Woods MeganHon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): Thank you Madam Speaker. Labour will not be supporting this bill in the House because what the coalition Government is asking us to do with supporting these two bills that look both forwards and backwards is to cast a vote in favour of a programme of work that is taking New Zealand backwards. This is a programme of work that will not help ordinary New Zealanders it will not help New Zealanders get ahead and it is not something that we are willing to support.Now what we heard from the Minister of Finance laid out very clearly the technical nature of these two bills and the fact that we do need to pass them because the executive does need Parliament's consent to continue spending until the Budget is formally passed later in the year and the Supplementary Estimates is an important document that show those changes to appropriations from when Budgets are set to year end and what happened. Usually this is a chance to do things like for example in the tertiary education Vote. Where an Estimate is made they are just that: Estimates are about the enrolments that will happen over a period of time and it's not until enrolments are there that things do need to be changed.The Minister of Finance I see couldn't rise above her snark tonight in the House in terms of the need sometimes to make corrections in Supplementary Estimates. This is something that is a usual process in terms of the workings of this House and I think it would do all of us good if the debate could be lifted on this and that we could have a real debate about the choices that are being made. In the both backwards-looking and the forwards-looking document we are seeing laid bare the kinds of choices that a newly elected Government makes because of course the Supplementary Estimates after an election that has brought about a change of Government really do tell a story about the changes that that Government has brought into being and the Minister of Finance alluded to that talking about the mini-Budget and the $1.1 billion that was shaved off there. All of these are contained in the Supplementary Estimates. These are otherwise known as what the National Government or the coalition Government has cut" and the list is long. We can see laid bare the values of this Government in these cuts. We can see cuts that will increase child poverty we will see cuts that will increase unemployment we can see cuts that slice $3 billion worth out of climate action and we can see cuts that will take New Zealand backwards and that is what is very clearly laid out in this legislation.I'm going to focus on a couple of votes that are covered off in the Supplementary Estimates. If we have a look through one of the most depressing things reading through the analysis of the Supplementary Estimates is the amount that all of these are decreased by. This is a Government that has cut and has come in and undone. Really the Budget showed they haven't got much vision of what they are going to do and I think we see that reflected by the way New Zealanders are responding to this Government. The majority either believe things are going to get worse for them or they don't know what's going to happen. It is not a Budget that has inspired hope it is not a Budget that has made New Zealanders feel confident about their future and it is no surprise when you read through the list of cuts in the Supplementary Estimates.The Minister of Finance seemed to wear it as a badge of honour that this was an incoming Government that cut a programme of work about New Zealand's future energy security because not only did they scrap investigating whether Lake Onslow was a good scheme—fair call. They won an election—their call to make. Not one I agree with but they were elected and that is their decision to make. But what the Supplementary Estimates lay bare is that they scrapped the entire work programme around fuel storage about what we're going to do into the future to make sure that we can give New Zealanders the most affordable energy that both their businesses and their homes can receive in the form of renewables but also how we're going to ensure that the lights stay on.Now we hear a lot from this Government—and we heard it from the Prime Minister today in question time—showing they really do not understand this issue. The fact that it takes somewhere between 10 and 16 years to bring a newly granted gas exploration permit to fruition of production—they seem to think that that is the sure-fire quick solution to New Zealand's energy security.What that shows is that this is a Government with no plan it is a Government with no vision and the fact that we have a Minister of Finance who is meant to take some kind of long-term view of New Zealand's security—to wear it as a badge of pride that they have cut in this Budget what it is making formally in these Supplementary Estimates all the money that was put aside for looking at our future fuel security in terms of the battery project. It wasn't all about pumped hydro and it's about time that we heard a peep out of this Government about what they're going to replace it with because I think what New Zealanders are growing very tired of very quickly is hearing only what this coalition Government is going to cut and very little detail—next to no detail—on what they're actually going to do. Why are they sitting in those chairs? What is their vision and what do they hope to achieve for New Zealand because all New Zealanders are seeing is a programme of work that is taking New Zealand backwards—a series of bad choices that is laying that bare.We also see in here in the appropriation to get to decrease by $507 million the work to partner with businesses to cut our emissions. In these Supplementary Estimates we have a Government who has made a choice that they are going to go and pay other countries to decrease their emissions in the form of buying international credits at—who knows?—$100 $200 a tonne which is probably the best estimate rather than partnering with New Zealand businesses to keep well-paid highly-skilled industrial jobs in New Zealand such as at New Zealand Steel. This is no subsidy; this is a good economic deal for the Government. We have yet to hear from this Government where they're going to go and buy a carbon credit for $18 a tonne which is what it costs in terms of the New Zealand Steel deal.But again with pride in these Supplementary Estimates we see this Government that has ripped the guts out of our climate action. We see a Government that has no plan to reduce our emissions at home. We see a Government that is burying its head in the sand when it comes to climate change and to take $3 billion of climate action out in a single Budget is something members opposite need to hang their heads in shame. They need to explain to future generations why it is they are putting their futures in jeopardy because that is what this Budget and these Supplementary Estimates show: that they are a Government that is intent on taking us backwards.But more concerningly they are putting future generations' futures at risk by what they are doing. They are putting it at risk in terms of not only the health of our planet but the future of work job security the fact that people can have some security and how it is they're going to make a living. With a swipe of the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister's pen they have taken away that security. They have consigned New Zealand to an uncertain future they are taking us backwards and I think that those members who are occupying the seats opposite are going to have some explaining to do to future generations about what they did in this moment of history because it is reprehensible.That's just one vote. Then you move on to housing and you see the kind of money being taken out of Māori housing. You see money being taken out of progressive homeownership. You see this is a Government that is building fewer State houses than any Government in decades. Take away even just community housing—our Government every year in six years built more than the 750 community housing places. They are going backwards when it comes to housing. New Zealand was starting to get on top of a housing crisis but we have a programme of work that has made incredibly bad choices laid bare in these Supplementary Estimates that will be a burden for future generations to bear."