Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Mr Speaker thank you very much for the opportunity. Well we've had another week of drama in New Zealand. The cost of living crisis rages on where Kiwis are struggling to afford their everyday needs wages are going up 2.6 percent but the cost of living is going up 6 percent at least—it's much more than that in many other areas when people visit the supermarket. We've seen the return of the scourge of inflation in this country such as we haven't seen for 30 years and this Government—this Labour Government—has lost control of the economy and lost control of New Zealanders' living standards because it hasn't been able to discipline its spending.Then we've seen the destabilisation of the post-War order in Europe and that of course is concerning many New Zealanders and many people around the world. What does that mean for us as a country? What does it mean for peace and stability? Another thing we've seen this week is we've seen a team of groundsmen outside fixing the front lawn after the chaos and riots that we had in front of this Parliament only a few weeks ago. It's a reflection of the breakdown of law and order in this country.We've also seen the retirement of Simon Bridges and I do want to pay tribute to Simon—a good friend. He's made a great contribution in this House and to New Zealand. He's fought hard for Kiwis and fought hard for New Zealanders and we wish him and his family all the very best. What else have we had? We've had a poll. The people of New Zealand should thank TVNZ because that poll led directly to a cut in petrol prices so people can enjoy the cut that this Government has done because they saw that their popularity was going down the gurgler. All of the list MPs up the back there realised that they were going to be having to go looking for a job. They didn't have any chance of getting a decent job and they were panicking and they all went into caucus in a mad panic and they've reduced the petrol prices. So people should be very thankful to TVNZ for that.We've also had this new team put in place by Chris Luxon. I'm very proud to be part of his team taking the fight to this Government alongside Nicola Willis who is going to be a great finance spokesperson and will hold Grant Robertson's feet to the fire.The challenges that we face in this country continue to be fundamentally and first and foremost the need to develop sustainable economic growth that can sustain genuinely world-class incomes in New Zealand so that New Zealanders have the opportunities for themselves and their families to succeed to prosper to do well and to be ambitious for your family. To look after your family and do well—that's what we want. That's what we want in this country and what we aspire to in this country. But what we're seeing from this Government is an economy that's based purely and simply on debt-fuelled Government spending on a colossal scale and incredibly low interest rates which is not sustainable because it's leading to inflation. Also ultimately if you can't control your spending you end up overwhelmed with debt.There is no reference anywhere in Government policies really to growing the economy or improving our competitiveness internationally. You'd never hear Michael Wood talking about how we're going to improve our competitiveness; only how he's going to increase costs for businesses. Their idea of lifting incomes is to lift the minimum wage and to increase public sector pay rates. Now that's part of the job of any Government but that's not going to help everybody. That's not how you increase wages sustainably in the long term. You increase wages sustainably in the long term by having a more productive economy that produces goods that the rest of the world wants and is prepared to pay for. That needs a competitive market and part of that is flexible labour markets and I'm going to be fighting hard against the proposed rigidity that this Government wants to put back in our labour markets with their so-called inappropriately named fair pay agreements.Then we need to talk about delivery. This Government of course famously hasn't delivered on housing and will never deliver on housing. It hasn't delivered much on transport. After four years of talking about the slow tram down Dominion Road it hasn't started. It's colossally overpriced and it's a very bad idea. I haven't yet met anybody in Auckland who thinks that of all the priorities in Auckland transport a slow tram down Dominion Road is the most important priority for the next $26 billion we're going to spend or whatever it is. On justice—oh my goodness on justice—we've got an increase in violent crime we've got 50 percent increase in gang members we've got a sense of lawlessness on the streets and we've got very slow access to justice in our courts and what's this Government doing about it? Not very much. They haven't delivered the police that they promised they are focused on hate speech—well let's see what they come up with there—but when it comes to actually keeping New Zealanders safe they've made no progress at all. Instead what they focus on is dividing New Zealanders between those that they want to support and those that they don't.