1. Fiscal Strategy—Half Year Economic and Fiscal UpdateRt Hon BILL ENGLISH (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime MinisterORAL QUESTIONSQUESTIONS TO MINISTERSFiscal Strategy—Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update1. Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by all her Government's economic and fiscal policies?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Deputy Prime Minister) on behalf of the Prime Minister: Yes when those policies are fairly represented.Rt Hon Bill English: Can she confirm that in today's Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU) the coalition and Government promises that have been included are just the Families Package and the tertiary education changes?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I can confirm that those are in the HYEFU and that the 100-day plan costings are also there.Rt Hon Bill English: Can she confirm that additional spending promised by the Government in health and education is not factored into the half-yearly update?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Well that's correct because basically the document is the end of the last administration and signals the beginning of the new one. And the next Budget will point that out.Hon Members: We can't hear him.Mr SPEAKER: Sorry can I ask the people in charge of the volume to turn it up a bit. Could I also ask the Deputy Prime Minister to use his outside voice. Thank you. That doesn't apply to any of his colleagues.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: My point—I will say it more loudly and not in my demure way. The reality is that the HYEFU is really the end of the last administration's report and the matters that he's seeking to find clarity on will be in the next Budget.Rt Hon Bill English: Can the Prime Minister confirm that if the half-yearly update is as described essentially the end of the last administration's coverage that it shows forecasts for consistent economic growth around 3 percent and the Government's books in surplus with growing surpluses?Mr SPEAKER: Any one of those four.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Well all of them are not a good picture—neither the first two nor the last two for that matter. But what it can point to of course at the end of their report is that there is a serious decline in trade against GDP in this country and there was a serious growth in debt against the countries—Hon Steven Joyce: I think you're mucking this up actually Winston.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No no we haven't bungled up. I'll tell you what it is. In 2008 GDP was 5.4 percent when it comes to debt. By 2016 it was 20.0 percent—a fourfold increase—and total Crown borrowings in the same period increased by $67 billion from $46 million to $113 billion.Rt Hon Bill English: Has the Prime Minister asked the Deputy Prime Minister whether he believes these forecasts given his public statements that the economy is headed for a downturn if not a crash?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Yes the Prime Minister can confirm that—that it was a cause to be careful about into the future not to spray money around on consumerism and on giving tax break breaks to your mates and in short not to take from the needy to give to the greedy.Rt Hon Bill English: Can the Prime Minister confirm that when she raised these matters with the Deputy Prime Minister he demonstrated his own political technique with respect to spending of spray and walk away?Mr SPEAKER: No—Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: This is seriously important. What the Prime Minister did appreciate—and all her colleagues—was the difference between borrowing for production and long-term infrastructure some of it lasting a hundred years as opposed to wasting it on his mates and on tax breaks for the rich.Clayton Mitchell: What reports has the Prime Minister seen about the previous administration's economic management?Mr SPEAKER: No no. Order! The Prime Minister will—there's a vital word that's wrong and seeing reports is not a matter of responsibility. Are there any further supplementary questions?Rt Hon Bill English: Why then does the Prime Minister support measures in the package that provide to the highest income households in New Zealand either a baby bonus of $3000 a year regardless of income and one year of free tertiary education to the value of $12000 to $15000 regardless of income if he's so concerned about targeting those families most in need?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: There's a substantial difference between means testing and universality whether you're talking about student loans or talking about power costs or whether you're talking about superannuation and the difference is that we haven't gone out to lend only to our mates but rather to lend a help to everybody.Rt Hon Bill English: So can the Prime Minister just explain why she believes in universality for free tertiary education—that is assistance regardless of the circumstances of the individual and for young children—but not universality when it comes to reducing taxes for hard-working New Zealanders?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: The answer's extraordinarily obvious because all people have costs whether they're wealthy whether they're middle-incomed or whether they're poor. If they were on a high income but with a large family they'd have extraordinary costs and we understand that. And that's why the tertiary help is being given because it goes way beyond the elitist tertiary institutions that they talked about. It includes apprentices and all sorts of people needed in the trade industries of this country.Clayton Mitchell: What reports has the Prime Minister received about the previous administration's economic management?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Well this sort of report for example: of the $20 billion Defence Force upgrade in the 2016 white paper not one dollar was accounted for. It appeared in the last Budget as a fiscal risk. That tells you how irresponsible they were.Clayton Mitchell: What reports has the Prime Minister received about the previous administration's levels of debt?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh Mr Speaker—a very good question: widespread discontent across Government departments. With no increases accounting for inflation something had to give and it did—it ran down capacity and services with countless district health boards being in debt educationalists being concerned the police being under-resourced and underfunded. You name it; it was a shortage.