Clark DavidAPPROPRIATION (2015/16 SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES) BILLIMPREST SUPPLY (FIRST FOR 2016/17) BILLSecond ReadingsDebate resumed.Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North): I have been looking forward to the opportunity to speak on this legislation particularly after the contribution of the previous speaker David Bennett who I think illustrated a point I wanted to make in my speech which is that there is no plan from this Government. These supplementary estimates which we are debating today make that abundantly clear. The supplementary estimates for people at home come out in a volume like this. You can get them on a computer as well. They are in a pretty solid book usually in a blue cover produced by Treasury and they indicate the areas in which the Government has moved money around in the year that has passed. The Government does it to make sure there is appropriate accounting treatment for the money that has been spent.The member who spoke previously would have us believe a whole lot of bunkum if we took his speech at face value. He did not speak at all about the supplementary estimates. I propose to differ from his approach and actually speak a little to the supplementary estimates in my speech novel though that may seem in such a debate. I also just want to set the record straight on a couple of things that he raised. The first thing he said was that the Cullen Government was not a good manager of the economy or words to similar effect. The Cullen Government ran nine surpluses in a row. I cannot claim any credit for that—I was not a Minister in that Government; I was not even a member of Parliament when the last Labour Government was here—but what I can say is that I have done the sums myself and Labour grew the economy 25 percent real. Once you strip out inflation and all of that kind of stuff it grew the economy 25 percent—real. Labour genuinely grew the economy and it ran nine surpluses out of nine Budgets—nine surpluses in a row. I think the facts speak for themselves. This Government by contrast has borrowed more money than Robert Muldoon's Government borrowed. It has generated deficit after deficit after deficit after deficit after deficit after deficit and finally it has squeaked a couple of surpluses home through a bit of jiggery-pokery. And that is the economic record that we debating here today.All those fine words that that member read out to the House do not address those fundamental facts of history: the last Labour Government grew the economy; this Government has struggled to make ends meet. Part of the problem I would argue is laid bare in these supplementary estimates. There is no plan—there is no dream of sharing the economy amongst the members of our citizenry. Government members are not interested in sharing any economic gains with middle New Zealand. Most New Zealanders are missing out. Under the last Labour Government over 50 percent of the gains went to ordinary working people. Under this Government most people are missing out. Only 37 percent of the minimal gains have been accruing to working New Zealanders and that lays bare a fundamental approach to the economy which is that the Government is just not interested in the interests of most New Zealanders.I flicked through the Supplementary Estimates because I enjoy looking through these things—it is a slightly awkward thing to admit to but I enjoy having a flick through. I was looking through them and stumbled across the supplementary estimates for the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) and I remembered of course that the Business Transformation project the grandly titled computer rebuild at the IRD was one of the big infrastructure projects claimed by this Government as part of its Budget—the infrastructure project being a central government computer. That is the great vision: replacing what we already have.Hon Clayton Cosgrove: The big hit.Dr DAVID CLARK: That is the big hit as Mr Cosgrove says. That is the vision. So in the Supplementary Estimates we find a line that says a transfer of $717000 from 2014/15 to 2015/16 for restructuring costs." That is the grand vision that we find in the Supplementary Estimates. Then we find something about this rebuild—"a fiscally neutral adjustment of ($2.100 million) to reflect Inland Revenue's funding contribution to the business transformation programme". This is the kind of thing we find in this document. It is moving small amounts around in a fiscally neutral fashion—if you are lucky—with a transfer here a fiscally neutral adjustment there. That is the range of exciting plans on show from the Government in the Supplementary Estimates.What else do we notice if we look through this document further? What we find in there is that there are delays noted in here. The reason that the Government has a little bit more money in its pocket to spend on some issues is that it did not get around to spending it last year. So the Christchurch rebuild delays contributed to the changes in this document. We find that the slow roll-out of broadband contributed to some of the changes that had to be noted in this document. We find that some outstanding earthquake claims that have been written off because the Government has not managed to process them well are in this document.We also find that there is a reduction in capital expenditure for district health boards at the very time we know that the Southern District Health Board needs a $300 million refit of the clinical services building that sits in Dunedin Hospital. We know that that needs to happen—we know a rebuild needs to happen—but this Government keeps pushing out the expenditure year after year after year. Tony Ryall was going to bring a plan to this House to rebuild Dunedin Hospital and he has gone. Then arrived Minister Coleman. He said "I will commit to that. I will have it done just as Mr Ryall suggested." and then he shifted it out. Then he shifted it to the end of the year and now he has shifted it to a bunch of commissioners who have no fixed deadline as best I can tell for delivering a capital rebuild project to Cabinet. They keep pushing it out. So in here we find more adjustments because they have not spent their capital allocation.So here is the kind of jiggery-pokery that is in here—it is about a Government that is not doing what it says it will do. It has a limited vision for what it will do and even then it is not delivering on it. That is what these supplementary estimates tell us when we actually look through them. We can also see that there is $50 million put aside because the number of unemployment beneficiaries is higher than forecast. So in these documents we have an extra $55 million allocated for a higher number of unemployment beneficiaries. It speaks to the Government's success once again—it is an economy that is working in the interests of the ultra-wealthy and middle New Zealand is missing out. Those who are struggling those who have hit hard times and middle New Zealand are missing out. They are missing out in this Budget and in these supplementary estimates documents.We also find in there a reduction in the programme for investing in education success and what more would you expect from this Government? We also find that the forecast tax credit for KiwiSaver is down because people are earning less and therefore the KiwiSaver contributions are less overall because the forecast wage growth has simply not eventuated. This is a Government overseeing a stagnant economy and content to manage decline. Those members are content to manage decline. That seems to be the vision that we find in this document here.I look forward to some more contributions from those opposite to explain how exciting managing decline can be. That may well be what we hear from the next speaker—I think it is Mr Bishop. I can see him poised sitting on the edge of his seat ready to tell us that actually "managed decline" is one term for it but there is a much more exciting term and that is "managing the economy well" or some such story.Those members do not have an answer to the fact that GDP per capita has been absolutely flat or the fact that most New Zealanders have not seen salary or wage increases that most New Zealanders are missing out and that the share of wealth going to the top 10 percent of New Zealanders is now at 60 percent in the recent study that came out that we have growing inequalities that homeownership rates are the lowest they have been since 1951 that they have underfunded the health system by $1.7 billion in the last 6 years and that they have capped operational spending on education. This is a Government with no vision but to manage decline. It is not interested in the Kiwi Dream like we in the Labour Party are. We would have made sure that 100000 new houses were planned for. We would have made sure that the health and education systems were properly funded. But this is the Government's document. This is the National Government's document. Those members are content to manage decline. Shame on them. This is not what New Zealand deserves."