Parker David; Rurawhe AdrianThird ReadingHon DAVID PARKER (Minister of Revenue): I move That the Taxation (Cost of Living Payments) Bill be now read a third time. What a great day to be in Government. I've been in this place for 20 years. My anniversary is in a couple of months' time and I've never ever in the 20 Budgets that I've been here for seen such a depressed Opposition on the first morning of the continuance of the urgency motion. The contributions from that side—I know they're awake they've arrived here come through the rain on a Wellington grey day but the depression on the other side is palpable. I can see why. Completely taken by surprise by the Budget—completely. The terrible design of their tax policy in comparison laid bare and they're left with accusations in the debates on this bill about fiscal profligacy—prophets of doom on the other side. We have to remind them that this bill gives $350 to 2.1 million people—2.1 million people assisted with the cost of living—on top of the extensions to the slashing of excise duty to the cutting of road-user charges and the halving of public transport costs. This country recognises that we have had one of if not the best responses to COVID in the world both health-wise and economically. And as a consequence New Zealand's economy has already bounced back to being pre-COVID size and growth rates are higher than they were pre-COVID. Unemployment is at an incredibly good low level of 3.2 percent and the Government's books go back into surplus—notwithstanding the astounding shock of COVID—a year earlier than National got the books back into surplus after the global financial crisis (GFC). Against all of that background the National Party still say Oh profligate Government stoking inflation." when our expenditure in this coming year according to the Budget documents is 31.6 percent of GDP compared with 34 percent of GDP under National after the GFC.It's no wonder that the commentators are picking that this is a great Budget but so are the punters.Hon Gerry Brownlee: Name one! He can't find one.Hon DAVID PARKER: Well I'm actually looking for a list of some of the quotes—I'm looking for some of the statements by punters throughout the country who are saying that this $27 per week helps. But I'm going to give up on that because I can't find the piece of paper. The pundits up and down the country are saying that the National Party tax cuts would have given less to low and middle income earners than this $27 a week; $2 a week for a low income earner under the National Party's tax cuts a $270000 tax saving for the chief executive officers (CEOs) who are at the top end of the spectrum—270000 per annum. People know that one the country can't afford that after the COVID costs—Hon Paul Goldsmith: This is muckraking.Hon DAVID PARKER: —and two that it would be—"muckraking" says the Hon Paul Goldsmith.Hon Gerry Brownlee: Put some numbers on it.Hon DAVID PARKER: $270000 is the number that the CEO of Air New Zealand would have got from the tax cuts that National Party proposed and $2 a week was what a low-income earner would have got—about 110 bucks a year compared with the $350 that low and middle income earners get under this package. This is a very very good bill and I thought Audrey Young summed it up very well. She said that Grant Robertson delivered a measured response to the current crisis and she said that he had written a "Goldilocks Budget" neither too much nor too little that it had targeted the tax cuts better than the National Party's alternative and that the Budget was essentially a masterstroke by the Minister of Finance. We're incredibly well led in this country by the Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance the Hon Grant Robertson who I think has delivered a Budget in difficult circumstances. Now the final thing I would point out is that the Hon Gerry Brownlee just gave a contribution on the title debate where he said that people were 6 or 7 percent behind and he quoted the number. He ignores wage increases—typical of the economic illiteracy on the National Party side of the equation. He just talks about inflation but not wage increases. Even this year that we're in the only year in the past five years where wage growth is lower than inflation and the only year that it will be under this Government—because forward projections out to the end-year forecasts have wage growth higher than inflation—with inflation predicted to be 6.7 percent wage growth has been 4.6 percent. The gap is not 6.7 percent as the National Party illiterately repeat in this House; the difference is 2 percent—the difference is 2 percent. And we as a Government are doing what we can to assist people with that reality. We all know that inflation is here that it's not caused by the Government. There was a bit of a spat on TV last night with a leading New Zealand economist Shamubeel Eaqub calling out the illiteracy of the ACT Party on this issue. The main causes of inflation are the disrupted supply chains as a consequence of COVID including disrupted production in China and transport constraints that have been disrupted through COVID. And then of course virtually the whole of the world is bouncing out of COVID at the same time. So demand pressures around the world have spiked which is in itself inflationary. And then on top of that we've got the war in Ukraine which has doubled fuel prices which feeds through to food prices in part because the cost of fertiliser has gone up by 38 percent. So we all know those are the causes of inflation but we also know that it's real for New Zealand consumers and that's why we're doing our bit to assist them through this measure which is fiscally responsible will help 2.1 million New Zealanders and is widely seen by the media as being a good Budget.DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed to."