Upston LouiseHon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): Thank you Mr Speaker. I want to start by a fake news alert from the other side quoting outrageous figures. I'm proud of the fact that I'm part of a party that believes in fiscal responsibility believes in setting debt targets so that we can actually make sure as a country that we get back on track. Everybody knows in New Zealand the number of crises that our country has faced in the last decade. We need to ensure that the books are in a strong enough position to withstand the next crisis. So this side of the House is very clear about the fact that fiscal responsibility is critical that the ability to spend money is only at the willingness of the taxpayer to accept the Government of the day can spend it better than they can and that if debt is taken on there is a clear plan to get that debt back under control. That's what households do. That's why New Zealanders trust National with the economy because we understand that if you borrow money you need to have a plan to pay it back. So I absolutely and totally refute the fake news the disturbing fake news that we've seen repeated by the Government benches today.I want to start my Budget appropriation speech by just providing a bit of context in terms of looking at where we were as a country earlier this year because I think it is important and we recognise the significant impact of COVID but we must not shy away from what the state of play was before COVID. So let's just have a look at some of that. So the jobseeker benefit which most would understand as the dole"—we had 30000 additional New Zealanders on the jobseeker benefit since this Government came into office. Emergency housing grants: now this is a really interesting one because this is from a Government who said that every dollar—when they were in Opposition—on emergency housing grants was a waste of money and they would fix it with their comprehensive housing plan. Well guess what? Guess what? In the quarter before COVID there was $79 million in emergency housing grants—three times as many as when they came in; four times as much money being spent on emergency housing grants; over 18000 people on the social housing register. That's more than three times the number two years earlier. And do you know what's worse in terms of housing? This is a Government who said in Opposition that they would fix the housing crisis—they would fix it; they had a comprehensive housing plan—over 200 days someone is waiting if they're on the social housing register.Now the other thing that the person before me claimed was the Government's record on their amazing State house build programme: 3000. Guess what? Fifteen hundred of those half of them were planned started consented under National. So thanks National—thanks National. Kiritapu Allan: Sold down the State houses.Hon LOUISE UPSTON: Oh selling State houses. Great because Labour said they would not sell State houses. Let me look at the number: 146 State houses sold under Labour. "Oh but we're stopping the sell-off of State houses"—$30 million brought in—$30 million. So when National sells a State house and puts three in its place that's not allowed. Oh but when they do it it's completely acceptable!This is the party that was solving every element with their comprehensive housing plan! So what have we got? We've got what? Three hundred and eighty KiwiBuild houses and we're expecting what? Sixteen thousand—16000 were promised. So KiwiBuild's gone. Emergency housing grants were meant to be gone but actually we're now spending more than ever before. And this is before COVID—I'm talking before COVID. So it's quite interesting that that side of the House likes to paint their own kind of picture of what they've done but what we're seeing is a very common thread. I think New Zealand needs to really pay attention to this because what they are going to do what they are trying to do is blame everything on COVID. Well I've just given you a bunch of examples of how things particularly in the social policy space were going backwards chronically under this Government. Here's another one: child poverty. So the Prime Minister herself took on the responsibility of child poverty reduction. She promised to reduce it by 20000—reduce the number of children living in poverty by 20000 by 2021. Do you know what? We have 11000 more children living in material hardship which is the worst type pre-COVID—pre-COVID. So any time that side of the House talks about COVID having an impact on everything I would just encourage New Zealanders to look back at their record before the health crisis hit because as a country we were not in good shape pre-COVID. I accept now the economic and unemployment crisis is absolutely dire: 212000 people currently on unemployment benefits. Oh that's right. The Minister of Finance pretends that those getting the COVID payment the 20000 of them aren't unemployed. No no no. I'm not allowed to call them "on the unemployment benefit" even though they're out of work and—guess what—they're getting a benefit.So the challenge for the Government my challenge to them is to face facts. Don't bury your head in the sand when you're talking about the size of the economic crisis and when talking about jobs. We hear them talking about jobs—where are they? Where are the jobs? Jobs aren't in an announcement. Jobs aren't when you announce something. In terms of the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) let's look at the record of that. Are we at 1400 jobs? Ten thousand were promised. Oh but no Shane Jones has been ringing around his mates to try and make sure there's a few more jobs created out of the PGF. Created and employed and existing are not the same thing. So when this side of the House talks about creating jobs let's look at some of the jobs that were created through infrastructure projects for example. The Cambridge section of the Waikato Expressway: 300 jobs; 30 of those were people on benefit who weren't in jobs prior. So that's what National means. When we talk about the ability through infrastructure through a strong economic plan to create jobs we know we can deliver. If I look at the people in my electorate who are in work because of initiatives we put in place they struggled through the global financial crisis but 10000 jobs a month were created. They were real jobs real jobs for real people and I really worry—I really worry—about the next couple of months particularly when we see the wage subsidy lift. I accept it was a great initiative and great to see money out the door but there are now 452000 people on the wage subsidy. Their banks won't lend them money because they say anybody supported by the wage subsidy is in a vulnerable job.So what's going to happen when that ends? They'll go on to the COVID payment many of them. Oh but that's not unemployment benefit. Yeah right! They've lost their job and for every person who loses their job that's a family unable to provide for themselves. That's why unashamedly this side of the House focuses on the absolute critical importance of real jobs because real people in real need need the ability to earn an income. That's why in terms of our plan it's a strong economic plan it's based on fact it's based on reality and it's based on our ability to deliver for New Zealanders.I want to finish on this because unfortunately the Government has completely misunderstood what social investment is. Social investment is actually being able to change the lives of the most vulnerable New Zealanders. Unfortunately we're going to see a growing number. This side of the House doesn't believe that purely throwing money at things solves people's difficulties. We must completely rework the way that we deliver services to those who need us most so we can change the lives of New Zealand's most vulnerable. That is why I don't support this Budget and I love this National Party."