Carter DavidRt Hon DAVID CARTER (National): Well certainly after listening to that contribution from Dr David Clark he hasn't convinced me that National is not on the right side of the argument in opposing this legislation. I think it is actually a rather unfortunate night for Parliament that we're fiddling with a piece of legislation which in my mind has been highly successful and in fact iconic—and that's the Public Finance Act. If you couple that with the Fiscal Responsibility Act for any of us members of Parliament who are lucky enough to go overseas and talk to other parliamentarians around the world those two iconic pieces of legislation have stood this country in good stead for its ability to reveal quite accurately Government books as we approach elections. We're fiddling with this particular legislation and after listening to the Hon David Clark and the Minister of Finance the Hon Grant Robertson I am none the wiser as to why this legislation is before the House.The Hon David Clark kept talking about his ability to walk and chew gum and I think he mentioned that four or five times. I don't know what walking and chewing gum and the ability to do both those actions at the same time has anything to do with the Public Finance Act. Then as I listened to Grant Robertson's contribution he lamented the fact that he had been invited to a 30-year celebration of the Public Finance Act but that he didn't get asked to the dinner that followed that particular function. Looking at Mr Grant Robertson I don't think his body noticed the fact that he didn't get to the dinner.As I consider what this legislation is about and the Wellbeing Budget I think what's happened here is that the Minister of Finance now knows that in the year of delivery the thing that it didn't deliver were any brownie points at all for the Wellbeing Budget. So they've had an emergency-type Cabinet meeting and have said What can we do to have another crack at presenting the Wellbeing Budget in front of New Zealanders?" and the lame attempt is now before this House tonight as we look at the Public Finance (Wellbeing) Amendment Bill.The Wellbeing Budget was a botched Budget—there's no doubt about that—but when you look then at the issue of any Budget that's named a Wellbeing Budget it's hard to see how this particular Budget was any different in its aspirations than any other Budget that I've seen delivered in 25 years in this House. I can tell the Government side of the House that every Minister of Finance be it Labour be it—on one occasion sadly—a New Zealand First member delivering a Budget and whether it's National Labour or New Zealand First when that Minister delivers his or her Budget that Minister is trying to improve the wellbeing of every New Zealander.So while this particular label's been attached by Labour in the year of delivery it doesn't change the fact that any Budget is about delivering outcomes for New Zealanders that will improve their standard of living. So what we see now is a Government that's spent the last two years removing targets so that we can keep an idea on their achievements. They've removed every possible target that National had established under some better Government targets—the ability to actually measure the number of children entering early childhood or the number of children getting immunisation for example and now we have this I think flummery or puffery that the Hon Paul Goldsmith spoke about earlier—Brett Hudson: "Flummery"—he said "flummery".Rt Hon DAVID CARTER: —"flummery"; wonderful word—being presented now before the House tonight as an attempt for the Government to relaunch its very sad positioning of a Budget as a Wellbeing Budget.I think it is actually a sad night when we see this particular Public Finance Act being fiddled with for nothing more than an attempt by the Government to repackage its Budget and that's what we're seeing tonight. The Budget we all know—and New Zealanders understand what it delivered for New Zealanders. It delivered wasted expenditure. It delivered higher taxes. It delivered in the area of mental health—that the Hon Dr David Clark spoke about—$1.9 billion and then an attempt to run round to New Zealanders saying "Well we've appropriated the money. We don't know how to spend it. Give us some ideas."The Budget has been a disaster and this attempt by the Government to relaunch it as a wellbeing Budget will not convince any New Zealander at all that the last Budget delivered by the Labour Government was significantly different to any other Budget presented from an aspect that any Minister of Finance will be delivering a Budget that he or she thinks will deliver to improve the wellbeing and the standard of living of all New Zealanders. That's why National will oppose this legislation.I look forward to the submissions we receive at the select committee. I suspect they'll be very similar to the many submissions we had through the briefing we had on the wellbeing initiative by the Government. It certainly didn't convince me that it's delivering to New Zealanders at all."