Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Look New Zealand's facing a great economic challenge right now. I have every confidence—and we on this side of the Parliament have every confidence—that New Zealanders can overcome the challenge and get back on track and restore ourselves to prosperity and for New Zealanders to have the opportunity to live the lives that they want to lead looking after themselves and their families having opportunities for good sustainable work and getting on with it. So New Zealanders are resilient and I have no doubt that we will get on top of the challenges that we face.This Budget however will probably help in some degree but not as much as it could have. When we look at the Budget figures announced on 14 May what did we see? We saw the prospect of an extra $140 billion of debt. So at the moment New Zealanders have about $60 billion of net debt—$60 billion—and that $60 billion is going to go up to $200 billion—an extra $140 billion of debt. Then we'll see unemployment rising an extra 150000 people—150000 people losing their jobs over the next few months. You can imagine the impact that that has on the lives of New Zealanders their families their communities up and down the country including the East Coast and all about. The impact on those lives will be significant; so we want to reduce that impact as much as we can. So the only relevant questions are: are we making it worse than we need to and how do we get out of it? Because everybody accepts that all around the world the COVID crisis has led to an economic challenge. Many countries are grappling with it; in some it's still getting worse. New Zealand has got through the health crisis relatively well. Now we need to focus on the economic crisis.There are three things that could be making it worse. One is being too slow to open up. We just heard yesterday that the Government's going to take a month to figure out whether we can come out of level 2. Each passing week adds significantly to the costs that we sustain. So our strong view is that we should look to open up as quickly as we can. We should have an absolute focus on getting the international students back—a major industry used to employ 55000 New Zealanders created huge jobs and opportunities. We should have an absolute focus on getting them back for the second semester and not just letting it drag on. We should have an absolute focus on getting the trans-Tasman bubble up and going to save our tourism industry get those people back. We should be taking the attitude that we shouldn't be focused on what we can't do but focused on what we can do and allowing it to happen.Second thing is that we can make it worse by not helping small business particularly stay afloat during an extraordinary crisis where they've had seven weeks with no income no revenue no opportunity to do their business and sell to people. The extraordinary thing is that with all the billions of dollars announced in this Budget and billions and billions of dollars spent they have not chosen to get any direct cash into the hands of those small businesses. Sure there's been the wage subsidy which has gone to workers and employees and people have been grateful for that and there's been the prospect of all sorts of loans but when you're a small business struggling to stay alive the prospect of taking more debt on is not all that appealing. That's why National has argued for getting cash into the hands of those businesses and we just haven't had any response from the Government on that.And then finally you can make it worse by continuing on with nice-to-have spending that might have made sense in the good times before this crisis. If you just carry on with that you add to the overall debt mountain that future generations are going to have to pay for. And what we didn't see in this Budget—nowhere did we see anywhere in this Budget any significant attempt to reprioritise spending away from things that might be nice to have in the good times.So what we see is a fundamental contradiction opening up in this Government. So for the first two years—for the first two years—they spent the entire time talking about nine years of neglect under the previous Government. Then in the third year they spend their entire time saying as Grant Robertson the finance Minister said We're in good shape. We've got the lowest debt in the world." Now those two things don't actually go together very well because we're only in good shape right now right here in New Zealand from a debt point of view because the previous National Government dug us out of the hole—a $50 billion hole—in the global financial crisis and the Canterbury earthquakes where we had to borrow $50 billion. And after that the previous National Government led by John Key and Bill English worked hard diligently in a disciplined way getting back on track getting on top of that debt and reducing it so that this Government could inherit debt in good shape.At not a single point did the Opposition—then as it was the Labour Party—support any of those moves. They complained and they grizzled and they opposed it all the way. So for the first two years they talk about nine years of neglect and then for the third year they talk about the lowest debt in the world and how we're in good shape. That underscores the complete absence of any coherence in what they're saying. It also represents the fact that this Government and this Budget show no clear path to get back on track to get on top of the debt. It just continues to balloon further and further into the future.So how do we get out of the challenge? Well first we've got to open up the economy focus on tourism focus on international education look for opportunities for people to work. Secondly we've got to get cash into the hands of those business people that are struggling; as National has suggested returning GST. There's billions of dollars being spent on catching possums lots of money spent on the railways thanks to Winston Peters and his friend from the Far North but not much in the way of helping businesses directly.Third we've got to fire up private sector investment because it's private sector investment that will drive growth and opportunities for New Zealanders. It's small-business people and large-business people taking a punt saying "OK I'm going to reinvest in my business. I'm going to hire that person. I'm going to take a risk and start a new venture." It's private sector investment that will drive the growth and restore the economy. So we need to have a focus on reducing the regulatory burden that they face. Unbelievably in the middle of the COVID crisis this Government pressed ahead and increased the minimum wage when businesses had no revenue. Now any Government that does that has no idea. Of course the primary purpose of economic policy is to increase wages but it has to be based on the ability of a business to pay those wages.The other thing is you need to have the investment flowing. Associated with this Budget have been very tight rules around foreign investment where it makes it very difficult for even the smallest amount of inward investment to come in and save businesses. So if you've got a shop you're in trouble you're struggling to survive you've got a brother or sister overseas who wants to contribute well now according to this Government you've got to go through a notification process and you've got to wait 10 days; you've got to get lawyers involved no doubt. It becomes difficult and it makes it more difficult for businesses to survive and get the capital they need to grow.Fourth point is we've got to continue to invest in quality infrastructure and no doubt—we've just heard from Phil Twyford previously Minister of Transport and infamous for the lack of delivery on KiwiBuild; now equally infamous for the lack of delivery on light rail down Dominion Road; thirdly infamous for coming in as transport Minister cancelling all the roads that National had on the plans because Julie Anne Genter did not want to give in to the "car fascists" and he felt we'd over-invested in roads. Two years later he started to build those roads again having wasted 2½ years. That same Phil Twyford will be standing there saying "We're going to invest in infrastructure. Trust us."Well no New Zealanders have any confidence in the ability of this Government to deliver infrastructure. They are great at announcing it; they are world class at announcing it. The Prime Minister—you cannot fault her ability to announce infrastructure projects and you can't fault the ability of Shane Jones to announce all sorts of infrastructure projects. He's announced his roundabout up at Waipapa in the first week—way back in the hot summer of February 2018. Still haven't built it—still haven't built it. There are a few cones that have been put up but nothing else has happened. So they'll announce infrastructure till the cows come home and there'll be shovels ready—there'll be shovels and all that sort of stuff—but no New Zealanders have any confidence in their ability to deliver it.Finally we need to invest in skills to help New Zealanders retrain and re-equip themselves for the modern world and for the changed world post - COVID-19. Yes there'll be a lot of New Zealanders saying "Oh well good. They're spending $1.6 billion on apprentices." But that is this Government to a T. Big announcement no detail no plan and in the meantime Chris Hipkins has gone and turned that whole sector upside down in a state of chaos and dysfunction. How on earth they're going to actually deliver all the apprentices that they're talking about is beyond me and it's beyond anybody here. So lots of big talk.So this Budget: big Budget—$62 billion of extra spending. As Professor Gemmell one of New Zealand's leading economics professors noted the $20 billion - plus of unallocated recovery fund can be strategically dropped into the election battle as further subsidy extension and other vote-targeting sweeteners. I do hope that he's mistaken there and I do hope this Government will show some discipline over the next couple of months and ensure that future generations don't carry any further burden than they have to and that we can get back on track. Thank you Madam Speaker."