McClay ToddHon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua): Well that actually—that last speech that 10 minutes—is almost more than we've heard from the Government over the last two weeks about this Budget. Normally when a Budget is delivered in this House there are Ministers up and down the country talking it up talking about it as much as they can and that just hasn't happened—it just hasn't happened. And the reason it hasn't happened is that this wasn't a good Budget. They botched it. It wasn't transformational. It wasn't wellbeing. At best it was well-meaning. It borrowed more it spent more and it taxed more. When Mr Hipkins says that Amy Adams said there's nothing to be happy about that's actually what the majority of New Zealanders are saying: there's nothing in this Budget to be happy about. Now there were some things that are good and most certainly it's important we recognise that there is funding more money going into mental health but we need that to be delivered on the front line now not wait for working groups and more meetings and other bureaucracy and more processes. Mr Hipkins said New Zealanders want the Government to do something about child wellbeing right now. That's the exact point: right now. They've had 18 months in Government. We know there've been more than 250 working groups. We know that when the working groups come forward with very long very expensive reports they're saying Actually we're not going to do most of the things in there because they're too hard." Ultimately there has been a missed opportunity over the last 18 months and this Budget fails to deliver on the promises that the Labour Party the New Zealand First Party and the Green Party made to New Zealanders when they were in Opposition—failed to deliver on their promises.I've got a list here of the more notable things they've done over the last 18 months that New Zealanders should be concerned about: fuel tax increases times three regional fuel taxes in Auckland GST online the brightline test extended ring-fencing of losses GST on mobile roaming workplace levies and a tourist tax that's actually going to end up taking $70 million out of the pockets of small tourism businesses. They've failed to deliver on a promise—do you remember it? No more taxes—"no new taxes in our first term". Well we're going to see $20 billion worth of additional borrowing and they've extended out the credit card over what they said they would do to be able to borrow another $17 billion.It's no wonder the business community are concerned. It's no wonder mums and dads are finding it harder to make ends meet with costs going up because of the extra taxes. At a time when this Government inherited a strong economy of up to 4 percent growth and growing surpluses they've borrowed more and they're going to borrow more so that they can spend more tax more and borrow more and that really sums it up.This wasn't a transformational Budget. All this was was a Budget that the Labour Party does every time they come to Government: spend more tax more and hope. Well that's just not good enough. When you come to those broken promises—because I think this is extremely important. You see when you go to an election you make promises; if you get into Government you actually need to deliver on them. You can't say to the public "Well we didn't think we were going to get here; we haven't done the work. All of those promises can't be delivered on so we're going to spend hundreds of millions of your hard-earned taxes on working groups."What are those broken promises? There was the promise of no new taxes but there are seven of them. They promised $10 cheaper doctor visits for all—well it ain't in this Budget. They promised $20 million for access for lifesaving medicines for New Zealanders with rare disorders—nothing. Go and have a look at that Budget. In terms of annual health and eye checks for seniors—nothing. We heard a lot about seniors beforehand. We heard about 100 percent qualified early childhood education funding—not in this Budget—and ensuring all students have access to mobile digital devices—not in this Budget. The list goes on and on and on and the worst part of this is the reason they're borrowing more the reason they're taxing more is the economy is slowing from a 4 percent growth rate to one that's forecast at merely barely over 2 percent of GDP at the moment. We're going to hear more about that when the figures are released tomorrow. For every 1 percent of GDP growth that this Government has ruined there's a drop—that's $5 billion of Government revenue of ability to spend less. But they're not slowing down on the spending; they're increasing it to meet their promises to their coalition partners and that means they need to borrow more and they need to tax more.In three areas of policy I want to touch on that are very important—and we'll have an opportunity go into some of this in more detail in the committee tomorrow. In foreign affairs we saw a very large increase in funding last year. In fact some of that went towards one more embassy opening. We've heard a lot from the Minister of Foreign Affairs about New Zealand's footprint and New Zealand doing more on the world stage and meeting its commitments but actually that one embassy they rushed through is a very small enlargement of New Zealand's international footprint compared to what you saw under us as a Government. So a lot more money has gone into foreign affairs but we need to see a lot more delivered for that.When it comes to foreign affairs spending overseas our diplomats do a very very important job for us. We need them there working as hard for us as they can. They need to know that they have the backing of this House and the backing of New Zealanders but we also need to make sure that the Government is driving them to deliver value for money because all of the money that's spent overseas on behalf of New Zealand comes from hard-earned taxes or in the case of the Government from borrowing that hard-working Kiwis will have to pay back.There are two particular items that actually need a lot more attention in this Budget. One is around APEC. New Zealand will host APEC in 2021 and the Government has budgeted over four years money for that but it falls woefully short of what Treasury has said will be needed. So tomorrow we'll have an opportunity to dig into that some more. This is one of the biggest international events New Zealand will have hosted for a long time and probably is capable of hosting because of our size. It can't be undercooked and it can't be left until the last year to come up with the additional money maybe as much as $100 million that's required.The other part of the Budget is some funding around our base in the Antarctic. That needs a refurbishment but there is no money in the Budget to do that other than $16 million. I know the business case has been worked on and actually the Government has fallen woefully short even though they're taxing more and they're borrowing more and they're spending in other areas. This is something that needs to be fixed more quickly.In trade this is a Government that lacks ambition. We are hearing things around trade from them but we don't see where else they want to take trade negotiation. We don't see where they're ambitious who we should be doing new deals with where we can be opening doors for New Zealanders. Largely all we've seen is them continue the agenda that was set in place over the previous nine years by the last Government and that's not good enough for a country that relies upon trade. We need to see the trade Minister and others he designates out on the world stage much more than they have been. It's not enough for us to merely sit back and assume people will open the door for us. We're a very small nation. Everybody in the world wants to sell the same things that we produce and sell to the markets that are important to us. We need to make sure that they are doing much much better here and it's quite disappointing that we didn't see anything in the Budget about expanding trade ambition for New Zealanders bringing those barriers down and finding more opportunity. When we hear about you know a slowing economy and falling GDP the Government and the Prime Minister are very quick to talk about the hard work our exporters are doing and they're starting to talk about the hard work that our primary sector is doing. We weren't hearing that last year or before the last election. You can't only say that they are doing good things for you when you need their help. They need support all the way through and rural New Zealand doesn't see that support. You only needed to listen last week at the Fieldays.Finally in tourism I'm quite pleased that the Minister has turned his mind to tourism but he has woefully under-delivered on his promises. He said there would be much more money for tourism and all we've seen so far is a new tax that "we'll deliver soon" he says. In fact there has been less spent in tourism in the last two Budgets—actual spending—than there had been before and that's just not good enough. Seventy million dollars will come out of the pockets of small businesses as a result of the tourism tax—that's Treasury's figure not ours. We know that there's a slowing down because the time it takes to deliver visas to visitors has blown out and there are reports in the newspaper that businesses are saying tourists are cancelling their trips because of uncertainty. That's up to a $50 million loss again from those businesses. More than $100 million is lost in tourism from small tourist businesses and in its place this Minister has promised $40 million through a new tax. To the Minister it is a very important industry; I know he gets that. He needs to start delivering for them."