Bennett DavidDAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): The Budget Estimates debate is a great time to look at the policy difference between the two political parties that have just spoken. I think we can tell that that last speaker Grant Robertson has a very negative approach to New Zealand. It is an approach of basically Grant Robertson knows better than any other New Zealander—that a failed academic who has made his life out of politics knows better than anybody else in New Zealand. He is somebody who can decide where to build houses. Grant Robertson believes he is greater than God. He can work out where houses go he can build them at a certain price and he can make everything happen at a certain price for a certain policy. That is the Labour Party dream. It is a dream of socialism gone wrong. The Labour Party is continually harking back to its socialist roots: free housing free university education free Government jobs if you work for a Government department no loans. It is all that socialist rhetoric that has gone and has been taken away from the rest of the world that has grown up and worked out that it does not work and has actually moved on. That is what this Budget shows. It shows an open progressive economy that delivers for New Zealanders. I want to take a little moment to talk about immigration because I know that this is something that the other parties are going to come to in their speeches because whenever they talk about housing they link it to migrants. The National Government is proud to welcome people to New Zealand. We are a country that is proud to have people come to this country and become part of New Zealand and build their lives and their dreams here. We are not a party like New Zealand First which is against migrants we are not a party like the Green Party which does not want any people in New Zealand and we not a party like the Labour Party which has sold out for the theory of housing—the once-proud Labour Party. When I first came into politics at every event I went to the Labour Party said: We are pro-migration. We are pro-immigrants." Now it does not say that. Those members hardly go to those events because they know they cannot stand up in front of those groups and actually be honest with them and say "We're cutting immigration." because that is what the Labour Party stands for. That is its policy: it wants to cut immigration. That is the true Labour Party that you are seeing come out now and the Labour members are very quiet now—not one defensive comment. Not one—Iain Lees-Galloway: It's because we've all gone to sleep.DAVID BENNETT: Then they come back now because they have just been called to talk. New Zealand has a choice of how we run this country. We can be an open free country that takes our opportunities or we can be closed and restrictive on our people and our future. The world is going through quite interesting times. You are seeing what is happening in Britain and what is happening in North America. There is a mood and there is a political class that is talking about restrictions about stopping people—Hon Annette King: A class?DAVID BENNETT: Yes it is a class Mrs King—a class based around those people like Bernie Sanders who are true Labour Party members. That mood is a negative mood that is against progress and success. New Zealand has taken a different approach. New Zealand is in the heart of that Asian growth bubble that is basically the world for the next 150 years. As part of that the last thing we should do is have a restrictive approach. If New Zealand takes the Labour Greens and New Zealand First approach we will deny ourselves the opportunity that our geographical position has enabled us to take in the next 50 to 100 years. We cannot let that opportunity slip. I often talk to the public in Hamilton and ask them: "What is the biggest thing in Hamilton? What is our biggest strategic advantage?". We always look at it and we know that it is our proximity to Auckland. Just like Hamilton is to Auckland New Zealand is to Asia and just like Hamilton has taken advantage of that link with Auckland through the expressway New Zealand needs to link with the Asian development and growth and actually take advantage of our opportunities in front of us. We do not need to stop people coming to this country. We do not need to say that we need to have population stilled across our major cities. We do not need to restrict our people and our future. What we need to do is embrace that opportunity and take that opportunity. Every time the people of Hamilton look north they look at it with success and pride because they know it is helping them grow and every time they look east they look at it the same way. We look at that as being the next stage of Hamilton growth. It is to look east just like New Zealand's next stage will be to look east towards South America and America as we grow. So you can relate Hamilton to New Zealand's position and it is very much the same. New Zealanders must take that opportunity and we must not go into that politics of fear and dissolution that you are seeing around the world which pits people against each other just because of our race or our religion or where we were born. We must accept all New Zealanders and more importantly must welcome new New Zealanders and let people have a future in this country and not go through the petty politics of fear that the Opposition peddles through every election campaign which we know those members are going to do again this time. This Budget is so important in providing that impetus and I think New Zealand has got a perfect opportunity in the next few years to take advantage of that. The one thing I fear is that we do not take advantage of that and our near neighbours do and if New Zealand gets out of kilter with Australia in that regard. Then have a look at the housing market. Instead of worrying about 30000 people leaving New Zealand to go to Australia as was the case 10 years ago under the Labour Government there will be 50000 leaving to go to Australia. Cities like Melbourne and Sydney are projected to have populations of 9 million people each in the next 30 years—9 million people. Auckland goes to 2.4 million people in that time. Auckland needs to grow and be stronger than that to be successful. We need a strong Auckland for a strong New Zealand. A strong Auckland will come through population growth and that population growth is imperative to our country taking its place in the future. The Green Party may laugh but the Green Party just wants New Zealand to be an Island State and thinks that everything will be fine and that everything—Grant Robertson: Well we are an island.DAVID BENNETT: Well an Island State in the sense of not having that strong economic basis. Oh we are all an Island State if you want to look at it that way Mr Robertson. Mr Robertson can be cute around the facts but he cannot actually understand any of the details when it comes to things. So it is important that we follow the course that New Zealand has set itself on and this is a course that gives us an amazing opportunity to be a very successful country. If we do not follow that choice and we do not follow that course then we consign ourselves to what New Zealand First the Labour Party and the Green Party want and that is not something New Zealanders want to see. We do not want to see—oh Mr Ron Mark is laughing as well yes. Mr Ron Mark who has never won a seat who never can win a seat and who has back-pedalled into this Parliament for his whole career on the coat-tails of one leader of his party and who has never been able to convince the people of one electorate to vote for him—so it is big of you to come in here and tell us what to do Mr Mark. Going back to that population change which is so important for Auckland as well if we do not have that population growth Auckland will not have the world-class university of the future. Auckland will not have the base for that economic growth that we need so that our young people stay in this country and want to be part of New Zealand. Auckland's strength will mean that Hamilton and Tauranga are strong and as those regions grow then the rest of New Zealand will prosper and succeed as well and you are seeing that through the rest of New Zealand at this moment with a strong economic base in the north of the North Island. New Zealand has a clear choice next year as to whether we take an open approach—which this Budget represents—that is aspirational for our people and that gives us opportunities and takes the opportunity we have in that new world order or whether we take the restrictive negative approach of the Bernie Sanders of the world the Don Trumps of the world and the Lenins of the world who would actually want us not to take our chances but to consign ourselves to being a State that does not believe it needs to compete and does not need to actually offer the opportunities to all New Zealanders. I see New Zealanders as deserving and needing those opportunities and they should not have them taken away by a negative restrictive Labour - Greens - New Zealand First Opposition. Thank you."