Brownlee Gerry: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBrownlee Gerry: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 28 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:10404. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery): Mr Speaker I am not surprised that Damien O’Connor got that letter in to you late. He probably had another one in his drawer asking not to have an urgent debate and he could not work out which one he should send in.I rise to speak in favour of the Budget delivered by the Hon Bill English and against the amendment moved by the Leader of the Opposition. This is a Budget that has seen the Government being able to project a surplus in the coming year and I want to put on record my congratulations to the Hon Bill English who has stuck to the course but has shown throughout the last 4 years considerable compassion for New Zealanders where there are needs and most particularly that has been shown in the situation around Christchurch. This Budget committed a further $2 billion in extra funding to the recovery effort in Christchurch bringing the Government’s contribution to that recovery to something around the $15 billion mark. The total recovery from all sources will now be in excess of $40 billion—a very large undertaking by any manner of means. The Government remains very committed to ensuring that we do get a good recovery result in Christchurch.I want to just run through with the House not only some of the things that we have committed funding to but also some of the issues that we have previously committed funding to. So first in this Budget there is $900 million of new capital funding which will go to Christchurch hospitals and their redevelopment. This is the biggest single hospital development in New Zealand’s history and it is very appropriately being led by the Canterbury District Health Board which is doing a great job in making sure that this new facility comes together extremely well. I want to thank the Hon Tony Ryall for his considerable efforts in making sure that this funding was available. Furthermorethere is a capital commitment to the justice and emergency precinct and further commitments also to tertiary education. Once again the hallmark of the legislation that we passed for the recovery in Canterbury is that each Minister in their own ministry has responsibility to contribute to that recovery. It has made my job as the overall Minister responsible so much easier and I do want to thank the Ministers for the work that they continue to do.We have also put money in this Budget into making sure that the anchor projects that were in theChristchurch Central Recovery Plan which was produced last year do get under way. These are very big civic assets that add to the amenity of any city. The opportunity here is for Christchurch to have some very very good buildings that will be strong that will last and pass the test of time and that will add value to our community.In addition we have put up money for the development of the Avon River precinct. People will be familiar with the Avon River which wanders through the centre of Christchurch. We want the banks of that river to become far more accessible to people in Christchurch and to visitors to our city and the Government has put up a fund of some $96 million to make that happen over the coming years. As private sector investors begin to build buildings—I want to acknowledge Antony Gough for getting first out of the blocks with the proposals he announced yesterday—there will be complementary design between those buildings and those riverbanks to ensure that we get the most splendid results possible.The Earthquake Commission comes under a great deal of criticism and we have funded it beyond the Natural Disaster Fund so that it can continue with the obligations that it now picks up in Christchurch. So far it has repaired over 38000 homes. That is a very large number albeit that it has taken a couple of years to do that. What it does let us do is get to the point where by the end of the year we would expect that number to be 50000 and by the end of 2015 the entire repair job going to the Fletcher EQR office to be completed. Private insurers have got a role to play. They need to step up and do a lot more than they appear to be doing at the present time.One of the things that we did early on was put up $1.7 billion to help families out of damaged homes in the worst affected areas of Christchurch. These are areas essentially where it is just so difficult to rebuild that it was much more desirable for people to make a difficult choice—a very difficult choice—to accept one of the Government offers and move on. I am pleased that nearly 6700 households have accepted those offers and are moving on. We saw last Friday night on theCampbell Live television programme the happy faces of people who have been able to benefit from that programme by in fact relocating into new or second-purchased houses in far stronger areas. It was a little change from the novel John Campbell television programme. He is I think the self-appointed campaign manager for the Labour Party in Christchurch. It is disappointing that he does take that particular role because I do not think that he actually represents the city terribly well with some of the stories he does put out there. I would just encourage him to keep looking—not too hard; not too hard because you do not have to—to find some of the very good stories that exist for people in Canterbury.We are coming into a local body election this year and that does create some worries. I would simply say to anybody who is thinking of standing for the council or taking a major leadership role that they might be elected to to have a look at the finances—have a look at the finances—and do not be deceived by what you are being told by the people who are presenting those figures. That is a council that has significant challenges ahead of it and some of the silly rhetoric that we are getting out of potential candidates is not going to help people in Christchurch move forward. We need to do that in a sensible fashion and I am pleased that the Government is sticking by Canterbury and ensuring that things do move.It is noteworthy that the economy in Canterbury last year grew by 5.6 percent compared with the rest of New Zealand at 2.2 percent. We have got very good growth statistics with a 6.8 percent rise in employment and unemployment sitting at 4.3 percent. So there are some very very good fundamentals. Essentially local people are responding to the challenges in front of them and getting on with putting the city back together. I have got huge admiration for them. I do want to make it clear that it is the Prime Minister’s commitment the Deputy Prime Minister’s commitment and the commitment of the whole Cabinet and National caucus as well as a great deal of the membership of this House that sits in a most complementary fashion behind the work that local people do.I do think though that it is worth looking at the public reaction to the Budget as a whole which by and large has been very very positive. I mentioned John Campbell before. Sadly I now have to mention Paddy Gower who had a very interesting take on some polling figures that were produced last week. He said that it was the Labour Party hoax over the electricity proposals that had got it up in the polls. I will simply say this. The National Government came into office in 2008. We had had at that time a 72 percent rise in the retail power price in just 8 years. We had had four crises in the electricity industry through that time when people were asked to save and the power companies profited all the way through that. We said that there was something wrong here. The first thing we did was get rid of the thermal ban. The second thing we did was embark on electricity market reform. When in 2010 those reforms kicked in the Labour Party said that they would never work and that they would cause problems.Well firstly power price increases have been at less than half the rate that they were under the Labour Government and secondly in the last 3 years of the Labour Government the average amount of electricity generated from renewable sources was just 65 percent. Since 2010 the average amount of electricity generated from renewable sources has sat at 74 percent. That is a massive increase. What it means is that when power companies are faced with some opportunities to do things in a sensible way they will choose to do that. The point that I make is that under all the smoke and mirrors from the Labour Party there is a suggestion that there will be a $300 or $400 a year saving in electricity which frankly cannot be proven and cannot be sustained as an argument. But then of course climate change charges will put $500 to $600 on the costs of every household. It is no surprise that the alternative to the excellent Budget brought down by Bill English has fallen on its face with the public. Thank you.