Luxon ChristopherBUDGET DEBATECHRISTOPHER LUXON (Leader of the Opposition): I move That all the words after That" be deleted and be replaced with "this House has no confidence in the Government because it cannot manage the economy properly has no plan to tackle to the cost of living crisis and New Zealand is going backwards."Well that speech and this Budget is just another example of this Government gaslighting the country because Chris Hipkins and Grant Robertson are trying to tell Kiwis that they're doing a splendid job managing the economy and everything is just fine and being well managed. But I have to say it is not fine; New Zealanders know it's not fine. I can tell you I know it's not fine and deep down Chris Hipkins and Grant Robertson know it's not fine either. Sadly it isn't fine and New Zealanders know it and there's 50 percent of Kiwis now who worry about money on a daily basis—they know it's not fine. The 430000 Kiwis who have debt arrears—they know that the economy's not been well managed and things are not fine. Sadly the 20000 Kiwi families who actually are facing a loss of their houses because their mortgages—they can't afford them anymore. They know things aren't fine as well. What they know today is that Budget 2023 doesn't change their situation because this was presented as the "no-frills Budget" but what we've got today is the "blow-out Budget" because what we've seen is a continued addiction to spending: spending up to $137 billion—almost doubled since this Government came to power. We see a huge growth in debt to $97 billion by 2026. We are seeing massive Budget deficits up $7.1 billion larger this year. And the implication of all of that is that we actually have Treasury—page 1 of the executive summary of the Budget—saying interest rates are going to remain higher for longer. Just think about the pain and suffering that causes for Kiwis who have a mortgage. Every single one of them doing it tougher harder for longer. Not a single cent of tax relief going to hard-working Kiwis; not nothing—not nothing. So the Government said this is the "bread and butter Budget" but it's delivered on the backdrop of food prices up 28 percent and the Prime Minister talks about bread and butter a lot but bread is actually up 39 percent under Labour and those sausage rolls that he likes to have selfies with well they're actually up 36 percent under Labour. So what we see in this Budget is no ideas—no ideas to drag New Zealand out of the economic hole no ideas to tackle the underlying causes of inflation and there are no ideas in here to stop single young people shooting off overseas and joining the 25000 other Kiwi citizens that have bought one-way tickets to Sydney or Melbourne or London. In fact last night we saw a rather perverse thing happen. What we saw was Chris Hipkins has taken $10000 of hard-working taxpayers' money and he's actually advertising in Australia to say how much easier it is to get ahead in Australia than it is here in New Zealand—unbelievable. I have to say Prime Minister your job is to fight to keep Kiwis here at home and to create a country that can deliver a better future for them here at home. Now this is the "blow-out Budget" and it's just spend more and expect Kiwis to pay for it—that's what it is; that's what we've come to expect. But I'm not surprised. You know we've had a change of Prime Minister. He's tried to adopt some new language and some new words but the reality of it is just the same old Labour Government with the same tired failed approach to running the economy. This is Grant Robertson's sixth Budget but I sincerely hope and for the sake of all New Zealanders it has to be his last Budget because he is totally utterly completely addicted to spending. Every Budget he stands up and promises he's going to deliver it this time—"This time I'll get better; this time I'll do better." But every time he blows it out and that's because he's addicted to spending and he's an addict. As a result he doesn't want to admit that he's got a problem.The sad thing is that the new Prime Minister—his new boss—isn't tough enough to tell him "Hey sunshine we need to make an intervention here. That should get it sorted; get you back on track." So it is very very simple: the New Zealand people cannot afford another three years of this Labour Government.Let's talk about the economy because the forecasts in this Budget make for incredibly grim reading. The books show us that there is more economic pain on the way and that is thanks to this Government with no economic plan. Inflation is high and the Government's spending is going to make it worse. Interest rates by their own admission are going to be there for longer and stay higher for longer because of Grant Robertson's and Chris Hipkins' reckless addiction to spending. That will smash every single Kiwi with a mortgage up and down this country and they're going to feel that pain. The other thing that was obvious in the books is that unemployment is set to climb higher and it's higher thanks to this Government's economic mismanagement.Now I want to be really clear. I want to explain to all New Zealanders actually how did we get here. How have Chris Hipkins and Grant Robertson so badly mismanaged this economy and got us into this mess? This is how it starts: it starts with record levels of Government spending—in fact New Zealand was the second-highest in the development world in Government spending. Then they coupled that with extraordinary monetary policy. We were the fifth-highest country in the world printing cash. And then just for good measure they restricted immigration and shut the joint down and actually created domestic inflation. So what happened was New Zealand got flooded with money it popped asset prices and it embedded domestic inflation. That high inflation now means that we have to deal with high interest rates. It means that we deal with a shrinking economy and slowing growth for longer. That's what's happening here. That's the pattern of economic history. Those are the lessons of economics that are well known.I have to say up and down this country I go everywhere every week and I see New Zealanders that are doing it incredibly tough. They can gaslight as much as they want and say that everything's going to be fine and it's all well managed; it's not. I've sat across the table from families that are in budgeting services and they are under immense stress and anxiety within that family trying to work out how they reconcile their own Budget to pay for a big jump up in their mortgage costs. I've talked to Kiwis who have had to sit down with their kids and stop the music lessons and stop the swimming lessons because they can't afford it any more because they've got to meet those mortgage repayments. I've actually gone and sat and talked with Kiwis who actually walk the supermarket aisles looking for what they can buy the basics that they want to be able to buy with the fixed budgets that they have and they can't and so they go off to a food bank because that's the only place they can get some support. Well I want to say to all those Kiwis: you've got two people to blame on this; you've got to blame Chris Hipkins and you've got to blame Grant Robertson for creating that pain and suffering for you. I want to tell you that it didn't need to be like this. This Budget needed to deliver a plan for New Zealanders to grow the economy and it didn't. This Budget needed to deliver a plan to deal with the underlying drivers of inflation and not just more band-aids but it didn't. Because we know that a strong economy is the way in which we get to lift incomes it's how we get to borrow with the cost of living and it's how we get to afford the public services that we so desperately deserve that's why we care about this stuff. That's why we care about good strong economic management because that's what it enables us to do for this country. All we get is Labour's plans to spend billions of dollars more in an inflationary bonfire. Let me be clear: Labour has blown the Budget they have blown the books and we are going to be suffering with more pain.So let's talk a little bit about spending because as I said the addiction to spending is even more intense than it's ever been before. I have to say I thought it was quite outrageous quite incredible that this week our Prime Minister couldn't front up and actually explain how much his Government is spending—he didn't know and frankly didn't think it was probably that important. I reckon all that is is just massive disrespect to taxpayers—massively disrespectful—because he doesn't care he doesn't understand the numbers and he just thinks it's his money he'll just keep taking it and actually treating them like a bottomless ATM machine.Let's work through those numbers because we now have debt set to climb to $95 billion. Do you know what the interest bill on that is each day? It's $22 million—$22 million that we don't get to spend on something else. We've got Government spending ballooning out to $137 billion. How much do you reckon that costs each Kiwi family? It costs $23000—$23000 more each year because of Government spending. There is $61 billion more in spending and absolutely nothing to show for it.And what have we seen from this Government? We've just got a culture of excuses and we've got a culture of addiction to spending; $1.8 billion on consultants yet Chris Hipkins told them "Don't spend on consultants" but they kept doing it anyway; $200 million on a failed polytechnic merger 80 percent of the staff want to leave 10 percent less enrolments and looking for more money with more deficits; $100 million on Government advertising; $500 million for very big companies on climate subsidies; almost $500 million on a health bureaucracy that should be going to the front line; $50 million on that bike bridge—that was special wasn't it? Wasn't that just special? The bike bridge was very special! Willie spent $16 million on the Radio New Zealand - TVNZ merger and we all know how that ended. And we've got 200 comms staff now at Health New Zealand and more at the ministry. Frankly I'd sooner have more nurses. I'd sooner have 200 nurses not 200 comms staff. And we've got a tenfold increase of comms staff at Michael Wood's New Zealand Transport Agency. And then we've got the beauty the $30 billion on light rail that just keeps sitting out there coming one day—coming one day. So let's be clear: they have blown the budget. Grant Robertson spent billions of dollars. He's blown out the books. We've got massive deficits. We've got years of deficits ahead of us based off this. He's blown out the credit card and debt is spiralling up to $95 billion. And I have to say Chris Hipkins doesn't get it. After six years in Government he doesn't get that every dollar the Government spends has to be earned by someone. It has to be earned by a Kiwi who's building a business in very tough conditions at the moment. It has to be earned by a Kiwi who's working hour after hour after hour just to put food on the table. And it has to be earned by Kiwis who get up and go to work who get the kids to school who make the school lunches and actually want to get ahead. They pay the taxes and he spends it and he wastes it. But rather than confront their own you know addiction to spending what do they do? They look to blame others. And so they blame COVID—they blame COVID. And this year they're going to be spending tens of billions of dollars more than we had during the COVID period. Unbelievable—quite unbelievable. And they make any excuse to avoid actually facing up to their addiction. Now we heard a little bit of trying to be financially responsible in that speech. You know Grant Robertson at the end he gave a good sort of pitch to say he's being very responsible. You know it just goes on and on. It's quite incredible. But it was a grovelling speech. It's a bit like saying "I want the Diet Coke to go with the Double Quarter Pounder meal"; you know what I mean? "I feel better you know because I'm trying to do that". But that's what's happened here. But again he's like an addict who says "I don't have a problem I'm going to be better this time I promise" you know? And we've had six of these things now and he keeps saying "I'll get better" each and every time but it hasn't been the case. Now let's talk about tax because it is incredible that under Labour it's always a time to spend up but it's never a time for tax relief for the good hard-working people of New Zealand. They're happy inflation-adjusting benefits they're happy inflation-adjusting the minimum wage they're happy inflation-adjusting superannuation payments and departmental budgets. But they refuse to inflation adjust tax thresholds for hard-working Kiwis getting up and going to work each day. And I'll tell you why they won't do it; it's because they've got a culture of entitlement at the heart of this Government right? They think they are entitled to your money. They think they are entitled to waste it. And as we've seen over the last few months with all the shenanigans and all the comings and goings they think they are entitled to rule and that's just not the case. So sun wind rain or shine Chris Hipkins and Grant Robertson keep coming up with excuses about why Kiwis don't get their own money back why they can't spend it as they see fit. And that's because they've got an addiction to spending—a billion dollars more each and every week is what they're spending $100 million extra in tax is what they're raising each and every day and they have carried on failing to address the drivers of the cost of living crisis failing to do anything to grow the economy and failing to deliver meaningful tax relief for New Zealanders.And I want you to be under no illusions because if they get back in later this year they are going to hit Kiwis with more taxes you know because the addiction to spending doesn't go away; you've got to go find the money to pay for it. And Chris Hipkins supported David Parker. David Parker noodles away on his Piketty projects. He's the great man who gave us that genius idea of the KiwiSaver tax. Remember that one? Yep. So he's down there in the basement somewhere and he's noodling away and he's dreaming up new ways for new taxes. Because they need it right? They need it. They need to keep new taxes so they can fund that addiction that they've got going on. That's why you won't hear Chris Hipkins rule out a capital gains tax will you? You won't hear him rule out a wealth tax. He's still got David working away on it. You won't hear him ruling out an inheritance tax. But I want New Zealanders to be under no illusion: it's coming—it's coming. If they get back in they're going there rest assured. They have to go there because they've got such an addiction to spending; they've got so many deficits and so much more debt to pay off. I want to say to all Kiwis: if you've got a farm watch out; if you've got a KiwiSaver account watch out. I want to say to you: if you're doing the right thing trying to build up a nest egg for the future watch out because they're coming for you—they are coming for you no doubt about it.This Government I think is the "Gaslighting Government". They are literally a gaslighting Government. They have the audacity to stand up and tell you how it's all fine—"Actually everything's just great!"—and yet we know the reality is so so different. They will look you in the eye and say everything is great. Remember Chris Hipkins said "The healthcare system? It's got so much better in the last three years—so much better." I want to tell you that Kiwis know it: just saying it's so doesn't make it so. That's not how it works. It can't work that way and it's just time for this Government to start delivering.We've talked a lot about the amount of spending that this Government is doing—that's one thing—but they also need to be laser-focused on the quality of the spending that they're delivering and the value for money that they're delivering to the New Zealand taxpayer because putting aside the sheer amount of money they're spending that's where I actually think this Government has failed. It has failed to deliver outcomes and to get things done for the New Zealand people. They talk about all the activity but they never talk about achievement. They're two different concepts—they are two different concepts. One is inputs and one is outputs. When you're spending a billion dollars a week we have so little to show for it.Let's just talk about education because that track record is atrocious. I've got to say: who was the Minister of Education for the last five years? Who did that job? Oh Chris Hipkins did that job! And now they're spending $6 billion every single year and they've got nothing to show for it. Here we are in a developed country and 53 percent of our kids do not go to school regularly. We have 100000 chronically absent from school. Half of our kids arrive at high school not on expectations as to where they should be academically. We had half of our 15-year-olds fail the most basic maths reading and writing tests—that they need to succeed in the world. We had the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study reading score come through just yesterday: an all-time low—all-time low—and now we have New Zealand out of the top 10 countries in the developed world on maths reading and science. I think that's just shocking.So what do you need to do? You need to focus on the basics. You need to make sure you teach your kids an hour of maths an hour of reading and an hour of writing every single day in primary and intermediate school. That's where your education priorities should be. That's called "getting outcomes". That shouldn't be controversial I would have thought—I wouldn't have thought that would be controversial—but the reality is that Labour doesn't support it. They're not going to give it a chance they're not focused on the basics and they have no ideas on education.Let's talk a little bit about health in the time that we have because that is another story: $12.4 billion more on the health system and yet we have absolutely nothing to show for it. Just think about it: child immunisation rates have fallen off a cliff; surgery waiting times are at record highs; cancer treatment delays are at record highs; specialist waiting times are at record highs; and we've got emergency department (ED) waiting times at record highs. Once Ayesha Verrall sorts out the data we still know that we've actually got record highs. Every single health performance measure in this country has gone backwards. It is utterly utterly unacceptable and we have spent so much money. What happened to the $2 billion on mental health—$2 billion on mental health? We have an individual spending 94 hours in an ED waiting to get access to mental health services. The only area I think Health New Zealand has excelled in is that they have got a lot of communications staff and there is no shortage of communications staff at Health New Zealand. Your surgery won't happen on time but if you look on the website it looks just lovely! No ideas from Labour.Now what is obvious from this Budget is that this is a Government that has run out of ideas. It's run out of energy and you've only got to look at the Ministers opposite us to see that they're dead inside. They should be getting Grant Robertson cost of living payment from last year! That's how they are. But I have to say despite all the challenges I remain incredibly optimistic about the future of this great country of ours. We have a great country. We've had some big challenges. They have to deal with a really unsupportive Government but New Zealanders are extraordinary. They are determined and creative and innovative and hard-working people who want to get ahead and we want Kiwis who get up and milk cows and go to work and get their kids to school and want the best for their family. We want to back them and we are going to back them because we have incredible Kiwis who want to go out in the world and they want to beat the world. And that's fantastic.Under a National Government we're going to celebrate success not tax it. We're not going to tax it; we're going to celebrate it. We are going to restore the promise of New Zealand because the promise of New Zealand was very simple: it didn't matter where you came from; it was about where you were going. That's the deal. The other deal was that if you're prepared to work hard in the best country on earth you can get ahead and you can do well for you and your family. We have a common-sense plan to do that. National is going to fix the economy so that we can deliver better health and education and we can restore law and order. National is going to get New Zealand back on track."