Ross Jami-LeeJAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany): I feel a bit sorry for Stuart Nash. He is one of the bright young hopes of the Labour Party. He is actually a reasonably nice guy. He is the closest thing that the Labour Party has to a free-market capitalist but he is just so negative. He is just so negative. Was there anything positive in that speech? Is the Labour Party ever going to come up with an opportunity to win Government and ask New Zealanders to support it if it never has anything positive to add never has anything positive to suggest and it is always negative? We hear moan after moan after moan. Everything's bad the country's going down the sewer—that is the Labour Party's mantra. Day after day week after week it never has anything positive.Sue Moroney: Oh vetoes are positive are they?JAMI-LEE ROSS: I can hear Sue Moroney yapping over there. That is a one-trick pony for you—looking at Sue Moroney. How many times has she lost a seat? Mr Assistant Speaker Tisch you probably stood against her too. If we wanted to hear an opportunity from the Labour Party to be positive we did not hear it during this debate. The National Party is positive. The National Party is doing good things for New Zealanders. The National Party is presiding over a Government that is leading to this economy growing at one of the fastest growth rates in the OECD. We are growing faster than many of the economies we compare ourselves with. We are seeing job rates going up. We are seeing rates of pay going up. The average wage is going up. Unemployment is trending down. New Zealanders are more prosperous than they were 8 years ago. Mr Nash talked about crime rates and I want to pick him up on that. He is absolutely wrong about crime rates. The year 1978 is a year I do not remember as I was not born at that time but 1978 was when crime was last at these levels. Crime rates are at the lowest levels they have been since 1978. He tried to tell us that crime is rising. Recorded crime is down 17 percent since June 2011. Violent crime is down 10 percent since June 2011. Reoffending is down 7 percent since June 2011. Crime rates are actually dropping. Do not come into this House and try to spin a line that crime rates are going up. Of course any crime is bad. Of course we all want crime rates to go down even further. But do not come into this House and try to tell us that crime is actually going up. Crime is going down. There are more police on the streets in New Zealand than there have ever been before. New Zealanders are safer in their homes. Reoffending is coming down. New Zealand overall from a law and order perspective is doing well. Mr Nash also said there was no money in the Budget for the police. I do not know which Budget he was reading but there is $300 million extra in the Budget for funding for police—$300 million extra. I know he is from Napier and I know he is focused very much on his electorate but I suggest that if he wants to be the police spokesperson he should actually be reading the Budget. The Budget allocated $300 million extra for the police. They are doing a good job. We should be backing our police and this side of the House does. We do not talk down the police. We do not talk down the economy like Labour does. We do not talk down the health sector like Labour does. We do not talk down the education sector like Labour does. We talk up those sectors. We provide them with the resources to do their jobs. More funding going into important areas is what this Government is delivering. But at the same time as we are delivering more funding to those key areas we have kept Government expenses under control. We have got the economy back on track. We have got the deficits under control and we are now posting surpluses. When we came into office we looked into the horizon and there was a decade's worth of deficits. That has been turned round. Net debt as a percentage of GDP is expected to be under 20 percent by the mid-2020s. If the Labour Party was in office at the time that we went through the global financial crisis I hazard a guess that the Budgets that New Zealand would have faced would not be as good as they were under Bill English. National is delivering more jobs and more wages for people and we are also seeing better outcomes for New Zealand children. We are seeing more children being educated than ever before. The National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) rates are showing us that more children are leaving school with NCEA than ever before. The rate for 18-year-olds leaving school with NCEA level 2 is now over 84 percent. It was much lower before under the Labour Party in its last term in Government. We are also seeing more funding going into early childhood education. There is more funding going into early childhood education so those kids can have a good start before they go to school. That is something that we are seeing improving which we never saw previously as well. One of the hallmarks of the Government's recent announcements in past years has been to put for the first time more funding into benefits so that more children in need are getting the help they need through the benefit system. Paula Bennett reformed the benefit system consistently and she did a good job of doing that. We identified the need to put more money into families so that we could invest in those families so they can get a better start in life for their children.Sue Moroney: They can sleep in cars and garages.JAMI-LEE ROSS: I know Sue Moroney who is still yapping over there does not support that. She does not support that all. The Government made a deliberate decision not to go through with throwing money at something in an unaffordable way like Sue Moroney did. We instead prefer to take the investment approach that actually sees the funding going where it is needed. At the same time we have delivered an increase in paid parental leave. We have delivered an increase in paid parental leave in a measured fashion—in a measured fashion. Sue Moroney who has lost the debate every time that she has come up with a paid parental leave idea thinks that we should just massively expand the scheme at an unaffordable rate. Well she might get 26 weeks this time around—or in the future next time she tries—but where will she stop? What is the right number? Is it 52 weeks? Is it 2 years? Those members would just throw more and more money at it at an unaffordable rate. We prefer to do things in a measured fashion. We prefer to do things in a way that is affordable for New Zealanders but still delivers better outcomes for young New Zealanders.I am proud of the effort that this Government is putting into supporting families in need. I am proud of the effort that this Government is putting in to support those who need social investment by the Government not just a handout in perpetuity. There are far fewer children living in benefit-dependent homes because of the reforms that Paula Bennett has put through. There are far fewer children living in benefit-dependent homes because their fathers and their mothers have jobs. There are far fewer children living in benefit-dependent homes because the average wage rate is rising under this Government. We are proud of that. We are positive about that. We are happy to talk about our plan. If we could for once hear from the Labour Party about what it would do it would be quite refreshing. I do not suspect we ever will. I do not suspect we should expect it.Sue Moroney: My 26 weeks' paid parental leave for a start.JAMI-LEE ROSS: There is the one-trick pony again over there. She lost six elections to different National MPs but she has got her one trick to play. It is never going to get there—never going to get there—because it is unaffordable for New Zealanders right now. But we are actually delivering results for New Zealanders. I also want to talk about the health system. The health system is delivering more operations for New Zealanders as well. Annette King likes to come to the House and tell the House that supposedly there is billions of dollars of under-investment in health. If there is such a dire situation in the health system how come we are able to deliver 50000 more operations every year for New Zealanders? Every year 50000 people are getting the operations that they never got under the last Labour Government. We have increased the health budget like we have increased other budgets but we have done so in a way that delivers better public services for New Zealanders. We have done so in a way that sees better results for New Zealanders. Being in Government is not just about throwing money at certain areas. It is about getting results and getting a better bang for your buck when you put the money in there. We are seeing that in the health system as we are seeing it in the education system and as we are seeing it in the law and order system in this country. On every measure that you can look at when voters go to the polls and when voters talk to us as electorate MPs—electorate MPs Sue Moroney—about the things that matter to them they tell us about getting more jobs for their families. Well we are ticking that box. They tell us about delivering more operations for their families. We are ticking that box. They talk to us about seeing their children getting a better education. We have ticked that box. They talk to us about seeing fewer crimes being committed in New Zealand and we are ticking that box. We have delivered over a long period of time now sensible Government that is delivering for New Zealanders. These bills about imprest supply and the appropriations will lead to greater investment in key areas for New Zealand. That will benefit New Zealanders going forward into the future.