Upston LouiseHon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): Thank you Mr Speaker. It was very telling indeed that the Minister of Finance opened his contribution in the third reading of the Public Finance (Wellbeing) Amendment Bill by saying and congratulating himself and his Government for the fact that this was a world-leading approach to wellbeing. Actually what about a world-leading delivery of wellbeing to every single New Zealander?The interesting thing is this overall fascination with being world leading. Actually what New Zealanders—definitely in my electorate of Taupō right now—want to see is local results local outcomes. They want to know they've got a Government that is focused on them not some aspirational kind of world-leading approach—Alastair Scott: Fluffy.Hon LOUISE UPSTON: Fluffy" as one of my colleagues says. They want to see that the Government is focused on them. They want to know the Government is focused on them and improving their quality of life. So yep Treasury's Living Standards Framework—no disagreement around how important that is. It was created under the Rt Hon Bill English's leadership. There's no argument about that it is the Government's job to improve the quality of people's lives and their standard of living and their wellbeing. To actually though put it in the Public Finance Act and then expect economic analysists at Treasury to measure it and report on it are two very very different things.So on this side of the House we are more interested in delivery and more interested in the outcomes for New Zealanders than about the Prime Minister or the Minister of Finance today seeking accolades on the world stage. That is not what a public finance piece of legislation for New Zealanders should be about.We absolutely agree that the Government should have a broader focus than GDP and there are other measures of success. One of the measures of success for many people is how we get through a crisis as a country. So the people of New Zealand—taxpayers of New Zealand families children seniors retired people—actually want to know that the Government is focused on them and improving their quality of life. Fundamentally what does that mean? Fundamentally it means having a strong economy. Having a strong economy is about affording the things that New Zealanders want—whether it's health education or infrastructure. Unfortunately what we've got now is a Government that likes to talk big talk about world-leading approaches 100000 KiwiBuild houses and light rail in Auckland by 2021. What actually matters to the quality of people's lives and their standard of living is the Government's ability to deliver—whether it's housing whether it's public transport whether it's public health whether it's making sure that every single person that leaves isolation is tested because those are the things that make a difference to New Zealanders' quality of life.So National doesn't support this bill. I've had colleagues who've said "How do you define wellbeing?" and that this is a piece of fluff. Actually we want legislation and we want the time of this House to be focused on things that make a difference to New Zealanders' lives. To suggest that previous Governments haven't focused on wellbeing is quite frankly unbelievable and outrageous. To suggest that former Labour Governments haven't focused on wellbeings that former National Governments haven't focused on wellbeing is clearly clearly untrue.If you look at things like the Better Public Service targets that were introduced by the previous National Government that was always about accountability. It was about a whole-of-Government approach and it's really sad to hear scoffs from the other side. They're clearly not interested in lifting immunisation rates lifting educational achievement. Educational achievement particularly if you look at what we saw in the lifting of educational attainment for Māori and Pacific—because if there is one thing that improves somebody's opportunity in life it's education. That is absolutely the leveller no matter what your circumstances no matter what your background if we're able ensure that more of our young people leave school with a great education it provides greater opportunities. That is a sort of tangible measurable outcome that we want to see for New Zealanders.What we don't want to see is by merely dropping the word "wellbeing" and a "wellbeing approach" and putting "wellbeing" in front of your budget and have a "wellbeing report" every four years doesn't necessarily mean any change at all for New Zealanders and their quality of life. That's why it's just really unfortunate that we're debating a piece of legislation in the House in urgency that quite frankly might make zero difference to New Zealanders. That's why it is a bit of a tragedy.We all know the significant impact that COVID-19 has had on families and business and communities. What we want to see is competence in shifting results and getting better outcomes for those most hard hit by this. We want to see that the Government is delivering the core elements of what they define as wellbeing: having a job a place to live getting a good education having great health having a healthy environment but actually this bill doesn't deliver any of that—none of it. Actually if we look at the last week alone whether it's inability to build houses whether it's inability to get a public transport project off the ground that I know in particular the Greens were passionate about or whether it's about making sure that everybody in quarantine gets tested this is a Government who's proven time and time again they can't deliver.So it's not about having legislation that's world leading it's actually about having a country that is governed by Ministers who not only talk big but actually we want them to deliver big. Actually every New Zealander particularly now wants to know that's what the Government is doing. They want Treasury to be able to focus their efforts on ensuring the Government based on good economic advice is making good decisions about spending. It's not just about—and that's what one of my colleagues read out in terms of the Wellbeing Budget was—"big dollars". It's actually not about being able to say "We spent more than the other lot." If the quality of the spend doesn't deliver results and outcomes for New Zealanders it ain't worth the paper it's printed on.That's why it's quite sad actually when Governments gone by of each side of the House have focused on improving New Zealanders' quality of life to then have a word "wellbeing" stuck into the Public Finance Act and the Minister of Finance thinks this is going to be the big life changer for all New Zealanders because wellbeing as a word is put into the Public Finance Act—it's actually a bit tragic.New Zealanders want to see that Treasury is focusing their efforts on good advice on good forecasting so that the Government of the day has the best information on which to make decisions. So whether it is in more recent times Treasury's forecasts on unemployment rates which I think based on the IMF's recent projections they're going to have to go back and amend. And the OECD figures don't agree with Treasury or the fact that Treasury thinks we'll get back to pre-COVID levels of unemployment by 2023—I don't think too many people would actually agree that that's possible. But Treasury needs to be focused on ensuring Government spending is effective on providing sound advice and on making sure that there isn't wasteful spending that actually money that is spent—of which it is taxpayer's money; it's not the Government's—is spent effectively and it delivers results. Our focus absolutely must be on ensuring a sound economic base of which our country is born because it is that and that alone that improves the wellbeings and the living standards of all New Zealanders."