O'Connor Simon; Dean JacquiSIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): You know it's always a sign of a Government on its way out that it releases its Budget and its backbench members spend not the time talking about the Prime Minister or Grant Robertson or what they're doing for the community; they spend five whole minutes attacking His Majesty's loyal Opposition. I think that's all you need to know. They're obsessed. The Labour Party is obsessed with the National Party and at one level I'm flattered with that because I suspect come the election the New Zealand public will be obsessed with us and we will win hands down.This Budget is a failure and that is certainly the feedback from my constituents in Tāmaki. As I've been out and about particularly in the last week of recess a few people asked What Budget?"—it was that boring they didn't realise. A lot of others though completely see through the spin. They understand that yes if they are someone who receives a dollar or two of support that yep they're a winner at one level but what my constituents understand is the enormous cost and burden which this Labour Government over six years is putting on the people of New Zealand.As I've said at several public meetings and engagements at one level it doesn't affect me; I'll be dead. But my children and my grandchildren will be paying the costs of this Government's spending. We know that six years ago we spent about $60 billion a year in Government; now we're almost at $140 billion—a billion dollars more a week. Do those Kiwis struggling like my constituents in Tāmaki feel that the cost of living is getting better for them because Labour's spending a billion a week? Course not. It's getting worse. So for all the talk of free transport and early childhood education centres (ECEs)—by the way we'll come back to the ECEs—it's costing us more and more and a debt projected to be around about $100 billion; like four five times higher than six years ago projected to be in 2026. It's outrageous—it's outrageous. People in my electorate I'm sure in others on this side as we go out and engage—parents grandparents and others—are going "Who is going to pay for this?" And the answer again is very simple: our children and our grandchildren. As I say the cost of living is getting worse and the Government has not addressed this.Crime is getting worse. Just last week three—actually four; there was a robbery at one of our jewellery stores and three of our shops ram-raided. I think I'm up to 45 of our businesses now. They're soft on crime. They talk about the 1800 new police officers; not one of them I understand is actually reaching the proper and full front line. The only thing that's succeeding is our Eastern Bays Community Patrol but they're not funded by Government. They're out and about—that's probably a lesson there.I mentioned the ECE network. Well I've talked to the ECE providers; they're furious about what this Government is doing. Elements like pay parity and so forth need to be addressed but no Labour's splashed the cash around in the wrong way that's actually—and this is from ECE or early childhood providers that are telling me—going to make the system worse not only for them but obviously for the children.And then all the talk of infrastructure. Well look again Labour's great at promising they're great at putting out press releases but they can't deliver anything. Again my electorate's been struggling through the flooding of recent months—and I want to be really clear: Tāmaki has not been as hit as obviously some areas of the country but I've been visiting families whose homes have been flooded out their businesses. It's a disaster and where is the funding to improve the infrastructure? Now granted some of that's at a council level let's be fair; but some of it's at a central government level as well. It's just not happening.Then of course—well actually in recent days—and it's not so much on the Budget per se—well it is the Budget—we've seen a little bit of a change around our housing policy. I have to say to people in Tāmaki that is something that they fed back to me very strongly about and I'm really pleased to see a growth in development—that's probably a pun—in National's approach to housing policy there. The assurance I can give to the people of Tāmaki is we will continue to see an intensification that is helpful and healthy in our area but one that's not going to be too oppressive and I think it's really good to see that new policy there.Look on the final bit—because I think we can't always throw too many bricks. We can't throw too many bricks at the Government; they are very sensitive souls. So on the positive side I am glad to see there's more money from Customs to fight on illegal tobacco. The Government has a big challenge there. I'm actually quite pleased to see overall the funding in arts and the likes of Te Matatini being acknowledged and putting on my IPAC or Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China hat delighted to see the extra money to Internal Affairs to target the likes of foreign interference in our media. So I think that's incredibly positive but as I said right at the start what a failure this Budget's been—so much that Labour can't even talk about it.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Simon Watts—five minutes."