Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Well it was very enlightening to have a lecture from Shane Jones on various topics. He gave us a lecture on arrogance and I can't help but think of all his references to to the victor goes the spoils" and all the false modesty that he talks about—every eye in the regions rolls when he talks about his characteristic modesty and the "first citizens of the region".Then we had a lecture about distasteful behaviour—this from the man who famously abused his ministerial credit card. Then we had a lecture from him on wastefulness and this from the man who's spent tens of thousands and hundreds and millions of taxpayers' money so that he could buy trees to have them mulched up by his friends in Ngāti Hine. Then we heard about "utter exactitude" from Mr Jones when he didn't have any idea how many jobs have been created so far. We thought it was 54 plus 118 bureaucrats. He said maybe 560 but that includes a whole lot of part-timers including the five people who spent one hour each mulching those very same seedlings up at Ngāti Hine—so utter exactitude!Then we heard about leakage and seepage and that is too terrible to contemplate from Mr Jones. Then we heard lectures to the Auditor-General in his usual way and then he talked about the nephs on the couch. Well how on earth he thinks he's going to help the nephs on the couch by (1) doing away with any welfare sanctions to encourage them to get off the couch (2) to be part of a Government that's presided over a colossal drop in the number of new jobs being created in this economy from 10000 new jobs a month under the National Party—so more than 200000 jobs over a two-year period the last two years of the National Government—to a situation in the past three months when we have lost jobs. We haven't created any new jobs across the country; we've lost 4000 jobs. So he talks about getting the nephs off the couch while his Government is presiding over an evaporation of new jobs in order to get those nephs off the couch. Then of course he's part of a Government that wants to liberalise dope so I don't know how that's going to help either.Back on to the Budget. I knew what we were talking about when we heard about the Budget. The striking moment to me was on Tuesday after the Budget Tuesday last week. I tuned in to Radio New Zealand's Morning Report to listen to the Prime Minister the Tuesday after the Budget thinking that she would be out there all guns blazing talking about the wonders of her new Budget and the amazing thing was she never mentioned it at all. She didn't talk about it. So we had the Prime Minister the week after the Budget in her first round of major media interviews—she didn't want to talk about the Budget and that strikes me as speaking volumes in terms of the complete botch-up that was this Government's Budget in 2019.It was a flop because there was lots of spending sure there was lots more borrowing—that's sure—but there was no economic plan at all outlined in this Budget. So we stand here as a country which when the Government had come into power was growing at not far off 4 percent GDP growth. Last year that growth had fallen away to just over 2 percent and that's a colossal difference. Every 1 percent of GDP relates to about $3 billion and so that fall-off in growth has ramifications for the whole of the economy and for our New Zealand way of life and our wellbeing. Every time I listen to Radio New Zealand in the morning on Morning Report I hear about New Zealanders saying "Oh isn't it terrible that we don't have access to the latest drugs and pharmaceuticals that Australians have access to?" Then I hear schoolteachers saying "Isn't it terrible that we don't get paid the same as Australian teachers get?" There's a very simple answer for that and that is that the Australians are much richer than us. They're much richer than us because they have a stronger economy. That is why it's so important to have a plan to actually grow the economy.So anyway let's go through the Budget. I do wish Vicky all the best in Australia. That was another element of the fiasco that was the communication of this Budget and I won't go into the question of the leaks and the hoax and all the other elements to it.Now if we look at the spending—the spending—there is $3.8 billion of new spending in this Budget. Just so people can get a sense of how that stacks up the first year I was a Minister in the 2015 Budget we had allocation of $1 billion of new spending. We were fighting our way out of a hole caused by the global financial crisis and the earthquakes in Christchurch. People seem to forget very quickly what was going on. We inherited unsustainable spending and had massive debts that we had to climb our way out of and so we were disciplined about our spending.They've opened the taps full throttle and what have we got? Well we've got a lot of spending on mental health and I think most New Zealanders would agree that's well worth spending on. So we give them a big tick for that. The question though of course is not what spending you announce; it's what you actually do and what you achieve with that money. That's a critical thing and we'll be watching closely to ensure that people with mental health needs actually get better access to mental health services over the next couple of years. There is a bit of money on family violence and that all makes good sense but very little else that you can actually point to for all that money. No extra money for pharmaceuticals.Of course having done all that the first piece of legislation that the Government brought into the House was their petrol tax increase that New Zealanders are just waking up to the full ramifications of at the moment. I don't think they quite appreciate that there's about $1.5 billion plus GST—so about $1.8 billion—extra taxation that this Government is taking out of motorists over three years—$1.8 billion. That is contributing to obviously the cost of living and making it more difficult for people to get around to do what they need to do. It flows through to all parts of the economy anything that moves whether it's something carried around in a truck—delivered food groceries ice cream or new TVs; you name it—anything that's moved is going to be more expensive because of the increase in fuel taxes.People can understand that. They don't mind I suppose if they could see that they're getting something for the money but as we've heard from Mr Twyford we're taking a whole lot more money. And then his reaction has been to cancel a whole lot of projects and then talk about doing a whole lot of other weird and wonderful things somewhere in the future—maybe a slow tram down Dominion Road. But 20 months into Government we don't have anything like a plan put together. The New Zealand Transport Agency is in a state of chaos and dysfunction. So we're paying more and getting less. It doesn't surprise me that motorists are somewhat irritated at the prospect of paying more for their fuel and their petrol and being told they should be grateful—well small mercies they'll get to go slower on the roads thanks to this Government and its approach to transport.Then also when they spend of course they spend in a highly wasteful manner. I just have to mention the Provincial Growth Fund and I'm very keen to see the Estimates hearings with Mr Jones in the next couple of days and get a sense of just actually what he's done. We know he's announced a whole lot of things but what has he actually done in 20 months with the Provincial Growth Fund money?Then we look at the borrowing. They're going to borrow an extra $20 billion and all young New Zealanders will have to pay that in the future. The only point I'd make on that is these are supposed to be the good times. Let's not forget that the export prices that New Zealanders are getting at the moment as shown by our terms of trade are colossally high. These should be golden years for this country. We should be roaring ahead right now. We should be rolling in clover. Instead the growth is falling away new job creation is falling away and we're adding debt and that is an indictment on the economic management of this country.When we look at the plan—we're scurrying through this document here trying to find the plan for the economy. "Transforming the Economy"—one of the five sections is "Transforming the Economy". What is the number one policy to transform the economy? A billion-dollar subsidy for rail. Well thank you very much folks there you go—there you go. You've got it. You've heard it here you've seen it here. We're going to give an extra billion dollars' subsidy to rail to buy some new wagons and to make some new tracks and that is going to be the key policy to transform the New Zealand economy.No wonder people are depressed. No wonder business confidence is falling through the floor. What are they actually doing around increasing the flow of foreign investment in this country? Well they're turning those taps off. They don't want it.What are they doing in order to expand New Zealanders access to natural resources with which to make the money? Well they're saying that we're so rich—so rich!—that we don't need any access to extra oil and gas—we don't need that. Eugenie Sage stands up and says we're so rich we don't need to look for gold—we don't need to look for those things.What are they doing in skills? Well they're spending all the money on a pointless free fees area—pointless free fees which has got no new students through the universities. And if you looked in this Budget you will find not one extra cent for quality and research in universities. There's nothing about that. I'm waiting for the vice-chancellors to jump up and down like they always did when we were delivering Budgets when we were giving lots of money to the university sector in order to improve its quality. We haven't heard anything there.And then what do we see on infrastructure? Well we see a Minister that's great at cancelling projects and not coming up with any new ones. So what a botched Budget. Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker."