Reti ShaneDr SHANE RETI (Deputy Leader—National): Thank you Mr Speaker. We're here debating this bill today because this wasteful Labour Government needs more money from taxpayers. Labour Governments are always like this; they wastefully spend money other people's money. It's what they're hardwired to do: to tax and spend. This Labour Government is no different. Grant Robertson has pretended to be fiscally conservative and have fiscal restraint but that is clearly failing and here we are again today. Grant Robertson thought one of the ways to beat his chest and show he was fiscally conservative was to announce a pay freeze in the middle of a pandemic on our doctors and nurses. He was so wrong. Grant Robertson used doctors and nurses during a pandemic to pay for his ideology. How's that going for you now?SPEAKER: Order!Dr SHANE RETI: Not Mr Speaker but how's that going for the Government now? This wasteful Labour Government has totally lost control of spending and now has an open chequebook policy and I challenge them to deny it. I on the other hand will back this statement with reference to the Government's independent June 2021 Roche report on the Valentine's Day outbreak where under item 16 it clearly says The Ministry has indicated that the 'chequebook is open'". The Government's own independent review panel was stating "The Ministry has indicated that the 'chequebook is open'". That's why we're here today passing this bill because this is a Government of open chequebooks that just pay their way through for anything they see fit to pay for and clearly that is now failing New Zealanders. There are two ways this Labour Government has been wasteful with taxpayer money: spending money in the wrong place or spending money in the right place but doing it very badly. Let's look at the first spending money in the wrong place. My colleague the Hon Michael Woodhouse has pointed out several areas where the COVID piggybank has been raided and not for COVID functions. This Labour Government has raided the COVID piggy bank for three waters reform Government House building renovations funding to commercialise New Zealand music subsidised insulation and heating refits strengthening the Family Court hunting wallabies cameras on fishing boats Papua New Guinea tattoo practice and revival and a plethora of others. A cycle bridge across the Auckland Harbour for $750 million—I dare the Government to stand by that promise.We're struggling with coronavirus with nursing staff with access to GPs with 30000 people on the overdue waiting list and no new cancer medicines because this Government chose to make health restructuring the number one priority. The Budget Cabinet paper from Grant Robertson to Andrew Little makes it very clear "The health funding priority is ensuring the health and disability reform has resources." In that same document critical funding for DHBs do not scale above the "minimum viable package". That's a tragic way to talk about our DHBs as a "minimum viable package" funding package. It then goes on to say "All manifesto commitments that are not highly time-sensitive should be deferred to future budgets." This is why we're struggling with the coronavirus outbreak this is why our health system is struggling because this Government is focusing all their attention on health restructuring and all their funding energies. That is wrong and it will fail.Spending money in the right place but terrible implementation: you know the Government's quite right when it says it has spent more money on health and thank you for that. The problem I've got with that is: spent more money but worse outcomes. If we look at every single one of the national health targets from when we handed them over in 2017 every single one today is worse than when we handed them over. More money in health but worse outcomes. And in fact what we have now instead of the health targets to hide the 30000 people who have been overdue on waiting lists for more than four months the Government has shifted the goalposts and called them health indicators instead of health targets. What that means is that the 30000 people who are overdue more than four months to see a specialist or to be treated suddenly appear as positive 3 percent. How can that be? That's not a measure of health; that is shifting the goalposts. Where could that money be spent right now? Well I might suggest the four lanes from Whangārei to Marsden—the four lanes that when the Labour Government was in Opposition was "a holiday highway". They came into Government and suddenly it's "critical infrastructure" and now it's out again in favour of rail and other modalities. The single most important economic driver for Northland is the four lanes from Whangārei to Marsden and then from Marsden to Auckland. That would be a much better way to be spending the money rather than what this imprest bill is trying to encourage us to do: to prop up an open chequebook Government."