Finlayson ChristopherBUDGET DEBATEDebate resumed from 31 May on the Appropriation (2017/18 Estimates) Bill.Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General): I begin by congratulating my ministerial colleagues Steven Joyce Amy Adams and Simon Bridges on their splendid work on the Budget. They can be very proud of this effort which shows a number of key things. The first is that at the end of 9 years in Government this Government is brimming with good ideas. We are not a tired Government at all—and I go back to 2008 when I remember the Clark Labour Government putrefying before our very eyes. Then the second thing it shows is that we are a Government for all New Zealanders. We care about all New Zealanders. We do not govern in terms of a sectional interest but we believe that it is our duty and our responsibility to look after every New Zealander and that is why this was such a socially progressive Budget. What is apparent from the reaction to the Budget from particularly the Labour and the Green parties is that there are a number of myths and I want to expose those myths this afternoon—if you want to call me a myth buster. The first myth is that the left has a monopoly on compassion. It comes through time and time again—only the left understand the needs of the poor. Those members prefer the old Dickensian image that we are the nasty hard ruling class and they represent the poor and the underprivileged. So when we were the Government that raised benefits for the first time in 40 years they were stunned and so it was with what we did for care and support workers. There is not one person in this Government who believes that those good people were not deserving of some support. They are wonderful people and I think of the tremendous work that some of them in a rest home in Wellington did for my father in his last years. What wonderful service they performed and—I am sure he would not mind my saying so—he was not the easiest of people to look after. May he rest in peace. I can tell you this. Every person who is a care and support worker in that category deserves our support and they got it from this Government but the Opposition was simply stunned. One of the most egregious comments that those members made was that the Government was dragged kicking and screaming into a settlement and I actually really took offence at that. So it is worth looking at the procedural history of the care workers' case and can I begin by immediately acknowledging the lawyer for Ms Bartlett Peter Cranney who has had a long and distinguished career in the Council of Trade Unions. He is an outstanding lawyer who did a very good job for the care workers. I promised him I would make those comments in the House and I have done so. In fact I jokingly said to him some months ago that it would be good to appoint him to the bench if only to get rid of him. But Peter Cranney did a good job for the Bartletts and the case was commenced in the Employment Relations Authority in September 2012. It was transferred to the Employment Court a year or so later it went up to the Court of Appeal where the Bartlett team won and then after leave was refused by the Supreme Court the case could have had a very different and long and tangled procedural history. There could have been a number of other hearings and the best estimate that I have been given was that the case could have gone on for another 3 or 4 years. This Government said: Well we're not satisfied with that. We are going to do something for these people. We're not going to prolong the litigation." Our incredibly talented Minister of Health and our great and talented Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety got together and a group of us worked out a package and I am so incredibly proud of that. So the first myth that the left has a monopoly on compassion is wrong—wrong offensive and completely and utterly inappropriate. The second myth—and we saw it again today in the questioning of the Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage—is that only the left cares about the creative industries. Again it is wrong. It is generally accepted—and I say this with all due humility—that my tenure as Minister for the arts has gone down in history as the golden age of the arts. But I think it is fair to say—and I am a fair person—that the golden age continues with my wonderful friend Maggie Barry. One of the things that I keep coming back to when we talk about support for the creative industries—and I will just mention again what Ms Barry has said. There is $303 million for New Zealand Screen Production Grants—$303 million. I keep coming back to the rhetoric versus the reality. Of course it was the National Government in the 1970s that created the Film Commission and it was the National Government in the first term of John Key's administration that saved the film industry because I remember very well that it was really quite a dicey matter as to whether or not The Hobbit would be filmed in New Zealand. There was that rather unpleasant New South Wales trade unionist called Simon Whipp who came over here to try to kill The Hobbit and it was the National Government that provided the support so that The Hobbit could continue. We continued that support with changes to incentives in 2012-13. We all know that as a result Avatar 2 that wonderful film is going to be filmed here—like all of us I am very interested to see what happens when Jake wakes up as a Na'vi—and this is the sort of support that this Government has provided time and time again to the film industry. The Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage has outlined some other exciting things that this Government continues to do for the arts. So the second of the myths that we get time and time again that only the left cares about the creative industries—wrong offensive and totally misplaced. The third myth that I want to discuss with the House this afternoon is that the left will do infrastructure better. Well let me give you the best example—the best example—of the left doing infrastructure. It was in Wellington it was under our Green former Mayor Celia Wade-Brown and it was the Island Bay cycleway. The Island Bay cycleway is such a disaster that the Tramways Union contacted me asking for my help and I was the one who said to the Tramways Union president: "You've got a good case there." I wrote to the city council in support of the Tramways Union because the buses cannot pass along The Parade. That is an example of Green infrastructure—an unmitigated disaster. I was really annoyed the other day when Councillor Kedgley from the Wellington Regional Council was complaining that it was some kind of political stunt that we were not going to advance on the Basin Reserve. We all know there needs to be grade separation around the Basin Reserve but who is responsible for the continual delays on the Basin Reserve? None other than the Green Party and the Labour Party and their buddies because there is a sensible compromise that could be reached. We do need to move on that but we are seeing no action and it is because of a left-wing city council that is largely useless. Let me say this: when we have an opportunity to do things as my good friend the member for Ōtaki will tell you look at what we achieve—look at the Kāpiti Expressway and it is because of the tremendous work of Nathan Guy. But these days you would hardly imagine that it was the Labour Party and the Green Party who strongly opposed the Kāpiti Expressway. John F Kennedy would have been 100 years old this week and one of my favourite quotes of his is "Victory has a thousand fathers; defeat is an orphan". Well the Kāpiti Expressway is claimed by everyone as a great victory but it is a victory for the National Government. The opposition came from the left. And of course with Transmission Gully after all the talk it is again Nathan Guy and Steven Joyce who have got these things done. So three myths: the left has a monopoly on compassion—wrong. The second myth: only the left care about the creative industries—wrong. And the third one: the left will do infrastructure better—Hon Members: Wrong. Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: Thank you so much."