Coates BarryBARRY COATES (Green): Tēnā koe e Te Mangai o Te Whare ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. I rise to speak at the third reading of the Appropriation (2017/18 Estimates) Bill. What we are really talking about here is whether or not we have confidence in the Government's Budget. This is ultimately a confidence and supply issue. In this speech I am going to talk about the ways in which this Budget takes us farther down the route towards—and I think it is an accurate term—private affluence and public squalor. This is a Budget that is founded on providing an election bribe to convince voters to return this Government paid for by means of under-investing in our public services. In this speech I particularly want to draw attention to a sector that we hardly ever talk about. It is the arts and culture sector. It has been decimated in this Budget.Let me give an overview of this Budget. The Green Party voted for a very small increase in support for the poorest households. We supported additional funding for families and for accommodation supplements because under this Government there are so many people in New Zealand struggling. We did not vote for the tax cuts which deliver for higher-income earners but not proportionately for the rest of New Zealand's population. These tax cuts have been bought as a result of severe under-investment in public services.Victoria University and the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research did an analysis of what this Budget means for spending on some key public services and they mapped between now and 2020-21 which is 3 years' time. They said firstly that education will be cut by 7.9 percent in real terms. That means that our current situation where teaching assistants and teaching staff are already deeply underpaid—they will continue to be underpaid. It means that we will have teacher shortages in areas like Auckland so children will not have a chance to have a decent education. It means that special-needs children particularly will not get the attention and the assistance that they deserve in our education system.Health spending will be cut by 7.5 percent in real terms. What that means is that we will continue the underfunding of mental health that sees New Zealand record the highest suicide rate for teens in the world. It means that we will continue to underfund services which Dr Phil Bagshaw of Otago and his team have estimated means that 29 percent of people will have unmet needs for accessing GPs and primary health services. It means that 9 percent of people who need operations will have unmet needs. That means pain and suffering for people who have to wait for cataract surgery or for knee surgery or for any number of conditions. That is what this Budget means. It means half a billion dollars a year of underfunding according to Infometrics.Core Government services will be cut by 15.1 percent in real terms. What does that mean? Well it means that we cut funding in ways that will damage people in our society. The OECD estimates for example that child poverty costs us $8 billion. It is hidden from this Budget but that is the cost of underfunding our ripped safety net. It means underfunding emergency houses—that we are putting people up temporarily in motels. It means that we have the worst homelessness in the world. It means shortages of housing in Auckland so that we have the most unaffordable city in the world. These are the costs of this Budget. It is the underfunding of public services that is an absolute scandal in this Budget. It means 20 percent of children living in cold houses and getting sick. It means failure on climate change on conservation and on rivers—60 percent of our monitored rivers are unswimmable. It means that the only increase of substance that we have here is $1 billion in prisons—what is that a success indicator for?This is 9 years of this Government. It is an economy that is built on speculation on immigration on dirty money and on commodities.In arts and culture as a particular sector—and we do not talk enough about arts and culture in this House—Creative New Zealand estimates that 89 percent of New Zealanders engage each year in arts and culture. We are the country of Lorde of Flight of the Conchords of Eleanor Catton of Taika Waititi and of Peter Jackson. This is who we are as a society. Culture should be a source of pride. We should support it. Creative New Zealand estimates that the arts and culture sector is worth 131000 jobs in New Zealand and $17.5 billion in GDP.And what has happened to it? Well there are cuts of 25.6 percent between now and 2020-21. That is 25.6 percent. That is a decimation of our budget. It is slashing our screen production grants to zero. It is reducing our regional culture and heritage. It means a 9 percent cut in real terms for Creative New Zealand and all of the arts and culture organisations and a 9 percent cut in public broadcasting for Radio New Zealand. Radio New Zealand got a small increase this year but there is a flat budget from now on for broadcasting for Radio New Zealand. It means a 9 percent real-terms cut in promotion of arts and film New Zealand Symphony Orchestra New Zealand ballet New Zealand music museums and Te Papa heritage and thousands of community arts organisations and projects. These are all suffering real-term cuts from this Government.That is the kind of under-investment in our public services which are so valuable to New Zealanders that is funding these tax cuts for the higher-income earners in New Zealand. It is an absolute disgrace. This Budget takes money out of the public services that New Zealanders really value and gives it as tax cuts to the rich.This Budget is about priorities. Those priorities are not the environment or climate change. Those priorities are not health education or housing. They are not restoring our ripped safety net which leaves so many people in poverty. And this Budget is certainly not about supporting our arts and culture sector. This Budget in terms of priorities is about this Government trying to get elected again by giving a tax bribe to the higher-income individuals in our society. It is the creation of private affluence alongside public squalor in this country.We should not go down this route. We should not continue to underfund our valuable public services; otherwise we will end up as a more polluted a more divided a more unfair and a more unequal society. That is not in our interests. That is not who New Zealand is. We are different from that. We are better than that as a society.This Budget is a failure of vision after 9 years of this Government. It is a failure to properly invest in the things that are important in our society. We can do better than this. We have no confidence in this Budget and we have no confidence in this Government. We need to change this Government. Thank you.