Pallett SarahSARAH PALLETT (Labour—Ilam): Thank you Madam Speaker. I appreciate the opportunity to stand and speak on these extremely interesting bills the Imprest Supply (First for 2023/24) Bill and the Appropriation (2023/24 Estimates) Bill.This is the first time that I've been speaking on the imprest supply bill and I hope that won't be too obvious. This is a technical bill as many people are not aware and in fact to be completely frank I needed a bit of revision on what this actually meant. The Estimates are a forecast on what's about to be spent as everybody here knows. But what the impress supply Acts are are a regular part of the annual Budget cycle with the emphasis on regular. This is as my colleague Ingrid Leary said business as usual. For every political party that has stood here post-Budget the Crown as we know cannot spend public money or incur expenses or capital expenditure without appropriation or other authority from Parliament. And that's why we find ourselves standing here today. In other words this is utterly normal—I hate to say the word boring" because who could possibly think that anything we do here is boring! Every financial year—speaking to the regularity—there are at least two imprest supply Acts. On occasion there are more than two. Every Government has had multiple imprest supply bills in each financial year and they cover the period from the start of the financial year until the main appropriations Act is passed.So that's enough of the technical stuff because we've heard members talking about recession about interest rates and about unemployment. And I have to say I did feel the need for a little teeny tiny bit of fact-checking; I like a bit of a fact-check. Because it's true that we are in a technical recession at the moment. The word here is a "technical" recession and words to go with that are "very shallow" technical recession. And this very shallow technical recession has been as Chlöe Swarbrick said earlier or I may be paraphrasing "intentionally engineered by the Reserve Bank". Because a true recession would be accompanied by high unemployment and that's where a little bit more fact-checking comes in. A true recession would be accompanied by high unemployment but we are currently in New Zealand close to historically low unemployment rates at 3.4 percent. The UK is sitting at 3.9 percent. We heard conversation a little bit earlier in Prime Minister's questions from the other side of the House about how poorly the Government was doing. And frankly that's utter nonsense. The UK is sitting at 3.9 percent Australia 3.7 percent and New Zealand 3.4 percent; near-historic lows. Matt Doocey: Not in a recession though are they?SARAH PALLETT: Inflation Mr Doocey. I know you're absolutely desperate to hear me talking about how well we're doing in New Zealand and that's not to say that things are not tough. We as a Government recognise that people are doing it tough—6.7 percent inflation Mr Doocey but falling. The UK: 8.7 percent and rising. Australia: 7.8 percent. It's interesting for us all to realise that the economy is 6.7 percent larger than it was before COVID.We had a little bit of conversation a bit earlier about debt to GDP ratios. Well in the UK for the first time since 1961 they've reached 100.1 percent—100.1 percent whereas New Zealand is sitting at 35 percent debt to GDP ratio which I don't—I think I must be sitting sometimes in an alternate reality.Andrew Bayly: That's right! SARAH PALLETT: I gave you that one Mr Bayly I gave you that one. But when I listen to what you're saying from the other side of the House I have to say I am but I'm in actual reality. Heaven alone knows where you are where you say on the other side of the House—not you Madam Speaker when I refer to "you". On the other side of the House when you're talking about the economy doing poorly I find that extraordinary when we're looking at the UK at 100.1 percent.I know we're all very excited but let's have a little look at what other people say. Let's not just talk to each other because we can get a bit tied up with our own little bell jar here. The ANZ: "it's hard to diagnose this 'technical recession' as anything but part of the necessary adjustment towards putting the economy back on a sustainable path". And Westpac: this is "an economy that's in a transition phase rather than outright recession". So I'm going to return to what I said earlier: the economy is 6.7 percent larger than it was before COVID. People are doing it tough we know and that's why every single dollar that we have is directed towards supporting them with the cost of living crisis. And on Saturday I look forward to $5 prescription fees being scrapped."