1. Economic Programme—Fiscal StrategyANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition) to the Minister of FinanceORAL QUESTIONSQUESTIONS TO MINISTERSEconomic Programme—Fiscal StrategyANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition): My question is to the Minister of Finance. Does he stand by his statement—Rt Hon John Key: Oh God I'm irrelevant already.ANDREW LITTLE: John it is all over. It is all over brother.Mr SPEAKER: Order! Again as I said yesterday I can sense the excitement in the air but we will still conduct question time under the normal rules.ANDREW LITTLE: It is not the excitement; it is the relief on the face of the Prime Minister.Mr SPEAKER: Order! We will have the question.1. ANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition) to the Minister of Finance: Does he stand by his statement there is no room for significant loosening of the purse strings" and does this apply to funding for health police and education?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): Yes. That comment was made in 2014 before a return to surpluses but it holds as true today as it did then. The Government is not in the habit of spending surpluses before it has them but now that it does have surpluses some of them will be used up on funding the Kaikōura earthquake recovery. Whatever other surpluses there are it will use responsibly to make a difference to the lives of New Zealanders. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! I will not put up with that behaviour again from New Zealand First members.Andrew Little: Which is more important to him: more tax cuts or fixing public services like health education and police?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Both are important because we need to reward hard-working New Zealanders and we need to make sure that the billions we spend on health and education actually change lives and make a difference for New Zealanders—that we are not just shovelling money out because it sounds good to spend on education like the Labour Party does.Andrew Little: Can he confirm Judith Collins' claim that she has been requesting money for more police since June; if so why has he rejected her?Hon BILL ENGLISH: All propositions made by Ministers for the expenditure of significant public money which we only have because people pay GST on their shopping at the supermarket—all of those propositions have to go through a thorough process. Sometimes Ministers find it a little bit irritating.Andrew Little: Why has crime been surging in the last few years? Is it because he has not been funding enough police or because Judith Collins just is not a very good police Minister?Hon BILL ENGLISH: There is I think quite a serious discussion actually to go on about what has changed about the trajectory of crime rates. It does look as if the lower tolerance for family violence is a big part of more arrests and convictions for those serious crimes. There is better investigation of serious sexual crime leading to more arrests and convictions and the clutch of criminal activity that goes with methamphetamine. We are digging pretty hard into why those numbers have been rising.Andrew Little: When New Zealanders like 96-year-old Trixie Cottingham are having their home care cut by underfunded district health boards (DHBs) does he take responsibility for that as finance Minister?Hon BILL ENGLISH: No because as that member will know DHBs have considerable latitude as to how they use their money. As the Minister of Health has pointed out I think this year they got around $600 million more to meet the growing demand for health services. But when we put more money in we want to make sure that it makes a difference. We do not just shovel it in because it is good to spend on health.Andrew Little: Does he agree with Jonathan Coleman that "before we look at tax cuts we've got to make sure we're properly funding health"; if so why is health not then funded properly already?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The Minister has been a strong and persistent advocate not just for more spending in health actually—he has been an advocate for things like the bowel screening programme for instance which should save the lives of hundreds of New Zealanders. And he has overseen a programme where improved emergency room performance has halved the death rate over the last 5 years and that is a pretty impressive achievement. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! A little less interjection from my left.Andrew Little: Given his statement "No ifs no buts and no fighting in school communities over whether to have it. Everyone is going bulk funding" how quickly does he think he can resurrect that policy?Mr SPEAKER: In so far as there is financial ministerial responsibility—the Hon Bill English.Hon BILL ENGLISH: I am not sure what the member is referring to but the Minister of Education has recently had a discussion with the education sector about a review of the funding system made some decisions about what not to proceed with and is proceeding with the other five or six aspects that she proposed. That is the Government position."