Rurawhe AdrianBRETT HUDSON (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. Well this Budget—this Budget. The centrepiece of this Budget is the complete absence of any plan: lots and lots of headline numbers—some eye-wateringly large numbers like an additional $140 billion of borrowing—an economy heading into a crisis with jobs going in their tens of thousands and the Government presents a lot of money and no plan.Now that won't come as too much of a surprise to New Zealanders because for the past 2½ years they've shown they don't have a plan and they haven't even been able to deliver on that. I mean KiwiBuild anyone? Three hundred and ninety homes isn't exactly close to 100000 in anyone's books. In fact there was a report last week that said if KiwiBuild were to continue on its current trajectory it would take about 430 years to deliver those 100000 homes. The really interesting question that raises is which would be finished first: the 100000th KiwiBuild home or Auckland's light rail? Given the Hon Phil Twyford's track record I'd put my money on the KiwiBuild homes quite frankly.So no plan at all but there was a $20 billion slush fund an eye-wateringly large amount of money in New Zealanders' eyes with nothing tagged to what it will be used for and more importantly what it will actually achieve. The Government just set about giving itself enormous spending power to go along with the enormous governance power it gave itself just a couple of weeks ago with the COVID-19 Public Health Response Bill which gives it all the powers it might want under the sun. I'm reminded of something that a famous civil libertarian—P J O'Rourke—said. He said Giving money and power to Government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." Without a plan it can't possibly end well.Now it's not all going to be a brickbat. I will mention something that the Government did do in the middle of the COVID crisis which is very worthy—in fact at the beginning of the COVID crisis—to give them some credit. The wage subsidy as an immediate response to an oncoming economic disaster has meant that some businesses have been able to retain employees and importantly for those employees they've had some confidence that they can still pay the bills. But what the Government has shown consistently through the lockdown and again in the Budget is they don't understand business and they don't understand the full pressures that come on businesses in times such as these.So yes they put in the wage subsidy and that was a great start and a great help particularly for those affected workers but the wage bill is not the only bill a business faces. In the midst of lockdown businesses still had to pay their leases. They still had to pay their taxes. They still had to pay electricity and all other forms of regulatory cost impost that among other things this Government has layered upon them over the last couple of years. The bills still came in the door and the Government showed a complete reluctance to do anything to offer direct assistance for those businesses to help them survive so they could thrive in a well-organised recovery that a National-led Government would offer. That's a real shame because it's one thing to give an almost facade or a safety net of a wage subsidy but if those jobs don't exist when the subsidy ends how are those workers helped then?The complete lack of the supports that businesses need right now to keep going is a hallmark of this Government and the governing parties' lack of understanding of commerce and of business. Along the way the Opposition offered some very constructive ideas: a GST cash-back system. The six months to the end of December last year getting a cash back for GST paid would immediately pump cash flow into those businesses to help keep them alive. The depreciation model would encourage investment. The JobStart that our leader Todd Muller announced last week would all help to keep businesses going and to give them incentives to grow as soon as possible amidst uncertainty.I'd just like to finish by saying the police appropriations in the Budget are a huge disappointment—barely enough extra to cover inflation not enough to fund things like mental health projects and not enough to do the things we need to do. This Budget is a complete failure and a lack of a plan.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! The member's time has expired. I call Simeon Brown—five minutes."