Jones ShaneHon SHANE JONES (NZ First): My contribution to this debate is framed in the way I grew up a product from the School of Hard Knocks. This Budget most certainly was designed to enable us to put our hands around the throat of expansionary expenditure of an operational nature.Now just remember where we've come from: monetary policy that sunk to a global low; money printed as if a fiddler's elbow was turbocharged; fiscal policy that was loose as a goose. The Budget now is constructed in very straightened circumstances: number one there is no monetary saviour coming our way.It's evident from the Governor of the Reserve Bank that he is going to hold the line and interest rates are only going to drop bit by bit. And the Crown through this Budget is confronted by the fact that if we continue the profligate approach enjoyed by the last regime the ratings agencies will come knocking.So then what is the Government to do? First strip unnecessary regulatory barriers from those who are willing to invest—boost their confidence grow the certainty so that they will invest. How do we do that? As reflected in the expenditure items of the Budget move on with a far more permissive resource management process that gives people the confidence when they make a commitment they'll actually get an approval before they get the gold card.Secondly give a greater degree of confidence to people that already have businesses that they will actually be able to invest without suffering too many penalties. And what's the response to that? The response is the fast-track bill which by the way now has a majority of New Zealanders supporting it. Forget about all the apocryphal tales from the other side of the House. Forget about the fact that they left the deadweight hand of bureaucracy upon the economy. We are stripping all that away and we are introducing investors back to our natural legacy of mining of fishing of horticulture where we are going to meet what the world wants. The world wants food the world wants rare minerals.Now of course I can hear it now. My opponents large in volume small in number will cry that somehow we're compromising Papatūānuku by actually going on to the Department of Conservation (DOC) estate and mining. The DOC estate covers an inordinate amount of New Zealand and it's overrun by rats and weasels and pests etc. It's tailor-made for a new approach so that extractive sector investments can take place in appropriate places on the DOC estate and this Budget by contributing to the costs of passing the fast-track legislation improving the Resource Management Act is going to deliver an overdue dividend for regional New Zealand.Yes there will be a loud number of minority voices but they are only a tiny fraction of the New Zealand public. Yes there were people covered in Gaza scarves and other such detritus walking up Queen Street. They don't represent New Zealand they represent that tiny portion of the public who want to dislodge this Government. We are not going to allow the economy to be continually assailed by all of these catastrophising stories. We are going to turn on the engines of growth. How we're going to do that is not only through stripping red tape we are going to work on a process of co-investment. And it falls to me with my characteristic modesty to remind everyone that we have the $1.2 billion fund which will help boost the productivity develop the resilience of the regions of our motu.Now there were a few critics who didn't quite like the administration of an earlier fund. Fortunately now they're my dearest friends. In fact I feel a whole lot of applications coming from certain members who may have had a doubting Thomas approach in the past. Oh the winds of change they do bring various beneficial offerings from time to time.Another thing I'd like to focus on is that we can't create a prosperous economy unless we modernise our infrastructure. But how do we modernise our infrastructure unless we can give investors contractors a sense of confidence that they'll not only get an approval but there is an agenda to blend private and public capital to accelerate the delivery of infrastructure.But what is the community looking for in a commercial sense? It's looking for a long-term broad range of projects so that capital can be mobilised labour can be mobilised. And we have a long-term pipeline that will be delivered through the fast-track legislation which is wending its way through the Environment Committee.And as I said to a number of loud but largely dislocated voices in Thames the other day improvements—I don't want to mention any names—Hon Mark Mitchell: Catherine.Hon SHANE JONES: Apparently I'm not allowed to refer to that person by that name. But those who were present and in particular the person that you mention their criticism of modernising infrastructure I've described as belonging to the Flintstone School of Economics". And what is their response when I go out and I actually meet with that tiny minority of loud Luddites who do not want us to develop mining who do not want oil and gas. What do they say to me? Something akin to "yabba dabba do". We cannot back down when our economic circumstances are so dire.I want to finish my contribution off on the Māori side beyond this Budget. The Waitangi Tribunal is overdue for a haircut what we call in Kaitaia a kinacut. It not only needs better members it needs a writ that brings it up sharp very quickly. In my view it has no business entertaining concepts or undertaking inquiries to do with the constitution. That's the business of directly elected parliamentarians such as ourselves. So I look forward during the course of the life of this Budget to work taking place to bring the Waitangi Tribunal to a spot where hopefully both sides of the House can accept that it may have a role but it is not the wandering not the convolvulus not the expansionary writ it is giving itself. And stop saying that the Treaty should only be known as Te Tiriti. The Treaty of Waitangi cannot be dismembered. The Treaty of Waitangi is a bilingual bicultural inseparable document. And this dangerous ideology pushed around by the party who's currently engulfed in about five or six reviews—so they're going to be busy on other matters for a while to come—should not gather traction in terms of how we view the future.Similarly a change that no doubt will be ushered through during the course of this Budget paid for by this Budget will be reframing what is the extent what is the width and the breadth of the seabed and foreshore legislation. That legislation decisions made under that legislation cannot continue if they have the effect of chilling undermining infrastructure development. The notion that when we expand our ports as is the case of Tauranga they are consistently and constantly having to pay a toll in order to keep the local claimants of the Takutai Moana brigade happy is not only offensive it must be halted immediately.The final thing I'd say on this matter to do with Māori elements and the Budget: co-governance is gone co-investment is in. If you want to know one reason why we're sitting here and they're sitting there they allowed that viral intimidating undermining policy of co-governance to go into the recesses both of the State and policy where it didn't belong. Consequently it will no longer blight or undermine the delivery of policy. I say again the Treaty our citizenship is indivisible. Kia ora tātou."