McAnulty KieranHon KIERAN McANULTY (Minister for Emergency Management): Thank you Mr Speaker. There is a word for people that complain and complain and complain and never come up with an alternative idea and that term is whingers". That is a perfect term to describe the National Party and if you need an example you only need to listen to their first contribution to this general debate from their deputy leader Nicola Willis: lots of whinging and very little ideas. I did find it interesting that the one policy that the National Party have she omitted to talk about and I wonder why. I wonder if that's because their policy of giving tax cuts to the highest earners when they're talking about the cost of living—I wonder if it's because they've worked out that giving thousands of dollars a year to the highest earners and $2 a week to most of us isn't going to make any difference to the cost of living. I wonder if that's why they keep it quiet.They are crying crocodile tears about the number of New Zealanders that are going overseas. They're saying that New Zealand isn't competitive yet every time this Government has attempted to raise wages they've voted against it. They have voted against minimum wage increases. They have voted against benefit increases. They voted against the winter energy payment. They know that when wages increase so too do the pensions that are paid to superannuitants and yet they oppose it every single time. They opposed the Best Start payment. They opposed fair pay agreements despite the fact that the countries that we are trying to be competitive with have fair pay agreements. Every single step of the way they have opposed attempts that have raised wages in this country because they want to focus on the richest. They want to focus on cutting taxes so that Chris Luxon can get thousands of dollars a year while the people that have served us through COVID as essential workers get two bucks a week. That is not going to assist with a cost of living crisis. They are all talk with no ideas.It's exactly the same with housing. They say the Government should do something. They ignore the fact that there are 10000 more social housing places in the last five years. After nine years of that Government when numbers went backwards they say we should do something about houses. We said "We agree. So what we're going to do is extend the brightline test." They said "Oh no. No no we don't like that."—even though they introduced it in the first place. We said that we were going to remove interest deductibility so that we don't have landlords fighting against each other and driving up prices—driving investments in new builds instead. They said "No no. We don't like that. Here's an answer: we're going to give them a tax cut because that worked in the past." That worked when they were in Government—yeah right it did! We saw a massive housing crisis which they refused to acknowledge and then they have the gall to turn around when this Government is doing something about it and complain—with no ideas complain. That's all we're hearing.We're hearing complaining about health. They wanted to keep the DHB structure. The DHB structure that did not serve rural New Zealand and that meant that those of us who live in rural and regional New Zealand were at the back of the queue for getting the treatment we deserve—they wanted to keep it. They said "No no everything's fine." despite the fact that when they were in Government funding to DHBs went backwards in real terms and then they turn around and complain that this Government is restructuring things to make it even work. They're stuck in the past. They've got no ideas. All they've got is whinging.What about education? They opposed free lunches in schools then they have the gall to stand up and say attendance isn't great after defunding truancy services. It's like they assume that people have no memory. They assume that if they're going to whinge then they won't have to come up with any ideas. We still don't know what they're going to cut to pay for the $11 billion in tax cuts that they're proposing and we had to rely on someone else to work it out because they were refusing to work it out themselves. They're trying to keep people in the dark. They hope that we get to the election and people will have forgotten that they have promised tax cuts but haven't told us how they're going to pay for it. They have assumed that New Zealanders are do dumb that they're going to believe their claims that they can cut taxes increase spending and reduce debt. It doesn't add up and people know it. They know that unless they give them the information how can they be trusted? They refuse to cost it. They refuse to tell us what's being cut. The only example that Nicola Willis gave cost $2.1 million. There's a fair bit of difference between $11 billion per annum and one $2.1 million piece of expenditure. I wonder why they refuse to give examples. I wonder why they refuse to talk about it. How many ideas have they given? None. All they do is complain and Kiwis will see through it."