Robertson GrantHon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I too want to begin my contribution today by acknowledging as the House did earlier on the passing of three former members: the Rt Hon Paul East the Hon Chester Borrows and Georgina Beyer. All three of them made significant contributions both to this Parliament and in their communities.I do particularly want to acknowledge my friend Georgina Beyer. She was the voice for the voiceless. She always approached every issue that she came across with extraordinary courage and bravery. I stood with her on the steps of Parliament the day that Brian Tamaki's Enough is Enough" march arrived here and I watched with a mixture of awe and genuine fear for her safety as she decided to go down and confront them face to face. Only Georgina could have pulled it off in the way that she did and I was in awe of her bravery that day as I was on a number of other occasions. I do remember during the prostitution law reform campaign that she began one of her speeches in one of the debates by saying "I'll take the liberty of assuming that I'm the only member of Parliament with experience of prostitution."—and then she paused and she looked across the Chamber and a few people looked away at that point! Georgina's life was full of drama—some of it scripted; some of it unscripted. She was a wahine toa. She was a person of activism of creativity and of aroha. And I along with many many others will miss her greatly. Moe mai moe mai moe mai rā e te wahine rangatira.I rise with great pride to speak in the Prime Minister's statement debate. I am proud of a Government that through a series of challenging crises and moments in our history that we never thought we would see has been able to prioritise looking after our people because that is the fundamental job of a Government. When we come to a time of crisis people look to the Government to step forward for them and that is happening again today as we deal with the outcomes of Cyclone Gabrielle and as we deal with the flooding that we saw in Auckland and Northland earlier this year. Those communities have been devastated and I know members from across the House have been in those communities have been working alongside those who are doing it tough and I want to acknowledge all of those MPs.But I also want to acknowledge the communities themselves who have stood up for themselves and for their people. I want to put on record again today that as we have done in the past as we did with COVID—and as we will no doubt have to do again in the future—we stand with those communities. This will be a locally led response because that is the right thing to do and it will be a time when central government works with local government with iwi with our communities with businesses and with workers to make sure that these regions get back on their feet. This will not be a short journey but it will be one where the Government will be with New Zealanders all the way—just as we are with those New Zealanders who are dealing with cost of living pressures.Right around this country we see communities who have been affected by for example the rising cost of food and by the pressures of inflation that are seen right around the world. The Government has consistently put how we support people with their day-to-day expenses at the front of mind. I think about initiatives like our school lunch programme. This was something that at the time we introduced it there was criticism of. There was criticism—was this the responsibility of the Government? And we can debate—Hon Paul Goldsmith: Are you going to fix the truancy?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Well Mr Goldsmith again I really don't think you want to be contributing when it comes to a discussion about how much things might cost or where we might get the money from. And I'll come back to you in a moment Mr Goldsmith. But on school lunches we know for sure that this is now making a difference in the way in which children learn and the way in which they are able to be at school not worried about where their food comes from. Time and again I travel around New Zealand and I hear from school principals and I hear from parents about the importance of that to making sure that not only are we supporting whānau with the cost of living but also that we are making sure students are able to learn.We've done the same thing with the support that we gave through COVID and then through the cost of living payment. I am proud that on 1 April we will be able to additionally support people who are on Working for Families who are on main benefits who are in receipt of superannuation. If I get one piece of feedback it's about the winter energy payment and that will come into force again from 1 May. That is a payment that makes sure that our older New Zealanders can stay warm through winter and those on low and middle incomes can be supported. I'm proud that the minimum wage has been lifted consistently by this Government because those who are raising a family on a minimum wage deserve to know that that will increase and they will be able to meet the costs that they are facing.So when we see that when we see things like the Best Start initiative—again started by this Government which from 1 April is going to increase to $69 a week—we know that we are doing the right thing. That's why we've extended out the cuts to the fuel excise duty and the road-user charges because we know that the cost of living is still that pressure. And we've got to get on top of the long-term issues that sit behind that. That includes making sure that we do have genuine competition in our supermarket sector to lower the price of food that people are facing; that we have used the inquiries done by the Commerce Commission to keep an eye on the margins that we have within our fuel sector. These are the things that a Government does when it's interested in making sure that we support those who are facing pressure from the cost of living.One of the things that I've learnt as Minister of Finance over the last five years is that we have to make sure we know how we're going to pay for things. While I would welcome—Hon Paul Goldsmith: None of your 2020 figures were followed up. They're all wrong.Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Mr Goldsmith wants to debate the 2020 figures as he calls them. Well Mr Goldsmith if he's yet picked up the bit of paper that he dropped that fateful day will discover that his numbers did not add up. That's the tragedy: this week the National Party is making the same mistake again that it made when Mr Goldsmith was in charge of their financial portfolio.We're pleased to note that the National Party has seen that early childhood education is a priority—that is a good thing; I welcome the fact that all parties in this Parliament I hope would believe in that—but it's a little late to the party for the National Party given that they froze some of the funding rates in there when they were in office. But my bigger concern here is that the National Party at the weekend announced a $1 billion policy—$1 billion in our forecast year—yet every single thing they put up as a way to pay for this is something that's already been expended. Now I know that the National Party might be looking at changing a few ways that they're doing things but going back and getting money from people who've already been paid it by the Government probably isn't in their list although who knows when it comes to Mr Goldsmith!The question that the National Party has got to answer now is: where does the billion dollars come from? Because they haven't answered that question up to this point. And unfortunately there is now a danger that the National Party again will fall into Paul Goldsmith's fiscal Bermuda Triangle. They always like to tell us that they'll be able to reduce debt that they'll be able to cut tax that they'll be able to fund a $1 billion policy somehow whilst doing those two other things. That was the failure of the National Party in 2020 and it's pretty disturbing to see over the last few days that the National Party has decided that once again they're going to be into that fiscal Bermuda Triangle. So the question for the National Party remains: what gets cut? Because something's going to get cut along here. There isn't actually baselined expenditure here that they can pull out; so they're going to have to find something. Is it going to be the people who help design our roads? Is it going to be the people who look after our water system? Or is it going—DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Robertson we've got about a minute 30 seconds left. I'd like you to spend at least that time—I'm aware you're responding to comments from across the House but can we just go back to the Prime Minister's statement.Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: With pleasure Mr Speaker. But I do think it's important when members opposite decide that they want to get on their high horse that they justify themselves. So I look forward to a National Party speaker telling us where the billion dollars will be cut from.One of the bits of the Prime Minister's statement that I particularly want to draw people's attention to is the investment of this Government in infrastructure. One of the things I'm particularly proud of is that when we came into office we inherited an infrastructure spend of around about $5 billion a year; we've lifted that up to $9 billion a year. It goes up to $12 billion a year on average from next year. That is the funding that builds our roads. That is the funding that builds 10000 public housing places. That's what builds new schools. That is what builds our health services that were so sadly neglected by the previous Government. That investment in building our nation for the future is something that I'm both proud of and I am looking forward to doing more of over the coming months.We must look after our people—our people come first and they always will for a Labour-led Government—but at the same time we have to plan and build for our future. That is now in the shadow of climate change that is now in the shadow of the extreme weather events that we've had and I know looking at this Prime Minister's statement that there is a plan to build back better build back smarter and ensure that New Zealanders have a country that they can be proud of."