Bayly Andrew: Debate on Budget Policy StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBayly Andrew: Debate on Budget Policy Statement[Sitting date: 11 March 2015. Volume:703;Page:2155. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): What a wonderful day to be here and it so good to see the Opposition members here. I know why they are here and it is because we have reported a surplus today—$77 million for the 7 months to January this year. That is why they are all here—to celebrate this; to be part of this. Thank you for coming.What I want to talk about is how we have got some people on the other side who do not understand how we achieve things like this. It was fascinating to listen to that speech just before by Sue Moroney. The whole issue around good economic growth has been just recently validated by Moody’s. Moody’s is an international independent body that approves and reviews economic performance and it has reaffirmed yet again that we have got a triple A rating.Why are we getting these good reports? First of all we are achieving strong economic growth—3.2 percent for the last year—and independent Treasury reports are forecasting that we are going to achieve similar rates over the next 3 years. That is even higher than the average rate that Labour was achieving when we had a world that was rocking along. We are achieving this in a world that is suffering from recession and from global recovery and yet we can still outperform what was achieved by Labour.We are also seeing interest rates at a 20-year low and that is good for business. I know Sue Moroney referred to businesses before. What low interest rates mean is that people can invest in buying new plant for their businesses. They are spending it on capital expenditure. It is also good for our families. It means that our families can borrow money to buy and build new houses which is exactly what we want to see achieved. We are seeing new jobs. My colleagues have talked about it—80000 last year. That means that over the last 5 years 220000 new jobs have been achieved in this economy and with Treasury’s projection of 153000 new jobs over the next 4 years it means another 230000 jobs. In essence that is nearly 500000 jobs over 10 years. That is a fantastic outcome and that is what is going to keep people in good living standards—by creating jobs that they can earn good money from and where they can have the respect they can get from having a good job and looking after their families.We have also increased incomes. We have seen a 15 percent increase in incomes over the last 5 years—higher than inflation and indeed even with our modest salary rises like most New Zealanders we will be better off because we have tamed inflation at 0.8 percent. We have finally got that bogey under control. That means real increases for all our families and people working in New Zealand.Then we can look at our public sector. We have finally wrestled under control the public sector which was significantly expanded by the Labour Government. It reached 34 percent of GDP; we have now got it down to just over 30 percent. What does that mean? That means nearly $10 billion a year that we can invest in new things like health infrastructure and education—which brings me to health.It is fascinating looking at what is happening in health. We have doubled spending in early childhood education in the last 6 years from $800 million to $1.5 billion. We have increased the participation rates of children under 5 going to early childhood education centres by up to 96 percent. We are investing $600 million in new schools. We are seeing secondary school investment go up by 45 percent. We have got $20 million more invested in special needs—nearly half a billion that we spend on special needs. I know that is not enough but it is a significant amount we are investing in looking after our people and our students who need special care in our schools. Finally there are 12000 more places in tertiary education. Those are all great achievements.When I look at what is happening in my electorate of Hunua on 2 February a brand new school opened—Ormiston Primary School; fantastic. This is a fantastic new school that is one of three in that area. They are top-notch schools and they have wonderful creative environments. I went to Waiuku not long ago—only 3 weeks ago—where there is a fantastic headmaster and principal and he showed me some of their results. Across the board and particularly for Māori the results were outstanding. There are significant improvements. That is what we are trying to achieve in education because when those students come out of school we want to see them going into jobs. This is a part of the programmes that we are putting in place in our electorates to see that transition into good vocational training and into jobs which is where people can get the self-respect I talked about.Just reflecting for a moment on the infrastructure spend we have spent $12 billion over the last 10 years and we are investing another $12 billion over the next 10 years. We are seeing such wonderful improvements. We are completing those roads that have been sitting around for generations. All those improvements around Auckland and the great announcement around the Waikato expressway which will see a motorway linking Cambridge right through to Wellsford—those are the types of things that are going to free up our transport. The investment in rail that we have made and the bridges that we are building all are important components in creating a transport infrastructure that is linked.We have also got our train services. There are all those things that we have invested in in Auckland: the new electric train units and the new tracking. We are now seeing a fantastic pick-up in terms of people utilising the train services in Auckland. There are 13 million trips a year together with 11 million trips that we are seeing in Wellington. That is about good public usage. We want to support public transport.What does this mean? It means good stuff for the regions. There was an aspersion before that our regions were not benefiting apart from Christchurch. Well as my colleague Mr Jami-Lee Ross mentioned before there is a 7.8 percent growth rate in Northland. Those are the types of regional statistics we want to read about.This is a Government that has a plan that is working hard that is achieving results and that is delivering great outcomes. This is not a Government that is seeking to put in place higher taxes and that is a good thing because we have got a fantastic tax system. When I thought with horror about what Labour was proposing with its five new taxes—a capital gains tax an additional tax on high-income earners a carbon tax a regional fuel tax and a water tax—I was musing on how that would affect all those small businesses that Labour is now proclaiming it wants to look after and support. Well I can tell you ladies and gentlemen we are a party that understands small business. Many of us have worked in small businesses and have owned small businesses and we know the difference between talk and actually achieving results.So what are we doing about tax? Well first of all we are reducing tax for families in need. Secondly we are reducing tax on income for work and savings. We are raising the effective tax rate on property developments. We are also providing additional funding for the Inland Revenue Department to target those companies and individuals who are avoiding tax. It is interesting that in the Finance and Expenditure Committee meeting this morning we reflected on the success of the Inland Revenue Department in achieving that. It has collected $750 million more in overdue debt owed to the department and another $1.2 billion on tax-avoidance schemes. This is an Inland Revenue Department focused on protecting and maintaining the integrity of our tax system. Finally we are applying stricter rules to ensure that multinational companies cannot avoid their legitimate tax share for the New Zealand economy.So this is what this Government is about. We are about increasing and improving the economy. When I reflect on the exports for New Zealand they have increased significantly. Non-agricultural exports are up significantly. When you think about the total exports out of this country for the year 2014 at nearly $70 billion I find it an absolute disservice when I hear Opposition members going on about how our firms are not working hard and how we are not achieving enough. We have significantly increased exports by $10 billion over the last 4 years. It is a good thing and we should support our businesses. Thank you very much.