Shaw JamesHon JAMES SHAW (Minister for Climate Change): Thank you Madam Speaker. Just before I turn to the substance of the debate I just want to take this moment to acknowledge the passing of Sir Rob Fenwick who died after a five-year dance with cancer in the last 24 hours. I know that the House will want to mark Sir Rob's passing in an appropriate way but given the proximity of the event I thought I would just take this moment. He was one of the greatest environmentalists our country's ever seen. He was one of the most extraordinarily kind and generous thoughtful and committed human beings that I've ever had the pleasure of knowing. I think his loss will be felt greatly not just by his friends and family for whom we give our condolences but also by the whole country.I want to pick up in the spirit of this being an actual debate on some of the comments of the previous speaker Michael Woodhouse. One of the things that he said in his address is that there are things that are beyond the Government's control such as the arrival of the COVID-19 virus and the impact that that has but there are also things that the Government can control. And one of the things that he said that the Government can control is spending. He is of course completely correct. Governments can use spending to keep the economy buoyant to keep cash flowing through the economy and in fact that is exactly what we are doing. So I've got good news for Michael Woodhouse in that regard. There has been a multi-decade under-investment particularly in infrastructure particularly in social infrastructure and natural infrastructure in New Zealand and this Budget Policy Statement directly refers to what our intentions are what to do about that. Figure 2 on page 6 talks about net capital spending and actually shows the amount of money that this Government is planning to invest in the economy not just to keep money going but also to make up for some of that extraordinary deficit in our water in our transport in our regions in our cities and in our natural capital. I would actually have to say that when he talked about the job that National did in analogous circumstances—not similar but analogous circumstances—through the global financial crisis and the Christchurch earthquakes: yes they went from a position of no net debt as a percentage of GDP and obviously leveraged up to deal with those and continued to spend but actually being fiscally conservative probably had a dampening effect on the economy and kept those constraints on longer than was necessary. One of the impacts of that is that whilst central government might have kept its levels of debt low actually if you look at household debt which shows up on page 9 of the Budget Policy Statement what you will see is that that rose over the period of National being in Government. The reason for that is because there was not sufficient social spending going on in the economy over that period of time. So what has happened is that because National doesn't believe in paying people minimum wages and because they think that the costs should be borne by low-income families rather than by all of us equally actually what that has done is driven households into debt. We see some of the consequences of that and it's going to take quite some time for us to unwind.Mr Woodhouse says that every Budget is about wellbeing and to some extent that is true. The reason why this Government's wellbeing approach is different from previous Governments—not just the previous National Government but all previous Governments—is that by the wellbeing approach" we're referring to a very specific way of putting Budgets together. Many of the features are exactly the same as they have been for many years: Ministers and agencies put in bids and so on and those things have to have a benefit-cost analysis attached to them. But in the wellbeing approach that's being used by this Government and it gets extended through this Budget Policy Statement actually what's happening is that in addition to those normal benefit-cost ratios there are additional pieces of analysis where those bids have to demonstrate how they contribute to the stock of human capital or natural capital or both in Aotearoa New Zealand. So it's actually a higher hurdle for Budget bids to have to go through; it's actually a more scientifically led approach than Governments in New Zealand of any hue have done in the past. It is an added discipline to the Budget process.Now I'm not going to pretend that it's perfect; we've only been at it for a few years. Every iteration over the course of the last three years has gotten more sophisticated and we've learnt from some of the you know holes and the patches from the year before. But it is a very significant development and it's one that I'm very pleased that we're continuing and to see it reflected through this Budget Policy Statement.I just want to refer also to some of the things that are actually outlined in this Budget Policy Statement. Again to sort of Michael Woodhouse's point the things that he seems to think that we shouldn't be spending money on include major investments in rebuilding the health sector major investments in core Crown education expenditure addressing child poverty lifting outcomes for Māori and Pacific peoples and communities that are traditionally excluded in our political economy enhancing the Māori-Crown relationship as we move into a post-settlement world strengthening the aspirations of Pacific peoples strengthening our response to climate change dealing with a 30-year infrastructure deficit. I mean the idea that actually these things are somehow optional and that we shouldn't do them is to me ridiculous. I'm very proud of this Government for investing in these things. Actually when you have an economic downturn when you have a risk presented such as with COVID-19 and you are looking at a period which is going to be tough for the economy to handle these are exactly the things that we should continue to invest in—and I would argue actually invest more in—because it gets money flowing into the economy.The one thing that Michael Woodhouse was correct on is that the thing that the Government can control is expenditure and actually in continuing to invest in infrastructure and health and education in the environment and in our people not only are we building up the resilience of our people to be able to respond to crises like the COVID-19 challenge that's in front of us; we're also continuing to stimulate the economy. If you decide that you don't want to do those things you actually pull that money out of the economy at exactly the same time as businesses are facing a downturn. That's when you really run into trouble; you actually make a downturn worse and you run the risk of tipping the country into a recession.So I would say that actually this Budget Policy Statement is relevant. I know that obviously there is you know new information—shall we say?—that's popped up since it was published and since it was written. But the fundamentals of this Budget are solid; they are important when times are good they are also important in times of challenge like the ones that we have in front of us. So I think that this is a good start for the Budget process. I commend this and I commend the work of the committee to the House."