Willis NicolaNICOLA WILLIS (Deputy Leader—National): If that contribution is Labour's answer to New Zealand's problems right now then I've got to say they missed the question because the question that New Zealanders are asking is How are we going to get through this?" because New Zealanders are going backwards. They keep on saying to me "We can't go on like this. The cost of living is biting us and as we look to the future we don't see hope. We see interest rates rising we see our mortgages becoming less affordable and we see prices continuing to rise." and do you know what New Zealanders are doing about it? They're voting with their feet. In the last year more than 60000 New Zealanders left this country for good. We're now at a position where we had 10000 more people leave than arrive and that's people's indictment on this Government. You know it's actually very sad because the people who write to me now about rising prices and what it means for their family are using words like "scared" "worn out" "anxious" and "worried". They're worried because they're having to choose on a weekly basis which items they take out of their supermarket trolleys. They're having to decide which child is going to get their holey shoes repaired and which one will miss out. These dilemmas are because there is a severe cost of living crisis that the Government doesn't seem to have woken up to because if it had woken up to it would these be its priorities? Would it be prioritising a merger of Television New Zealand and Radio New Zealand? If it was really worried about the cost of living crisis would it be pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into that project? If it was worried about New Zealanders' ability to pay their bills would it be focused on new hate-speech legislation to regulate what New Zealanders can say and when they can say it? If it really cared about the cost of living crisis then would it be focusing all its efforts on a mega-merger of water infrastructure in the three waters reforms? You know the sad thing is I do think that at the weekend at the Labour Party conference they got a memo. I think the memo said "Wise up: the Government should be focused on the cost of living crisis." So we've seen a new playbook. Now the first page in the playbook was played by Grant Robertson and his page said "Do some name-calling. Come up with some sort of schoolyard nicknames for the Opposition—that'll help Kiwis who are struggling." Well actually I don't think that tool works so they discarded that one. People didn't like the name-calling—didn't think it would really help them pay the bills. So then they got to the second page in the new playbook and the second page said "Do some tough talk because the Prime Minister's really good at talking"—not so great on the delivery—"so focus on the tough talk." So what have we had? We've had tough talk. The banks: they need to be careful of their social licence. We've had the wringing of the hands—no action mind you but some tough talk. Well here's a prediction: whether it's next week or the week after that we will see the Prime Minister at the podium of truth. She'll be doing some tough talking and she'll say "Inflation you no longer have a social licence." and that's how she intends to scare it away from our economy. Then we had the third page in the playbook and that was evasion. That was evasion and no accountability because the truth is—and New Zealanders understand it—that when the Government goes on a massive spend-up prints tens of billions of dollars and borrows tens of billions of dollars there is a price to pay and we are paying it with high inflation. But has there been any accountability? No there hasn't. Well I have some advice for the Labour members: you can't spend and regulate your way out of a cost of living crisis. Here's what the members opposite could do that National would do. We would stop the wasteful spending. On our watch we won't take taxpayers' money to spend $2.1 million on a swanky office in Freemans Bay to house 350 consultants to advise on a three waters reform no one voted for and no one wants. We will let New Zealanders keep more of what they earn because we believe that when New Zealanders are doing it tough they're owed more than a Government obsessed with spending addicted to spending and unable to deliver."