Smith DamienDAMIEN SMITH (ACT): Thank you Madam Speaker. The Imprest Supply (Second for 2022/23) Bill and the Budget from 2022/23—I think it's time for some honesty on the other side of the House. The fiscal and monetary response inside this Budget would probably go down in history as one of the greatest mistakes that has ever been made. We've finished COVID which was conveniently done on the day of Her Majesty's parting and we've come out of it with more cases than we did when we went into it. So the whole of COVID management strategy is why ACT believes that after this Budget cycle there should be an inquiry.Effectively the Labour Party has to take responsibility for creating inflation in households through this Budget. Interest rates were set too low the welfare effect was maintained—now we're paying the price. It's not just a mechanical fiscal response; it's one where the Budget appropriations have got to show yielding results. It's very hard to point to a matrix of results—that should be attached to this bill—of what this money is delivering. We believe that it's essential that the taxpayer gets value for money. The tax take is higher than ever and it's got us through last year but I've never once heard the Labour Party actually thanking the taxpayer for its contribution. The Government's job is to divvy it up and it put it in places that are effective that bring prosperity to the economy but people out in New Zealand are feeling the pain of rising inflation rising interest rates and just a general dispiriting of regulations being too much for them. They look at what the Government's spending initiatives are and think to themselves Well how does that relate to me and am I getting value for money?"Time for a wake-up call because this year coming will not be easier. The opposition to this bill by ACT is not just because we're madly fixated on taxpayers—on protecting them—it's because we know the people out in New Zealand know how to spend the money better than the Government does. The right thing to do in this last Budget was to actually—instead of clamouring at the eleventh hour to give them a dollar a day through the cost of living payment because the polls were bad—give them some stimulus in the back pocket themselves. Instead of giving them dollars we should have given them thousands. We should have actually come to the party where they felt that the Government was being sympathetic and was giving them a break; not having the boot at the throat of themselves and their households.So we will remember this Budget as the one that also has contributed to the brain drain. We can see now the number of people leaving to go to Australia is rising every week. People know that they're going to get paid more over there. We need to be more productive here. We need to invite foreign capital in here to help us to—we can't just keep relying on the taxpayer to fund everything. We need to find another leg to the economy.So in terms of this bill taking the tax at its pure level the Government's skirting on the edge of its fiscal prudence. Talking to the Minister he can't move on what he's collecting. Inflation is helping him because it's driving up—by 7 8 percent—his take but even then it's not a lot of room to walk in.So you can talk about Standard & Poor's and Moody's—and the Minister clutches them like it's Genesis 1 and 2—but when the hard times come those reports won't matter at all. So ACT opposes this bill and we believe the taxpayer has not been rewarded nor the citizens in this last Budget."