Salesa JennyDAMIEN SMITH (ACT): Thank you. I rise on behalf of the ACT Party in a split call with our leader David Seymour. Just to go back to what the fiscal position statement actually means: it differentiates between the Treasury's other forward-looking reports such as economic updates and it does not forecast what is likely to happen; rather it presents a range of policy options for choices for the Government to consider. The Treasury is the Government's lead economic and financial adviser and we at the ACT Party certainly believe we have options and choices to be pretty clear with the New Zealand public with regard to public finance.The Treasury points out the importance of a strong and sustainable fiscal position. We're only positioned to respond to future shocks if we stay solvent and crises if we can maintain low debt levels but that has blown out massively. How do you get back to a situation of low debt to GDP? By getting wasteful spending under control. Sadly this Government has exercised no restraint no control when it comes to spending New Zealand taxpayers' hard-earned money and as you'll see from some of the plans here they haven't even modelled the effects of climate change super or anything to do with demographic change in this country. Yet in this Budget there will be money dished out for a green agenda. It used COVID as an excuse to expand the size of Government. It was purely ideological. Thirty percent of GDP was used and Labour believes that politicians should be making decisions about how to spend taxpayers' money. Grant Robertson knows much better how to manage money but he's going along with it as well. Grant Robertson used the COVID fund which was meant to support people through the impacts of COVID to spend money on anything and everything under the sun; it didn't have to be COVID-related. It was a slush fund and we're now in a position where we're less able to withstand future shocks. Our kids or grandkids are going to have to pay that money back through higher taxes and fewer services and it's no wonder 50000 people are forecast to leave this country in the next year voting with their feet against the Labour Government. And now Treasury is looking at how it can raise extra money from taxpayers increasing income taxes a capital gains tax environmental taxes which are no doubt along the way. These will be hugely damaging to the economy. Here's an idea: before the Government looks at increasing taxes again it should have some control when it comes to spending. It's a pretty simple equation. Everybody else is expected to—households individuals businesses are all expected to live within their means. ACT has consistently pointed out where the Government could make savings without cutting core services. There is fat in the Budget. You don't need to look too hard. Not only does the Government need to get total spending under control Treasury points out that the quality of spending needs to be better. Light rail the Provincial Growth Fund the Auckland cycle bridge—the list of wasteful projects is long. Ministers in this Government have absolutely no idea how hard it is to make a buck in the private sector but they sure know how to blow the money on taxpayer initiatives. Future Governments will not be able to avoid hard choices over the next 40 years and we ask the finance Minister to act prudently on debt levels and spending starting at this Budget. If we want to attract people ideas and capital to this country we want a competitive economy. If we're to encourage people to work save and invest we need to keep taxes low. The only way we can keep taxes low is by getting spending under control and the Government has completely and utterly failed at that. Future Governments are going to have to make hard choices as we say. We need real change that means reducing tax bureaucracy and waste and maximising opportunity for every single New Zealander and their kids. ACT will hold this Government to account on this mission and we believe that the 40-year plan has modelling in it which is insufficient to call anything prudent at this moment.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The next call is a Labour call—or is this a split call? My apologies.