Woodhouse MichaelHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): I'm not sure what to make of the end of that speech. I think we've just heard the Government's tax policy having just been announced. Only I don't think Grant Robertson would be that fond of the chair of the Finance and Expenditure Committee either announcing the Labour Party's tax policy going into the election in this debate or committing to no new taxes because frankly they haven't said that. The Prime Minister hasn't said it. The Minister of Finance hasn't said it. Frankly I don't think it's true. I think there are tax increases on the way because that's all the Government knows how to do.Now the one thing I will agree with Deborah Russell on is this: that the Budget was somewhat rewritten during the lockdown but there was part of it that I don't think the Government paid close enough attention to. We've been hearing a lot of speeches about the cost side of the Budget but I want to focus on the revenue side because unless we get the money into Crown coffers it's going to be very difficult to deliver the spending programme of this Budget and maintain the debt levels—eye-wateringly high though they are—as what Ms Russell says is up to 54 percent of net GDP. My concern is that the revenue projections are frankly heroic.Now last year the actual Crown revenue was at $93.5 billion. If this Budget was rewritten as recently as March remember before the lockdown there was a projected fall in Crown revenue of at least $4 billion to $89.5 billion in the 2019-20 forecast. Despite that despite all of the drops in tax take that is likely to be the case—and I'll go through why that is—they're only forecasting a $2.5 billion further drop in Crown revenue before it recovers by a massive $7.6 billion.Now in the face of thousands if not tens of thousands of companies going to the wall over the next few months and years even those that survive will survive—Dr Duncan Webb: Where's your evidence?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: It's called realism Dr Webb—it's called realism. The evidence is in every single small business that every single one of my colleagues has visited to hear of the trauma and the fact that they survived the lockdown by the skin of their teeth. But let me tell you what they're not saying. They're not saying Guess what! We're going to make a profit this year." It's only on profit that tax is paid by companies. In fact many of them will sustain thumping great losses. The tax loss offsets for that will go through into out-years. The GST take is already down; it's going to go down even further. Jobs are being lost and people who lose their jobs can't pay PAYE. In the face of all of that they're telling us that Crown revenue is only going to drop next year by $2.5 billion. I say phooey. Indeed the Minister of Finance acknowledged that in the 13-hour debate on this appropriations bill in saying that the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update is going to adjust Crown revenue. What that's going to mean? This is a Government that doesn't know how to cut spending or reprioritise spending or take a value for money lens to spending. That means debt must go up in order to sustain the spending path that they're on.There's another reason debt's going to go up: because the health sector is in a terrible mess. Now the Minister of Health has acknowledged that the $643 million deficits projected across our DHB sector in March isn't going to be met. It's going to be even worse than that. That's going to be about 30 percent higher than it was last year. Now this Budget does put a big dollop of money into DHBs. But listeners should be under no illusions that there is going to be a single extra treatment or procedure or visit to the doctor as a consequence of that nearly billion dollars a year going in because they've firstly got to recover the deficits which could be approaching three quarters of a billion dollars before they even account for health cost inflation which runs at about twice the rate of general inflation. So there is every likelihood that one of two things will happen: either DHBs will continue to plunge further into deficit or services will be cut under this Government.Now there's one thing that they will be able to draw on and that is the underspend in the mental health commitments that they made in Budget 2019 because despite the nearly half a billion dollars they said they were going to spend in mental health I think Mr Doocey they're up to—what—about $40 billion if we're really generous.Matt Doocey: Million.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Forty million dollars rather if we're really generous about the new spending that's gone into mental health. Big announcement not big delivery. In fact no delivery. Very little if any new mental health services have actually been put into place as a consequence of that commitment. So there will be some offset but there's no doubt that the budget for health in Budget 2020 will not be met. There will have to be a supplementary appropriation just to fund the deficits before we even get to extra care for population growth and inflation.I want to touch on the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) because we've had an extraordinary revelation over the last few days from the Minister for Regional Economic Development who talks about pūtea. Well I think it's more like kete poaka. It's a pork barrel. He is running around the country embellishing the number of jobs that he thinks is being created and today had the audacity to issue a press release estimating that there were 13217 jobs created out of the Provincial Growth Fund on the same day that the Auditor-General issued a damning report into the management of the Provincial Growth Fund that said that the fund's authorisation processes lacked transparency it lacked coordination across the four organisations in Government that were managing the fund that there were no measurements. They didn't even know how to define job growth.Yet the Minister comes to this House and trumpets the fact that they've exceeded the target of 10000 jobs created out of the PGF and accuses me of plucking figures out of the air. Well that is the master of plucking figures I would suggest and that there is no more likely to be 13000 jobs than I am to be 6½ feet tall. It just ain't happening. We want it to happen. We want there to be measures in place. We want to know how many jobs are being created because that is a core task and target of the Provincial Growth Fund but we are none the wiser. The Auditor-General cut through the spin of the Hon Shane Jones the Minister for kete poaka and said "We don't know." That's not good enough. When $3 billion is being earmarked for Provincial Growth Fund initiatives we should know better about the sustained economic and job growth that comes from it.I say $3 billion. The Minister will say $2.7 billion of it has already been appropriated but if one reads the fine print there's only $339.5 million that has actually been paid out. So for every dollar of commitment that the Minister has made and every ribbon that he cuts for each dollar only 12.9 cents has actually reached the regions. Those regions of Northland of Tai Rāwhiti of Hawke's Bay of Whanganui and of the West Coast those high priority regions—all they've heard is grand announcements while Mr Jones walks in cuts a ribbon and leaves. The money is not flowing into those regions at the speed and in the rate that he portrays it to be.I want to finish briefly on Pike River because I now have responsibility for Pike River re-entry on behalf of the National Party. The Minister for Pike River Re-entry has made it clear that the $54 million—Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi: How much?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Fifty-four million dollars Mr Bakshi that has been earmarked for re-entering the drift will be the limit of the taxpayer's commitment to that. I support that. I wish the Pike River re-entry team the very best over the next five months as they head down to the drift and try to recover important electrical equipment that may provide answers to questions that the families of the Pike River miners and the community right across the country have. But I agree with the Minister that it's time to put a cap on that and do the best with what we've found."