Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you Madam Speaker. We're speaking here in the response to the Prime Minister's statement and I have to say what I'd hoped to hear in the Prime Minister's statement was a plan for sustainable economic growth in this country that involves more than just spending a lot of debt-fuelled Government spending and cheap money from the Reserve Bank. Secondly I was hoping that we might hear about a Government actually delivering on its promises and better public services—as they manifestly haven't done so far on housing on transport and in myriad areas of COVID. The third thing I wanted to hear was an understanding that we need to stop the division in this country. I have never known this country to have been so divided so much division. Pitting one group against another is what this Government's all about. So let's just go through these things. So a plan for sustainable economic growth—now sustainable economic growth is growth that's not just based on Grant Robertson borrowing ever more money and spreading it all around the country and saying Aren't things doing well?" Eventually it has to be repaid. He plans to borrow an extra $6 billion this year for new spending in the Budget on top of the many billions that they've spent already. Now people might say "Oh well that's all very well." but hang on a moment how are we actually going to pay this back eventually? And how is it actually going to make the economy go faster in order to provide higher incomes and more jobs for New Zealanders? Well given the scale of the challenge that we face—and I've heard the Prime Minister many times say "Oh well we're not having lockdowns anymore; we're not going to move lockdowns; we're going to be in red but you can do most of everything and isn't that good? And we're better off than many other countries." I don't think she seems to understand that we now are entering our third year of very substantial restrictions on the New Zealand economy—very substantial.Our largest export earner tourism has been shut down for two years and is still shut down. What was our fourth-largest export earner international education has been shut down for two years and no end in sight. When you look at the hospitality sector the most depressing thing that many of us encounter on a regular basis is heading off and seeing the look of fear and sadness in the eyes of owners of cafes and restaurants and business outlets around town. I see Chlöe Swarbrick there—Auckland Central is a terrible place at the moment in terms of people just not being there and businesses falling over and struggling—desperate—and we're in this condition in the red condition for no end in sight from this Government. They keep on restricting our lives and what we need to see is a sense of urgency about reopening our economy and getting ourselves back on deck. Now what can the Government do about it? Yes we're dealing with Omicron. Well they could have been so much faster in so many ways. 2021 was the year where they mucked around for six months on the vaccine roll-out because other countries were needing it more than us and that led to the second lockdown in Auckland which has been devastating for the economy and added real pressure on so many people in Auckland in particular; an unnecessary delay that thankfully has been rectified but six months too late. Then we talk about what the basic sort of strategy for COVID-19 under this Government has been: to buy time in order to prepare the health system to cope with the surge. Well they bought the time at colossal expense. New Zealand has been of all the countries in the OECD—the wealthy countries—the one that has spent the second-highest on COVID response after the United States. It's us little old New Zealand the most isolated naturally protected country in the world—being a small population far from anywhere—and we managed to spend the second-highest amount defending ourselves against COVID-19 of all the rich countries. And yet having bought that time so expensively we did nothing with it and so the ICU capacity wasn't increased at all and so we've still got the problem late last year when we were unvaccinated that we had to lock the whole place down because we were worried that the health system wouldn't cope. We hadn't done anything about it hadn't gone out internationally and got the nurses and hadn't got the ICU things organised. Now when Omicron comes along we've still got the same old problem. We've got to wait we've got to be very restrictive—Hon Andrew Little: How many people in ICU?Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: —because this guy—that fellow—never got around to getting on to doing anything. All he does is talk. He ranted and raved like he always does and made no progress on preparing his health system to get results. And so time will tell—well they've got plenty of time. We'll look back and reflect upon it and we'll see the manifest failures in this Government to prepare. So when we look at the economy we've got this great burden of debt that's being built on us the strangulation of our economy for such a long time and when I look forward to see the plan for growth there is nothing there. The only plan that this Government has on the economy is to increase minimum wages and somehow that's going to solve all the problems of the world. Well that's very nice. A 6 percent increase in the minimum wage is good for those who get it but the rest of the workers will be wondering "Well do I need a 6 percent increase?" And how is that going to impact on inflation? When we see the real pressure—and we've heard so many business owners saying that it's a kick in the guts for those people who are struggling to stay afloat at the moment. On top of many increases over the last two years plus an extension of sick leave and a whole host of other costs being added on to business it does make it very difficult for them to survive. My second point is around a Government that actually delivers on its promises. We've heard so much about housing. We heard the housing Minister Megan Woods talking about the Opposition's sniping about small things: small things such as promising to deliver 100000 houses and delivering 1000 houses—a very small minor matter the almost comedy the complete failure of this Government's housing policy. They stood and Phil Twyford declared that they were going to solve the problem in 2017. Jacinda Ardern said she was going to solve the problem and they have made it colossally worse. The affordability of housing in this country is now an embarrassment and they keep on failing because they misunderstand the basics. On renting they seem to think that by making it more difficult for landlords and more expensive that somehow that's going to lead to cheaper rents. Well obviously we've seen rents go up by $50 a week this year and over $130 or $140 since they took office. That has put real pressure on houses and made the broader issues around poverty so much worse. We see the crazy approach they have to motels and short accommodation across the country. It was a disgrace apparently when National was in Government to have a few people in a hotel in an emergency situation. Now we are spending $1.2 million a day on motels. Half of Rotorua's motels are full of emergency housing. We've got more than 4000 children being raised in motels alongside gangsters and other people that are not appropriate neighbours for young kids. No wonder we've made no progress on improving the truancy rates in our schools which is a long-term crisis for this country. So the third point I wanted to hear about was some sense that we need to stop the division in this country. We see outside of Parliament I suppose the sharp end of the sword of a wider rage growing in this country over the divisions that we see. This Government talks about being a caring and kind Government but it has actually been one of the most divisive Governments in the history of this country. Jacinda Ardern pits one group of New Zealanders against another group of New Zealanders on a regular basis. If you think about it they pit landlords against renters. They talk about speculators. We heard Megan Woods going on about speculators versus people who are trying to rent houses. We hear them pitting farmers against city folk. They've been attacking the farmers and our mate David Parker is the excellent transporter of that always talking about dirty dairying and all the nasty things that the dairy people have done. They've gone a bit quiet on that recently because they realise that it's the only thing that's keeping the country afloat at the moment but that's by the by. So they pit the farmers against the city folk and then of course the vaccinated against the unvaccinated. And we all understand and we early on supported mandates for critical people and we continue to but as Chris Luxon has said we need to have a clear timetable to move on from that. Once we have very high vaccination rates we shouldn't be dividing ourselves and forcing people to be regarded almost as lepers as some Ministers imply. Then of course there's the division on ethnic lines that continues in this country as well by pushing too hard on a co-governance agenda and arrangements across government which is an area where many New Zealanders struggle to understand how that fits with the age-old principle that most people expect that everybody should have the same access and influence on laws and their implementation in this country as citizens regardless of what ethnic group they come from. So that is also divisive if it is pushed too far. So my message to the Government is: first come up with a sustainable economic plan that is more than just borrowing and spending; secondly actually focus on delivering better public services rather than just announcing it; and third stop dividing us as a country. We are stronger together as New Zealanders and that should be the focus of this Government: bringing us together rather than dividing us at every opportunity. Thank you Madam Speaker."