Woodhouse MichaelHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you Madam Speaker. Well you'd think I would learn after 14 years of being in this place because I worked really hard to come up with 10 intelligent minutes to discuss the Budget and I end up every year spending those 10 minutes refuting the nonsense that we hear from the other side. You'd think I'd have learnt after 14 years. I'm going to try and do both because I just can't resist some of the things that were being said. Let's start with the Minister of Finance Grant Robertson. Those famous words We were careful with spending." Well they were certainly careful to spend. And boy they've spent like drunken sailors. As I've said in this House before the difference between Grant Robertson and a drunken sailor is that at least drunken sailors spend their own money. But he is dipping into the pockets of every single New Zealander to fund his profligate spending plans.And David Parker is not correct when he says that since 1984 we have had successive Governments that have been disciplined in their spending. He forgets that he was part of a Cabinet and a Government when between 2005 and 2008—in good times when we didn't need the stimulus—Michael Cullen managed to increase Government spending by 50 percent. We are now dealing with a Government that has increased Government spending on their watch to the tune of tens of billions of dollars and that has set the economy spiralling out of control.Now Deborah Russell wants to know what we would cut. Well for many of these things it's far too late. But as members know the COVID Response and Recovery Fund spent over $60 billion. Some of it was good. The wage subsidy was necessary and appropriate and yes we think it should have been more targeted and gone on for longer for some businesses but that isn't a criticism of the scheme overall. But when the COVID fund is being raided to pay $710 million for three waters; $15 million for cameras on fishing boats; when we have a low-carbon future fund $70 million; the Creative Arts Fund $150 million; Government House Building $100 million; here's my favourite: solvency support for the racing industry of $50 million was paid out of the COVID fund. So anybody that wants to be challenged on the quality of the spend that this Government has gone on I'm very happy to provide many many more examples.Then Mr Robertson talks about infrastructure spending and accuses the previous National Government of not spending on infrastructure. Well he must have been Rip Van Winkle - like asleep for nine years while the Waterview Tunnel was built while Transmission Gully was built the Waikato Expressway.Todd Muller: Eastern Link.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Exactly Mr Muller.Broadband—where on earth would we have been without the previous Government's significant investment in high-speed broadband right across the country? Our COVID response would have been much much worse. And for the extraordinary claims about no spending in health infrastructure I have to say this: Middlemore Hospital North Shore Hospital Waitakere Hospital Waikato Hospital Taranaki Base Hospital Hutt Wairau Greymouth Christchurch Burwood and even Dunedin Hospital which inherited a legacy of leaks in the operating theatres a rundown neonatal intensive care unit—there was a disgrace; I should know my daughter spent days there—they were all fixed under a previous National Government.Here's another legacy: a commitment to rebuild Dunedin Hospital. So I want to hear from the Rachel Brookings and the Ingrid Learys and the Rino Tirikatenes and the David Clarks why they are not banging on the door of the Minister of Health and saying "Where is our hospital?" Because in five years all we've got is a massive car park and a couple of cranes. And worse than that the advice that I'm getting from senior health officials is that Treasury has got their nose in again and there are going to be cuts to the capacity of the new Dunedin Hospital. My sources are saying 58 beds fewer two operating theatres fewer and no PET scanner. That's been out in the public domain for the last three weeks and not a single Labour member not a Minister not the Prime Minister and certainly not the Dunedin-based Labour MPs have stood up and said "That is not true." And the reason is it is true. There is a significant cost pressure and their response to that is to cut. Now that would be OK if those cuts had not already been made to the capacity that was being required of 513 beds which thanks to some heroic assumptions about admission rates and length of stay would cut back to 421 and now they want to cut back another 50. Oh I wonder if the previous Minister of Health wants to tell the House how much lobbying he's done to make sure that that capacity isn't cut even further. Because for all that we've got a tax-and-spend-and-hope Government they are not spending it in the right places at the right time.We also had David Parker going on about unemployment and it is low but for the life of me I would just like one of Louise Upston's questions to be answered. Any one at any time which is: why are there more than 50000 people on jobseeker support if the economy is so great? Why is it that there has been a 55 percent increase in the number of people on jobseeker support for longer than 12 months? And why are we spending $6.8 billion more since 2016 on benefits? Now the benefits have risen but the real driver of that is not how much individuals are getting but the volume of people on jobseeker benefits at a time that the Government crows about low unemployment.Now I'll just segue across to Ms Genter because Julie Anne Genter and I have had a number of very interesting conversations about what she described today as the "ruling elite". She also said something about "kings" I thought that was probably not the most appropriate reference this week. But nevertheless what she won't tell the House is that the top 12 percent of income earners in this country pay half of the income tax. And half of the households in this country thanks to Government transfers don't pay any income tax. That's OK by me I think that's fair. What's not fair is tax by stealth allowing inflation to erode the income earning capacity and the spending capacity of hard-working middle New Zealanders who have been squeezed by this Government's refusal on the basis of envy. That's all it is as somehow because I might benefit from a tax cut they're not going to give that to the hardest-working middle New Zealanders.You know what? A graduate nurse or midwife in this country—depending on when they work if they work weekends or nights—are already the year they get out of polytech are on a 33 percent top marginal tax. Now some years ago that would have been 17.5 percent and the only reason that's happened is because tax rates have not been adjusted for inflation and they should be. But this is the "Tax Party." It's the "Tax by Stealth Government". They tried it on our KiwiSaver; they're coming after our incomes next year with the jobs tax for the redundancy payment—another 2.8 percent is coming out of the pockets of the employees. I say the employees half of it directly and half of it will be lost in the next pay round because employers have got to pay for that somehow. That's billions and billions of dollars grabbed up by a greedy Government that only knows how to tax and spend. So I'm sorry that the Minister of Justice and the member Dr Deborah Russell think we're being negative. I'd love to be positive. I'd love to be optimistic. But at some point the Opposition has to call out the nonsense and talk about what's really happening.I thought the Minister of Finance's answers in question time just showed how arrogant and out of touch he is about the state of New Zealanders and the economy that serves them—or doesn't as the case may be. Because he basically blamed the public for not understanding how great the Government was. Well I'll take up Dr Russell's challenge because every single member on this side of the House has been doing it for the last five years going out and listening to what New Zealanders are telling them. And they are telling them that food is unaffordable; that rents are going up way way higher than incomes are; that oil and gas—which is uncontrollable I'll accept—and the transport costs are driving domestic inflation. Yes there are some things that are not controllable but the overwhelming majority of the pain that New Zealanders are feeling right now is as a direct consequence of this arrogant and out-of-touch Government."