Willis NicolaNICOLA WILLIS (Deputy Leader—National): Thank you for this opportunity to speak about the Government's Budget Policy Statement. This year's Budget comes at a critical time for the New Zealand economy where we have on a number of fronts significant challenges deepening for New Zealanders deepening for everyday households for businesses and for the position of New Zealand as a whole.In our debate at the select committee we were acutely aware of that context. What was less obvious was that there are in fact plans in this Budget that will address those challenges in any deep or substantive way. I want to outline some of them. The first is that we are in a cost of living crisis. Not for more than 30 years has New Zealand experienced price increases as rapid as we are currently experiencing with inflation at 7.2 percent. The consequence of that for New Zealanders is acute. They have experienced food prices going up the fastest they have since 1989 with fresh fruit and vegetables—those things New Zealand prides itself on growing so well—up 23 percent in just one year.At the same time families continue to face extremely high housing costs with rents up $175 a week since this Government came to office. And while prices are rising fast real wages are lagging behind so that over the course of this Government in fact people have gone backwards in their paycheques.What that means is that up and down the country we are seeing hardship in ways that we haven't seen in many many years. Whether it's families who are struggling to make ends meet whether it's the people lining up for food banks whether it's superannuitants whose fixed income is no longer sufficient to cover their bills the cost of living crisis is not only serious; it has become prolonged.We discussed at committee when we looked at the Budget Policy Statement the reasons for that. And while Ministers are right to acknowledge that yes other countries have experienced inflation and yes severe weather events contribute to inflation it is completely wrong for Ministers to reject responsibility for their role that they should rightly take up in helping address the cost of living crisis—not only through band-aids of additional spending initiatives but actually getting at the root drivers of inflation.We have not seen from the other side of the House the economic understanding that Governments that continue to add new taxes and costs to businesses are passing costs on to New Zealanders that Governments that absolutely restrict immigration and contribute to worker shortages are constraining the ability of the economy to respond to demand pressures that Ministers who refuse to bring discipline to their own spending are putting fuel on the inflation fire and that in the midst of all of this sitting back and watching real incomes decline without offering any tax relief is just wrong.The second area that is a clear piece of context for the Budget Policy Statement is the fact that New Zealand in an international basis is becoming less competitive. Last year we dropped to 63rd in the international competitiveness rankings the biggest drop of any of the countries. What New Zealand should be thinking about at this time is how we grow our economy become more productive and come out of this cost of living crisis. But the Government opposite have lost sight of that goal and are instead intent on band-aid measures.One of the gravest concerns that we have is the degree of wasteful spending that has gone on in recent in years and is set to be perpetuated in the upcoming Budget. Government spending is up $1 billion a week since Labour came to office—$1 billion a week—which is a higher level of spending in proportion to our economy at 35 percent of our economic output than New Zealand has seen in 17 years.New Zealanders often say to me: Well if with that spending we were seeing great enhancement to wellbeing maybe they'd have an argument." But actually when we look at the wellbeing objectives that are outlined in this very Budget Policy Statement it's clear that despite spending up a storm this Government has managed to take us backwards on the wellbeing outcomes New Zealanders expect.So much for a just transition; we are importing record levels of coal. So much for physical and mental wellbeing; there has been a fourfold increase in the State house waiting list with literally thousands of families putting their children to bed in motel rooms. So much for good health services; instead emergency waiting times have increased waiting times for elective surgery have increased and MPs are increasingly contacted by constituents who are struggling not only to get a mental health appointment but to even see their GP. We have seen that Māori and Pacific people have also experienced a significant step backwards in their after-inflation wages. So: all of the spending but none of the outcomes.The corollary of that of course is that the way that the Government continues to fuel its inflation inferno its money burning routine is through extra tax on New Zealanders. The tax take is up $43 billion in five years; that amounts to $17500 in tax per New Zealand household. It is an extraordinary increase at a time when households need every dollar they can get their hands on. At a time when New Zealanders are taking jobs on the side are cutting back on their consumption of meat of dairy and are turning off their heaters we have a Government that is quite prepared to sit back and let inflation push more cash into the coffers and extract more tax from the pockets of working New Zealanders.And it's National's contention that this Budget will fail New Zealanders if it does not deliver meaningful income tax relief for working people. It is well past time for that to occur. And at the same time it is time for the Government to step back from the clutch of new taxes it has imposed on New Zealanders: the ute tax the Auckland regional fuel tax the tenant taxes removing interest deductibility for mum and dad landlords the app tax and the ongoing spectre of a jobs tax to fund the Minister of Finance's pet project of a social insurance scheme—these are not responsible costs to impose on New Zealanders in the midst of a cost of living crisis.And what is clear is that for this Budget to deliver what New Zealanders expect it will have to show a lot more discipline about Government spending than has been evident in the past years of this Labour Government. When we on the National side look at the host of projects which have been committed to with very dubious assessment as to whether or not they will deliver results we worry gravely about how low the bar is for this finance Minister when he signs off how he's going to spend other people's money—whether it's the millions spent on the TVNZ-RNZ merger; whether it's the millions spent on the Te Pūkenga merger which seems to have the grand outcome that you can't call people students anymore; whether it's the spending on the social insurance scheme; whether it's the spending on go-nowhere emissions projects; across the board the huge increase in spending on consultants the thousands of additional backroom public servants. There has been a cavalier approach to spending the public purse and it's time the Minister of Finance reined it in.You know I just want to say one last thing. He's leaving it very late because he has already raided the purse for this Budget. He has already spent $2.7 billion of the allowance he set himself for last year—so rapacious is the need to spend spend spend. So we can't take it seriously. New Zealand is in a troubled spot but National has what it takes to strengthen our economy once more bring discipline to spending and let New Zealanders keep more of what they earn while bringing down inflation and taking pressure off interest rates. Another year of Labour is another year we can't afford."