Upston Louise; Rurawhe AdrianHon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): Thank you Mr Speaker. We've heard lots from the other side about how proud they are of Budget 2022. I was staggered by one of the Ministers whose biggest achievement was record amounts of tax they are taking from hard-working New Zealanders. It says it all—says it all—record amounts of tax that they are taking from hard-working New Zealanders. What are Budgets about? Budgets are about priorities. They're about priorities for New Zealand today and in the future.I want to look at this debate through the eyes of a few constituents. One I spoke to in Taupō last week: a woman that's been in business for 29 years. When she looks at the Budget she's looking for what the measures are that demonstrate this is a Government who knows it's about earning rather than just spending. What does she find—what did she find? Absolutely nothing. Actually it was worse. It took her business backwards because of the additional costs that her business would face. She's a proud employer. She's proud to know that the income her business earns puts food on the tables of others. So what did she get out of this Budget? Absolutely nothing. That's why National says this is the Budget that takes New Zealand backwards. It's people like her who have a business—albeit a small one but 29 years in business is pretty outstanding. Do you know what the worst thing was? She didn't know if she would make it to 30 years.This is a Government whose priorities are completely back to front. They crow about spending—record spending: $6 billion and counting. Well most people look at the Budget and say Where does this take me and my family? Where does this take my business? What does it do for our opportunities and our aspiration and this being the country we want to live in and grow old in? Well not much."—not much except eye-watering levels of debt higher interest rates that will mean rents go up even further mortgage rates go up and the cost of living crisis that's a crisis today is going to get a hell of a lot worse in the next six to 12 months.The other thing that's really interesting—I don't pay a huge amount of attention to every poll that comes out but the post-Budget poll is always interesting. This would have to be the first since I've been in Parliament—14 Budgets—where there hasn't at least been a couple of percent boost for the Government of the day. So to have committed the amount of money that Grant Robertson has an absolute addiction to spending and actually to realise New Zealanders aren't stupid—lots of zeroes. And to the Minister who spoke before me—who spoke about being careful and looking after all New Zealanders—well I'm not sure they'd think that with the $30000 he's wasted on some red zeroes. That's exactly the issue. The comprehension—just the utter embarrassment that he should have being in charge of a Government department that thinks nothing of spending $30000 on some fat red zeroes that they can promote to say they're doing something just shows actually how far from reality they are.I think about a family in Tokoroa who work incredibly hard—multi-generations who live in this family who are struggling to stay in their rental property because their rent keeps going up. Actually a couple of years ago they were aspirational to one day buying their own home. With interest rates the way they're going—and they'll be up for a long time—an average mortgage is potentially going to be $200 or $300 a week more in mortgage payments. They've just kissed that dream goodbye. National is clear about the sorts of things that New Zealanders are looking for. They want to know they can get through the next period of time. They want to know the Government is as careful with their money—because it is their money which they've handed over to the Government in terms of taxes. They want them to know they will be as careful as they are.Actually what's a much better choice as Nicola Willis our finance spokesperson and our leader Christopher Luxon have said on multiple occasions is that actually we would let people keep more of what they've earned because we trust them. We trust them with their own money. Hello on the other side: there is such a thing as trusting New Zealanders to be in charge of their own lives making their own decisions and knowing what is best for themselves and their families. But instead those hard-working families—like the one I've referred to—are going backwards under this Government. They think those people will be incredibly grateful for that little pittance of a cost of living payment only to find out that the jobs tax will cost them three times as much—three times as much.This is the thing that I think people are waking up to. A lot of the big announcements don't actually mean anything. I'll give you another example. I've been a champion of driver licensing and I know as our social development and employment spokesperson it's a real barrier to employment when people don't have their drivers licence. In 2017 Labour campaigned on a driver-licensing initiative. Every secondary school student would get five hours of driving lessons they would get defensive driving lessons and they would get their tests paid for—every single secondary school. It was called the school leavers' toolkit—you remember that?—2017. So what's happened? Every Budget until this: nothing.Todd Muller: That zero.Hon LOUISE UPSTON: Yeah—that zero. Let's bring those zeroes out Minister of Transport. That would be great. Oh—no no. They've announced five years in they're putting $86 million into driver licensing and not for every school student; just for some. That's the difference. New Zealanders aren't stupid. They see through the spin. They want the substance. They want the opportunities. They want to know that New Zealand can come through a challenging time but to actually still see that there's a future for them here in New Zealand. If I look at my young adult children I think probably within 12 months more of them will be overseas than they are here and we're going to see a return to the bad old days where our best and brightest leave at the very same time we don't have enough nurses we don't have enough midwives and we don't have enough great teachers. The other side crow about the unemployment rate—3.2 percent. Well answer me this simple question: why has there been an absolute explosion in the number of people on the jobseeker benefit if unemployment is so low? At the very same time there are businesses everywhere desperate for staff. Oh no but there's billions of dollars—$5 billion or $6 billion in my last count—that is going into employment initiatives that actually aren't getting the outcomes aren't getting results and aren't getting those who have been on the jobseeker benefit for a long time into work. So what's the point of them? That is the thing that New Zealanders want to see in their Budget. They want to see sensible spending. They want to see investments that actually deliver results. They don't want to just see a press release with lots of zeroes on the end and some fancy smarmy words; they want to know that what is spent what is committed out of the money they earn and hand over to the Government of the day gets results.The health reforms is a classic. How many more hip operations how many more knee operations and how much more time in a post-natal facility will the health reforms bring? Guess what: $60 million—6-0 million dollars—have been taken out of the maternity action plan to go into the health reforms. So the very time—the very time—we should be investing in the critical first few days of a baby's life oh no Labour's decided that's not a priority—taking that money out of the maternity action plan giving it to Andrew Little and his behemoth of a reform that nobody knows will actually deliver anything when instead it could have been going to the mums and babies who need it most. That says it all. That's exactly what Labour's doing: taking us backwards.DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is a split call. I call Ginny Andersen."