Wood MichaelMICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): It is a pleasure to speak on the Budget Policy Statement. There are two things that I want to focus on in my statement and the first is quite a unique one given some of the speeches we have heard from the Government benches and that is to actually talk about the Budget Policy Statement which is this document here. The second one that I want to bring to the House's attention is one that we have not heard much of from the Government benches either and that is a little trip I want to take outside the comfort of this Chamber out into the real world a little bit later in my comments to talk about what people out there actually living real lives in New Zealand might have wanted to see in this Budget Policy Statement. I sat through the first couple of speeches from the Government benches. I heard from Mr Chris Bishop and the Hon Amy Adams before premature rigor mortis set in. I managed to hear their comments and I just want to reflect on some of the comments that they put forward there. The first came from Mr Bishop and it was like trying to grasp at a pillar of smoke over in the corner there because as I looked towards him I wanted to grab on to something to respond to in respect of this debate but there was precious little in terms of the Budget Policy Statement. In fact I timed it. I timed it and we got to 9 minutes and 33 seconds until Mr Bishop actually mentioned something substantive about the Budget Policy Statement. The first 9 minutes and 33 seconds were all about the Labour Party and of all people Russel Norman. I know Russel Norman has grown a spectacular and luscious beard which Mr Bishop may well be very interested in but it was not really that relevant in respect of the Budget Policy Statement debate. What he did get on to talking to was another matter that is of substance but of course it does not actually relate to the Budget Policy Statement and that was the Government's lack of contributions to the Cullen superannuation fund here. Even though that matter does not relate directly to the Budget Policy Statement because the Government is not contributing the sheer intellectual dexterity and gymnastics that Mr Bishop put into constructing his argument do warrant some form of response. What Mr Bishop put up was this contention—he put up this contention. In justifying the Government's lack of contributions over the last 8 years he argued that if the markets had not gone up and if we had not received consistent returns then that lack of investment was justified. So what he was actually doing was constructing a parallel universe argument because the fact is that we have had consistent returns of 8 percent every year compounding over the last 8 years. It is not a matter of hindsight; it is a fact that that was the case. If the Government had had the foresight to put that investment in instead of blowing it away in a smoke of tax cuts in the 2010-11 Budget we would be significantly better off in terms of meeting our future obligations to future superannuitants. We know that out there somewhere in the universe in a parallel universe there is Planet Key" and now there is a small satellite circling it called "Bishop 33" in which the Cullen superannuation fund did not earn compounding returns of 8 percent per year over the last 8 years like it actually did here in the real world. To give her her due the Hon Amy Adams did engage in the substance of the Budget Policy Statement and I think—like the Government in many respects—what she put forward were some words that sounded good. I believe that she is a well-intentioned Minister as are many of the Ministers and members opposite. But what you get when you actually delve into those words is a significant gap between the rhetoric which sounds good and the actual delivery for real people on the ground. So let us take some of the statements that she made. The first one she said—and we can all agree with this; every member from every party in this House—was that one of the jobs of the Government is to keep New Zealanders safe and to help them get ahead. Of course we would want to see that but what do we actually see on the streets of my electorate and of many electorates around the country? Record numbers of burglaries in our community a 94 percent rate of burglars getting away with it police foot patrols that have been reduced over the last 5 years and in Auckland—our biggest city our growing city—about 10 new cops net over the last 8 years and it was only after wrestling between Judith Collins and the Prime Minister over the last year that we finally got some action on that. So fine rhetoric there but no action. What about people getting ahead? Well again we would all agree with that. We all agree with the notion of opportunity so that New Zealanders can reach their full potential in life and contribute to society. That is what everyone wants. But what does it actually mean when we have got 90000 young people not in education not in work and not in training? That is 90000 young people full of potential full of ideas and with the ability to do good things if only they had the support of a Government that would actually back them and put the resources in to make a difference in their lives. We also heard from the Hon Amy Adams that we want a system that creates opportunities and looks after our most vulnerable. Well tell that to the Māngere budgeting centre. Its people are actually out there in the community doing the mahi looking after our most vulnerable and helping low-income people do what this Government tells them they are supposed to do—getting their financial affairs in order. What does the Māngere budgeting centre have to do under this Government to keep itself going? It has got to run sausage sizzles at the weekend because this Government fails to provide the support to those essential community services and there are many groups like this in my community as well that are struggling under the fiscal constraints of this Government. We heard that this Government supports wages rising. Well what about the 45 percent of New Zealanders who in amongst that fog of the average statistic did not get any wage increase last year? And you can bet your bottom dollar that most of those people were people on relatively low incomes. We heard from Minister Bridges as well. He is a fellow Gen Xer—a bit like me I think. We grew up through the 1990s and for that reason I give him the Seinfeld award for irony for describing the new Prime Minister Bill English as "new fresh dynamic leadership". Then Minister Bridges in 10 minutes and this is the finance Minister—sorry maybe he wants to be the finance Minister. The Minister of Transport in his 10-minute speech on the Budget Policy Statement at the same time as Auckland faces a transport crisis and is grinding to a halt did not say one thing about investing in public transport in our biggest city—not one thing. So it is on that note that I want to take members in this Chamber on a little bit of journey through the real world of my constituency in Mt Roskill where many ordinary decent people live who want all of those things that we have just talked about. My day in Mt Roskill might start with a morning trip down Dominion Road where thousands of people—thousands of people—are stuck in congestion. They are annoyed frustrated and are having their time and their economic energies wasted just like people on major arterial roads across Auckland. All the members in this Chamber who live in Auckland know about that and they know that it is not good enough but what do we get from this Government? Do we get a transformative vision a transformative plan to actually invest in modern public transport like every other smart city around the world? No we get more roads. We have just heard of course about the big investment in the road heading up to Northland. What is the cost-benefit ratio coming from this Government which boasts about its fiscal responsibility? It is 0.25. For every dollar we invest in it we get 25c back but no investment in public transport. After my journey down Dominion Road I will get to my office and I guarantee you this because every day I get into my electorate office there are cases waiting. Cases are waiting. People in desperate housing need usually young families with children are often living in overcrowded conditions with relatives with their kids getting sick. Can they find the social housing place that they need? No they cannot. There are 4000 families in Auckland—4000 low-income families who cannot get the social housing places that they need. On that note when we heard the Budget Policy Statement submissions in the Finance and Expenditure Committee we had a very good submission from Caritas and it noted this about the social housing places offered by this Government. In 2013-14 there were 69000 of them. Today in 2016 although we all know that the housing crisis mounts and mounts every day there are now 61000 places—a reduction of 8000. The Minister for Social Housing will stand here and tell us about the Government's great plans to invest in 6000 more income-related rent subsidy (IRRS) places. Well let us take her at her word. If this Government puts its money into 6000 more IRRS places by 2020 we will still have 2000 fewer social housing places in 2020 than we had in 2013-14 and that is the measure of this Government's commitment in that area. A man whom I admire very much an American theologian called Jim Wallis said that Budgets are moral documents and that is because they have a very real role in shaping the lives and the aspirations of the people of our country. What New Zealanders deserved to see and needed to see in this Budget Policy Statement was some vision some idea of transformation and a plan for tackling the housing crisis so that young New Zealanders who work hard can actually have some hope and can have some belief that they can get a house and make a start in their lives. Aucklanders need to see a transformative vision around transport so that we truly can become the first city of the Pacific as we should be and small-business owners deserve to see investment so that they can get into housing and so that they feel safe in their small businesses instead of being plagued by crime. We did not get that. We deserved better. But I hope to come back to this House next year and hear Andrew Little presenting a Budget Policy Statement that delivers just that. Thank you."