Bishop Chris: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBishop Chris: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 31 May 2016. Volume:714;Page:11512. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CHRIS BISHOP (National): Marama Davidson is a new member of Parliament but she really needs to do her research or sack her research unit because some of the stuff that we have just heard from Ms Davidson beggars belief. What did she say? She said that wages have not kept up with the cost of living—wrong. Wages over the last 7 or 8 years are up 27 percent compared with inflation of around 10 percent. It may have escaped her notice that we are in essentially a zero inflation environment and that wages are increasing year on year. She is wrong.What else did she say? “This is a Government that has cut benefits.” She literally said that. Well I do not know whether she was here for Budget 2015 when we became the first Government in 43 years to raise benefit levels. What else did she say? She said that this is a Government that is failing the most vulnerable. Again look at what we are doing in the reform of Child Youth and Family—the hard work that Anne Tolley is doing in the reform of that dysfunctional organisation which is funded in this Budget. Look at the enormous moves that we are making in terms of social investment funding programmes that actually get results—not measuring things by how much money we chuck out to the agencies but by whether or not they actually make a difference. So none of those things she said are accurate.It has been an interesting day in politics with the political marriage between the Greens and the Labour Party. Clearly James Shaw has lost the battle inside the Green Party for the strategic direction of the Greens. Clearly James has lost Metiria Turei has won and they are rowing their boat and tying it to the Labour Party. James Shaw has lost—elected by the leadership but essentially no longer the leader. Metiria has won and has taken over. What have we got to look forward to—Steffan Browning as “Minister of Homeopathy” and Steffan Browning as “Minister of Growing Things in an Orchard in His Parliamentary Office” in a Labour-Greens Government?But the real question that is before the House is whether it will last. Will this political marriage last? Literally three questions into the press conference Andrew Little was asked: “Will this last?”. He said: “Oh well we are not going to be monogamous.” So this is a marriage in which one party is literally signing up to the marriage and saying: “Oh but just by the way I may actually be an adulterer down the line. I actually cannot commit to you even though I am throwing in my lot with you and even though I am moving in with the extreme left—moving into a house and getting married”.They are actually saying that they might be an adulterer with the chap down the road—you know the charismatic guy down the road with the twinkly eyes who has got a good way with words sometimes when he bothers to properly prepare? So it has been an interesting day in politics.But this is a great Budget from a Government that knows what it is doing and knows where New Zealand is heading and that is heading in the right direction. It is also a particularly good Budget for the Hutt Valley. Firstly this is because we are going to be one of the first regions that will roll out the National Bowel Cancer Screening Programme. I can say that that has been extremely well received in the Hutt Valley. More important perhaps is the big boost that this Budget gives to Technology Valley. Technology Valley is all about the Hutt Valley being the home for science technology engineering and manufacturing all of which are going to benefit from this $761 million boost—the Innovative New Zealand package—that Minister Steven Joyce has put together.I have got to say that it has been very regrettable to see members opposite particularly one member opposite criticise this package and talk about political flunkies handing out the money and how that is not going to be good. These are funds that are administered independently. The Marsden Fund which receives a 49 percent increase in this Budget is administered by the Marsden Council. The Marsden Fund funds Jane Kelsey so I do not think it is fair to say that the Marsden Fund is administered by political flunkies. She is writing a book—or writing a project anyway; it will probably become a book—about the transcendental nature of neo-liberalism in the modern world. I venture to suggest that if the funding was actually literally approved by political flunkies the National Government would not fund that project. It just gives lie to the claim that political flunkies do this.There is the Endeavour Fund and the Strategic Science Investment Fund. The Government is increasing funding in this Budget for Crown research institutes including for great Hutt Valley institutions like GNS Science with the funding that used to be regarded as core funding. It is very important. It is not administered by political flunkies. We have struggled for years as a country to invest in science and invest in our research and development capability and more important to commercialise the scientific research coming out of our great institutions. This is a Government that has finally done something about it by increasing funding in science to $1.6 billion and by actually putting money into the projects that commercialise some of the scientific research that comes out as well as increasing all the funding that goes into research and development. It is increasing business investment and leading us up the Global Innovation Index. This is a good Budget for the Hutt Valley.