Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. Speaking on this Budget Policy Statement and the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update of course which includes projections of future growth and of course all those projections are now cast into the air by the impact of coronavirus I just want to mention one or two issues there. Certainly it is having a big impact and will have a big impact on the projections in this update. We're seeing a lot of businesses around this country really finding it tough right now—tourism particularly the hospitality sectors forestry international education a lot of pressure on universities and that export education sector which is an important part of the economy. We worry about potential job losses but also people losing hours and losing their income and their smaller businesses. So we support the Government's initiatives so far in terms of the message they sent through IRD and the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) to help in the short term around payments around provisional tax and so forth. There's been some particular work going on in the East Coast. We do note that the Minister of Finance who will no doubt repeat it soon is right in the sense that the first conversation that these businesses that are struggling should be having is with the banks their own banks in order to make sure that they've got the money to get through. However not everybody will. So we do acknowledge that the Government's announced that it will be coming up with a business continuity package that will include—they've indicated some form of wage subsidy to businesses directly affected and it absolutely should be targeted to those businesses. Our point on that is that we think the Government should move with more urgency because those businesses have been under pressure now for a number of weeks. We know that it's complicated but we just encourage the Government to move swiftly in this area because we worry that the window of opportunity to save jobs is closing and we need to move fast. We're also particularly worried about the logic of helping those businesses but at the same time making their job significantly harder by pressing on ahead with the 1 April minimum wage increase which does make it harder for many businesses to survive in challenging times. Our proposal is that it be postponed—not cancelled not unwound not sent off to never-never land but postponed for six months so that businesses have less headwinds to struggle against at a very difficult time. We don't want to be making it more difficult for businesses right now. As well as that short-term work to help businesses most directly affected by the outbreak that we're dealing with there is the wider question of whether some broader stimulus is needed across the economy if indeed the impact of coronavirus extends beyond what is short and sharp—which it already has—into a longer more deeper impact on the New Zealand economy whether it is indeed leading to a recession whether it is a trigger to a much wider global slow-down. These things we don't know yet but the initial indications now are increasingly disturbing. So there may well come a time soon when wider stimulus is required. We'll be interested to see what the Government has to say about that and when they will make those decisions and we think some sort of direct tax relief will be part of that story. In the meantime we shouldn't be losing sight of the more basic issues facing New Zealand. The Minister of Finance will no doubt stand up like he has many many times and say that the New Zealand economy is great and we had strong momentum coming into this crisis—and that is wrong. It is completely wrong. We did not have strong momentum at the end of last year. This economy was growing at a rate of 1.6 percent according to the Reserve Bank in 2019. Now those figures may be up slightly or down slightly but that is not strong momentum. In fact the strong momentum that we did have as an economy back in 2017 after nine years of good government by the National Government led by John Key and Bill English over an extended period time—that was strong momentum: over 3 percent growth huge surpluses being generated about 10000 new jobs a month being created for the last two years. That was strong momentum. What we've seen in the first two years of this Government is the attenuation of that momentum the slowing down of that momentum the slowing down of the economy the slowing down of job creation and the disappearance of the Budget surpluses.The Budget Policy Statement projected prior to any coronavirus prior to any droughts a deficit for this year and it projected no surplus for the year after that. Again we hear the Minister of Finance talking about projected surpluses. Yeah they're two or three years out and nobody believes that they would actually occur on the path that the Government was already heading. So that is what it is and it's just made it slightly more difficult for New Zealand to respond.So as well as responding directly to the impact of the virus we do need to have a clear growth plan and a focus on growth and that's what the National Party has delivered and continues to deliver. We've talked about the need in five areas: firstly to reduce regulation and we talked about that earlier this week—the need to take pressure off businesses so that they have more money to invest and grow and provide jobs for people provide opportunities for New Zealanders to have good work good opportunities to look after themselves and their families and to do the things that they want to do. So we need regulatory reduction. We also need to have help for small businesses and we'll be talking about that more.We often hear about the Prime Minister's empathy. Well I don't feel like the Prime Minister has any empathy for the realities of the 500000 small-business owners in this country who struggle who get up early in the morning work hard try to employ people and are confronted with never-ending costs and further regulations and further difficulties imposed upon them while they're also just trying to survive in business which is hard relentless and requires great effort every day. Those people are the backbone of the New Zealand economy. We should be supporting them. We should be standing up for them and saying They are performing the public service that New Zealand needs." They are the people that only survive in business if every day they give people what they want at the right price. It's a beautiful thing that they're doing and they should be supported by this Government and we should be making their life easier not harder.So there's regulatory relief there's a focus on small business there's the need to provide tax relief for hard-working New Zealanders when appropriate and fourthly there's the need for infrastructure and investment. This Government will no doubt again—we'll hear the Minister of Finance standing up on his hind legs in the next few minutes; he'll be saying we will be spending $12 billion on infrastructure. But announcing is not the same as delivering and that's the basic lesson that they don't seem to have learnt yet. When they arrived in Parliament the first thing they did was they came in and said "We don't like National's infrastructure. We're going to stop it." So they turned off all the roads because they were going to build the light rail down Dominion Road. Two years later they realised that they hadn't even figured out what the purpose of the light rail down Dominion Road was whether it was a—Fletcher Tabuteau: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Sorry I was restraining myself but under the standing rules of this debate the member must confine himself to the content of the Budget Policy Statement itself—this is not a Budget debate—and not waffle on about unrelated matters.TEMPORARY SPEAKER (Hon Tim Macindoe): I thank the member for his intervention but this is a wide-ranging debate related to Budget policy matters and I don't believe that the member has strayed from that overarching framework.Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: A typical load of nonsense from New Zealand First. They are only sore because they don't like the light rail project down Dominion Road. They don't support the light rail project down Dominion Road which is why it's not happening. So two years later they still haven't got the support of New Zealand First for the slow tram down Dominion Road. We don't know whether it's about urban regeneration or a fast track to the airport—nobody believes it will be a fast track to the airport—and so they haven't done anything. So two years later having done nothing on infrastructure they decided to turn the key on and start up National's roading projects and the fourth railway line and all the things that we were going to do two years ago. So they've wasted 2½ years on infrastructure.The final point is we need to help families. What New Zealanders will be deciding as the election comes up in six months' time is: is there a difference between a party that thinks that announcing things is all you have to do and to have good intentions is all you need versus a party that understands that it's delivery that counts? And that's where we stand.Now when we get to the Budget policies outlined in this Budget Policy Statement what we see is a list of five goals: the just transition the future of work Māori and Pacific child wellbeing and physical and mental wellbeing—and they're all very worthy. I've got no problem; they're very worthy things to do. But my suggestion to the Minister of Finance is that they're out of keeping with the time. The priority right now for New Zealanders is restoring growth and saving jobs and that should be the overwhelming priority for this Budget: saving jobs and restoring growth in this economy. I don't see too much about that in the Budget priorities as outlined. It might be somewhere in the future of work but I'm not sure.So I'd be very interested to see that and I'd be very interested to see after all the talk and all the announcements when they're going to deliver 100000 houses for example. I'd be very interested to know that because it is quite true that the Prime Minister with her intervention at Ihumātao has stopped more houses being built there than the entire $2 billion KiwiBuild programme has delivered so far. I would love to hear how the Minister of Finance explains that. Thank you Mr Speaker."