Bayly AndrewANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): I'm sort of slightly reluctant to stand up because I know you have delicate ears and on this side of the House we have just endured a speech that I think just demonstrates why this Government shouldn't be on that side of the House because that was from a person who did not understand the Budget Policy Statement. Now before I start officially I just want to also acknowledge Sir Rob Fenwick. I got to know Rob about 20 years ago through a business connection and during the 20 years I've known him he was a wonderfully kind and great person to be with and I know his family will be feeling his loss dearly today. But he was a great New Zealander and it's very appropriate that we pay tribute to him today.The Budget Policy Statement: that was only released literally a few weeks ago—very glossy and it looks wonderful on the outside and there's a lovely photo here. And you know it talks about a focus on wellbeing and the approach involves identifying areas based on their potential to provide the greatest opportunity to make a difference to the wellbeing of New Zealanders.And of course you know it's full of hyperbole and it's full of wonderful statements and glossy graphs and they always seem to be going up and then they go down and it's got all the stuff that you would expect if you're making a good political speech. But actually—and if that member who has just spoken had actually looked at it—this is what it also said: it said that the operating balance before gains and losses OBEGAL as it's commonly known is forecast to be in deficit for the 2019-20 year and lower each year thereafter than previously forecast. So by 2022-23 net core Crown debt is now expected to be $9.2 billion higher under the current framework that this Government—this New Zealand First - Labour - Greens Government—has put in place.Darroch Ball: How much debt did National have? Answer that question. ANDREW BAYLY: And I'll tell you what—and I'm just hearing a question from the other side—you know what this figure does not include? Does not—Michael Wood: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. The member has repeatedly and quite aggressively used the personal pronoun which is out of order while pointing at one of my colleagues and I'd bring that to your attention. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Thank you.ANDREW BAYLY: Thank you. And I'd just like to elucidate on that point. The member was asking about the debt figure. I'll say to you even though it's $9.2 billion higher under your Government—being the New Zealand First - Labour Government—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Sorry Mr Bayly having had that drawn to your attention by the chief whip it might be useful if you refrain from it now. Thank you.ANDREW BAYLY: Thank you—the Government. This excludes the $7 billion that is actually off balance sheet and not in the figures—which conveniently by the Minister of Finance is excluded from his calculations. And that is very very substantial. So the talk—and we heard it from the Minister before when he made commentary on this Budget that you know we've been facing these headwinds and under our Government prior to us going in 2017 we were averaging over 3 percent GDP which is just figures to people listening in. But what has happened and this Budget statement refers to it we have seen a substantial drop in the GDP—virtually by half. Now to put that in context we have seen the economic growth of New Zealand drop by about $4.5 billion a year. That means we are seeing people—businesses their profits are lower because they simply cannot sell as much as they might have done if National had continued in power.We're also seeing that the spending is lower because it simply is not happening. We're also seeing that incomes of people are reduced because they have simply not had the money and if you are running a business where your profits are down you are not earning that amount of money. So all that $4.5 billion that's just been disappeared out of the economy last year has just vanished. You can never get it back. It has gone into thin air. That is the problem with this Government. It has slowly ground its way down starting from a position that was incredibly strong. And the thing that's most concerning when you read the Budget Policy Statement—it talks about the record terms of trade. And what that means is that when we sell our products overseas we're getting a very high value for them and when we're buying those products buying products to come back into New Zealand—imports—we're paying less for them. That is the issue that we've got. We've got record terms of trade for our exporters so we should be achieving much higher rates of growth and that has been squandered. That is the thing about this Budget Policy Statement that is so bad that is so disappointing because we are unfulfilled potential in New Zealand. We are losing the opportunity to grow this economy much faster as we need to be to be keeping in line with all those dynamic economies in Asia that we're trying to trade with. That is how you create real wealth. What this Government has achieved is to settle us back into the old sort of slow growth rate that we were achieving back in the 1980s and the 1990s which was subpar and had left New Zealand behind and that's why we're falling behind Australia. That's why we need to get back into a fast-growing economy but the Government has the problem because it doesn't quite know how to do it.And of course all that was before we suddenly have some real headwinds which unfortunately is known as COVID-19. That is the issue—that is the issue. We now have people very very worried in the economy. The thing is—and I spoke about this the other day and some members from the Government laughed at it. The real issue at the moment for those 500000 small businesses in New Zealand—the issue that will be keeping the husbands and wives awake at night—is not the thought of whether they might get a dole payment but simply whether they've got enough money to pay the wages tomorrow morning. That is the primary issue that our business owners in New Zealand spread across all the small townships in New Zealand rural New Zealand as well as in the big cities—that is what's keeping them awake at night. That is the fear. That is the fear for these people because their employees are part of their family and they're worrying about how they're going to pay for them how they're going to pay for those wages. So what we need is a Government that knows what it's doing. And you know when you look at situations like this and they are trying—you need to be able to look at what you are going to do to help. We've heard the Minister talk about how we're going to make it easier for the IRD more flexible about you paying your tax. Well actually if you're worrying about your wages tomorrow and if you can't pay your wages and you're going to have to fire your best friend tomorrow it's actually a bit of an academic argument. And by the way the thing that tips businesses over is the inability to pay their wages not actually whether they can pay their tax. It's the wages that tip New Zealand businesses over. So having this Minister of Finance talking about We'll make it a little bit easier for you to pay our tax to us who earn $83 billion as the Government." is just the wrong thing and it shows a Minister who does not understand business.We've also heard about these social welfare payments about on the dole payments. Again they're academic. We need people in work staying in work—staying in work. We don't want people on the dole going home and telling their wives and their husbands that they have been made redundant that they've lost their job of 20 years and that's the situation we're looking at. We need a Government that actually knows how to spend and the trouble with this Government is that it has underspent on infrastructure particularly on big projects. We've lost all the capability so they've underspent at the time we should have been spending and now when we want to do it they talk about shovel-ready projects which basically are National roads but unfortunately all the people have left. It's going to take a long time.Dr Duncan Webb: Bridges to nowhere.ANDREW BAYLY: Dr Duncan Webb says "No it's not." Go and talk to Fletcher's. They lost most of their people from Christchurch who went off to Australia because that's where the current infrastructure boom is. We also need a Government that will cut unnecessary spend—[Time expired]"