Guy NathanHon NATHAN GUY (National—Ōtaki): Mr Speaker before I make some remarks about the Prime Minister's statement can I first of all say happy New Year to you and to all of the parliamentarians back for 2019. On a more sombre note can also acknowledge the passing of John Wilson the former Fonterra chairman who had a battle with cancer and unfortunately passed away last month. There was a massive send-off for him at Mystery Creek and my heartfelt condolences on behalf of the National Party go to Belinda and his four daughters. Can I now make some comments about the Prime Minister's statement: 2019 is supposedly going to be the year of delivery. Well we'll wait and see on that one because we know that 233 working groups and reviews are going to be reporting back costing over $200 million to establish. We will wait and see what these reports come up with. Now Cabinet already has in their hot little hands the Tax Working Group final report. We surmise—and I bet we're right—that a capital gains tax is going to be in there and of course the reason they are going to propose this is that the economy has already started to slow. If you talk to businesses that are out there trying to do their best with the New Zealand economy they realise that the signs are already there. Just in this last quarter we have started to see the economy slow and of course what's the Government's reaction? What options do they have? Well the first option is to rack up more debt. They've said that maybe they won't do that but let's wait and see. The second option is of course more tax—to treat hard-working New Zealanders like an ATM machine. The third option—which they won't do—is to cut services. So 2019 I think is going to be an underwhelming year of nonsense delivery from the Government. I think really they are going to struggle to keep this economy moving because they have policies that are actually slowing down the economy. Also when we look at the unemployment in the last quarter that's up by 10000. If we look at what's happened with KiwiBuild isn't that an embarrassment? I look across the other side of the House now and all of their heads are down. What have they built? Forty-seven homes and they said that in their first year they were going to build 1000 in their second year they were going to build something like 5000 and in their third year 10000. Now what's happened? Well Phil Twyford said Oh well those targets are pretty movable. Yeah we think that we might get that." Winston Peters didn't get the memo. He said that yes they were going to achieve it. So I don't think they will and now KiwiBuild is very much a "KiwiFlop". Also today talking about flops Government MPs couldn't get out of bed on time to make the Finance and Expenditure Committee. What an absolute embarrassment it is that they couldn't get out of bed and turn up and do their work. Then we have the Salvation Army report out today. What a shocker that is. The Prime Minister's Budget in 2019 focusing on well-being—well they came in with all this rhetoric that they were going to do more to support the most vulnerable in our communities and this is a shocking indictment on this Government. They've been all talk and all rhetoric and they've failed to deliver anything that has turned the lives around of our most vulnerable. The number of kids in dependent households is up child abuse and neglect is up and the number of people on jobseeker benefit is up so we will wait with bated breath and see what Budget 2019 actually delivers. But it's got to be more than just money; it's got to be delivery and that's why I don't think they'll be able to deliver much in 2019 unlike our leader Simon Bridges who's started the year fantastically well with his speech talking about shifting the tax thresholds or what's commonly known as bracket creep. Those on the middle income at the moment they will be paying the highest tax rate by 2022. Things need to change and under a National Government in 2020 it will. Can I also talk about the primary sector because that is a big part of this economic growth. We're just seeing the cracks starting to appear. The Federated Farmers' confidence survey—the mid-season one—says farmers' confidence is at the lowest ebb since 2019. What happened in 2019? Hon Member: No 2009. Hon NATHAN GUY: Sorry—2009. Well it was the global financial crisis. That was biting hard then. So they're already looking at the sentiments of this Government wondering whether on earth the agricultural community and sectors could be the next oil and gas. They're in trepidation and we think now about the China relationship. That is a huge relationship for us as an exporting country. It's our second-biggest exporting country. It's worth about $28 billion in two-way trade. Now we've had a numerous amount of stuff-ups that have occurred under this Government which is why we are now seeing effectively our relationship being in what I'm terming the chiller for the next six to 12 months. The first one is that New Zealand First Ministers waded into the South China Sea debate which they shouldn't have done. David Parker couldn't get any meeting with his ministerial counterpart when he was up there last year. The Chinese Government have also noticed that the foreign investment changes by this Government have ricocheted all the way back up to Beijing. We then had the recent Huawei decision. That's gone down like a cup of cold sick and they're all wondering what that means. We now have the tourism conference that was due to be happening at Te Papa next week. All Ministers from both sides were going to be there. That has now been pulled. We heard this afternoon in the House that Minister Kelvin Davis heard on 28 January that it was scrapped doomed—it will never happen again in my opinion—and no date invitation has been sent to the Prime Minister. So what should our farmers and growers think right now? The next Federated Farmers' survey will be even more doomsday than this one. Also we have the EU. Shortly after the Prime Minister left the EU with her meeting with the senior-ranked politicians over there what happened? The EU's out there threatening to remove our preferential access for lamb and butter.Then of course we have had numerous other things. We've got research and development that's being halved by this Government for the primary sector and water storage which is a massive issue right now particularly in Nelson and Tasman region where actually all of those firefighters and emergency services are doing well to get on top of this fire. But one thing in how you can turn these regions around—particularly on the east coast of both islands and the Tasman region—is building water storage projects. That's now pretty much—not the Waimea dam but all the other proposals that we were working our way through are now doomed. Of course the Government also had deaf ears when people like the Mental Health Alliance and Rural Health Alliance Aotearoa New Zealand came to the Government and said "We need some more funding." and they said "No way." Also we've got the looming aspect of more regulation from David Parker already out there talking about environmental taxes. Whether it's for hill-country farmers whether it's winter grazing or whether it's feedlots you can bet your bottom dollar that more regulation's coming. Then we had Damien O'Connor last year out there arrogantly saying that farmers should get used to the fact that there will be more costs that are going to be incurred on them by this Government. There's a hell of a lot of uncertainty under the dairy industry restructuring legislation. Submissions closed on that so we'll wait and see what happens as it works its way through the Parliament and what the Minister and his officials come up with. Then of course we've got the tertiary review and reform that's been talked about today and it is now public for the next six weeks. I personally think that for such a big reform like this six weeks is too tight. Then we have Taratahi a private training establishment (PTE). Nowhere mentioned in this review—Hon Ron Mark: Who's to blame for that?Hon NATHAN GUY: —are PTEs. Then we have Ron Mark chipping in there. It surprised me that he wasn't out with his Labour counterpart Kieran McAnulty proposing a Givealittle page this summer to support all the staff. Well the Government had the opportunity to give a little to Taratahi and that was to find some funding but they slammed the door shut on them. Mark Patterson's been running around with a Givealittle page to try and support Telford. Well the Government's done the right thing there and supported Telford but now Taratahi is in limbo and now I'm hearing that Landcorp is looking at picking it up. The National Party has had a good start to 2019. It's been underwhelming for the Government and I'm going to finish where I started: 2019 in my view will be a debate all about tax and it will be a year when the Government struggles to perform and deliver anything that's going to help grow New Zealand and grow the economy. There's grey clouds on the horizon and we should all be very very nervous."