McClay ToddHon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua): Madam Speaker thank you very much. It is an important year. It must be election year because the last speaker Andrew Little didn't mention a number of things straight off the bat. And I'm going to come to those because this is a Government of announcements and a Government of promises. Of course the Government talked a lot about KiwiBuild over two elections and what do we hear now? Actually they don't want to talk about those things anymore because they have become the Government of non-delivery. It's really easy to make a promise and it's very easy to make an announcement but actually delivering is what takes hard hard work when it comes to a Government. We didn't hear anything from Mr Little about Pike River. That surprises me because he's made huge commitments there to families. We actually didn't hear any reason why gang numbers are increasing as quickly as they are except they say they're all being sent here from Australia. But if you talk to the police and you get information from them there are about 27 gang members that have been sent from Australia not the thousands and thousands that actually have joined gangs in New Zealand; a mere 27. You didn't hear anything about the unemployment numbers—the dole numbers—going up by 27000 over the last two years to be close to the level they were under the GFC in New Zealand. We didn't hear him mention that there are now 20000 more children in poverty in New Zealand than there were two years ago but we did hear him talk about all the things that are important when you're in Government. The one thing he didn't mention which is the one thing New Zealanders continue to ask every single day is when is this Government going to deliver. Well today we are 200 days away from the election and if you can't build a few houses you're not going to see them build any roads. And if they can't build any houses under KiwiBuild the electorate is not going to see them deliver on the very very many worthwhile yet lofty promises that they have spoken of day after day after day since Winston Peters chose them to form this Government.The things they haven't spoken about are what are most important to New Zealanders. You know we have an economy that's slowing and we're going to hear speaker after speaker from the Government get up and talk about coronavirus and international headwinds and try and blame the things that have slowed and gone wrong with our economy on international events. That's actually just not good enough because they inherited a very strong economy that was growing on the back of extremely hard work of New Zealanders: mums and dads who get out of bed every day and go to work—who take pride in raising their families—on businesses where they actually had to dig deep and work so very hard during the global financial crisis. In a mere two and a half years this is a Government of three parties that has taken that hard work of New Zealanders and turned it into not an economic success story but one of missed opportunity. The average GDP growth rate in New Zealand is about 2.8 percent over the last 10 or 15 years. In the last few years of the Key-English Government we were averaging or hitting around 4 percent per year. What does GDP growth mean? GDP growth means when an economy is growing businesses have confidence there is money flowing through the system and they're able to invest to employ more and to pay more. What have we seen over two and a half years? That's fallen to 1.6 percent GDP growth—long before anything happened to our economy because of coronavirus's effect upon New Zealand and other parts of the world. But more important than that is per capita GDP: actually how much has been done or how much is available to each individual in New Zealand? We were towards the top of the OECD for GDP per capita rates—I think in the top seven. Guess what? We've fallen to the bottom half—in fact close to the bottom seven. We went from 1.8 percent per person in New Zealand GDP growth over two years to just 0.6 percent. Now I don't think that this is a Government that had a plan to do that because they haven't delivered on a single other plan that they've had; I think it has been close to incompetence that has done that or perhaps it's just that they haven't paid attention to the things that are most important when it comes to the economy. Now when on this side of the House we talk about GDP growth it's not about the big companies. It's not about what a 1 percent or a 2 percent or a 3 percent GDP growth actually means to the large companies in New Zealand; it's about every single everyday New Zealander who works so very very hard and those Kiwis that are running small businesses or are working hard every single day who are finding that they're not going ahead that they have uncertainty in the workplace that their wages have not been going up but costs all around them have been. The cost on businesses today is much greater than it has been any other time and actually what we're seeing is decisions made by this Government that they are ideologically wedded to—have always stood in favour of—and they're just not thinking of the consequences of those and the effect it has upon small businesses. I say again: small businesses in New Zealand are hard-working New Zealanders—they're Kiwis. They're not people that are actually out there doing wonderful huge things on the world stage. We need them too—these are just hard-working Kiwis that are finding it much harder than they should because this is a Government that hasn't got its eye on the ball. And let me just tackle one thing. One of the challenges that actually much of our economy has had for a period of time is finding an active and willing workforce—workers both skilled and unskilled to fill the jobs as they become available. They've said day after day that they can't find people to fill jobs in the horticulture and agriculture sector in factories and almost every single part of our economy. Yet we have a Government that continues to talk about what they need to do or should do about foreigners coming here and blaming foreigners for many of these challenges. Well here's the problem that we have. As businesses over two years have said We can't find workers."—part of the reason why the economy will be slowing: they can't find workers. We've seen the unemployment rate go up by 27000 people. And that's counterintuitive. If there are businesses out there saying "We need employees skilled and unskilled." yet at the same time the Government is happy for 27000 extra people to be on the unemployment benefit it means actually that they don't know how to grow an economy they don't know how to support workers and they're happy to let people languish on the unemployment benefit and not actually find ways to get them to the workforce. You know over the last term that we were in Government 10000 jobs a month were being created—10000 jobs a month were being created by our economy coming out of the global financial crisis. You've got to remember actually we were a Government that didn't have a single surplus because of the great challenges that the world and New Zealand had faced. Well now we're up to in some months only 1000 jobs being created and even less. And that's not the sign of a healthy economy. That's long—long—before any effect that the coronavirus has had upon the New Zealand economy.Our economy should be doing much better than it is. It should be doing much better than it is. There should be many more opportunities for New Zealanders. This is a Government that should be investing in productive New Zealand. They should be investing in things that are going to get New Zealand moving not throwing money around at projects that they like or they've always thought are good or as we now see so close to an election anything where they can put a spade in the ground and they can cut a ribbon on to say it's being launched they will apply money to. And the hard-working taxpayer the hard-working Kiwi who every day is battling whose costs are going up but their salaries are not who are finding it harder to get to work because of congestion on our roads deserve better than a Government that's just going to merely go out and throw money around so that they hope that the electorate won't notice and they can be re-elected. There are two points I want to touch on about that cost of living on New Zealand families and they are fuel and fuel tax. We saw last week an announcement from the Prime Minister saying that the cost of fuel in parts of New Zealand may go down by 30c a litre. Well good and well if that happens. But a study is not going to achieve that. Actually extra tax piled on when Kiwis are doing it so hard so difficult—three taxes from a Government around fuel and then an extra fuel tax in Auckland—is what has made it so much more difficult for them. Rents are up by $50 a week on average for Kiwis who rent and at the same time—at the same time—hard-working Kiwis are going backwards; they're not earning more. Yet this is a Government that won't support those who are in work. They're willing to give much more to those who are not working. They need an economic plan. National has one. And we're going to outline that and talk about it as we go forward to the election. We're going to make sure that we keep taxes low. We're going to keep debt low by being responsible managers of the economy and responsible when it comes to spending taxes—something this Government has never been accused of. We're going to grow incomes and lower the cost of living by looking at regulations. We're making it easier for people to do business and freeing up the workforce to be able to do the things that we need them to. We will invest in more core public services and infrastructure. The last speaker Mr Little said that they'd announced a $12 billion infrastructure project. Well I say to Mr Little and I say to the Prime Minister you can't get to work faster on their announcement. The kids are still going to get wet walking on the sides of the road under their announcements. Actually what the country needed to see was them having a plan to build infrastructure over the last two years not merely do nothing at all and wait for a working group to tell them what to do. And we'll continue to create jobs and opportunities for all New Zealanders. We are ambitious for all New Zealanders—every single New Zealander. We want them to do better. The economy should have been doing better over the last two years. What I want to say to you and the public who are listening is that the coronavirus will be a big challenge for our economy. But it was slowing long before that and we should be in a much better position to deal with it. It's the ineptitude of this Government and that they haven't done their job properly delivered on their promises over the last two years that will make it so much more difficult for Kiwis."