English Bill: Annual Review Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeEnglish Bill: Annual Review Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 13 April 2016. Volume:713;Page:10486. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): It is a pleasure to take part in this debate about the annual reviews from the 2014-15 year—the year when the New Zealand Public Service achieved a surplus after 6 or 7 years of deficit some of them very large deficits. I want to just acknowledge the work done by so many public servants select committee members and chairs of select committees in helping to produce essentially more for less. At a time when money has been pretty tight this is a period when public services have improved and that is to a large extent due to the efforts of the Public Service and also my colleagues in Cabinet.Just to comment a bit on the Greens’ finance spokesman’s words—you know I will give the Greens credit. At least they have got their own internal coherence. I do not agree with them—and I will point out some ways in which I disagree with them—but it is quite a contrast to the Labour Party. With the Greens you know what those members are going to say; you know how they are going to say it. Generally it is with a bit of nasty edge although this member is a bit better than some of the previous occupants of that position which is welcome because it makes it more likely that you can have a constructive discussion. Whereas with the Labour Party you do not quite know what those members are going to say and it is pretty hard to connect one bit to another.So just to a couple of points raised by the Greens spokesman—Hon Annette King: Spokeswoman actually.Hon BILL ENGLISH: —spokeswoman—actually as a result of the tax changes made in 2010 the higher-income brackets are paying a higher proportion of income tax and there is a great deal less structuring around companies trusts sole proprietors and so on because the tax systems for the higher-income earners are more coherent and harder to avoid and they do pay pretty much at the statutory rate. That part of the Green Party prejudice is simply wrong as it is about protecting the most vulnerable. As any number of members of Cabinet could attest we spend an awful lot of time on not just protecting the most vulnerable but working out how to assist them to realise their aspirations.Here are a couple of examples of that. New Zealand now has one of the highest ratios of minimum wage to average wage in the developed world because of consistent increases in the minimum wage. Just a few weeks ago on 1 April were the first increases in base benefit rates for households with families in over 40 years. This is the lesson that the Greens should learn: if the Green Party wants a constructive discussion then it should be a bit more objective about what has actually been achieved so that we can talk about how to achieve more.To come back to the financial reviews I think a growing feature which is actually reflected in the material prepared by the select committee is the way the Government is taking a longer-term view—in fact a multigenerational view—of what drives our expenditure. Sure it is a good thing that we got a surplus in 2014-15 of around $400 million after much effort but actually if we want to have a surplus in 2025 there are decisions being made now that will affect that. The effectiveness of programmes for 5-year-olds will determine whether they need support when they are 15 years old. Too often in the past the Government has been flying blind on whether our programmes and spending have an impact. Most of our spending is social spending and for most of it we need to have a better idea of what impact it has. By and large in the mainstream services it is fairly effective but particularly for the most vulnerable—whom the Greens keep talking about—and for the most complex families we have got quite some way to go.I expect that in the future we will see more in our select committee reports on the financial review for this year—further progress on that shift to the long-term view that this Government is taking. We do have to account for this year’s cash—that is important; important for the Parliament—but we do also have to work out whether it is going to contribute to the future financial sustainability of the New Zealand Government.