Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBudget Debate[Sitting date: 27 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:4035. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Budget DebateDebate resumed from 26 May on the Appropriation (2015/16 Estimates) Bill.EUGENIE SAGE (Green): In my concluding remarks I would like to talk about Christchurch because the Government has a plan for central Christchurch but it is a plan for extravagant super-sized anchor projects that Christchurch cannot afford. That plan certainly is benefiting and working for the big construction companies the foreign hotel chains the consultants and the design contractors but it does not work for the people of Christchurch. It is not affordable for the people of Christchurch.The Budget should have provided additional funding to meet the more than $400 million shortfall in the costs of repairing the horizontal infrastructure: stormwater sewerage and local roads. But instead we see more money to speed up the anchor projects. We see the Christchurch City Council getting over $100 million in its budget to fund a stadium that no one wants. It is time for the Government to re-examine that cost-sharing agreement to make sure that projects are affordable and are not extravagant ones that burden Christchurch residents with debt box the city council into a corner and put pressure on the council to sell revenue-generating assets to pay for potential white elephants like the stadium that will not generate revenue. The Budget funded the wrong things and is putting priority on those extravagant projects rather than the basics that Christchurch citizens want.Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister for Social Development): It is an absolute pleasure to stand in the House and talk about the great Budget delivered by the Minister of Finance the Hon Bill English. This was a Budget that was focused on the things that matter to New Zealand just as this Government has been focused on that since the day we were sworn into office in 2008. This Budget represents again excellent management of the country’s finances even in the continuing tough times that we are experiencing. We are seeing continued economic growth which most other developed countries are envious of. We are seeing restraint in Government spending from a Government that has shown that right through the global financial crisis in complete contrast to the people sitting on the opposite side of the House. When they had the very best of economic times they spent willy-nilly and really had little to show for it. This Government is focused on making sure that every single dollar of taxpayers’ money it spends is effective and is getting results for New Zealanders.We are seeing growth in employment low inflation low interest rates and low cost-of-living increases for New Zealanders. We have seen the lowest number of sole parents on a benefit in this country since 1988. That is absolutely outstanding.It just goes to show what a wonderful job those people working in the Ministry of Social Development are doing by working carefully with these women mainly going back into the workforce but also the desire of New Zealanders to be standing on their own two feet and supporting their families independently while making their own decisions about their own lives. That is what this Government is focused on doing.It is against that background of good economic management and good cooperation and work with the New Zealanders who have found themselves out of work that we were able to then focus on the children who we know are not living the sorts of lives we all expect New Zealand children to be able to live. So we were able in this Budget to dedicate a package of $790 million over the next 4 years that is very focused on those families whose children are experiencing hardship and who are earning the least in our communities.Over the next 4 years the package will deliver along with increased work obligations for our sole parents—so yes we are saying that when your youngest child turns 3 we want you to be out there looking for part-time work. Against that we are increasing the amount of support that we put in around those parents to help them do it. That does not mean that if they cannot find a job that suits them and their family we are going to be hard. Of course each individual person will be worked with and supported into work. As well as that we are saying to them that part-time work needs to be 20 hours. If you can get 20 hours’ work it lifts you up into Working for Families and we are seeing more and more of our sole parents getting into that space and able to come off a benefit and stand on their own two feet. That is what we want for more of them.I say watch this space because New Zealanders will take advantage of this. We will see those men and women who are sole parents now moving off and into work and we will see those better outcomes for their young children. The package increases the benefit rates by $25 a week by 1 April next year. I cannot believe the incredible stories that are coming into my office from people telling me the difference it is going to make in their lives. An extra $25 a week when you are a sole parent getting $301 a week—an extra $25 a week coming in every week will make an enormous difference for the choices that they have to make about how they can spend their money and support their children. That is a great thing that this Government has done. Even in the best of economic times Labour did not support those people on benefits by giving them an increase. Even in the very best of times when Labour had billions of dollars to spend every year it did not support those beneficiaries when it was very clear that they were falling behind. This Government even legislated the CPI to make increases automatic.We have stood beside those most vulnerable families in New Zealand since we came into the Treasury benches. So that means 190000 children in New Zealand from 1 April next year will see an extra $25 a week going into their households. But we did not just leave it at that because we know that although two-thirds of those children experiencing hardship are in benefit-dependent families there are good hard-working families with children out there who also have very lowincomes and their children are suffering too. So we supported those children by increasing the Working for Families payments. I think that is a tremendous thing. I have to say that the reaction out there in the community has been overwhelming both from people who are on a benefit and also from those working families who are going to get a huge difference in their life.But we did not stop there because as well as that in the Budget there is significant help for a wider variety of children—perhaps some of the most vulnerable children—in our communities and those who are in State care. We had an increase of $35.8 million to support the Children’s Action Plan over the next 4 years which helps the children who are just below those who require statutory care. My colleague Paula Bennett started setting it up throughout New Zealand as a result of a very long process. The community is very concerned about making sure we get in early and work with these families and prevent these children from being abused. This Government was able to support the Children’s Action Plan with a significant sum of money—$35.8 million over the next 4 years.We are also modernising Child Youth and Family. There is $5.8 million in this Budget to help with that modernisation project. We have got an expert panel having a look at the system that we put around our fabulous Child Youth and Family workers out there who are doing one of the most difficult jobs in our communities; that is making sure that young children are safe when they cannot be left at home with their families. When they are being abused or neglected by the very people whom they should be trusting to give them the best of care Child Youth and Family workers have to step in and take those children and find them a safe and caring home and they get to work to come in and support the families in order to get to the stage where those children can go back and live with them. There is $5.8 million over 4 years to help with that modernisation project.There is $5.7 million in this Budget over the next 4 years to support quite a small group of young people in State care who have very high needs very complex issues. The support is described as one-to-one therapeutic placements for these Child Youth and Family children with the highest of needs. These children have complex needs that need that one-on-one care. It is very expensive and the Budget provides for a small number of those children to get that ongoing care over the next 4 years.In fact this Budget does so much to support the most vulnerable people in our communities—our children. We hear a lot of talk in this House about vulnerable children children living in hardship children in poverty. Well I am proud to be part of a Government that has made that the centrepiece of its 2015 Budget against a setting of a growing economy that is producing more jobs. That means that the Government is able to take more care of those at the very bottom—the most vulnerable children in our community.MARAMA FOX (Co-Leader—Māori Party): Kia ora Mr Speaker. Since last week we have been debating the Budget and as we did so there was a very important gathering of people who were meeting in Rotorua at a hui entitled Tūramarama ki te Ora. It is a most inspired name not just because it has part of my name in it. It is a most inspired name a name meaning the spark of enlightenment the lightning flash the epiphany when one’s purpose in life is realised. The agenda for that hui could be perceived as a heavy one: the national suicide prevention conference. In so far as it relates to our Budget discussion I am absolutely certain that they celebrated the $2.1 million of new operating funding for suicide prevention tagged for rangatahi Māori. Here I just want to make a point. Last night as I listened to the member Mr Pita Paraone talk about—Pita Paraone: It was a good speech.MARAMA FOX: That is right. He gave a speech blaming the Māori Party for youth suicide—blaming the Māori Party for youth suicide! I just want you to know that this is not a topic that should be treated lightly and with disdain in the way that I believe it was last evening. This is a very serious topic a topic that brought a whole community of people together. It is something that we have been delighted to support in the past years and continue to support.In all the big numbers that have been talked about recently that number—$2.1 million in new spending for rangatahi to help halt the march of suicide where our young people choose to end their lives instead of living their reality—is not something to be dismissed and thrown about as some sort of political gamble some sort of political leverage to try to get brownie points with the public. It must be addressed and we are proud to be addressing it.I want to tell you this. The Government came and said: “Marama you have to choose. We can’t get the 50 things that you want in a Budget bid.” and I did have about 50 different bids that I wanted to put in front of the Government. I was told: “Marama you have to choose.” In fact we whittled it down and whittled it down and came down to our utmost four priorities. And the Government said: “Of these Marama which one do you want?”. The answer surely is simple. I chose to help save the lives of our children through providing for suicide prevention funding.Earlier this year I spent some time with one such group. Youth worker Zack Makaore has with Te Taitimu Trust developed a project that builds the wairua—that is the spirit—and the confidence of the young people he works with. For these rangatahi poverty is not so much about the material things as it is about the deficiency in opportunity and resources and the poverty of spirit. Te Taitimu Trust works with these young people bringing their families together—families from all walks of life including gang families—with police with Water Safety New Zealand and with the Fire Service. They learn how to save their lives learn how to give comfort and learn how to be leaders based on the teachings of Mason Durie. They are also building resilience whakapapa leadership and self-esteem. I want to say again this is not something to be used as political leverage; it is a real issue that needs to be addressed and we are proud to be able to put some funding though it is small towards addressing it.Of course we are delighted that we have been able to accelerate the momentum of Whānau Ora through the navigator approach with whānau being enabled to help themselves through designing and developing the transformation that all of our families deserve. What has been even more compelling for us as a party is the effort we have put into establishing $790 million in the hardship fund. We are proud of this Government and our opportunity to work with it to put poverty on the lips of the people of this country.To be sure in 2008 when Tariana Turia when Hone Harawira when Te Ururoa Flavell when Rahui Katene and when Pita Sharples signed the Māori Party relationship accord with this Government people were not talking about it and in fact there is a paragraph in the very first relationship accord with this Government that says: “Eliminating poverty must be a priority.” Then in 2011 they signed the next relationship accord and they put together a Ministerial Committee on Poverty where all the relevant Ministers sat around the table and discussed how we could put an end to poverty. It was put into the relationship accord. It is part of the Māori Party’s commitment to our whānau.We are proud to be able to put our hands on our hearts and say: “Yes that $790 million is a result of influence from being at the table and not under the table—not eating the crumbs.” Those are some fairly expensive crumbs if that is what people believe. In 43 years people can look back over that time and see that during an equal amount of time—almost perfectly equal—both sides of the House did nothing to raise benefit levels. So again we are proud that there is an opportunity to do so through having a relationship accord with this Government.However in the swings and roundabouts in the game that we call politics we are only too familiar with the fact that despite the undeniable positive impact of that package there is a quid pro quo in National’s imposing stricter obligations on sole parents—we recognise that—who will now be required to return to work 2 years earlier and for longer hours. The rationale is that part-time work brings more income into the family and we agree with that. It is a stepping stone to full-time work and to going off the benefit altogether. There is also an equally valid argument to be made that a parent who wants to be at home is on economic social and cultural grounds the best person to raise their child.There is a particularly interesting blog called Sacraparental which tells us it is about the sacred practice of parenting. It outlines possible strategies that might prevent the punitive consequences of this policy causing harm to families. These include the following: the test that Work and Income applies to all decisions needs to be in the best interest of the child and all workplaces should have modern flexible attitudes to the needs of working parents. Some parents work at night I have a sister-in-law who takes a job at 2 o’clock in the morning while her husband is at home. They barely see each other because they take turns in providing the parental responsibility needed while they do that. People in this position would be much better off financially.I cannot emphasise how important it is that the investment approach is evenly applied to the effects of the Budget changes. For a family with small children relying on income support is stressful enough without adding the compulsory work requirement to their obligations. It is also to be said that the financial benefit for a family in meeting these new obligations can be negligible especially when you add in travel and childcare costs. For this purpose the increase to childcare provision is absolutely on the button and we applaud that step.I want to return to one of the themes of the suicide prevention conference that occurred in Rotorua. Ko te piko o te māhuri tērā te tipu o te rākau—a small sapling being well nurtured will grow into a strong tree. As has been talked about we know that we need to provide support for our most vulnerable families at an early age from the birth of the child or in fact from before the birth of the child. If the mother of an unborn child is put under undue stress we know through the Brainwave Trust that the brain development of that unborn child is stagnated. We know that when the child comes into the world and is put under stress through poverty and the stresses of hardship brain development is further stagnated.We need to alleviate poverty. We need to eliminate poverty and it takes nothing more than a “coalition of the willing”. It is not just a whole-of-Government approach but it is a whole-of-population approach. We need to take the steps and I am proud of this Government for taking those steps. They are not first steps—and I know my speaking time is just about up—but are part of suite of things like KickStart Breakfast for children free doctors visits for under-13s Computers in Homes paying attention to rheumatic fever and an extension to paid parental leave. All of these things come as a consequence of the Ministerial Committee on Poverty. It is not the solution; it is just relief for our whānau who suffer hardship and for those reasons I am proud to be part of this Government in a relationship accord that can bring relief to our whānau.Hon MAGGIE BARRY (Minister of Conservation): Talofa lava. I intend to spend my time today in this call talking about some of the initiatives that this Government is taking as a result of the Budget this year in the areas my portfolio responsibilities: conservation; arts culture and heritage; and seniors. I begin with the kiwi. Our iconic national bird has been under threat for a long time and that is to do with the amount of predators in this country. My job as the Minister of Conservation is to sign the death warrant on a lot of these unwelcome eco-invaders. Unless we can do that the 2 percent decline in kiwi numbers on our mainland will continue to grow at an alarming rate and in our grandchildren’s time there will be no more kiwi on the mainland. My aim in life is to reverse that decline and I intend to spend that $11.2 million on reversing that decline so that there is a 2 percent increase in kiwi numbers. This is a tall order.In addition to pest and predator control we are going to be working with a group that has been around in New Zealand doing great work saving kiwis encouraging breeding programmes for more than 20 years and I am referring to Kiwis for Kiwi. I am going to be joining forces with them and encouraging them to make as an umbrella movement a sort of a bringing together of all of the groups that have been working independently to save our kiwi. Kiwis for Kiwi will effectively deliver to the community programmes to allocate the money and to really pull together the programmes in conjunction with the Department of Conservation and I think that is the way ahead.We have had some successes in the past year or so with helping our native birds come back from the brink of extinction. Battle for our Birds has been enormously successful. It is in fact the largest ever predator programme in New Zealand’s history and it covered some 600000 hectares of land. We were aiming to save about 12 of our endangered species mostly birds but also snails and long-tailed and short-tailed bats and I am very pleased to be able to report that the 1080 aerial drops which were at the heart of that particular programme have been very successful. We have done some measurements around certain birds for example. We have had not a great deal of success in the past in places like the Dart Valley and the Routeburn Valley but this year the nesting successes for the threatened mohua or yellowhead have been spectacular at just under 100 percent whereas previously almost half of these nests in those two areas had failed to produce eggs or chicks that survived.We do need to be vigilant though and monitoring will continue and the Department of Conservation will continue an escalated anti-predator campaign over the next 4 years. The treatment of the rat numbers in particular in areas like Ōparara in Kahurangi National Park has also prevented stoat plagues. So this has been a measure of success that is undeniable and I think it is something we need to be proud of. I certainly am very proud of the efforts of the Department of Conservation workers who have been at the heart of that campaign.Next week is Arbor Day and I intend to be in the electorate of my colleague and friend Scott Simpson. In Coromandel their beaches are not quite as good as ours on the North Shore but certainly they have some remarkable natural attributes so I am going to be talking with him about some of the kauri dieback measures. We have spent as many of you are well aware more than $21.5 million. That was allocated in the last Budget; we have not yet spent it. I felt that the case for kauri dieback and the need to fight it in the last Budget was so urgent that we have brought forward the time when we can start spending that money and we have a designated team now who will be focusing on kauri dieback and I will be making further announcements on this in the Coromandel next week. But really when you look at the level of groundwork that needs to be done it is extensive. The key thing about kauri dieback is that it spreads through foot traffic. It spreads through soil particles being caught up on the hooves or paws of animals as well as on human beings’ boots and then the spores of the soil-borne pathogen are transferred from places—including by pigs goats and a number of other creatures.So we are being very careful to ensure that what we can do in terms of mechanisms—advancing education really. A lot of people do not really understand how it is spread so we are putting up different signage in different languages. We are putting up more than 500 extra hygiene stations which will enable people to clean their boots. We will also be ensuring that boardwalks are built. So that money is going to be well-spent in the next few years. We are set to begin this month with a detailed data analysis including the mapping of tracks and the cost estimates for the upgrades. We also need to prioritise the tracks that need to be either closed or contained in some way. Track closures are not something we do readily and easily but sometimes it is the only way to stop the spread of the disease particularly in the winter months because when there is mud it sticks to boots and so forth and is more readily spread. So our boardwalk specifications are based on field trials of drainage specifications to ensure the natural flow of water has been improved and those are the sorts of things we have been planning to do and are now rolling out.We cannot of course do any of this alone. No one Government department even if it is as good as the Department of Conservation can do all of this by itself so we need partnerships and collaboration. I am pleased to be able to say that regional councils collectively are aiming to commit more than $700000 per year towards the research programmes local engagements and on-the-ground management. They will also contribute significant staff time which is very welcome. Scion also will make a contribution of around $700000 towards kauri dieback research over the next 6 years and that is part of its Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment - funded Phytophthora research programme. So these are the sorts of measures that we are taking across the Government.That brings me to the healthy pursuits factor of the great outdoors. There is a programme that started I think in Korea. It has been picked up by the Americans as well. It is called Healthy Parks Healthy People and what it does is it brings together international evidence that really tells people that there is a benefit to going into the great outdoors. A recent study which the ill-informed members of the Opposition might be interested in listening to is from the New Zealand Transport Agency. It put together a report that estimates that walking and cycling saves $2.70 and $1.30 per kilometre respectively to the New Zealand economy in health benefits. These are the kinds of measures that I am talking about with my colleagues across the Government. We do need to explore ways of maximising the impact spreading the word and getting in a collaborative partnership with other departments and other entrepreneurs and philanthropists as well.Once again the cradle-to-grave mentality that the Opposition has peddled so unsuccessfully for so long is not something that the New Zealand populace appreciate at all. What it welcomes from this National Government is a collaborative approach not just leaving it all up to the drip-feeding of the Government—that sort of extreme socialism that means that there is never enough money to go around—and we spiral into indebtedness which is the reason why the Opposition will stay on the Opposition benches for decades to come I hope.I am about to declare war on weeds putting aside the vagaries of Opposition members’ nonsense. The Department of Conservation spends around $10 million a year on operational weed control. You may ask why I am not tempted to spray a bit of it around on the Opposition benches but I am not that kind of person. I believe that instead we need to target herbicides and measures for control against weeds where they belong. Again it is a collaboration. We have wildings which as many of you may well know are plants that are in the wrong place and that have spread to areas where they must not spread. The estimates say that in about 20 years’ time around about a quarter of our entire landscape could be taken up with these wildings these plants that have invaded good pastoral land and we need to hold them in check. The longer that we do not actually spend money and the longer that we hold back the more expensive and difficult the process is going to be. I envisage of doing more detailed work on this programme of high-priority weed work. We are going to target the dirty dozen of weeds. Department of Conservation officials and I are having a very good time looking around at the various places around the country—[Interruption]—do not tempt me; it is low-hanging fruit over there is it not? It is too low hanging. The dirty dozen in the Opposition members can look after themselves.When it comes to weed control we do really need to get specific. I want to engage the hearts and minds of New Zealanders to join with us in this fight because the suffocation of our New Zealand forests and the seedlings that are not making it through to the stage that they need to are the sorts of reasons why we need to try to combat the weed problem. I intend to work with Weedbusters and a lot of other very strong community groups to ensure that we can win this war on weeds.The New Zealand flag consideration is of course going on at the moment. Ultimately the law will come through the Ministry for Culture and Heritage. We do indeed have many opportunities to look at flags. I will be hosting an exhibition here in Parliament. There is just not enough time in this call to do justice to all I intend to do but thank you for your time today.PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): It is always good to follow Poison Ivy. Expectations were very high in the Budget that the Government would finally—finally after years of being in denial years of Nick Smith’s photo opportunities and political stunts—do something about the housing crisis. First-home buyers were watching with horror as the average Auckland house price cracked over $800000 in the month before the Budget. House prices in Auckland went up on average by $100000 in the last 12 months. Renters watched as their rents in Auckland went up by 10 percent over the year because landlords were seeking a return on the investment that they had made in skyrocketing house prices. There is a housing crisis and people desperately want action.The Reserve Bank Deputy Governor Grant Spencer publicly embarrassed the Government by coming to this Parliament and saying that the Government needed to do more that they were not doing enough and that they needed to something about speculators. So the stage was set for this National Government to finally do something meaningful about the housing crisis. What we heard about was a speculators’ tax. John Key announced at the National Party conference that he was going to change the rules for taxproperty speculators and he announced a so-called—and not very bright—brightline test that would taxspeculatorswho buy a house and flick it on within 2 years.At first glance it was remarkable that the Government which has been denying for the last 2 years that speculators are a problem in Auckland at last announced some policy that was supposedly targeting speculators.But it did not take very long for the commentators the analysts and the general public to realise that this was a Clayton’s tax response to rampant property speculationin Auckland. The so-called 2-year test is simply an invitation to speculatorsto buy a property hold it for 2 years and flick it on. Treasury analysis from 2010 indicates that the tax will be lucky if it nets as many as 1000 speculatorsevery year when there are 80000 property sales every year. It will be lucky if it nets $18 million a year when there are hundreds of millions—in fact billions—of dollars in turnover every year from property speculation.John Shewan probably the most influential of the Government’s tax advisers commented that this measure will not curb skyrocketing house prices and that it certainly will not do anything to deter property speculators. This knowledge seemed to finally catch up with Bill English the finance Minister on Q+A last weekend when he was asked whether he thought this tax measure would have any effect. He said: “I don’t know. I have no idea if it will have any effect.”What a damning statement because what that means is that the National Party used Budget tax policy as a political stunt to announce policy where they have no idea whether it will have any impact at all and on an issue that is probably the most pressing public policy of the day and that is the urgent need to rein in the Auckland housing crisis which is making an entire generation of young New Zealanders Generation Rent. Young people in Auckland—good hard-working New Zealanders—have no prospect of ever owning their own home in Auckland unless mum and dad are wealthy enough to write them a very big cheque.The second announcement on housing policy that we heard as part of the Budget was Nick Smith last week announcing that he had found 500 hectares of vacant Government-owned land zoned residential that he was going to make available to property developers to put houses on. On the face of it it was a perfectly sound idea—in fact so sound that the former Labour Government 7 years ago did exactly the same thing. It did an inventory of available Government land and what did the National Party of the day do? It derided it it ridiculed it it thought it was the funniest thing it had ever heard and as soon as National got into office it shut down that work and did nothing at all.Nick Smith in his mad poll-driven panic to try to come up with something to announce on housing before the Budget got his officials to go back to the shelf and dust off the work that Labour did 7 years ago. In the meantime the National Government had done nothing zilch nada about the idea of developing vacant Government land in Auckland.On the surface what seems to have been a perfectly simple idea has been completely stuffed up by Nick Smith the Minister for Building and Housing. He rushed out the announcement so fast that he did not give his officials the time to even go and look at the parcels of land that were on his list—the list ofparcels of land that added up to the 500 hectares that he announced. He is the harum-scarum Minister for Building and Housing. If you want a good idea stuffed up give it to Nick Smith because that is what he did. He rushed it out. The officials did not have time to go and look at the sites of land. They did not even have time to pick up the phone and talk to the Government agencies that own this land to ask them what they were doing with it and what they intended do with it.The 500 hectares of landthat Nick Smith announced last week includes electricity substations the Māngere Lawn Cemetery the SAS training base in Papakura and the Ōtāhuhu fire station just to name a few examples. Nick Smith in the House today denied that any of those things were on his land but I guarantee this: those public facilities were on lists that his officials prepared that led to him announcing 500 hectares of vacant Government land.Nick Smith has been extremely evasive and economical with the truth. On Monday he denied categorically to the news media that the Hepburn Road electricity substation was on the list. Yesterday he was in this House in question time promoting it as a site.Hon Annette King: And he tabled some lists.PHIL TWYFORD: And he tabled the land title for the substation. I want to quote Nathaniel O’Connor who was interviewed a year and half ago concerning the Hepburn Road substation where Nick Smith wants to build houses. When that substation blew up and caused a fire a year and half ago Nathaniel O’Connor whose house is located 150 metres from the substation was reported as saying: “Our lights flickered then there was a really loud arcing sound and a second after that there was a huge explosion. You could feel it inside your chest.” Well I think that probably Nick Smith could feel a tightening in his chest as we have discussed this over the last couple of days in the House. Bill English told the media in very reassuring terms: “I presume the substation is not always exploding.” So Bill English is very relaxed about it.Nick Smith thinks that building houses on an electricity substation is the answer to Auckland’s housing crisis. If that is true we are in a lot more trouble that we thought previously. Things are a lot worse than we imagined. We have three housing Ministers in this Government—three housing Ministers: Nick Smith Bill English and Paula Bennett. I think that John Key should appoint three more because since he announced those three housing Ministers Auckland housing prices have gone up by $60000.What have we got? We have got a weak half-hearted tax change to try to catch speculators. We have got a bizarre Nick Smith special—overcooked under-prepared and he has not done his homework. Both of these announcements were rushed out. They are half-baked and were scrambled together at the last minute in a panic. Their only objective is to make it look as if the Government is doing something—anything—about the housing crisis in Auckland.But what we know is that these measures will have minimal impact. They will not make any difference to the generation of young New Zealanders who are locked out of the housing market. They are first-home buyers who simply want the dream that their parents and grandparents had in this country and that is to own a home of their own. It will not help the kids in my electorate in west Auckland who are living in uninsulated garages because mum and dad cannot afford to pay the rent and cannot find a house anywhere.These measures will not be effective. What we need is a comprehensive crackdown on speculators. We need thousands of new affordable homes to be sold to first-home buyers. This Government is a crushing crushing disappointment.ALASTAIR SCOTT (National—Wairarapa): Talofa lava Mr Speaker. Over the last week or so Opposition members have criticised us for our projected surplus forecasts. They say that they are not big enough. Well the question is: what would they do differently? We know that a surplus comes from two parts: the income side and the expenditure side. We know that the revenue side has taken a hit because of lower dairy payouts and the lower interest-rate environment that we find ourselves in—all these things affect the revenue side and are out of our control. So to increase our surplus we have to look at the cost side: the expense side. We have to spend less. So the question to the Opposition members is: what would they have done? What would they have cut to get a larger surplus today tomorrow and in the future?Would they have cancelled free GP visits for under-13-year-olds? I do not think so. I do not think they could. Would they have cancelled the increase in paid parental leave that we put in place? Would they have cancelled the $11 million of funding available for the kiwi breeding programme I ask the Minister of Conservation? Would they have cut the funding for kauri dieback? Would they have reduced expenditure in health which would have seen waiting lists grow cancer treatment patients go back to Australia and queues for elective surgery? These are the consequences of cutting expenditure which is the only thing you can do if you want to increase your surpluses. Would they have cut the rheumatic fever investment that this Government has made? Would they have taken away the $359 million that we are investing in schoolteachers to encourage and incentivise teachers to do better for our kids? Maybe they would claw back the $790 million that we have just announced for the most needy—that is the children in beneficiary households.These are the sorts of things that you have to do if the surplus is the only thing that you are concerned about. But we are not because we know that it is much more important to continue the spending and the investment in those things that I have just mentioned. You know where Labour is going to get the money from? It is going to go for the superannuitants. It is going for the superannuitants. There are two or three things that it could do. It could raise the age of entitlement which we have said we would not do. Maybe it could means test superannuation which we have said we would not do. Or maybe it can simply reduce the amount which we have said we would not do.This Budget focuses on those who are in need the most: the children of beneficiary families. This Budget is a good Budget. This Budget is fiscally responsible. This Budget has cut the kick-start programme which is a programme that is not about focusing on the most needy. We know that the $1000 per person was going only to middle and higher-income families. It was not targeted at beneficiaries and it was not targeted at lower-income families which is why we are cutting that back. There are 2.5 million people involved in that programme. It is working. I support this Budget. Thank you.Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (National): All businesses farmers and households are so pleased with this Budget. Again this National Government under the leadership of the Rt Hon John Key has proved that we are working hard for all. We are working hard for all New Zealand families and children. We are working hard for all—from the young ones to the old ones. National Government members are doing what we promised to do. We promised to work hard for our families and children. We promised to work hard to get families ahead. We promised to work hard for mums and dads and children to get a better start in life and for young ones to get better opportunities to succeed.This National Government is continuously implementing plans to support a stronger economy to support more jobs and to support higher incomes to help New Zealand families and children. Since 2011 194000 jobs have been created under this National Government—194000 new jobs. This equates to 120 new jobs a day. Budget 2015 shows our commitment to address the drivers of hardship. Under this National Government there are 42000 fewer children in benefit-dependent families than 3 years ago. This shows that our spending is working. This shows that our spending is helping those who need it. At the same time we respect the taxpayers who pay for it.Budget 2015 provides $790 million to help children in hardship to help children in New Zealand’s poorest families. This National Government is continuously working hard to deliver better public services. We are always seeking new and better ideas to deliver better public services because we are focused on getting results for our New Zealand families and children. At the same time we are working hard to reduce cost. Yes we are working hard to reduce cost. We are not like the previous Labour Government whose spending increased by 50 percent even when it became clear that the global financial crisis was coming our way. That is why when we came in in 2008 Treasury projections were of doom and gloom and endless debt for New Zealand.Yes our focus is on children in hardship and along with that we have a big boost for health and education. Health spending is going to be a record $15.9 billion next year. This includes $98 million to help New Zealand families get timely elective surgeries and for prevention and treatment of orthopaedic conditions. In education early childhood primary and secondary education spending will be a record $10.8 billion next year. In tertiary education it will be $3.1 billion. We are investing in more things—things that matter to our families and children. We are able to do this because we know how to carefully manage the Government’s books. That is why we are able to invest in things that matter to New Zealand families and children.A strong economy is important if families are to flourish. Economic growth is forecast to average 2.8 percent over the next 4 years. Average wages are forecast to increase by $7000 to $63000 per annum by mid-2019. The unemployment rate is forecast to drop below 5 percent by 2016 and there will be ACC levy cuts of $500 million in 2016 and 2017. This is on top of the $1.5 billion that we have already put in New Zealanders’ pockets and at the same time our focus is to get our net debt below 20 percent by 2020.We are also working hard to make houses affordable. This Budget provides $52 million for facilitating housing development on Crown-owned land in Auckland. We are also helping more young New Zealanders into their first homes through our KiwiSaver HomeStart programme. This programme is aimed at helping 90000 families to buy their first home. This proves how responsible this National Government is. This National Government has just delivered a great Budget a Budget that will keep New Zealand on the right track. Thank you.DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): New Zealand has developed a housing crisis since the National Government took office in 2008. It has developed it since then. It has been like the frog in the saucepan waiting for the heat to increase without noticing it until the pot boils over. The crisis during that time has become chronic and this Government has done little or nothing about it. In fact this Government has had a worse record in meeting housing demand than any other Government in living history. In the last 6 years house prices have gone through the roof in Auckland and nobody over there could deny it. Houses are now unaffordable to most homebuyers and very little is being done to help. We have had some action taken on access to KiwiSaver at the price though of compromising retirement savings. Too many people do not have access to enough money in a KiwiSaver account to make any difference. The causes of the crisis have not been addressed. Few Kiwis have left for Australia that is true and that has led to an increase in demand but so has relatively uncontrolled immigration—56000 in the last year. That has led to a very significant increase in demand for housing and the Government has done nothing at all about that. According to the Bank of New Zealand 11 percent of homes are sold to foreign buyers in Auckland—11 percent—and the Government has done virtually nothing about that.Even this Government cannot deny the problem now. It is belatedly bolstering tax rules on residential property which is something that should have been done years and year ago. There is no need at all for a capital gains tax if income tax is broad enough. No action has been taken on that either. The Government is not doing enough about foreign buyers. Requiring overseas buyers to have a New Zealand tax number is not nearly enough. Determined buyers from overseas will not be deterred by that at all. The brightline test for all buyers selling within 2 years is much too easily avoided and will have little effect. Two years is too short. Although special housing areas and accords with councils will help the real issue has been the Government’s unwillingness to invest directly in housing itself. New Zealand First’s policy is for the Government to buy and develop land for housing and to use existing Crown land for the same purpose and for the Government to sell directly smaller sections thereby making modest homes more available to more people with easy repayments over 25 years at a low interest rate.The Government has taken a leaf out of New Zealand First’s book with its use of Crown land but only 400 hectares of it—a very small portion. It is only 400 hectares and only as a last-minute effort in the Budget to try to look a little bit better. It is very cosmetic. Even that land is ill-defined. We do not really know exactly what land the Government has got in mind and not all of it of course will be suitable. Only $52 million has been allowed for in the Budget to develop that land and that seems very light. There is also very little information about how all that will work. The Government should take another leaf out of New Zealand First’s policy which requires a permanent special agency to buy and develop land for residential housing.The Government has had an even worse record in social housing. The average rental is now $379 a week. Since 2008 the increase under National has been $65 a week or 20 percent and 11.7 percent above the Consumers Price Index. That is huge. People cannot avoid that. In Auckland people typically have to pay 50 percent of their take-home income in rent and that is crippling. In Christchurch people often have to pay something like $1000 a week or more for an ordinary three-bedroom house. It is a very significant problem in the major cities. The Government’s social housing measures will not help to increase rental housing stock. Those measures are designed to minimise the role of the State and to emasculate Housing New Zealand. This Government is actually abdicating its responsibility for social housing by contracting it out to non-governmental organisations and private providers. Government members say there will be flexible purchasing as described in the Government’s recent legislation allowing what they call tailored agreements dictated in detail by Ministers who will be biased of course. That is to try to give certainty to providers so that they can go out and borrow money and build homes. But are they really capable of doing this job? We really will not know until it happens—until the worst happens perhaps. But Housing New Zealand of course could do all that and used to do all that much faster and much better. So what is the point of this exercise of farming it out to non-governmental organisations?The whole thrust of the Government’s housing programme is to suppress demand for State rentals to do little for first-home buyers and it simply does not adequately address the housing crisis at all.KELVIN DAVIS (Labour—Te Tai Tokerau): The member for Wairarapa Alastair Scott spoke earlier and said that the Labour Opposition is criticising the Government’s Budget trajectory. We are not criticising the trajectory; we are criticising the deficit. Over the last 3 or 4 years all we have heard is that this Budget is going to deliver a surplus and it has failed to do that. All we have heard are broken promises and squandered opportunities. This Budget has done nothing nothing whatsoever to address the real issues that are going on in New Zealand.We also criticise the fact that the Government has borrowed $84 billion over the last 7 years. The last Labour Government left the new National Government in a great position and with great opportunity. We had zero Government debt and now we have got $84 billion worth of debt. Government members do not say a lot about that. They keep talking themselves up but all we can see is $84 billion worth of debt. I do not criticise $790 million going towards the families that need it the most but $790 million or $25 per family per week is not enough even to keep up with the cost of living. They seem to forget that in 2006 Working for Families delivered a $60 tax credit for families on the benefit as well. We hear a lot of talk from Government members. They are talking themselves up but the reality is they are not delivering. This Government has lost its way. It is failing to meet the needs of New Zealand families and it has no long-term plan to address the challenges ahead. The Government is robbing from our children’s future just to scrape by today. This is a Government of broken promises.We have a beautiful creature in Māoridom. It is called the kēwai. A kēwai is a freshwater crayfish. A freshwater crayfish moves by flapping its legs and moving backwards and this is what I would say is a “kēwai Budget” where the Government members are backtracking and back-pedalling as fast as they can flap themselves. They promised a surplus and all we have got is another deficit. There were nine surpluses from this side of the House and seven deficits from over there.What would a responsible Government do? It would grow incomes. This Government has failed on that. It promised that incomes would grow by $7000 and it has failed to meet that by some $3000. It has not fixed the housing crisis. Phil Twyford was very eloquent in describing the issues around the housing crisis in Auckland. The Government has not hit the speculators and when it started to hit the speculators it was just a Clayton’s attack. We are not going to see much difference in what has happened. I think of my nephew. He is very lucky that he bought a house some 5 years ago in Auckland for $400000. He sold it at the end of last year for $790000. He is one of the lucky ones. But people coming into the housing market now are the ones who are going to miss out. A real Government would invest in a productive and diverse economy. All this Government is doing is relying on dairy and disaster. If it was not for the Christchurch earthquake the growth in our economy would be about 25 percent less than what it is now.This Government needs to prepare New Zealand for the next generation of wealth creation. It is not doing that. It has not transformed tertiary education to match skills with future jobs. By the way something that we need to keep harping on about is the previous Labour Government’s record when it comes to unemployment. We got it down to 3.4 percent—3.4 percent—and what has this Government done? Well it has doubled that now. Not only that in Whangarei in 2007 there were 58 people on the unemployment benefit. You could just about name them if you sat down and tried to memorise their names. You could basically do that. I do not know how many hundreds if not thousands are on the unemployment benefit now in Whangarei.Let us have a listen to some of these broken promises. Well there is the surplus. We have already covered that. We have had seven deficits. We are promised now that next year there will be a surplus. Actually let us remember the Minister of Finance’s analogy. He said: “Oh well if you’re trying to lose 10 kilogrammes to fit a suit for your brother’s wedding and you lose only 9.8 kilogrammes well what does it matter?”. I prefer this analogy. When the All Blacks go to the Rugby World Cup this year in order to bring home that William Webb Ellis Cup they need a surplus of points—more points—than the other team. If they end up with a deficit of points they are losers; they have lost. That is why the people of New Zealand are losing because of this Budget.What else? Jobs and wages—this is in John Key’s open letter to New Zealanders after the election. He promised that “Over the next 2 years we expect to see about 150000 jobs created.” National will fall short on that promise by 60000. Then there is the KiwiSaver kick-start contribution of $1000. The Government is robbing our children’s future to scrape by today. That is unacceptable. Then we have new taxes. Of course we were told there would be no new taxes. That was an election promise—no new taxes. Well we have got a new capital gains tax that is not really a capital gains tax. We have got an airport tax that we are told is not really a tax; it is a levy. We have got a broadband tax. What is the next one? National promised to increase exports to 40 percent of GDP. Well that is heading south as well. Then there are the regions. Well the regions spoke—Northland spoke. It has been forgotten. The Minister of Transport Simon Bridges said: “We’ll promise 10 bridges.” Thank God his name is not “Simon Tunnels” or else we would have 10 tunnels going through Northland. This is a reckless Budget.I just want to touch on the police estimates because the poor police are doing a great job out there but they are just getting no Budget increases. In fact they have had $15 million in cuts this year. I know that the Minister is going to get up here and say: “Oh no that is not true. We’re implementing $160 million in new initiatives.” Well really what the Minister has done is taken a pack of cards shuffled it allowed a few cards to fall out on to the floor and then re-dealt them and said that it is all new money. Well I can tell everyone that it is not new money; it is $15 million less. Let us just have a look and let us just use the estimates that came out last week. If we look at the columns in Budget 2014-15 the final budgeted amount was $1.624 billion and in the estimated actual it was $1.624 billion. What is the budget for 2015-16? It is $1.609 billion. That is a Budget cut and no Minister can walk in here and say that they have increased the funding for police. It is here in black and white that the Government has cut the police Budget and that is unacceptable.But when you look through the police Budget what do you see? You see that the Government’s targets are more on revenue collecting. For example it has got greater targets in chasing up people using cellphones while driving. I think it is trying to double the number of people who are using cellphones whom it wants to catch. There is funding for incorrect lane changing and warrants of fitness and yet there are people like our colleague the Hon Phil Goff who had his motorbike pinched. He ain’t going to see that again because the high-volume crimes—those really irritating crimes such as theft burglary assault shoplifting—are not having as much money put into them.In fact many of the cuts are coming from catching drivers speeding. The Government wants to catch more people but it is actually giving the police less money in order to catch speeders. Heavy vehicle fleet—I take it that that is catching trucks that are overloaded. Fatigue and distraction—the Government is taking away $133000 from that. Traffic management—it is taking away $408000 from that. Alcohol and impaired drivers—now you would think that that would be a massive priority but it is taking away $2.815 million from there. High-risk drivers—it is removing $5.128 million from there. So the Government is asking the police to do more to catch more people but it is giving them less money and these are all high revenue collecting crimes—rather than going out and catching those criminals who are breaking into homes and like I say stealing the Hon Phil Goff’s motorcycle. This Budget does not deliver.I would really like to carry on about the Department of Corrections. There is a big mess there and it all comes around the prison privately run by Serco which is a direct transfer of jobs from the public sector through to the private sector. Unfortunately my time has expired. Kia ora.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I call Nuk Korako—5 minutes.NUK KORAKO (National): Kia ora e te Mana Whakawā. Talofa lava. Kia ora. E mihi atu ana ki te whanaukatanga ki Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa ā huri noa te Whare kia ora.[Thank you. I acknowledge the relationship with the Great Sea of Kiwa.And throughout the House hello there.]First of all this is a split call. Obviously it is my first timestanding and speaking as a member of the House in a Budget debate. The last speech by Mr Davis epitomises for me what has actually happened since the announcement of the Budget last week called “A plan that’s working”. I have listened very carefully to the debate which started last week and I understand now that that people across the other side of the House have selective memories and that in some ways they have selective hearing as well. I just remind Mr Davis of the fact that when Bill English took over as Minister of Finance in 2008 what he accepted was possibly one of the biggest hospital passes that was ever given to a Minister of Finance. What happened there was that the Labour Government had squandered 9 years—9 years—of good economic conditions and over the last week we have had constant reminders from the other side of the House that Labour ran surpluses for 9 years.But at least let me ask those members opposite what they have to show for it. What do they have to show for it?It is all very well boasting about making surpluses but you did absolutely nothing for children living in hardship nothing for Māori and nothing to support our most vulnerable people. Labour had 9 years of spending up large yet it did not increase benefits one bitin real terms. It took a National Government with the support of the Māori Party to give our most vulnerable whānau a $25-per-week increase as part of a $790 million package of support for children and whānau living in hardship. There is also some targeted support and that is what I want to concentrate on—two major ones particularly for Māori. The first one is the Te Ture Whenua Māori network where we are investing almost $13 million in supporting Māori landowners improve the productivity of their land along with a timely review of the Māori Land Act—under the Māori Land Act if you take into account that 11 percent of land in the North Island is under that legislation 80 percent of that land is underdeveloped. We could see $8 billion injected into the Māori economy along with 5000 jobs created over the next 10 years. That is part of this innovative situation that we have actually put into this Budget about starting to review all of that legislation.Today the New Zealand economy continues to grow and so does the Māori tribal economy. This Budget also appropriates $1.4 billion over the next 5 years for the settlement of historic Treaty claims—and I want to talk about Treaty settlements. The Government’s commitment to its programme of Treaty settlements is more about pumping money into the Māori economy if we look at that and think about those Treaty settlements and if you look at the work of Minister Finlayson and what he has done over the last two terms—over 40 Treaty settlements. In doing that that is actually linked to regional economy. When we look at the largest iwi Ngāpuhi it has just begun negotiations with the Crown. But all we have heard on that side of the House is negativity—a lot of negativity. We heard it last night about whether a settlement would really change things up there. I say to my Māori colleagues on the other side of the House just look at Waikato-Tainui just look at Ngāi Tahu. All of that the references to the scourge of property developers and all of that that we have heard from that side of the House—Ngāi Tahu are the largest property developers in the South Island and those properties are being invested in the future of our people.MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): Talofa lava. It is great to be a New Zealander. It is great to live in New Zealand. I know that many other people who live in this fine country know it is great to be a Kiwi and great to live in New Zealand. The reason I know this is because of the recently released New Zealand General Social Survey the biggest social survey outside the 5-year census. It shows that 83 percent of people are highly satisfied with their lives. That is between eight and nine people out of 10 who are highly satisfied with their lives. And 87 percent of people have a high sense of purpose in their lives. That is fantastic news but there is a lot more to be done and that is what this National Government is doing.It is also great to be a Canterbury National MP and it is great to be part of a team of Canterbury National MPs. We have increased the Budget for the Canterbury rebuild from $15.5 billion to $16.5 billion. That is an extra $1 billion for the Canterbury recovery and that shows the faith that the voters put in us in the last election because of course this National Government won the party vote in every electorate in Canterbury. A lot of the credit for that needs to go to our Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery the Hon Gerry Brownlee. It was great to see the opening of the bus exchange in Christchurch on Monday morning another great anchor project opening in the recovery. We are committed to the recovery and this Budget proves that. It is one of our top four priorities.I remember campaigning in the last election when I met many voters who were voting National for the first time. They had voted Labour all their lives but they were voting for National because National was working hard for New Zealand listening to New Zealand and working for the working people of New Zealand. I come from a background in mental health which is about making a difference in people’s lives and this Budget is making a difference in people’s lives. I am proud to be part of a Government that at the first opportunity for this term stood up in this Budget debate and supported children and families. This will make a big difference in people’s lives.The $790 million child hardship package will give working families up to $25 a week. That is over 50000 families who will get up to $25 a week. People also said to us that they wanted us to support the vulnerable and that is why we are increasing the benefit by up to $25 a week. That is the first uplift since 1972. I was born in 1972 so beneficiaries have not had an uplift like this in my whole lifetime. It took a National Government to deliver that. It is about making a difference in people’s lives and this National Government is delivering.This National Government cares. We care about New Zealand and in New Zealand we have a mixed economy of care. We have State provision we have private provision and we have community provision. It is not about a small State; it is about big communities and it is about this Government backing communities. To all those creative community-sector organisations we believe in you—we believe in you to make a difference. This mixed economy of care is about flexibility and choice. This was demonstrated in our social housing reform where our legislation will allow an extra 3000 people to access housing support.To those 3000 people tell them that the Labour Party said no the New Zealand First Party said no and the Green Party said no but that it was this National Government that said yes to them. And to all of those tenants with high complex needs—like mental health and drug addiction—the Labour Party said no to extra support the New Zealand First Party said no to that legislation for extra support and the “Red Green Party” said no but this National Government said yes because at the end of the day this party is working hard for New Zealanders. We are listening to New Zealanders because the National Government is the working people’s party. Thank you.Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green): Mr Assistant Speaker a split call?The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): A 5-minute call.Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM: Yes. As a number of my colleagues have already noted the 2015 Budget statement said virtually nothing about the biggest economic issue facing this country—that is climate change. The Budget revealed new policy of course on a variety of household issues. They are important issues especially to those directly affected but they are not the overarching macroeconomic issues that will at the global level—and therefore at the national level—overwhelm everybody if they are not properly addressed.The Minister of Finance is tinkering at the margin with his seventh Budget. It is like the captain of a ship transferring his passengers into a dingy with an outboard motor. Both are heading into the hurricane ahead. The captain is saying: “Not to worry we have just enough freeboard to stay afloat.” He is saying this even as the sea is getting bigger. That hurricane is climate change—literally hurricanes storms and floods that are already occurring.Why is extreme weather relevant to New Zealand’s Budget? It is because the stress on the planet’s resources through global population increase and burgeoning economic activity per person is unsustainable. We are incurring today a global ecological overshoot of 50 percent. Although New Zealand is rare in having a national ecological surplus we are negatively affected including our fiscal outlook by the unsustainable and worsening global economy. That is the reason the Minister is failing even though he is widely seen as a successful economic steward.The most important global meeting to date occurs in December. It is the 21st annual United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris. It is the equivalent of the failed conference in Copenhagen in 2009 but it is more important because we have lost 6 critical years yet there is not a word on this in the Budget.The world has lost ground. No longer are the negotiators engaged in global planning. Top-down is out; bottom-up is in. Binding commitments are out; voluntary contributions are in. We going to tame dangerous climate change you understand through voluntary contributions by 194 competing States jealous of their national sovereignty. God help us for we know not what we do.That voluntary contribution is labelled in the latest jargon “INDC” or intended nationally determined contribution. It is “nationally determined” not “globally determined”; it is “intended” not “committed” and the jargon is sanitised to the point of stupefaction. Global warming above 4 degrees which is labelled by international organisations as catastrophic is described by this Government as having “substantial environmental economic and human impacts”. God help us.New Zealand is lumbering its way towards its intended nationally determined contribution. It has held public consultations throughout the country. The Minister for Climate Change Issues is conspicuously absent. He does not care; his mind has moved on. He will none the less announce the intended nationally determined contribution within a few months. It will be insufficient—probably between 10 and 20 percent. He will pepper it with conditions and irrelevancies. He will imply that he is in possession of complex and arcane knowledge that accords superior insight.The Green Party has already said that the intended nationally determined contribution must be 40-plus percent. That would bring New Zealand’s net emissions down from 67 megatonnes today to 40 megatonnes in 2030. That is consistent with the Green Party policy of achieving climate neutrality by 2050. Is getting to 40 megatonnes feasible? Yes it is. As far as can be determined we could do at least that and we are talking about domestic abatement alone. In fact it is possible that we could go further. What might be New Zealand’s maximum abatement potential assuming all policy signals are optimal and there is sufficient political will? The experts will differ but the range could be anything from 40 megatonnes down to perhaps 20. So let us have the debate over what can be done—a genuine public debate not a trite ministerial sermon—and let us then have a genuine cross-party political debate.My final point is that that is simply our domestic abatement. If we are talking about doing our fair share in the global effort to ensure a 2 degrees Celsius outcome New Zealand’s national responsibility target goes far far beyond that.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Gareth Hughes—a 5-minute call.GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. According to the Bible it took only 7 days to form the earth and all the plants and animals on it yet Bill English managing a so-called rock star economy has not been able to achieve this over 7 years. Of course this was National’s seventh Budget. It continues 7 years of deficits debt dairy dependence and declining homeownership. It seems the only indicator that is not going backwards for National is our greenhouse gas emissions which we know are just going up and up.The Budget did nothing for a whole generation of young Kiwis who are swimming in student debt and cannot get into their first home or for Kiwi workers half of whom have seen their wages stagnate under National. After 7 years our economy is more dependent on a few raw commodities. It is a simpler economy than when we started. Just this week we saw a massive $2.6 billion trade deficit the largest in the 6 years since the middle of the worst global recession we have seen in decades. What we are seeing now are the impacts of falling dairy prices and also the dependence our country has on exporting this raw milk powder around the world.Likewise you can see it with the data that we saw in the Budget. The horses that the National Government has picked are not working. We have seen oil royalty income go down 38 percent minerals income go down 34 percent. We have seen coal royalty income go down 33 percent. On the other side of the ledger though we have also seen flat to declining science funding. Tertiary education has seen $1 billion stripped out of it over the last 7 years. We have seen New Zealand continue to languish in the bottom half of the OECD. We are going backwards on the important things like science and innovation yet we are increasing our dependence on things like dairy and oil which are not paying off. You can see it in the perilous state of the country’s books that Bill English showed us but you can also see it in the experience of the majority of Kiwis.Hon Anne Tolley: Perilous?GARETH HUGHES: Well Ms Tolley in this country Kiwis are working some of the longest hours for some of the lowest wages and we are paying some of the highest costs of living in the entire developed world. The whole country is sprinting just to keep where we are. We are not actually getting ahead as a country. The fact is we have got 290000 Kiwi kids in poverty yet for a country—[Interruption] I hear the National backbench interjecting. For a country that is feeding 20 million people around the world in our agricultural exports it is a travesty that we have got hungry kids going to school without food but your party voted against supplying them food in schools.Under National’s New Zealand we see the richest 1 percent controlling 16 percent of the country’s wealth. And the bottom half what does it have? It has got only 5 percent. Every year under National it just gets worse and worse. But the fact is that it is bad for our economic performance. The OECD has found that National’s rising inequality has shaved 10 percent off our GDP over the last decade. Sure there have been some productivity improvements but they have not flowed through to the workers. So sure we have got rising inequality but we are also seeing rising generational inequality.Previous generations of Kiwis used to have an affordable education and State support to get into a first home yet for Kiwis in their 20s or 30s a good job an affordable education and support to get into their first home are considered luxuries. Parents are struggling to raise their kids burdened by massive student debt and the high cost of living in areas like electricity and food. The majority of young Kiwis are forced to rent. In fact we have had to create an entire new name for this new generation which is being called Generation Rent. For this generation the dream of homeownership is slipping further and further out of reach. So we are seeing rising inequality generational inequality but perhaps the biggest inequality is what is happening with the planet which the last speaker Kennedy Graham just touched on—intergenerational inequality in terms of future generations’ security literally on the planet.Over those 7 years under National what we have seen is our emissions increase by 20 percent since National came into power. They are forecast to increase 48 percent by the end of this decade. Just in the last week within National’s Budget guess what there was? There was $31 million to subsidise polluters. National’s emissions trading scheme is a complete farce. It is not incentivising the clean-energy economy we should be developing and those clean-energy jobs; in fact it is subsidising polluters and that is National’s vision for the future. However there is a better alternative. That is why the Greens are putting up so many good ideas to rebalance our economy reduce inequality and give all Kiwis a fair go. Kia ora.Hon NICKY WAGNER (Minister of Customs): Well Budget 2015 is a great Budget. It is Minister Bill English’s seventh Budget and I think he has nailed it. The Government’s plan is working. We have got a strong growing economy and it is translating into real benefits for Kiwi families Kiwi households and Kiwi businesses. I think really the Budget delivers careful management of public spending but also shows investment into better services that Kiwis need. We have prioritised the things that matter most to most New Zealanders. If you think about it we cannot do anything in life unless we are healthy so we have put more money into health: $1.7 billion more this year. That will mean there is a record spend of $15.9 billion for 2015-16. And then there is education. Our Government believes that a good education is the best foundation for people to live good lives to be able to have choices in their lives. We have invested there again another $686 million which means that the suite of early childhood primary and secondary education is getting $10.8 billion and then on top of that we are spending over $3 billion on tertiary education.But for me as the Minister for Disability Issues I am really interested in what is being spent for special education. We have increased the amount of spending every year since we have been in Government. This year we are investing a further $62.9 million over 4 years. That is more money for the Ongoing Resourcing Scheme (ORS) funding. What we have got this funding for is for significantly disabled youngsters—people who have problems with physical or mental issues and learning disabilities. What we are doing is putting this money in towards giving them a better quality of life and a better chance of education. We are also going to add $23 million for extra in-class aides for kids who do not quite meet the Ongoing Resourcing Scheme category. They are the ones who still need help but are not in the Ongoing Resourcing Scheme. We want to make sure that our disabled youngsters have the best opportunity to live the life of ordinary kids. We believe that education is the best place to make that happen.We are also working on housing programmes obviously. We are particularly focusing on affordable housing in Auckland and Christchurch but also for first home owners. We are investing in ultra-fast broadband regional highways KiwiRail and urban cycleways. They are all things that I think are money well spent. Let us look at jobs. Our Government believes that work is good for you. We believe in work not just for getting wages or a salary but because if you go to work you are part of a team you are part of a contribution you can use your skills and that is what people do in our communities. I am delighted that businesses have been able to create 194000 new jobs since 2011 but we are backing them to do more. We are backing them to deliver 150000 jobs over the next 4 years. We also want good wages. Average wages have increased by 15 percent in the last 5 years. We are expecting that to continue and we are hoping that the average wage will be able to rise by about $7000 to get to $63000 by mid-2019. The ACC annual levy cuts will also inject $2 billion into the back pockets of Kiwis between 2012 and 2016 and I think that has been very well received.But I have to say the highlight of the Budget has got to be the package for children from poorer families which is the $25 a week increase in benefits. We understand that people on benefits struggle to look after their kids so $25 will make a difference for families with children. As we have already heard this is the first time in 43 years that benefits have been lifted. But we are not forgetting the people who are working with lower incomes either. The Working for Families payments will also increase by $12.50 a week. That total package is $790 million over 4 years and that will help about 160000 low-income families and will touch 300 children. I think that is absolutely a great effort it will make a real difference and it is something that I think most Kiwis support.Going back to the disabilities sector I am delighted that Budget 2015 also provides special money for transition for disabled students. It provides $16.3 million for participation and inclusion services to help young people who are disabled and who are leaving school and entering into adult life. We are giving them what we call our very high-needs support system. I think anyone who has been involved with teenagers understands how difficult that transition from school to the real world is. It is particularly difficult for disabled people particularly if they have significant physical intellectual or sensory impairments or maybe a combination of all these things—learning hearing vision or mobility impairments. I think this is a particularly important area and I am really pleased to see that money has been put there.Now I want to talk about the Customs Service because customs and the security and safety of our border have benefited from Budget 2015. First of all there is a capital sum of $4.7 million for extra officers to screen departing passengers—that is screening them for terrorism and drug threats. That extended risk screening for departures complements what we already do there in terms of existing automated and face-to-face passport checks and also complements the alert system that is already in place. This is an aim to counter terrorism and to make sure that we can maintain New Zealand’s low-risk status. It is important that New Zealand is seen as a safe country and New Zealanders have told us they want that to remain that way.It is because they are so keen to see a safe and secure border that we are introducing the new border processing levy for travellers. It is an important step in managing both biosecurity and people threats at the border. It brings the screening of travellers and the cost recovery of processing at the border in line with what we already do with goods. Since the early 1990s there has been a cost recovery from importers of goods and now we are looking at travellers. The beauty of this levy is that it is flexible because as the numbers of travellers go across our borders the amount of resource increases. This is particularly important because we are getting larger numbers every year—about a 3.5 percent increase and we are expecting that to increase—and more complex passengers language issues and different cultures. It is really important that that resource will be available where it is needed.The border processing levy is also fairer. At the moment taxpayers—that is you me the panel beater from Whangarei and the solo mum from Christchurch—all pay for visitors to come across our border. Of those people coming across our border 58 percent are international visitors. Many of them are on luxury cruises or golfing trips to New Zealand and I do not really think it is right that the New Zealand taxpayer should pay for them. What is more it is a lose-lose. We pay for those overseas visitors to come through our border but as soon as we go back to their country we have to pay again. This is because most countries have a border levy; it is international best practice. New Zealand’s border levy will be about $20 give or take and that is actually very light in comparison to the countries that we visit—places like Australia which charges about NZ$58; the UK which charges NZ$150; and Canada and the US which are all very similar. The majority of the levy will be on the arrival part simply because that is where the biosecurity screening happens but we still need part of the levy to cover departures and the face-to-face and screening of passport checks. It will apply to all travellers—about 95 percent are airline passengers but also cruise passengers. If you come on your private yacht or airline you will have to pay as well. We are getting stakeholders a consultation—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Thank you. The member’s time has expired.Su’a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere): Talofa lava Mr Assistant Speaker. Talofa i lau afioga le fofoga fetalai. Talofa fo’i to the members of this House and I acknowledge all of those members who have been able to contribute to Samoan Language Week. Le vaiaso o le gagana Samoa i lenei vaiaso. Faamalo le tapuaiga a le tatou Atunu’u Samoa i itu e fia o Aotearoa. Fa’amalo foi le tapua’i i le itumalo o Magele.The theme of Samoan Language Week this week is “Tautua nei mo sou manuia a taeao” meaning serve now for a better tomorrow. Although “tautua” means serve it also means to be a servant to others but the operative words here are do it now for a better tomorrow. I think that is quite fitting when we are debating this Budget because we are talking about what this Government is doing and the ramifications that its actions will have on the future of this country on the future of our young people and on the future of the next generation of the workforce in Aotearoa New Zealand. Although the Budget promises so much—and we heard on Thursday Friday and Saturday how this Government just enjoyed crowing and shouting from the rooftops about those particular promises—I think when we start digging a little bit underneath those promises and try to identify the detail of those promises we find that the Government is woefully short on the things that it needs to do for a better tomorrow.I want to say that it is woefully short because National ran last year’s election promising us that there would be a surplus this year. National convinced all of us and convinced the New Zealand public that if National returned to Government we would have a $300 million surplus. That was the promise that National made to New Zealanders at the last election. Well what do we get—what do we get? Now Government members are saying “What’s in a surplus?”. They are trying to blame us for the Government’s deficit. The reality is that a surplus is important because it is a sign of an efficient Government. It means that the Government can invest in the future. It means that the Government can pay off debt. Right now we are in hock for $83 billion paying $10 million in interest. There is no vision for the future because of the fact that the Government has failed time and time and time again 7 years in a row to achieve that surplus. Every time we try to hold the Government to account Government members say “We’ll do it next year.” They promise it for next year. Now I think the New Zealand public has got wind of this.The Government has now have created a pattern for itself of making promises that it never intends delivering on—empty promises. Let me just give you an example—when we talk about the details of this Budget and the lack of vision for the future. I spoke at a school assembly in South Auckland on Monday to launch Samoan Language Week this week. That school belongs to a cluster of schools called the Auckland Samoan Bilingual Education Cluster. The principal whispered to me that they were really disappointed that there was nothing in this Budget whatsoever to recognise Pacific bilingual language to recognise the value of Pacific bilingual language to students and the value of the teachers who work in these units. They said to me that in the last 4 years they had been engaging with the Ministry of Education with this Government to try to get it to recognise the value of Pacific bilingual language. What did they get? Zilch—zilch nothing.What this Government has done for Pacific bilingual language education is cut the resources that these units required. Remember the Tupu series? Remember the Folauga journals? The Government cut the development of them. Not only that it removed Pacific bilingual education as a goal in the Pasifika Education Plan 2013-2017. The Government removed that and there is nothing that is in this Budget today that gives any hope any inspiration to the next generation of bilingual students in South Auckland that this Government recognises the value of languages. The foundation of cultural identity of self-respect of self-responsibility and of self-discipline is in the language and this Government continues to fail to provide for that.This Budget continues to fail to eliminate the growing inequalities that we face as a country. It continues to fail to recognise and address the housing crisis. It continues to fail to provide any hope whatsoever to hard-working ordinary New Zealanders who are day in day out just doing it tough and struggling to make ends meet. It fails to provide any inspiration that someday if they work harder they will be able to buy a house of their own. That dream has become virtually impossible for the low and middle-income bracket in our communities. It fails to provide any inspiration.The Budget did provide some band-aid fixes. I call them “band-aid fixes” because they provide no long-term solution to the issues that we face today. For example Government members crowed about the $25 that the Government is giving to the beneficiaries. They crowed on Thursday Friday Saturday—we got sick and tired of them shouting from the rooftops—but when you look underneath the details they say that they are concerned for the poor but we do not get the $25 now. We have to wait a whole full year to get it. They have to wait till next year to get it. What then happens while we are waiting? Is anything being done for the poor? No. They remain in Struggle Street. But in the meantime that paltry $25 a week gets swallowed up by the increases in rent the increases in petrol prices and the increases in power prices. Woe unto those people during this winter. It is going to be a cold cold winter.The other thing is that the Government thinks that people on benefits want to be on benefits. It thinks that people on benefits love that lifestyle. That is not a lifestyle choice. The majority of people on benefits find themselves being there through economic and social conditions out of their control. I have never come across somebody on a benefit who dreams of remaining on a benefit. Pacific people do not want handouts. They want a hand up. Sure the Government said that it was going to try to get people into jobs. Forcing solo parents when their child is 3 years old into a job that does not exist is not a work plan. The best welfare support for communities who are done by is to get them into jobs—high-value jobs high-paying jobs jobs that can enable them to support and sustain their families jobs that can enable them to contribute to the community through various activities in schools etc.So let me just make that point: people do not want your handouts which are short-term band-aids. Yes it has been welcomed by many but that is because Kiwis generally have a sense that we have an obligation to look after those who are unable to help themselves. To think that the Government is forcing people solo parents in particular to find part-time jobs—show me flexible employers that are willing to work with and support those young solo parents. Show me them in our community. There are some but members opposite are expecting every one of those beneficiaries to get into jobs that will not be there without a comprehensive plan to ensure that they get those jobs.I have heard speakers here say that the Government is raising incomes. That is a crock and that is the softest way I can say that. Flexible industrial laws fire-at-will industrial laws and eliminating good faith bargaining are all the signs of driving wages down and keeping them low. That is the Government’s mantra.The housing sell-off—Pacific people want to own their own homes. They do not want to be renting for the rest of their lives but it is becoming impossible under this Government. The selling-off of State houses which we rushed through this House on Friday and Saturday is not a plan to make housing affordable. How on earth does the Government intend to create more houses if it is selling off State houses? Pushing people into the lines of social housing is not a plan to ensure that people have some dignity and are able to achieve sustainability and respect for themselves. But that is what the Government intends to do. Its plan is to keep the money in the hands of the few and ensure that the rest of the New Zealand population continues to wallow in the poverty the inequalities that the Government has created the mess that it has created because it has failed over and over again to achieve that surplus which is a sign of efficient Government. It is not an efficient Government. It does not matter what Government members say; it is not.Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura): I was not going to reply to the comments of my dear friend and colleague as co-chair of the New Zealand - Turkey Parliamentary Friendship Association—such giddy heights have we risen to!Chris Bishop: That member will go no further.Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Anyway—what was that?Chris Bishop: He’ll go no further.Hon JUDITH COLLINS: I think he will. I think he will one day get his own chairmanship.Anyway I was not actually going to reply but I just had to. I actually felt a bit sorry for the Labour members after that Budget. There they were listening to Bill English go on and on during the Budget speech—and that is not a criticism of Bill because every Minister of Finance just reads out their speech word for word no problem. They sat there and they listened to us take a huge chunk out of their territory. I thought: “Gee this is going to be interesting. I am going to look forward to Andrew Little’s reply.” and then not a lot really happened actually. I think he remembered that Bill Clinton once used to say that “kiss” is the thing to remember—you know “keep it simple stupid”. Then of course he got himself all tied up with that other KISS character Gene Simmons. I actually felt almost a bit sorry for him. I am not going to fib to the House and say that I did feel sorry for him. I thought: “That has got to be the worst Budget reply speech that I have ever heard Andrew Little.” I looked around at his colleagues on the Labour benches and their little heads were down or they were busy reading things that they needed to read or they were looking anywhere except at their leader and that said to me everything really. This Budget surprised them. This Budget delivered on an area where they had expected absolutely nothing which is actually about really giving some people who are at the poorest end of society in terms of socio-economic wealth a little bit more.It was a bit disheartening to hear Su’a William Sio refer to $25 per week as a paltry amount. Well I guess it probably is if you get the sorts of salaries that we get in Parliament but actually it is not if you are on a benefit. It is actually quite a significant amount of money. I would say that there would not be too many people living on benefits who would say: “Actually I do not want to have that paltry $25 per week.” I reckon that they will all want to have it—and actually probably they need it—and I think that is a good thing. This is of course the first Government to deliver a real increase in benefits in 43 years and that is worth crowing about. In fact that is actually a longer time than most of the people here in Parliament on the other side have been alive.Hon Member: An entire Matt Doocey.Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Yes it is in fact an entire Matt Doocey.The other thing that I wanted to talk about in this Budget debate which I am really excited about is the extra funding that is going into special education. I am very pleased to be a member of the Education and Science Committee at Parliament and I would just like to say that we have had a wonderful discussion today around special education particularly for children who have Asperger’s syndrome and autistic spectrum disorders—dyspraxia and dyslexia in particular. We have actually come a long way I think not only as a Government but also generally across parties on this. We are often in danger in that committee of having peace break out which I always think actually that the public would rather have.We talked quite a lot today and learnt quite a lot about what is actually being done and I actually think that over the last few years we have seen some significant improvement. So when the announcement was made by the Hon Hekia Parata that we are in fact going to be allocating $39.5 million to the Ongoing and Reviewable Resourcing Scheme which is also called ORRS and that is support for an extra 500 students. These are kids who in fact do have to learn in a different way often with different assistance but they can often achieve hugely if they are given the right help and assistance environment. It also helps to pay for speech language therapists psychologists physiotherapists and occupational therapists and provides additional teacher time and teacher aide time.We are investing an extra $62.9 million of operating funding over the next 4 years to give kids who have special needs when it comes to learning or who have different ways of learning to be able to learn and to achieve. I am going to speak now to those parents of children who do not have these sorts of issues that they need to work around and who sometimes say: “Oh why are you spending all this money and this time on these kids?”. Well actually if you want to just go and have a look at the movie The Imitation Game you will see Professor Alan Turing. That man clearly had Asperger’s syndrome. Today he would be diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome. So much is made of him being gay and being persecuted for being gay and everything else but you could also say that he was persecuted for being different. He was different because he clearly was on the autism spectrum and yet what did he do with that?Louisa Wall: He’s a genius.Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Well apart from being a bit difficult to deal with sometimes he was actually as Louisa Wall has just called out an absolute genius. Actually ordinary people like us here and I include myself in this—we are pretty normal ordinary people; we just get a lot of fun in what we do in our work—are never going to invent the computer. We are not made like that. We do a lot of talking we do a lot listening and we do all the social stuff but we are never going to be able to do that. We need people who are absolutely completely different from us who are going to go out and think completely differently from the way that we do and who are going to see things that none of the rest of us would ever be able to see. Sometimes we get to see their work. That movie I would say is an extremely good example for anyone to see the behaviours of somebody with the disorder.Back in the 1940s this was not known as a disorder. He was just really good at maths. Well actually lots of people with autistic spectrum disorder are really good at maths because maths is unlike us—unlike us—completely logical. Also I always reckon that maths is a bit magical really. You can do almost anything with maths. So sometimes—[Interruption] Yes you can—absolutely Mr Assistant Speaker Mallard. You can do almost anything with maths. It is unbelievably magical and the more that we learn about it the more I find it most interesting. But do you know what? Instead of trying to make kids who have different abilities be just like the rest of us let us celebrate the fact that they are different because without their differences we would still be back in the Stone Age.Think about Isaac Newton. If you learn anything about Isaac Newton he was clearly someone with autistic spectrum disorder. This was a man who lived most of his life in the Tower of London—not under guard—but the more I hear about him the more I realise that he was absolutely like that. Einstein—clearly. People say that about Bill Gates—clearly—and Steve Jobs. These are people who often have difficulty talking to people in the normal social situations that the rest of us thrive in. They do not do cocktail parties; they actually make a difference. They do not do chatting about nothing; they actually make a difference. So when I look at this area I would say to all the parents who think that it is not money well spent and to all of those teachers who think “Why do I have to have someone different in my class?” that thankfully we do have people who are different. I hope that now we are getting ourselves intelligent enough—if I could possibly put it in that way—and accepting enough to understand that not all kids are thankfully made the same. If we would only appreciate that we would get more from it.This is the first time that I have seen in one of our Budgets a commitment of this order. If I or our committee has done anything to help bring that along I am very grateful for it. If we have not never mind; we will no doubt try better next time. But I would say that our committee is working very well on this issue and it is a privilege to be part of a team—a cross-party team—that takes this issue seriously. It is an issue because it behoves us to make the best use we can out of everybody in our society and some people are different from most of us. Thank goodness they are; I am very grateful for it.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Richard Prosser—a 5-minute call.RICHARD PROSSER (NZ First): Another year has passed and the Minister of Finance has delivered yet another Budget—another bland helping of not very much. This Budget will not go down in history as one of the great Budgets. It will not be remembered in the same way as the Black Budget or the “mother of all Budgets” are remembered. In fact if the Budget is to be remembered for anything if it is remembered at all it will not be for what is in it but for what is not in it. It may go down in the history books as the “great dull beige Budget of 2015”.In terms of what is not in it as far as the forestry sector is concerned there really is not much at all. Through the last term of Parliament I had a flat down on Thorndon Quay for when the House was in session. It was just over the road from the stadium and it overlooked the log-loading docks. Every morning on my balcony over the oatmeal I was confronted by the horrible sight of piles and piles of logs—North Island radiata pine—piling up ready and waiting for the ships to take them away to China and Korea and other faraway places where they would be turned into things. Going out with those shipments were shiploads of New Zealand’s forestry and sawmill jobs and shiploads of the potential for value-added timber products coming out of New Zealand and adding to the economy. I am not there anymore. I have moved out to the finance Minister’s home town of Karori so I do not get that sight in my face every morning but that does not mean the problem has gone away. As far as what this Budget does not contain for the forestry sector it is not going away any time soon.So the lack of any real commitment to forestry is one of the more disappointing aspects of this Budget. Expenditure on the management of Crown forestry assets is expected to fall by about $5 million on the actual versus the budgeted expenditure for 2014-15 and the appropriation for 2015-16 is down by another $15 million on that. At the same time the value of stumpage per cubic metre is budgeted to fall by about 15 percent over the next year. Indeed the market report from the May 2015 edition of the New Zealand Tree Grower magazine which is the official journal of the New Zealand Farm Forestry Association warns that the value of a cubic metre of softwood landed in China has fallen from US$130 for a JAS which is an Japanese Agricultural Standard cubic metre in October last year to about US$100 in April and it is forecast to fall to US$90 or below by the end of this month.The future for the New Zealand forestry sector and exports from it is not in the form of logs. At present there are around 5 million cubic metres of log infantry sitting on the Chinese wharves and China has effectively stopped buying. Consequently there are about a million cubic metres of radiata sitting on the docks in New Zealand that effectively have no buyer—there is no market for them. New Zealand has been supplying around 60 percent to 65 percent of the softwood log imports into China with the rest being made up by exports from the United States Canada and a few from Russia. I ask what this Government is doing in this Budget to address this problem and what incentives and what assistance it is offering the forestry sector and the wood-processing sector. The answer is between “nothing” and “very little”.There is the Primary Growth Partnership of course and there is a scheme within that programme that is developing the steep land harvester. That is a great thing and we are all in favour of the Primary Growth Partnership. It is a grand scheme a marvellous initiative and New Zealand First fully supports it. We do have one beef and that is that there is no provision for the retention of rights to a share in the intellectual property that is generated by the Primary Growth Partnership projects. That intellectual property goes to a private partner and all too often that private partner is a foreign partner. But in other regards the Primary Growth Partnership is pure socialism and we have every support for it. It is quite surprising it is being promoted by a National Government and that Labour does not seem to like it but that is one of the vagaries of politics I suppose.My point with the steep land harvester is that although it is going to be a very good thing what is the point in it if we have not got a market for the trees it is going to harvest and the wood products that can be made out of them and more to the point if we do not have the capacity to produce those wood products? The magazine New Zealand Tree Grower tell us that about 70 percent of the logs that China imports are used for making construction plywood. So the question that comes from that is: why are they buying logs? Well they are not building log cabins. If they were building log cabins you could understand the fact that we are selling them logs. In fact they are after plywood so why are we not selling them plywood? What is it that is in the Budget to incentivise and to assist the forestry sector and the sawmill sector?Brett Hudson: Has the member considered that maybe the customers want to buy logs?RICHARD PROSSER: Well they do not want the logs for the logs. They want the logs for the things they can make out of them. The whole point of an intelligent economic programme is that you sell the product that is worth the most.Brett Hudson: They’ll buy the logs from the people—RICHARD PROSSER: Listen and you may learn. The incentives are not there and this Government—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Sorry to interrupt the honourable member. His time has expired. I call Barbara Stewart—5 minutes.BARBARA STEWART (NZ First): In New Zealand First we have made our position on the 2015 Budget very clear: we see red we see red we see red. But it is not just the books that are in the red. Basically the vision of the Government is in the red. It is not forward-looking in any way.Basically the Budget has been a missed opportunity to invest in long-term solutions and prevention. We need to reduce further demands on our health care system down the road. We know that New Zealand is on the verge of a great population shift and that will mean a change in the demands on our health care system. We know that the over-65 population is set to double to 1.2 million people over 20 years. Unless this Government shows that it has a plan for trying to manage this the whole situation is going to become totally unmanageable.Our over-65s deserve to be cared for with dignity and they need appropriate conditions in which to live out their lives with some sort of dignity and pride. Without some sort of action in aged care this sector will become unsustainable. Without investment there will be staffing shortages. We know that the aged-care workforce is struggling to try to recruit and retain quality staff because the work is just too hard too heavy for the miserable pay that they receive.In Budget 2015 there is absolutely nothing for the aged-care workers. Aged-care workers will be seeing red but it is not only them because every other New Zealander who is looking ahead to their years aged 65-plus—people in their 40s and 50s—should be seeing red as well. What is going to be there for them? And all of this because of the Government’s inaction today.The coming crisis will not be just in the aged-care sector; it will also be in the demand for surgery. Although we appreciate that extra money was made available for surgery the demand is not going to be met by that extra money. There will be longer waiting lists and we know that the nurses and doctors are in panic mode because of course there was nothing in the Budget to ensure that more nurses and doctors are recruited and retained as well. So we have higher demands on the waiting list and a shortfall in what can be offered.Health professionals tell us that the sector is absolutely devastated. It is underfunded and they are the ones who see the result of underspending. So of course they are also seeing red seeing red. And of course we just have to look to the Southern District Health Board—it has a deficit of $17.8 million. The funding for Ōāmaru Hospital has been cut by 5 percent for next year. Dunstan Hospital in Central Otago is set for a $1 million shortfall in funding with predictions of closed hospital wards a lack of staff and service reductions. So all of those locals are going to face a long trip to Christchurch to get what they need.We once ran a health system that was world leading. Today it has been weakened beyond compare and everyone is just seeing red. It does not need to be this way. The answer is simple: invest some money now to save some lives with further money further along the road. The extent of missed opportunity within this Budget to do that is evidenced by the bowel cancer screening programme. We know that bowel cancer is a terrible disease that kills 1200 New Zealanders per annum and of course there is nothing in the Budget for this screening programme. We saw an extension of the very successful Waitematā bowel cancer screening programme but there was nothing for the rest of New Zealand. Is this an example of what we are to see—health by postcode? We really hope not and we are seeing red over that. Thank you.MELISSA LEE (National): Talofa lava. O manu o le lauamanu e felelei mamao. I think that the second bit I said was “Birds that fly together go far” in view of the fact that this is Samoan Language Week. It is a reflection of the National caucus and how fantastically we are doing. We actually flock together we will go very far and after that Budget we are guaranteed to go very far.I have to react to the contributions of the members opposite. My dear friend Barbara Stewart actually tried to quote her leader by saying: “I see red I see red I see red.” Apparently that is what he said. Darling you have to have a better memory. He actually said: “I can see red.” and I thought he was talking about the fact that he was not colour-blind or that he could actually see rather than about the Budget. He did not actually say “I see red I see red I see red” as in the lyric. He was trying to connect to the Split Enz lyric and he was trying to make fun of the Budget with some sort of rhetoric.I also have to react to my dear friend Richard Prosser. Sir you are a great mate but with the speed at which you speak I sometimes lose it. You are like a bullet—so fast. I am hoping that you actually said “shipload” rather than something else—I hope.I remember that people always say that the grass is greener on the other side and for many New Zealanders for a very long time Australia was in fact the greener pasture. I will quote from an article: “The sun seems to shine a bit brighter therethe pay packets are a bit fatter and they have koalas. But times are changing. The decline in long-term migration figures to Australia is just one example. And the reason is simple: Australia may have cuddly koalas but New Zealand has John Key.” That apparently is in relation to how fantastic our Prime Minister is and how well this Government is doing.It is about radical incrementalism which somebody mentioned to me. When people get sick do you know how you feed them medicine? We are saying that we are not trying to force-feed them medicine; we are convincing them that they are sick and that they want a certain kind of medicine. This Government is doing exactly that. We are giving people information about what this country needs and we are showing them the pathway that we want them to take for a better life. Having economic growth is actually a good thing and this Budget demonstrates National’s clear commitment to economic growth and dedication to helping hard-working New Zealanders and their families to grow. New Zealand is a small economy in global terms. Our population is a lot smaller than that of many countries but our economic performance in recent years has been very very strong and it is ahead of many nations that we could talk about.Earlier a member opposite talked about his community having been poor for a very long time. It sort of struck me that the member has been a Labour MP for a very long time. Before the National Government become the Government in 2008 there was in fact a Labour Government for 9 years and yet that community was poor then and it is still poor now.You know sometimes it is about people. This Government is taking action where the Labour Government did not take action. This Government is increasing benefits and spending $790 million over the next 4 years to help children living in some of New Zealand’s poorest families to be slightly better off. We are not the richestof nations and as a nation we cannot actually afford more than that and we are saying that we are giving families a helping hand. This is the first time that a benefit has been raised in real terms in 43 years. The previous Labour Government never actually did that. We are building a more competitive and productive economy through a number of critical initiatives.I want to talk a little bit about the way that this National Government has contributed to education. I know that my learned colleague the Hon Judith Collins talked about the special education sector which our Education and Science Committee had a discussion about. I have to agree with Ms Collins that we have a very friendly select committee where we actually work together very well indeed. Our discussions on dyslexia dyspraxia and Asperger’s syndrome were really interesting for me because I did not even know what dyspraxia was. I knew what dyslexia was but dyspraxia was something that was a bit new to me. Apparently it is about ordering things. For example—this example is for fun—Superman wears his underwear over his tights. You could call him dyspraxic because he obviously does not put them on in the right order—underpants should be underneath the tights I would have thought. I know I am cracking jokes about something serious and I should not but it is a disorder. It is an ability to learn in a different way.Our teachers should be better equipped to help children who have disorders in order to help them learn better and so that they can cope in our education facilities like the new modern learning environments which are actually way way better than they used to be. When I was child in Korea there would be 65 children in one class. There would be two children to each table in a row and if you moved the teacher would throw a chalk at you whereas the new modern learning environment is quite a different thing. A child who has attention deficit disorder cannot sit in a classroom for 50 or 60 minutes and they need to move around but in a modern learning environment the teacher can cope with teaching the kids who do not have these issues and they can also pay attention to those who do in fact have those issues.Education is particularly important in many ethnic communities. I know for example that many in the Korean community basically move to a country like New Zealand because they want a better opportunity for their children. What that means is that when they uproot their family to come to a country like New Zealand they do not have the family connections or the social support networks or potentially even a job. Often because they do not have a job they are even poorer than when they were in their home countries but they do this because they want a better opportunity for their children and education is something that is paramount in their minds.I am very proud that Budget 2015 invests an extra $686.7 million over the next 4 years in education bringing our total investment in education to $10.8 billion next year—$10.8 billion not million. This is a clear indication that reflects National’s determination and commitment to helping all young New Zealanders from all different ethnic backgrounds to achieve their brightest and fullest potential. That is what we are focused on when we talk about helping the families who are the poorest and beneficiary families with children by giving them extra money.But we also have a commitment for them to be available for jobs so that instead of living in a benefit-dependent home the parents are in fact working. Hopefully it would be part-time while the children are a lot younger. Personally speaking I went back to work when my child was only 5 weeks old and that was because it was my choice. I had the opportunity to work. If I did not work my staff could not possibly be paid. I had more than a dozen staff members whom I had to pay wages to so I went back to work when my son was 5 weeks old. But I was lucky to work in an environment—the television industry—where people were very forgiving of mothers who were working and who had children around.Budget 2015 delivered for New Zealand. I think that Labour and the other Opposition parties are just sore because they did not think of it first.Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman): That speech from Melissa Lee epitomised the attitude of the National Government to this country and its management of it. Those members think: “Because I did it everyone else should be able to do it too.” and they overlook the reality for many New Zealanders that many are born into certain circumstances and are in circumstances beyond their control.This was a Budget of broken promises and lost opportunities. We have to name the broken promises because this Government has been given the privilege of being trusted by the majority of the people of New Zealand for three elections and time after time it has broken the promises. Those people who have enough time to stop and think are starting to realise that you cannot carry on breaking promises and being trusted by the people.John Key said: “We will be in surplus.” He said: “There will be no new taxes.” He said: “The $1000 for KiwiSaver will remain as it is now.” This is quoting word for word from the Prime Minister. It is an absolute insult to then turn round in a Budget and to slap on new taxes to not get back into surplus for some pathetic reason the Government members have put up—mainly that they have reduced taxes drastically at the top end of town—and to then take from young Kiwis the $1000 incentive. Those members know full well about financial incentives because do you know what they did? They left in the Budget the incentives for their corporate mates. They left the incentives there through the Primary Growth Partnership to ensure that they would commit to research and development and to developing their businesses but they were not prepared to do it for the young New Zealanders who wanted to take up KiwiSaver.There are two particular areas of my portfolio interest: one is mining and the other is dairying. In fact this Government came into power saying that those two industries would take us into a new world. “Mine the national parks and we will all be wealthy.” those members said and they quickly realised that that was a pretty dumb move to make not only because New Zealanders want to protect their national parks but in fact because if they had looked through the history of mining and looked at what is happening on the West Coast today they would have seen that it is a very cyclical industry. In my region where I am a staunch advocate for that industry for us to rely on that for our future is both naive and stupid—ask the Australians. Mining does have a future but we cannot base our economy on that alone.Dairying on the other hand has a more sustainable future and I have been a passionate advocate of that as well. But in the absence of an economic plan from the National Government all of those industries are under threat and the lost opportunity in this Budget was to give any indication of where this country is heading. There was no indication at all and no idea of where we should be in the future. That was the lost opportunity. Can I go back to dairying. The reality is that the industry faces not just one but two or possibly three seasons of low payout and that leaves our country stumbling to put it politely because the National Government has no idea of what else we should be doing. Even within the primary sector I ask the Government: “Where is your help for strategic planning for the meat industry? Where is your help for strategic planning in the wool sector or forestry or indeed fishing?”.It has taken a hands-off approach—well not quite. It has got the Primary Growth Partnership funding which is corporate welfare—welfare. What those members have done is committed $300 million of taxpayers’ money and paid it over to their mates—to their mates—to carry on for the most part business as usual for something that the Office of the Auditor-General could not identify. It could not identify additionality. It could not identify in the six programmes it studied any real additional benefit for the New Zealand economy because the National Government just likes paying out to its mates.The dairy industry was one of the recipients of that money. The industry is in a bit of a dilemma at the moment. It does not know whether to keep the cost of production high and hope for a rise in payout or to wind back production and try to remain sustainable and viable into the future. The reason is that the dairy industry—our No. 1 industry—has no strategic plan and no strategic vision.The big company the one we still own is Fonterra—the one that John Key would like to see floated on the stock market. I am sure that his mate Mark Weldon when he tries to slide his way into Parliament will sit alongside the Prime Minister and ensure that Fonterra sits on the stock market so that the traders and all the mates over there can clip the ticket and sell it off—sell it off to foreigners. Take a previous example: the Hon Ruth Richardson runs around the country now. She sold off Synlait. She has been a director on that company for a long time. Now it is completely in the hands of foreigners.Hon Jo Goodhew: All her own work.Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: Oh and the member over there says that that is OK. Read Statistics New Zealand’s report about the growing deficit the increasing deficit because of the leakage from having foreign ownership in our economy. That is a strategic issue: who should own New Zealand and who should own New Zealand’s future? Fonterra our No. 1 company must be kept in New Zealand hands but this Government and the Prime Minister would love to see it sold off.Can I go back to the primary sector as a whole. We need a primary sector council a high-level body that will look at each and every sector and work with them to develop a strategic plan for the future. The Riddet Institute identified this need years ago. The National Government continues to ignore the reality that we need strategic planning and we need leadership to know where we are heading across all the primary sectors. We need leaders—not just people appointed to bodies but people who are prepared to show leadership in the sector. It is not occurring and we are going round in circles with our fingers crossed in the hope that commodity prices will lift.We need structures that can deliver on those strategic plans. Labour offers an alternative approach in the primary sector area one where leadership will be delivered where necessary and where support will be delivered for those strategic plans and visions. This Budget ignored that reality and missed the opportunity to show leadership.I am going to talk about not a rock star economy but what is a rock-bottom economy for too many New Zealanders—not the 250000 children in poverty but the people who run around and care for our elderly in the country. If you are a doctor or a nurse and you care you get a reasonable salary. But if you are a support worker in this country you get paid $14.75 an hour to go around and look after the parents of the likes of you Mr Assistant Speaker and me who are living in rural areas. It is an insulting wage to care for our elderly which is a measure in my view of the failure of the National Government to do what is right.Those people who are getting $14.75 an hour get a massive $1.08 per hour for their travel. I have met one of these support workers. She is a wonderful woman who travels between 600 and 800 kilometres every fortnight and she gets the grand total of $1.08 times 32 hours. That is the insulting payment she gets for travel.Up and down this country in rural New Zealand we have people being paid a pittance to care for people who without that care would be absolutely destitute and would be incapable of cooking and caring for themselves and that is the environment that every one of those MPs over there is overseeing and endorsing. It is an outrage that must be addressed.The Government’s policy of caring for people in their homes seems wonderful until you start to pick it apart. The Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector Jo Goodhew should be right at the forefront of addressing that issue which insults those people and insults the elderly people in our country—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry—[Interruption] Order! The member’s time has expired.SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): It is with an enormous degree of pride and pleasure that I rise in this Budget debate to speak in support of Bill English’s seventh Budget. And what a great Budget it is not just for this John Key - National-led Government but also for New Zealand and all New Zealanders. It is part of a plan that is working. It is part of a plan that has been in place for 7 yearsnow—7 years of careful prudent fiscal management—that has enabled Bill English and the National Party team to negotiate their way on behalf of all New Zealanders through some of the most difficult economic times that our country has seen. It is a Budget that has allowed us as a Government now that some light is emerging at the end of the tunnel to address some of the real hardship and need that exists in our community.Before I get into the meat of my presentation to youtoday I just want to make comment on the contribution made earlier this afternoon by my colleague the Hon Maggie Barry Minister of Conservation. I was delighted as the member for Coromandel to note that the Budget includes a further spending allowance of $11.2 million to protect further the future of our native bird the kiwi. People who are familiar with the Coromandel will know that the Coromandel produces fine kiwi. It is a natural breeding area and an awful lot of terrific kiwi preservation work is being done by worthy organisations such as Moehau Environment Group. I commend to this House the work that this group and many others do. I was delighted to see this extra spending because kiwi are of course known around the world as our national symbol and they are under threat. This is a Government that wants to make sure that that threat is diminished and that further protection for our kiwi is made available. I am particularly enthused by the Kōhanga Kiwi project where kiwi will now be able to be farmedessentially. Their longevity and future prosperity as a species will be preserved and secured.What I particularly want to talk about in terms of my Budget contribution today is how proud I was when the Prime Minister stood up on election night last year and after acknowledging the comprehensive National Party victory that we were able to secure said: “This National-led Government will govern for all people for all New Zealanders.” Here in this seventh Budget of Bill English is the evidence of that occurring. Yesterday afternoon I listened very closely to my colleague the Hon Paula Bennett giving her Budget speech. She also spoke of her pride now being an Associate Minister of Finance in the work and preparation that she and the finance team did in the lead-up to Budget 2015. She reminded us that Bill English and his team have been working away steadily on this Budget for probably the best part of 12 months. In fact I understand that work on Budget 2016 has already commenced.It is easy to forget that ours is an economy with 2.8 percent economic growth and that we are projecting a further 150000 jobs being created. It is easy to remember that when National first started talking a couple of years ago about creating 170000 jobs members of the Opposition and on the left were derisory in their comments about our ambition and aspiration to create that number of jobs. It would be fair to say that they took every opportunity to criticise to discount and to reject that as any kind of realistic prospect. Well here we are now in Budget 2015 saying that no we did not actually create 170000 new jobs. Actually the economy has produced 194000 new jobs. Since 2011 194000 new jobs have been created in this economy under Bill English’s prudent and careful management. That is important because it makes an absolutely fundamental difference to the quality of life and the future prospects of New Zealanders.Seeing the average wage increase year on year on year is another sign of how strong our economy is and of what the tangible material benefits are for hard-working New Zealanders. That people have more money available in their pockets and are able to get jobs is a sign of a healthy growing economy. Seeing us project that unemployment will continue to drop and that employment will continue to rise is another sign of good things to come. From the projections it is easy to see that Budget 2015 indicates well and truly that we are headed in the right direction. We are projecting a 4.5 percent unemployment rate which is still too high but it is better than those of almost all comparable nations around the world.What we can see is that over the last 6½ years we have moved resources of the State to those who fundamentally need them the most. Watching the faces of Opposition members while Bill English was reading his Budget—I was sitting on the cross benches at the back as I do as a hard-working backbencher—it was obvious that the blood literally drained from Grant Robertson’s face. National is unashamed in its approach of wanting to target benefits and increases for those who are facing the most difficulties and who are in the most hardship in our society. Actually we have done that over a number of years as Paula Bennett pointed out in her speech yesterday by resetting the compass if you like of welfarism in New Zealand. I remember well when this Government first came to power in 2008. Paula Bennett was the Minister for Social Development and Employment. She said in her speech yesterday that she has never forgotten as the new Minister for Social Development and Employment visiting Paris with a number of social development - type Ministers from around the world and telling them that we had a social welfare system where there were absolutely no obligations placed on a person receiving State-funded welfare until their youngest child turned 18. She said that in other countries it was unimaginable that a social welfare system could operate like that where it was simply a matter of having another child when the youngest child turned 18 in order to get another 18 years of unquestioned access to State welfare.Well we have fundamentally changed that expectation and the balance of what is expected of people. Social welfare is part of a social contract. The social contract is such that it means that there is support—the benefit of support from the State and other taxpayers—available to people when they need itmost. All of us agree that that is a fine and wonderful baseline for our social welfare system. But the quid pro quo is that the people who are receiving State welfare should not see it as a lifestyle or a permanent choice; actually they should be available for workwhen they can. Part of the change that has occurred in the period of time that we have been in Government is that we have reset this balance. We have made sure that those people have hope and opportunities. Under the last Labour—Green Government they did not have hope or opportunities. We have reset the balance that was lost from our welfare system for so long. Now people who are receiving welfare can see some bright hope on the horizon and that their life is not destined to be one of perpetual unlimited relentless welfare dependency into the future. I say that that has got to be a very good thing.What people sometimes forget is that we could not have made that reset change if it had not been for the careful prudent stewardship of the Government’s and the nation’s financial accounts that Bill English and his team have been able to provide on our behalf over the last 7 years. We could not have done that and reset the welfare expectation balance if the underlying books had not been sound. I think Paula Bennett can take huge personal credit for the achievements of the Government in that area and for the brighter future that so many New Zealanders now have. This is a good Budget. It is a prudent careful Budget. It is a Budget that shows that this Government has a great understanding of what is needed in times of hardship and it also has a glimmer of hope for the future for all. I commend it to the House.JAMES SHAW (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Budget 2015 contains a number of “weak tea might work a little” proposals that the Green Party has been promoting for years. We were pleased to see that the Greens’ call for additional funding for things like telecommunications infrastructure and biosecurityare finally being heeded. [Interruption] Be careful what you wish for Brett. Yet this Budget also demonstrates a remarkable lack of vision on behalf of the Government. Rather than making a concerted effort towards transitioning to a smart Green economy the Government is offering New Zealanders a couple of feel-good policies mixed in with a myriad of ones that are failing. The end result of this will be the creation of a lost generation stuck with an ailing economy and wedded to mid-20th century ideas. We reject this future. The Green Party is committed to building a smart Green economy that works for all New Zealanders.The Budget is not without its merits. From the point of view of economic development there are a number of policy initiatives that do align with our call to move towards a smart Green economy. A green economy involves more extensive and intensive use of digital technology and communications. This enables a more distributed emergent business-model than the highly centralised dominant models of doing business that we are familiar with today. It enables distributed digital manufacturing greater access to better education in our most remote towns and provincial centres and weightless exports as a much greater proportion of the overall economy. In turn that means a much more resilient economy than the highly fragile risk-loaded economy that we have today. It means greater distribution of wealth to the regions and to our small towns and provincial centres. To that end the Greens support fully the Government’s move to extend the telecommunications development levy so as to provide extra funding for the Rural Broadband Initiative. Access to fast reliable broadband is an essential and central piece of our economic infrastructure and it is good to see the Government taking action on this.Similarly we are happy that the Budget provides a $24.9 million boost in funding for biosecurity in order to make up for the cuts that National made at the beginning of its tenure. The future of our tourism industry relies on the protection of our unique flora and fauna. Biosecurity staff play an essential role in this and it is good to see the importance of their work finally being recognised by this Government. However these are isolated successes. There does not seem to be any overarching strategy to transition New Zealand to a green economy. In fact some of the initiatives that are supposed to protect the environment are doing the exact opposite. In Chris Bishop’s maiden speech when he summed up the National Government’s approach to policy making he invoked the perennial free-market hero Milton Friedman.Hon Member: Ha ha!JAMES SHAW: And although you might laugh Friedman said: “One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.” This is a laudable notion. So let us look at some of what National says its programmes are intended to do and then let us take a look at what they actually do.Although the supposed purpose of the New Zealand emissions trading scheme is to reduce emissions it is actually doing the precise opposite. The Budget has revealed that in the 2014-15 year the Government handed out almost $114 million worth of free carbon credits to industries that cause climate change but received only $83 million through the emissions trading scheme.Hon Member: Corporate welfare.JAMES SHAW: Taxpayers picked up the $31 million difference—and that is corporate welfare. The consequence is that our emissions have grown by 13 percent since the National Government was first elected in 2008. If we are going to judge the emissions trading scheme by its results as Mr Bishop suggests we do then it is clear that the policy is an abject failure. The emissions trading scheme illustrates a broader problem with the Government’s strategy—or lack thereof. Instead of taking decisive steps towards the creation of a smart Green economy the Government focuses on empty gestures and policies that sound positive but that have no impact. The effect is the creation of a lost generation of New Zealanders who will be left with an economy that is woefully inefficient and that has a heavy carbon footprint. Is that the legacy that we want to leave the next generation? This is unacceptable.We need a smart Green economy that works for all New Zealanders and it is clear that this Government is not delivering that. The Green Party is proposing meaningful initiatives to facilitate this transition. Decisive action is needed in order to mitigate climate change and leave future generations with high levels of natural capital. Instead of wasting taxpayers’ money on an emissions trading scheme that subsidises polluters we need to introduce a proper price on carbon emissions. Pricing carbon properly would act as a simple but effective incentive to move away from polluting technologies and industries towards cleaner production and forms of energy. In turn personal and company tax rates could be reduced. Under our proposal polluters would actually bear the cost of their actions whilst green businesses and ordinary New Zealand households would benefit and that seems fair reasonable and equitable to us.In order to support businesses with the transition from a carbon-intensive economy to one that is green we should also set up a green investment fund. The aim of this Government-owned for-profit bank would be to provide funds to support green private investment in the areas of renewable energy and clean technology. Fossil fuel subsidies would be stopped raising the overall tax take from oil companies from 46 percent to the global average of around 70 percent which would give us more than enough to cover the $120 million for the first 3 years of the funds’ operation. In time the bank will see billions of dollars going in to things such as renewable energy plants the development and production of biofuels and clean technology products. Investing in a smart Green economy is essential not only for the environment but also for the future of our economy.Alongside these funds for investment we also need to see greater commitment to research and development and the innovation that results. The Greens would allocate an additional $1 billion over 3 years to research and development while also collaborating directly with the private sector by providing tax credits and grants in relation to research and development. These would provide us with the technology and ideas to drive the transition to a smart Green economy. These are innovative but sensible policy solutions that are being proposed only by the Green Party. This Government has adopted a “weak tea might work a little” version of policies that we have been promoting for years and years. So clearly the Greens have won the policy argument. National has done it because it has had to not because it has wanted to. If voters want the real thing if they want policies that achieve results rather than just good intentions then they should make sure to vote for us at the next election. The Greens are offering long-term solutions to a sustainable future economy for all New Zealanders and for that and for all those reasons we oppose this Budget.Hon JO GOODHEW (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector): I move That this debate be now adjourned.Motion agreed to.