Woods MeganHon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): The Minister the member that has just sat down told us that Government is about hard choices. Well we certainly saw those harsh choices that this Government has made in the Budget that was delivered in what seems like a lifetime ago now given how much has been written about it. This is a Budget of broken promises it is a Budget that is taking New Zealand backwards and it is a Budget that exemplifies the wrong choices that our Government is making on behalf of New Zealanders.Now New Zealanders were promised much on the campaign trail—not least $250 a fortnight in tax cuts from the National Party on the hustings. What have New Zealanders who have gone to the calculator to find out what they'll be receiving found? They've found that it is way short of that. And what's more they've found out they had to start shelling out for bus fares because the previous investment in having free bus fares has gone. They've found they'll have to be paying for prescriptions again in many places because that is a choice that this Government has made to slash the funding in that area. They've found that in their case the free lunches in their child's school will be reduced to nothing more than a snack. And these are once again things that are going to come out of the back pocket of hard-working New Zealand families. New Zealand families realise the wool was pulled over their eyes and they are worse off as a result of this Budget and not better off.We have a Minister of Finance who is insistent on telling us that she hasn't borrowed for her $10 billion tax-cut package despite borrowing $12 billion to pay for measures in the Budget. New Zealand's debt as a percentage of GDP has risen. If the Government had not chosen to deliver $10 billion worth of tax cuts the need to borrow that $12 billion would not exist. But over and over again we have a Minister of Finance and a Prime Minister who are intent on telling New Zealanders that black is white and they have not borrowed for their tax cuts. That simply is not true.But what we do see as a result of this Budget is laid bare. I think one of the most interesting reads of any Budget is the BEFU the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update. That tells us a great deal about what Treasury is saying the impacts of the Budget being delivered are. They tell us that house prices are going to continue to rise. They tell us that there is going to be upward pressure on rents because of the removal of interest deductibility. We also see in the analysis of the Budget that child poverty will rise. These are the results of the Budget and the choices that the members of the Government have made in a Budget that they are delivering to us. We know that it will take so many hard-working New Zealand families backwards and they will be worse off.But if I have a look at what this Government is doing in terms of climate—and what they are not doing more to the point—this is a Government in which the best they can say about their positive vision for addressing climate action is Well we didn't cut that line of the previous Government's work." There is $3 billion worth of initiatives and climate action carved out in this Budget. There is $3 billion of investment that was about securing New Zealand's security New Zealand jobs and New Zealand's future that this Government has taken the knife to to pay for tax cuts and giving tax benefits to landlords. That's the kind of self-interest we are seeing from members on the other benches. We've seen money to partner with New Zealand businesses to reduce industrial emissions and keep jobs in New Zealand slashed by a Government saying it doesn't want corporate welfare but has absolutely no plans to do anything about industrial allocation of emissions trading credits. What they are saying is they would rather go out and pay other countries $100 $200—whoever knows how many hundreds—per credit rather than cut emissions at home.Well I can tell members the economic geniuses—self-proclaimed on the other side of the House—the New Zealand steel deal delivered for New Zealand emissions reductions at $18 a tonne. Go out and find me an international credit anywhere that will deliver emissions reductions so cheaply and will benefit New Zealand in so many ways. But what was laid bare when we had the chance to scrutinise the Minister of Climate Change the Minister for Energy and any of the Ministers involved in this work was that is no plan there is no vision and frankly there is no understanding of how New Zealand needs to get to where it needs to get. We've seen money stripped out of the warmer Kiwi homes programme a programme that returns so much more than it puts in. We've seen money pulled out of the Community Renewable Energy Fund a programme put in place by our Government to work with communities to not only generate badly needed renewable electricity but also to create community resilience. Support for the energy education and communities programme—a programme that was working with some of the most vulnerable New Zealand households about how to reduce their power bills—is gone because this Government would rather fund $2.9 billion in tax relief for landlords than helping some of our most vulnerable families pay the bills and get by. The just transition programme and any money for us to stimulate a hydrogen industry in New Zealand is gone from a Government with no foresight who thinks economic development is selling houses to each other and then claiming interest deductibility on it. That's the kind of choices that are laid bare in this Budget.One of the things that we do know about the kinds of choices that this Government has made is that they are not interested in what will take New Zealand forwards. It is a Budget that consistently looked over its shoulder. It is a Budget that only is intent on taking New Zealand backwards. And let's look at some of the other markers that just show how far back this Budget is taking New Zealanders.Unemployment according to the Budget is due to peak this year at 5.3 percent and I want everyone just to pause: 5.3 percent doesn't sound like a big number but that represents hundreds and thousands of New Zealanders who will be without work and that will need to make ends meet. Was there anything in this Budget for them? No there was not. What we've seen is we've seen the minimum-wage exemption for disabled people cut. There was money actually taken out of the Budget to make sure that we were paying disabled people the minimum wage and we're told that we can't do that otherwise disabled people will not be employed. No they won't. There was money in the Budget to subsidise employers to ensure that dignity of work and good pay could be given to those people.What we are seeing is a set of choices laid bare. It is not as we would be told by the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister a Budget that is giving the biggest boost to working people. No it is not. It is taking working people backwards. It is taking money out of the back pockets of working New Zealanders to pay for $2.9 billion worth of tax relief for our landlords. It is taking money out of our children's future by scrapping climate initiatives. If there was ever a greater testament to the lack of vision and the lack of ambition for New Zealand that a Government could carry it was contained in the pages of the Budget that was delivered by this Government two or three weeks ago. It is a Budget that will not benefit those that need it the most; it is a Budget that is making the wrong choices and taking us backwards."