Brown SimeonSIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you Madam Speaker. I was reading this Prime Minister's statement yesterday and I think it could be summed up by saying all talk and no action". And I think that member who just sat down Ayesha Verrall also just reiterated these very points. I found it fascinating how they're already trying to rewrite the history of the vaccine roll-out in New Zealand and apparently the reason why we had the slowest vaccine roll-out in the OECD was because it was the DHB's fault—the DHB's fault. And what a great solution they've got now to fixing that problem "Well let's restructure all of our DHBs across New Zealand right in the middle of a pandemic" as the solution to that problem. They don't take responsibility; it's all talk and when something goes wrong it's time to blame blame blame other people. I also found it fascinating that she said that this Government will implement the three waters reforms. Well I've been reading this document and I listened very carefully to the Prime Minister's statement and I'm not sure if the Prime Minister actually referenced the three waters reforms once in her speech or in this document. They're trying to hide themselves away from it but clearly that part of the memo has not quite filtered all the way down to other Ministers and to backbenchers in the Labour Party.But one of the issues which I don't think was highlighted effectively in this Prime Minister's statement but which I can tell this House that New Zealanders up and down this country are very concerned about is the increased cost of living which is a thief in the pockets of hard-working New Zealanders and which is impacting everybody's lives. This was only mentioned once—in this very very long statement of 23 pages—the Prime Minister only mentioned "cost of living" once. Well I can tell you out there in New Zealand people are talking about the price of petrol which has just hit $3 a litre. They're talking about the fact that rents have increased by $125 on average a week under this Government. They're talking about the fact that this Government came to office saying that they were going to fix the so-called housing crisis but they've inflated the housing market so much that the average house price has increased by $380000 under their watch and is now over an average of $1 million for New Zealanders. They are the ones who have inflated the housing market they're inflating the economy and they're making it harder for New Zealanders to get by in their day-to-day lives. And that is the issue which New Zealanders out there are worrying about every single day. What this doesn't speak about is just the absolute waste of Government spending and one of the areas which I'm very focused on is the growth in the public sector which has grown substantially over the last few years. We've had a 50 percent increase in salaries for core public servants; 10000 additional Wellington bureaucrats and they're saying "Well that's all because of COVID". Well even last year when they increased the number of bureaucrats in Wellington by 6900 the Public Service Commission said "Oh only half of that's actually because of COVID". So what's the other half for and how many of these jobs are going to get baked-in over the years to come? The wastage of expenditure the number of people in the Public Service earning over $400000 a year has doubled and hard-working New Zealanders out there who are just trying to put petrol in their car pay the rent pay the electricity bill and to get by and hopefully one day own a house are the ones scratching their head and saying "Where is this Government and what is it actually doing for me?" And the question they'll be asking is: "Am I better off now than I was four years ago?" The answer is no they're not; they're going backwards and that's something that's hurting many many New Zealanders but was not addressed in this speech. So I come now to the other issue of delivery. As the transport spokesperson for the National Party I'm very focused on actually making sure that transport policy is not just about issuing press releases but actually delivering results. And one of the issues we've got is this Government came to office and promised light rail down Dominion Road by 2021. Well I'm not sure if the Minister of Transport has actually realised it's 2022. Now I know that he would like to take a lot of New Zealand policy back to the 1970s: workplace relations trams—he loves trams and trains and all sorts of that sort of stuff from the 1970s—but actually it's now 2022 and light rail hasn't even been started. In fact this Government's issued 7.1 metres of press release about light rail and not delivered a single metre of actual light rail for Auckland. And now they're saying to Aucklanders "Well just trust us trust us. We will deliver light rail we'll deliver it we're announcing it all over again." Except now it's going to cost $14.6 billion at least potentially going up to $25 billion. It's going to cost $14.6 billion up from $2.4 billion when it was first announced back in 2017. And they think Aucklanders are going to believe them. They think Aucklanders are going to keep believing their promises of delivery but also their promises of keeping to the cost that they say these projects are going to cost. And I can tell you: Aucklanders and New Zealanders won't continue believing them. They look around the country and they say "Well where's the actual delivery of projects?" The statement says here in the Prime Minister's statement: "We will continue to deliver new transport infrastructure. Key projects such as the Hamilton section of the Waikato Expressway the Matakana link road in Auckland the northern bus extension to Albany and the Pūhoi to Wellsford project are due for completion this year." Well are they actually going to deliver the projects this year? All of these were meant to be finished a while ago. Are they actually going to complete them?What about Transmission Gully which has been delayed four times under this Government's watch and which has still not been delivered by this Government? Then it says here "Construction will begin on Mt Messenger bypass and State Highway 3 and New Zealand upgrade projects Penlink and Takitimu North Link." That's if this Government doesn't cancel them again before they actually get spades in the ground—because they love cancelling roads. They love cancelling these roads. They keep announcing them putting a carrot out in front of New Zealanders saying "Oh we'll build this for you if you vote for us" and then what do they do when they get in there? They cancel them. We've seen it up and down the country. Whether it's Ōtaki to Levin Mill Road the East West Link Penlink all of these roads: cancel/start cancel/start. Well you can't progress construction in new infrastructure in New Zealand if that's your attitude to actually building our country.As my colleague Matt Doocey mentioned yesterday not one mention of South Island roads in this Prime Minister's statement. Does this Government not even know where the South Island is? It seems like it's just the North Island map under this Government and no investment proposed into the South Island under this Prime Minister's statement. And I can tell you: people living in the South Island will be incredibly disappointed. They'll be looking at Auckland going: "$14.6 billion for light rail? Well that's a lot of money we could do with some of that. And $6.7 or $7 billion on light rail in Wellington? Well we could do with some of that." Well I can tell you just replacing the Ashburton Bridge which got damaged: $35 million. That's less money than this Minister of Transport has already spent on consultants for Auckland's light rail. He could replace that bridge and help the good people of Ashburton and Canterbury to get around their region but he doesn't care. He's ideologically fixed on his pet projects rather than actually delivering good outcomes for New Zealanders. The other thing tucked away inside of this they call it the "Clean Car Standard". Well it's the car tax the ute tax it's the taxes which are going to be piled upon New Zealanders hard-working New Zealanders: farmers who've got no choice but to buy a ute to get around their property—the productive sector of our society—the tradies who can't take their tools to work on the train or the bus. I haven't seen many tradies—and I'm not sure if the Minister has seen many tradies—taking their tools on the bus or the train. But they can't take their tools on the train or on the bus. But yet they're going to be taxing the productive sector of our society without offering them other options and at the same time failing to alleviate the pressure at the pump for Aucklanders who are paying 11.5c per litre additional on their petrol costs. The Government's taken $515 million off hard-working Aucklanders and they've spent less than half of it. It's just sitting in a bank account—it's just sitting in a bank account. And the Minister says "How much is in the bank account today? Oh it's gone up it's now $285 million. That's wonderful. We've taken all this money away from Aucklanders." They're not delivering anything. So my message to the Government is: a Government should be measured on how much it delivers not on how many press releases it issues; how much it improves New Zealanders lives not by how many metres of press release about some project which it hopes to deliver sometime in the future. This Prime Minister's statement is not what New Zealanders want. It's not what New Zealanders need and we do not endorse it."