Hutchison Paul: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHutchison Paul: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 11 April 2013. Volume:689;Page:9285. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]1.Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Hunua) to theMinister of Finance: What will be the focus of Budget 2013 and how will it help meet the priorities the Government has set for this term?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): The Budget will be the next step in the Government’s longer-term programme started when it was elected to make the economy more adaptable more sustainable and more competitive. We will continue to work hard to get back to surplus and stop Government debt rising. We will continue with economic reforms to make the economy more competitive to steadily improve public services despite tight fiscal constraints and to ensure that Christchurch recovers from the earthquake. What we are doing is well signalled and predictable and there will be no big surprises in the Budget.Dr Paul Hutchison: What approach will the Budget take to building the growth required to support more jobs and higher incomes in the economy?Hon BILL ENGLISH: It will focus on encouraging long-term investment by the private sector and investment particularly in new jobs. Of course it will continue the path of the Government improving the effectiveness of its own investment for public services and for the wider economy. Through the Business Growth Agenda we have identified the ingredients needed for businesses to invest and grow to support more jobs and higher incomes and the Government will build on these. It will also reconfirm the Government’s commitment to conventional monetary policy predictable fiscal policy and a sound financial system.Dr Paul Hutchison: What progress will the Budget report in meeting the Government’s target of returning to fiscal surplus in 2014-15?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I can confirm that the updated forecast will show that the Government remains on track to surplus in 2014-15. This is a considerable achievement given the forecasts of never-ending deficits and ever-rising debt that we inherited. Just 2 years ago the deficit was $18.4 billion about half of which was the cost of contributing to the rebuild of Christchurch. As a result of Government decisions since Budget 2009 we will have reduced the Government’s need to borrow compared with the policies we inherited by $30 billion by 2016-17 and by 2015 what was forecast expenditure back in 2008 of $83 billion for that year will actually be only $73 billion. So the accumulation of our budgetary decisions has been to knock $10 billion out of Government expenditure for 2015.Dr Paul Hutchison: After returning to surplus what will be the Government’s main fiscal priorities?Hon BILL ENGLISH: We do not want to get too far ahead of ourselves but this is a Government with a long-term vision for New Zealand. Beyond the return to surplus we will need to shift our focus towards using those forecast surpluses to achieve our second fiscal objective which is reducing Government net debt to 20 percent of GDP by 2020. We will be doing this in the context of choices between paying off debt topping up the New Zealand Superannuation Fund or further spending on improving public services. But 20 percent of GDP net debt is a level that the Government considers to be prudent which would help us to get ready to weather the next storm in the global economy.