Parmar ParmjeetDr PARMJEET PARMAR (National): Thank you Madam Speaker. What a speech that was from the deputy leader of the party leading the Government. There was no substance just like in the Budget—Budget 2019. What a Budget this was Budget 2019. Yes people are asking all sorts of questions. I was at a meeting a few days ago and someone came to me and asked a question. This is just an example of the types of question that people are asking. The question was: Who is actually running the country?" Exactly. The question was: "Who is actually running the country?"I said to them that yeah because the National team released a big chunk of the Budget before the finance Minister stood up in the House to read the text of the Budget—and that was a big chunk of the real Budget not a mock Budget—technically it is National running the country. People would usually know who is running the country if the Government was performing. Obviously they can see that this Government is not performing.Then around that Budget what happened from the finance Minister's office and from the finance Minister himself was all the cover up but he failed—he failed. Or was he exposed? I would say he was exposed by his own colleague the Hon Andrew Little who said that yep he had left messages in the finance Minister's office—yeah he did leave a message in the finance Minister's office and he did leave a message in the Prime Minister's office in a timely manner. So much has happened around this Budget but there is one person who seemed to know nothing and that was none other than our Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. I would have imagined that the Prime Minister has the ability to call in her Ministers to check what exactly happened but she wants to wait for the report. So this Budget 2019 reveals a lot of things. It also looks like the Prime Minister has lost control of her Ministers.Coming to the Budget when we look at a document the first thing we look at is the cover of the document. When you look at the cover of the document it's a very sad story. That tells everything about the Budget because the person on the cover page of the Budget is not here in New Zealand anymore because she has decided to move out to Australia because she couldn't cope with the cost of living here in New Zealand—the way the cost of living is going up under this Labour Government. That's a very sad story. They couldn't even retain that person whose photo they have used on the cover of their Budget in New Zealand. I know they love talking about the nine years of the National Government and I'm really proud as well of the nine years of the National Government and am very happy to talk about that and remind everybody that under that National Government people were actually coming to New Zealand. Kiwis were coming back to New Zealand and people like me immigrants were wanting to come to New Zealand to call New Zealand their home.Also let me remind them that under us we were creating around 10000 jobs every month in the last two years. So that was creating opportunities for people to be here to feel attracted to New Zealand but under them what we have seen are 4000 jobs lost in the last quarter—4000 jobs—and the members want to laugh at that? They can but 4000 opportunities have been lost in the last quarter. That is the reality of this Government.The Prime Minister stood in front of a business audience before the Budget and didn't talk about business confidence didn't talk about the economy. Why? Because she knows that she is failing New Zealand because she knows that business confidence is slipping down every day. She knows she's not performing when it comes to the performance of our economy in our country. Yes that is the reality and the Prime Minister was so embarrassed that she didn't want to talk about business confidence and the economy. And I think the Government members should understand that and should reflect on that and they should be embarrassed too.They don't want to look at GDP numbers maybe because the Prime Minister doesn't understand what the difference is between GDP and Government accounts and the Prime Minister didn't know what our GDP was in the last 12 months and also because the economic growth under them has halved. Under us it was around 4 percent and under them it's 2 percent. So why would they talk about GDP? It doesn't help them. Under us we were helping people to get off the benefits because we were creating opportunities for those people. But under them the queue of people outside the Work and Income office is becoming longer and longer.I have heard several members talking about all their praises for this Budget. One line that came out was that this Budget represents the values of the coalition Government. Of course it does because this Budget creates dependency. The Government creates dependency on the State and that is the value of this coalition Government. Another line: "It's a first of its kind not a traditional Budget." Of course it's a first of its kind when they can't even retain the person on their cover page in New Zealand. They are driving people out from New Zealand because there are no opportunities for people. It is definitely a first of its kind for this reason. There was a big hype that it's going to be a wellbeing Budget but we have seen now that there was a big hype only because there is no substance in this Budget.As a spokesperson for research science and innovation I'm really appalled to see that there is nothing much for research science and innovation. When this Government was formed they said they were going to get rid of growth grants and they were going to get rid of the R & D tax loss credit policy that was put in place by the previous National Government. That was working fine. So instead of improving on that they decided to introduce R & D tax credit policy. But in that what was lacking was proper support for companies that are in a tax loss situation. There is a double standard that this Government has put in place for how they deal with companies that have tax liable income and companies that don't have a tax liable income.When questions were asked when I asked questions I was told that the policy area is quite complex to provide incentives to companies that are in a tax loss situation. So they're going to work on a policy and the policy will be in place by April 2020. So why is there no money in this Budget for that policy? If the money is going to come from reprioritisation we need to know that too. So where is the money for that policy? Why is there no money for that policy in this Budget? Treasury has said that the Government should be investing public money—$150 million every year—to reach the goal that they have set; that is 2 percent of the GDP of business spending on research and development. But maybe—because they don't want to look at GDP figures—that goal actually means nothing. So that's why they haven't allocated that $150 million Treasury has identified should be invested every year—public money every year—to support business spending on research and development.So they lack that understanding of how to create opportunities for people so obviously people don't want to be here in New Zealand. As the associate economic development spokesperson it was really interesting to see that their economic development Minister is also the Minister for the Environment. When I looked at that that actually sounds like this Wellbeing Budget which is just about the name and there's nothing inside there. So I thought well that is a very good combination because there are so many things that can be done in the environment portfolio to support the economy and vice versa.But what we have seen from that Minister is the ministry is advising the Minister that he should think about our approach towards biotechnology here in New Zealand—this is genetic modification gene editing. The ministry's advising the Minister to do something about it because it's not working for us. Other countries are making a move. We are going to lag behind and it's going to harm our economy. But the Minister is ignoring that advice—ignoring that advice so that stance of that Government and the Minister is definitely going to harm our economy and the environment as well.It's really interesting that this Government actually cares about how they look outside of New Zealand not about what's happening within here in our own country. They just want to look good on that international stage so they want to make big announcements. So let's forget about that coverage that is going on in other countries because we on this side we know that if we do well here the rest will follow—the world will follow. Let's look at some commentary that is going on here in New Zealand. So it's not just us Opposition complaining about the Government not performing. We know that people are complaining as well. As I have said before that person on the cover page of their Budget—that is a big example. They should be really embarrassed about that.Duncan Garner one of the very well-known AM Show presenters has said that this is the least effective Government in the last 25 years he has seen. [Interruption] Maybe they want to make the record of a hundred years. They're laughing there. Yep 25 is not enough so maybe they want to make the record of being the least effective in 100 years. That would be something to really achieve—a good goal for those members to set. Patrick Gower is saying that he is regretting saying that he liked the change that happened after the last election. So we have seen a lot of commentary going on within our own country. So maybe this Government should focus on New Zealand more than focusing on the commentary that they want to attract from other countries. This Budget has failed New Zealand. This Government is failing to deliver on their promises. Thank you Madam Speaker."