Scott Alastair: Debate on Budget Policy StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeScott Alastair: Debate on Budget Policy Statement[Sitting date: 09 March 2016. Volume:711;Page:9542. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ALASTAIR SCOTT (National—Wairarapa): I am going to talk about two of the four pillars of our fiscal strategy. I am going to be talking about the tight rein on spending that we demonstrate and the way we look to return excess revenue to taxpayers but before I do that I would like to comment on a couple of the sanctimonious comments that were made by the Green Party. To start with Eugenie Sage said that the Government had led dairy farmers up the garden path. Well dairy farmers are not stupid. They have their own sense of business and they have their own sense of ability—these guys are smart. These guys run their family businesses to large corporates and to say that they have been led up the garden path is offensive quite frankly. There was no complaint from that party when grape prices halved when cherry prices dropped or when kiwifruit businesses had their difficulties. Those members talk only about dairy farmers being led up the garden path—that is offensive and sanctimonious.I am going to talk about the pie. Julie Anne Genter talked about the Greens not wanting to eat chocolate pie. Well she did not want a chocolate pie and she thought it was because it made her feel sick if she ate too much. This side of the House is interested in growing the pie and in making it chocolate banana fruit nuts—everything that is able to be jammed into that pie—because we want a larger pie so that we can all share that pie to raise the standard of living for all New Zealanders. The pie that the Green Party wants would be sugar-free wheat-free chocolate-free and butter-free. There would be no cake. There would be no economy. The economy would be destroyed. That party wants to go back to the horse and cart. That is just ludicrous and really is a thing of the past.I would like to turn my contribution to the tight rein on spending that we have in this Government. We will be heading to—the target is 20 percent of GDP for net debt by 2020. That is a very good result given the global economy and the global situation as well of course as our domestic situation here particularly around Christchurch. Minister Foss talked about $17 billion going into Christchurch. That is a big number and a number that is unavoidable unless of course one was to ignore Christchurch which would be totally unacceptable.Members on the other side talk about supporting farmers and talk about supporting small businesses but they are not willing to vote for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). They are not willing to get on board with Resource Management Act reforms. They are not willing to support our exclusion of agriculture from the emissions trading scheme. The Green Party wants to tax farmers up to the eyeballs so that—to ensure in fact—they go out of business and so that they are uncompetitive with our international competitors and of course without those people earning a living by exporting our products there is no tax. There is no tax to be taken. There is no tax to spend on health and education and the police for example.I am looking forward to the Opposition members voting for the TPP but of course they are not going to. Instead they are going to increase their handout policies by giving away free education. They are wanting to give in fact to the top 1 percent. They are going to give more money to those who are already earning more money than the average. The Opposition members say: “Well yes that is fine. We want to give them more money because they are going to be paying more taxes when they get into the more highly paid jobs.” People are willing to borrow to be educated in the tertiary sector and to have a policy from the Opposition that simply gives more money to those who do not need it is just a waste of taxpayers’ money. Those members are not concerned about the use of taxpayers’ money. They forget who is going to be paying for that handout. It will be the person—Carmel Sepuloni: It’s not a handout; it’s a hand up.ALASTAIR SCOTT: It is a handout to people who do not need it and they are going to be taking money—