Upston LouiseHon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. I'm going to start unusually by quoting one of the Labour MPs that spoke a few minutes ago. That member said that Budgets that have a focus on wellbeing aren't new. So it's fascinating that members opposite get obsessed about saying this is the first wellbeing Budget when in reality Budgets for decades have focused on the wellbeing of New Zealanders. What's interesting is that if you ask New Zealanders to talk about or describe what wellbeing is for them I don't think they'd need 140 different indicators that Stats New Zealand have come up with and I don't think at the top of the list—or actually anywhere on the list—they would be talking about measuring their moon feelings; that side of the House seems to think that that's important. No instead what they would be talking about—what most New Zealanders would be talking about when they think about wellbeing—are simple things like having a job having somewhere to live being able to pay your bills having world-leading health and education for our families having freedom and choice feeling safe in their homes and communities and making sure that we protect our beautiful environment. That's what National believes in.It was really interesting because I had a conversation with a young man earlier today and in his words: Wellbeing in this supposedly world-first wellbeing Budget"—he was shocked at the billions being spent on trains and air force planes. That did not feature in this young man's description of wellbeing. But what he did want to know is that when he finishes his study there will be jobs available for him in New Zealand. But what do we have instead? We had 10000 jobs that were being created in the previous Government; now there's a loss of 4000 jobs a month. So if one of the key elements of wellbeing is having a job I say good luck to the Government because you're going backwards not forwards.There's been a lot of discussion in the House about this botched Budget so I don't want to dwell too much on it. One of the key things for a Government—the Prime Minister and Ministers—is to act with integrity to not mislead the New Zealand public and to make sure that documents and information that should be held with the highest secrecy and regard is protected. What we've seen in this example of the 2019 Budget has just been an absolute farce. But what's worse than that—what's worse than that—is we have seen that Labour is failing to deliver on their promises. I'm going to talk about that quite a bit in this Budget debate speech.When we talk about wellbeing you can't just talk about social wellbeing if you have a sick economy. Unfortunately that's what we're seeing under this Labour Government. We are seeing an economy that is getting sicker and sicker by the day. So instead of the 4 percent growth that they inherited it's slid back to 2 percent—and guess what? It's sliding back even further.I'm not going to talk at length about the employment policies or the oil and gas ban and the restrictions on foreign investment because I know they've been traversed. But instead as I said this is a Government that is failing to deliver on their promises—very simple promises. KiwiBuild—100000 houses. That was the hope that New Zealanders were sold; they have been totally ripped off because in that very simple one-line promise Labour is failing to deliver. This is ordinary New Zealanders who had an aspiration about owning their own home. How many have we had? I don't even think we've hit 100 yet. I think it's still in the sort of early 80s. Where are the $10-cheaper GP visits? Where's the 100 percent qualified early childhood education teachers? Where's the no new taxes? Oh we're at seven already and counting.We're also seeing unfortunately a lift in the number of people on benefits. National quite clearly believes that Kiwis are better off in paid work so that they can live independent lives and they can provide a better future for their children. We also firmly believe in supporting the most vulnerable while ensuring they work with us to improve their lives. We believe that New Zealanders should be given a hand up and not a handout and that those who can work should. I do want to talk about social development because one of the promises that Labour made was to overhaul the welfare system. So after months of the Welfare Expert Advisory Group how many recommendations do you think the Government accepted out of 42? How many? Give us a guess. Three recommendations; three out of 42. And actually two of them were Labour's election promises anyway so you can hardly count those and they take effect from April 2020 so it's not particularly immediate. But what they have delivered is hard-working taxpayers picking up the tab for children that their own fathers won't financially support which is absolutely appalling. To quote Steve Maharey they're "deadbeat dads"—this is not my quote it is Steve Maharey's. So unfortunately one of the other areas that the Budget is promising is another 15000 people on jobseeker and emergency benefits. Fifteen thousand—there's nothing about wellbeing in that. If you look at the number of children living in poverty those who are hit hardest live in benefit-dependent homes. So why is it that the Labour Government is forecasting 15000 more people on benefits? That is not a life of opportunity. That is not a life of a great future for the children in that household. There is nothing in this Budget—oh sorry; indexing means on average $11 a week for a beneficiary or a benefit-dependent family by 2023. So I'm sorry; I correct myself: $11 when actually when we were in Government we gave an immediate boost to benefits of $25 a week—immediately not in 2023.We're also seeing unfortunately a forecast of an increase in the number of parents on the sole parent benefit. As I said before if the Government was serious about lifting children out of material hardship they would focus on policies that work to support sole parents into work. But actually what did we see cut from the Budget? We see expectations of less childcare assistance. So how does that make sense? If we want people to be independent if we want people to be able to take care of themselves and their children financially to give them a hand up then why would you reduce childcare assistance? It just does not make sense.We are pleased that some of the National initiatives that have been incredibly successful are being continued: the Integrated Safety Response programmes in family violence with police and other agencies; Housing First for those who are experiencing chronic homelessness—pleased to see that that's been continued—and also funding for the transition for kids in State care. The things they are funding were National initiatives anyway which we've managed to prove that they work and the Government now is just putting dollars alongside it. Unfortunately this Budget isn't really about wellbeing. What this Budget is about is Labour failing to deliver on their promises. It's incredibly underwhelming and the flip side is the economic health. It's really easy for the Government to spend money but what New Zealanders are asking is where is the plan for the economy to be more healthy? Where is the economic plan when we're losing $4000 jobs a month? How is that supporting young New Zealanders' futures in New Zealand? But actually this picture says it all. Here's a young woman and her daughter who pursued a better life opportunity in Australia because the Labour Government clearly isn't delivering it for them here in New Zealand. They're now on the cover of another magazine telling them what a great life it is in Australia instead of at home in New Zealand."