Hipkins ChrisGENERAL DEBATERt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the Opposition): I move That the House take note of miscellaneous business. Tomorrow when the Government's Budget is read there will of course be lots of numbers as the Government has already indicated but there are two numbers that New Zealanders should keep in mind in tomorrow's Budget. The first of those is $250—$250 a fortnight is what Nicola Willis and Christopher Luxon promised the average New Zealand family in tax cuts. Up and down the country they said that the average New Zealand family would be $250 a fortnight better off as a result of their tax cuts. So that's the first number. The second number they should keep in mind is $2.9 billion—$2.9 billion is the cost of the tax breaks that the Government has chosen to prioritise for landlords. Keep in mind that it is probably going to be one of the single biggest line items in tomorrow's Budget in terms of changes. So every time Nicola Willis says We've had to make tough choices." "We can't fund this." or "We've cut that." keep in mind that that is because they prioritised $2.9 billion in tax cuts for landlords. The things that New Zealanders will be looking for from the Budget tomorrow include answers to the real financial pressures they face right now and that was set out in pretty stark terms by the Reserve Bank this week. What are the things that are really hurting Kiwi household budgets right now? What are the reasons that inflation is staying higher for longer? One increased rents; two increased insurance; three increased rates. What are the Government's answers to those three things? New Zealanders will want to see that in the Budget tomorrow because until the Government addresses those three issues—increased rents increased insurance and increased rates—interest rates are going to stay higher for longer. The Reserve Bank has been very clear about that. So what is the Government doing to address the cost of living pressures New Zealand faces? Well we know that they're going to be hiking up public transport costs we know that they're going to be taking away free prescriptions we know that they're going to be making cuts to the disability sector we know that they are going to be halving the value of the school lunches programme—it's kind of gone from a free and healthy school lunch programme to a slightly less healthy snack programme in schools as a result of the Government's changes—and of course we know that they are going to rob a whole generation of New Zealanders of the dream of homeownership by doing something that none of them said they were going to do before the election in cutting the first-home buyer grant scheme. I want to pay tribute to the hard-working New Zealanders who are being thrown on the economic scrap heap by this Government and here's a surprising thing: it is not just public sector workers who are finding themselves in that situation. Up and down the country we're hearing reports from those working in infrastructure and in the building and construction sector where those sectors have had the bottom fall out since this Government was elected because the Government had decided on coming into office that they'd stop all the school rebuild projects and the school upgrade projects they'd slow down or stop the hospital rebuild projects they'd grind the transport infrastructure projects to a halt and they'd stop investment in water infrastructure among other things and the thousands of people working in those sectors have suddenly found that their work has dried up. Those are private sector jobs but it is the Government's decision making that has actually taken those jobs away from those workers. The cuts that the Government is making to supposedly back-office services highlight just what a farce the notion of the back-office / front-line distinction is. Cutting people who work on child exploitation is a cut to a front-line service. Cutting people who prevent online scams is a cut to a front-line service. Cutting the people who work at our border to stop drugs coming into the country and to stop biosecurity incursions—that is a cut to a front-line service. We've seen the results of that before in the form of Mycoplasma bovis among other things—a disease that cost hundreds of millions of dollars for New Zealand to eradicate. I think that the Government have a lot of choices in this year's Budget. The evidence so far suggests that the choices they have made have been the wrong choices. The $250 a fortnight that they've promised to families—will they get it? Probably not because $2.9 billion in tax breaks for landlords is a higher priority for them."