Carter David; Williams PotoRt Hon DAVID CARTER (National): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. I just want to take a couple of minutes in my contribution to explain the reason that we have the release of the Budget Policy Statement and the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update at this time of year for the benefit particularly of the member who has just resumed his seat the Hon James Shaw leader of the Green Party. Mr Shaw spent a lot of his time talking about policies that are proposed by the Government the merits or otherwise of the policy and that's a debate for another day. The reason we have these documents presented to Parliament today is the result of two important pieces of legislation: the Fiscal Responsibility Act—I think of 1994—and the Public Finance Act.Both of those pieces of legislation came about as a result of the Labour Government of 1984-90 when at that time the incoming National Government found that the books had effectively been cooked and that an incoming Government could not rely on the financial information that was entered to it—totally unfair for any Government to come into that situation. Consequently over time we've developed a very transparent position whereby Governments have to outline the true financial position of a country prior to an election so that an incoming Government can appropriately cost its policies and work out what it can promise in an election campaign with some transparency and some accountability to the voters of New Zealand. So that is the purpose of these two documents that we are debating today.I've got to say looking particularly at the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update that on this occasion I don't think I've ever seen one presented to this Parliament in the time that I've been here that is so empty of information and outlying risks and I'll go through some of those risks in a minute. But I just want to say that I feel very sorry for the Secretary to the Treasury having to put his signature to the first few pages of this document and then to have to outline the financial risks that exist throughout the document simply because policy hasn't been adequately costed at this stage. I note that Mr Robertson had no hesitation putting his signature on the same page as the Secretary to the Treasury. But I suspect the comfort zone of the Secretary to the Treasury was not the same as the comfort zone of the Hon Grant Robertson.What we see in these documents presented to Parliament today is that we have a typical Labour Government—now associated with the Greens and of course with Mr 7 Percent" New Zealand First. It's a high-tax high-spend Government. That is what every Labour Government has been in the time that I've been watching politics. It's a high-tax high-spend Government. And if you look particularly at the tax revenue—Hon Tracey Martin: Not the Lange Government. Not the Lange Government. The Lange Government wasn't high-tax high-spend. They stripped the—Rt Hon DAVID CARTER: Well let me just explain to the Hon Tracey Martin what I mean by "high-tax Government". If you look at the tax revenue here Crown tax revenue grows under these documents by $22.2 billion—that is a 30 percent increase in Crown tax revenue over the next five years. Now a 30 percent increase in five years is a high-tax Government and it is then noted in my expression of a high-spend Government that one has to look at the debt figures. Again debt grows. Now Mr Robertson comes in and only wants to talk about debt as a percentage of GDP and I know that when we were previously in Government we were quite keen on that same statistic. But when you look at the actual figures debt grows from $59.5 billion to $66.8 billion by 2022. That is a substantial increase in debt.Now you can argue that it should only be expressed not in absolute figures but as a percentage of GDP but if you accept that argument why don't you do the same with health expenditure? When you look at page 36 of the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update forecasts health expenditure under the former Government went up by a huge amount—a huge amount—106.1 percent increase in the dollar spend on health expenditure which this Government now criticises but as a percentage of GDP it goes down with this Government from 5.9 percent now to 5.0 percent.So the point I'm making is that anybody who wants to examine these figures and take out the facts that suit them can do so. Mr Robertson has attempted to do that today by arguing that debt should only be talked about as a percentage of GDP and not in absolute terms. I suggest that if he wants to adopt that attitude he have a look at his own figures here in this and the way the last Government should be congratulated for the huge increase—huge increase—in health expenditure. This Government despite making it a so-called priority through the election campaign will actually cut the expenditure on health in percentage of GDP terms and I think the public need to know that.I want to now talk about policy change risk by portfolio because this must've been a huge concern as this Secretary to the Treasury picked up his pen to sign those pages knowing that he had written such comments as this: "ACC Impacts of Changes to Accident Compensation … Each such area could generate options with fiscal impacts in excess of $10 million to cash claims per year or to the Outstanding Claims Liability. The combined effect of the policies identified could … exceed $100 million per year."Hon Tracey Martin: Could.Rt Hon DAVID CARTER: And the Hon Tracey Martin yells out "Could." That's right. It's the very point I'm making. We have got no accuracy in this document at all. Listen to this one Tracey Martin "Broadcasting"—Hon Tracey Martin: Honourable—honourable.Rt Hon DAVID CARTER: Well yes the Hon Tracey Martin. I'll give her that. She won; we lost and we're sucking it up. But it doesn't change what's in here: "Broadcasting Communications and Digital Media … The Government has committed to transform Radio New Zealand into a multi-platform provider dedicated to quality New Zealand programming"—etc.—"The total costs … are still being finalised.""Conservation … The Government has committed to significantly increase the Department of Conservation's funding. The exact quantum of such an increase is yet to be determined. Any significant increases in funding may have an impact on the operating balance and net core Crown debt." That is symptomatic of this Government. It went to the election campaign ill-prepared for a campaign certainly ill-prepared to be the Government made promises liberally right around the country has had 40-odd days to price them and come in here with a Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update 2017 with some real credibility and it has failed at the first test.The other thing that I noted: why are we doing it today? Would it possibly be because the press gallery is having its function tonight and the journalists won't be bothered to exam this? And then we're going into urgency for legislation to come in to effect on 1 July next year. Why the urgency? And then we hear in the Business Statement today despite the fact they've said we'll sit till Thursday next week they're pulling the plug on Wednesday—one less day for examination.This is a Government that's not prepared to let us examine its fiscal position at all. They're about curtailing debate in this Parliament because they know full well they've made a mess of this document. They've sat around now for 43 days and have dealt with only legislation advanced by the former National Government—legislation they criticised when they were on this side of House and now they've spent the last four or five weeks passing it. As soon as we get on to their policy—their legislation—we'll do it in urgency to avoid scrutiny. We'll do it on the night of the press gallery party so that the journalists won't give it the scrutiny and then we'll get out of Parliament a day earlier because they don't want scrutiny.Well I say to the Hon Tracey Martin: look out; this argument won't go away. We'll be back early next year vigorously enthused to hold this Government to account. It's got only at a maximum three long years and then it's all goodbye to the Hon Tracey Martin.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I call Michael Wood—you have five minutes."