Collins JudithHon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Revenue): No pressure! Actually this is a fantastic Budget and it is a Budget that I would characterise as a Budget for all New Zealanders—in fact all New Zealanders except the Labour Party represented in Parliament because every other party in Parliament voted for it. Having voted for it what these other parties have signed up to is actually more money in the pockets of people who need that money.Hon Trevor Mallard: Police would've got more wouldn't they if that member was leader.Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Certainly the Hon Trevor Mallard has said that Police would have got more. Well do you know what Mr Mallard? Of course Police did get more—an extra 1125 police staff coming in partly paid for through this Budget. I think that is a fantastic thing and I am so pleased that they have come in and they are starting to come through now. In my electorate in Papakura you can see that happening now.You can also see that people in Papakura are very happy with the changes in the Budget. The fact is that you can do an awful lot in the world if you got some money to do it. This Budget actually gives a lot more people a lot more money particularly those who have got children who receive the accommodation supplement and who have actually been finding it a little bit more difficult just because of the fact that prices do go up and because of everything else in their lives but now they have got more money in their pocket. They know that this Government having changed the tax thresholds actually means that they have still got more incentive to work more incentive to take some overtime and more incentive to take a pay rise.It is really important that we as a country do have the economic grunt that we need to be able to deliver for all New Zealanders. Just referring to the care workers' case of all the people in this Parliament I would say that most people would have had parents or family members who have had assistance from care workers—people affected by the agreement that has been reached. What that means for the people who do this job which many of us would not want to do ourselves is they do this job they are going to be better respected and they are going to be better paid. Actually there are more opportunities for them and I personally think that it is one of the best things that we could ever have done as a Government: to give the best help that we possibly can not only to those care workers and their families but actually also for the people whom they are helping. So I am so pleased that we have been able to do that. Of course you cannot do that if you do not have money. And actually you only get money as a Government if in fact you get the revenue in—which of course is my job and it has been for the last 6 months. I have to say it is a really fun job.One of the things that we are doing in the Budget—it has been announced and we are going to be continuing down this path—is actually making sure that every one of the multinationals that operates in New Zealand gets to pay something towards our tax. Actually their fair share would be really good. I think that most New Zealanders would say that that is a really good thing. Very soon I am going off to sign a multilateral agreement on this with other countries. We have already got a bilateral agreement with the United States on it. We are actually going to be able to get some information that we need to make sure that Kiwis who are getting salary and wages and are getting their tax taken out as PAYE or businesses based in New Zealand that are paying their tax are not the only ones carrying the burden of tax.It is really important that we do that. We cannot go off and just say: You big multinational company you come and do as we tell you." You cannot do that all by yourself. We are dealing with companies that are bigger than us with much more revenue than we as a country have and much more power in many ways. So it is really good that we have been working on this for a long time and it is now coming into fruition. We have banked a little bit of that money about $100 million of it—"little bit": it sounds big does it not—in this year's Budget but we are expecting at least about $300 million from that process. So I think that is an incredible thing.What we are seeing with this Budget is the value of having a resilient economy. It is a Budget that is actually a culmination after I could say almost 9 years in Government—or from the Opposition's point of view 9 years of its opposition to every single one of our Budgets—and we have actually been able to do this because we have been so careful. Where we have invested it has been about getting more income into New Zealand; more money for New Zealanders more money in Kiwis' pockets; and more opportunities.If we look at some of the things that small business for instance—think about small business. Small business is the heart and the soul of New Zealand when it comes to innovation start-ups—all those sorts of things. One of things that we have done in the Budget is to say: "Look we're going to sort out what we would call 'black hole' expenditure in the revenue area." What that means is lots of businesses sitting around trying to think about innovative ways trying something new going into some sort of area and doing some work on it and it actually does not result in anything of value in terms of an asset or income. At the moment under the tax system all that work that has gone on and all that money that has been spent is actually not tax deductible; it is actually tax-paid money that is paying for that. That is a really big imposition on business. So what we are doing is looking to see how we can make that tax deductible. That might not seem very big in the whole scheme of things except that we are a country of innovation and drive and energy and you cannot be a country of innovation drive and energy if you cannot try anything—if you cannot try and occasionally fail.If you are too scared to fail you are never going to do anything and what we have to be able to do in this country is encourage our people to try things occasionally fail—we would rather they did not fail—keep going and get there. You only have to look at Peter Beck and his rocket to see that. New Zealand is now in the space age.Brett Hudson: We back Kiwis to be successful.Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Actually yes he has had help from the New Zealand Government which by the way means the New Zealand taxpayer. And do you know what? That puts us on the stage but not only does it do that—it is not just an ego thing for New Zealand—Todd Barclay: Puts us on the moon.Hon JUDITH COLLINS: It does put us sort of pretty much on the moon but what it really does do is actually give an opportunity for business and apparently there is an industry out there. There is a need for people to be able to put satellites up in the sky in a relatively low-cost way in a part of the world where there is not that much air traffic. Well guess what—that is Māhia Peninsula.So you know we can do these things but we cannot do it all by ourselves as individuals and that is why Peter Beck and people like him are innovators. They need a Government that understands that—a Government that is not going out picking winners but certainly a Government that says that actually we can all shoot for the sky and we can have a go.I was watching BBC News the other night—and I say that only because I only barely pretty much watch the news these days—and there it was along the bottom of the thing: "New Zealand joins the space race". Well when was the last time New Zealand was on the BBC News and it was not for rugby? I tell you what New Zealand is great when it comes to this sort of innovation.Let us have a look at this for the infrastructure. This is a big infrastructure Budget—a really big infrastructure Budget. It is the trains—Hon Member: Huge.Hon JUDITH COLLINS: —it is the this it is whatever it is the roads—it is huge. And do you know what? That is because that is what we need.We have been the beneficiaries of the fact that so many New Zealanders now stay in New Zealand. You know we have got 600000 New Zealanders living in Australia. Do you know what? We have got 60000 Australians living in New Zealand. No wonder things are always a little bit different. But do you know what? We are not losing the 40000 New Zealanders to Australia that we used to do—that is how come we have got 600000 Kiwis over there. It is because that is what we used to do. We used to be able to plan for the fact that about 40000-odd New Zealanders would leave every year. Now they are coming back.I looked at the migration figures the other day. Last year 23000 people came from Australia to live in New Zealand and I bet you that most of them will be Kiwis coming here. They have made the right choice because this is a Government that has worked for 9 years trying to make sure that we have made the very best opportunities available for every New Zealander because you need to be able to do that.We are a party that made some pretty tough decisions as a Government early on in our tenure in our very first term and that is because we inherited the global financial crisis. We inherited a decade of deficits. That was all the advice that we had. We had all of this—10 years of deficit. Day after day after day in this Parliament we had the Labour Party crowing at us that we would have a decade of deficits. Well guess what? We have now got a decade of surpluses and I put that down to the excellent work of our finance team of the former Minister of Finance the Rt Hon Bill English and the current Minister of Finance the Hon Steven Joyce and all of our team here who have backed our team. Unlike the Labour Party we back our team. We work together. We work together for the benefit of New Zealanders and this is paying out for us. It is playing out very well in terms of New Zealanders wanting to stay home. More people are coming here. More people who are highly skilled are wanting to come to New Zealand to be part of our Kiwi history our Kiwi place in the world because this is absolutely the No. 1 best country in the world."