Bennett PaulaHon PAULA BENNETT (Deputy Leader—National): Well hello fiscal hole; take a bow Steven Joyce. The previous speaker the Minister of Finance the Hon Grant Robertson should have started his speech with I am sorry." to Steven Joyce and to the National Party who pointed out exactly where we would be at this time. I can't help but quote directly Cameron Bagrie who said "I don't like the term fiscal hole. Good policy should dominate over strict debt targets and economic cycles come and go which are often beyond government control. But the Labour-led Government's fiscal hole is looking deeper by the day—and bigger than the $11.7 billion of additional borrowing that Joyce identified."This Government is not taking business concerns seriously and they simply have to stop dismissing them. They don't understand that for business it is the unknown.Fletcher Tabuteau: Isn't a general debate this slot.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yes it is. Be quiet.Hon PAULA BENNETT: Businesses don't know what is coming and they got nothing out of this Budget. Businesses don't know what's coming—hell the Government doesn't know what's coming. Here we have working group after working group after working group out there. There are over 100 working groups and they are looking at everything from tax to industrial relations to—I mean you name it: the environment climate change. You name it; they are looking right across it. And businesses don't know what is coming next.They also don't know what dodgy deal will be done between the Greens and Labour and New Zealand First to get the next piece of legislation over the line—Hon Kris Faafoi: Who's reviewing Simon? Somebody is; I know they are.Hon PAULA BENNETT: —and that unpredictability is doing real damage to business. You should take this really seriously Mr Faafoi because actually this means jobs for New Zealanders. Actually this means whether or not a business goes out tomorrow and employs another person. When they don't know what will be delivered to them by the current Government through the Budget they've just seen—as I say more than 100 working groups and deals that have to be done with parties that have pretty much nothing much in common and have to do a dodgy deal—there is uncertainty and uncertainty in the real world means jobs. Uncertainty means that someone in—and I am going to take the great electorate of Upper Harbour. Each electorate has its little claim to fame. Upper Harbour's claim to fame—and I want to quote it particularly—is that they have the highest number of people who own their own home with a mortgage. So what they care about is business confidence. What they care about is their ability to pay those mortgages. They are my "tradies done good". They worked for decades they saved their money they took risks in their businesses and now they've bought good homes and they're doing quite well but they've big mortgages. They care about those jobs they care about their business and they do not like the unpredictability that they are currently seeing. You've got to say that with the deals that are going on—you can see it—principles are out the window so we no longer have principles driving people like the Greens. I've got to say I didn't agree with them often but I actually did admire them for standing by what they believed in what they stood on and their own core principles. Well they're gone now if they have to do a dodgy deal with New Zealand First to try and get something over. But as the Deputy Prime Minister often likes to say I believe and quite often in private this is the cost of being in Government. Well the cost of being in Government shouldn't be people's livelihoods and their jobs. It shouldn't be business confidence crumbling like we're currently seeing. It's obvious that the current Government doesn't know what to do as they've actually you know almost contracted out the role of governing to the working groups. But they have to take seriously the fact that businesses are losing confidence and as a consequence are not spending the same in their own businesses or looking at taking on new people. I want to talk about things like—I mean let's just do the list—strikes and the expectations of the public sector. They were raised by both Labour and the Greens during last year. So they raised expectations within the public sector that they would be getting double-digit pay increases on a percentage basis. And that might be the right thing. They can't deliver on those promises now and we didn't see that in this Budget. We did not see money put aside for a serious Public Service. So we haven't even started addressing doctors or secondary school teachers. We haven't got to police yet. While we're on police we didn't see in this Budget the funding for the extra 1800 police that we were repeatedly promised during the coalition and during the deal. It's even in the document. So they haven't actually funded them. All they've done is take the funding that National had already put in—the extra funding for extra police—but there's no funding for them so they're not able to deliver on that. But the effect that now we're seeing on the public sector around the broken promises is we've got literally parents now having to take days off work tomorrow because those teachers are on strike. Take some responsibility for it. We didn't see it in this Budget we're not seeing it being taken seriously by this current Government and I think that's really serious. It's the effect of those pay increases into the private sector. So what does it mean for them? Well we don't hear those recognitions from this Government. We don't see those recognitions in the Budget. So anything from strikes to pay increases to the questions around industrial relations are dismissed and made a joke of in this House but actually they are very real concerns for the business sector as they're moving forward. Tax more spend more borrow more—that's what we saw in this Budget.And some will say on spending that it is time. In fact I might say on some of the spending that it is time. If only that spend had gone to education and to health like was promised so much but what you would call this Budget in terms of education and health is if anything ordinary—ordinary. There was nothing extraordinary. There was nothing extra. We saw the big announcement last week—the Prime Minister coming back for her first week after leave to make that big big mental health announcement of—Hon Nathan Guy: What was it?Hon PAULA BENNETT: —six mental health units. And let's remember this: they took $100 million out of mental health—$100 million out of mental health—and then they added six units. Well I tell you what that's shameful. That's the big announcement that we saw last week. And yes we did hear murmurings from the Labour Government—you know the backbench going "This is actually a bit embarrassing if this is the best that we can do." What we did see in the spending was not spending in education and not spending in health. What we saw it on was on fees-free. By the way Treasury in this Budget are forecasting fewer tertiary students into the future. So not more; they are literally saying fewer students in the future. We saw the "Provincial Slush Fund" as we all know and boy are we seeing a lack of process in how that is spent. I've got to say the regions are literally laughing—laughing. They're going "Well we'll take our wee bit. Why wouldn't we?" But actually what will be dished out and how it will is anyone's guess—the particular mood of the day. What we're also seeing of course is more diplomats and the spending in the Pacific Islands and one might argue that there's merit in that—but at the cost of education at the cost of our teachers at the cost of what is needed in mental health? I don't think so. I think the spending in this Budget is completely out of whack with the realities of what was promised last year repeatedly; the expectations that have been built up and where they've actually landed. So if this was a Budget that was serious about New Zealanders a bit of advice: start taking business seriously. Start listening to them. Start recognising that what happens in business actually affects everyday New Zealanders' lives. They need to be able to afford that minimum wage increase. They need to be able to take on the extra people. They genuinely want to but they need a Government that is predictable. They need a Government they can trust. They need a Government that will stand up for them. And secondly spend where you said you would. Put your money where your mouth is when it comes to education and when it comes to health. We didn't see that in this Budget and it's deeply disappointing."