25 percent. I challenge the members opposite and say: tell me the country in the OECD that has got a lower level of debt than New Zealand because now it is even lower than Australia which was the gold standard. Again I say to Bill English congratulations.In so many Budgets that I have been a part of the big debate has been regarding the cost of living—the cost to a Kiwi family of paying their food bill of paying for basic costs of living. When we came into Government Annette King inflation was running at 5 percent. What did that mean? That meant that families were going backwards by 5 percent per year. Bill English has presided over an economy that has the lowest level of inflation in 50 years at only 0.4 percent. I say that that is what you get with good economic management.Equally I remember so many Budgets where the big debate was interest rates. Why do interest rates matter? I will tell you why: because for families struggling to pay their mortgage for farms and for businesses that are wanting to invest in growth in jobs interest rates matter a heck of a lot. Why are we not debating about interest rates? That is because they are at the lowest level in 40 years and that is good for Kiwi families and that is good for Kiwi businesses.And at the same time I thought the gall of Grant Robertson to say that there was nothing in this Budget for health. Well let me tell him something. This Budget provides for bowel cancer screening. I have had people die—mates die—from bowel cancer. There are hundreds of New Zealanders every year who die from bowel cancer and this Budget is going to provide a screening programme that is going to save over a hundred Kiwi lives a year. I say that is good news. And I say that the extra $70 million for Pharmac which is going to enable this country to have more drugs so that we can prevent diseases so that we can save New Zealanders’ lives is good news.I openly acknowledge that because New Zealand’s economy is doing so well tens of thousands of Kiwis are voting confidence in New Zealand and moving back to our country. That is true and that is putting pressure on housing. But here is the real question: which Government has the wherewithal to deal with the root causes that are so pertinent to the issues of housing? I had to agree with Phil Twyford when he said 2 weeks ago that the most important issue around housing is land supply—on that we agree absolutely. Here are the numbers: over the last 25 years the price of a section in Auckland has gone from $100000 to $450000 and if the section costs $450000 of course there will not be an affordable home built on that section. So if this Parliament is serious about dealing with Auckland’s housing issues we have to deal with the issues that have sections in Auckland costing $450000.There is the problem. We on this side of the House are very clear on the solutions. That is why we are reforming the Resource Management Act. That is why we are driving a new Auckland Unitary Plan. That is why tomorrow we will be announcing a new national policy statement on the supply of land for housing. But here is the rub: for all the love fest that occurred yesterday between Labour and the Greens on the issue that Labour admits is the most fundamental to solving housing these guys—Labour and the Greens—are a hundred miles apart.The Green Party strongly believes in metropolitan urban limits. It is behind the policies that have seen section prices go stupid over the last 20 years. What I say to this Parliament is that the dysfunctionality on such a fundamental issue as metropolitan urban limits and housing shows that Labour and the Greens do not have the solution. They can have all the exchanges of roses in a Bachelor-style episode—[Interruption]—but they need to resolve Annette King the fundamental policy issues like Resource Management Act (RMA) reform and metropolitan urban limits if we are to deliver long-term sustainable solutions around housing.So I simply challenge Labour members opposite: are the Greens on the same page as you on scrapping metropolitan urban limits? Are they on the same page in respect of the requirements to reform the RMA where they now recognise the requirements for reform? Because the truth is that members opposite are all talk on housing but actually around the core issues that we need to address they have no idea and they have not resolved fundamental issues like land supply which are critical to finding the solution long term for Kiwi families.JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): The Minister who just resumed his seat Nick Smith spent the last 10 minutes telling us that this was the best Budget of a generation. Any young person who might have had the unfortunate pleasure of having watched that speech just now would surely be asking themselves the question “Which generation?” because it will certainly not feel like theirs. When you have the lowest homeownership rate since the 1950s people of this generation are not patting themselves on the back and saying: “How lucky we all are.”When it comes to employment opportunities we have over 87000 young people who not only are not in employment but are not in education or training and are desperately looking for opportunities so they can put a roof over their heads—[Interruption]—and I would add Minister Tolley that that is 25000 more than when your Government took office. That group of young people is not saying that this feels like the best Budget of a generation. In fact what is the measure of a Budget? What is the measure of a successful Budget? You cannot sleep under the roof of a graph of GDP.People will be measuring the success of a Budget for themselves. How will they feel better off if at all? When you have got a situation where wages are not looking to rise according to the Government’s own Budget in the next 2 years and when you have got a Government that has borrowed more than Muldoon—more than Muldoon—which generation is Nick Smith talking about? And for all of the platitudes about how relative to other countries New Zealand is in not quite the same shape as other places that thanks goes to Helen Clark and Michael Cullen because they were the ones who got net Crown debt to almost zero before this Government came into office. They set us up for a rainy day—they set us up for a rainy day.I will give some applause to Nick Smith. At least he talked about the Budget. The last few speeches I have heard from Ministers did not even touch on some of the Budget initiatives. In fact I have heard more creepy discussion about The Bachelor from some of those Government Ministers—all of them male I have to point out—than I have heard about the Budget itself and maybe that is because this Budget did not present a vision that was worth talking about and I have sought that almost every single Budget. Budgets are a Government’s opportunity to tell the people of New Zealand where they are going and how it is going to tackle the big issues that New Zealand is facing.Not only did this Budget not present a vision but it did not even address the here and the now. I should have expected that because recently when the Prime Minister was asked about his view on the fact that people were sleeping in cars what was his response? “Those people should go to Work and Income.” Any Prime Minister or any MP who has done constituency work knows what a ridiculous statement that was. We all have people coming through our office doors day in day out who have been to Work and Income and have been turned away either because they did not fill in a form properly or there was a bit of information missing or there was some little part of an obligation that they were not quite aware of.There have been according to Work and Income workers whom I have spoken to more changes to the welfare system in the past year and a half by policy direction than there were in the welfare reforms a year ago and all of them are discretionary little blockages to stop people getting the help they need. Any Prime Minister who is talking to his own electorate office staff or to people—or to people—would know that. I feel the same way about the housing issue that we are facing now. Any Prime Minister worth his salt would know that the need for the 3000 State houses that this Government has sold is coming back tenfold now that we have this housing crisis.I challenge Nick Smith I challenge the Prime Minister and I challenge any National member to go and visit Te Puea Marae where they have done what needed to be done for their community. They opened their doors and they gave people who were desperate a bed. For the Minister to stand up in the House today and say that one of the families that has been referred to which has a brand new baby was denied housing because family members did not fill in their forms properly and tell Housing New Zealand they had a baby on the way—well that just speaks to the problem. They were homeless they needed a place to live and naturally they were scared that if they talked about having a baby on the way someone might take their child away from them because they could not find a roof.That is the reason we should be absolutely making sure nothing stands in the way of having a couple like that let alone a couple with a child housed. To instead explain it away as a rational reason why they now find themselves at the mercy of being housed by social agencies—and not social agencies; a marae that simply is responding to need—is simply not good enough. I met that little baby and I would challenge the Minister to tell me that simply the incorrect filling in of a form is a good reason why that family is not housed. He needs to visit them.I would challenge all of those members to do the same with education—go and talk to a principal and ask them whether the targeting of 150000 students leaving behind more than 600000 is adequate. The Government has frozen the education budget. Health is pretty much the same. It needed $600 million just to tread water and anyone who has had a family member show up at a hospital recently would have seen how much pressure our health services are under.One shining light—and I will acknowledge this one shining light particularly while Anne Tolley is in the House—is the $36 million that in the next year will go into Child Youth and Family to ease the pressure on these front-line services. That is welcomed. The expert advisory panel that wrote about Child Youth and Family modernisation and reform acknowledged that it was facing a deficit that could have been as big as $38 million. It needed that cash injection but we also need decent investment and early intervention if we are going to improve the outcome for kids.Those are the big ones but perhaps what also deserves some headlines is what is happening in some of the portfolios where the Government is hoping that people will not be noticing—for example the cuts being experienced in conservation. Also there has been a reduction of about $10 million per year going into water quality but then again if your aim is only to make your rivers wadeable instead of swimmable perhaps you do not need to spend as much money on water quality. Perhaps that is how you make your savings.And for the arts community I have to respond to that as the shadow portfolio holder. On Budget night we had Minister Barry crowing about the investment into the arts. It equates to about $2 million per annum.Hon Maggie Barry: What’s that member ever contributed?JACINDA ARDERN: What have I ever done? Well surprisingly I am not on the Treasury benches Maggie Barry. If I was I would have done a damned sight more than that Minister did. There is $11 million coming out of Creative New Zealand—$11 million being cut from Creative New Zealand—and the Minister’s response was to find a small amount of money for three organisations that were all going backwards. They were stopping touring and were about to cut performers because of the state they were in and the Minister was having salivatory selfies when other arts organisations are going to face cuts of 10 percent. She crows that she has done more than me. Give me 1 week in your portfolio Minister Barry and I will show you. I will show you what you should do with an arts portfolio.Overall this Budget could have done so much more. It should have presented a plan on housing. It should have presented a plan on poverty. It should have invested in education. Ultimately this Budget needed to be about people and it was not.Hon MAGGIE BARRY (Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage): I rise with great pleasure to talk about Bill English’s eighth Budget. It is an excellent example of its kind. It gives us choices that we have not been able to make in other years. We have listened to the arts sector we have listened to conservation and those are the two areas of my ministerial responsibilities.I would have to say that that member Jacinda Ardern who has just resumed her seat is a tragic example of her kind. She has achieved nothing. She does nothing. When people compare that member with the actual member of Parliament for Auckland Central and all that the Hon Nikki Kaye has achieved as opposed to her doing what? Turning up at the odd disc-jockeying turning up to the odd event—actually doing very very little. In fact I cannot think of a single contribution that member has made that has made a difference to anybody—a tragic and pathetic example of her kind.But I am not going to spend any more time on the foolishness and delusional nonsense that is being peddled by the Opposition. Instead I will concentrate on what we have achieved and this Budget has achieved much. The economy is set to grow by 2.8 percent in the next 5 years so when we look at what we have achieved around job growth we have been able to spend more on health and more on education. Ultimately those are much better results for New Zealand families and vulnerable children.Hon Annette King: No wonder they don’t want her back on the Henry Show.Hon MAGGIE BARRY: Those are the kinds of things that count rather than carping from the edges of the universe as the Hon Annette King does—again an ineffectual individual who achieved very very little. In fact she put her portfolio backwards in the period of time that that member had it. When we look at Tony Ryall and at Jonathan Coleman we see people who have actually achieved.Let me look at my own portfolio responsibilities because when you look at the arts sector in New Zealand it is very easy to see that there has been a vibrancy—cultural dimensions that have been added to enrich us as a society. I am very grateful indeed that we have such resilient arts organisations. I am very glad indeed that they put together good strong business cases and I was able to support them. I put a very strong case to the Minister of Finance who listened very carefully and acted in a way that I think was responsible.For the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra (NZSO) for example its funding has increased by more than 10 percent. So it has gone up $1.2 million from about $13.446 million to $14.646 million. This is an increase that will enable the Symphony Orchestra to travel more around the regions to take its extraordinary world-class orchestral members and talent to the parts of New Zealand that are clamouring to have that kind of cultural engagement. The Symphony Orchestra has responsibility for the National Youth Orchestra as well so it is nurturing the young orchestral people of the future. I think that is a very important part of the arts.The NZSO was given the great accolade of being a finalist in the Grammy awards up there with world-class orchestras—really up there punching above its weight in those international stakes. It is doing that because it is supported in its own country. The Symphony Orchestra I think is a major asset for us. I think something like 60 percent of its orchestral members are now able to be used in a way that they were not able to be before. In other words with the additional funding that it will have now the orchestra will be able to travel around New Zealand go to the regions and make sure that the very talented line-up of people that it has whom I saw performing on Italian National Day—20 of them went to the celebration and were extraordinary and incredibly impressive to the ambassadors who were there and to all of us.The Royal New Zealand Ballet is another example of a Crown entity that does an extraordinary amount. It has out of its own endeavours for box office for business and for partnerships and philanthropy managed to achieve more than 60 percent of the funding that it requires to run itself. That is commendable. That is the sort of thing that Crown funding can do to assist and back up its endeavours which are already very good indeed. Tutus on Tour—the ballet will be able to send more ballerinas around New Zealand and perhaps on some more international tours as well.Along with Te Matatini which has had a 56 percent increase—it will be able to take our national kapa haka which is extraordinary and unique and very much part of who we are as New Zealanders and our identity to the world. To those who were privileged to see the Edinburgh Tattoo our Matatini kapa haka groups that performed before it as the curtain-raiser if you like to the tattoo were extraordinary and people love them. They have been invited internationally around the world. The money the $1.94 million we have been able to allocate is up from $1.24 million. This is in fact permanent baseline funding and it will enable them to develop kapa haka around New Zealand. The regional organisation of Te Matatini will be able to set up 50 more groups a year in schools. They will be able to encourage kapa haka not only as a vibrant cultural expression but also as something that is good for your health—your cultural health and your physical health as well.When I look at the entities that are under my immediate responsibilities as the Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage I am very proud of what they have achieved. I am very proud of the ability that they have to not only reach the people of New Zealand and to resonate with them but also to ensure that partners philanthropists and others really appreciate and value them. This means of course that the taxpayer’s dollar can go a great deal further than if we just paid one entity the lump sum of money and then did not look at developing other business partnerships.My task is partly to make taxpayers’ money go that much further. I am concentrating on doing that as well in my Department of Conservation (DOC). Despite some of the nonsense that has been peddled particularly by the Greens and backed up by the other Opposition people DOC’s operational spending has increased. It is difficult to understand why the Greens are having so much trouble with the mathematics. In 2008 the operational funding for DOC was $316 million a year. This year it is $391 million. That is a rise by everybody’s standards and everybody’s mathematics except the Greens who deliberately peddle misinformation and nonsense constantly about DOC and also attack it—attack it for what it does attack it for the fact that you have extraordinarily good-hearted people who work for DOC and try their absolute best and they succeed. I am very proud of them and I am very proud of what they do.There is plenty of good news for conservation in this year’s Budget. Let us look at one aspect of it: the War on Weeds which we launched last year where I have the Dirty Dozen annual array of weeds that need to be kept under control. We have as our No. 1 weed—and I fear it will be so for many years to come—wildings. We call them wildings because they escape from where they ought to be and they get away on us in our New Zealand landscape. Generally they are conifers but there are also sycamores and other specimens that have done this. So on Budget day Nathan Guy and I announced a $16 million package and that is going to increase our work to be able to control wildings.Wildings occupy at the moment something like 6 percent of the country’s total land area. That is about 1.8 million hectares that is high-value conservation and very productive land. They also smother our native species and ruin the biodiversity of New Zealand. So when we look at the money that we spend on wilding control it is up around $11 million a year actually and we are going to be targeting to control some priority areas including the Molesworth Station the headwaters of the Southern Alps lakes and rivers and the central North Island.Battle for our Birds is another reality this year because of beechmast seeding so $20.7 million has gone into landscape predator control which involves the use of aerial 1080 but with that money I have allocated a reasonable sum to do two pilot schemes on self-resetting traps.David Shearer: A reasonable sum?Hon MAGGIE BARRY: It is a very reasonable sum actually. It is many millions of dollars and it will be used to test and to pilot these self-resetting traps. Once you have dealt with the rodent population—knocked them back to negligible numbers—you then put the self-resetting traps in and they are able to protect our endangered and threatened species. This will be the biggest ever predator pest control operation in New Zealand’s history. So it will be more than 800000 hectares and that will prevent the plague proportion—biblical plague proportion actually—of rats stoats and possums. The results of 1080 have tremendously improved our ability as a nation to be able to control these predator numbers—these introduced eco-invaders.When I look at superannuation as well—when we cast back over the 8 years that National has been in Government superannuation entitlement has gone up 34 percent. This is a Government that cares about seniors and is concerned about the way that social isolation and elder abuse the growing rates of dementia numbers and so forth are needing to be planned for—not feared; not worried about unduly but to understand where we are heading with dementia rates with an ageing population. At the moment it involves about 50000 New Zealanders. That will treble and we need to plan ahead for that.This was a great Budget. I am very proud to be part of the Government that delivered it.Mr SPEAKER: I understand this is a split call. I will ring the bell at 5 minutes.Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green): I understand that Kevin Hague will address Maggie Barry’s previous statement. This Budget commits the greatest of all possible mistakes a Budget can possibly make: it misjudges the future. It rests an interrelated whole-of-Government fiscal plan on a wrong premise. Get the premise wrong and everything that follows is wrong. Let me explain how that has come about. In introducing the Budget last week the Minister of Finance said that he was presenting a healthy set of accounts with rising surpluses and falling debt.The Budget at a Glance booklet contains the 2016 highlights. What are they? There are five principal highlights and four secondary. The principal ones are growth innovation infrastructure social investment and health. The secondary ones are education housing justice and—wait for it—the environment. Within environment are three component parts: fresh water pest control and the emissions trading scheme (ETS). The ETS contains one policy measure: restoring the one-for-one surrender obligation. That constitutes the sum total of the Government’s budgetary planning on climate policy. Of what significance is this? The Ministry for the Environment calculates that it will shave 0.7 percent off our emissions in 2030. Bravo! It is within the margin of error. This relegation of climate policy to the last of 45 highlights with no perceptible effect over the longer term shows the misguided world view that I mentioned.What should the Minister have done instead? He should have placed the 2016 Budget within the context of a future carbon price. He started off optimistically: “I recall our first Budget delivered in difficult times with Treasury forecasting never-ending deficits and ever-rising debt. Today however I can present a healthy set of public accounts.” But instead of patting himself on the back from then on he should have said the following: “Although we have left those difficult times behind we must recognise that unprecedented challenges lie ahead. A continued rise in global emissions guarantees dangerous climate change for the planet including New Zealand. This Budget is therefore cast in the context of a transformational pathway to a carbon-neutral economy by 2050. Nothing less is required for us to meet our national responsibility level within the global carbon budget. If we do not move at this speed New Zealand will face a fiscal overhang in the long term of unprecedented magnitude. I note that France is setting a carbon price of NZ$50 for 2017. We must prepare for a global carbon price of this size in our fiscal planning. The 2016 Budget rests above all on that premise.” That is what he should have said and that is what is missing from page 1 of his Budget statement.Let me cite another statement the Minister made in his speech last week. He said: “Budgets are not just an accounting exercise. They are about achieving better results for New Zealanders …”. How unwittingly prescient that was. Budgets are not about accounts; they simply express in dollar terms what kind of society we are what kind of Government we have what values our country embraces and above all what level of prescience foresight purpose and resolve we are showing.This Government retains a world view that has damaged the planet and betrayed the people. Because this Budget hews to an old world view it fails the simplest most basic test. It presents an unhealthy set of accounts that appears stable and sensible and pragmatic and balanced on the surface but which in ignoring the real cost of carbon is dangerously unstable lacking in sense fails the test of pragmatism and loses all sense of intergenerational balance. In concluding his Budget speech Bill English claimed that the Government takes a long-term view of its stewardship. We commend the Minister for aspiring to take the long-term view; we condemn him for failing to do that in any way that can be seen as realistic pragmatic and sensible.KEVIN HAGUE (Green): The public conservation estate is one of the great treasures of this country and when New Zealanders look to their Government to determine what they seek from that Government protection of those unique species and ecosystems that exist in New Zealand—and typically nowhere else in the world—is one of the very core things that they expect. Contrary to the remarks recently made by the Minister of Conservation Maggie Barry the Greens do not attack the Department of Conservation (DOC) and DOC staff. The Greens believe that the Department of Conservation and its staff are heroes. The work they do is fantastic. But increasingly they have been asked to carry out their work with one hand tied behind their backs by a Government that is determined to erode the funding that is available to the department to spend on conservation.The analysis undertaken by the Parliamentary Library shows that in real terms—that is inflation-adjusted terms for the benefit of the Minister—the department is spending $50 million and more on average less each year than when the National Government took office in the 2008-09 year. That is more than $50 million a year less in real terms. That is a very very substantial reduction in conservation spending.What does that translate to? I have spoken about the 46 percent of tracks in the conservation estate that are not up to standard the 26 percent of huts that are not up to standard the many structures that have failed their load capacity assessments and the 38 structures that were overdue for serious or critical repairs and the Minister has been completely unable to respond to that erosion in the conservation estate.In this year’s Budget—and I brought along the document—Fletcher Tabuteau: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I apologise sincerely for interrupting the speaker but my understanding of the proceedings of the House is that for a member to move down closer to the speaker and harass him is completely out of order. The Minister needs to show some class in these proceedings.Mr SPEAKER: Order! No the last part was certainly unnecessary but the first part is correct. A member should not move a seating position away from where he or she is set simply to interject on the speech that is being given by another member.Hon Maggie Barry: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: I have ruled on the matter. If it is a fresh point of order I am happy to hear it but I am not interested in having that matter relitigated. The member can move back to her seat if she wants to continue but I will not accept an unreasonable amount of interjection anyway.KEVIN HAGUE: Thank you very much Mr Speaker. What I was about to draw the House’s attention to was this document entitled Estimates of Appropriations for the Government of New Zealand for the year ending 30 June 2017 Environment Sector. What this document says about the appropriation for the management of natural heritage is that the final budgeted amount for 2015-16 was let us see $187877000 and for the 2016-17 year it has reduced to $160639000. That is a drop of 14 percent.One of the ways that the Department of Conservation has been forced to accommodate that reduced commitment to spending on conservation by this Government is through the partnerships programme. It is great if there is additional money that comes from the commercial sector or comes from the work done by volunteer groups—that is fantastic. That adds icing on to the cake. But in an environment where the department has less money to spend what that does instead is replace the money that the Government should be spending. What that means is that when a commercial sponsorship ends as the kākāpō one has just done the Department of Conservation has to stop doing other conservation work to backfill that. It means that conservation work will be done on those species that attract commercial sponsorships rather than those that are most ecologically important. It means that the department will sometimes have to accept money from companies that will have other motives.It is very interesting that the Minister believes that an oil company was sponsoring the Cook Strait whale survey because of a feeling of satisfaction that it may have given the company. In fact what we have seen is that it is the Minister who is out of step with the Parliamentary Library’s analysis the independent accountant’s analysis and indeed the Budget documents themselves. Thank you.Mr SPEAKER: Again this is a split call—Dr Jian Yang.Dr JIAN YANG (National): This is a Budget with confidence. This is a Budget with a strong sense of responsibility. It is a Budget with confidence simply because New Zealand is one of the fastest-growing economies in the OECD—a top performer. Let us look at the growth rates in the past few years since 2008 when we experienced the global financial crisis. In 2009 after the financial crisis we did experience a decline of 2 percent but since then the economy has been growing. In 2010 we had a growth rate of 1.7 percent in the following year—2011—we had a growth rate of 2 percent and in 2012 we had a growth rate of 3 percent.This is a sharp contrast with some other OECD economies. For example in the United Kingdom the growth rate was only 0.3 percent in the European eurozone it was minus 0.9 percent in Japan it was 0.4 percent in Canada it was 1.1 percent and in the USA it was 1.6 percent. So our growth rate has been much better than many other OECD countries and for the forecast in the next 4 years we are predicting about 2.8 percent on average. This is our economy. That is why we feel confident that we will be able to continue to do well.This is also a Budget with a strong sense of responsibility simply because although we believe that we are doing well we want to continue to manage our finance responsibly. That is why we have returned to surplus but we are going to continue to increase our surplus and we will pay our debt to make sure that our debt will continue to decline in the coming years. We will spend money where we think we need to spend it.Health is one area we believe is very important to our public services. Each year since 2008 we have increased our spending in health—about $500 million each year. For that reason we are able to have today over 6000 more doctors and nurses and also 99 percent of under-13s are now able to have access to free doctors every day day and night. This is a very very outstanding public system. Based on what we have achieved and also a very high record of spending this year we have another $2.2 billion for health which will take our total health spending for next year to $16.1 billion which is another record. This is what we are trying to do to further improve our public services.Education is another area where we have been trying to invest more. We have a hard-working Minister of Education a very strong leadership and we have achieved a lot. Look at this: 96.6 percent of preschool children are now going to early childhood education which has increased from 93.6 percent in 2008 and 84.4 percent of 18-year-olds are now achieving National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 2 which again is a substantial increase from 68 percent in 2008. We have record spending of $11 billion for education. In addition to that we are going to spend $1.44 billion more for education. We are going to build nine new schools—480 new classrooms.To finish my speech I will quote an OECD comment in 2015 that says: “Inflation and inflation expectations are well anchored … Strong fiscal monetary policy frameworks and a healthy financial sector have yielded macroeconomic stability underpinning growth. Employment is high … business investment is robust and households and firms are optimistic.” This comment still applies. Thanks.MAUREEN PUGH (National): It is a great pleasure for me to stand and speak to this Budget Bill English’s eighth and my first. It was with some anticipation that I waited for Budget day. It was almost like a child waiting for Christmas excited about the potential that this package held for me—and not just for me but for the people of New Zealand. I was not disappointed. With rising surpluses and falling debt this gives the country the ability to make choices it simply did not have 8 years ago.The benefits from this Budget are spread across the whole country and throughout all sectors. For Innovate New Zealand there is $761 million to help grow and diversify the economy. We all know that if we do not keep moving ahead we are in fact standing still or moving backwards because the rest of the world will overtake us. To invest in innovation is an absolute essential for us. The broadband initiatives: a $2 billion investment into ultra-fast broadband and the Rural Broadband Initiative. This has already created 4000 jobs across New Zealand. It is extending out into the rural areas of New Zealand and making us more connected making us more competitive.Public infrastructure like transport and schools receive a $2.1 billion investment. That is absolutely massive and essential and recognised by this Government. There is $1.44 billion extra for education over the next 4 years. This brings our investment next year to a record $11 billion in education. Tourism—this is one that is near and dear to my heart because of the area that I live in on the West Coast. Thirty-seven million dollars will go into small regional communities that have pressures on them brought about by the success of our investment into tourism and promotion. Small communities will be able to access funding for small projects like car-parks and public toilets—the things that tourists and the success of tourism bring into our rural communities. This will be great news for West Coast - Tasman I can assure you.Health of course is an absolutely outstanding winner in this Budget—$2.2 billion extra over the next 4 years. I am particularly proud that I can stand here with the knowledge that $9.7 million extra was found to support the new Greymouth hospital. This now brings that budget to $77.8 million. This is a huge relief to the people of the West Coast. I am so grateful that this Government recognised that need. On top of that we have also recognised that an extra $3 million will be going into the West Coast District Health Board for its operational costs—a big thankyou to Minister Coleman for recognising that.Another good news story that is heading into West Coast - Tasman is the project that will see a new road bridge across the Taramakau River. No longer will we have to share our bridge with the train although it is quaint and often a tourist attraction. I have witnessed many times a campervan stopped in the middle of the road and a tourist standing in the middle of the train tracks photographing the train coming towards them. In terms of health and safety I think it is an extremely good investment and I look forward to that day as well.What worries me is that all of the gains that are made by this Government in tourism in goldmining which is a huge employer on the coast in dairying—another massive investment on the West Coast—and in forestry and fisheries will be put at risk if the unholy alliance of the “Reds” and Greens which gives us that muddy brown colour ever gets its hands on it. We know how the Greens influence Labour Party policy. When I promoted the West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill that went through this House under urgency in 2014 we did not get the support that we needed or wanted. Fortunately—Chris Bishop: You weren’t even in Parliament.MAUREEN PUGH: Correct. I was not even in Parliament but this Government recognised a common-sense solution to a natural event. We got that legislation through.Bill English you have delivered a fantastic Budget. It is solid and it is sensible. Thank you.TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): I move That this debate be now adjourned.Motion agreed to.