Robertson GrantGRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I understand that I am required to withdraw and apologise so I withdraw and apologise.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you.GRANT ROBERTSON: Here is a Minister of Finance who had the opportunity to present a Budget to New Zealand that would finally do what for 9 years his Government had failed to do—finally invest properly in health and in housing and in education and in lifting children out of poverty. And what did that Minister do? He squandered that opportunity. He squandered that opportunity because he saw the dangled carrot of tax cuts and the campaign manager for the National Party who happens to be the Minister of Finance could not resist it. He had to grab hold of that tax cut. He asked me in his speech why the Labour Party members had opposed the Government's Budget. Well we do not think the priority for New Zealand today is to give a Cabinet Minister like Steven Joyce or a member of Parliament like me a thousand bucks a year. That is not the priority. If that is the National Party's priority if that is Jonathan Coleman's priority then that is great.Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: This old chestnut.GRANT ROBERTSON: That is fantastic Mr Coleman because everywhere I go around New Zealand when they say to me But why are our health services being cut? Why are we paying more money to go to the doctor?" I say: "That is because Jonathan Coleman the Minister of Health wants a tax cut of a thousand bucks for him. That's why you are not getting the health services in your community." That is why when we go to Dunedin and they say "Where's the hospital that Jonathan Coleman promised us?" it is not there. When we go to Canterbury and Christchurch where I was yesterday parents are coming up to us and saying: "My daughter cannot get mental health service treatment in this city." Someone who at their first appointment was diagnosed as having issues that needed to be dealt with had to wait 4 months for their second appointment. So Mr Coleman—Jonathan Coleman—says "A thousand dollar tax cut for me." but that young woman in Christchurch she does not get to have a second appointment. How is that right Minister? How is that morally right? How is that fiscally right? Come on Minister—because Jonathan Coleman and the rest of that National Government have their priorities completely wrong in this Budget.Jonathan Coleman knows this too because $200 million is the number that Jonathan Coleman should remember. That is the gap between what his own Ministry of Health told him was needed to stand still—not improve services; just stand still—and Jonathan Coleman failed to deliver that. There was $680 million needed to stand still $480 million delivered—a $200 million gap adding up to the $2.3 billion worth of health cuts that Jonathan Coleman has been responsible for.I was on an aeroplane recently next to someone—a plumber from Dunedin. He said to me about the tax cuts that he did not want them because he had thought about that. If he added up the $26 a week that everyone in his street would get—added all of that up—that would be one more nurse for the hospital one more community police officer for his community. He said: "That's what I want. That's what I want in my community." And that is what New Zealanders do want.This Government is all about the sugar hits and not about the solutions when it comes to this Budget. By all means put in front of the public a tax cut. People say: "That's great. I'm interested in that. I like the idea of that." But New Zealanders think about that and they care about their neighbours and their families and their communities and they want to see the investment that has been so sadly lacking from this Government. Once again we have a Budget from National that completely fails to start to fix the housing crisis. Budget after Budget we have stood up in this House and said: "Where is the National Party when it comes to housing?". Well this Budget delivered the grand total of land for 1200 homes. We are talking about a housing shortage in Auckland alone of 30000 or 40000 houses and the best that the National Government can come up with in this Budget is land for 1200 homes. It is completely inadequate and it is part of the squandered opportunity that National had in this Budget.Then when we look at the fact that we are actually debating the appropriations from 2016 and the supplementary estimates—but the Minister gave a very wide-ranging speech to which I am responding—when we look in them we actually see that 17 out of 20 of the district health boards (DHBs) actually had deficits that had to be made up for. The Minister of Health has unfortunately repeated that problem by mucking up how much money each of those DHBs had to get and now they have had to give some of those back. That again means service cuts in our health sector.Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: No Grant. Come on!GRANT ROBERTSON: Yes it does. The Minister is in such denial about this but he knows he has got a health sector that has lost complete confidence in him in his chief executive and now he is in the embarrassing position of having to say to those DHBs which had already organised what they were going to do with that money that they have to give some of it back. That is a health system in crisis as the housing crisis has got away on National as well.It is time for a Budget that actually delivers for all New Zealanders. Here is a message for the National members: you are not delivering for all New Zealanders when Statistics New Zealand tells us there are 41000 people who are homeless; you are not delivering for all New Zealanders when we have the lowest homeownership rate in 60 years; you are not delivering for all New Zealanders when rental prices in Wellington go up by 10 percent and 15 percent and then 20 percent a year; you are not delivering for all New Zealanders when we have an education system where early childhood centres are $40000 worse off a year than they were when National came into office. That is not delivering for all New Zealanders.National is doing what it always does—delivering for a small section of New Zealanders. What we need is an approach to a Budget that actually sets out at the beginning the kind of society that we want to live in. On this side of the House we want a society where every New Zealander gets to contribute; where everyone gets the basic Kiwi value of a fair go. I think after 9 long years of a National Government New Zealanders should expect that they would all get a fair go but they have not got that from this Budget.We have a National Government that has run out of steam because this Budget is back to the 1990s playbook back to the tax cuts to get yourself an election win. It is irresponsible. It completely fails the test that New Zealanders set for their Government: to make sure that every person in our country gets the basics the fundamental building blocks of opportunity.That is why the Labour Party has prioritised those: actually making sure that we build houses affordable homes for first-home buyers; actually making sure that we put the emergency housing and State housing in place. Not sell State housing but build State housing; thousands of houses to make sure that that thing that is the bedrock of strong communities stable communities—housing quality housing housing that does not make you sick housing that is your sanctuary. That is why that is a priority for the Labour Party. It is not a priority for this Government or in this Budget.It is also why it is a priority to make sure that our health system is funded properly. Now I hear Jonathan Coleman get up and talk about how we spent a record amount of money in the health system. Well families who are going to the supermarket tonight will spend a record amount of money on their groceries. It does not mean they get more groceries Dr Coleman; it means they are paying more—just as you are; just as Jonathan Coleman is. That is the thing: he is not actually funding health for population increase or funding health for inflation. In real terms the National Government has taken more than $2 billion—and he knows it—out of the health sector. It is just the same in the education sector.So on this side of the House we stand proudly for a fresh approach to these issues in New Zealand; to make sure we build the houses to make sure that we support the health and education systems and to give our communities proper community policing. Right around New Zealand that is what National has taken away and it has come up with an inadequate package in here. We are going to deliver 1000 more sworn police in our first term. I want to finish on this: this Budget lacks any vision for the long-term future of New Zealand. If this Government was serious about that in this Budget it would have restarted contributions to the Superannuation Fund. But it did not. It chose to prioritise tax cuts. It chose to prioritise its short-term electoral interests over the long-term good of New Zealand. That ends up being the legacy of this Budget: a squandered opportunity to do what is right a squandered opportunity to rebuild the social foundations of New Zealand. This will be the last Budget of the National Government in this era of politics. Labour will deliver a fair and sustainable Budget next year."