Robertson GrantAPPROPRIATION (2018/19 SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES) BILLIMPREST SUPPLY (FIRST FOR 2019/20) BILL Second ReadingsHon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I move That the Appropriation (2018/19 Supplementary Estimates) Bill and the Imprest Supply (First for 2019/20) Bill be now read a second time. I thought it might be helpful at the outset to let members know exactly what these two bills are. The Appropriation (2018/19 Supplementary Estimates) Bill makes new appropriations and changes to appropriations in the 2018/19 Estimates to reflect decisions taken by the Government since the 2018/19 Estimates were finalised in April 2018 prior to Budget 2018. The Imprest Supply (First for 2019/20) Bill provides interim bulk spending authority for the first three months of the 2019/20 financial year until the Appropriation (2019/20 Estimates) Bill is passed by the end of September. Members should note that a sessional order agreed to by the House on 8 November 2018 requires that the third reading debate on the main Appropriation Bill should be completed within four months after the Budget day instead of the previous three months. Accordingly the Imprest Supply Bill that is now in front of the House now provides for the first three months of the new financial year instead of the first two months as in previous years. I will run through some of the specific items in the Appropriation (2018/19 Supplementary Estimates) Bill that are outside of the normal process and are major items around the $50 million - plus mark. They actually highlight a number of the things I was talking about before which are priorities for the Government. I do want to start with one that will be noticeable for anyone who gets into the weeds and the detail of financial Estimates and I welcome Mr Goldsmith to the House. That's his future: in the weeds of those Estimates trying to work out if he can understand what it all means in the finance portfolio. One of the things he'll find when he gets into the Supplementary Estimates is that there is an extra $259.5 million to deal with Mycoplasma bovis. I do want to mention that today as one of the things that the Government had to face up to and deal with that was unexpected. The first time we actually got any kind of indication of the bill for this was just after we confirmed the Budget for 2018 and so it is only appropriate today that when we look at the Supplementary Estimates bill that amount of money is there. I do want to put on the record of the House my acknowledgement of those farmers and those in the communities affected by Mycoplasma bovis because this has been difficult. This has been a very challenging time. There were teething problems at the outset in terms of the way in which the Ministry for Primary Industries and farmers work together. But actually they've come together now. Payments are being made and forms of compensation and I know around the Fieldays this year there were still a few restrictions with moving day but actually people had a much better understanding of how that works and the additional funding provided in here for Mycoplasma bovis is extremely important in that regard.As we go down the list of extra funding that's required in the Supplementary Estimates we come to the injection required to support the school property portfolio. This is an excellent example of the way in which this coalition Government is changing the way that we think about issues like school property. Shortly the Minister of Education will release a long-term plan and vision around school property but what we know is that for too long the annualised allocation of money for school property has created uncertainty for schools but it's also created uncertainty for the construction sector. One of the things that we are moving to do is to provide much greater certainty.Another initiative that's covered in the Budget this year is the creation of the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission: another thing that the business community have been calling for for years to have a clear pipeline of construction activity going out 30 years. Again the so-called party of business" across the aisle didn't do anything about that.Well in this Budget we're funding it and combined with the multi-year capital allowance that we've established there is now a pipeline there is now certainty and the construction and infrastructure sector are very pleased to be able to support that.Another item that we'll find in the Supplementary Estimates is around the question of health expenditure and in particular the equity required for capital projects in health. Towards the end of my contribution in the last debate I was making the point that last year the coalition Government put aside $750 million for health capital expenditure. Now as the Prime Minister has made the point some of the spending is actually not all that sexy. She's going to the reopening of lifts. Well that's because the lifts weren't working in a whole lot of our hospitals. And that's why we have to do the very very basic maintenance that was let go under the previous Government. What we know is that there were actually some years where there was almost no health capital expenditure set aside. In the year before we came into office I think it was around about $150 million. We upped it to $750 million and now we've given two years of $850 million for health capital because we know that investing in the quality of our health facilities will save lives. It will also improve the working experience of those dedicated health professionals that we have. So the money in the Supplementary Estimates to support health capital is absolutely essential.Another of the initiatives in the Supplementary Estimates is the gun buy-back fund. I do want to make an acknowledgement here of the New Zealand Police and the work that they are doing to facilitate the decision of this House by 119 to one—I'm not even sure if Mr Seymour actually made it for the vote in the end but certainly the vast bulk of people in the House supported the passing of the law to ban military style semi-automatic weapons. We now have to have a system in place to make sure that those weapons are returned safely. We have done that via the funding that is in this Budget and in this bill. We have acknowledged that it may be that there is some additional funding needed for this. We're going on the basis of the advice that officials have given us up to this point. But this is a significant moment for New Zealand—that we move not only in response to the events of 15 March but also to make sure that New Zealanders feel safe in their own country and that those people who go about using guns on their farms or through duck shooting also know that they're in a position to be able to do that. I am very pleased to be able to say that that funding is in this Budget.I also want to make a special reference to the support that is in this Budget around tertiary education and indeed the funding of tertiary education through tuition subsidies. We made a very conscious decision in this Budget to shift funding across to support vocational education and training. What that means in laypersons terms is that we are actually finally going to be supporting trades training and apprenticeships in the way that we should have for a very long time. I greatly value the fact that people in New Zealand go to universities get qualifications and carry on and contribute to our society but that will not be the only pathway for people. We need to properly value the trades in New Zealand and through this Budget through the allocation that we've made of $197 million towards our reforms of vocational education training we will start to properly value those apprenticeships in our scheme. The other half of this piece of legislation is the Imprest Supply (First for 2018/19) Bill. I just want to make really clear to members opposite who bizarrely voted against the first reading of the Imprest Supply (First for 2018/19) Bill: that's what keeps the lights on in Government for the next three or four months. That's what pays the salaries of the public servants that we have. This is about making sure that money is available and historically I think you'll find that mostly the imprest supply bills have flowed through this House. But what that shows you is the incredibly negative mindset of members opposite. We've seen throughout the Budget debate and then in that vote on the first reading of this bill an Opposition party that only knows the negative; they cannot see the positive. Well actually that's nearly true—the Leader of the Opposition actually said in commenting on the Budget that there were some things he really liked in it. He hasn't told us what they are yet but he did say that there were some things that he really liked in it. So it is my pleasure to commend these two bills to the House. They represent the changes that have been made in the Estimates over the last year and appropriations and they represent the next three months of expenditure after 1 July so that the operations of Government can continue. This represents further the implementation of the Government's wellbeing agenda and this is a bill that I am very proud to commend to the House."