Swarbrick ChlöeCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Co-Leader—Green): E te Māngai tēna koe tēnā koutou e te Whare. For those following along at home we are currently debating two pieces of legislation in this one debate tonight. We are debating the Imprest Supply (First for 2024/25) Bill and the Appropriation (2023/24 Supplementary Estimates) Bill. Now as the Minister herself alluded to in her introductory remarks as we began this reading what's interesting about this Appropriation (2023/24 Supplementary Estimates) Bill is that typically it would just be a bit of a clean up job for extra expenses that had occurred at the end of the Budget period typically for the Government as it had been coming out of office as one would expect with this transitional change of Government. However what is rather more interesting and therefore concerning to the Greens and why we will be opposing this among the raft of measures contained within it is as the Minister herself spelled out that particularly this Appropriation (2023/24 Supplementary Estimates) Bill contains within it the financial decisions that the Government made in its mini-Budget at the end of last year 2023. Those 15 programmes that the Government decided to stop would have made a material impact towards the wellbeing and benefit of New Zealanders towards people and planet. I just want to echo some of the sentiments that we've heard from the Hon Dr Megan Woods here that this Budget in it's fulsome context is not a vision for the prosperity for the future for the wellbeing of this country and the people that live within it but this Budget represents a shredder and nowhere could that be more apparent than in the 15 programmes that were stopped as included in this Appropriation (2023/24 Supplementary Estimates) Bill. Let's just go through a handful of those pieces because I think you know part of what this Government did moving so quickly when it first came into office was that it knew that a lot of the programmes that it was undertaking or that it was cutting it knew that the stuff that it was doing was fundamentally actually unpopular. It's why if we recall they decided to push through as quickly as possible those changes to the smokefree legislation. But as contained within this legislation there are things like the quick and paced removal of the 20 hours free early childhood education. This Government would argue of course that they've now replaced it with their own policy of FamilyBoost and I can hear some heckling probably to that effect. I just wanted to unpack that for context for the House because we recently just last week had something called scrutiny week a new initiative in our House of Parliament which allows us to speak to Ministers such as our Minister of Finance and our Minister of Revenue. And in the Finance and Expenditure Committee we actually spent quite a long time talking about the Government's policy of FamilyBoost. And I put a pretty straightforward question to our Minister for Revenue who is responsible for implementing that policy through the Inland Revenue Department—his agency that he is obviously responsible for as the Minister for Revenue. I asked the Minister if the intention of the FamilyBoost policy noting that this stands in stark contrast to 20 hours free early childhood education that the policy intention of FamilyBoost from the Government side of things is not to lower the cost of living. The intention of the FamilyBoost policy is to pay families who meet the threshold criteria a maximum of $75 per week towards their early childhood costs. This is a really important difference because this difference belies the fact that the Government is actually not paying any attention whatsoever to whether this policy will result in price gouging by early childhood private providers. That is a really important and salient point here because it means that the efficacy of that policy can only be judged by the fact that they're sending $75 out a week per family that is eligible not by whether the cost of living for New Zealand families has decreased. So let's just deal with that. The fact that this 20 hours free early childhood education being removed in this mini-Budget as represented in the Appropriation (2023/24 Supplementary Estimates) Bill is diabolical especially when put in contrast to the evidently ineffectual FamilyBoost policy which will only serve to bid up the price of early childhood education in this country.Interestingly enough as was also canvassed in contrast at scrutiny week just last week with the Minister of Revenue as well this mini-Budget as represented in the supplementary estimates bill also removed depreciation for commercial buildings. Now I think that there's a really interesting parallel here especially on the brightline test which is also contained within this but not the changes that the Government has made when it comes to tax deductibility for landlords.So on the notion or on the argument of tax deductibility for landlords and the ability for that to be applied the Government's rationale has been that they believe that just like any other business where you can have tax deductibility or interest deductibility rather we should have the same apply for those who decide to invest in rental properties as landlords. I put that question to the Minister in contrast to what is contained within this piece of legislation around how well if you can see that there is depreciation costings that you can put against any other kind of business why would you then decide to if you're being logically consistent remove it from commercial buildings.It would come as no surprise to you or any other member of this House that the Minister of Revenue did not have an answer and he referred us to the coalition agreements which once again goes to show that the thing that trumps for this Government is not logical consistency is not an evidence basis but it is indeed their political leanings. Also contained within this legislation is the killing off of the likes of the Climate Emergency Response Fund and the GIDI funding which the Hon Dr Megan Woods spent a long time talking about. This interestingly also stands in stark contrast to some questions put to the Minister of Finance the Hon Nicola Willis at scrutiny week just last week on the fact that the Government has said time and again that they do not like to do what they consider to be corporate welfare when it comes to decarbonising our economy. However underneath the emissions trading scheme which is the system that this Government wants to put all of its eggs in the basket of in order to curve our emissions—to do the mitigation part of climate action that they are not willing to remove those free allocation units for polluters to pollute. So again we have yet another logical inconsistency where they're more than happy to remove the funding available in this legislation here. They have made the decision to remove the funding for decarbonising our economy but then on the other hand within the broader Budget they are retaining the free allocation programme to subsidise our largest polluters.As was also stated by the Hon Dr Megan Woods we have here contained within the supplementary estimates bill the work to stop on Lake Onslow. We also have stopping work on Resource Management Act (RMA) reforms. However funnily enough they've also started their own work programme on RMA reforms. Riddle me that. We also have the deeply unpopular policy decision from the Government to repeal Community Connect otherwise known as half price public transport for young people and we also have contained within this bill the decision to make changes to the indexation of benefits from Consumers Price Index inflation to wage inflation which is the decision that the Government did not make in a vacuum but with a regulatory impact statement and advice from their own officials that these changes to benefit indexation will push up to 13000 more New Zealand children into poverty. That's the legacy that this Government gets to be proud of. That's the legacy—that is what is contained within this law that they will push through under urgency tonight and tomorrow morning. But if I can just hazard a waning to the Government members: we will not take this lying down. What you have from members of the Opposition is a commitment to fight them just as hard tonight through the morning and till midnight tomorrow night as we did on Budget urgency where we successfully prevented them from passing three of their seven pieces of Budget night urgency legislation.I spoke to a few different people around these parts in Parliament who have been around for a lot longer than I have and they said that they have never seen something like that happen before where a Government has been stymied from passing its Budget night urgency legislation. And I think that that goes to show that us on the Opposition side are more than willing to put absolutely everything that we have got to making it abundantly clear to New Zealanders who are out there in the real world about the impact of the legislation that they are passing through. Because they know because the evidence tells them that it's going to push more kids into poverty it is going to increase our carbon emissions and that ultimately the bloody-minded focus on tax cuts at all costs comes at the expense of the public infrastructure and the social contract that New Zealanders rely on—that all of us rely on for the sake of our wellbeing.So ultimately you know as well canvassed per all of those different iterations of all of the projects that were cancelled under that mini-Budget and the Government attempting to write themselves a check for this imprest supply bill the Greens will be opposing this and we will be doing absolutely everything that we can to make it clear to the New Zealand public how these decisions made by this Government and what the evidence base shows will make this country a worse and harsher and harder place to live in because people already know and feel that in their day to day. But we will be making it clear as we go line by line through this to oppose it.So there's not really much else to say except for look forward to all of the Opposition members running down the clock with every single inch that they've got. Thank you Madam Speaker.