Robertson GrantHon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): It gives me a great deal of pleasure to follow on from my friend and colleague Jamie Strange who is a tremendous advocate for the people of Hamilton and the Waikato. When I've been in that region—to answer one of the questions that came across from the Opposition—he's brought together people from sectors including the arts agriculture and business to talk about the opportunities that are now on offer to the regions of New Zealand because there is a Government that backs them. There is a Government that doesn't come along and say We know everything's best." as the previous Government did but goes to the regions and says "What have you got? What can we support?" I want to congratulate Jamie Strange and MPs from right around the regions of New Zealand including some I might say on the Opposition benches who while they're in the Chamber want to try and take the mickey out of the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) but they're pretty quick to get their letters in. They're pretty quick to say "Actually we'd quite like a little bit of that provincial growth funding coming our way."That is actually reflective of the view in the regions. The cynicism that comes forward from the Opposition benches would pretty quickly disappear when they go to places like Gisborne and Ōpōtiki in the Far North and the West Coast. They see the difference it makes when there's a Government that gets alongside the regions. There's no cynicism out there about the PGF; there's just gratitude that there's finally a Government that takes this seriously. I want to speak on the annual review of Treasury and the financial statements of the Government at the outset. What I also want to do as part of that is to thank Secretary to the Treasury Gabe Makhlouf who will finish at the end of June after eight years in that position to go off to be the Governor of the Central Bank of Ireland—that's where he's heading to. He's played a really significant role in Treasury in particular in its development of the Living Standards Framework which sits at the core of the Wellbeing Budget. So I want to thank Mr Makhlouf for his service. I don't think I'll ever quite be able to forgive him for being a fan of the Chelsea Football Club but other than that he is a very very good person and somebody who has worked very hard on behalf of New Zealanders in the eight years that he has been here and we wish him all the best in his next move. But as I say Treasury's work on the Living Standards Framework is at the core of the Wellbeing Budget. I want to be absolutely clear. From this Government's perspective wellbeing means making sure that we look after not just the finances of our country—as important as they are—but we actually think at the same time about other measures of success: how are our people going? How educated are they? How healthy are they? How secure do they feel? We also make sure that in measuring our success differently we take a long-term intergenerational view. One of the things that has been obvious after 18 months in Government is that when you simply measure your success by one indicator you run the risk of leaving people out and leaving people behind. We run the risk that we think in silos—that we only think that what matters is GDP growth rate and that if that keeps going up we can be satisfied that there is success. Of course we want economic growth and prosperity but we want to care about who shares in that prosperity. We care about whether that prosperity will last for generations. Is it sustainable? We care about making sure that our focus is on the outcomes we want not just the inputs that go in. So this Budget will be different and I'm very proud of the initiatives that we have already announced that give evidence to that. On Sunday when we did the announcement on domestic and sexual violence—the largest single investment in eliminating domestic and sexual violence that has ever been put forward by a Government—there were 10 agencies who came together to do that. That has never happened before—to bring those agencies together and say one set of outcomes one set of goals. We will work towards eliminating domestic and sexual violence working with our communities. I was very very proud of that announcement. I can help Mr Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi in fact with his reference to the Office of Ethnic Communities because by waiting to make my contribution until after 20 to 6. tonight I can tell him that another Wellbeing Budget announcement has just been made moments ago which is to actually finally put some resources into properly supporting our ethnic communities in New Zealand. So we're announcing a nearly $10 million increase for the Office of Ethnic Communities to play its part in supporting our ethnic communities. I think actually in all seriousness across the House we know that in the wake of 15 March we can do much much better on behalf of our ethnic communities to provide the resources for them to chart their own course for them to be able to come together and for the rest of our communities to be able to embrace the diversity that is New Zealand. I think Minister Jenny Salesa who's been in charge of that work deserves a significant amount of congratulations. While I said there will be things that will be different in this year's Wellbeing Budget there will be some things that will be the same. One of those is the commitment of this Government to fiscal sustainability because while we are committed to investing heavily in the issues that have been neglected for so long we also know that we owe it to future generations to do that in a way that is responsible. So I am proud that in Budget 2018—in the period that is under this review here—we were able to keep our levels of debt under control we were able to run a decent surplus and we were able to keep our spending at a level that is appropriate and a level that is sustainable. We've had a lot of references in this debate already to Mycoplasma bovis. It is an excellent example of the unexpected and the fact that as a Government you have to be in a position to respond to the unexpected. There are always calls there are always things that happen that you don't expect and that is why this Government knows that we have to do that but it's more than that. It's actually about future generations and that's why in the report of the committee on these financial statements there's one thing I want to pick out and that is restarting contributions to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund. I sat in this Chamber through debates exactly like this for the best part of nine years and heard that the Government was not prioritising putting money into our Superannuation Fund. It is one of the best-performing sovereign wealth funds in the world one that is building up the reserves to make sure that we have superannuation for the future and the previous Government said that that was not a priority; that is taking money out of the pockets of future generations. So I am incredibly proud that one of the decisions we made in our first Budget in 2018 was to restart those contributions and that is already paying dividends. Financial and fiscal sustainability is important because it is about making sure that future generations have options and choices and we should be making sure that that sits at the top of our priorities. The other element that I just want to focus on which again is drawn out in the report of the committee is the fact that we are starting to do things differently already. We have reinstated the research and development tax credit. We have created a Green Investment Fund that will put us at the cutting edge of the new economy that will make sure that we are looking ahead. The priorities for the Budget that will be out next week which are listed in this report include the fact that we need to transition our economy to one where we are a true low-carbon economy. I want to re-emphasise the point that Minister Shaw made today: there is enormous economic opportunity here for New Zealand. We are very very good at the things that people want to be able to see—how we make agriculture more sustainable how we apply technology to primary industries and how we improve manufacturing at the high-value end. These are the opportunities in the investments that we are making. The new energy centre up in Taranaki the money that we're putting into R & D—those will put us at the cutting edge but things like the Green Investment Fund allow us to leverage off the private sector here as well. The important thing for me is that what this report and the Wellbeing Budget show is that this is a Government that has got its eyes firmly focused on the 21st century. We're not looking in the rear-view mirror trying to hark back to a time when the Opposition might feel that New Zealand was going well but actually looking out for future generations. That's what Budgets should be about. That's what these financial statements and these reports show—that as a Government we have our eyes firmly fixed on the future. We're going to build a more productive nation we're going to adjust to the future of work we're going to make sure that we are on the side of a low-carbon economy and at the same time we will invest in our people. We will make sure that we get on top of the scourge of child poverty we will make sure that we take mental health seriously and we will make sure that we use the evidence that shows us that our Māori and our Pasifika populations have been left out for too long. I am extremely proud of the priorities that are in this Budget. I'm proud of the record that this committee report outlines and I am certain that wellbeing is the right focus."