Brownlee GerryHon GERRY BROWNLEE (National): I must take a minute or two to reply to some of the positions put by the speaker who just resumed her seat. Firstly I think it's extraordinary that the Government should come in here and quote the words of a bank chief executive—a bank that's just been one of the first to jack up their interest rates in this new environment; interest rates that are contributing to that $134 a week extra costs for mortgage holders in this country. Yet the Government comes in here and says Well the banks are happy about it." Of course they are. Of course they are. It's typical isn't it? The vested interests are always apparently the ones that this bank wants to talk about. Unreal.Then of course we talk about the fact that it's a measured approach. Well the overall approach to the Budget is that there is $100 billion worth of income and $127 billion worth of expenditure. The question is: who fills the gap? When we look at this Budget from this week we see $6 billion spent as planned—as well announced by the Government—a massive expenditure: biggest ever in New Zealand's history. Then we see an extra $2.3 billion stolen out of next year brought forward into this year to pay for various aspects of the Budget. And on top of that the last-minute inclusion the very last-minute inclusion not actually in the Budget only there as potentially a supplementary estimate some time down the track—the billion dollars for this particular move—$9 billion. Now if anyone looks at how baselines work that means over the next four years the Government is going to spend north of an extra—an extra—$50 billion. Where does it come from?The people who always pay are the people who are at the bottom. This is an absolute sham when it comes to any suggestion that this about solving the cost of living. It's not. I don't begrudge people that money. I hope they turn up in their droves and they take it. They need it.But let's be clear: someone on $70000 a year at the top end of the qualifying range is paying $14000 in tax right now. They're left with a $56000 income. There's a bit taken off that for ACC and various other things. But that $56000 has been eroded in its purchasing power over the last 12 months by about $4000.David Parker says here "Oh no the member got his figures wrong" when I quoted this in the House earlier because there's been pay rises. Even if we're generous about the pay rises it is still a gap—and in fact if someone was on $70000 they got a pay rise they no longer qualify. But if someone had got a pay rise that took them up to that level their purchasing power after that pay rise is still down by $4000.So it's an irrelevance that you get all the time being thrown into these arguments by a Government that just seems to think that if they say it and they do it—well they don't do it very often do they? They're not good on delivery—then everything will be all right.There's the fact too that you can have multiple speakers from the Government standing up and saying "This is wonderful. It's a payment to 2.1 million people." but we're a population of 5 million we're a population of about 1.5 million children who don't work; we're a population of over 500000 who don't work because they're retired. So these are working-age New Zealanders—a massive chunk of our population—and the Government is celebrating that their incomes are low enough to qualify for this miserable $350 over a three-month period $27 a week.Well if they think they're going to go out on the hustings and tell New Zealanders how wonderful they are I think they've got another thing coming. The only people they've been able to talk about in the House today who expressed any degree of support for this are a political editor who's changed his story this morning and a bank chief executive who's happy to rub his hands as the interest rates go flying up. Completely ridiculous.I've watched people on television I've heard them on the radio—people who are affected by this. They're grateful but they are also very annoyed about the fact that it won't go anywhere near trying to sort out the erosion of purchasing power that their limited incomes have so far experienced—$134 a week down if someone has an average mortgage in this country.It just seems to me hard to believe that a Government can be so excited about this. We all know how it happened. Week after week Labour caucus members were filing into the weekly caucus meeting saying "It's not good out there. We've got to do something. We've got to come up with something." And then Grant Robertson's come along and he's got a bit of a bone he's thrown at them and said "Here look. We're going to give everybody $350 dripping it out over three months and that should take care of everything." And one by one they've stood up in the House since yesterday afternoon applauding this initiative by Mr Robertson and the Prime Minister as if it is an answer to everything. It's temporary so is the reduction in fuel excise. Temporary.The question still arises: how is that $27 billion worth of extra spending through this Budget going to be paid for? No answer. The only way ultimately is taxation. It's alarming that this bill apparently predicates some 700 new staff being taken on by the IRD. Are they being taken on in a temporary position? I doubt it. Somebody has to be there to run the mechanisms that bring that $50 billion in over the next four years.The great thing is you know I'll bet there was never any systematic going-through of the Budget prior to it being announced yesterday by the Labour backbench. No idea. They'll just take it as read take it as being absolutely 100 percent no worries don't ask questions. It's been evident from the speeches that we've had today. The question arises: what will happen at the end of the three-month period? I'll tell you what'll happen: there'll be a Christmas bonus. Grant Robertson will put on his red hat with the fluffy white pom-pom and he'll give out a Christmas bonus. Because all of the remedies that failed the economy in the past—the 1950s 1960s 1970s—are being trotted out by this Government. You can't get past the fact that when there is a massive amount of money being spent—like the 68 percent increase in Government spending in four years. Imagine what that'd be like in your household; it'd be phenomenal. And the question is: why is the Government not looking at the drivers of inflation in this country? We keep on getting told "Oh it's the Ukraine war it's COVID it's all the sort of slowdown in the world." It's a big chunk of debt that this country has got. It was the right thing to do to go to the balance sheet to try and get the economy held together. But it is not the right thing to cripple the economy by putting the sort of pernicious tax regimes in place that this Government seems so hell-bent on. Where is the incentive for producers in this country? Go back to that question I raised before: why is the Government so happy to say that a $350 one-off payment is going to sort things out for 2.1 million New Zealanders? That is alarming that that's the sort of thinking that's going on. Day by day the costs of life for those people who are in those income brackets—and remember that's the upper end. If you're on $71000 nothing. That's the upper end. So the squeezed middle is a real group of people. It's not some term just grabbed out of anywhere. It is a massive group in this population. There's no way that they're going to be able to come off this temporary assistance and say "Well phew. Thank goodness we got through that. It's all over now. Cost of living has suddenly settled. Look at that. There's some new land for some supermarkets; that'll make a big difference to my life." That sort of thing is not going to happen and nor is the pressure on fuel price going to go away. So the real question also is—another real question; so many questions come out of this Budget: who is going to pay in the end? Remember history will tell you it's always those who are on the bottom end of the earning scale."