MacLeod DavidDAVID MacLEOD (National—New Plymouth): Thank you Mr Speaker. Tough times require tough decisions and living within our means—it's a commonly said phrase—but our country is going through a process right now of tightening our belts and better positioning ourselves for a very bright future. I look around the House today and I think we ourselves in our own households all have businesses in our own right: we earn revenue we earn a salary we earn interest—we might even earn some inheritance or dividends from an investment we might have—but we also have outgoings. We have to pay for food. We have to pay for rent mortgage payments buy clothes—pay some interest perhaps. We are in effect a small business in our own household and the reason why I bring that up is that Government in itself is no different.I want to take you on a little journey. I was lucky enough as a young tradesman to be able to buy into an electrical business. Now over the time of owning that business we went through ups and downs highs and lows and I'm not ashamed to say that the fact is we went through some very tough times. At one stage I thought I was going to lose my share and we had to make some very very tough decisions during those times. They were hard. There were people's lives at stake. And you learn when you have a business that when you employ an individual it's not just that individual that you're supporting; it's also their partner their family and sometimes even their wider family. So you take the responsibility very very seriously. But I did fall on hard times. It was a result of endeavouring to support a business through its own hard times but unfortunately I almost became unstuck as a result of being on the coattails of its failure. Luckily enough I made some decisions quickly I righted the ship and we ended up going through to some far better times. And I'm pleased to have gone through that journey. They say that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger and I had some considerable learnings from that.I've also had some considerable learnings over my career with some of the governance roles that I've had with companies that I've been at the decision-making table of and similarly they have their ups and downs. Those types of journeys are something that I bring to this House here and that's why I'm sitting as part of this Government because this Government realises that we need to get our ship itself in good shape. When you look at the likes of our inflation rate we know that it's outside of the band that we want it to be in. We look at our official cash rate; it is too high—5.5 percent. We need to get that down because we know that that affects interest rates and we've got to remember basically that just about every household that has a mortgage has had to renew its mortgage at far higher rates than they've managed to actually appreciate in recent times. That's tough going for those households. They have to go out there and earn that extra cash just to pay their mortgage not to actually do anything else. So they've had to cut their cloth or get tighter in this.Unemployment unfortunately as a country is creeping up but we need to get our country stronger. If we look at our debt as a country our debt as a percentage of GDP is not where we want it to be. We want to bring it down lower. We need to make sacrifices. We need to make decisions to succeed or even just to survive. We need to look at behaviours. There's a number of farmers in the room and I know that farming over the decades has had its challenges at times. They have their ups and downs. I think I the banks that support farmers. Now banks look at behaviours OK? A lot of farmers have big debts but one behaviour that they won't want to see in hard times is farmers going and buying a new boat or a new car. They want them to be seen to be tightening their belts and making good decisions. That's no different to the Government. Our behaviour as a Government is being observed by credit rating agencies. We get that credit rating as a result of how we behave and we need to be showing good fiscal discipline. That's what this Government is indeed doing.I finish by saying that we are a Government that is going to deliver better public services and tax relief to New Zealanders who desperately need it.Dan Bidois: It's coming your way.DAVID MacLEOD: It is indeed coming our way. But we also need to support the economy because we need to earn a dollar to spend a dollar within that Public Service that we so dearly want to improve from today's state. Thank you Mr Speaker.