Willis Nicola; Robertson GrantNICOLA WILLIS (Deputy Leader—National): Well that was an interesting commentary from the Minister of Finance but I am sure that he is aware that there is no legislative impediment to him as the Minister of Finance having stringent requirements for the quality of Government expenditure. He doesn't require a new law in order to ask of his Ministers that when money is appropriated from taxpayers they ensure that there are clear targets for what the expenditure of that money will achieve that there is monitoring of delivery and that in every instance it delivers more results than if that money had been left in the back pockets of New Zealanders. That is the issue here and there has of course in the past few months been some troubling evidence that that is not the case with this Minister of Finance. I point for example to the $1.9 billion appropriated for mental health where there was a press release with fanfare but clearly no delivery plan and where we've now had a report by the mental health commission highlighting that no additional specialist services were delivered as a result that the expenditure of that money involved poor accountability and poor coordination. So my question to the Minister of Finance is: has he learnt anything from the failures to deliver that have occurred under this Government whether it's KiwiBuild whether it's the mental health report whether it's the many other instances where results have not aligned with the amount of expenditure that's occurred; and what will he be doing in future years to ensure a much straighter line between appropriation of New Zealanders' money and results delivered for it? To make it really simple I quote the Auditor-General who says he would like performance reporting to be able to answer fundamental questions such as whether the total health sector funding has improved health overall and can that Minister tell us today whether he has actually put in place performance measures for his Ministers that will enable him to give those assurances?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I think the member needs to be clear about the two different things that she's talking about. So the Auditor-General is looking at the overall way in which we do performance reporting. As I've indicated to the member I have some sympathy with the views that the Auditor-General is putting across and we are working on that. When it comes to the individual decisions programmes areas of policy that the Government has invested in there are a range of measures and targets within those and I draw the member's attention as she's focused on the mental health spending to the report of the implementation unit—a unit I note that is a new initiative and one that is designed to be able to do exactly the kind of deep dive that the member is asking for into how a piece of policy or a programme might actually be implemented. That indicated that yes there were some areas where there were shortcomings but overall the programme was delivering in the areas that had been proposed. I know that the member will be aware of the many questions that have been asked in the House over the course of the last few weeks around what has been delivered and the views of Ministers on the mental health commission's report—and the Prime Minister indeed today in the House covered some of the outcomes that we've seen as a result of that mental health spending. So certainly there's always improvements that can be made when we are trying to reform a sector that had been grossly under-invested in for a significant period of time but I believe if you take on board the implementation unit's work and the work of the Minister himself you will see that we're making good progress there.In terms of the wider point—and we'll continue to use health as the example—this is one of the issues around Health New Zealand and the importance of the creation of Health New Zealand and the Māori Health Authority is to make sure that we have a much better outcomes framework developed. One of the most significant pieces of work that we've been doing in the design of the health reforms is how to get an outcomes framework that means that not only can we be confident about the amount of money we're investing and what we get for that but also that wherever you live in New Zealand you will continue to get good quality healthcare and it is not dictated by the postcode in which you live. So all of those add up to areas where I believe we will be able to get better performance out of the sector. It is a sector the health sector that has been under significant pressure clearly through COVID-19 and it's withstood that pressure well. It's been supported by a Government that has put in more resources to the health sector than we have seen in recent years and particularly in the capital spending area as well. So yes there is always more to do in terms of how we can provide information to the public. But I believe those examples I've given are ones where we're improving that.