Martin TraceyHon TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): Kia ora Mr Speaker thank you very much. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on the 2018 Investment Statement. The Investment Statement's important because—and others have articulated it—transparency around Government and the way Government manages the assets and liabilities on behalf of the people of New Zealand is important. However this document differs from all previous Investment Statements published because it uses organising principles from Treasury's Living Standards Framework and that on many levels is quite exciting. I know that the contributions today haven't necessarily been that exciting but the fact is that this report starts to move towards measuring more than just the value of things. I want to just pick up on some comments by the Hon Amy Adams. The Hon Amy Adams in her contribution suggested that this Government inherited a strong economy based on an increase in assets of $17 billion—it's not exactly word for word but I think that's along the lines of what she said. One might accept that statement at its face value. I think if you look into the books—the physical assets of what was handed over from one Government to another Government—probably we had an increase of around $17 billion. However you could also argue—and what is so great about moving to the concept of having a Living Standards Framework is you could also argue that this Government inherited a social account in extreme deficit when it comes to the well-being side of what is the well-being Investment Statement for 2018. That's why it's so interesting that we're starting to get this shift away—and it's great to have consensus across the House—and this move away from not just dollars and cents but also measuring the well-being and how those dollars and cents are spent and how those assets affect the well-being of the people our nation. I mean one can add up all the prisons that are inside this document—one can add them all up and there's a value to them—one could put into it the billions of dollars that some might suggest should be spent on an American-style mega-prison and you could argue as the Hon Amy Adams has said that there's a lot of buildings that are worth a lot of money so therefore the country's got a lot of assets and it's in a really good financial space. One would have to discount the human capital that was then being incarcerated inside those walls and completely write off the value that that human capital has to the country and therein lies the difference. Therein lies the difference and that's why there is the living standards approach. It says here The Treasury has been developing its living standards approach since 2012"—so it's obviously something that the previous Government supported; it's obviously well supported by the previous Government because they started to develop it so that's wonderful that we're all on the same page—"to ensure its analysis and advice considers the wide range of factors that impact on wellbeing." and that's well-being across the spectrum. Now I'm particularly thrilled about it because I'm working on the child well-being strategy with the Prime Minister and the child well-being strategy will take some of the indicators that are inside this current document. It will add some other indicators and some other markers that we will have to measure ourselves against and one of those will be: how is this spend of these dollars impacting on the well-being of children? So if we go back to the example that I've given which is around building American-style mega-prisons how would spending that many billions of dollars impact on the well-being markers for our children? Incarcerating a parent away from them they then suffer as being the child of a prisoner and so on and so forth—how does that spend impact all the way through? What are the ripples all the way through New Zealand society? That's how starting to actually do measures on a Living Standards Framework starts to break us away from what has been sort of a fixation on merely the amount of dollars. The Hon Grant Robertson actually mentioned this as well. If we go to page 110 and have a look at the asset base that we have inside the Ministry of Education for example. If we have a look at it there it says in one of the figures—and it's in writing on page 111—"On top of this [the Ministry of Education] expects that $5.39 billion from baseline funding will go towards maintaining the existing portfolio. This includes funding redevelopments and replacing ageing assets (approximately 74 percent of buildings are greater than 20 years old)." It also notes however in the paragraph previously that "Planned capital expenditure cannot be covered by depreciation". Now what was really interesting about the previous Government was that we used to have a fund that we set aside for all school buildings. Once they reached 45 years old there was an assessment done on them. They were either refurbished or they were actually replaced. That fund was done away with in the last decade. I think it had to do with leaky buildings and that's why that fund was done away with and so what we see is—and it's what the Hon Grant Robertson alluded to. When one starts to make knee-jerk short-term narrow-vision totally dollar-focused decisions one doesn't see the long-term stretch of how documents like this and Budgets over time and using a well-being investment strategy can protect us for the future. Another example he gave of that was actually superannuation. It was the New Zealand Superannuation Fund. I also wear the hat as the Minister for Seniors and the fact that there is $20 billion less than there used to be for the well-being of New Zealanders as they get older is unfortunate. It's that type of well-being measure—how will this budgetary item affect long-term the well-being of our citizens?—which is the exciting part as we move forward. I do just want to pick up on some of the comments made by the Hon Judith Collins and it was around the conversation around Housing New Zealand. She pointed to some comments inside the paper—I mean remember this is Treasury and Treasury has come a long way. Their job is to look at the money—we understand that. You can't take it away from them; that's exactly what they're paid for. But I would have to say that even in the past seven months there has been a much more human face to Treasury. They really welcomed the opportunity to expand on the well-being concept and start to participate with the Government about how we can better frame this for the long term. So it's interesting that the Hon Judith Collins picked up around a lack of commercial return from Housing New Zealand and equated that somehow to "This Government should not support its citizens into social housing." or at least it should not own the social housing that it supports its citizens into but somehow that should be paid to private providers. I'm struggling inside this document—perhaps Judith Collins could enlighten me at some other time. But those citizens who require our social housing are being supported by the taxpayer. So the citizens that require social housing that are going into Housing New Zealand homes are being supported by other New Zealanders. If the money we pay for their social housing is then paid to a private provider that becomes somebody else's profit margin as opposed to reinvesting in what is the taxpayer's money going around in a taxpayer pool. Then Ms Collins also levelled some criticism about the maintenance levels of the Housing New Zealand housing stock. I would have thought that the last thing that anybody from the Opposition would have got up to do just seven months into a new Government was to stand up and criticise the amount of money that has had to be set aside to maintain what are taxpayers' assets. I would suggest that that shows a failing on whoever was running the place in the last decade because they didn't maintain the assets by which the taxpayer had placed in their care. But I come back to the document. It's a great document it certainly is. I do think it's good reading and I would encourage every member of the House to read through it but it's the movement that we're starting to make towards deciding that what a Government's job is is not just managing the money; it's making sure that our citizens have homes that our children are safe that our schools are able to cater for them that they have teachers in front of them and that the needs that they have can be looked after. That's wider than just dollars and so this is a start on a pathway towards greater well-being being recognised. Kia ora."