Bishop Chris: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBishop Chris: General Debate[Sitting date: 20 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3468. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CHRIS BISHOP (National): What an embarrassing last 90 minutes it has been for the New Zealand Labour Party the Opposition—the obstreperous Opposition: angry Andy and angry Annette. It was an embarrassing last 90 minutes. They fell apart completely during question time. We had Grant Robertson there who threw his toys out of the cot and was ejected from the Chamber. Mr Peters on sort of road to Kawakawa experience suddenly was a new convert to bringing refugees into New Zealand. Well he was back to his usual tricks in the general debate and in question time on a long-winded rant about international students flooding New Zealand and bringing their skills and expertise and bringing their income and their wealth to our country. He was straight back into it in the general debate recycling jokes from the 1970s. That joke about manual labour has been around since the 1970s and that is the best that he can do in 2015. It is embarrassing—absolutely embarrassing. It is no surprise his jokes come from the 1970s because that is exactly where his economic policies come from. Then after Grant got thrown out David Cunliffe got up to save the day. The new chief whip of the Labour Party David Cunliffe got up with long tendentious points of order. He is back. He is back and we know he is back because the Leader of the Opposition—the current Leader of the Opposition the temporary Leader of the Opposition—Tim Macindoe: Who is it today?CHRIS BISHOP: It is Andrew Little Mr Macindoe. Andrew Little decided to take a leaf out of David Cunliffe’s book and repeat a poem during his general debate speech. It was not a patch on “I am Harvard”. It was not a patch on David Cunliffe’s magnum opus from his time as a scholar at Harvard in the 1990s but it was a pretty good effort. It was reasonably amusing but I have got to say it was embarrassing that that is the best that the Opposition can do 1 day out from the Budget. We are 1 day out from Bill English’s seventh Budget and all that Andrew Little can come up with is some half-rhyming poem. So it was a very embarrassing time.Then we had old Ron Mark who was almost thrown out of the House for a sweary mouth. The obstreperous Opposition has had a very bad afternoon indeed. Clare Curran was tweeting away about how we on this side of the House were glum. On the “Planet Labour” the parallel universe that Clare Curran seems to spend most of her life in we on the Government backbenches were glum. Nothing could be further from the truth.This is a Government and this is a party that is in good heart. The reason for that and the reason why the obstreperous Opposition members over there are so frustrated and the reason why Grant was thrown out and the reason why they are so angry over on that side of the House is that they know that tomorrow Bill English is going to deliver a Budget that will show that New Zealand is heading in the right direction. He will deliver a Budget that shows we are growing at one of the fastest rates in the developed world. He is going to deliver a Budget that shows that inflation is low wages are rising faster than inflation and unemployment is down and not only that—and this is very important—he is going to deliver a Budget that shows New Zealand that this Government is tackling some of the intractable social problems that have bedevilled us for far too long.This Government is tackling things like material deprivation. It is tackling the housing affordability problem that we have in this country. It is tackling entrenched welfare dependency. It is tackling the educational disparities that exist between Māori and Pākehā and Pasifika and Māori in this country and it is implementing and embedding in the Government books the social investment approach that my colleague Anne Tolley my colleague Paula Bennett and Bill English have been working on for the last 5 years.Actually you will not see much media commentary about that approach tomorrow and you definitely will not see Jacinda Ardern or Carmel Sepuloni talk about it. You will not see them talk about that social investment approach. For starters the Labour Party members do not understand it and to the extent that they do understand it they fundamentally disagree with the idea that will be at the heart of the Budget tomorrow.This side of the House the Government is in good heart. The Opposition members are frustrated and angry and they are frustrated and angry for a good reason—because this Budget is going to be an important marking point in New Zealand’s future and our history. All they have are rants and anger over on that side of the House. What we have is a Budget that will continue to deliver for New Zealanders.