Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): In the normal course of human events people who do a thing over and over get better at it or at least that's what I believed until I heard Julie Anne Genter give a speech and reflected on the fact she's been in Parliament for 10 years and that's what we got. It might have been difficult for people listening at home to tell from Julie Anne Genter's speech but this is the Appropriation (2020/21 Supplementary Estimates) Bill. It's part of the Budget cycle. It's legislated as a requirement under the Public Finance Act 1989. It requires that if the Government spends money and then its Estimates turn out to be wrong it bring this new bill to Parliament and this bill is about all the changes from what the Government budgeted to what it actually intends to spent.I think it's really good that we have in this country a principle that people spend money on behalf of taxpayers only with the permission of this Parliament. To put it in its most simplest form: no taxation without representation. There's a process where the people can vote for and examine expenditure by the Government and actually all of the changes in the new appropriations—the Supplementary Estimates as they're called—are laid out here in these pages for all to see. That's open and transparent government and a very good thing. But at the same time it is extraordinary to note how much expenditure has gone up in this year's Supplementary Estimates and on what.To take something extremely simple you have a look at I don't know say what do we have here—actually I've got to find some better examples. Hang on I'm on a page where they've actually saved some money. We'll go back to the start: Agriculture Biosecurity Fisheries and Food Safety. Implementation of COVID-19 Assistance for Primary Industries: $4682000 extra spending. COVID-19 Assistance for Primary Industries: $13985000. In Fisheries: Aquaculture Settlements they spent $11 million less than they thought—not a bad thing. Settlement of Litigation: $40 million more. Subscriptions to International Organisations: unforeseen $330000 of expenditure. If you go through the next ones $16 million more $81 million more $22 million more $11 million more $952000 more. As you go down the page—and I've just picked the first page—you see the Government spending far more than it had intended—Hon Dr David Clark: Didn't like the second page. DAVID SEYMOUR: —just about every step of the way. David Clark says why don't we look at the second page. Well what does it say there? COVID-19 - Cultural Sector Response and Recovery: $35257000 more than they thought when the Budget was passed last May. Cultural Sector Response and Recovery: $12928000—two identical lines a total of $48 million in additional spending. Next line: $2.25 million extra $1 million extra $268000 saved. Line after line we see a Government that has spent dramatically more than it had budgeted. The fact of the matter is that this Government has gone spendthrift in the middle of a crisis.Here's the facts: this Government has had $100 billion—$100 billion—printed by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand $60 billion that has been borrowed fiscally by the Minister of Finance and that's why the economy is running hot but it's busy and stalling. It's an economy at the crest of a slump on a short-term sugar hit from enormous expenditures enormous money-printing and enormous borrowing. Those are the realities and this Government—what has it done? Well it's been incredibly fortunate that it's had not only low interest rates and lots of borrowing; it's also been incredibly fortunate to have had a very simple response to COVID-19. It's among the most successful countries on earth in dealing with COVID-19 along with other countries that are islands.In fact I asked the Minister for COVID-19 Response can he identify another country in the world that had more natural advantages in dealing with a pandemic than New Zealand. Now any of the members on the Labour benches who were shouting out before—can they tell me which country their Minister for COVID-19 Response named? Which country had more natural advantages in dealing with COVID-19 than New Zealand—anyone?Hon David Bennett: It would have to be North Korea.DAVID SEYMOUR: Silence. Silence from the Labour Party. David Bennett says North Korea and that's where he'd like to retire you know. He'd be amongst friends. That's where he'd love to retire. But the Labour Party they yap yap yap. They shout away and then they get asked a simple question: did any country have an easier run into COVID with more natural advantages? Silence. Silence from the Labour benches and that's the problem. They're never good at answering the hard questions.Here's the difficulty they face: the COVID challenge is becoming more complex. So all of this money-printing and all of this spending has happened in an environment where COVID was relatively simple: We're an island. Lock 'em down lock it out and we're going to be OK." But the rest of the world is moving on. There's vaccines there's variants of the virus there's new technologies there's COVID fatigue and as we move into this "COVID 2.0" world they actually are going to find it a lot harder to deal with it. So far we've had monetary policy fiscal policy and the fact that we're an island that have kept things going and allowed this enormous spending.But here's the next question: what is this Government doing to ensure the New Zealand economy will be productive into the future? What have they done? Well here we go: central planning of the economy through carbon emissions a zero carbon Act that will not reduce by one gram New Zealand's carbon emissions and here's the reason why: the Treasury is giving the advice. The Treasury has said every gram of carbon saved by the zero carbon Act will free up carbon units to be emitted by someone else. So all this banning and taxing of different technologies and trying to work out what sort of utes Toyota is producing and the Prime Minister getting herself in a tiz is all for nothing but ooh it's going to have an effect on energy prices. It's going to have an effect on the economy. It's going to deindustrialise New Zealand and send those high-paying jobs to Australia. That's what it's going to do.What else is this Government doing? Jim Bolger had a bit of a mid-life or shall we say later-life crisis and said "Let's bring back compulsory unionism." The National Party said "That's going to take us back to the 1970s. They're wrong. The 1970s was a great time. This legislation this proposal is going to—Angela Roberts: Yeah I was born in the 1970s—a great time.DAVID SEYMOUR: Angela Roberts is arguing and I can't argue back because I wasn't there and she was. The fact is that this compulsory unionism takes us back to 1894 the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act an Act where 1 percent of a workforce such as a thousand workers in hospitality can force compulsory union agreements on a whole sector even if everyone involved votes against it twice. That's why these extra Estimates and these appropriations are not ultimately affordable because you've got an economy on a short-term sugar hit a Government that is constantly attacking hard-working people just trying to build a home family and business out of their own efforts—attacking them with new rules and regulations and policies that will make them poorer and when the short-term sugar hit of monetary and fiscal stimulus runs out then the chickens will come home to roost. But of course there is a better way—there's got to be a better way. The ACT Party is alone in this Parliament as having produced an alternative Budget that shows us how we could cut the middle-income tax rates to 30c for all those hard-working middle New Zealanders how we could balance the Budget by 2025 and do it without reducing expenditure on public services such as education and health. We wouldn't reduce it one cent and then we'd respect the businesses that pay the bills and make this country go. That's a better alternative. This is profligate waste. Thank you Madam Speaker. Sitting suspended from 5.59 p.m. to 7 p.m."