Willis NicolaNICOLA WILLIS (Deputy Leader—National): With this legislation the Labour Government is effectively asking Parliament to sign off on continuing to fund its ongoing economic mismanagement because in these two bills we the representatives of New Zealanders are asked to say yes to that Minister of Finance's proven record of failure in which we have an economy in recession we have a cost of living crisis that has entered its third year and in which New Zealanders from all walks of life are struggling to get ahead. These bills ask Parliament in that context to sign off on a Budget that fails to deliver overdue income tax reduction.Members opposite today have crowed about that that beneficiaries in New Zealand have had their incomes rise 40 percent even when you account for inflation. Well I would ask members opposite to reflect on what has occurred for the everyday wage earner who by almost any measure has gone backwards whose wages have not kept up with inflation whose after-tax wages have fallen behind inflation such that they are going backwards in real-income terms. That is the economic situation New Zealanders find themselves in under this Labour Government.Faced with the opportunity to account for some of that inflation to reduce the income tax that workers pay to adjust tax thresholds to compensate for some of the inflation that Grant Robertson has let rip through the economy this Budget has failed to do so.So we on this side of the House will not say yes to bills that give that Minister of Finance another go with the money hose because we've seen what he does with that money hose. He sprays it all around without discrimination without targets without accountability without clarity for what will be achieved. The result is record levels of inflation which we were told would be transitory but in fact has gone on into its third year—inflation that is still running at more than triple what it should be according to the Reserve Bank mandate.What we have had as a result is interest rates that have risen faster than at any time in the history of New Zealand's official cash rate. We have in front of us a ticking time bomb when New Zealanders from across the economy—first-home buyers small-business owners farmers—will in the next few months have to switch their home loan or their fixed loan from a loan with a rate of 2 or 3 percent to a rate of 6 or 7 percent. Many of them will not be able to cope with that. That interest rate will be the final blow for them. That is a ticking time bomb. Those interest rates have risen that fast because inflation has run amok in this economy.In that context the Minister of Finance is asking us to sign off on a Budget that completely fails to bring back-office bureaucratic spending under control a Budget that fails to put in place any specific targets for what the Public Service will deliver. I look through this Budget and I see lots of money for restructuring whether it's at Te Pūkenga the polytech centralisation; whether it's at Te Whatu Ora where we've got the new organisational chart and lots of restructuring happening; where we have the plans to restructure across the Public Service; but what I don't see in this Budget are specific targets for the increases in services that will be delivered to New Zealand as result. That is a great failure.We on this side of the House think that where money is appropriated it should be clear what it's going to achieve Ministers should hold themselves accountable for achieving it and where it's not achieved the Prime Minister should hold people accountable. But actually what's happened on the other side of the House whether it's the $1.9 billion that went into mental health and didn't deliver additional mental health services; whether it's the money that was appropriated for the Provincial Growth Fund in which the Auditor-General the Public Service watchdog came out last week and said that they cannot be confident that it has delivered value for money because the record-keeping was so poor the processes were so poor that the Auditor-General can't even work out what was going on with all of the cash.So what we see is that members opposite have become so used to dipping into the public purse to using more and more taxpayers' money that they have become sloppy with the way they account for the use of that funding. The result is a Budget that will put more pressure on inflation and will put more pressure on interest rates right at a time when New Zealanders are begging and asking for some relief.This is a Budget that will send more New Zealanders to Australia because unfortunately too many of them will look at what's appropriated for in this Budget and they will say Actually there's nothing here for me. There's no income tax relief. There's no prospect of inflation getting under control. There's no prospect of my mortgage becoming more affordable. Actually I can look to get a better opportunity elsewhere."I want to turn now to this whole process that we're in in which with the Supplementary Estimates we're appropriating the money in between Budgets essentially. I think it's timely that we do so when we see just how rushed this year's Budget was. The Budget hasn't even been passed yet—that's why we're doing these Supplementary Estimates—and yet the Government are already having to correct mistakes that were made in it. You heard the Minister of Finance speaking in some detail about some of those mistakes in his remarks.What you didn't hear about was the tertiary bailout that he's already had to announce today. So distracted was the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Education by their plans to centralise the polytechs in the form of Te Pūkenga so distracted was the Minister of Education by her appearances at the Privileges Committee that it appears—Camilla Belich: Point of order. It's not permissible for the member to make references to the Privileges Committee in a debate.DEPUTY SPEAKER: That's actually correct. The member will stand withdraw and apologise.Hon Michael Woodhouse: Speaking to that point. This is an important matter Mr Speaker.DEPUTY SPEAKER: No no; it's quite clear that the member cannot make reference to an appearance before the Privileges Committee. That's not a matter of debate; that is a black and white.Hon Michael Woodhouse: Perhaps the Speaker can take advice. It is strictly prohibited for any member to refer to the deliberations of a committee. The fact that something has been heard in public before a committee is a matter of public record and is not a breach of Standing Orders.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you. No the member is actually correct. The fact of the appearance is public record just what can't be referred to is anything that came out of the debate. I withdraw my request. Did we stop the clock there? We did stop the clock. So the member has two minutes and 30 seconds left.Camilla Belich: Point of order Mr Speaker. I'm not debating your ruling; I just want to make sure that—DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well I hope not.Camilla Belich: —you saw and referred to Speaker's ruling 213/4 which states "Once a matter of privilege has been raised with the Speaker it is out of order to refer to it in debate in the House."DEPUTY SPEAKER: No the fact that the member has been before the Privileges Committee is a matter of public record. That's what my ruling will be based on. So the member may continue.NICOLA WILLIS: Mr Speaker you'll appreciate that the situation at our universities is one that we here in Wellington have had good cause to reflect on. I have had people working in that system say to me "Where was the Government when we were begging them to invite the international students back? Where was the Government when we were saying to them 'If you don't give international students some better visas then they're not going to come and there's going to be a hole in our books.'?" Well the Government was prepared to ignore all of that. It put together a Budget and now today has decided that they are going to put on another band-aid. That's just one example of the holes that we've already seen in Grant Robertson's Budget.The second example of a hole in the Budget that's already having to be repaired before the Budget has even passed is the proposal for 20 hours childcare for two-year-olds. The sector were so unhappy with that proposal that they described it as unworkable. Before the Budget had even passed Ministers were having to change the design and structure of it. It remains unclear whether that policy can be delivered without many many early childhood centres either being forced to close or to reduce the quality of care they provide to two-year-old students.And then we have the public transport debacle where again with the Government that governs by slogans we have a commitment to ensure free transport for certain age groups—but again the councils who are being asked to implement that say "Well that's unworkable in its current form."My point is this: we have a Budget that is full of holes and we have a Budget that I predict—I predict—there will be many many band-aids applied to in the months ahead. This is particularly important in the context of the Supplementary Estimates bill and the imprest supply bill because what we will see is in order to make it all stack up you're going to see the Minister of Finance finding a lot more cash down the back of the couch and it's going to be very hard to take him seriously because he does that again and again. This is a Budget that delivers more debt more inflation and higher interest rates. It's a bad Budget. On this side of the House we will not support it."