White HelenHELEN WHITE (Labour): I'm pleased to rise and speak in this debate on the Imprest Supply (First for 2022/23) Bill and the Appropriation (2021/22 Supplementary Estimates) Bill. I'm usually actually at this point in the pecking order—just after ACT—because my name starts with W and it just happens to happen. I usually got a little bit more to riff on because Mr Seymour usually puts up a better fight than that. It was a bit of a snooze wasn't it?So let me just move on and actually focus on this bill and what it actually achieves because what we really do need to focus on is that these bills do some really hard work for our country. They are actually a stark contrast with what we get from the Opposition which is a real lack of vision because what we can see in these bills is a really comprehensive accounting for the spending that's going on.I want to talk about that because I think there's a bit of a myth out there that we need to bust because what I have found is that over the last few years we have had a country that is in safe hands in a crisis and I think that New Zealanders actually will take that on board because I have been super impressed by our finance Minister and the mixture that he brings to this job of actually being really careful and responsive and very careful about taxpayers' money and his creativity and vision—always looking for the future.So I want to talk about those aspects of this bill. I want to talk first of all about something that came up actually from the Hon Michael Woodhouse. In that speech he gave in his turn in this debate he talked about how there was $20 million set aside for oil fields being deconstructed. I just want to talk about that for a minute because that can wash over people and they cannot think about it.I was here watching and participating in a debate when we were talking about the decommissioning of oil fields and the National Party opposed this Government in terms of its bill which was to make those responsible for reaping the profits out of those oil fields responsible for the decommissioning. Now I see that as a highly cynical act of people with a lot of money; that they would actually take the oil out of this country and cynically pass on the ownership of the companies before the decommissioning came in so that the New Zealand taxpayer has to pick up that bill. It's not a great amount of money in this Budget but there's a lot of money at stake for New Zealanders.It's taxpayers' money; it's hard-working taxpayers' money. I see this Government as actually much less cynical—much more savvy—about that kind of wastage. I'd like the Opposition to think about that kind of wastage because we got all sorts of arguments at that point about how we were destroying the industry by holding people to account by making them actually put things right. That worries me because that is not vision.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! Order! Order! I'd like the member to come back to the bills which are being debated this afternoon and which are before the House. I've been listening very carefully and I haven't heard the member addressing either of those two bills and I invite her to do so.HELEN WHITE: Those issues about spending I can go to more directly in this bill—although that was a comment on a comment made about a spend in the Budget.So with regard to the broader issues we are going through a situation at the moment where we have faced a double whammy as a Government. We have faced COVID and we have faced a war in the Ukraine and that has caused all sorts of issues in terms of the economy. What we've had is someone in charge of the appropriations of money who has thought very carefully about the spend.So the spend that we can see in these bills are things like the winter energy payments; are things like the temporary cost of living payment which is going to go to people who don't get that but are on $70000 or less a year. Those people are the ones that are hurting the most and they're going to get the most help as a consequence. This covers things like the 25c that we have taken off fuel at this time.It also covers one of my favourites which is half-price public transport. Now yesterday I was standing with my daughter at a bus stop and she was saying to me—she said quite spontaneously—This is the bit I love." Like "I am using this public transport." It was really nice because this was a young woman who was on a low income and she was able to go on a bus in Wellington for half the price it used to cost her and she will be devoted to that form of transport as a consequence. It is just a damn good thing for everybody at that bottom line. That's where you can tell that this Government is grounded.It is not by contrast going by a decision to hold tax rates and depreciate them. It is not going to our wealthiest citizens and that actually is the contrast. That is a shocking contrast that the Opposition would suggest that at a time of crisis we don't push the money into the places where that spend supports our most vulnerable supports those people without a lot of capital.But instead we push all that money—the vast majority of it—to our highest-income earners. That's ridiculous. It's also inflationary because where is that money going to end up?I want to talk about the article today that was by Fallow. It was in the Herald and he said this: "There is a difference between borrowing to build State houses because you object to Kiwis living in cars or emergency housing hotels on the one hand and selling off State houses and paying down debt on the other." That is the contrast here.Yes there's spending in this Budget. I make no apology for spending in this Budget as long as it's supporting people who need supporting; as long as it's supporting our economy and our people. But when that spending and all that devotion to paying down debt goes to the point of spending the very infrastructure we need to support people that is a bad move. That is a bad move for New Zealand and it's based on an ideology that's completely out of date.So I want to talk just a little bit before I finish about some of those other things that I think are very important in this Budget in terms of vision. I haven't got time to pick more than one so I'm going to pick the one which I saw which is about income insurance.I was an employment lawyer and I spent my life watching some people who were lucky enough to have redundancy pay do OK if they lost their job and I saw the majority of New Zealanders with absolutely nothing: their wages had been driven down and they didn't have savings when they lost their job.This is such a sensible idea. This is going to bring a whole lot of people who are working into a situation of security and they are going to have 80 percent of their income guaranteed. So they'll be able to pay their mortgage so they'll be able to sleep at night so they'll be able to go and find a better job. It is such a fundamental that you would think that it's something that all the parties would agree is important because it's about good housekeeping too.It's about when there is a financial crisis actually people have security. They've paid into a system where they have security and it helps everyone in the economy because we don't end up with big financial shocks as a consequence.This is such a fundamental in New Zealand and yet we were running into a situation where people had very little savings they had very little security and apparently that was OK—and it was completely inequitable between people.So I absolutely am thrilled to see this is a new building block and that's in this Budget but it's also a vision for the future.That is a Minister of Finance who understands and cares about the future of our economy not just now. It's being done at a time when we have had real crises to face and I absolutely applaud him for the work that he's done in that space.I am absolutely pleased to see that work come back before the House soon and it will be a great complement to ACC which is one of the other visionary parts of our system that I am very proud of.So I am pleased to see this and I commend these bills to the House."