Swarbrick Chlöe; Willis NicolaCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Co-Leader—Green): Thank you Madam Chair—Chlöe Swarbrick for the record. Just some interesting comments there from the Minister of Finance particularly that one on a pledge to improve the quality of services. I think this is something that is worthy of a little bit more scrutiny and if the Minister would indulge me a little bit of back and forth. There is a few elements that I'd like to touch on in this contribution.The first is actually around the operating allowance which as we know from Treasury is approximately $100 million less than is necessary to keep the lights on based on projections around keeping public services as they presently are. I guess I would put to the Minister as I believe we did in the back and forth that we had at the Finance and Expenditure Committee—the great committee that it is—that deferring maintenance into the future or on one's health issues for example can cost a lot more in the long run. Here we have a Government that is saying that they are putting more money into front-line health services but we're also hearing from the front line—riddle me this—the fact that there is a hiring freeze and that there are professionals going offshore. The Government is saying that they're not making cuts to front-line services yet we're hearing from front-line services that these cuts are in fact being made. It simply does not add up.We also heard from the Government that they would be going line by line through expenses that the Government has on its books but we're then hearing that despite this apparent meticulous approach they have no responsibility where any of these cuts are then found to be unpopular least of all by those at the front line. And what all of this prompts for me is actually some reflection on a number of the debates that we've had in this Chamber over the last few months and it is something that I think needs to be put on the table and put directly to the Minister especially if she is to retain that operating allowance and her Budget as it currently sits.The first question would just be a straight-up question: can she guarantee that the Government will stay within that operating allowance that she has set for herself which Treasury has made pretty clear is artificially low and is going to be very very challenging to meet? And secondly can she guarantee for the committee that she is not going to move towards greater privatisation and sell-off of State assets? Just a few months ago we heard in a debate on the iReX project—it was pretty mask-off from the ACT Party when they argued for the privatisation of KiwiRail. And funnily enough they used the example of the partial privatisation of gen-tailers which are now delivering us the energy crisis in the form of keeping fossil fuels on life support in order to keep household energy bills high and therefore the profits of those gen-tails high as well. We've heard some similar comments from the Minister when it comes to the so-called capitalisation of Kiwibank and I think also in the context of this energy crisis and much of the hay that's been made by this Government I just want commitment from the Minister that there is no intention for further State asset sell-off.I also wanted to touch on—because it is actually really related too—the potential constructive liabilities that we have for meeting the Paris Agreement or our nationally determined contribution therein. I think the Minister and I had a pretty constructive back and forth on this. We got into an Official Information Act request and I understand that her office and the office of Minister Simon Watts got some advice on this issue. For the uninitiated the Ministry for the Environment and Treasury did a phenomenal piece of work last year which was published towards the end of last year which touched on how if we were to have a—basically to pay towards meeting our nationally determined contribution under the Paris Agreement we would be looking at potentially a liability of approximately $24 billion which would be effectively us paying other countries to do that mitigation where we refused to do it ourselves ultimately costing all of us all the dearer. And the proposal here from the Green Party is that it makes sense for us to have this represented on the Government books because it is a liability be it constructive or otherwise as far as the general public would concern themselves with understanding an issue such as this.Not to thread too much through the needle on this point but if I can just conclude on an issue that I've also had a bit of back and forth with the Minister about which is for the Parliamentary Budget Office—to ask her whether this is something that she has progressed any further work on because I believe this is hopefully something that we can have cross-partisan accord on and therefore progress understanding of what all of our election costings are going out so that the general public has baseline information to judge us all upon.Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): Thank you Madam Chair. Rather a few items there to rattle through so I will do so.The first is about the operating allowance and the member Chlöe Swarbrick used the phrased artificially low". Well I would reject that characterisation but I would say that it is the operating allowance required to get us back into surplus. If we were to have more generous operating allowances the consequence of that would be more and more years of debt accumulation and actually it would be future generations that we would end up saddling with that. I know the member is conscious of intergenerational impacts and this is one that she should consider. And actually if we were of a fashion like the last Government whereby the only way for spending to go was constantly to add additional layers to the cake then yes it would be an extraordinarily challenging operating allowance to meet. But our approach is different. As I characterised in my initial remarks we are constantly looking for areas where spending is not generating the maximum outcome or value and we will look to reprioritise funding so that we can put it into the areas that really matter to this Government which includes things like front-line education services which includes things like our defence force and our police service. Those are the sorts of services that we accept will continue to need additional funding.The second question was around State assets and I'd just make a couple of comments there. If the member is still labouring under the belief that the reason we don't have enough wind farms and solar farms in this country is somehow to do with the ownership model of the gen-tailers I would just put to her: go and read the evidence. Actually the considerable constraint those generators have faced is the consenting environment. It is very significant and I once again join my colleague Chris Bishop in urging her to get on board the fast-track bus.The member then also made comments about Kiwibank. Look it's not some sort of ideological burp. This is the Commerce Commission saying that if you care about fair and competitive banking services for New Zealand bank users then boy oh boy you should be on board getting a maverick disruptor in there and Kiwibank is best positioned for that. It requires capital. If the member's view is that instead of putting additional capital into hospitals we should put it into Kiwibank well I would say that if there are others willing to invest in Kiwibank and we can do that in a way that allows it to remain New Zealand's bank then actually we owe it to New Zealand bank users to do that.The next issue that the member raised was to do with climate change liability and how it sits on the books. I have released the advice that I have received on this matter. I am satisfied that Treasury has considered this properly and well and that this is not something that should properly sit as a liability on the books.Finally the member asks about the Parliamentary Budget Office and let me put on the record today that one of the things that disappointed me with Grant Robertson when he was in this role was that he went out there saying "We need a Parliamentary Budget Office to heighten our debate so that we don't have election campaigns with silly debates about costings and instead can focus on principles and policies." And then when I wrote to him and said "Let's get it done" he rejected my advances. So I do have that on my conscience and I have commissioned from the Treasury advice saying "What's a way that we can do this bearing in mind our current fiscal constraints? How can we do this in a way that makes use of the resources we already have but is impartial and fair?" I have not yet received that advice but this is something that I in good faith would like to make happen."