Barry Maggie; Carter DavidHon MAGGIE BARRY (Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage): I think when we have taken a moment to reflect on the calls that the Opposition has taken we can truly see the lack of depth the lack of thinking and the complete absence of innovative ideas emerging from the Opposition benches. There is really nothing that Opposition members have suggested by way of policies that have been costed and realistic that will make a jot of difference. New Zealanders are not silly. They will see that. For the remainder of my call I am going to be looking at the issues that have been satisfied by this Budget across my three portfolios beginning with conservation. Despite what the bad arithmetic of the Opposition forces might suggest the Department of Conservation (DOC) has certainly improved its funding base since National came into Government by about 20 percent. So we have increased the operational funding. We have increased the capacity for the Department of Conservation to engage at a more meaningful level with businesses and partners and that has resulted in a $100 million gain for conservation across species recovery. These are very important measures that matter a lot to New Zealanders and matter very much to me as the Minister of Conservation. I am very proud to be part of this Government and say that more conservation work is being done in New Zealand today than at any other time in this country's history and it is working. The report that came out today from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Dr Jan Wright endorsed our Predator Free 2050 approach. She was perhaps not as aware of the detail of what the Predator Free 2050 board is doing but it was configured as a Crown entity and in December I appointed the board. It has met four times now and it is about to announce its new chief executive and to roll out its plans and call for applications for landscape-scale predator control around New Zealand. In addition to that the Department of Conservation has trained up nine specific rangers who will be Predator Free 2050 rangers and it will really help communities with an amount of funding—around $300000—that will enable those communities to determine for themselves what predators they want to get rid of and a plan for getting rid of them in traps in their community and an overall strategy. So DOC is doing its very best to help and the $76 million Budget package that came to DOC will not only be a wonderful and welcome investment in our great walks and our conservation estate and infrastructure so that visitor experiences are of the highest possible order but it will also enable us to earn money off the conservation estate—more than we are at the moment. The Great Walks are running at a loss. We need to be able to charge realistic amounts. So with our new Budget money we are going to be investing in an IT system that will be world class as a booking system which means that we will be able to bring in differential charging. That means that New Zealanders who have paid their rates and their taxes and have already made a considerable investment into DOC land and facilities will be given a discounted rate but international visitors coming here will be charged more. We as a Government do not agree with slapping another arbitrary tax at the border on every visitor who comes here. Tourism is too important to us. We do not want to kill the goose that lays the golden egg. A lot of visitors who come here do not go to our natural estate. Dr Wright in her report talked about user-pays—so users of our great walks from overseas will pay more and I think that is entirely appropriate. In discussions with New Zealanders many of them have agreed with it. DOC has put up its prices across some camping grounds and some walks in the last little while and that has not been condemned at all. In fact it has been welcomed. As part of our new range of access to the natural environment in New Zealand we will be using some of that $76 million to build two new Great Walks as well as a new network of day walks and short walks. The feedback that we have had from the tourism industry and from New Zealanders is that they want to have a bigger variety of walks available such as 2-hour to 3-hour walks and 1-day walks. We all know the pressure that the Tongariro Alpine Crossing is under. Our response to that is to develop more walks around it to give more choices. Incidentally we have put in a lot more Portaloos—some 20 more—just to accommodate the large number of people and we have a particular plan for Tongariro that we are working through at the moment with iwi and other partners. I have also just announced $21 million of new funding to launch our third Battle for our Birds. Some of the Green detractors tend to say that the Battle for our Birds money should not be regarded as normal predator control. It is of course in response to a beech seeding or beech mast. But what it will actually do—and the one I have announced will be the largest in New Zealand's conservation history—will be to cover 880000 hectares by aerial 1080 drops and there will be a very well-thought-through and well-planned series of trappings to follow that. That is predator control on an epic scale. It is exactly what Dr Wright and others have been saying for a long time that we need to do which is kill the predators to save our threatened and endangered species. New Zealand's Threatened Species Strategy which I released a couple of weeks ago at the Threatened Species Summit in conjunction with the National Science Challenges has really given a good opportunity to New Zealanders and to NGOs and others to have their input into our strategy. Broadly we agree with Dr Wright's finding that our endangered species need our help and we have done a lot to do that. DOC is also announcing next week that it is employing a new senior member of its biodiversity team who will be pulling together translocation issues and a lot of the other challenges that exist with smaller gene pools with endangered species. On to arts culture and heritage. Radio New Zealand—I love it. I have listened to it all my life I worked on it for a period of time in a former life and I am delighted as the Minister to be building on the work that the Hon Amy Adams did as my predecessor to announce an 8 percent increase in Radio New Zealand's base funding. Over the past 8 years while its funding stayed the same it has proved how efficient it is at making do with what it has and it has brought in much-needed efficiencies. It has performed terrifically well and that was seen in a wonderful way actually with the Kaikōura earthquakes. At times of crisis New Zealanders turn to trusted public broadcasters and Radio New Zealand is an extraordinarily high-performing group of people. So there is $11.4 over 4 years with $2.8 million a year being a permanent ongoing amount for them and that will assist them to buy new modern technology and improved capability and to expand regional coverage. When I rang the board chair I would say that his response was euphoric. They were very relieved. They were very pleased that they will be able to continue to grow and expand into the Pacific and to make their product—which includes the excellent 9th Floor series—more widely available and they will be able to do more of the top quality news and current affairs that they do so very well. First Encounters 250 is about James Cook's arrival in New Zealand. So in the same way that the Ministry for Culture and Heritage planned ahead for the 4 commemorative years to mark 100 years since World War I we are planning ahead now for First Encounters 250—as we are calling it—to be held in 2019 commemorating when the Polynesian navigator Tupaea and James Cook came to New Zealand. All of the landing sites will benefit from a total funding in the Budget of $5 million. We have an extra $3.5 million to fund a flotilla of tall ships and the replica of the Endeavour. So between October and December 2019 New Zealanders will be very well aware of how excellent it is to commemorate our first encounters or Te Hā—the sharing of the breath—between the European the Māori and the Polynesian. When we look at Pukeahu which has been our tremendously successful National War Memorial Park here in Wellington there are about to be three more memorial elements going into that. We had the Australians—appropriately in the Anzac tradition—with the first memorial. The French the Belgians and the English as well and the Americans are all ready to go with theirs. We have got another $4.8 million over 4 years so that Pukeahu can be developed and we will certainly be encouraging young people to come to Queen Elizabeth II Pukeahu Education Centre. In terms of superannuation because of the link to after-tax wages the changes that we are making to the tax system will have real flow-on benefits to around three-quarters of a million New Zealanders who receive New Zealand superannuation. For a married couple that means New Zealand superannuation will increase by about $13 a week on 1 April next year because of the tax changes on top of their normal adjustment. If you add that up that is a 35 percent increase in superannuation since National came into Government. That is more than twice the rate of inflation. Around 15000 superannuitants with high housing costs will also see an average increase of $29 a week from the accommodation supplement changes to help them with their housing costs. On top of that of course is the $2 billion pay equity TerraNova case agreement for care and support workers. As somebody whose mother was in a residential care home with dementia for a period of time I can say very honestly that the people who work at the front line of care for our older people in New Zealand—it is a vocation. They do a terrific job and they absolutely deserve another $100 a week or over $5000 a year as a result of that $2 billion increase. Thank you. Mr SPEAKER: I understand that this is a split call. I will ring the bell at 4 minutes.