Wood MichaelMICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): I want to commence my remarks with a couple of sets of congratulations in the spirit of generosity that pervades the Government benches on this very positive day for New Zealand. The first congratulations are to the Minister of Finance for delivering a set of figures and for delivering a vision for our economy and society that balances fiscal responsibility with a willingness to invest in the people and the infrastructure of New Zealand to make this a better and a fairer country.I also want to congratulate actually the previous speaker David Carter for giving the best Opposition speech of this debate so far. I would go so far as to suggest that he is a good Opposition member who actually engaged in the facts and actually engaged in the Budget Policy Statement (BPS) and the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update unlike Steven Joyce who led off the Opposition's contribution.I might say there was a pretty extraordinary omission from Steven Joyce's comments in this urgent debate which I do believe he called. For about three or four months up until the election we heard an awful lot about an $11.5 billion fiscal hole. Every single day: the Labour Party is going to deliver an $11 billion fiscal hole"—bang bang bang through every single medium. Did we hear anything about the fiscal hole today when the Government presented its accounts? Did we hear anything about it from Steven Joyce? Somehow that has dropped from view.The reason that it has dropped from view is that when the facts get put on the table it is absolutely clear that this is a Government that is acting within the fiscal responsibility rules that it set down. This is a Government that is delivering growth of over 3 percent every single year. This is a Government that is going to do what that former Government could not do in its nine years in office and get unemployment down below 4 percent. This is a Government that is going to get net Crown debt down below 20 percent. And I do have to just reflect on one of the comments from the previous speaker who said that this Government will be achieving those things under a high-tax regime. Well that's interesting of course because the tax rates that this Government is confirming through this process are exactly the same tax rates that we had under the previous Government.This is a Government that is going to invest in people and infrastructure and what this Budget Policy Statement identifies are the very different priorities of the new Labour-led Government. I want to acknowledge there our coalition partner New Zealand First and support partners in the Greens who share a common vision of investing in people and infrastructure.Let's compare those. Over the next five years what do we see in the BPS? We see that whereas the National Government was going to throw away $8.3 billion in tax cuts a huge proportion of which went to the already well off this new Government will invest $5.5 billion in the families of New Zealand—$5.5 billion that will go towards making sure that our old folks aren't shivering through the winter through a winter payment; $5.5 billion that'll go towards make sure that every single child gets a best possible start in life because we will not tolerate the stain of child poverty in our country for one year longer.I've yet to hear a member from the Opposition benches say anything meaningful about the fact that this Government's package will pull 89000 of our precious tamariki out of poverty—89000 children out of poverty. That's the kids in my electorate who are living in cars who are living in shabby run-down hotel units that that previous Government spent $150000 a day putting people up in because there is simply no decent and affordable housing for them. So this Government instead of that $8.3 billion on tax cuts is going to put $2 billion into KiwiBuild because we fundamentally believe that every single Kiwi family deserves a decent healthy and affordable house to live in and that is what we are showing through this Budget Policy Statement.Do you know what else? This is a Government that is about the future; not just about today not just about the political moment. So I am very proud to be able to round off my statements by affirming that this Government over that five-year period is going to invest $3.3 billion into the New Zealand Superannuation Fund—something that that former Government did not lift a finger towards in its nine years in Government.Brett Hudson: That's only speculation Michael.MICHAEL WOOD: "It's speculation" says Mr Hudson. I call it maths sir—I call it maths. I call it investing in the future and when you look at the figures we know that that's going to be an investment that makes sure that the children of today can have superannuation in the future.I'm extraordinarily proud of this Budget Policy Statement. It's about a Government that is managing the books well and investing in our people and our infrastructure and I thank the Opposition for the debate about."