Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): I want to start by also acknowledging the families who have suffered great loss on White Island in the dreadful events. I want to acknowledge the hard work of all those working to save their lives in hospitals around the country and wish them all the very very best.How is it possible that we could go from a country that was growing quickly which had surpluses as far as the eye could see and in two short years—two short years—to take that to an economy which is growing slowly on a per person basis in fact hardly growing at all and in deficit? Unbelievable incompetence to go from that situation two years ago to where we find ourselves today in deficit. It will be the first of many deficits that this Government will deliver if they get any more chance because we all know that they haven't ever found a problem that they can't solve by more spending.Why is the economy slowing? So we've seen the half-yearly update released today. It was going to be 3 percent; now 2.2 percent on per person level—that's only about 0.5 percent. Why are we slowing? Because this Government has got one hand dragging down the economy by adding costs by creating massive policy uncertainty wherever you look and so that the natural reaction of people who would invest to grow the economy is to keep their hands in their pocket and wait to figure out what this Government is doing.Then we've seen all the incompetence through KiwiBuild and in particular in infrastructure. It's amazing the gall that we have of the Minister of Finance to turn up and say We are the infrastructure party." They've done nothing for two years. The only thing they did in infrastructure in this Government for two years has been to cancel all the roading projects that National had on the go because Julie Anne Genter believes that she should never give in to the car fascists and because Phil Twyford thinks that we've over-invested in roads.So they cancelled them all for ideological reasons—have done nothing. They've severed the infrastructure pipeline. People are heading off overseas the builders. And now they come in and say they're going to spend up big. Well we don't trust them and we don't believe them. Why don't we believe them? Because they haven't delivered in the past and they won't deliver now. The Prime Minister seems to think that announcing something is all you need to do and that's the same as delivering.The Faafoi defence perfectly encapsulates how this Government operates. He says "Don't worry I'm on to it bro. I've got a plan but I've done absolutely nothing." And that's how this Government operates. That perfectly encapsulates how this Government operates—big talk no action. That's why New Zealanders will be looking at this big number—$12 billion they are going to spend over the next 10 years or however long it is—and they have no confidence that anything will be delivered because they can't deliver.What's happened with infrastructure? What have they done? Well they've cancelled a whole lot of projects and then they've talked about the slow tram down Dominion Road. We still don't know—two years after this Government has started—what the purpose of this slow tram is. Is it to go to the airport quickly or is it some urban regeneration project? Don't know. Two years—they still haven't worked out what the project is.And then of course we've got big talk around the ports from Shane Jones. What a disgrace to go about a massive infrastructure question—which is an important question one that we should be considering but which would have impact and consequences for decades to come—and have that driven by some kind of backroom deal between Shane Jones and a Prime Minister determined to announce something. That is no way to make major infrastructure decisions and we need to take these things far more seriously.Now if KiwiBuild is anything to go by all the announcements that have been made today as vague as they are won't lead to the results that New Zealanders need to see and want to see in terms of providing the opportunity for this economy to start growing again. What do we need to see? We need to see a Government—a National Government—that restores confidence so that people will invest and that revives the economy so that we can lift our aspirations as to what we can achieve in this country because right here right now the export prices that we're receiving are at historically high levels.We've heard nothing but "Global headwinds it's Donald Trump's fault it's President Xi's fault—the world is all bad bad bad and that's why it's slowing down." What a load of nonsense. The terms of trade are at full throttle. New Zealand should be booming right now. Yes there's all sorts of uncertainty out there. But the prices we're getting are very strong. We should be going well and we're being held back by a Government that doesn't know what it's doing.The only thing about horizontal infrastructure that we're seeing from this Government is that they're lying flat on their backs doing nothing. As Mr Faafoi said "I'm on to it bro. I'm on to it. I've got a plan but actually I can hold my head high and say with all honesty that I did absolutely nothing." And that's what we're going to get from this Government."