Nash StuartSTUART NASH (Labour—Napier): You might be surprised that Jonathan Coleman and I actually agree on something. I listened to his speech and there was a line that he gave and I thought: You know that Minister is dead right." What he said is "Now that the Government is in surplus it has choices." and it does. But unfortunately for the vast majority of New Zealanders it has just made the wrong choices and it is a shame. You know you talk to the vast majority of New Zealanders—and I have talked to a lot of my friends about this—and no doubt because we are politicians people engage with us in a way that they would not normally. You ask them: "Do you want a tax cut?" and do you know what? Most people say: "I would love a tax cut." Then you say to them: "But would you like a tax cut or would you rather have a fully funded health system an education system that delivers for all our children a housing network that actually means that first-home buyers can afford something social housing that actually means that those who find themselves in desperate situations have somewhere to go and a police force that is funded so that when you are in trouble the police are there and there are plenty of community police keeping our communities safe?" and without exception all my friends from the far right to the far left and everyone in between actually say: "Do you know what? What I want is a highly functioning country and a society that looks after its citizens." This is not the preserve or the ideology of the left. This is the expectation of the vast majority of New Zealanders because it is the sort of country we grew up in it is what we have come to expect and it is how we sort of market ourselves overseas. The irony about this Budget—and the Ministers and members on the other side in the Government have crowed about this quite a lot—is the party that in the past has been there for business and has been tough on law and order has delivered a Budget that does nothing for business and underfunds a police force stretched to the limits. It is quite surprising actually and the commentary has reflected this. There is a sort of puzzlement around what is going on. Let me just briefly mention a blog that was put up by the New Zealand country manager of Xero. Xero is hardly what I would call a left-leaning company and Rod Drury and I were at school together and he has done incredibly well in every single measure. Phil Twyford: Name-dropper. STUART NASH: Yes well thank you. He is a Napier Boys' High School boy of course. He did very well. It is a school of high achievers apart from me. But one thing that the blog says is: "One other gripe is there's little in the way of productivity support access to talent access to support for exporting for small businesses in general—and no mention at all of small business in the regions." I mean you would expect that Labour would be standing up here and saying: "That Budget is all about businesses. There's nothing for the workers." Well there is nothing here for businesses at all. There is nothing here for the regions. In Hawke's Bay where I am from in Napier the city and the electorate I represent the business people were saying to me: "What has happened to this National Party? There is nothing here for us at all." The thing about productivity growth is that we cannot keep working longer and longer and expecting GDP to increase. We need to have a general increase in overall productivity and yet the Government is putting no incentives in place whatsoever for companies to invest in the plant and capital and machinery and technology that would allow that increase in productivity. It is surprising but this is one thing that we absolutely need. Of course that leads on to jobs. We absolutely need jobs—of that there is no doubt. Our leader Andrew Little has articulated a fresh approach to employment. What we are going to do is actually create jobs for New Zealanders who want jobs because we have faith in our young people. We do not say they are "pretty darn useless"; we say they are "pretty darn good" actually. That is why Chris Hipkins has said we need an education system that is delivering for all New Zealanders not just those who can afford to go to private schools and not just those in high-decile schools; for every single New Zealander. Equality of opportunity is the underlying political philosophy for most people—I would say for everyone—in the Labour Party. Yet if schools are not funded in a way that allows us to deliver that then we cannot expect our young children to be educated to develop and to grow in a way that is going to allow them to become productive citizens. We are facing a lot of challenges in this country.This Government did have a lot of choices but it made the wrong choices. If it actually had invested in education in healthcare in a housing programme and in law and order then it would be very hard for me to stand up here and argue about it. But the Government did not invest in any of these core social products policies and ministries. Let me talk about police for a moment which is my portfolio area. Police themselves have admitted that New Zealand as a destination for methamphetamine is "becoming more vulnerable"—i.e. there is a lot more meth coming into our country. The Police has admitted that despite the increase in seizures the price of meth is lower the supply of meth is greater and the ability to access it is easier. Police are not winning the war on meth and what the Police told the Government—it was quite specific—is that it needs 1165 police over the next 4 years. Labour heard that and we are going to supply them with 1000 police over 3 years—we will do better than what Police itself wants. What did National deliver? It delivered 880 police. It had quite a comprehensive business case for how the police were going to use these resources to solve more crime keep our communities safe and put the bad guys behind bars. Yet when I have a look at the Budget and what the success measures are I just shake my head and wonder whether we are living in a parallel universe. The Government has actually said it is going to cut the budget for case resolution and support to judicial processes. In 2016-17 there were 100000 cases prosecuted yet this Budget is funding only 90000 cases. It is as if Government members believe that crime is falling and yet the stats simply do not show that. Our communities will tell you that crime is increasing and the men and women on the front line have got the evidence. You cannot just say it and believe it is true if the stats say something different. It is surprising that the budget for general crime prevention services has increased by only $11 million or $42 for every crime committed last year when the number of victimisations increased by over 11000. In fact that is 222 extra victimisations per week last year. Burglaries were up over 10000 and that is mainly to do with P yet we are not funding this part of policing in a way that is going to make a difference. The people in law and order whom I speak to around the country are concerned about this. Partly they are concerned because they read about what is happening in the paper and they see what is happening on the news and partly because they have an expectation of what law and order looks like in their community. We all everyone in this House grew up with the local bobby on the beat who was—usually in my case—a big smiling friendly chap who helped you out. That was in a day when if you were mad or bad they would grab you by the ear and take you home. But the most surprising thing—[Interruption]—exactly exactly; they were allowed to kick someone and it worked. Community policing works and at the moment we are retrenching numbers from communities and putting them in the station and they are just not getting the advice they need to solve crimes and communities are not feeling safe. Sir Robert Peel who was the founder of the modern police force said "police are people and people are police". That means we are all part of the wider community that is charged with keeping ourselves safe and our community safe. If the police are not there then we cannot do that.I suppose one of the surprising things is that the amount of money put into road safety policing has actually dropped—it has dropped by $12 million. Yet if I have a look at the road toll for the first 3 months of this year 11 Kiwis more have died on our roads. We all know this—we all know that when you are driving along and you see a police car the first thing you do is check your speed and if you are travelling at 100 kilometres an hour which I doubt anyone here would travel over you tend to brake anyway. Well you travel at 1 kilometre an hour Mr Deputy Speaker we know that. I suppose that all I am saying is that if you want to save lives you do not cut the budget for road policing by $12 million; in fact you increase it. This cut in road policing is one area of the Budget that I can confidently but very sadly say is probably going to cost Kiwis lives. Road tolls around the world are dropping; New Zealand is an outlier because ours is increasing.I suppose just to sum up what Labour has done is it has put forward a whole raft of policies that have come about because we have listened to what Kiwis are saying to us. We have gone around the country and heard that people want an education system a health system a police service and houses and we have developed policies because of this. This Budget does not deliver in a way that we believe and New Zealanders believe fundamentally delivers for them. Thank you very much."