Adams AmyHon AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn): Madam Deputy Speaker thank you for that and what a pleasure it is to be able to address you in the Chair. I look forward to working with you in your new role. Madam Deputy Speaker members of Parliament we heard today of course the Speech from the Throne in which the new Government gets to set out its vision for the next three years its plan and exactly what it is going to deliver but the only thing I could take away from that speech was that this is a Government that just isn't ready. They're not ready and you can see that so clearly because they have no legislation.Earlier today we had a debate about the fact that almost the entirety of the Order Paper consists of National legislation which Labour and the Greens and New Zealand First have spent the last nine years telling us how much they hate and how they would do it all better. They left it all there because they have nothing to replace it with. Later on this afternoon we're going to be debating a bill that has been part of Labour's plan for some time around paid parental leave and yet they still don't have a bill. Here we are just an hour or so before we debate it. The bill is not in the House it is not ready to go and I can tell you the only reason we going to be taking urgency is that they're not ready to do the job properly so they're going to ram it through without the process. As the Leader of the Opposition said this afternoon the Greens whom we have had nine years of sanctimony from about good parliamentary process and not rushing things are now allowing this new Government to put legislation through on the hoof with no advance notice—it is not even tabled in this House mere hours before we are going to debate it—and no select committee process for no reason other than they're not ready.It is clear from the Speech from the Throne that there's no detail. I listened to the speech very carefully and the Leader of the Opposition made these comments as well. Very carefully we listened and we heard lots of great intentions about world peace and feeding the children—I didn't hear cure cancer" but it was almost implicit—but there was no detail. This is a party that has had nine years to think about how they would do it differently to think about what they would prefer to see happen and yet there was nothing in the way of details. As we've heard from Bill English already today simply having a good intention is not enough and they will find that out soon enough.We've seen that they have very few costings of the long shopping list of expensive promises we heard about today in the Speech from the Throne. I was sitting there next to our finance spokesperson and we were just mentally nudging each other about how we could see the debt rising and rising and rising. All of this is spending promises that weren't costed and weren't put to the people of New Zealand. The people of New Zealand weren't told that they were going to get in there and spend like drunken sailors. What we did hear—the one concession that they did make in that Speech from the Throne—was they absolutely admitted that they will pay back less debt than National was going to pay back. So already on the very clear measures that we've made it clear we're going to hold this Government to account on how have they performed versus where National was already taking this country? They're paying back less debt and they're spending more of the money that they will take out of the pockets of hard-working New Zealanders.That has been the problem for so long with parties on the left. They honestly believe they can spend your money better than you can—that they can spend the money of hard-working New Zealand families better than those families can. Every single dollar of spending that we heard about in that speech today—and there were hundreds and hundreds of millions; in fact billions of dollars—down to the last cent isn't their money. It's not. It is the money of every single New Zealander who gets up and goes to work every day and we're not going to sit here over the next three years and not remind them that that's not their money and that they are not best placed to spend the money of hard-working New Zealanders.They simply haven't yet moved beyond platitudes. They got that down pat during the campaign but I would expect a Government to be in this House ready to lead with legislation with costings with detailed plans with measures but there is none of that. We had platitudes we had good intentions we had open-ended spending promises with no numbers on them but we had nothing that looked anywhere near tangible. This is I think one of the very simple realities that you understand when you've had the privilege of being in Government when you've had the privilege of being a Minister: spending money is easy. That is the easiest part of the job you have as a Minister and if all I had to do in Government was spend money and give in to everyone who wanted everything and throw money around it would have been very popular and would have had screeds of wonderful headlines and happy people. Here is the reason we don't do it—well the reason the National-led Government didn't do it: actually you are bankrupting the future of this country and the future of our children and I wasn't prepared to do that. We understand in a way that clearly the parties on the left don't that you've got to earn it before you spend it and that's something that every business and every family in this country knows. Yet Labour and the Greens and New Zealand First seem to think that they can just keep spending and buy themselves popularity and the chickens will never come home to roost. I simply don't think that that is credible.So today's speech as I say was just a long list of all of the ways they're going to spend other people's money without any honesty about the cost of that and how they're going to pay for it. That was the interesting thing. Again I listened carefully and 99 percent of that speech was about the spending. I heard nothing about how they're going to pay for it. Is it the magic beans? They must have one of those magic money trees at the bottom of the garden that just shoots out free money because there was nothing in that speech for all that they're going to run surpluses and manage the books and yada yada about how they're going to pay for it.Andrew Falloon: More debt more taxes.Hon AMY ADAMS: Here's the interesting thing. Here's the interesting thing. Well we already know there's going to be more tax Mr Falloon because they're cancelling the tax cuts that are in place right now meaning every New Zealander will pay more from 1 April.One of the things that is absolutely abundantly clear to those on this side of the House and is hardwired into our DNA is the understanding that jobs and incomes and a good standard of living and the prosperity that this country wants do not come from the Government. They don't come from us sitting in this House. They come from people who get up every morning who go to work who put their own money on the line and who say "I've got the confidence to spend money to start a business and to employ staff." If we are going to have a prosperous country if we are going to create jobs that have better incomes and more opportunities for our young people and if we as a Parliament and the executive whoever that is from time to time are going to have the luxury of having money to spend on the best in healthcare the best in education the best in rehabilitative treatment and mental health and a good strong environment—all of those things cost money—we have to have a strong economy. When we talk about the economy we don't talk about it because it's some esoteric thing that's a "nice-to-have". It is at the heart of a prosperous successful country that can afford the standard of living we all want and can lift kids out of poverty. The No. 1 thing that benefits families that speaks to the life they're able to give their children is whether they have a job and a good income. And jobs and good incomes don't come from the Government; they come from businesses. We have to have a system that encourages New Zealanders to want to invest to put their money on the line and to go out and hire staff.I have to say I'm really worried for our economy in this country when the first things that we've heard from the new Labour - New Zealand First - Greens Government are the sorts of things that are going to terrify the average small business in this country. Straight away they came out and said 90-day trial periods are effectively gone. So one of the core things that has put us in the position where we now have the third-highest employment rate in the world and has been giving our businesses the confidence to take a punt and employ someone and see if they can make it work is gone. It has been a remarkable success and yet Labour is killing it.They're going to get rid of youth rates. They're going to get rid of the ability to take a chance on a young person bring them in and train them up. These things are working. It's not an accident—we don't have the third-highest employment rate despite it. We have this successful economy and we have the 10000 jobs a month being created because we've set up the conditions where businesses know that they can invest hire and take on workers.And yet this Government straight away has gone back to its unionised roots—back to the 1970s where now unions will be able to force their way into workplaces force the employers to go into discussions with them and then force them to reach agreement at will. You tell me which employer is going to want to start a business grow their business take on more staff and invest their capital when they're under that sort of a threat? It is going to be the beginning of the end of the strong growing successful prosperous country that National worked so hard on for the last nine years and will continue to advocate for.The Speech from the Throne today was about building a culture and country of dependency—a culture and a country of welfare of handouts of reliance on the Government—where whether you work or not whether you make any damn effort or not you'll get looked after. Well this side of the House stands for people who get up every day who work hard and who put effort in. We want everyone in New Zealand to have the opportunities but what you do with those opportunities how your outcomes are delivered is down to your own efforts. This side of the House backs aspiration and success; that side is all about dependency and welfare and we're going to make it very difficult for them."