Woodhouse MichaelHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Well on the last point that the Hon Megan Woods made I would certainly agree with that—it's a bulky document; the document that underpins this bill runs into 1024 pages. And it is a technical discussion on one level but I think it is appropriate to highlight the context to which Supplementary Estimates have been considered in the last two or three years because it is about unders and overs but there's no doubt that since this Government came to office there's been a heck of a lot more overs than unders. They run into the billions of dollars.It would be fine if we could see the progress that was being made with that investment but on nearly every single measure of performance this country is going backwards: financially economically socially. So we do need to scrutinise the performance of the Government in setting and following Budgets because I think the count is now six where we've had a Budget Policy Statement which sets out the parameters of the spending of this Labour Government and I think the score is six out of six for breaching the Budget Policy Statement constraints by the time the Budget is written. So it's not even as if the Supplementary Estimates were the problem—they can't even stick to their own disciplines in setting the Budget. And once again we saw that in Budget 2023. I have no doubt—well actually I do have extreme doubt that that will happen again because the public will certainly pass judgment on that ill-discipline.Now the other issue is—Hon Judith Collins: Good save.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Yeah thank you Mrs Collins.The other issue is of course the unders doesn't always mean it's a positive thing. The way in which the Budget is set provides the opportunity for there to be what are known as multi-year appropriations" which is operational spending that goes over a series of years. So it's not unusual—and indeed Vote Health has a plethora of them—where underspends in one year are carried forward through the Supplementary Estimates of Appropriations. But the problem with that and it is a bit masked in this document is that it is falling considerably behind where the Government itself said it should have been in its investments particularly around mental health. My colleague Matt Doocey has been prosecuting this extremely well by highlighting that of the new money in the $1.9 billion Budget announcement in 2019 some of it is still not spent four years later. New appropriations for mental health that should have had projects well advanced by now are still on the whiteboard. They haven't even got off the ground.So we can't even say that underspending in this Budget is actually a positive thing because what we really judge the Government by is their ability to get things done and their ability to improve the lives of New Zealanders. After all they call them "Wellbeing Budgets". Well I think people again will make their own judgments about whether their wellbeing has been enhanced in the last 5 ½ years.The Minister of Finance in introducing the bill talked about this being limits not targets. And that's true except he doesn't seem to act like it because he sets the targets so high that it's almost impossible to meet. And that is the manifestation of the imprest supply bill. Now I am pleased to note that this year the huge slush fund that they gave themselves in 2021 and a slightly less huge slush fund in 2022 is not being repeated in the imprest supply. As members should be aware this is the authorisation to spend in the meantime while the main Budget bill is being deliberated on. But buried in amongst the $30 billion—I think it is—of appropriations is an allowance to account for "additional material risks" and the uneven timing of expenses within votes. That's code for "It's a new bit of money for stuff we haven't thought of spending on yet but we could in that period." and it's $4.3 billion. Now that might seem high but actually it's considerably lower than it was two years ago and so it should have been. I have criticised the Government for the extraordinary amount of effectively slush funds that they give themselves in the imprest supply bill so it is pleasing to note that that has gone down.But what hasn't gone down—if we return to the Supplementary Estimates of Appropriations—is how much this country is spending on servicing debt. On page 431 of the document we find that the appropriation for basically interest—the cost of financing this spending has gone up by $752 million. That's three-quarters of a billion dollars. So by the end of this financial year we will have spent $5.32 billion servicing the debt that this Government has incurred over the last few years. Remember our net core sovereign debt when they came to office was less than $6 billion and now it's nearly $800 billion—and that's an offset because the gross sovereign debt is around $214 billion. We are heading towards the sorts of appropriations to pay for the interest on that. That is double the police Vote it's double what we spend on early childhood education or at least the Crown spends on it. So the higher that figure goes the harder it will be to spend taxpayer money on the things that taxpayers want us to be spending on and that is: keeping them safe growing export markets supporting those people who are in need through jobseeker supports and other benefits supporting our elderly maintaining our health services. Every dollar we spend on extra debt that is being incurred would be dollars that we wouldn't be spending on those other things—if the Government had the fiscal discipline to stick to its own Budget Policy Statement.So I get back to the original point: we are now at risk of coming into a vicious cycle of spend and pay for the debt through interest and having to borrow more increasing our interest bill and so on. We are in something of a cycle and a spiral that doesn't appear to have a limit so I'm particularly concerned about borrowing expenses.I'm particularly concerned about the huge amount of money that we spend on vaccine costs. That was an extra appropriation—nearly $886 million purchasing potential and proven COVID-19 vaccines and other therapeutics. I'm not worried because we spent the money I'm worried because they're expiring in warehouses up and down the country. As we have found out 17 million COVID vaccines are now expiring. So it's a valid question to ask the Minister of Health: why on earth did we spend nearly $887 million on more vaccines at the same time as 17 million vaccines were going to waste? That suggests to me a ministry that has not got control of its stocks and does not know what's going on in its portfolio.There are a number—I would go into the transport Vote I probably don't have enough time but there is a tremendous amount of money not being spent on transport issues. And when I see that the estimated amount to be spent on activities under the National Land Transport Programme as authorised by blah-blah-blah has gone down by $1.2 billion nearly then I think there are serious questions that need to be asked about whether the funding that is taken in by NZTA through fuel excise is actually being spent. Because if we've got more than a billion dollars on National Land Transport Programme funds being underspent then serious questions need to be asked.Yes it's technical and yes it's necessary to keep the Government going but there are significant questions about the quality of the spend and the lack of outcome that the taxpayer is getting for it. And we will continue to point those things out."