Joyce StevenHon STEVEN JOYCE (National): May I congratulate you on your election to your new role Madam Deputy Speaker. Well I think the public of New Zealand will be scratching their heads at the end of the first week of this new Parliament because it has been at most an interesting start for the first week of the new Government. We had of course on Tuesday the absolute procedural muck-up where they couldn't even count—at all—on the first day. Then we had them going on television and trying to spin their way to the suggestion that they actually knew what was going on the entire time. I think that gave an early glimpse into the character of this Government: a bunch of dare I say it student politicians who are good at talking points but have nothing of substance behind them. That was on day one.Then on day two we had the Speech from the Throne and then we had a truly excellent speech from the Opposition leader Bill English who reminded the new Government of the benchmarks they were inheriting that they must do better than. Actually they've got a problem because the talking points won't work when you're in Government. You can't survive on talking points. You have to actually measure up to the facts and the data and the statistics which are presented not by the Opposition not by the Government but by the independent Public Service. And I saw the slumped shoulders of some of the senior members of the Government as Bill English read out the benchmarks that they will be measured against.Then we had today. We started off with the Reserve Bank in their Monetary Policy Statement ever so politely pointing out—about 20 times through the document—that they had no idea what the new Government's new fiscal and economic policy was. And it wasn't just them because they pointed out they'd taken what advice they had been able to get from Treasury and Treasury therefore also had no idea what the new Government was doing or planning in fiscal and economic policy. But that's all right. We have reference points for what the new Government is planning. We have for example the Labour Party fiscal plan that was released prior to the election and was backed up not just vociferously but vehemently by the then spokesperson and now finance Minister of the Labour Government who said that his numbers were correct that his numbers were accurate that his numbers were what the new Government would be measured on. He said and I quote: they're robust … we stand by them despite the desperate and disingenuous digging from an"—apparently—"out-the-door Finance Minister says [the] spokesperson Grant Robertson." That's what he said.He also accused me—of my criticism being an affront to democracy. It was an affront to democracy that I criticised his numbers. And then on the very first opportunity in question time this afternoon there was an almost biblical denial of his own numbers—on day one of question time when he was given the opportunity to back up his numbers to repeat what he'd said prior to the election which he had called in terms of my criticism an affront to democracy. So what was it today? If I was an affront to democracy for criticising his numbers what was he doing standing in the House today refusing to stand by the numbers from his pre-election fiscal plan? I'm sorry but at the end of the first week the credibility of this Government—both the procedural muck-up and the way they tried to obscure it and then secondly the brazen affront to democracy from the new finance Minister this afternoon are an indication that this Government has no great character at all.The important thing is it is not actually about me. It's not about Grant Robertson. It's not about Chris Hipkins. It's about the people of New Zealand and where this Government plans to go. And the other thing we learnt from question time this afternoon was they have no idea where they're going to go or how they plan to get there. They have a wish list from the Speech from the Throne of some 51 new spending commitments—51 new spending commitments in the Speech from the Throne. You know you can make 51 new spending commitments sound pretty good. You can just read them out as the Governor-General ably did and they can sound OK except in the backs of their minds most New Zealanders are sitting there thinking "How do I pay for this?"—because they do have to pay. It is their money. It is their taxes that have to pay. So this is like the Christmas list for the Labour Party and the public of New Zealand is sitting there going "How do I pay for all this?" And we don't know now because the only guide we have from the Labour Party has now been denied by the new finance Minister. It is now more than two weeks since the coalition agreement between the Labour Party and the New Zealand First Party was signed and released and we have had no—absolutely no—indication of the costs of that agreement. The Minister of Finance has been invited to release the costings that undoubtedly they did before signing up to this agreement and that should be very straightforward. He said to the television station in the interview which I think was with The Nation "I can't do that because I didn't have access to the public sector. I need access to the public sector." Only he did because in the coalition negotiations all parties had access to the public sector all parties had access to Treasury all parties had the ability to have their policies properly costed. So we are left with the potential conclusion that they didn't get them costed—they didn't get their policies costed. No wonder the Reserve Bank in their ever so polite way this morning is saying "We have no idea what's going on in terms of spending plans for this new Government." That wouldn't be such a big deal except that we're already starting to see how this uncertainty plays out.There's a small example of it that's just occurred over the last week and that is the increase in petrol prices. Petrol prices have gone up 9c a litre over the last week. Two reasons: one world oil prices—not much we can do about those. But the other one is the 5 percent decline in the New Zealand dollar that has occurred since this Government was put together—just under 5 percent decline in the New Zealand dollar.We had this afternoon the Minister for Primary Industries saying that's a good thing which it is if you're an exporter. But if you are a consumer if you are a New Zealand family working hard to make ends meet what it is is an early sign that this Government will make you chase your tail—that this Government will be out front like Father Christmas handing out the goodies and in the meantime out the back putting up the cost of living so all the goodies go back in their pocket. That's what's going to happen. That's where we're heading because of this bunch of student politicians that are now running New Zealand's Government with their talking points and very little else—very little else.So Her Majesty's loyal Opposition will be very focused on holding this Government to account—not because we need to not because it's our job but because the public of New Zealand are relying on us to because the public of New Zealand will want the economic growth the economic opportunities to continue and they don't want these people to muck it up. Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker."