Macindoe Tim: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMacindoe Tim: General Debate[Sitting date: 24 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4713. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): If ever there was a party mired in ideological claptrap it would be the New Zealand Green Party. I will look forward to refuting the prophecy of doom that we have just had from Jan Logie. But before I do so could I just put on record my endorsement of the words of the Hon Nathan Guy for the victims of the recent flooding in Whanganui Rangitīkei and surrounding districts and also note that the people of Dunedin South went through a similar experience just a few weeks ago. It has been a difficult time for all of them. We send them best wishes and though it may not seem like it just now I am sure that there will be better times ahead.This is as we said in the Budget just a few weeks ago a Government that is sticking to a plan that is working. What I want to suggest to the House today is that there is a fundamental difference between National and our support parties on this side of the House and Labour and its allies on the other side. The fundamental difference is this: Labour believes that the success of a Government is measured by how much money it takes from the taxpayers and then splashes around—the more the merrier—without ever worrying about the results of that expenditure. National on the other hand says that taxpayers’ money is hard-earned much of it by people on low incomes. Therefore we must never take a dollar more than we can justify and every dollar that we spend has to be spent with the best possible impact with the best possible evidence behind it. That is where I come back to the point that Ms Logie was making before. This is a Government that is firmly focused on looking at the evidence of how the money is spent and finding better ways of spending it. We have made a priority for the last 7 years the delivery of Better Public Services and across the board it is working—across the board it is working. Better Public Services does not automatically mean more expensive services; it means delivering value for taxpayer investment and constantly looking for ways to improve.At the end of the Budget debate the Minister of Finance made a comment about the Labour Opposition that I think bears repeating. He said: “This lazy Labour Party this uninspiring Labour Party this Labour Party that sucks hope from those who need it most has been waiting around to be able to say: ‘The nasty Tories cut everything. Vote for us; we’re kind and caring.’ ” Well it has not happened. We have not been cutting. We have certainly been pruning in certain areas in order to ensure reprioritising in ways where the expenditure will work better and the results are there in crime health education and welfare right across the board showing that it is working. This is a Government that has been firmly focused on striking the right balance between responsible management of the economy managing a growth phase in the economy—and does the international community not look at it and say “Well done New Zealand.”; all the commentators say that—while keeping our own expenditure under control. Remember that Labour saw expenditure go up like this. It went out of office saying “We’ve spent the lot. You guys have got a decade of deficits to look forward to. Good luck—make good with that.”Well we said that that was not good enough and that we would get things back under control much faster than that and we are. But we also said that we would do it while protecting the most vulnerable New Zealanders. Of course this was all before the global financial crisis all before the Canterbury earthquakes—nobody could have seen just how bad things were going to be—and yet in New Zealand here we are with a record that all the economic commentators and all the international observers say is the model to follow. The Labour Party members of course have got no answer to that. They say no a lot of the time but they do not like saying “Well let’s look at what National has been doing that’s working so well and see whether we can adopt some of it.” They just have not got the wit to admit that.We are without doubt looking at further and further improvements. As Chris Finlayson mentioned earlier on what a talented team National has because right across the board the Ministers and snapping at their heels are a group of people on the backbench focused on delivering things that matter for New Zealand—not little ideological claptrap - type things but they are really getting down and saying this could be done better. That is why the Community Investment Strategy is so worthwhile looking at hard. I wish that Ms Logie would take her blinkers off and say: “We can do things better.”—and the Government will do better. One final point that I want to leave with the House is that it is worth noting right across the land that the total annual cost of initiatives in the Government’s last six Budgets has been an extra $2.9 billion. It is a lot of money but it has been manageable and it has been measured. In comparison the extra cost in the last six Budgets of the Labour Government totalled $20 billion. That is unsustainable. Ours is the plan that is working.