Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you Madam Speaker. It's a dramatic and unpredictable world in which we live and unfortunately inflation is becoming the one thing that Kiwis can count on under this Government. New Zealanders are seeing it in the cost of living every day. I was down at Countdown on the weekend where I saw a pound of butter for $6.50 on special; a block of Colby 18 bucks; 2 litres of milk over five bucks—five if you're lucky—and at $18.50 a kilogram mince is no longer a cheap meal. Those are all good prices by the way—I don't want to run down Countdown. The fact is that people trying to feed a family find there's too much week left at the end of the money. And then I went down the road to fill my car up with petrol—don't hate me; I have one that runs on petrol!—and they pre-approve your credit card for $150. Now the people that designed these petrol pumps must have thought nobody could spend $150 on one tank so we'll just zap their card for $150 and take out the difference. Well the funny thing is I pressed the buttons and it only filled it up by three-quarters of a tank and at $3 petrol it's not surprising. A lot of people—they're people who actually need to drive to work sometimes long distances and take the kids to hockey practice and the doctor and the supermarket on the way home; the tank's not full and their budget's met then that's a real problem. Let's speak about homes. This Government was elected in October 2017 and it was elected in large part to try and fix housing. Back then the median house price was $530000—that's the median; that's not the average which is higher; that's not the Auckland price which is higher; that's the median for the whole country: $530000 for a house. That was a lot of money when this Government was elected. Now that median is $880000—a $350000 increase that people have been trying to save at a time when the price of everything is going up and up and up. Everybody is paying for inflation except one organisation—that's the Government of New Zealand. You see they're in on it. They're getting 15 percent of every price rise in GST. Some people say inflation is a thief in your pocket. Well this Government is guilty of receiving stolen goods. They just had a $98 billion tax take—that's last year—$13 billion up on any previous year. You know I'll get a billion here a billion there and suddenly Grant Robertson's talking real money. We have a Government that is taking so much more in taxes and spending it not only are they insulated from the problem they're driving the problem. When the Government goes out and spends $2 billion that it's allowed to borrow—it's allowed itself to borrow—bidding for land bidding for builders bidding for materials when there's a shortage they push up the price of housing. When the Government spends $50 million investigating a bike bridge it doesn't build they push up the price of everything because that cash is swirling round but there's nothing more to buy and too much money chasing after too few goods—well that is called inflation and people are feeling it everywhere.When this Government inherits a Ministry of Education with 2600 bureaucrats looking after 2500 schools that's an opportunity to reduce the number of bureaucrats in this country. But what have they done? They've now got 3900 bureaucrats and they're paid an average of $93000—more than the top of the scale for an experienced teacher. We have a 50 percent growth in education bureaucrats and they're getting paid more than the teachers. And this Government they stand up and say Oh we can't cut anything. If the other side if ACT got in if National got in they'd fire all the teachers." No we wouldn't. What this Government's really saying is "We don't know how to make anything more efficient. We have to tax and spend all this money otherwise the world will end." Well I'm telling you that on this side of the House we have alternatives we have better ideas we have efficiency and we are going to make this Government efficient and stop the inflationary pressure that's pushing up the price of everything for hard-working families that are getting squeezed in every direction. Thank you Madam Speaker."