Adams Amy; Mallard TrevorGENERAL DEBATEHon AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn): I move That the House take note of miscellaneous business.So tomorrow's Budget day. It's Budget day tomorrow the first Budget of this new coalition three-party Government and isn't it exciting? It's exciting! This is where we get to find out what really matters to the Government. This is where all of the sound bites and the virtue signalling and the value statements count for nothing and we find out what actually matters to this Government and whether they intend to deliver on any of their promises. Tomorrow is where we find out and where the rubber hits the road.So what do we know so far? Let's just recap. Well one thing we know is that this Government inherited one of the strongest economies that they could've hoped for. We know that thanks to the National-led Government's careful management over nine years not only did we turn around the decade of deficits from the loose spending of the last Labour Government but we left this country with strong and growing surpluses and a GDP of 4 percent in 2016 and well over 3 percent for the last several years.This is a Government now that is awash with cash. It has at least—at least—$6.5 billion more tax coming to them in the next four years than they thought they would have when they wrote their fiscal update and that's before the $2.27 billion of new taxes that they've already imposed. Over the next four years the Labour Government will have $20 billion more tax to spend of New Zealanders' money—$20 billion more—and they're taxing New Zealanders more and they're borrowing another $10 billion. They're putting $10 billion more on credit taxing hard-working Kiwis more and they're awash with cash.Now I think it's pretty clear that the fundamental job of any Minister of Finance—and what Mr Robertson will be judged on tomorrow—is: is he making the most of the financial conditions that he's lucky enough to have to fulfil his obligations to New Zealand? Right—that's number one. Then secondly: is he doing his best to ensure that the future economic conditions are as strong as those he's inherited—right?So you take those two roles and you ask yourself How's the Government going?" Well it's no surprise to me that GDP numbers are still holding up pretty well because GDP is a reflection of the work that's already gone on. It's a reflection of the work of the last Government. It's a reflection more importantly of the work of businesses and workers up and down this country. That's why GDP growth is still looking pretty good.If you really want to know about the future if you want to see where New Zealand's going or what our prosperity is going forward and what our ability to pay for this Government's spending habits is really looking like the far better indicator the lead indicator is business confidence. Business confidence—anyone who understands the economy knows that it's businesses who create prosperity. It's not Government spending. If you want to know what businesses are thinking about their ability to get ahead in this country look at business confidence.So what is that telling us? Well we know the ANZ survey is down negative 23 percent. This country's businesses are saying to the Government "We have no faith in your ability to support this economy." Staples Rodway came out yesterday and had 500 business leaders more than half of whom expect this to be a bad Budget for the economy of the Government—and by the way half of whom are saying this Government's economic performance has been poor or extremely poor. That's what the people who create wealth and jobs in this country are saying. And you've got a 39 percent decline in the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research business confidence survey.So you look at the indicators that tell us where the country is going and it's clear we're going backwards. And it's no surprise from a Government that's wiped out a $2.5 billion oil and gas sector—wiped it out; don't care. They're doing their level best to destroy the remaining financial viability in agriculture. They clearly hate farmers. They're increasing wage disparity with Australia. They're bringing in industrial relations reforms that are already seeing bullish unions—frankly an arrogant Minister who thinks that if you can't cope with everything Labour wants to do you should just go out of business and never mind the jobs that go with it. They're turning off the foreign capital tap. They're signalling more debt and more taxes and they're not even protecting New Zealand exporters from the US tariffs. They can't even manage that.So it is for all the world looking like a Government that wants to—SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member's time has expired."