Goldsmith PaulGENERAL DEBATEHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): I move That the House take note of miscellaneous business.I want to congratulate the new member Nicola Willis on an inspirational and aspirational speech. I'm afraid I'm going to have to change the tone somewhat and declare that this Government is a disgrace—this Government is a disgrace. The Prime Minister simpers and smiles and purrs before the Cabinet and the cameras but all the while her Government breaks promises it undermines the very foundations of this strong economy that we have and it treats the Civil Service with utter contempt.It's no wonder that the people of New Zealand are lukewarm in their support for this new Government. The honeymoon has been a fizzer. We have to go back to 1990 to see a Government with as little support and so weak six months into Government. Jim Bolger of course had the excuse of massive deficits and real tough decisions to make. But what has this Government inherited? It's inherited surpluses as far as the eye can see—$19 billion of surpluses over the four years according to the pre-election economic update—and more keeps coming in. An extra $500 million has just lopped on their laps in the last few months and they've determined that they're going to borrow an extra $10 billion.They are awash in a sea of money and yet—and yet—they still want more. Can you believe it—$19 billion is not enough; they want more. They want fuel taxes—25c on every litre of petrol in Auckland—and that's just the start. We have just heard today Mr Robertson not ruling out the fact that they will increase taxes after Michael Cullen has finished his Tax Working Group's report. We all know Michael Cullen was the most rapacious finance Minister in modern New Zealand history and he has confirmed that the tax changes won't be fiscally neutral. Nineteen billion dollars is not enough; they need more. And yet even with all this money this money that could've been in the hands of hard-working New Zealanders that could've been in the hands of families so that they could pay their bills—with all this money they still can't keep their promises.I'm going to give the Government some advice. It's very simple: if you promise to do something if you promise to make GP visits ten dollars cheaper by 1 July you have to deliver. It's not difficult. Poor David Clark is pointed out on the end of a stick into the crowd to swallow the rats and explain why this Government is not delivering on that promise. And why not? Don't the families of New Zealanders deserve better access to health? A National Government was going to do it and that's exactly the sort of thing you do when you have a surplus.But what have they done? Not from this lot; it's better to spend $2.8 billion on tertiary education—for not one extra student because all the students were prepared to borrow at interest free and it was never a barrier to going to university and we'll see the figures. It's fine to spend the money on Shane Jones around the country and nobody in New Zealand believes that with Shane Jones shovelling out the money on the Provincial Growth Fund as quickly as he possibly can in order to have results before the next election there won't be a lot of waste. There will be a lot of waste.So how can the people of New Zealand trust this Government to keep their word? They've broken the promises over the GPs and the whopper of the promise that they've never kept is immigration. They went stomping up and down the country telling everybody that they're going to reduce the number of immigrants. It was a black and white issue. The National Government had been negligent they said. We'd allowed all these people in with their Chinese names and they were going to reduce the number dramatically. What have they done? Nothing—nothing. Nada. So they haven't kept that promise and I'm glad they haven't because it was a crazy promise and it would have been stupid because it would have hamstrung this country which is in desperate need of skills. But they do need to explain why they haven't and how we can trust this Government to keep its word. They never had any intention of keeping that one. It was a cynical dog-whistle kind of promise which they had no intention to keep.This Government is a disgrace and I do say to the Rt Hon Winston Peters when he becomes Prime Minister in a few weeks there's one thing he can usefully do and that is: call a snap election so that the people of New Zealand have the opportunity to send this Government back where they came from. A Government that's had the opportunity of a lifetime—massive surpluses $19 billion of extra money they're borrowing $10 million every week that passes more money comes into their hands—and yet even with all that money they cannot keep their promises and they are not prepared to do what they said they're going to do. They should all collectively hang their heads in shame.