SpeechHon AMY ADAMS (Minister of Justice): I am very pleased to take a call on the Budget Policy Statement (BPS) as we build up towards Budget 2017. I would start my contribution by noting that in my view the core job of a Government is to make sure its people are safe and to make sure they have the opportunities to get ahead. I think I can safely say that certainly on this side of the House the reason that we have come into Parliament is that we care deeply about providing those two things: making sure that our country is safe and that our people have every opportunity to get ahead. When you boil that right down to its most basic the one thing that we need to have if we are going to give New Zealanders the chance to get ahead is a strong economy that provides those opportunities. If there is one thing we know it is that it is businesses that provide jobs it is businesses that create opportunities and it is the men and women of New Zealand who go out and invest their own money in creating businesses creating opportunities and creating jobs—who create jobs for New Zealanders.It is not—it is not—a contest of how much money one political party or the other can spend. If this is a spending contest—if we want to measure successive Governments around how much you spend—Labour is going to win that race every day. This side of the House knows that real success looks like an economy that is creating jobs and that is creating opportunities a system that is educating our people and a system that looks after our most vulnerable and that is why this side of the House and this National-led Government talk consistently and unapologetically about the need to have a strong economy to have a strong education system to have a strong health system to keep our people safe and to get back to surplus.Why do we talk about getting back to surplus? Why does this Budget Policy Statement repeatedly talk about the strong progress we have made to turn the books around from the never-ending deficits that Labour left us to now projections of strong solid building surpluses? Why does that matter? Very simply because surpluses mean choices. We are a Government that understands that you have to earn money before you spend it and once you have surpluses it means the Government is in a position to sustainably make choices about how we can invest to better New Zealand's future. What we are not going to do—what we are not going to do—is borrow to speculate and spend to buy the votes of New Zealanders in election years. We are going to make sure we have money in the tin to invest in New Zealanders and that is why we have worked so hard over an incredibly difficult period to get us back to a situation of surplus.Let us just reflect on that. Let us reflect on the last 8 years in which we have done that. It was not enough that we came in and Treasury was forecasting never-ending deficits after the end of the Labour Government. If that was not enough we also took on of course the global financial crisis. Of course I am not blaming the previous Labour Government for that but that is why you need to be in surplus because then you have the ability to get through global shocks like that. Again we are looking at a period of great international uncertainty and New Zealand needs to be in a position of economic strength to weather that. We are a very small player in a large sea of international economies that are a bit wobbly frankly at the moment and New Zealand has to outperform all of those to continue to do well—and we will.The most exciting thing for me in this Budget Policy Statement is showing not only that we have delivered on our promise to New Zealand to manage the economy well to manage the Government books to bring down net Crown debt by 2020 to create jobs and to build a strong economy but that this is now an economy—and this is not just the Government talking and not just Treasury; every international assessment of New Zealand says this—that is growing faster than almost every economy we would measure ourselves against and it is forecast to have stable predictable year-on-year growth of an average of 3 percent per annum for the next 5 years. That may sound modest but when you realise that is faster than the EU it is faster than Australia it is faster than the UK it is faster than the US it is faster than Japan and it is faster than Canada you realise that for all the Chicken Little talk we hear from the Opposition this is a country thanks to the management of Bill English and John Key and Steven Joyce and the whole team of Ministers that is growing strongly. It is growing in a stable way and we are seeing the results of that every single day. We are seeing it through jobs. We are seeing our unemployment rate dropping and our employment growth stronger almost than we have ever seen—now the third-highest in the OECD as we heard from Mr Bishop. The Budget Policy Statement forecasts unemployment to drop to around 4.3 percent which is an incredibly strong result and the household labour force survey in the last completed quarter reported 19000 more people employed just in that quarter—in 3 months; 19000 more people employed in just 3 months.And it is not stopping. We also see 150000 more jobs coming into the economy over the next few years thanks to the policies of this Government. That does not happen just by getting up in the morning and wishing and hoping and spending money on Government services. That happens by building an economy that businesses have the confidence to invest in. That is mums and dads and families putting their capital on the line because they see positivity in New Zealand and that is why we are seeing so many New Zealanders wanting to be here wanting to come home. We are seeing wages going up faster than inflation. We see it in the BPS and we see that it is forecast to continue to rise up to $66000 for the average wage by 2021. That is very strong growth and importantly faster than inflation.We have got now the largest ever construction workforce thanks to the rapid period of building construction we are seeing not just in Christchurch post-earthquake but in Auckland in Queenstown in Tauranga and right across New Zealand. The other thing that I really want to highlight is that this is not just a story of a strong economy in Auckland or a strong economy on the farm. This Government has overseen the development now of six I think it is regional economic development plans covering areas like Northland like Gisborne like Manawatū and like Southland. We have just released the most recent one in Tai Rāwhiti which has gone down incredibly well. Every part—Hon Maggie Barry: That's good.Hon AMY ADAMS: —West Coast quite right—of the New Zealand economy has a positive future and we are helping them to see identify and deliver the opportunities in their region.What we do know of course is that that is very much underpinned by our strong commitment not only to educating our core workforce which underpins all of New Zealand's success and the fabulous work Hekia Parata has done in that area but to building the physical infrastructure to support it. The ultra-fast broadband (UFB) programme and the Rural Broadband Initiative's (RBI) $2 billion is making sure we are one of the best-connected countries in the world. I am incredibly proud of that as I am of our investment in schooling our properties and policing and in roading projects to support it.But I just want to end by going back to that comment I made before which is that we do have a period where the international situation is uncertain and we should not ignore that. We have to be mindful of it. But what it says to New Zealand is that it is even more important now that we stay on the track we are on which is one of seeing our net Crown debt reducing to around 19 percent by 2020 having our strong economy growing managing core Crown expenses creating the environment for investment and most importantly delivering strong stable Government. That is what has got us through the global financial crisis that is what has got us through the twin shocks of the Christchurch and Canterbury earthquakes and the Kaikōura earthquakes and the other natural disasters that is what is seeing New Zealand now being held up internationally as a leading light in what good fiscal management and good stable Government can deliver.I cannot count the number of times I have been told by international counterparts Why can't we do as well as New Zealand's doing? What is your secret?" and I can tell you it is very simple. The secret of this Government is the strong stable consistent leadership of the John Key and now the Bill English - led Government."