Hudson Brett; Rurawhe AdrianBRETT HUDSON (National): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. I'd just like to correct the characterisation of this Budget by Ron Mark the member who's just resumed his seat. It goes something like this: Never before in the field of political endeavour has so much been taken from so many for so little."—that Mr Mark explains Budget 2019. The centrepiece of this Budget has been the centrepiece of this Labour-led Government and that is Labour failing to deliver on its promises—failing to deliver on its promises with its willing accomplices: its coalition partner New Zealand First and their side of Greens. But in actual fact as they moved into botching up completely the delivery of the Budget they almost inadvertently in fact delivered on one of their promises. You see when they took office they claimed that they would be the most open and most transparent Government New Zealand has ever seen. New Zealanders are still waiting to see that or they were. They're still waiting to see evidence of that but almost did. Well actually they did. The trouble was it was completely by accident and the Government didn't actually want it to happen. When in the days leading up to the Budget Treasury published summaries of the Budget documents online we finally got to see the open and transparent Government that they claimed they would be but we found out that they absolutely didn't want that to happen. The inquiry's going on and I'm not going to interrupt the inquiry but here's a little bit of technical fact: what happened at a technical level at least is the search engine on the Treasury website was configured—that is set up by humans—specifically to return summary information from documents when searches were made. It is something that can be turned on; it is something that can be turned off. They failed to turn off a feature. It is not a bug; it is a feature. It is meant to be there. They failed to manage their information and as a result they published to the public information. Finally—once—for the first time perhaps in 18 months they have been open and transparent and we've found out they didn't want to be. We've found out they didn't want to be so they're now upset that they kept a promise. Well we'll keep it as another broken promise. They promised when they took office that New Zealand was going to be better off for this Government and that the economy would grow the jobs would grow people would get better but what have we got? What have they delivered? [Interruption] Well they promised it but they've failed. They have failed to deliver on that promise too. They inherited an economy growing at around 4 percent and right now just 18 months in it's barely above 2 percent. Jobs had been growing at an average of 10000 a month under National. Hon Tim Macindoe: What are they now? BRETT HUDSON: Well last quarter they went backwards by 4000—actually backwards—and all of this stems from their inability to have a suite of policies that can actually take New Zealanders and New Zealand businesses with them. Business confidence still remains at record lows because of the things the Government has chosen to do and is continuing to do in this Budget. They are things like showing it's still not ready to govern with 250-plus working groups costing the best part of half a billion dollars; passing union-friendly laws that are going to take business relations industrial relations back to the 1970s and back to the 1970s is where our economy will be as well; and banning an entire industry in effect by banning new exploration for oil and gas—particularly off our region that relies so strongly on it and which delivers some of the highest average wages and salaries in the economy. What did they do? They looked to wipe it out overnight with no consultation. They compound that and continue to compound that by continuing with very poor spending which fails to deliver any tangible and measurable positive benefits such as the $2.6 billion on the fees-free policy. They had to admit in this Budget that no extra students had taken it up last year so they had a surplus from that last Budget that they've had to reallocate elsewhere. There was the $2 billion for KiwiBuild which promised 1000 homes in a year and has only just scraped over 100. I think they'll have to build about one every 19 minutes now to meet the target by the end of the financial year and I don't think we're going to see that happen. There is the $3 billion slush fund for Shane Jones to dispense all around the country—no doubt seeking to try to get New Zealand First's hopes of being re-elected to Parliament improved—and there is $900 million for diplomats. All of that combines to maintain and continue an environment where New Zealand businesses do not feel confident in the actions of the Government today and into the future that will encourage them to invest in some more plant to invest in some more labour to seek to grow their businesses—and in doing so to give more people opportunities to reach their aspirations and to reach their dreams—and to lift incomes across New Zealand. It's another promise that they have failed to deliver on. But in no greater area have they shown this failure to deliver than transport. Just before I talk on transport in some detail I'll just point out that this was supposed to be a wellbeing Budget. Well here's a question—not for them but for New Zealand—how can it be termed a wellbeing Budget when the first three pieces of legislation under Budget urgency are either increasing taxes increasing costs on taxpayers or introducing new taxes? How does that deliver wellbeing? Hon Tim Macindoe: It doesn't. BRETT HUDSON: Well it doesn't. Hon Tim Macindoe: It absolutely doesn't. BRETT HUDSON: It absolutely doesn't. The first of those taxes was—it was actually two tax increases—one on fuel excise. Here we go. In transport they promised that they would deliver a balanced transport agenda. What have they delivered? They've delivered an additional $1.7 billion of tax impost on motorists and will deliver them almost nothing in return and I'll get to the point on that in Wellington in just a moment. You can't call that balanced—it cannot be called balanced. A Government cannot take all the cash off the motorists give them nothing in return and then try to claim that what they are doing is balanced. It is completely distorted. It is completely focused on light rail ideology—ideology that has been studied in this country and in Wellington just a few years ago that study showed that light rail from Wellington Railway Station to Wellington Airport would lose between 90c and 95c in every $1 spent on it—90c to 95c in every $1 down the drain. They try to say they're balancing this; no they've failed—they've failed to deliver that balance. The greatest recent example of that is this Let's Get Wellington Moving announcement just a few weeks ago. They failed to deliver on their promise to unlock productivity and to resolve the congestion issues from Ngauranga to the airport in Wellington because that is what Let's Get Wellington Moving was set up to deliver and its mandate wasn't changed. What was changed was the elements of it that they have decided they will part-fund and I'll get to the fact about how part-funding is another broken promise. So what do we see? Well OK what are they not doing? We know that they are taking more money off motorists from Wellington and elsewhere through their fuel taxes. We know that they have deliberately structured this programme so that those fuel taxes will only pay for 60 percent of the Let's Get Wellington Moving programme which forces—so it is raising new taxes by proxy—local and regional government to put a greater impost on residents to fund the difference: $2.6 billion. So their actions and their way of structuring this place a $2.6 billion greater impost over and above fuel taxes on Wellington region residents to deliver what? To deliver something that will not benefit those of them that are paying for it because there is no additional southbound line from Ngauranga to Aotea Quay there is no second Terrace Tunnel there is no undergrounding under Te Aro and we've found out—it comes as no surprise because it was in the Cabinet paper—that "We'll only do a second Mount Victoria Tunnel" which they're promising and talking up "if it can be shown that more cars won't use it." Now that's remarkable. Every time I hear the Greens talk about transport they say "If you build any sort of a road more cars will use it." So basically they've set up a system they know will fail because they'll only support a business case for the second Mount Victoria Tunnel if more cars don't use it. By pure coincidence when they do something around the Basin Reserve motorists will benefit slightly from that but there's no way that congestion from Ngauranga through the airport is going to be resolved. There's no way motorists are getting anything of practical use out of this programme but they're paying for the majority of it. They are paying for the majority of it through their increased fuel taxes and through this $2.6 billion regional transport tax which will be levied in one shape or another but mostly through increased rates on residents and ratepayers right across the region. That is a failure to deliver on a promise of a balanced transport programme and a balanced economy for New Zealanders. A Government can't take all the impost off one group give them nothing in return and claim that that is fair. It certainly isn't good for their wellbeing and it pretty much sums up this Budget. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I understand this is a split call. I call Gareth Hughes—five minutes."