Robertson GrantGRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): I want to focus my comments today around the finance sector part of the finance and government administration Sector. I want to start by recalling a debate that happened in the committee when we were discussing this and the Minister and Treasury came to us and told us about New Zealand's growth rates. They told us that we should be very proud because New Zealand was growing at a faster rate than many other countries that we looked at. It took only a couple of minutes for that to unravel when we looked at the numbers which showed us that in two core areas New Zealand was falling behind. In labour productivity—in what we get for the hours of work that New Zealanders put in—what are the outcomes of that? New Zealanders are working longer hours than ever but our productivity at the other end—our output at the other end—is not keeping up to the extent that we now have the fourth-lowest labour productivity in the OECD.The second statistic that emerged in that discussion in the committee was around what GDP means. What does that mean for us? The Government was very pleased to say: Oh we have got GDP up you know 3 percent. Growth is happening." Actually GDP per capita is 8 percent below the OECD average. Just adding more people into our country does not mean that we are sustainably growing—8 percent below the OECD average. So what we would have looked for and what we hoped for when officials and Ministers came to discuss the activities of their departments was some kind of plan or vision for lifting our per capita wealth for making New Zealanders feel as though not only will they get wealthy from selling houses to each other but there might actually be jobs with higher wages. Today we got the example again—Steven Joyce stood up in the House just as the Government has on growth figures and crowed about the employment figures. Look at the wages figures that were announced today: 1.6 percent on average wage increase in the last quarter and 2.2 percent inflation. Wages are not keeping up with the cost of living.That is certainly the case when it comes to housing costs another matter that was debated at length in the Finance and Expenditure Committee. Housing costs last year according to Statistics New Zealand's household economic survey wiped out wage increases for most New Zealanders. New Zealanders were a dollar a day better off on average—$1 a day better off on average—because housing costs have gone through the roof. Today here in Wellington we discovered that house prices went up by 20 percent in 1 year. That is unsustainable. It cannot carry on that way and it will push people further and further away from owning their own home.In this section we were looking for a Government with a vision for sustainably growing the economy for making sure that New Zealanders get a fair share in prosperity and it is not there. What we have seen consistently from this Government is complacency and lack of leadership when it comes to making sure that everybody gets a fair go. We are about to get a Budget in which again the Government will say: "Look at that surplus." Well underneath that surplus is a series of deficits: a massive infrastructure deficit lack of investment in housing and our rail services lack of investment in rural and regional roads. All of that is adding up to Steven Joyce now being able to say: "I have got to put $11 billion in over 4 years." Not even $11 billion over 4 years will make up for the deficit in infrastructure that has been built up by this Government.Then there are the social deficits. It is the people in New Zealand who look at the economy growing and say "Where is my fair share?" who are constantly faced with more costs for housing—the 41000 who are homeless the young parents who are asked every single day for more donations so that their kids can be part of what used to be called our "free" education system. And then there is the health sector where every organisation that works in the health sector is being squeezed and squeezed and asked to provide more with less. Those are the social deficits that sit underneath what this Government would like to claim is a great success in the economy. The economy is not an end in itself; it is about what it delivers for our people. It is time that we actually made that our priority and when we look at what the Government has done over the last couple of years it has not put people first. It is time to put people first in the economy and make the outcomes we deliver for everyday New Zealanders the most important thing."