8. Question No. 8—Prime MinisterDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT) to the Prime MinisterQuestion No. 8—Prime Minister8. DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by all her of her Government's statements and policies?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes.DAVID SEYMOUR: Does she believe that her Government's fiscal policies affect inflation; and if so is she concerned that Treasury forecast this morning that inflation next year will be 5.1 percent when only five or six months ago in May it forecast next year's inflation would be only 1.7 percent?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: And therein lies the issue. What you can see in the change in forecast is a reflection of what we're seeing globally. You will have heard both myself and the Minister of Finance reflect and Treasury themselves confirming that pandemic-induced international shipping issues supply chain constraints high global demand for goods and of course oil prices are all fuelling inflation. The member will also have seen that Treasury is forecasting that that peak point is in the first half of 2022 and are then forecasting for that to change over the remainder of 2022 and across the forecast period.David Seymour: Is there anything that the Prime Minister can do and influence that will relieve New Zealanders from the rising prices they face other than borrowing and spending even more money?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Of course that would then fall on the side of assuming that it's demand side that's causing all of the inflationary pressures that we're seeing and we know of course that this is an issue that is not just being experienced in New Zealand. So if it was solely Government policy you might see New Zealand as an outlier and we are not. As I've already said you see the United States the UK and Canada all experiencing similar things and in fact as you see many commentators internationally pointing out you are seeing synchronised economic recovery which is driving consumer demand at the same time as we have supply constraints and that is fuelling a lot of what we're seeing. The alternative of course if the member is of the view that it's solely down to fiscal policy is that you see Governments take a position of drastically reducing for instance investment in services or perhaps even some of the measures that we've taken to cushion the blow of COVID and I'm not sure if that is what the member is supporting but we certainly do not support that.David Seymour: Does she believe a policy such as mandating biofuel content in New Zealanders' fuels announced earlier today adds to the cost of living considering the price of reducing a tonne of carbon through that policy is a thousand dollars a tonne when the last emissions trading scheme auction sold New Zealand units for only $68 a tonne?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The first point I'd make is that I doubt we would be in this position were it not for the fact that unfortunately the National Government when they last came into office removed some of the biofuel work that was put in place over 10 years ago. And the shame of that is that therefore not only do we not have a biofuels industry in New Zealand; we haven't seen the emissions reductions as well. But to come to the core of the premise of the member's question I think what's having a much bigger impact on prices at the pump is the price of oil currently which as the member knows has increased dramatically in recent times.David Seymour: Does the Prime Minister believe that her Government's housing policies are working in light of Treasury's forecast this morning that house prices will rise 10 percent next year; and if not can she tell the House when they might start working?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Of course we've had a policy of investing heavily in public housing and a public house building programme of moving or adjusting the playing field to focus on first-home buyers away from investors of Resource Management Act reform to ensure that we see an increase in supply. And we have as a result of a combination of these things 8000 public housing places over 3000 transitional housing places and eight consecutive records of consents being issued. Of course we are trying to solve decades' worth of issues but I do believe that all of those combined will start to have an impact on our housing market.David Seymour: Supplementary—SPEAKER: No the member's used his allocation for the year.