Simpson ScottHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Well thank you Mr Speaker. It's a sad day when a Minister of the Crown who has been in office now for two years cannot even fill up 10 minutes to talk about this Budget. It's a botched Budget. It's a litany of examples of the failure to deliver on promises. And if there was a really good example of how failure to deliver on promises occurred in a range of environmental portfolios it's that Minister Eugenie Sage who's just resumed her seat. Very good on the rhetoric very good on the academic theory very good on the talk very good on the slogan; absolutely hopeless on delivery. No delivery at all.So when the much-promised and long-awaited and delayed Cabinet reshuffle occurs it's almost certain that that Minister will be reshuffled and for good reason because actually in Government Governments need to deliver. They need to deliver on promises and in politics and in Government promises are important and delivery is even more important.I'm of an age where I can remember as a child from primary school days the last one-term Labour Government that we had and it was—Melissa Lee's looking very surprised. I know that that's hard to believe Melissa Lee—Simeon Brown: I wasn't there Scott.Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: —and I know that Simeon Brown certainly wasn't there.SPEAKER: I door-knocked for them at the beginning and the end.Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: Ha ha! I can remember it and I am sure that there are others—there are probably some presiding officers that might be able to remember it as well. Interestingly enough I had an opportunity recently to spend a little time at a luncheon actually with a former Treasurer of New Zealand a former finance Minister none other than Sir William Birch. Sir William Birch is a fine fellow in good heart and hale and hearty and he was keen to remind me of some of the similarities between this current Labour Government and the last one-term Labour Government that we had. Now no one is of course of a mind that anything as awful as what happened to the Labour leader Norm Kirk will happen to the current Prime Minister of course but there are some similarities in terms of style between Norm Kirk and the current Prime Minister. Both of them like the grand vision. Both of them like the grand gesture. Both of them lack the detail. Both of them don't want to be put under the scrutiny of intense questioning and detail. And then Bill Birch said to me that there was a bunch of ambitious reforming Cabinet Ministers all of them going in different directions all of them trying to do things that would mark them out as being a page in the history book of New Zealand. There were people like Joe Walding Phil Amos Martyn Finlay and a whole group like that—Bob Tizard in finance—and they were spending like drunken sailors. Spending like drunken sailors they were and that's actually true of this lot. We've got people like Minister Twyford Chris Hipkins Andrew Little in justice. These are very similar characters to those that were present in the last one-term Labour Government. Then Sir William went on to say that they didn't deliver on their promises and that was absolutely right. That's of course true with this current crowd: made grand promises didn't deliver on them and the people of New Zealand have a very low tolerance for non-delivery in terms of expectations that have been created and not put into action.Then the other thing that Sir William reminded me of of course was that during that period between 1972 and 1975 during the last one-term Labour Government there was an incredibly uncertain international backdrop all around the world and that's of course very similar to the situation that we have today: uncertainty in Europe uncertainty in the United Kingdom uncertainty in Asia and some would say uncertainty in North America. So a failure to deliver on promises matched against a climate where the New Zealand public want the expectations that have been created to be fulfilled and it's in these areas that this Government is so lacking.We had a Budget that actually delivered very little almost nothing for middle New Zealand almost nothing for hard-working taxpaying New Zealanders who go to work every day who slave away in their own businesses investing their own capital and who put together the wheels and the cogs of this economy. In fact everything that this Government has done has actually slowed down and been a handbrake on growth in our economy. Even though this is a Government that doesn't care much for the economy actually it's the economy that produces jobs it produces wealth and it produces the income necessary to provide taxation for Government spending.I am reminded while we're just thinking about things historic that actually it was Margaret Thatcher who said that the real problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people's money—sooner or later socialists run out of other people's money. We've got a socialist Government in power now. In fact they're more socialist than most of us have seen in our lifetimes. They like to borrow they like to spend and they like to tax. There are seven new taxes this Government has introduced—seven new taxes that this Government has introduced—and much of it to be spent on profligate spending. I wouldn't mind so much if the spending was well targeted if the spending was well measured if the spending was responsible spending if the spending was about getting better results and making the lives of New Zealanders better because surely that's the objective of Government. But no. We have a Government mired in theory mired in socialist doctrine complicated ideologies made up from the various component parts of the coalition Government and the net result of all that is a quagmire of inaction and non-delivery because the competing personalities and political ideological positions of the coalition Government mean that one small party can actually veto pretty much everything else and they do.I want to spend just a quick minute talking about non-delivery in the environment because if ever there was an area where huge expectations were created during the last election campaign and no delivery has occurred it's in the area of environment. So there is still silence about so much—an announcement of $229 million some detail of which we've heard today but no real precise action—about land transformation. Farmers are seeing that and hearing that and they're interpreting that as a myriad of clipboard-wielding officials coming around and visiting farms and telling farmers how to farm what to do on their properties and that's a real problem for them. Farmers are worried about that kind of thing.Then we've got the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill. In the Speech from the Throne there was a promise that there would be binding targets—binding targets—yet again a promise not delivered. And we find in the bill that has been presented by the climate change Minister the Hon James Shaw—guess what? No binding targets at all. In fact the name on the bill doesn't even represent what the bill does. It's actually not a zero carbon bill at all. It is not a zero carbon bill at all; it's actually a bill that is designed to set up the framework and the establishment of the climate change commission. Actually the bill should really be called the Climate Change Commission Establishment Bill" rather than anything else.Then we have a whole range of other things. Where were the promises and the delivery of promises on more alternative power? Where were the benefits or incentives for the installation of solar power? The Greens lost that one. What happened to all that stuff around electric vehicles? I bought myself an electric vehicle last year. I haven't bought petrol since before Christmas. It's a very great feeling but there are thousands of people who want to buy electric vehicles—Chris Bishop: That's right—how good.Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: —Chris Bishop's got one Nick Smith's got one and Amy Adams; a lot of us on this side we like them—and where were the promised incentives? Where was the delivery on that kind of stuff? There were none. A failure to deliver on promises. A failure to deliver on promises is what this has meant.But there was something in the Budget and it was taxation for the good people of Coromandel because many of them still do drive petrol vehicles. There's no public transport in the Coromandel so that extra petrol tax that's being levied on the hard-working people of the Coromandel will actually be going to fund pet public transport projects slow trams along Dominion Road a train from Auckland CBD to the airport we think—if it gets delivered that promise. So people in my beautiful electorate are going to be paying for the theory for the rhetoric and for the academic insightfulness of a Government that thinks it knows best but actually doesn't. A failure to deliver on promises will see this Government out."