Mitchell Mark: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMitchell Mark: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 20 May 2014. Volume:699;Page:18118. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney): It is a real honour to take a call and I just want to acknowledge our Deputy Prime Minister our Minister of Finance the Hon Bill English. I remember back in 2011 when as a new candidate I was attending a candidate debate in my electorate up in Matakana. I was approached by a well-known political leader and he said to me: “Listen I have been talking to some of your National Party colleagues and they have said to me quietly that there is no way it is impossible for the finance Minister to achieve a surplus when he says he is going to achieve it.” I said: “Oh yes? Well I am not going to fall for that one. If he says that he is going to achieve it then I have faith that he will.” So I just want to acknowledge him and of course I will be reminding that person if they are out there listening today. It might be a bit disingenuous but I will raise it and remind them of the comments that they were making back in 2011. I just want to commend and acknowledge our Minister of Finance for achieving what a lot of people said could not be achieved for our country.It is a very good Budget. It shows that New Zealand is heading in the right direction. It is a confident Budget for a confident nation. I know that the Prime Minister said this the other day and it brought a great deal of pride to me that we are a confident nation that we have come together and that we have come through a very very tough period of time for our country through a global financial crisis and through global recession. Our Minister our Cabinet our caucus our coalition partners—everyone has worked very hard to do what we need to do.But this has not been just about us; this has been about the whole nation. This has been about the country: the people at home who have decided that they are going to save more; the businesses that have found ways of trying to do business a little bit better and a little bit smarter; our NGOs that have tried to work with the funds that they have which may not have been as readily available as when we were not in a recession; and our volunteers in the volunteer sector who have continued to get out there. Everyone combined has kept our country running and we are emerging now as one of the strongest nations in terms of OECD measures to come out of that global recession. I firmly believe that it has been a team effort for all of us. All of us Kiwis in this country have worked hard we have come together to make sure that we drive ourselves to get through the recession and now we are definitely without a doubt looking at a brighter future.Budget 2014 reflects 6 years of hard work. It is a Budget that sees the books back in surplus and growth at 4 percent which is phenomenal when you look at the rest of the global community and countries that are going to be struggling to continue to see any growth in their economies. We are putting the well-being of young families and children at the heart of our new spending with a $500 million package to help families and children. I want to talk about one of those measures which is the change to free medical care for children up to 13 years old. The first policy was around children up to 5 years old—Dr David Clark: Doesn’t come in for another year yet.MARK MITCHELL: Well it is coming in. It is coming in. So what would you rather see? Would you rather see a policy like this or would you scrap it and not want tosee the policy? This is what we continually hear from the Opposition benches: that it is not good enough. Actually it is very very good.Talking to people particularly mothers in my electorate I know that kids who may have missed out on a visit to the doctor because they may have had a slight cold or a small infection that mum and dad thought they might be able to manage themselves will be going to the doctors now. Those parents will be able to actually take them and get that free medical access they had for their 5-year-olds. So it is a very very good policy. It is one that is going to have a direct impact on people and I know that it has been very very well received in my own home electorate of Rodney.We have talked about housing so I really just want to take the opportunity to discuss what is happening in again my home electorate of Rodney. We have been lucky enough to have a special housing area. We have got a big residential development going on inMillwater and the whole area is pretty excited about that although we understand and know that there are challenges associated. We have to make sure that we continue to have investment in our infrastructure that we continue to make sure we have capacities in our local schools and that we continue especially around our roading infrastructure and public transport to work to grow those to meet the demands that we are going to have in our electorate.But we are excited about it because we have got new retail sectors opening up. We have got a brand new retail sector in Silverdale. When we had that open of course there was a fair bit of excitement and buzz in the community but also there was a bit of concern. There was a bit of concern that our historic Silverdale retail sector might suffer a little bit but the great news is that we are 12 months into this now and there has been a positive spin-off from it in terms of trade actually going up. So not only are people coming to enjoy themselves in the new retail sector with new cafés and new shops that were not available before but also they are getting down into our wonderful older retail sector and that is growing as well. So we are seeing some pretty good growth.Ōrewa is such a beautiful spot in New Zealand on the beautifulŌrewa Beach and it is starting to feel like it is becoming revitalised. There is a new energy forming down there because we have got new people moving into our area. We want to welcome them and we want to encourage them to do that. On top of theMillwater development we have got another 960 sections and properties coming online.In terms of infrastructure again just while I am speaking about my electorate—if you can bear with me Mr Assistant Speaker—I just want to mention that we have one project that certainly has had some national coverage and it certainly is something very important to us in Rodney and especially those in northern Rodney and that is the Hill Street intersection. It is quite an amazing intersection. It has sort of evolved and grown as the township has grown and it is really two or three intersections that converge into one. Of course we really have the Northland economy consolidating down through this intersection so it is something that is critically important particularly to those living in north Rodney.I just want to acknowledge some people because we have been working on this for the last couple of months and we had another meeting on it in my office yesterday. There are just a few people I want to mention in relation to this. Two areMieszkoIwaskow and Sebastian Reed. They are two young New Zealand Transport Agency guys—Mieszko is the manager—who have been working on this. I just want to acknowledge them because they have done a fantastic job and they are listening and working very carefully with the local community. I want to acknowledge Councillor Penny Webster and also Steve Garner who holds the transport portfolio for the local board. Both were there yesterday. I also want to acknowledge and congratulate Tommy Parker. Some of you may know Tommy. He has done some really great work inAuckland and I want to congratulate him on his recent promotion. The only downside for us is we have lost him from Auckland. He is down here in Wellington so it is a bonus for them. There is also Bruce Manson and Warwick Massey the co-chairs of the Warkworth Area Liaison Group; Steve Haycock the secretary; Glyn Williams; RichardPapworth; theAlgies Bay Residents and Ratepayers Association; Bruce Scoggins; theMahurangi East Residents and Ratepayers Association; Bryan Jackson; theSnells Beach Residents and Ratepayers Association; MartinDancy from Matakana Coast and Country; and David Wilmot from the Warkworth Area Business Association.Hon Members: Ha ha!MARK MITCHELL: You may laugh over there but the reason I wanted to mention these people is that these are people from our community right who actually represent groups and they have come together and they are working very hard to develop a solution which we are very close to achieving and getting some funding into an issue that is going to be fixed for my local community. So I just wanted to acknowledge them because these are the people who are part of a wider roll-out of our investment and infrastructure.I want to mention one thing that all of them raised. I do not know what the political affiliations are in this group. I know that one of them is definitely heavily involved with the Labour Party. There are probably some National supporters and maybe some ACT supporters in there too. But I want to mention one thing they all raised as a concern to me yesterday. They said they are very very worried that if there were a change of Government they would lose thePūhoi to Wellsford motorway. I would challenge the Labour benches and the Green Party—and I see Julie Anne Genter in the House—to get up and make a commitment to these people who are also representing their communities on thePūhoi to Wellsford motorway. North Rodney and Northland have been ignored for too long in terms of having a highway system that gives them better access to their economy. It is an important part of their future economic growth.I am very pleased to take a call on the Appropriation (2014/15 Estimates) Bill. Thank you.