Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBudget Debate[Sitting date: 31 May 2016. Volume:714;Page:11475. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Budget DebateDebate resumed from 26 May on the Appropriation (2016/17 Estimates) Bill.Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Minister supporting Greater Christchurch Regeneration): I am very pleased to speak in support of the motion moved by the Hon Bill English and to encourage my colleagues in their condemnation of the motion moved by Andrew Little. Budget 2016 has been entitled “A Budget for Growth”. It continues the approach of Prime Minister John Key finance Minister Bill English Cabinet the caucus and indeed the National Party in being responsive to the needs of people while balancing those expectations against the ability to deliver.That however is not the big story of the day. The big story of the day is that the reaction to this Budget positive as it has been from the general public has caused the Labour Party and the Green Party to enter into some sort of Bachelor/Bachelorette - type production handing each other a rose and indicating the grand coalition of Opposition parties into the future. I want to know who is Naz and who is Fleur and I want to know above all who is Jordan. Who is Jordan? There can be only one leader. What have we got here? We have got Andrew Little with Grant Robertson—off shaking hands with him now. Grant is really the leader of the Labour Party. We have got Metiria Turei and James Shaw who of course is also the leader of the Green Party battling it out for that Jordan role and I guess that makes Grant Robertson Naz and of course Metiria Turei the lovely Fleur.What does this mean long-term for politics in New Zealand? It has to mean that some of the dyed-in-the-wool views that there is only one way the way of the left to deliver prosperity for New Zealanders is going to continue. The really interesting thing about today also was that Grant Robertson the Labour spokesman on finance revealed to the House that he had read as far as 1.1 in the Budget. The sad news for him is that there are not enough question times between Budget 2016 and Budget 2017 for him to be able to indicate he has read all the way to the end of it. That of course will be evident to anybody who listens to him delivering some of his more crazy policy statements and particularly anyone who wants to—and I am not going to suggest you go and look at the interview on the weekend but if you have got insomnia go for it. You are going to cure yourself in no time at all.One of the most interesting things about the very impressive figures in this Budget is to have a look at some of the assumptions that are behind it. They are extremely conservative—extremely conservative. When we have questions today about what the average wage will be in 4 or 5 years’ time etc. those sorts of questions can only be answered in time but the questioner needs to look at the assumptions made in the Budget. They are conservative which means that although there is optimism in the Budget that is also constrained in the possibilities for New Zealanders. If they stick with the current regime and the current way in which we are delivering for them then the outlook should be considerably better. For example it is predicting only a very very gradual easing in growth of trade by New Zealand into other countries. No other Government has pursued trading options with the same vigour as this Government and it will continue to do so. So that is a conservative estimate of what trade may mean for us in the future.The other point is that the Budget talks about recovery of commodity price on a very slow basis. We all know that we are about at the bottom and that there is that slow rise but it can take off at any time. The world is not getting smaller; nor is demand. There is absolutely no chance that oil prices will double in the next 4 years yet that is the assumption inside this Budget. That has huge effect potentially on the savings that many businesses will make in their operation out to 2020. Migration flows are also strong in this country and predicted to fall off. But why would they fall off when we are a country that is safe that is stable and that is predictable and where life can be lived more freely than in any other nation in the world? It does not matter how many times our opponents like to go out and point out some of the less-desirable aspects of New Zealand society the fact remains that comparative to other countries we are an absolute paradise.I want to talk a little bit about the specifics in this Budget. The first one I have got to say is around the issue of science and innovation and the whole idea that research is going to produce more value for New Zealand. You have only to look in the Budget where it talks about some of the aspects of how the New Zealand economy grows and particularly look in the area of non - service-based manufacturing which is now equal to our dairy exports. It is now equal to our dairy exports. That does not happen without there being some kind of encouragement. So the $760 million - odd that is going into that over the next period of time is supporting an industry that over a relatively small period of time has become a $15 billion industry. That is the sort of investment that is smart and it is worthwhile. It is appalling that our opponents are condemning that sort of activity.Then looking at the core services—health is a huge winner in this Budget. All our opponents can say is that because we were putting in so much money and getting such a terribly ineffective service and now National is getting more out of it we must be squeezing it. Those deliveries of health services come from the professionals who respect the way the National Government has engaged with them over a period of time. This year Dr Coleman has been able to get a significant increase in funding—over $500 million for the year. I have pointed out to him on numerous occasions what others could have bought with that particular $500 million but I want to assure him that there is no bitterness on my part. I think that getting that money for health is absolutely essential and is in line with the expectations of New Zealanders.When it comes to education there is an $880 million rebuild programme across the delivery of educational services in New Zealand. This recognises as was raised today by an Opposition member in a half-hearted sort of way that education is changing. The needs are changing the modes of delivery are changing and this Government is keeping well and truly ahead of that.I want to speak specifically about Christchurch where obviously we have had a big engagement over the last few years. Government expenditure in Christchurch under this Budget rises to about $17.5 billion. That is a huge amount of expenditure by any Government on any one aspect of its requirements. There has been no stinting of funding available for Christchurch. In fact the generous way in which the Prime Minister has taken a personal interest in Christchurch is largely to do with the fact that we have successfully gone into a transition period where we are seeing a return to local government at all levels inside the Christchurch City Council. What I do want to signal is that inside that $17.5 billion there is all of the money that goes into the Earthquake Commission (EQC).I want to congratulate the EQC on the work that it has done. It is very easily criticised. It is now down to about the last 200 or 300 cases which are the hardest of all to deal with. The commission is making every effort to ensure that they will be off the books by the mid-part of next year. In a normal circumstance if someone loses their house to a fire it is around about 18 months before they get settlement and are able to move on because of all of the various activities that have to take place around those investigations etc. The EQC inside 5 years to have dealt with 167000 repairs as well as another 40000-odd over-cap claims that have gone off to the private sector is a huge undertaking and a great tribute to the board and staff of EQC.I said earlier that this was a Budget for growth. That is how it has been characterised and I think that is how it is seen by New Zealanders. I think the reaction today from our opponents suddenly recognising that if they are to get some sort of movement forward they are going to have to hold hands if not swap flowers—but there are dangers in that. I was just thinking before that Phil Twyford has managed to change his views on housing substantially over the last 18 months swinging more towards the sorts of policies that National has. Now you can expect him to come back to the House next week and say that the Labour policy is more houses but they must have thatched roofs be built of mud and have jamjar windows. That is no future for this country.CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): That was a contribution from a Government that has simply given up. It has given up on the plight of hard-working New Zealanders. It has already run out of material to talk about. When Government members spend most of the time in their Budget speeches talking about the Opposition because the Budget gives them so little material to talk about it is clear that they have completely given up. When the best that Gerry Brownlee can do to come up with some humour for his Budget speech is read the Twitter feed of the parliamentary press gallery and simply start reciting back the lines that were tweeted by journalists hours ago you know it is a Government that has run out of ideas and run out of new material.All Gerry Brownlee could do in his speech was to tell New Zealanders how the numbers in the Budget are wrong: the oil price figures in the Budget are wrong the migration numbers in the Budget are wrong. What confidence can New Zealanders have in the Budget when one of its most senior Ministers gets up and devotes his Budget speech to questioning Bill English’s numbers? That says everything about this Government. This Government has given up on the major issues facing New Zealanders. I was waiting all the way through Bill English’s speech for the big announcement on housing. Everyone in New Zealand wants to know: what is this Government going to do about the housing crisis? And there was nothing. Then there was an urgency motion and I thought “Here it comes. Here it comes. It is coming—the big announcement on housing.” and again there was nothing on housing. It has given up.Do you remember that this was a Government that was going to close the wage gap with Australia? Who remembers that promise? It was going to close the wage gap with Australia and instead it has delivered a Budget that sees New Zealanders’ wages falling in real terms. That is wages going backwards for most New Zealanders under this National Government—so much for closing the wage gap.It is a Government that has given up on health care—given up on health care. The health system needed another $600 million just to stand still and what did it get? It is $55 million short in this year’s Budget. Pharmac needed $103 million just to stand still. It got $50 million. In other words in health care things are going backwards.Let us look at education and what this Budget delivers for education: another drop—another drop—in the number of people undertaking post-school education. That is fewer apprentices. It is fewer people at university and fewer people at polytech—numbers going down under a National Government. We have seen school operations grants frozen—school operations grants frozen—which means parents are going to pay more. Parents will be putting their hands in their pockets to pay more for their kids’ education because this Government is not willing to prioritise early childhood education and schooling. We already know that schools are under enormous financial pressure because principals up and down the country are saying that they are cutting programmes. They are cutting programmes they are cutting extracurricular activities and they are cutting curriculum resources for teachers because they have not got the money and this Government responds by freezing their funding. What does a freeze mean? It means the money is actually going backwards.How do we know that schools are not making ends meet? Let us look first of all at the money they are asking for parents to contribute. That has gone up 30 percent during the tenure of this National Government. Who remembers Bill English when he was in Opposition decrying the fact that the then Labour Government was not putting enough money into schools and that parents were having to pay more? Since he became Minister of Finance that problem has got 30 percent worse. He has done nothing to actually address that financial pressure and in fact he has made it worse.Let us look at early childhood education because that is actually probably the part of the education system that has been clobbered the most under this National Government. As child numbers continue to go up the funding continues to go down. The dollar spend per child per hour has consistently gone backwards under this National Government. So who pays? Either parents pay or the kids pay. Parents pay through more cash through more fees and kids pay through a lower quality of care in early childhood education and care. That is simply not good enough. So much for Bill English’s investment approach; so much for investing in kids early on to address issues before they become big issues. If the Government’s spending on early childhood education is any indication and I believe it is it does not actually prioritise investment in our kids at a young age.This Government has given up on the notion of safer communities and we can see that because the police needed $300 million to reverse all of the funding cuts that this Government has made. What did the New Zealand Police get in the Budget? It got $46 million—$46 million—and it needed $300 million. The Government has given up on the notion of safer communities through better policing. The police are under enormous financial pressure. They are closing police stations and reducing police officer numbers around the country and it is not surprising because the Government is not giving them enough money. So let us look at the National Party and let us judge this Government based on its overall track record. Wages have been stagnant under this Government. Wages have been stagnant. People have seen their real disposable income in real terms—their purchasing power—going backwards under this Government.What is its solution? What is its answer for that? Blame someone else. Blame the global financial crisis. Blame everybody else but this Government. What about homeownership? It is plummeting under this National Government. More and more people are living in rental housing under the National Government. Fewer and fewer New Zealanders are owning their own home. What is the Government’s solution to that? Blame someone else. Blame the Auckland Council. That is its latest excuse—blame the Auckland Council as we see homeownership rates plummeting under the National Government.The number of students as I have already mentioned in post-school study is plummeting under this National Government. Its answer is to blame the students and say they are “pretty damned hopeless” as Bill English did. As we are seeing participation in post-school education plummeting Bill English’s answer is to say that those young people are “pretty damned hopeless”. There are 46000 New Zealanders under the age of 25 who are doing nothing. They are not in education. They are not in training. They are not in employment. They are doing nothing.What is the Government doing to target those people? Well we know: Bill English is saying that they are “pretty damned hopeless” and that we need more permissive migration because he does not think they should be able to get jobs and those jobs should therefore go to other people from other countries through migration. That is actually what Bill English said. He was actually honest about that and he meant it. He was honest about that. He was caught out telling the truth. He was caught out saying what he actually thinks. He thinks that those 46000 young New Zealanders should simply be written off; he thinks that they are not valuable to the future of New Zealand.He could not be more wrong. I do not think that those young New Zealanders are hopeless; I think that they need opportunity and they need support. Education would be a really good place to start and that is what the Labour Party will do. That is why we have announced a plan for 3 years of free post-school education for all New Zealanders so that when they leave school they can actually go on to do something meaningful and we will not have 36000 people under the age of 25 sitting at home and doing absolutely nothing as this National Government is quite content with—in fact it has simply written them off. This Government has completely forgotten why it was elected to office and what it promised to New Zealanders.Remember the brighter future that John Key and Bill English promised New Zealanders? That has not eventuated has it. Remember all of those promises it made about how incomes would be going up how the wage gap with Australia would be closed how it was going to be doing all of these wonderful things. Has it delivered? Eight years down the track has it actually delivered? The answer to that question is simply no. It has not delivered on the promises that it made. It has simply given up on the big challenges. It has no answers to the housing crisis. We have seen a further fall in post-school education participation. There is more financial pressure on parents to pay because the Government is not paying. This is a Government that thinks that a shortfall in Government funding for essential social services—like education like health like housing—should be met through charity rather than through an increase in Government funding.I agree with Oliver Wendell Holmes Jnr who stated in 1904 that our taxes are the price we pay for a civilised society. Instead what we are seeing under this Government is that essential public services are being cut to the bone. New Zealand citizens are paying more and more for their vital social services so that Bill English and John Key come next year’s election can try to bribe them with their own money in the form of tax cuts to get themselves re-elected.I think that New Zealanders are smarter than that. I think that New Zealanders have higher hopes for the future than that. I think that is why you will see New Zealanders voting for a change of Government at the next election because they know that this Government has run out of steam. They know that this Government has run out of new ideas. They know that this Government has simply given up.Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister for Social Development): I must say that some people on the other side of the House seem to live on a different planet because the reality is that the Budget that Minister English delivered last week—his eighth Budget—was indeed for New Zealand a great Budget. It was a Budget that signalled steady economic recovery and growth going out in the years ahead of us. It was a Budget that showed that this country has weathered the global financial crisis which was followed quickly by the massive Christchurch-Canterbury earthquakes—a severe shock to the economy of this country. Throughout that time the Government was at pains to protect New Zealand’s most vulnerable. This Budget shows that those hard years were worthwhile and that the Government’s steering of a steady economic course is starting—starting—to pay dividends for New Zealanders.Look at the four significant packages that the Budget contained. Innovative New Zealand: investing in the economy of New Zealand in research and development and in backing science—$761 million. Public infrastructure: $2.1 billion of work in New Zealand in the years ahead. I want to spend my time talking about the Budget by focusing on the social investment package of $652 million over the next 4 years—that of course does not count the $2.2 billion being spent on health.I have to say in my electorate the major health issue that has been raised with me over the last year has been the bowel cancer screening so the announcement in the Budget to roll that screening out to a national screening system has been greeted with joy and delight. In fact we had the Bay of Plenty Mustang Owners Club display of cars on the reserve outside my house at the weekend. I went over—because I love Mustangs I must confess—to have a look and drool over some of the cars and the interesting thing for me was that the bowel screening scheme national roll-out was raised with me a number of times. So that was obviously popular.However Budget 2016 signalled that this Government is committed to making a significant change in the lives of probably our most vulnerable children and young people with $348 million identified to get started on making that significant change. Just to take members of the House back remember last year I appointed the expert panel to have a look at the overhaul of Child Youth and Family so that we can get better results from it. Of that cohort they had a look at—at 21—90 percent of them were on a benefit 25 percent of them were on a benefit with a child almost 80 percent did not have National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 2 and more than 30 percent had a youth justice referral by the age of 18. So the State does not do a particularly good job of looking after those young children it takes on the responsibility for. I have released all of the documents that came from that expert panel the interim report that built the case for change and then the final report—and the Cabinet papers that went with it—that showed that this Government is determined to make a difference in the lives of those young people.We have started work on the design of the new model based on five core services from prevention to intensive intervention care support redesigning the youth justice system and of course the transition into independence. The $348 million that was announced in Budget 2016 signals as I say this Government’s determination to get on with that job. About $145 million of that is to stabilise the existing Child Youth and Family services. The number of children who are in care has grown and they are staying in care for longer. But more importantly the complexity of the lives of those children has increased. So we are seeing far more children that have been diagnosed with things like foetal alcohol syndrome. For those children a whole raft of care is needed and will be needed throughout most of their lives.The other important issue that has come through the review is the understanding of the effect of violence on young children—not just when they are victims of violence but the effect of witnessing violence and the trauma that those children suffer. A major change in the practice delivery for this new operating system that is under design currently is how we deal with that trauma early on in a child’s life. As I say $150 million is to stabilise the existing Child Youth and Family service but then $200 million will be invested to get this new system under design and under development with the first part of that operating system to be in place by the end of March next year.So a huge transformation programme is under way and we will have the first bill in the House in the next couple of days but the important part was the strong signal from the Budget that we are serious about this. We are serious about the social investment philosophy of investing early in children’s and families’ lives when there is dysfunction and making a difference—making sure that the money that we are spending is actually effective; that the services we are providing are not duplicated that they are culturally responsive and that they are effective in making a difference in these children and their families’ lives.Budget 2016 also meant that we were able to see several million dollars invested in ensuring that we support people to get into work because we know that that is the best way out of poverty and we know that remaining on a benefit long term has long-term consequences not only for the family but for the children in that home. The liability of the welfare system has reduced by $12 billion over the last 4 years and that is a result of the really targeted thoughtful processes that Work and Income has put into place to get in behind supporting people to find work for themselves and their families. That means that over the lifetime of those people almost a million fewer people will be on benefits.We have in this Budget 2016 $111.5 million over the next 4 years to support people into work and I think the most important part of that has to be the $61.5 million that is being put into the expansion of the Youth Service. The Youth Service currently works with young people—16 and 17-year-olds—who are not eligible for a youth benefit but for some reason are independent of their families. It is a wraparound service; it helps them manage their money and it makes sure they are in education or in training as a first priority. For some of them that is not possible and we help them into work where we can. We are actually making some headway with these young people. The idea is to expand that Youth Service initially supporting young parents who are now 18 and 19 and then eventually young people in that same age group to make sure that we pick them up and stop them falling through the cracks—stop them going on to a benefit in the first place because we know that if they go on to a benefit before they are age 20 they are likely to be on that benefit for 20 years. There is $26 million to maintain the targeted case management and to fund 3K to Work which is now heading over the 2000 mark—2000-odd people whom we have helped move to find work or to take up work opportunities. Then we have got some pilots that we are running working with both health and corrections.Finally I want to just mention the $46 million in Budget 2016 for sexual violence work. I congratulate my colleague Alfred Ngaro and the select committee that has been working alongside us as we have designed a new system for sexual violence services in New Zealand that consists of for the first time a real focus on those first-response services. There is a 24/7 helpline. There will be professional assistance for the men and women—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am sorry to have to interrupt the Minister but her time has expired.DAVID CLENDON (Green): I am pleased to take an opportunity to speak in this Appropriation (2016/17 Estimates) Bill debate. Like Mr Hipkins I found the first comments we heard from the Government this afternoon Mr Brownlee’s comments quite revealing in some ways. He spoke of the temerity of a Labour member who changed his mind as though that was a bad thing. I think it would be a very unfortunate situation if any of us as politicians or as parties were unwilling at any point to change our minds and to do so publicly. Change is often a good and positive thing. It is possible and often desirable despite this constant refrain we hear from the Government that we are somehow at the mercy of external forces and therefore are not masters of our own destiny and must simply batten down the hatches and hide. I completely reject that proposition despite it being quite fundamental and quite visible in the content of this Budget this year.The Government’s thinking seems to be limited to how little can be done—perhaps without upsetting its electorate apple cart—rather than thinking of how much can be done how much better we could do and what we might do to do better in this country. The Budget lacks any recognition of opportunity for transformation to do more or to do things differently. We need to do better we can do better and the Greens in Government will do better than this rather poor offering we were served up last week. The claim that the Greens can do better is not a particularly bold claim given the very low bar that has been set by this Government in all of its actions and particularly in terms of this Budget.I would like to speak briefly to three aspects of the Budget under the general heading of the Justice portfolio. The police first up. In about 2009-10 we started hearing about this new strategy the Prevention First strategy—the idea being that yes let us nip it in the bud reduce the number of victims and reduce offending by a proactive prevention strategy from police. The Greens applauded that approach. It was clearly in line with our own policy over many years. But we also expressed a concern that in order for Prevention First to succeed as a strategy it needed to be properly resourced and funded. Sadly 2010 the year the strategy was rolled out was a high point in terms of police funding. Ever since then the police appropriation has been dropping in real terms. The police are being asked to do more and they are being given less with which to do it and that is simply unsustainable and very unfortunate.We are pleased to see in this Budget that there is a small additional amount to enable a very modest and long-overdue pay increase for the police. That is obviously a good thing. But what we are not seeing is any evidence that this Government has a clue has a plan about how to actively implement a prevention strategy—to invest upfront and over time reduce offending reduce crime and in that way save money in the long term. Sadly the Government seems determined simply to keep making cuts and hoping the problem will go away which it patently will not.The police are stretched. It is reflected in the thinness of the police presence particularly in the regional areas in the provinces. It is reflected in evidence that morale in the police is not all that it should be. The police get very frustrated with being criticised for not achieving certain outcomes when they do not have the wherewithal to achieve those outcomes. There are indicators like the amount of leave that is building up the amount of time off in lieu that police are not taking and their reluctance even to claim back reasonable expenses. It is all evidence of a police force under pressure and that needs to be relieved very quickly or we will find ourselves in serious trouble.Similarly with legal aid—there is some apparent good news in the Budget that the Government intends to commit an additional $54.5 million to legal aid. This is a nominal increase. It is a welcome increase—albeit long overdue. It is welcome because it at least does acknowledge on the Government’s part that there is a problem—something it has been in denial about for quite a number of years. The Opposition—the Greens of course—the legal profession and some senior judiciary have all been pointing to major shortcomings in legal aid support for people to get access to the justice system. At least the Government now admits there is a problem. Unfortunately however this apparent increase still means that the legal aid funding will be about $2 million less for the estimates for next year than what was actually spent last year which was in itself completely inadequate.We desperately need to look at the income thresholds for legal aid. Currently to get civil legal aid for a single person the threshold is set slightly above $22000 which means in practical terms that a person working more than 30 hours a week at the minimum adult wage would be deemed to have too high an income to qualify for legal aid. That is a nonsense but it is a sad reflection of the lack of attention this Government has given to access to justice to ensure that people have access to our courts and are properly defended if they do find themselves in the unfortunate situation of having to defend themselves in a court.Finally I would like to speak in the time that I have of the Department of Corrections and the state of our prisons. It is not a happy situation as we know. There are some good strategies. There are some good documents. This Government has made some comments and indicated some directions that are positive and indicate potential to do better. But again and again it fails to put its money where its mouth is. It has come up with some quite good ideas and initiatives but then it underfunds them. It does not allow them to succeed and therefore we are back to—this Budget is a prime example of that. It is massively overinvesting in punitive measures in containment and there is simply not enough there for rehabilitation or reintegration which are the long-term solutions to our excessive incarceration rate in New Zealand. Our prison muster is at a historic high and it is forecast to continue to rise. We are bursting at the seams and this Government’s only real solution seems to be more double bunking and now we are hearing talk of yet another new prison. That is completely the wrong approach.Some justice reinvestment—a reallocation of the money away from steel and concrete and wire spending it on people spending it on programmes that will actually turn lives round that will change the behaviour of offenders and potential offenders—that is where we need to be spending and that is where we ought to be spending. A year or so ago of course the Government would have told us that private prisons are the solution and has that not worked out well for it! Serco of course is an ongoing boil that is yet to be lanced. We look forward with interest to the report. That is a conversation for another day but clearly the expectation the assertion that privatisation of the prison regime would somehow give a better more effective improved outcome has been seen to fail and to fail badly.One of the better ideas this Government has put in place is that every person entering into prison to serve a sentence will have a needs assessment an educational needs assessment a mental health assessment and a drug and alcohol assessment. It is an excellent idea and long overdue but to be done properly and well that needs to be resourced. We need to have very well trained experienced people doing that assessment. My information is that despite the best efforts of some very very good people in the system the level of assessment and the level of commitment to it are simply inadequate to generate the better outcomes that we might hope for. We all want inmates to leave prison better than when they went in. In order to achieve that we need to get them on to programmes and we need to get them thinking better behaving better.The big bugbear at the minute in corrections seems to be scheduling. The Department of Corrections seems to be incapable of ensuring that the appropriate programmes are available to inmates at the appropriate time in their sentence and that there is ongoing support for them on the day that they leave prison. The scheduling regime is a complete fiasco and it seems to be something that the department is incapable of resolving. There is not one single dollar that I can see anywhere in the estimates this year that will serve to ameliorate that problem in terms of investment in better information technology in terms of investment in people and in terms of investing in and changing the culture within our Department of Corrections.Corrections a matter of just a few weeks ago launched a drug and alcohol strategy and it is an excellent strategy. It is perhaps not as good as it could be but it is a damned good start to recognise that drug and alcohol abuse and addiction are major drivers of crime. It is a good strategy but no money behind it. This is a Government that is frightened of its own shadow. It is frightened to commit to change. The Greens in Government will do that. Thank you.CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): I had scheduled to be here in Wellington on Saturday thinking that we would have work to do following the Government’s Budget announcement. But actually because the Budget was such a non-event we struggled to be here even till 12 o’clock on Friday. So I think the general public would be a little bit concerned about the fact that here they had these huge expectations of the Budget and were presented with nothing—and actually here we are supposed to be working on this big Budget on any of the announcements that might have come out of it and there was nothing. It was rather disappointing. I think the only highlight was—well actually it was my 39th birthday on Saturday and it was nice to be back in the electorate.National has failed to deliver not only for New Zealanders who are experiencing hardship but also middle New Zealand on issues that matter: housing health education and the economy. Budget 2016 does nothing to fix the housing crisis. It cuts health and education even further in real terms and sees middle New Zealand getting a smaller slice of the economy. The failure to meaningfully tackle the housing crisis tops off 8 years of failure from the National Government. A Labour Budget would have taken decisive action on housing boosted funding for health and education and ensured that middle New Zealand got its fair share of economic growth as well as addressing the hardship that many New Zealanders are experiencing.The fact that it was such a non-event of a Budget meant that what we have ended up with is an increase in costs to households. Because of National’s out-of-touch approach to Budget 2016 the reality is that households will pay more. Wages are not going up as quickly as inflation over the next 2 years. We already know this. Next year house prices are forecast to rise by 8 percent. Last year they rose at twice the rate that was forecast. Auckland’s first-home buyers are already spending more than half their income on mortgage repayments. Now they will have to pay more. Households will end up forking out more for insulation or heating after the Government cut back on insulation subsidies. Education costs are rising at 10 times the rate of inflation meaning that parents will pay more.I just mentioned there all the monetary costs. That does not even cover off the social costs that we as a country are going to have to pay. Talking about social costs I really want to move over to the Government’s social investment approach. What is this social investment approach? Let us just discuss this social investment approach a little bit more widely. Child Poverty Action Group had breakfast the day after the Budget was announced. Our social services across the country are very clear that this social investment approach is not working in any way. The social investment approach that we have from the National Government is about short-term cost saving rather than investing in people which will have long-term benefits. It really is about smaller Government and that is all it is about. Social investment should be about making sure that families are better off not just making sure that they come off benefit.In so many situations that we have seen people have come off benefit but have they gone on to do anything more that makes their family more successful or improves outcomes for their families? Actually that Government is not measuring that. National’s social investment approach views people as liabilities rather than as the important asset resources that they are. Social investment should not be about managing risk; it should be about investing in people. I am so sick of hearing the National Government going on about its so-called social investment approach.If we critique it a little bit more it is not social investment but rather targeting those labelled by National as fiscal drains. For example in Bill English’s Budget speech he picks on young parents saying that the average 19-year-old sole parent will spend 18 years on a benefit. We still cannot find where he got that information from. In fact I have had to put parliamentary questions in referring to Bill English’s quote to find out where he got that information from. I have worked with 19-year-old sole parents and I do not know of any of them who have stayed on benefit for a long term—particularly 18 years—so I really want to question some of the perceptions that the National Government is creating. This stigmatises young people and we have seen it not only with its so-called social investment approach and the labels that it puts on people including “fiscal drain” but also the other labels we have heard those members use like Bill English being quoted as referring to young people in New Zealand as “pretty damned hopeless” in relation to them being able to get into employment. What hope do our young people have when they have got a Government that has so little aspiration for these young people?In fact going back to some of National’s 2008 slogans we were supposed to have a brighter future under this National Government. It was supposed to be the party that was aspirational for New Zealand. Well we have not seen aspiration for middle New Zealand or those experiencing hardship. The only people it seems to have aspiration for are the mega-wealthy the people in the top 1 percent; those people who actually do not need any more help; those people who are doing OK by themselves but actually are probably doing a little bit better with help from their mates in the National Government.Going back to the social investment approach and critiquing that if we look at the testing that has been done around the package that it has introduced and we try to see whether or not there is any evidence of an approach to it at all we see that there has been no testing. So what we have here is a $652 million package that the Government is looking to implement when it has not tested it and there has been no critique of the design and members on that side of the House have no idea whether it will actually work. The measure of success of the social investment approach from that side of the House is based on problematic outcomes.Rather than aiming for an economic self-actualisation and the long-term well-being of children and families facing hardship the short-term fiscal gains are the key priority. That is why those members have things like their Better Public Services target to reduce welfare dependency but it does not go any further in terms of ensuring that those families are better off because all it is about is short-term gain. Our concern on this side of the House is that if that is all the Government is focused on then down the track we are going to see some pretty major social implications from that short-term view. We are going to see further cost to the country as we seek to resolve the things that the Government did not address at the time it had an opportunity to do so. A failure to invest in our future now will lead to higher costs in the future for children growing up in poverty with no or inadequate accommodation. The impacts this will have on them are huge and difficult to undo later in life. So hearing the Minister for Social Development Anne Tolley talk about her package and about wanting to address the needs of vulnerable children is all good but if the children in these families do not have a roof over their head then how much traction can any Government truly make?If we want to talk about a social investment approach then we really need to talk about investment in education. So I really want to touch on early childhood education funding. I have a 3-year-old and the first thing that his centre manager said to me when I saw her on Monday this week was that she was so disappointed with what the Budget had to offer in respect of early childhood education. That Government has talked up the fact that it needs to invest in early childhood education and that it wants to increase participation and yet it has not followed that up with any additional funding for early childhood education. In fact what we see here is that because of the lack of funding offered by that Government we are seeing centres having to subsidise what they should be getting from the Government with increased costs to parents. This is what I was talking about before with regard to the fact that many of the costs that have not been covered by that Government are now being pushed on to New Zealanders.I am not going to get through the list of things I wanted to talk about but I do want to touch on emergency housing. National’s Budget has failed to address the growing housing crisis. In fact those members are fighting amongst themselves about whether or not it is a crisis or a challenge or something else. Their measures are insufficient to reverse the decline in homeownership to stop kids living in cars or to ensure homes are warm and dry. Every New Zealander out there knows that we are experiencing a housing crisis so every time that Government tries to turn round and say that it is not a crisis and there is no housing crisis people are rolling their eyes and saying: “How can you lie to us? How can you say that when it’s so evident?”—not only with regard to their own ability to be able to pay their rent or purchase a house but every day when they go to their local shopping centres or walk out on their street they are confronted with levels of homelessness that we have never seen here in New Zealand before.This was a non-event—a non-event of a Budget. That Government should be ashamed of itself and I think New Zealand will be judging it based on what costs the Government has now pushed on to middle New Zealand households.Hon CRAIG FOSS (Minister for Small Business): I was wondering and now I know why all these Labour speakers today are so angry. They seem very excitable and angry and of course with this new continued left takeover of Labour as we have seen announced today with the Labour-Greens merger or whatever they are calling it I can see some of those members’ frustration and anger coming through. Mr Hipkins was very very excitable in his speechearlier. You know he is a good orator in the House of course but I guess he is frustrated at the thought that perhaps Catherine Delahunty from the Greens will become the Opposition spokesman on education.Alastair Scott: Oh imagine.Hon CRAIG FOSS: As we go through that we can start—or perhaps they will be joint leaders or joint owners or whatever they are going to call it. It is quite interesting what we have just seen today. I was just thinking that there are probably two people smiling from ear to ear at these announcements as we discuss the wider ramifications of this Budget. I guess New Zealand First members are very comfortable and happy with today’s announcements because actually it shows that Labour has totally abandoned ground on a voting bloc that they perhaps thought was once theirs. I am sure that the New Zealand First MPs are smiling—yes they are—from ear to ear at what they have seen with the colleagues they might sit with but they can see a mile away as we can what is happening to the left of New Zealand politics. It is now becoming the far left of New Zealand politics.I guess the only other person smiling here—though I am sure there are others—would of course be Nick Smith and perhaps Nicky Wagner who are leading the Bluegreens in our National Party and are leading our concentration on actual things that matter in our environment like pursuing policies that help our environment and preserve our awesome environment in New Zealand. Not like the Greens who tend to endlessly pick up causes be it Dotcom be it Panama/Pelican Brief nonsense—David Clendon: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am sure this contribution we are listening to is interesting to somebody but to date the speaker is several minutes into his 10 minutes and he has not yet once referenced the appropriation bill or the Budget. I wonder whether he might contain himself and give us something on that.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you very much for your point of order. Of course relevancy is for the adjudicator to decide on. It is a wide-ranging debate and those speeches have been wide ranging but your point is well made and no doubt he will have a reference to the Budget forthwith.Hon CRAIG FOSS: Oh of course. As I am speaking on the Appropriation (2016/17 Estimates) Bill interestingly I could segue into—oh I do not know. We could compare it with a Venezuelan Budget actually because the Opposition tends to be going down that track but I might come to that later as I wonder what its version of this same bill might be.This Budget does continue National’s steady-as-she-goes conservative prudent management of our economy of our future and of our people delivering fiscally delivering economically and most importantly delivering socially. It is delivering to those groups of New Zealanders—increasingly so—who most of New Zealand expect deserve or need or require our assistance as a civilised nation and putting resources where they are needed most which will pay dividends later in their lives for themselves and of course for our country. It reflects our country where we are now growing in confidence—an open trading nation. In fact it would be interesting to have that debate with the other side now with those parties’ merger and their continued opposition to free trade and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. As New Zealand is now growing in confidence and is an open trading innovative nation it is reflected in the forecast of the bill and of the Budget and of course it is recorded in our outlook for New Zealand.Interestingly I am looking at Mr Little’s proposed amendment to the motion in the Hon Bill English’s speech. I look at that and essentially that says “and Opposition members will be voting against” if they agree with that amendment—actually they will be voting against business tax changes. These are the most fundamental changes in small business particularly in taxation in decades. The last one was probably when we lowered the business tax rate from 30c to 28c in the dollar. Every election Opposition parties will talk about provisional tax terminal tax and Government compliance around tax. They all promise to do something but in Government they never did—in Government we have. We have committed and we are investing in systems to allow changing the burden of compliance in and around provisional tax to a closer pay-as-you-go—closer to a GST-type—model widely welcomed by small businesses across our country.The Budget delivers surplus ongoing surplus to the tune of about $6 billion in a couple of financial years’ time—pretty good. It continues to deliver on low interest rates creating an environment for certainty creating lower interest rates for all New Zealanders. Remember New Zealanders those who are listening—imagine what their mortgage rates would be now if Labour had continued in office or in fact if Labour was writing this Budget. There would be rampant inflation and rampant double-digit mortgage interest rates like there were when Labour was last in office.Interestingly—and I have not heard other speakers on this one yet—the Budget delivers an improved current account. I recall the Hon Michael Cullen who perhaps struggled against some of his spending Ministers in his time in Government and who must have given up I suppose in his last 3 or 4 years but he continued to talk about the need to fix or work on our current account as have other Labour spokespeople over the years. Yet they are silent on this one because again it shows once forecast it becomes reality: this National Government keeps delivering.The Budget talks about job growth: 200000 new jobs up from 170000 as our economy grows over the forecast period. It forecasts lower Consumers Price Index as I just alluded to. It also though as well as the fiscal side of things delivers higher more increased spending in education in health and across our social services. It is an outstanding Budget an outstanding result and outstanding forecast results in the OECD. With every single country we compare ourselves toand commentators compare us to it is an outstanding result. Even with those outstanding forecasts as Minister Brownlee was talking about earlier some of the assumptions in it are very very conservative. So even getting about 3 percent growth even with a forecast doubling of oil prices and even with a decrease in migration to about 12000 per annum—even with those constraints we are delivering forecast surpluses growing over the next many many years over the forecast period up to about $6 billion in 2020. What a good problem to have.One thing particularly to that previous speaker Carmel Sepuloni: why does the Opposition not embrace and value the social investment approach? Why does it not think it is a good thing that within the limited resources of Government those who actually need assistance now need some wraparound now to help them in their current circumstances and to perhaps get them on a better path for themselves and for our country over many many years to come—why does it not endorse that? I was thinking of Sir Walter Nash actually because what were the first State houses? They were social investment. A long-term investment originally for housing for those who need it and yet Labour—is it now against that type of policy?Carmel Sepuloni: That was social investment.Hon CRAIG FOSS: I can absolutely assure the member who seems to be complaining that it was something about “short-termism” or something like that—actually the whole investment approach as documents have shown as Ministers have spoken about is very very long term. So as MPs we want to look those taxpayers in the eyes and say: “Actually because of this social investment approach we’ve helped so many New Zealanders we’ve helped so many families. We are concentrating on helping them into a home—not necessarily a house. We’ve moved what you would have needed to pay in taxes over the next 30-odd years from $82 billion to around $70 billion.”Carmel Sepuloni: You’ve increased it down the track because you’re not addressing what needs to be addressed now.Hon CRAIG FOSS: That is not too bad and the member obviously did not even do bookkeeping 101 because that is actually what goes on the balance sheet—those kinds of numbers—and that enables better more choices and more options for the Government whichever it might be over the coming years to allocate the resources of the Government to help people through circumstances that are by and large not of their own making.I do worry. We have had this announcement today however it plays out but as the Opposition lurches even further to the left I suggest that if the Opposition parties were running this Budget—if we were wondering what it might look like—over time what we see in Venezuela now is probably not too dissimilar: rampant inflation no control over spending no target of spending or resources or assistance or whatever it might be great rhetoric but actually on the ground those who hurt the most from left spend-up-large Governments such as we seem to be hearing from on the other side are the most vulnerable in our society. I am very proud and comfortable to continue to support this Budget fiscally dryly economically and socially. Thank you.RICHARD PROSSER (NZ First): Here we go again. Another year has gone by and another Budget—another one of Bill English’s “you beaut” Budgets. It has been foisted upon us—another burnt offering you might say. He says it all very nicely. Mr English speaks with a very velvety voice. I actually find it quite soporific and I am wondering whether that might be a tactic on Bill English’s part. If you cannot convince your audience with the weight of your logic and the force of your argument then just put them to sleep instead.It is appropriate that he try that tactic now because it almost worked but I found myself waking from the dream that he put me into to find that I was in a nightmare because here we are yet again another year gone by talking about biosecurity and talking about this Government’s lack of a proper approach to biosecurity—yet again. It is almost like Groundhog Day. Budget time comes around and I find myself thinking “Ooh what can I have a go at this year?” and again it is biosecurity because again the Government still has not done anything about it. It still has not addressed the fundamental shortcomings in its approach to biosecurity. So Mr English’s velvety voice is actually the perfect illustration for velvetleaf. Velvetleaf is appropriate because it is the latest in this quite shameful litany of biosecurity failures that have happened under this Government’s watch. We have had Psa we have fruit fly black grass Noogoora bur guava moth—the list just goes on and on and on and velvetleaf is the latest incursion.The Minister for Primary Industries will tell us that more money is being spent and through the smoke and mirrors of the appropriations it does look at first glance as if there is more money being spent but as always that turns out to be a wee bit of a mirage when you drill down through the numbers. The total appropriation here we see has gone up by $9 million. That is great. Border biosecurity monitoring and clearance has gone up by $7 million. But then when we look at funding for departmental output expenses the revenue from the Crown is actually down by $16 million and when we look closer at border biosecurity monitoring and clearance we see that is down by 50 percent. It has fallen by $18 million—$18 million.Minister Guy claims that biosecurity is his No. 1 priority and I believe him. I believe he is genuine when he makes that claim. But there are two things that are working against him. One is the fact that his Cabinet colleagues just simply do not appear to grasp the importance of biosecurity to our primary sector. They do not seem to understand how vitally important having good biosecurity is to the sector that provides three-quarters of the economy. Maybe that is because the National Party is a shadow of its former self in terms of its roots. There are just not enough farmers on the Government benches at the moment and certainly not enough in Cabinet.But help is at hand. When New Zealand First is in charge in 1½ years’ time we will bring quite a few farmers with us. They are flocking to us even now from the ranks of people who traditionally being National supporters are coming across to New Zealand First because they realise that we are the light and we have stayed true to the original vision that National started but has now thrown away. The second thing working against National is that the methodology that it is following is just plainly and simply wrong. It is focused in the wrong way it is applied in the wrong way it is based on theories that are incorrect and there is just not enough of it. The slice of the pie that is allocated to biosecurity is simply too small.We have seen the introduction of the new biosecurity passenger levy. The proceeds from that will begin to filter through and I imagine that is where the difference comes in—the difference between what the total appropriation is and what the Crown revenue is—but we know that it is a replacement revenue stream; it is not new money. When the bill went through last year the Government insisted for a long time that it was going to be additional money. We finally got it out of them that actually no it is just a simple replacement stream. So that system has failed. The approach the Government takes using risk-based assessment and basically pegging back what it does in terms of looking at potential ramifications of organisms coming in has not worked. The danger in that is that every incursion that happens under this Government’s biosecurity regime that is not foot-and-mouth disease brings the incursion that is foot-and-mouth disease one incursion closer. When that happens—when that happens—that will cost us $20 billion. When that happens it will be too late to say: “Oops I told you so.”When it has cost us $20 billion and put our primary sector on the back foot for months if not years a few more dollars on some quarantine sheds and a few more dollars on some extra lab tests will seem like chicken feed indeed. Chicken feed is important because actually the velvetleaf may well have got into the system through chicken feed because we have been using this risk-based assessment that assesses that imported maize—and this is where we suspect one of the pathways that has come in is in this case—is destined for a process that will de-nature it and render any potential contaminants unviable. I have spoken to the people from the poultry feed industry and I believe them when they say that they have gone through the processes that they think they have to go through. It is not they who are at fault; it is the Government it is the system—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): The member’s time is up.Clayton Mitchell: Ronald Reagan once famously said: “I have not left my party; my party has left me.”The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Clayton Mitchell.CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. I started nice and early. Ronald Reagan’s quote is a very famous quote indeed and I think that there are a lot of National Party members out there who feel the same way: they have not left the National Party; the National Party has indeed left them. Do not panic though. The National Party of the 1950s 1960s 1970s and 1980s is a long way away from where the National Party that is in Government today stands.As I travel around this country talking to constituents on a range of issues one question that keeps coming up is “What do we pay our taxes for?” which is actually quite a good question when you think about it because what we used to pay our taxes for and what we pay taxes for now are two different things. I am talking about a time when our country prided itself on being a country with a strong economy zero unemployment low crime and record homeownership figures—a time when we were considered to be one of the best countries in the world to live. I am talking about a time when this country understood the importance of State houses and knew that the Government was the best organisation to provide and maintain those State houses not some foreign-controlled corporation. This was a time when we had watertight State housing and when more houses were being built in a single year than—can current Government members honestly put their hands on their hearts and say they are doing a better job?This was a time when we owned our own banks we owned our own insurance companies and we owned our power stations and our telecommunications a time when we saw education as an investment and we ensured that all New Zealanders had an opportunity to further educate themselves free of charge and a time when heavy investment was put into rail as a priority over roads and our Defence Force was well-equipped and ready to defend our sovereign nation. This was a time when health and law and order were never questioned because they were well enough resourced to not go without as we are currently seeing in today’s economy.So how does that segue into the state of the nation today and where does all of our hard-earned tax money go to? We have sold off our major banks. This Government refuses to bank with its very own Kiwibank preferring to bank with Westpac a foreign-owned bank instead. This is a time when our Government has sold off our power companies it has sold off our State Insurance it has sold off our telecommunications and who owns those now? Of course foreign-controlled organisations and corporations own them. State housing is now being sold off too. To whom? That is right it is being sold to foreign corporations because this Government—your National Party—is saying—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order!CLAYTON MITCHELL: —that the foreign corporations are a better place for looking after social housing than the Government is. That is absolutely a living joke. We have got a Government triple-dipping when it comes to transportation too: taking road-user charges adding fuel tax and then putting on tolls to pay for new roads for profiteering long terms that more than pay for the original construction costs.What about the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement? We heard Mr Foss talking about it just a few moments ago. This is a conditional—and I underline that word—trade agreement written by foreign corporations not Governments for the complete and utter benefit of those foreign corporations where those companies can sue our Government under investor-State dispute settlement provisions if that foreign company feels that its profits are going to be marginalised by a democratic decision made by our Government. How is that democracy? This is not the National Party; this should be called the “International Party”. The next election campaign for this “International Party” should be “International Party: Working for Foreign Corporations”. That is a very good slogan actually. You can take that—it is free.This Government says that we cannot afford it when it comes to taking GST off food or paying 26 weeks’ paid parental leave for families with babies or spending money on bringing our State housing up to a reasonable code or a reasonable standard to live in. But this Government at the hands of the “International Party” can afford to pay $27 million on a flag referendum that nobody has asked for. It can afford to give $16 million to a Saudi businessman to build an abattoir in the Middle East that will not benefit New Zealanders one iota. It can afford to give a further $700 million to China to its infrastructure fund and I am prepared to debate that at another time. It can afford to give $1 billion to South Canterbury Finance shareholders to bail them out of the proverbial crap. Let us not hear any more affordability rhetoric from this Government in terms of this Budget. A Government is in my opinion like oxygen. It only becomes important when it is not there for the people. Thank you.DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): A Budget is a very important document for any country. It sets out the revenue expenditure and priorities for the year ahead. This Budget continues on that great trend set by the Minister of Finance the Prime Minister and the National team of having a prudent and important way of looking at our finances so that we actually do invest in the social infrastructure of New Zealand we do invest in the economic infrastructure of New Zealand and at the same time we do it in a responsible and fair-handed manner.Not many countries in the world can say that they are now in surplus. In the Western World it is rare indeed. New Zealand is one if not the only country in the Western World that can say so. When we look at Canada a $29.4 billion deficit; Australia a $39.9 billion deficit. I will repeat those numbers for those listening: $29.4 billion for Canada; $39.9 billion for Australia. That is the reality of the modern world; that is the reality of the people who we judge ourselves against. They have Governments that are dealing with high expenditure low income and terrible Government deficits that at some time somebody has to pay back or at some time there has to be a reduction in expenditure to meet the increased spending that those Governments have faced.That is not the case in New Zealand. In New Zealand we have not got that hanging over our heads. We have a strong Budget surplus and we have strong Budget surpluses projected into the future. That means that New Zealanders have options. That means that all New Zealanders out there can be proud of the Government that they have elected which has given them the options to repay debt to actually go out there and spend more money on infrastructure and to go and give more services to New Zealanders when and as the times permit. Those are options that very few other countries have and we should be celebrating that in this House.There will be Opposition parties that will argue that everything and anything should be spent on everything and anything. That is their job that is what they do and we understand that and nobody takes any notice of it because they are in Opposition.I just want to acknowledge thattoday was a very important day for the New Zealand Labour Party with its capitulation to the Green Party in their memorandum of understanding. Why a large party like that which has such a strong history in this country and in this House has flown the white flag today and given in to the Green Party I will never know.Dr Kennedy Graham: It’s a great deal.DAVID BENNETT: It is a great deal for the Green Party. It finally means that the Labour Party admits that it no longer controls the left and that is a sad day for all those Labour Party strongholds and those people who have given their lives to the Labour Party who now find that they have been taken over by the Green Party. That is a sad day for that Labour Party over there. But it is a good day for the Green Party and I acknowledge the work it has done over a number of decades now in building a brand that has actually destroyed the Labour Party—and it has achieved its purpose. New Zealanders will not be fooled by that because New Zealanders know what sensible economic management is. New Zealanders know what it is to run a household and New Zealanders know that they cannot be voting for promises that are unrealistic. They are going for—Carmel Sepuloni: They know what it means to run a household because it is costing them more under National.DAVID BENNETT: “Costing more under National.”—that is what the Labour Party member says. Well the Labour Party is going to make it so much easier is it not because we all know what the Labour Party is going to do: it is going to introduce higher taxes on households. We know that that is the Labour Party policy. Grant Robertson has said that he will increase taxes on New Zealanders. He has not said the amount—and he will not say the amount going into the election—but we all know that he will increase income taxes on New Zealanders. That is the first thing the Labour Party has said.The second thing the Labour Party has said is that it wants to bring in a capital gains tax. The Labour Party will bring in a capital gains tax. The third thing we know from the Labour Party is that it does not like the emissions trading scheme (ETS) as it stands and it wants to change the ETS. We know that the Green Party will be the dominant party when it comes to environmental issues in this coalition agreement and so we know that New Zealanders will face a carbon tax if that party—the “Labour-Greens”; I do not know what it is going to be called—actually gets elected in a future election.Those three taxes are coming to New Zealanders. New Zealanders know that they will be getting higher income taxes New Zealanders know that they will be getting a carbon tax and New Zealanders know that they will be getting a capital gains tax under a Labour-Green coalition.But under a National-led Government what do they know they are getting? They know that they are getting investment in the innovation sector of the New Zealand economy—$761 million of investment that focuses on growing our science and producing the skills that are necessary for New Zealanders to succeed and prosper in the modern world. They know that there is a $2.1 billion infrastructure investment programme in this Budget.Tim Macindoe and I and the Waikato are being very generously supported through that Budget at the moment with the Waikato Expressway getting to the formative stages. We turned the sod on the $973 million project that is the Hamilton bypass earlier this year. That will be a game-changer for our area and shows that there is a Government investing in the regions—an investment that never happened under Labour an investment that can never happen under the Greens and an investment that New Zealand First does not want to happen. The punters in Hamilton know—they know—who is delivering for them. They know who will never deliver for them and they know who has stood up against that delivery and that is the Labour and Green parties which did not want to see that delivery in our city.We see a social investment package to support vulnerable New Zealanders at their most vulnerable time and that is something that has built on the last Budget and really reflects the approach that this Government has taken. It is looking after all New Zealanders. We have looked after all New Zealanders and not just those voting bases that the left seeks to capture.The fourth thing that you see is a significant investment in the health sector—a massive investment in the health sector in fact. When we look at the health sector it is something that all New Zealanders benefit from and that all New Zealanders have no problem with investing in. You see that the investment in the health sector includes some very important areas in providing top-quality health-care. Again in Hamilton we have seen the benefit of that. We see it day by day in the great Waikato District Health Board and the work that it does in our city.When you look at economic growth of 2.9 percent in the coming year—2.8 percent on average for the 5 years to 2020—that is a good-news economic story that New Zealanders should be proud of. When we look at 200000 more people in work than 3 years ago and another 170000 new jobs by 2020 that is a good-news economic story that New Zealanders should be proud of. When you look at unemployment reducing to 4.6 percent and average wages expected to increase to $63000 per year that is a good-news economic story that New Zealanders should be proud of.New Zealand has a great Government doing great things and providing strong economic management. Do not let that slip and let a left-wing coalition that would put New Zealand into high debt high spending and more taxes take any part in the future of this country because New Zealand can ill afford that. We are on the right track to being a very successful member of the world and of the new world order and economy and we do not need a shift back to communism and the left and we do not need a shift back to the nationalism of the New Zealand First Party. We need a future that is strong reliable and focused and that is what you get out of this Budget. Thank you.DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert): Remember the days when the National Government talked about aspiration? It talked about a brighter future. Well I have heard a lot of words describe this Budget but “aspiration” and “brighter future” never featured. I heard “bland”. I heard “boring”. I heard “broccoli”. I heard “bollocks” from some person and that is just the beginning of the alphabet to describe this Budget. It is underwhelming—certainly underwhelming.It is smart in one sense; I will give Mr English that. He has put aside money—your money; taxpayers’ money—for a big splurge in election year. Taxpayers’ money is squirrelled away so that National can spend up and try to win the election. He has done a second thing and that is that he has paid off some of the debt that he has racked up in the last 8 years. More than $60 billion the largest debt in New Zealand’s history has been racked up by this Government in the last 8 years.National inherited a surplus in 2008. In 2008 the Budget by Michael Cullen meant 9 years of Budget surpluses—year after year after year. We are finally back in surplus and now Bill English is paying off the debt. This might be good for National and it is crowing about it right now but it is certainly not very good for everybody who might be listening here and at home.Let us look at education for example. The operational budget of schools—and what I mean by that is the money that the schools spend on sports gear on computers and on all those things that kids need to get a good education—has stayed flat despite the fact that the population has increased. Eighty-six percent of principals out there are saying they are not getting enough money so we know what is going to happen now: parents will be asked to put their hands in their pockets again and fork out for schools. It is money that should be paid by this Government.National should be funding our schools at the right level but instead it is putting money into those charter schools—seven schools to be exact. These are schools that soak up three to four times more money per child than State schools. They have no accountability do not have to have trained teachers do not have to teach to the curriculum and are not accountable under the Official Information Act. They are the schools that this Government is preferring to put money into instead of our State schools.Let us look at health. The Government is talking the big talk about how much money has gone into health—$2.2 billion according to Dr Jonathan Coleman except that he mumbles under his breath “over 4 years” so it is only $500 million. Actually if you do the maths on this one which the Government of course has not done you will realise that it does not keep pace with population increase and inflation. In fact it is $200 million behind. What we are actually getting is less this year than we need to have. Our district health boards in everybody’s own region will have less to spend than they did last year. They will not be able to keep up with what is needed to be spentper person. That is health—that is the bad news in health which you will not hear from this Government. It is falling behind.I want to talk a little bit about something that is close to my heart and that is Auckland. I am an Aucklander and I like to live in that city. I grew up there. I grew up in South Auckland. I have lived all over the city. I was at Eden Park on Saturday watching the Blues. I still am a faithful loyal Blues supporter. [Bell rung]The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Sorry that was an accident. It was a bit premature on my part with that topic.DAVID SHEARER: That was a Highlanders fan who hit the wrong button there.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Hurricanes.DAVID SHEARER: Hurricanes? Sorry the Hurricanes. Whatever—it does not matter they are not the Blues. Anyway I hope I get a few extra minutes for that. There should be a penalty for the Assistant Speaker making a mistake like that.Auckland has received nothing in this Budget. It has utterly failed this city. Auckland has one-third of the population and it has got absolutely nothing. You might be perhaps one of those people listening to this debate who are trying to save for a house and you will know that in 2008 when this Government came into power houses were averaging out at about $435000—still high but $435000. What are they today? What are they today after 8 years of this Government? They are $928000 each on average—$928000.Who can afford that sort of money for a house in Auckland? What is the Government doing about it? Nothing. The mumblings and fumblings and bumblings of Nick Smith have not done one thing—one thing—to make those houses more affordable. Has the Government for example excluded foreign investors from buying our houses? Why is our housing market like the New York stock exchange? Why can you trade and buy houses in Auckland in the same way you can do pork bellies on the New York stock exchange? It is not right because those people are here and they want to live in those houses. Forty percent of houses that are being bought in Auckland are being bought by investors and that is wrong.You might be one of those people who are listening to this debate at the moment and are gridlocked in traffic in your car because a few years ago the road that used to take you to wherever you wanted to go in a few minutes now takes longer than an hour. Two billion dollars of value in Auckland is being lost by people in gridlock. It was only a few months ago that this Government decided it needed to fast forward the Auckland City Rail Link because it realised that actually putting more lanes in a motorway was not going to cut it. Up until that point I had heard all the reasons in the world from Steven Joyce about why we could not afford to put a rail link in and improve rail systems in Auckland—up until Aucklanders said “For God’s sake! I’m sick and tired of sitting in a traffic jam for hours and hours and hours when the Government could be doing something.” It has done nothing.You might be one of those people who are listening to this debate and living in a rental property and you might have just realised that your rent has gone up by 37 percent and is now averaging about $520 a week. How can you possibly afford $520 a week and be able to put a little bit aside for perhaps the kids’ holiday or whatever? You are living on the edge the whole time.I have people coming into my office day after day wanting help. There was a woman who came in in tears with her three children last week. She was desperate for a house. She was living in a garage. She was told she had to go over to a hostel on the other side of town. When she got there she found that she was living in a room with one double bed and one single bed with her family of four and sharing bathrooms with other male occupants of this hostel. She said: “No I’m not going to do this. I’m going to go back to the garage I was living in because at least my kids will be safe there.” And what happened to her? Well she got told that because she did not accept what was offered to her she went down to the bottom of the priority list. That is appalling.We have those sorts of people in our city in our country who need our support and this Government and John Key in particular have not given it. Helen Clark said once that she did more for the health of this country by being the housing Minister than she ever did by being the health Minister. We have a finance Minister from Southland we have a housing Minister from Nelson and we have a Prime Minister who lives in Parnell and has forgotten where he has come from—a State house. As a result of that we have got the appalling mess that we have today.We have on this side of the House a plan that will build more houses stop that speculation and enable people to be able to afford their own house and get ahead. That Government has run out of ideas. It has run out of aspiration inspiration and any of those other words that it used to use and now it is sadly and utterly losing for this country.MELISSA LEE (National): I rise to support the Appropriation (2016/17 Estimates) Bill. I want to just start by saying what an excellent Budget the Hon Bill English has put up. We used to say he has put out as many Budgets as he has children but he has surpassed that. He has actually delivered more Budgets than he has children. This is his eighth one and each one has been amazing and I just want to congratulate him for his incredible hard work and for delivering a fantastic Budget.Before I talk about some of the details of the Budget I want to just address some things that the member who just sat down David Shearer the member for Mt Albert has said. He actually said it is appalling. What is appalling and what people will find appalling is that Labour has actually given up. It has actually decided that it has given up and it has turned to the Green Party and said “Hallelujah! We will adopt everything that you say.” and I think people will turn and look at the Labour Party and say: “What an appalling decision it has made.” The Labour Party will be ashamed of its decision one day. One of the things that Mr David Shearer loved to talk about was the trade policies that the Labour Party actually has had. I know that he and his good friend Phil Goff agree on the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement and support this Government’s policy on that but no they could not support that publicly because they had their knuckles hit. I think it was Phil Goff who was actually allowed to support that because he is standing for the mayoralty in Auckland.One of the things that I feel passionate about in this Budget is Dr Jonathan Coleman’s health portfolio. In this Budget we have actually announced $39.3 million over 4 years for national bowel screening starting with the Hutt Valley District Health Board and Wairarapa District Health Board. It will be spread right across the country. I was just interested in the bowel screening thing because you know as women we have cervical screening and we also have breast cancer screening as well. I was just interested in how many people are affected by bowel screening and I was shocked to find out that bowel cancer actually affects more people than those who die on our roads through car crashes. We have more people dying of bowel cancer than breast cancer and prostate cancer put together. I think it is an amazing thing that we are doing for the people who suffer from cancer. For someone who has actually recently lost a good friend through cancer I think any screening that provides prevention work in the health sector has to be really good. I support that.On this side of the House we are actually committed and focused on achieving results for New Zealanders up and down the country. We are committed to supporting them and their families to achieve their goals to have aspiration and to actually set the goals for them to decide they want to own a home to have certain educational goals and for them to have aspirations for their families. Under National there are 40 new houses—earlier other members actually talked about some of the issues with Auckland. I live in Auckland as well and I know that we have a major shortage in houses but this side of the House this Government has delivered 40 new houses being built every day in Auckland. That is four times more than what was being delivered back in 2008 when Labour was in charge. So when Labour turns round and says we are not delivering anything it is actually wrong. We are doing four times more than what it was doing when it was responsible for the Treasury benches.We are growing social housing as well so there are opportunities to support those needs right across the sector. Over the summer I was very fortunate to attend the sod-turning of the Chinese New Settlers Services Trust which is investing in providing social housing for the senior members of the Chinese community. It is a partnership between the Government and the private sector. The trust was actually doing something about its own community’s need for social housing for its senior members. I congratulate the trust on the work that it does because I think it is really important. This is just one of the many enterprising community groups of all shapes and sizes that are responding to the needs of their own communities and I think we need to celebrate that.More than 150 special housing areas have now been announced through the special housing accord to relieve the housing situation in Auckland. Hundreds of hectares of new housing land designed for affordable homes for Kiwi families and for the development of new homes has been released. It is freeing up over $100 million worth of land surplus to the Crown holding. It will help more families on to the property ladder and owning their own property and I think that is really important. The housing market has now reached record levels for building growth. When you look at the number of houses that we are building we have hit an 11-year high. Consents have been issued for more than 28000 new dwellings around New Zealand. This is on track to be 15000 more homes built than during the last Parliament—a total of 85000 new homes to 2017. This will be achieved and it will help to grow the New Zealand housing stock to ease the demand on supply and give New Zealand families more opportunities around the country. This is excellent work done by the Hon Nick Smith and we should be congratulating him on his work.Some have been calling this Budget a little boring but I think that sometimes boring can be a good thing. We need to be conservative. We are not into just taxing and spending like the members opposite. We are about responsibly managing this Government this economy and making sure that we are frugal in the way that we spend our taxpayers’ money. What we need to do is spend it in the right places. I cannot see what is boring about getting more New Zealanders into jobs building more affordable homes and growing our economy. Helping to support the training of 42000 apprentices across the country is actually not boring at all and neither is $24 million being invested to support more training of apprentices—more aspirational young New Zealanders. Not everybody goes to university to study for a degree and become a fantastic architect doctor or an accountant. Some people are more suited to trade training and I think the fact that we are spending $24 million on helping people into trades academies into trades as apprentices to grow their skills and get them into a job is a really fantastic thing. The training of 42000 apprentices up and down the country is a fantastic number.This leads me to an important point about the number of people who are leaving school with National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) level 2. Back in 2008 the number of students gaining NCEA level 2 was only about 68 percent. Minister Parata—every time I talk about Minister Parata I remember the look in her eyes whenever she talks about student achievement. She is so passionate about student achievement. I think when you look at the fact that we now have 84 percent of students who reach NCEA level 2—from 68 percent back in 2008 to 84 percent now—that is a fantastic achievement. I think we need to congratulate our Ministers of Education. The record $11 billion investment to support aspirational New Zealanders and their education cannot be boring and it should not be dismissed. I think we should celebrate that.Congratulations to our Ministers of Education and I thank them personally as well. The Mt Albert electorate although I am a list member based there has had a lot of benefit. Balmoral School and Western Springs College have received a lot of money for the new building and renovation work that they are doing. The Community Education Hub in Point Chevalier is gaining benefits for the students there and obviously for the families that are in the electorate as well.The other thing that I feel really passionate about is the funding for Pharmac. There is $124 million more funding available for Pharmac. What that really means is more money for more medicines for more New Zealanders. When health care is at the forefront of our Budget it is something that we should celebrate because ultimately health is really more important. We could grow the economy but when we do not have healthy families and healthy children who can celebrate the wealth of our country I think it is a sad country indeed. I think when we are providing better health-care more funding for things like advanced melanoma drugs or hepatitis C drugs when we are investing—I mean we are the Government that delivered Herceptin to the women of New Zealand. When we are delivering more drugs that are relevant to growing healthier New Zealanders I think we need to celebrate that. I actually welcome the decision that was made in respect of Pharmac. This is a great Budget and I congratulate the Minister of Finance.JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): I moved to New Zealand in part because I love the land. I love the mountains the forests the beaches. But I also love the people. What I noticed about New Zealand compared with America is that New Zealanders really care about fairness and they care about looking after those who are the most vulnerable in society.My parents first came to visit me here in New Zealand 10 years ago. They remarked how they did not see any people sleeping on the streets. Coming from Los Angeles they were used to seeing the impacts of horrendous inequality and a lack of a social safety net. It is very common there for people to be living under bridges in cardboard boxes and people are regularly bankrupted because they cannot afford to pay for health care. My parents thought it was wonderful that homelessness was so unusual in New Zealand because New Zealand had a social safety net and provided homes and shelters for those in need. When my parents came back to visit this year they could not believe how much had changed since this National Government has been in power. After 8 years there is an ongoing housing crisis. There is a two-speed economy that is leaving the most vulnerable behind and a growing number of people without homes who are left with no choice but to sleep on the streets or in cars.The Budget should have addressed both the housing crisis and growing inequality. It should be upholding that core value of New Zealanders which is fairness. A fairer tax system would tax the capital gains from investment properties the same as any other income is taxed. It is not right that people who go to a job have to pay tax on their income but people rich enough to own multiple investment properties pay no tax on the capital gains from that income. That is not fair. A simple change like that would help reduce the growing concentration of wealth in a smaller and smaller group of people and it would mean that more homes would be available to first-home buyers.The Budget could have introduced protection for renters which is something that is common in every other OECD country. There should be security of tenure. There should be a warrant of fitness on rental properties that ensures that every child has a warm dry house to live in even if their parents rent instead of own.Most important this Budget should have invested more money in building State houses. If we have a supply shortage the Government needs to step in and fill that gap urgently. The number of State houses per capita is at a record low here in New Zealand and that is part of the reason for the rise in homelessness—that is part of the cause. If we do not do something about it more people will be on the streets and living in cars. If we build more houses we can end homelessness. It is really that simple. It is housing first; it has been demonstrated around the world.This Budget could have made real strides towards tackling climate change by putting a price on climate pollution and that is fair. Polluters should pay for the costs that they are imposing on society. It should not be left to taxpayers and the rest of us to carry the weight while they make profits on our losses through polluting our atmosphere and our waters. Not only would it be more fair to put a price on that carbon pollution but that revenue could be recycled into a tax cut returned to families from the bottom so that everybody benefits. That would make our tax system fairer and it would help transition towards a low-carbon economy and green jobs. That is what is needed for the long-term future of New Zealand.The Budget could have introduced much more logical investment in transport infrastructure which would result in not only safer roads and cheaper transport but also a massive reduction in climate pollution.The National Government does nothing but give us excuses about why we cannot afford to solve the housing crisis why we cannot take action on climate change and why we cannot protect our rivers or get kids out of poverty. The National Party is the party of protecting the status quo. It is protecting the elite it is protecting the rich and it is making sure that the rich keep getting richer while the rest of the country is left behind. It is leading to a more unequal New Zealand. That is not fair. It is not smart. I do not believe that is in line with the values of most New Zealanders.The truth is we can be doing something to address all of these issues. We can and we must. The Green Party has shown how we can do this through a wide variety of policies that are entirely practical simple and sensible. We need your help to make this happen. Thank you.Steffan Browning: Mr Assistant Speaker—split call.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I am just assuming this is the second 5-minute speech. The member is quite a different member from the one whom I was told would be speaking.STEFFAN BROWNING (Green): It is Budget 2016 and where is the vision for sustainable agriculture? There was nothing in this Budget for primary industries around genuinely sustainable agriculture. Where is the support for the fastest-growing food category internationally which is organics? There was nothing. Go right through the Estimates—where are organics mentioned?This Government is still pouring millions into overseas-owned Agria PGG Wrightson for forage development. What is the nature of that forage? Is it something we should be budgeting for? I do not think so. A forage that requires something like three different herbicides a bee-killing insecticide and others to make it theoretically work—is that sustainable? Is that the sort of thing the Government should be budgeting for or should it be doing a Budget with vision for the fastest-growing sector internationally which is organics? Do our communities want pesticides in their food—in their food chain? No they do not. So why is National supporting what it calls innovation when it is actually not sustainable for New Zealand farmers? We do not want pesticides and toxins in our food chain; nor do our customers internationally. The fastest-growing sector of demand is organics.Progressive countries have also in their Budgets put in pesticide reduction strategies. They aim to take pesticides out of their food chains and out of the environments where their kids play where the pets are and where we are. They work on that. What does this Government do? Nothing like that. Where is the doubling or tripling or whatever is needed for our Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) to do proper risk assessments of—have a proper inquisitorial look at—the multitude of pesticides that are in our environment?The National Government intends there to be a lot more. National has ticked through more than 270 new herbicide formulations in its time 125 new insecticides and 184 new fungicide formulations. Where is the strategy for balancing that up? There is no strategy at all. Do we want pesticides in our food? No we do not. Do we want them in our children’s parks? Do we want them in the other parks? Do we want them in the streets? Do we want them in the air? No we do not. We do not want them in the water either but there is no strategy.In this Budget there could have been vision because this vision affects not only us and our children but also the perception of New Zealand in the world. Multiplying the budget of the EPA might have gone somewhere towards that. It would have helped when those tourists come in and see those golden street edges of glyphosate and wonder why we are using so much. We would have had a potentially better look. The EPA is so underfunded that it uses chemical company data to make its assessments. The last time it did an assessment for glyphosate was 2009 when it used Dow AgroSciences’ data. In 2004 it was DuPont’s and before that it was Monsanto’s. We want independence. We would like to see a Budget that gives the EPA real independence to make good assessments and we want a clean green “100% Pure” vision for New Zealand. Thank you.SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Love is in the air.Hon Member: Oh!SIMON O’CONNOR: I know. Love is in the air. What an announcement today. As most in the House know I am actually getting married at the end of the year. I am quite excited about that but I understand there is another union. Another union has been announced in Parliament today a union that is meant to provide a contrast to the Budget that we are discussing today. Labour and the Greens are jumping into bed together. As I try to imagine that union in flagrante I am struggling a bit. In some ways I apologise for introducing it to the House. Look I do not remember Labour and the Greens fighting but they said they have been and now they have started to work together. I guess now they can put aside their loopy differences and can focus on the loopy things that they have in common. I for one am welcoming the Green-Labour nuptials. I wish them a long happy marriage full of new taxes legalised drugs criminalised sugar and the abolition of every industry in New Zealand.In a very practical sense it is not actually clear what either party is going to get from this deal which is a great contrast in terms of the Budget where I think New Zealanders are very clear what they are getting from that. With these nuptials the Greens have been promised nothing. Maybe Green Party members are happy with that. Maybe they really did negotiate a deal for themselves to help Labour in return for nothing and look that could be true. They did get left at the altar by Helen Clark in 2005 but you know they could fall for that again. As I have been told love is blind. But there is more to come out of it. Maybe we have to hear more about this. Already there are ructions of noise from the other side—not a good sign in these early stages of going steady. But really to the Labour side what are they going to see from this? Cabinet posts? Surely Andrew Little would not be selling his Labour colleagues down the river just for a shot at the PM’s office.The real question is: what do the Greens get out of this deal? Is my colleague who just spoke Steffan Browning going to become the new Minister for Primary Industries? And really is Catherine Delahunty at the expense of my Labour colleagues going to become the Minister of Foreign Affairs? We have heard today directly from the Leader of the Opposition’s mouth that this will not be a monogamous relationship. He admits that the Greens are going to get screwed again. Labour and the Greens indeed are going to take us back to 2005. But I do hope that Labour and the Greens—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Take care.SIMON O’CONNOR: —have signed a prenuptial agreement because I think it is going to be a very messy divorce and that ultimately is a huge contrast to what we have seen and heard in a Budget speech last week from a Government that is unified and that is focused and is heading down the right path bringing along if you will the people of New Zealand strongly wedded—to continue the puns—to a Government in the polls because it is delivering.In my own area—I just want to turn to Tāmaki—I think there is an enormous amount of good news there. Obviously there is a whole lot of stuff in health and depending on time I will get to it but we have heard about more funding in housing and we need only turn our minds to the likes of the Tāmaki redevelopment project. I think it is an incredibly good project. I am not going to pull a colleague from the other side of the House into it just in case he gets into trouble but it is actually a really good initiative. It is one that has actually been developed over successive Governments but is bearing fruit under this present Government: 2500 houses are going to be turned into 7500 clean dry insulated warm homes. Just going around Glen Innes in particular at the moment what a transformation is already occurring as those new houses are popping up. For those of us who have been up around Sunhill recently—a really good example of infrastructure spending that this Government is leading—one only needs to think of the cycleway that is going from Glen Innes through to Tāmaki Drive. Stage one is almost completed.We have heard from the education side of things that there is more money being pumped into education. This too has been manifest in Tāmaki in my own electorate when we think of the classrooms that were announced particularly last year. But we now know that there is more money coming not just of course for the likes of Tāmaki;it is actually for classrooms and infrastructure across the country. But I for one am hopeful that there is support in this Budget for more assistance in my electorate particularly in education. When I go around talking to the various principals and teachers it is very clear first and foremost that not only are they doing a fantastic job but also we have growing rolls. In fact in my electorate and ward intensification is already happening. By ward the most housing consents across Auckland I believe are actually happening in the Tāmaki or the Orākei ward. So why that impacts on education is actually because the families are moving in young families in particular. There is that growing pressure on our schools so I think it is tremendous to have seen in this Budget that more money is on the way.When we talk of infrastructure it would be remiss of me to not talk about the ultra-fast broadband. Again if you are travelling down most of the streets of Tāmaki at the moment they have turned a little bit orange as there are more orange cones than I care to count and primarily this is for the ultra-fast broadband that is going in. For whatever reason it has not quite reached my house in St Heliers yet—I am not sure whether I am to take that personally or not—but it is coming I am told. And particularly to Ethan who might be watching at home I am told it is coming up the road very soon Ethan. We will get up to a much higher broadband speed both download and upload.The other things that I quickly want to touch on because I am conscious of time are in the health space. I do this first and foremost as a New Zealander; secondly as a member of Parliament of course and as chair of the Health Committee. There is $2.2 billion of new spend into the health care sector in this Budget and that is building again on a very strong—if I can continue from a bit earlier—relationship that the Government has had with the health sector and I think fundamentally from understanding the health sector. I know colleagues of mine particularly on the National Party side of the Health Committee are out and about engaging with the communities—my colleague Barbara Kuriger is nodding her head. In fact we just had people from the Rural Health Alliance Aotearoa New Zealand come and talk to us recently. So more money is being made available to district health boards and the like which is fundamentally important. More money is going into elective surgeries.As a number of people are pointing out there is more money going into the pharmaceutical budget which I think is immensely important. I think it is useful for the House to note that the extra funding that has been announced obviously is for the likes of drugs for metastatic cancer in the melanoma space. We have heard about the remarkable drug in the hepatitis C market that does not manage hepatitis C but actually cures it but there are five other drugs as well that are being looked at. So again there is a remarkable opportunity there. This is a very strong spend and I think one that will continue to have to be looked at by Government. Those who have any interest in the health space will understand that these new biologics or immunotherapies are quite remarkable drugs. In fact just thinking quickly and briefly some of the drugs that have been put forward for the skin cancer of melanoma can also be used for the likes of lung cancer. I was very pleased to be talking to some people from the Lung Foundation recently about that. The whole pharmaceutical increase and the whole pharmaceutical spend is a perfectly good example of a Government that is listening and doing its best to not only respond to a growing economy but also be prudent around the spend and understand that there are limits.The other area—and it is to do with health but it also reaches out into our academic space—is the almost $100 million that was announced by Ministers Coleman and Joyce around health research funding. I think that that is incredibly important as well. I am very fortunate to have several trustees from the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research in my electorate along with professors doctors and academics from the University of Auckland who are often chewing my ear on these matters. It is amazing what they are developing be it at the institute or at the university. But more money provides more opportunity not only to discover these drugs but also to do so in New Zealand which I believe has flow-on opportunities.Finally I just want to quickly touch on the question of homelessness. It has been popping up a little bit here in conversations. I do so primarily as someone who has actually worked with the homeless many many years ago. In fact if I could link it to health I remember clearing out some of the clothes that the homeless had left behind and in doing so I found a nice used needle stuck in my thumb—one of those sorts of experiences you do not want to repeat. Why I mention it is that homelessness is something that has been around for a long time under successive Governments. Some of the discussions here today seem to suggest that it is completely new; it is not. But this Government is continuing to address it and I very much commend this Budget to the House.PEENI HENARE (Labour—Tāmaki Makaurau):Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker thank you very much for this opportunity. I want to start my contribution by speaking about a well-known Māori woman a woman by the name of Te Pūea Hērangi otherwise known as Princess Te Pūea. She lived by a very simple mantra which was: Ka mahi ahau ka īnoi ahau ka moe ahau ka mahi anō. I work hard I pray I sleep I wake and repeat it all over again. She was a driven woman. She was a woman who by living by that mantra served the people of Aotearoa New Zealand. She went up and down the country serving—what we now call in Māori circles—te pouwaru te pani me te rawakore [the widowed the bereaved and the impoverished ones].She served those who were impoverished those who were in need. She did this with nothing. She did this through sweat toil and blood. She provided a service for Māoridom from all corners of Aotearoa New Zealand.I want to acknowledge her in my contribution because now I want to turn to her ingoa or her namesake Te Puea Marae in Māngere. Te Puea Marae is currently picking up the slack that has been left to businesses left to families and left to communities by this Government in providing services to the most vulnerable providing services to those most in need.Te Puea Marae over the past week has received over 45 families 45 families of varying sizes and of varying ethnicities: Māori Pacific Island people Pākehā people Indian people Asian people and Somalian people. They have all been received into her warmth at Te Puea Marae. The marae did this with absolutely nothing. It did this with no support whatsoever from this Government. The people do this they come together with a sustainable plan to help these people—something that this Government has failed to do. I want to commend Te Puea Marae at this point in time because it is doing a fantastic job. I want to thank those people. Can I take this opportunity to thank the many families of Tāmaki-makau-rau and across Aotearoa who have given their love money and resources to assist Te Puea Marae with providing this essential service.Can I also make commendable mention to Flick Electric which has provided free electricity to Te Puea Marae which is giving this service. Can I also acknowledge Mitre 10 for giving chest freezers to Te Puea Marae to allow it to freeze meat because Te Puea Marae is not just about servicing the homeless people who come into the warmth of Te Puea Marae; it is actually serious about placing them into affordable housing giving them a platform to reach the aspirations that every whānau in New Zealand has—aspirations that this Government has forgotten about. Te Puea Marae is doing a fantastic job and I want to acknowledge it: Huri the chairman; the whānau at Te Puea Marae; and the hundreds of volunteers who have made their way to Te Puea Marae over the past week to serve the people of Aotearoa New Zealand.What this speaks to is actually this country does care. Although the speaker who has just finished his contribution Simon O’Connor might only make a very small mention in this House of homelessness actually the people of New Zealand do care about other whānau. They care about families they care about tamariki and they care about mokopuna. Why? Because in particular with our tamariki and our mokopuna they are our future. So what we would have loved to see in this Budget is something that would allow those people—the most vulnerable in our society; those who are going into the warmth of Te Puea Marae today tonight and tomorrow—to have a platform to reach the lofty aspirations that they currently hold for themselves for their children and for their grandchildren.Sadly we did not see that in this Budget and members on this side of the House have pointed to the many holes in this particular Budget. They have pointed out how it fails to meet the needs of our country at this point in time but what is worse is that it also fails to provide some sort of a plan for the future because this Government is simply living day by day.Meka Whaitiri: Short term.PEENI HENARE: Short-term thinking—policies made on the fly—despite those members waxing lyrical about having “a suite of measures” and “a suite of policies”. Well in Tāmaki-makau-rau housing is a serious issue but we have not seen one coherent plan for that. We see them kicking people out of Tāmaki-makau-rau—in fact giving them money to leave.Pita Paraone: Take the problem somewhere else.PEENI HENARE: “Go somewhere else. Take your problems elsewhere. We do not want to see it.” That is what is lacking in this Budget—aspiration. I can tell you that we on this side of the House are disappointed because although the Government may try to fudge many of the numbers the reality is this: education spending is not there; health spending is in fact going backwards. And I can say this: in speaking with the many constituents of Tāmaki makau-rau and across Aotearoa New Zealand Māori aspiration seems to be at the lowest level I have seen in many many years.I want to speak briefly about Te Reo Māori. I love Te Reo Māori—I have said it many times in this House. I get excited about Te Reo Māori and I fail to see how by fudging the numbers you can say that there is going to be over $30 million poured into Te Reo Māori. Let us be honest here—Pita Paraone: Peter had to pay Paul.PEENI HENARE: That is right. We are robbing Peter to pay Paul. Let us be serious here. The money going to Māori Television is not for the aspirations of Te Reo Māori; it is simply capital expenditure. It is bringing Māori Television up to a level playing field.Pita Paraone: Guilt money.PEENI HENARE: That is exactly what it is—guilt money. It is bringing Māori Television up to a level playing field that has no aspiration for Te Reo Māori. Where is the coherent plan in the recent Māori language legislation that passed through this House? The questions are still there.I also want to mention Te Ture Whenua Māori. This Budget actually set money aside for a bill that has not even been passed through this House—a bill for which submissions have not even been heard from the people and the stakeholders of that particular bill. So what does this tell us? It is a fait accompli. It tells us that processes made by that side of the House actually do not work for our people.Pita Paraone: And two votes are very important.PEENI HENARE: Oh wow we will talk about that very shortly. But what message does this send to our people? It sends this message: those members opposite do not care about the people they do not want to engage with them on a level playing field they do not care what the people have to say and they do not care that the legislation made in this House is going to affect the people and their landholdings. They are simply going to bulldoze their way to economic prosperity without the people and that is the key.In closing I say this to the people sleeping in cars garages and carports across Tāmaki-makau-rau and Aotearoa New Zealand: Labour cares. We care about them. We have a coherent plan. We want to do the best by them to make sure—as I have already mentioned—their aspirations are met. To my generation to the people who are looking to buy their first home to the people of my generation who want to have a warm dry safe home to raise their children in and to give them the best educational opportunities that this world has to offer I say on this side of the House we have a plan. We want to see you in a warm dry home for your children and for your grandchildren.I say to the people who are struggling with health issueswe are listening. Labour and the parties on this side of the House are listening to you. We hear your cries. We understand the pain that you are going through because this Government is not listening. We are here for you.I say to the parents who have aspirations for their children and for the future of New Zealand that if they are serious about the future of New Zealand they will take a good hard look at this Government and the Budget that was presented to them last week and say “We don’t want it.” and say to this Government: “This isn’t taking New Zealand seriously. It is not providing a platform for aspirations for the future of our country.”In closing I want to just return to the mantra of Te Puea Hērangi:Ka mahi ahau ka īnoi ahau ka moe ahau ka mahi anō.[I work pray sleep and resume working once again.]And I say to all of the whānau out there kia kaha tātou.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): The next call is a split call. Barbara Kuriger—5 minutes.BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): This Government does have a plan for the future. This National Government is very aspirational. If you on the other side of the House talk about the National Government not caring about the vulnerable people I want you to look into some parts of this Budget that you have not actually set your eyes on yet—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order!BARBARA KURIGER: —because what this National Government is about is giving people the courage and the confidence to be accountable for themselves.We look at education. We are hearing all these questions about where the money for education is. Well I can see two fantastic pots of money for education: $43 million for our most at-risk vulnerable children and $42 million for the children who have special needs. Every day in my electorate when I am out talking to schools and visiting schools—and I must say in my electorate I have 80-something schools; somewhere around 85 and I am making an effort to get around them all—teachers say to me that yes it is really easy to measure the academics of those children who are doing really well but the ones they are struggling with are the ones who have either special needs or some vulnerability and they are most at risk of not achieving. It is really important for methat in this Budget this National Government has recognised that this is an issue and that these are the children we need to focus on so that they can learn to build their courage and confidence and so that they can be aspirational. We see some fantastic teachers out there doing some wonderful things with these children and this is about giving them a boost.Secondly as I am out and about up and down the electorate I hear a lot from people who have jobs in our provincial areas. They have jobs in our regions and they are very keen to have young people turn up with skills and education. So on top of the courage- and the confidence-building there has also been $257 million going into tertiary education particularly around agriculture and around engineering—around the things that people in our communities are asking for. No one can ever let me say that there are no jobs in the regions because there absolutely are. I see that every day. But what those employers are wanting are not only skills which we are actually providing but also the courage and the confidence for people to know that they can turn up to work every day and be confident aspirational young New Zealanders who want to carry out the jobs that are available to them.Next I want to mention health because we seem to get this feedback all the time that there is no money going into health. There certainly is money going into health and I really want to make mention of the $124 million that is going into providing dollars over the next 4 years for Pharmac to look at some of the new medicines. Being on the Health Committee I am aware of the fact that medicines are changing. Things are happening with biological drugs particularly around Opdivo which is now being looked at for melanoma. We are starting to find options that we have never ever had before. We are starting to find answers to some of our health needs. It is really important that Pharmac is given the opportunity to explore those with some of the new biological drugs that are coming on the market. We have also heard a lot today around bowel screening for which there is $39 million. That has been well received all up and down the country.I also want to make mention of mental health—the extra $12 million that has gone in mental health. We have seen a lot of funding go into mental health. I have actually been extremely aware of that in my own rural New Zealand as we support some of our farmers through the process that they are going through at the moment. Times are tough for them but communities are really supporting each other.Health education tertiary education—people standing up for themselves—come on top of the regional roading packages that we are getting. I just want to say also that the regional tourism in my area of Waitomo—for the Timber Trail Pureora there is $1.2 million for 80 beds. What is that going to do? It is going to bring more tourism and provide more jobs to those people. So we are aspirational. This National Government has a vision and it is an aspirational vision for our people. I am really proud to be supporting the Hon Bill English our Minister of Finance in the presentation of his Budget. Thank you.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I call Todd Muller—5 minutes.TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): It is great to be able to stand and support the motion moved by the Minister of Finance. Indeed I think he will go down in history as one of the best Ministers of Finance that we have had and this Budget talks to what he has achieved for this country.As the MP for the Bay of Plenty every now and again I do a survey of my electorate. I did one a month ago and I asked people to give me feedback in terms of the direction of travel of the Bay of Plenty electorate. Seventy-five percent said they expected their economic conditions to be the same or improve over the next year. The same number 74.5 percent said that the Bay of Plenty economy is going well or extremely well and this talks to the success of this Government and its policies and how it is playing out in my electorate. I did ask for feedback on the areas that they thought this Government should continue to work on on their behalf. They gave me very clear feedback that we should be focused on roading housing health employment and education.I went to two public meetings yesterday to discuss those five issues and others that were of concern. I could share the success of this Budget in terms of addressing those five areas. In roading I could talk to the total over the last few years and the planned over $1 billion of roading investment in the Bay of Plenty including the $512 million recently announced for the Tauranga Northern Link which I know is a critical piece of infrastructure for the Bay of Plenty economy. For housing—clearly that was an issue that they had raised in the survey—I could talk to the 3000 emergency places that have been promised: 60 for 3 months times four—that is 240 a year. In Tauranga that is an immediate impact for those who are struggling. So those on the other side of the House—those who are part of the alliance of Green and Labour who say that this Budget is doing nothing—are wrong. There is a clear demonstration there of our commitment to assist those who need more support in respect of housing.The national policy statement will direct councils to allow more housing development and the Bay of Plenty is already a test case in terms of being ahead of the game in terms of your strategic approach and the Bay of Plenty Regional Council the Western Bay of Plenty District Council and the Tauranga City Council for the last 15 years have worked at identifying where the settlement patterns were likely to be and where the aligned industry needed to be based. That is why we have an economy that is pumping well and that is why you can see that sort of approach being rolled out in Auckland.Health was the third issue that my electorate said they were interested in. In terms of our ongoing focus on health I can report $2.2 billion of additional spending over the next 4 years—$1.6 billion for district health board activity in particular. There was significant positive feedback on the $39 million to support the national bowel screening programme particularly from my constituent Brett Morrison. He has been a hugely strong and staunch advocate for this programme particularly since his wife passed away due to that dreadful disease.In respect of employment the fourth issue on the list I could talk of course to an economy in the Bay of Plenty that is doing particularly well. We have 5.1 percent unemployment. It is the lowest in the North Island. So there was significant resonance in the public meeting when I talked about our forecast of 175000 more jobs over the next 4 years on the back of an achievement a collective achievement with the people of New Zealand of 200000 jobs over the last 4 years. So it certainly resonated with my community.In respect of education I could talk to the significant investment in schools and new buildings and I have significant confidence that the Bay of Plenty will benefit both in schools and classrooms from that investment. Social services is an area that I think will be part of the reason why Bill English will be seen as being a great Minister of Finance in times to come. The thinking that has gone on to underpin our investment in social services has not just been the historical view that you achieve success electorally by just spending money. This is a Government that is focused on outcomes and does some deep thinking in partnership with the sector about how to fix complex issues that have structures that historically have not worked. Between us ourselves and NGOs I believe we are going to make a significant difference to those who are most vulnerable.I strongly support this Budget. It contrasts with the rhetoric that we have heard on the other side which is becoming stronger by the day. Their vision of the future is—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! The member’s time has expired. The next call is a split call. Tracey Martin—5 minutes.TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. Just with regard to the contribution by the gentleman who has just resumed his seat Todd Muller the people of the Bay of Plenty—along of course with the rest of New Zealand—should actually drill down into some of the statements made by the National Government members this evening. If they have a look at educational investment what they will see are things like nine new schools being promised seven of them being charter schools. If I could just remind the public of New Zealand that means that taxpayers’ dollars are being handed over to private individuals to create private schools funded with those dollars with which they can actually keep all the assets. It would be interesting to know where in this Budget if anywhere the Whangaruru school return is or how much of the money is being spent right now in the courts with lawyers and so on trying to gain back for the New Zealand public the asset that was handed over by this Government to a private sponsor trust up in the far north.But actually what I want to draw attention to is something that is not in this Budget. In February this year I spoke when the Prime Minister was in the House and I mentioned to the Prime Minister that I would be looking at the 4-year projections that are in this Budget. I said that I would be looking specifically for the promise that this Government made in June 2015 to 10000 orphans and unsupported children in this country when it voted in this House for the Social Security (Clothing Allowances for Orphans and Unsupported Children) Amendment Bill which was unanimously passed. It is not in this Budget. When I raised it in February of this year the Prime Minister sitting in his seat on the other side of the House shouted out: “It’ll be there. We’ll keep our word.” It is not in this Budget.There is a $7 million increase in this Budget for orphans and unsupported children which goes nowhere near the $16 million that was promised by that legislation and has to be delivered in the 2018-19 year. Please let us not have the members of the Government get up and tell me that they do not put those sorts of numbers in. Of course they do. If they are going to announce surpluses and tax cuts in the 2017 year it is madness not to have already written in a $16 million budgetary item that this Government agreed to and promised would be there for 10000 orphans.There are 10000 orphans and unsupported children. The Government recognises they are going to increase in number because on page 132 of the Budget document on social development and the housing sector the Government has put aside a net additional $7 million for orphans and unsupported children because there is an expected increase in the number of recipients. The only recipients can be more orphans and more unsupported children who are being taken from their families and placed with kin carers. That means more orphans and more unsupported children who will not gain the clothing allowance whose grandparents—who we know predominantly live on below $30000 a year because they are on the pension—will not receive this support merely because they have a blood relationship to a child who has lost both parents or because they have a blood relationship to a child who has nobody else to support it and Child Youth and Family has come and knocked on the door and asked these kin carers to take these children.I ask the Government: where is your promise? Where is it in this Budget? Where is your honour with regard to the promise not kept in this Budget? What will happen to these children? What will happen to these grandparents? These are the questions I ask. I hope that some member—and I take my full call on this because it is not a sideshow. It is incredibly important to a large number of New Zealanders out there. I ask any member of that Government to stand and say whether I am wrong—to tell me I am wrong. Point to anywhere in this Budget where that clothing allowance has been met and that promise had been made and that promise has been kept. I will guarantee you that not a single one of them will stand and be able to say that.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I call Pita Paraone—5 minutes.PITA PARAONE (NZ First): Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. I am glad I have got this opportunity to speak in this debate knowing that the people of Auckland are locked in the gridlocks of the motorways in and around that big city trying to get home and listening to this debate.Although members on the other side from the Government benches have waxed lyrical on how good this Budget has been for this country can I say that it fails to respond to the real issues. Poverty homelessness unemployment health and education are all issues that this Budget has failed to address. It is often said that as the economic path of a country rises so does the level of social injustice and that is what we are seeing because this Budget is for only a few. It has often been said that this Government has helped only its friends and the social injustices that we are seeing in this country today is evidence of that. Breaking news—at this very moment there is a 15-day-old prematurely born baby living at Te Puea Marae and that is a very very sad indictment of this Government.Although those members wax lyrical on what they have done under this Budget can I say that they have an obligation to do that. For goodness’ sake—they are the Government—they are required to provide resources to meet the social injustices that this country is currently facing.When the Budget was announced last week we heard the Minister for Māori Development taking the opportunity to extol just how good he was knowing that the previous year he took a humble approach. Well can I say to the Minister that under his watch unemployment for Māori has risen homelessness rates have risen for Māori and similarly for trends in health and in terms of education. The social indices show that it has not worked for Māori in terms of this Government and I think it is a sad indictment for us to be extolling just how good our Budget for 2016 has been.I have heard the comment about the Māori language. I too support the Māori language but $34 million? And it is being given to a department to administer when over the last 5 years it has underspent the budget that it has been given over that period. Thirty-four million dollars could house a lot of people. It can provide a lot of employment.We have heard the Government say that people are coming back from Australia because the economy here is good. Can I say that they are coming back because Australia does not provide them with the same social services that we provide for its citizens who decide to relocate here. So the Anzac spirit is somewhat lost and what has the Government done for our relatives who live on that side of the Ditch so to speak? Nothing. And they are coming back to what? Something similar.Can I say that although this Government might say that it has an aspirational approach to improving the lot of people in our country I say to those members that they have an obligation to do so.I just want to conclude by saying that with regard to the partial funding for housing the Westpac reports suggest that 11000 new homes are required over the next 10 years. This Budget has provided only 11000. So can I suggest to those people who are listening that this Government has not provided too much under this 2016 Budget. Kia ora.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): The next call is a split call. Gareth Hughes—5 minutes.GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I remember my first Budget day in this place. It was about 6 years ago and I was staggered as the parliamentary messengers rolled in boxes and boxes of official Budget documentation. It probably sat in the corner of the office for about a year. A few years later they turned up and—I guess they were a bit more innovative—they brought in memory sticks for all the Budget documents and in 2016 all the documents were finally delivered to us online. So I guess Parliament has probably saved a small forest of trees which is good but the question I would like to ask in this contribution in the Budget debate is: does the Budget see the forest for the trees? Even though we have got this huge deluge of information and screeds and screeds of papers and forecasts and reports and models it still treats people communities and the environment as if they do not count.The problem is that the Budget and our complex economy is simplified into a few narrow measures like operating surplus much like how our national success is measured primarily through GDP. It is kind of like a doctor measuring the health of their patient simply by looking at the contents of their wallet. This Budget measures gross domestic product but it ignores quality of life. The Budget forecasts a carbon price but it ignores the price of carbon pollution. The health budget focuses more on sickness than on actual wellness or health. National’s Budget is full of numbers but you cannot measure the cost of the Government’s decisions. John Key is liberal when it comes to funding flags but conservative when it comes to funding conservation and tragically a species like the Māui’s dolphin gets given zero cost when it comes to accounting in the Budget. It counts the number of people in work but ignores the quality of the work and the personal satisfaction of the workers or their precarious insecurity.It is a world that simply exists only on paper. It ignores the real world where a child in Whangarei is unable to get the special support they need to do well in school a family in Canterbury avoids swimming in their favourite river because they are scared of their kids getting sick if they put their heads under water or a mother in South Auckland tucks her kids into bed at night in the back of a car. The Budget is the headline act of the year’s political theatre and it is a classic case of reporting the cost of everything but knowing the value of nothing.I agree with the pundits that it was a boring Budget. It was a political Budget to set up tax cuts for next year; it was a short-term Budget that advocates responsibility to future generations of political leaders; and I would agree that it was obscene that this Government spent an extra half a billion dollars on the military and the spies and not a single State house is going to get built as a result. It was farcical that this was pitched as an innovation Budget when we see real-term cuts to tertiary education and it is idiotic to be spending money on cleaning up polluted waterways at the same time as you are spending more money subsidising to pollute them.There is an alternative though—one that treats people communities and the environment as if they counted. The Green Party has been leading the charge for decades on genuine progress indicators; measuring the whole not just a few narrow subsets—measuring what is important. The example I like to give is that once upon a time this was one of the richest countries in the world. We had full employment free education and a caring State. We did not leave people begging on the streets or sleeping in cars. Now Kiwis work some of the longest hours for some of the lowest wages and pay some of the highest costs of living in the developed world. We see a whole generation locked out of homeownership but these failures are ignored as long as GDP goes up by a few percent.They say that you cannot manage what you do not measure and until we start to measure the things that are important like the quality of life like communities and like swimmable rivers we are going to continue to encourage smoke-and-mirrors Budgets—moving money around to achieve a few narrow objectives.A Green Budget would be a Budget for all. I have a vision that we can care about having a richer New Zealand not just a wealthier 1 percent and today in the hall next door we saw the beginnings of it. We saw history in the making and a new Government in the making when Andrew Little Annette King Metiria Turei and James Shaw agreed to commit to working together to change the Government. Next year we can see a new Government govern in the national interest not just in the National Party’s interest. There is a new Government-in-waiting ready to deliver good jobs share the economic gains with everyone and not just National’s corporate mates and invest in people and education—a Government with values not prepared for kids to go hungry at school or for families to sleep in garages. With New Zealanders’ support National’s eighth Budget could well be its last.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I call—[Interruption] No you must stand and go for the call and do not worry about anybody else. This is a split call. Marama Davidson—5 minutes.MARAMA DAVIDSON (Green): Tēnā koutou katoa e Te Whare. Te Puea Marae in Māngere is working hard to house families who are without a home. My colleague from Labour Peeni Henare and I were privileged to be part of the Te Puea community in the weekend just gone so that we could listen and see firsthand exactly the compassion and the systemic and vital work that Mangere is doing to house people. Te Puea Marae is responding to the absolute mess and crisis that is a result of the National Government failing to ensure that every whānau has a warm dry safe and affordable home to live in. Te Puea Marae is leading and showing up the Government for its lack and its neglect of caring for our people.While we were at Te Puea Marae I listened to the stories of the donations and of the people who have opened their hearts to drop off goods and this is what I want to talk about in this Budget speech—what this Budget neglected to include. People know that it is wrong that our families are living in anything other than a safe affordable home; not cramming into the homes of other friends not living in garages not living in cars nor simply living in a home that is not secure because they have been asked to find somewhere else because the market is privileging using houses as a business instead of a home. I would have liked to see the Budget prioritise the fact that houses are supposed to be for homes not for a business.That is the real political leadership in our Budget that this country needs right now and certainly needs going forward because this mess has not happened overnight. This mess is a result of all of the previous seven failed Budgets. Wages and benefits have not kept up with the cost of living. This is why people are living elsewhere than in a good home because the rents are too high and the wages are too low. This is not rocket science; this is just pure basic good economics and basic math. This mess has happened because of an aggressive drive to cut and remove people’s benefits without actually having a good place or job or employment for these people to move to. Again people and organisations including Te Puea Marae are responding to a crisis and a failure of the National Government and this Budget highlighted even more that the National Government’s Budget does not prioritise caring for our families and communities.Real leadership would actually invest in the building of more State homes but also have a programme for affordable homes for first-home buyers. So many people are going to be locked out of owning a home but already people are locked out of even renting a home. Real leadership would be to also actually go and see for yourself exactly what is happening. As I am a resident of South Auckland I have been to Bruce Pulman Park in Papakura I have been to Te Puea Marae and I have been to the parks in Māngere where people are parking up in their cars at night.These are the things that should have been taken into account when planning our Budget so that we have a capital gains tax apart from the family home; so that we input measures to ensure that it is not more attractive to have a house for a business than it is to actually be able to live in one with your people and raise your family. Those are the sorts of investments that should have been essential and prioritised in the Budget. What else is a Government for if it is not prioritising our most vulnerable because that will—and already has—come back to bite us all anyway. Any good planning should take that into account. Again and to finish off in failing the most vulnerable in this Budget and the Budgets previously the National Government has failed all of us.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): The next call is a split call. Andrew Bayly—5 minutes.ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): What great times we live in. This is a very good Budget but it is an absolute travesty that few people actually recognise the situation that New Zealand is in at the moment and it is despicable how some people misrepresent the situation that we are in at the moment. Most finance Ministers around the world would give their eye teeth to be in the situation that New Zealand is in at the moment—their absolute eye teeth.We have got an average growth rate of about 2.8 percent over the next 3 years forecast by Treasury. We have created 200000 new jobs over the last 3 years and another 170000 are expected to come to fruition over the next few years until 2020. We have rising surpluses—we are going to achieve a massive $6.7 billion surplus in a few years’ time—which I know most Opposition parties are dying to spend. We are reducing debt back to 20 percent by 2021 which of course puts us in a situation where we can deal with any downturns that may happen in the future—it is prudent. And we are going to see increasing wages as we have already seen over the past few years.This Budget is massive in the context of today: $1.4 million in increased capital spending and an increase of $1.6 billion of operational spend. It is a big Budget. It is a big Budget directed at the right areas and it also means that the Government is focusing on delivering better public services and getting our public spending under control. Even with that bogeyman around the current account deficit the projections look like it is well within reasonable levels which is where we should be as a country.But all that I hear from the Opposition is squealing—squealing. What I do not hear from the Opposition is the connection between the fact that if you have good strong economic times you have the ability to raise money and to spend money; and that you cannot spend what you do not have—unless you are an Opposition party. We are in Government. We can only spend what we have and we have got to be prudent about it. This Budget follows last year’s Budget where we invested $790 million on the vulnerable people that the previous speaker Marama Davidson was talking about. But when I look across the other side of these benches everyone seems to have a very short-term memory.Let us look at the highlights. The first one I think—and this is one that got very little media coverage and I do not know why—is the $761 million that we are putting into creating an even more innovative New Zealand economy. We are putting $411 million into science and innovation where this Minister just arriving—the Minister of Science of Innovation—is doing a fantastic job in helping us to get to our target of $1.6 billion invested in science by 2020.There is also $257 million we are putting into tertiary education and in my view just as importantly the apprenticeship schemes. Most New Zealanders do not realise the level of apprenticeship schemes in New Zealand. We are already putting through 42000 apprenticeships every year and this is going to increase it to just fewer than 50000. Then of course there is the regional development that all my colleagues if I look around not only on this side of the House but on the other side of the House are going to benefit from.Then we have got the big investment in education: the $884 million that is going to go—most of it—into building new schools right across the country. There is the $42 million into helping children with higher needs—of course everyone believes that we should be doing that and here we have got a Budget that has allocated money to that. And the nearly $400 million package into early childhood education is getting us towards that target of 98 percent—we are just about there now but we are forecasting and meeting the future needs of increasing numbers of students coming through.For health there is that staggering package of $2.2 billion.In the areas that I think are really relevant like the environment I have just heard the previous speaker say that we are not doing enough. Well I think that we are. I think the emissions trading scheme (ETS) change—removing the one-for-two subsidy on the ETS—is a very prudent practical measure in today’s economy. We also have the $100 million investment in cleaning up waterways the $21 million for targeted pest control and the $16 million for plant species eradication.I think this is a very prudent and sound Budget.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I call Chris Bishop—5 minutes.CHRIS BISHOP (National): Marama Davidson is a new member of Parliament but she really needs to do her research or sack her research unit because some of the stuff that we have just heard from Ms Davidson beggars belief. What did she say? She said that wages have not kept up with the cost of living—wrong. Wages over the last 7 or 8 years are up 27 percent compared with inflation of around 10 percent. It may have escaped her notice that we are in essentially a zero inflation environment and that wages are increasing year on year. She is wrong.What else did she say? “This is a Government that has cut benefits.” She literally said that. Well I do not know whether she was here for Budget 2015 when we became the first Government in 43 years to raise benefit levels. What else did she say? She said that this is a Government that is failing the most vulnerable. Again look at what we are doing in the reform of Child Youth and Family—the hard work that Anne Tolley is doing in the reform of that dysfunctional organisation which is funded in this Budget. Look at the enormous moves that we are making in terms of social investment funding programmes that actually get results—not measuring things by how much money we chuck out to the agencies but by whether or not they actually make a difference. So none of those things she said are accurate.It has been an interesting day in politics with the political marriage between the Greens and the Labour Party. Clearly James Shaw has lost the battle inside the Green Party for the strategic direction of the Greens. Clearly James has lost Metiria Turei has won and they are rowing their boat and tying it to the Labour Party. James Shaw has lost—elected by the leadership but essentially no longer the leader. Metiria has won and has taken over. What have we got to look forward to—Steffan Browning as “Minister of Homeopathy” and Steffan Browning as “Minister of Growing Things in an Orchard in His Parliamentary Office” in a Labour-Greens Government?But the real question that is before the House is whether it will last. Will this political marriage last? Literally three questions into the press conference Andrew Little was asked: “Will this last?”. He said: “Oh well we are not going to be monogamous.” So this is a marriage in which one party is literally signing up to the marriage and saying: “Oh but just by the way I may actually be an adulterer down the line. I actually cannot commit to you even though I am throwing in my lot with you and even though I am moving in with the extreme left—moving into a house and getting married”.They are actually saying that they might be an adulterer with the chap down the road—you know the charismatic guy down the road with the twinkly eyes who has got a good way with words sometimes when he bothers to properly prepare? So it has been an interesting day in politics.But this is a great Budget from a Government that knows what it is doing and knows where New Zealand is heading and that is heading in the right direction. It is also a particularly good Budget for the Hutt Valley. Firstly this is because we are going to be one of the first regions that will roll out the National Bowel Cancer Screening Programme. I can say that that has been extremely well received in the Hutt Valley. More important perhaps is the big boost that this Budget gives to Technology Valley. Technology Valley is all about the Hutt Valley being the home for science technology engineering and manufacturing all of which are going to benefit from this $761 million boost—the Innovative New Zealand package—that Minister Steven Joyce has put together.I have got to say that it has been very regrettable to see members opposite particularly one member opposite criticise this package and talk about political flunkies handing out the money and how that is not going to be good. These are funds that are administered independently. The Marsden Fund which receives a 49 percent increase in this Budget is administered by the Marsden Council. The Marsden Fund funds Jane Kelsey so I do not think it is fair to say that the Marsden Fund is administered by political flunkies. She is writing a book—or writing a project anyway; it will probably become a book—about the transcendental nature of neo-liberalism in the modern world. I venture to suggest that if the funding was actually literally approved by political flunkies the National Government would not fund that project. It just gives lie to the claim that political flunkies do this.There is the Endeavour Fund and the Strategic Science Investment Fund. The Government is increasing funding in this Budget for Crown research institutes including for great Hutt Valley institutions like GNS Science with the funding that used to be regarded as core funding. It is very important. It is not administered by political flunkies. We have struggled for years as a country to invest in science and invest in our research and development capability and more important to commercialise the scientific research coming out of our great institutions. This is a Government that has finally done something about it by increasing funding in science to $1.6 billion and by actually putting money into the projects that commercialise some of the scientific research that comes out as well as increasing all the funding that goes into research and development. It is increasing business investment and leading us up the Global Innovation Index. This is a good Budget for the Hutt Valley.Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Economic Development): I move That this debate be now adjourned.Motion agreed to.