Kuriger BarbaraBARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): Thank you Mr Speaker. It's a pleasure to speak on the Budget debate this afternoon and have the document in front of me around rebuilding together. I have no doubt that six months or 12 months ago the Government would not have had any plan to deliver this Budget in exactly the same way that they've had to because of COVID-19 which means that it's required some quick thinking and some adjustment to the Budget figures. Also as we've seen there's $20 billion that was in there that was unallocated. So in that regard the fact that it's done with quick thinking means that it's going to require a lot more intense scrutiny because when things are done in a hurry—and we've seen it with legislation in the House in particular—things do get missed. One of the first things I read at page 33 as I'm going through the fiscal strategy is that The global COVID-19 pandemic has placed extreme stress on the global economy". That's true but the Government of New Zealand is not responsible for the global economy and neither can the Government use the global economy as an excuse for our own. It has an effect on it. It has an effect on trade and obviously through this period with COVID-19 tourism I would say—as we all know—is one of the biggest sufferers as an industry of the effect of COVID. So it's not an excuse and as we went through the global financial crisis a few years ago we were one of the Governments—led by John Key—who was leading the growth economies around the world. So we can't use it as an excuse but it creates some broader thinking because in any economy there are the economic factors the environmental factors and then there are the social factors and right now as an economy some of the things that have been under attack are going to be the very things that will save our economy and will provide the social wellbeing expectations that our people have come to believe in. So when we hear—quite frequently these days—that farming is the backbone of our economy for the last 2½ years we haven't been hearing that. Look it certainly underpins our economy and I would be the first one to accept that there are some changes needed in agriculture. But what we have to remember when we're doing Budgets whether they be economic budgets or environmental budgets is that what we do in this country as a great little place down the end of the world is not going to have massive massive effects on climate change. So we really need to think about our Budget going forward economically as a country think about some of our natural resources think about the fact that our farmers in New Zealand are actually world leaders when it comes to issues of climate change and think about how we economically use our intellectual property to influence the rest of the world. Last night we were here debating the changes to the climate change bill. Several trees had been cut down to produce the bill in the first instance. It's about a ream of paper and then the Supplementary Order Papers are almost another ream of paper. I question this Government on how that is going to make any difference to climate change because it's going to create a whole lot more administration and what we need is tools to drive things forward. So I would not disagree—in this document page 35—that "Now is the time to use our strong fiscal position to respond to COVID-19". I would acknowledge the Minister of Finance Grant Robertson in acknowledging both Bill English and Michael Cullen for the work that they've done in the past. I always believe in giving credit where credit is due. It is time to use our strong fiscal position but the way we respond to this is going to make a big difference. We've had lots of discussions in this House about the wage subsidies. Now the wage subsidies have been a big help for businesses and no one's actually going to deny that. But there seems to be some denial on the Government side of the House about the difficult position that many many many businesses still find themselves in. The wage subsidy has been helpful. We hear time and time again that yes under level 2 businesses are open. There is a huge difference between opening the door and running a profitable business. If we think about some of our restaurants certainly in level 3 it was really difficult watching those people with their little table out the door waiting for customers to come and get takeaways. You don't go to a fine restaurant to get takeaways. It was very difficult. Even now there are some restaurants under the guise of the rules that we operate in level 2 that are allowing people to come for dinner for an hour because they need to get that turnover in that business to make the money. You cannot expect people to go and get nine friends as it was at that stage because the limit was 10 to go out with a group and say "We're going out for an hour." because the reality is those sorts of things don't happen. So we really do need to think about the dynamics of what we would call being open for business. The time frame and the path for meeting our long-term objectives as we recover is on page 39 of the document. The time frame has been something that we've been arguing about quite a bit as to when we change levels and the path is the other one. It appears that as a Government and as a country we've been quite picky and choosy about the path and about the people that we allow into this country. Yes I don't have any objection that movie-making has helped this country a long way down the economic path but when we start picking and choosing between different industries—and we've heard Nick Smith's objections to blocking the boat out of his local area which is basically taking $3.5 million out of his community when the boat's coming from a country where there is no COVID. It's not only about the time frames and the levels; it's about how we make the decisions on who we let in and who we let out. I just want to touch a little bit now on some of the expenditure in agriculture. It's very good to see the continuation of expenditure on the Mycoplasma bovis eradication programme. It was pretty rough at the beginning probably a bit like COVID's being rough on a lot of people but I do see some forward planning has been going on with the Ministry for Primary Industries for the last year or so which has actually made the process easier particularly relating to the wellbeing of farmers who are going through that dreaded process. So I commend them for the human factor that came into that process much later in the piece. The other part of that process was the National Animal Identification and Tracing (NAIT) scheme and it's good to see there's funding going into maintaining compliance for that. NAIT let us down at the time when it came to the Mycoplasma bovis outbreak. It was often referred back to farmers not doing what they were supposed to do and in some situations I don't doubt that that was the case. However the NAIT system was not operating as it should be so it's good to see some money going into that. I'm really thrilled to see more money going into the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases because when we talk about the emissions trading scheme and we talk about taxes that's not going to fix our problem. The global research alliance and the science is going to fix our problem by building up the tools. People just want to know: "Where am I now where do I need to get to and what tools have you got to help me?" It's no good taxing things that we don't have answers for. So I'm really really thrilled to see that happening and also thrilled to see some increase in capability for the post-entry quarantine and the laboratory services for new horticulture markets because we've had some difficulties there in the last year or so. Lawrence Yule is very aware of some of the stock for horticulture that's been through a tough time as well. So thank you Mr Speaker. That's a very quick summary of my view of the Budget."