Uffindell Sam; Kuriger BarbaraSAM UFFINDELL (National—Tauranga): Thank you Mr Speaker. I rise to give the final call on the debate on the Finance and Expenditure Committee—a wonderful committee—on the Budget Policy Statement. I've sat through all 13 speeches listening to the different members and I felt like I was in a bit of an Orwellian novel there as I saw history being revised by former Government members as they went through all of the things that are wrong with New Zealand like the last six years didn't happen; like they had no part to play in the pain and misery that they have inflicted on New Zealand businesses on New Zealand households. We come into Government in a situation where structural deficit is at 1.5 percent. We have the second worst structural deficit in the developed world. We have interest payments that will be up at around $10 billion per annum. We have house prices that have risen significantly rents that have increased $170 per week; the pain that this has inflicted on New Zealand households and New Zealand families is significant and I see members over there shaking their heads like they had nothing to do with it at all. Well you did have something to do with it you had a huge amount to do with it and you had six years to try and make a better New Zealand and you made a significantly worse New Zealand. I am very thankful that we have excellent Ministers we have Nicola Willis in finance and I am looking forward to the Budget coming out next week. There is a huge amount of work for our country to do and we've got many hard-working Ministers working very hard in this space to make it happen.We heard a lot as well about how we are the party for wealthy people and I find that absolutely baffling coming from a former Government that oversaw one of the biggest wealth transfers in New Zealand history. That is the reality. Through your inability to run a country you oversaw a vast transfer in wealth from the lower and middle income segments of New Zealanders to capital-rich households in this country. That is the reality. You can't run away from it and the people of New Zealand need to always remember what you've inflicted upon them.Construction sector is grim. I walk around and I talk to construction I talk to businesses and I get the same stories all the time that the revenue they are getting is down significantly that the construction sector is coming to a halt and they are worried that all of their workers are going to disappear to Australia and when things come back online they are not going to have the workers there.We look at the official cash rate; we inherited this at 5.5 percent. Now that is high and that is really really hitting hard. Kiwis don't have the disposable income anymore and you go out and you talk to your local cafe you talk to your local business: are people spending? And they say They're not really coming in and when they do they're just buying a coffee. They're not getting a cake; they're not getting anything else. My revenue's dropped. I'm having to lay off staff; I want to keep them around." And you hear this story over and over again and I look at other hard-working electorate MPs—because most of them are on our side of the House that's the way they voted—and they will know from walking around that that's the reality.We've got a plan—we've got a plan and the other side of the House didn't have much of a plan but we do have a plan. We are going to reduce debt. We want to reduce debt below 40 percent. We encounter regular shocks in New Zealand; we need that buffer that is clear. We have a huge amount of interest that I've already alluded to that we are paying out; we need to reduce that. Yes we can take on debt if necessary but if we do it has to be about making sure we fund infrastructure that is going to deliver long-term economic growth and productivity gains not the sort of debt that members on that side of the House covered themselves in and swamped our country in which was for operating expenses that consistently delivered worse outcomes for New Zealanders. We're going to be delivering tax relief as well and I know the hard-working people of Tauranga and around New Zealand are very much looking forward to that. And we have a little walk down memory lane to 2011 when tax relief was last delivered and we had people paying 15.5 percent of their income—around that—in tax. We look at that today; it's up at 20.6 percent as Stuart Smith chair of the Finance and Expenditure Committee pointed out in his opening speech. We don't have a tax problem in New Zealand we have a spending problem. And we have inherited an extreme spending problem from that side of the House—Reuben Davidson: So why do people need to leave?SAM UFFINDELL: And I hear them piping up. New Zealanders need to always remember what you did to our country they really do. We have inherited some huge issues from you. But we are going to be delivering tax relief because you know what Madam Speaker we actually believe that hard-working people deserve to keep their money. We think that they can do more with it than the Government can. We trust Kiwis to do better with their money to provide for them and their families better than we expect the State to do it. We want them to keep more of their money and we have been clear through the election campaign and coming into Government that we are going to be delivering tax relief and I know many New Zealand households who are out there doing it tough—you know they're paying a lot more in rent they're paying a lot on their mortgage we've seen inflation it's continued—are looking forward to getting a little bit more back in their pocket. And it was pointed out I think from a member of the ACT Party who said "Look the other side of the House they rubbish these tax cuts and maybe it doesn't impact them. We're sitting here on a $160k a year; they might not notice the tax cuts." But for your average household out there in New Zealand that is doing it tough that is going to make a difference. Maybe that means that they can take their kids to a dance class. Maybe it means that they can buy them some new footy boots. Maybe it means that they can decide that they don't have to take something out of the trolley. There are many things that people will be enabled to do by getting a little bit of extra help and we are there to help New Zealand households.We also want to make sure that we're cutting wasteful spending. And I think a really good example that this Government has delivered on this is with the school lunches programme where we looked at what was being done and we said "Look we can save $104 million on this and we can actually roll it out to feed 10000 more kids aged two to five years old." That's a really good example.We're looking at providers like Gumboot Friday and saying "You're doing a fantastic job brilliant we're going to back you here's $24 million." That's a really good story. We saw the announcement today around community housing providers and social housing where we're going to provide $140 million into that to provide 1500 new social housing places. And I look in Tauranga where we've got Accessible Properties and they do a fantastic job and they do a lot more cost-efficient job than Kāinga Ora. Their failures have been well noted and we've seen it in our local market—and I can see my colleague Tom Rutherford over there—where they have come in outbid the market a lot spent a lot building stuff and delivered houses that actually aren't affordable for the people that they're intended for.So this Budget is a no bells no whistles—you know it's a no-frills Budget. It's about getting back to basics. It's about delivering tax relief to hard-working Kiwis and that's what the side of the House is focused on. We are focused on rebuilding our economy we are focused on restoring law and order and we are focused on delivering better public services. Thank you.DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed to.Motion agreed to."