Bayly Andrew; Williams PotoANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker and it's a pleasure to be talking on this Budget. The year of delivery—well I think we're going to find the word wellbeing" a very overused word in time because I just don't think that this Budget actually delivers on what it says is wellbeing. I don't think most people understand what that nice cuddly word means—"wellbeing". But even if you did have a warm glow from that I don't think that this Budget actually delivers on that. The issue around trying to strive for better outcomes and deliver better outcomes—I just think that this is a Government that's failing to deliver on its promises.The reason I say that is that I do acknowledge there are a couple of good things in the Budget. The first one as the previous member Jo Luxton spoke about is around mental health and it's a substantial amount of money. Everyone in this House wanted to see something happen around mental health. But the issue I'd have to say to you is that a year and a half—in October 2017 all the consultation had been done the money was in the books and yet this Government chose to be political about mental health and wait 18 months before it actually came out with something. It's the lost 18 months that is the worry about what's gone on purely for political grounds. The other thing is I think the issue around looking after our more vulnerable members around how their benefits are going to be calculated in future—good thing. But it does come with a financial cost. That I think were two of the good things about this Budget.But the worrying thing about this the worrying thing about what this Government's doing at the moment is that it is overseeing a dramatic decline in economic activity in this whole economy. What we've seen is in the last three years when the National Government was in power we averaged a growth rate of 3.3 percent. Now we have as a result of the policies that that coalition and particularly the Labour and New Zealand First members have gone about doing is that we've now got an economy that's close to 2 percent. Many people will say "Well it's only 1.3 percent. What does it matter?" What it means is that when you've got a $300 billion economy that means as a result of poor decision making ill-advisable comments and money being wasted in areas that people see little benefit—and then you overlay that with a whole lot of issues like let's think about doing a capital gains tax let's look at changing all the labour laws all those sort of things—naturally people have got concerned.All those worrying things that have been talked about and those new things that have been put in place have made people very uncomfortable. Particularly it's the business owners that have been affected. People say "Well that's only the rich." Well it's not actually. It's the 530000 businesses we have in New Zealand most of whom—the vast majority—are owned by husbands and wives who live all across this country and employ lots and lots of New Zealanders. It's their business what they are noticing right now—it is that small decline fewer people coming through the door ordering the coffee in the morning or just ordering the new piece of equipment that might've otherwise been going to go to their factory but they've now put it on hold. That slow decline; it's only 1.3 percent but it represents across New Zealand a $3 billion decline in economic activity.What it means—more worrying for this Government—is that it's lost a billion bucks in tax revenue. It's lost a billion bucks of tax revenue that Treasury 18 months ago was saying "You should be expecting to get this money." and of course Grant Robertson went out spending like crazy. That's why we saw before the Budget—he went to every Minister and said "You need a 1 percent decline in your budget." because that was Grant worrying about what was going on. That is why this Budget actually hasn't allowed them to spend what they want to spend. They may talk about a new school-building project of a million-whatever dollars—actually it's little changed from when we were in power. Actually those figures are not—health is down all those sorts of things.But even if you accept that the other thing that's showing why Grant Robertson is failing as the finance Minister is the rubber hits the road around debt. If you look at the Budget forecast in the so-called Wellbeing Budget if you look at page 134 current debt is $60 billion—$60 billion. Under the projected arrangements that is going to blow out by another $8 billion to $10 billion whether you look at it on a net or gross debt level. This Government is talking a good shop and Grant Robertson's saying "Look we've got debt under control. We're keeping it at 20 percent." and the numbers are fine in terms of percentages—it's roughly around 20 percent—but when you've got a growing economy what Grant's doing what the Minister's doing is growing debt in real terms. He is taking on another $10 billion worth of debt. Ten billion dollars' worth of debt even at low Government interest rates is a substantial increase in not only the interest you have to pay on it but also what you have to do in terms of repayment.This is a Minister that is gearing up indebting this nation as he continues on a spending path while at the same time overseeing a gradual decline in economic activity. I think that is the most worrying thing about this Budget. That this was a Minister when he was in Opposition who used to say to our Minister of Finance Mr Bill English—now Sir Bill—all the time "You know you're growing debt." Then we talked about per capita debt and all that sort of stuff—when the Minister comes to the Finance and Expenditure Committee and we talk about the net debt growing I'm sure he'll be saying "Oh it's all about per capita debt and there's no change."This is a Government that's going to put $10 billion of extra debt on this nation and at the same time spend three billion bucks to the Hon Shane Jones spending up large around the country another billion that he gave Winston Peters on foreign affairs and what more? We've got another billion bucks in this Budget—another billion bucks—that's just gone to KiwiRail which we know will go to Northland. There's five billion bucks out of the $10 billion of additional spending. Is it good-quality spend? I'd have to say to you I don't think it is.I don't disagree with some of the principles of what they're trying to achieve but to spend five billion bucks when you could've spent it on some of the more important things like increasing the budget for Pharmac not by $40 million but actually giving it a decent dose so we can actually bring about and introduce more life-saving drugs into New Zealand—those are the types of things I would've liked to have seen in this Budget and you'd hardly say that it's a transformational Budget on that basis.What is in here for the ordinary New Zealander? Yesterday I held a public meeting in Beachlands. I had probably a hundred people and one of the things I was saying to them was the issue around what this means for ordinary New Zealanders. I think the only thing you can point to is to say that for school donations there's $150 that parents are not going to have to write a cheque out or provide that cash for but of course that excludes decile 7 8 and 9 schools so those people those vulnerable people those vulnerable children that go to those higher-decile schools they will still be in this zone where their parents will have to write out a cheque. That's not looking after the vulnerable and needy in New Zealand. I think that's a travesty that this Budget hasn't focused on the most vulnerable.It is a difficult role for Mr Robertson because he's overseen such a decline in this economy and that's constrained him and he's had to make hard choices but I don't think the choices he's made are good for New Zealanders. This is not a Budget for New Zealanders; this is a Budget for one or two people and I just don't think that we're getting the fairness and equity that everyone in the Government likes to talk about. What I think we've actually got is we've got a Government that wants to tax more wants to borrow more and wants to spend more. It's interesting that the very first thing we did after the Budget in urgency without the scrutiny of a select committee was to pass two new tax bills: one relating to the tourism tax another one as a fuel tax imposed on all New Zealanders across New Zealand. Why are we passing additional tax bills if we're doing a wellbeing Budget?ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I understand this is a split call. I call Marja Lubeck—five minutes."