Adams AmyBUDGET DEBATEDebate resumed from 30 May on the Appropriation (2017/18 Estimates) Bill.Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister of Justice): I cannot tell you how incredibly proud I feel to be standing here speaking in support of this Budget—the ninth that this Government has delivered the first for Steven Joyce. I think this Budget by itself tells a story of what this National-led Government has brought to New Zealand.Just take yourself back to 5 years ago when the Budget represented an $18 billion deficit on the back of the decade of deficits we had inherited from Labour the global financial crisis and the Christchurch earthquakes. We had an $18 billion deficit just 5 years ago. So what has happened since that time? What has happened since that time? Well we have had 200000 extra jobs created just in the last 3 years—200000 in 3 years. Every single year since we have been elected we have had 50000 more elective surgeries thanks to the good work of health Ministers across our Government. Every year we have 7000 more students leaving with NCEA—7000 young New Zealanders every single year who head out into the workforce with the basic skill set that they are going to need to get ahead.We have had a 57 percent reduction of teenaged mums on benefit. That is a staggering number. And bear in mind all of this is in a period when we have been fighting back from staggeringly high levels of deficit. Since 2010 we have seen $2 billion in ACC reductions—$2 billion just off ACC. That is real money back into the pockets of every New Zealander and over that time we have now committed to and funded ultra-fast broadband the best internet connectivity in the world to 85 percent of our people—85 percent of New Zealanders—making us one of the very best connected countries in the world.So where are we now? Well here we are 5 years later; we have done all of that. We have done all of that. We have served New Zealand well in times of fiscal constraint and now in 2017-18 we are going to have a surplus of $2.9 billion growing out to more than $7 billion of surplus over the forecast period. So what does that mean? Well surpluses mean we have choices. We have shown how much we can do even when times are tight. Now that we have got the economy back in the right shape now that the books are in credit and now that we are doing what every Kiwi household has to do—and that is earn the money first before you think about what you are going to do with it—we are in a position to make sure we can give even more to New Zealanders.So what are we looking at in this Budget? Well we are looking at another 215000 new jobs over the next 4 years. We are looking at—well we are not looking at; in fact we have provided a $2 billion increase in salaries to 55000 of the lowest-paid care workers in New Zealand. Fifty-five thousand workers get a massive increase to their salary that they absolutely deserve and we are very happy to be able to give it to them. But on top of that even having done that and having paid for the Kaikōura earthquakes we are still able to see a Budget that puts record amounts into health and puts record amounts into capital.At the centrepiece of it all we have the Family Incomes Package with another $2 billion meaning 1.3 million households not people—1.3 million households—are better off by an average of $36 a week. If you do not think that is significant let me put it to you like this. It means that now up to nearly 60000 children—Ms Tolley tells me this is the updated information—are lifted out of living in households on less than the median wage. That is 60000 children who will be better off and who will move above that critical line thanks to the work of this Government—not just the work of this Budget but the work of the last 9 years to get New Zealand to this position.What is really remarkable is that helping 1.3 million families lifting nearly 60000 children out of that sort of hardship is opposed by the Labour Party. This is a package so inherently good so inherently well-targeted at those who need it that the Greens are supporting it New Zealand First is supporting it the Māori Party is supporting it and ACT United Future and the National Party are supporting it. All Labour members can think is to oppose the Government at all costs and then find a reason why. Does it not just show you how unready they are to be in Government? No plan no vision no policy—all they know how to do is oppose.You have got a package that makes so much sense that everyone else in Parliament supports it and yet they are scrambling around desperate and dateless trying to find a reason not to vote for this. And I just say this to the House: if the Labour Party members are going to spend a week complaining about this package a week criticising the accommodation supplement changes let them come out and tell New Zealand absolutely clearly that they are going to cancel them. I want to hear them say: We didn't vote them in we don't agree with them and we're gonna cancel them." They will not of course. They absolutely will not. There will be weasel words and obfuscations and distraction while they point at the squirrel over there or something else that is going wrong. Let them be upfront. Are they going to keep the package or are they not? Are they going to poke holes and then quietly keep it in there or are they actually going to stand by their thinly-veiled opposition which is based on nothing more than that all they know how to do is oppose?Let me talk for a minute about the capital spend in this Budget. When I have been going around talking to people around New Zealand and I have talked to them about what they wanted to see from this Budget one of the things that came up was infrastructure. Whether it is social infrastructure such as hospitals and schools and houses; whether it is tourism infrastructure which my colleague Paula Bennett has been championing; whether it is roads whether it is broadband or whether it is rail we have got to make sure that we are setting New Zealand up not just for now but for the future. This Budget not only has $4 billion of new capital spend this year but over 4 years it represents $32 billion that we are going to be putting into building world-class infrastructure across New Zealand. That is not just about the here and now; that is something that every single New Zealander when they are driving to work when they are sending their kids to school when they are connecting to the internet and when they are turning up at A & E—every New Zealander benefits from that. We have picked up the deficit hole that we were left. We have turned it around. Now thanks to the fact that we are in surplus we can go further and really futureproof the economy.I note $3.9 billion into the health sector—again a record investment. And as I said even when we did not have a lot of money to throw around we were still getting better performance from our sector. I mentioned the 50000 extra elective surgeries every year. Now we have got things like another $60 million into Pharmac for new cancer drugs. We have got a $100 million mental health innovation fund to make sure that as well as continuing to grow the traditional health response we can think in innovative ways about how we hardwire community-level mental health responses into some of our social services like education like corrections like justice and like social housing. This is a Government that has funded the Housing First programme because it knows that for the people who have been on the streets for many many years—I read a story the other day about a guy who had been homeless for 33 years. Now he is housed and he was saying what a difference it makes. But it is not just about the roof over his head; it is about the support that we have put in place to go around it. This is not a new problem. Homelessness is not a new problem. The solutions from this Government are new they are effective and National is the only party in this House that has a credible meaningful approach to how we are going to address it. We are not going try to take over from the private sector and suddenly be the uber-builder of every house in New Zealand. We own 5 percent of the land and our focus will unashamedly be on helping those in need through accommodation supplements through social houses and through providing pathways into affordable homes. That is the role of the Government. We are already spending $2.3 billion every year on housing support and yet Labour wants us to take over building every house that this country needs. Imagine what your tax bill will look like with that.In my time left I want to talk a little bit about the $321 million social investment package because this is something Prime Minister English has championed over the course of many many years. He knows firsthand the critical importance of working better to target the $61 billion that goes into our social services every year. So much of that represents misery and we are not in the business of servicing misery; we are in the business of reducing it. That is what social investment is about. We are putting more money in to find new ways to work better with the group that has traditionally been left behind by Governments over countless years and over countless cycles. We are not prepared to accept that. We do not accept that there is a group that you are just never going to get to. We are going to try new ways that are evidence-based carefully integrated and cross-agency and we are going to expect and demand results.This is a Government that is not satisfied with "good enough". We are not satisfied with business as usual. We are certainly not satisfied with borrow and spend. We are going to earn the money get the economy growing invest in what the country needs and look after the people of New Zealand. That is why this is a Budget that will see this National-led Government going strongly into the election and that is why it is a Budget I am incredibly happy to stand and support."