Robertson GrantDEBATE ON PRIME MINISTER'S STATEMENTDebate resumed from 18 February.Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): While we've been in the House today the name suppression has been lifted in the case that has been brought by the Serious Fraud Office in relation to donations to the National Party. Unsurprisingly I think members will be able to learn now that the people involved are the very people who we heard about last year in the taped phone conversation between Simon Bridges and Jami-Lee Ross. Jami-Lee Ross is one of the people who has been charged and it is very important for members of this House to remember that he has been charged about activities he undertook when he was the whip of the National Party.I heard on Morning Report this morning the leader of the National Party try to claim he didn't know anything about the $100000 donations to the National Party.SPEAKER: Order! I want to remind the Minister of Finance of Standing Orders 115(1) and (2) and (3) which make it very clear that matters awaiting or under adjudication or supressed in any court—and it's not a suppression order any more but it is under adjudication—may not be referred to in any debate subject to the discretion of the Speaker and the right of the House to legislate on a matter. If a member wants to refer to a matter that is currently awaiting adjudication one needs to refer to 115(2) whereby an application is made to me and my decision which I certainly have not made in this case.Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I respect obviously that ruling. I just would like some clarification around referring to matters that are in the media that report on the case.SPEAKER: One does not get around the Standing Orders of this House by the fact that some media have reported something. The Standing Orders of the House stand on their own and the fact that it has been reported that a particular matter—even previously reported before there were charges—has occurred is not an escape.Now the member and certainly the member on his right and the shadow Leader of the House will remember that there was at one stage a considerable debate within the Standing Orders Committee on this. There was one member who stood for a different position. That member is currently standing here. He had no support from colleagues on either side of the House. It is my view that the Standing Orders are inappropriate in this case. The member should have the right to comment on cases before the courts if they so wish and they do so in a careful manner but the decision of this House was on the review of the Standing Orders that that right does not exist. As the Speaker I must enforce rules even if I think they're not the best rules.Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: So on Morning Report this morning I heard the leader of the National Party claim to have no knowledge whatsoever of activities inside his own party. That speaks volumes about the lack of leadership that is being shown by Simon Bridges and all the more so coming on the back as it did of a so-called economic speech given by the Leader of the Opposition earlier this week—a speech that was the most overhyped speech I have seen in my time in this House. It was empty of any actual ideas for how to move New Zealand forward. But it's not just me that has been saying this. The Stuff editorial this morning and all of the Stuff papers across New Zealand said that voters will rightly be wary of National's business-as-usual approach in such rapidly changing times." It also quoted a very modest man named Grant Robertson who said "tax cuts always come with a tradeoff." and then it talked about what National was doing and said "Nowadays … we are not swayed by the mirage." That's all they've got. All they've got is a mirage. There's no actual policy; it's a mirage. I look forward to this election campaign where Paul Goldsmith will have to show me the money because there is no sign that the National Party understands that if there are going to be tax cuts there are trade-offs and we know from the National Party's history what those trade-offs will be. It means money not going into our schools. It means money not going into our hospitals. It means not enough police officers on the beat. It means ignoring a housing crisis and going the other way and selling State houses. It means taking money out of the pockets of the lowest-income New Zealanders by deciding that the minimum wage doesn't need to go up. They are the trade-offs that the National Party likes to make in the pursuit of these kinds of policies. So we will see in this election campaign who has the promises that add up and who is trying to pull the wool over the eyes of New Zealanders. It is a great honour for me to be the Minister of Finance in this Government. Everywhere I go around New Zealand I have the conversations with the business community where we get into the numbers of being the Minister of Finance and I am proud of the numbers that this Government has—the fact that we do have annual growth of 2.7 percent putting us well ahead of our trading partners and even though as the economy globally slows down New Zealand continues to outperform Canada Japan Australia the UK and the euro area. Our economic management approach of yes being careful and of making sure that we do reduce our debt as a percentage of GDP—it is less now than when we came in. We've just spent $12 billion on infrastructure and our net debt is still less than when we came in. We have run $13 billion worth of surpluses and we will run them again in the future. Unemployment is down to 4 percent. We've got great numbers coming out of the consumer confidence services index. So I can spend all day and all of this contribution on the numbers but that's actually not what being the Minister of Finance is about. It is fundamentally about people and making sure that all the people of New Zealand get to share in our prosperity. I just think of three or four of the people I have met in recent times who show how this economy is working more for all New Zealanders. The young woman that I met in Kawakawa who was working on the Hundertwasser Art Centre and who had come through to work on that project from Mana in Mahi—from Willie Jackson's work that he has been doing in Mana in Mahi. That young woman had come from being on the unemployment benefit for more than six months. She did not know what she wanted to do with her life and because a Government cared about her and this Government cared what happened to her she's now on that site. She's actually running the place to be frank—a Ngāpuhi woman clearly from there; running the show—making sure that that building is being built well and working with her fellow cadets who are working on that site. I also think of the school principal here in Wellington at Karori West Normal School: Janice Shramka a woman who will soon be retiring after distinguished service in the education system in New Zealand. I went and visited her in January 12 days before school started because I knew Janice would be there because that's how committed our schoolteachers and principals are. I found her—after walking around the school for a while—standing on one of the paddocks out the back with a local tradesperson writing down the projects that they would be doing with the $376299 that this Government have given for her school to be able to do that work. What Janice Shramka told me that day was that she had gone off on her holiday in December the happiest she had been in most of her time as a school principal because she walked away knowing that the teachers in her school were being paid properly that we were finally addressing pay issues for teacher aides that we actually finally had supported the rebuilding of property and that she could finally do those $376000 worth of jobs that hadn't been done in her school. She said "We now have a Government that cares about education." and I want to congratulate Minister Chris Hipkins on his leadership of that work.Then I think of the community services card holder who wrote to me last year about the fact—she's an older woman now—that the stress had been lifted from her life by the fact that she could go to the doctor knowing she could afford it and that she wasn't making a decision about her health on the grounds of money but on the grounds of how she felt. She finally felt that she had some confidence because of our policy of reducing the cost of going to the doctor for more than 600000 New Zealanders.Then I also think of the older New Zealanders who have written I think probably to most of the MPs on this side of the House about the winter energy payment about the fact that those basic decisions about keeping warm in winter can now be made without the fear of the costs and about the fact that people can heat their homes not just one room. We all know the story of people who were only heating one room in their home because they couldn't afford it. The winter energy payment has come along and delivered to those people some security.So for me being the Minister of Finance yes it's about the numbers yes it's about making sure that as a country we prepare ourselves for the future but it's mostly about the people and that's what got forgotten for nine years. They sat on that side of the House—on this side of the House then—and said "We've got a rock star economy because we've got growth rates at a particular level." Well the rock star economy was delivering the schools where people were being taught in classrooms. It was delivering the mouldy hospitals. It was delivering the dirty rivers. That's not success and on this side of the House we're proud that we are taking a different approach to what constitutes success in our society.We know that as a country now we once again will face challenging times in our economy created by an external force—in this case COVID-19. But we know that this Government as a result of what we've done for the last two years means we are well prepared to face up to that and I can guarantee New Zealanders that this Government will continue to invest in them. We'll continue to invest in our people in strengthening our communities and in protecting our environment.By the time we get to September this year the choice will be ever more stark between a Government and parties of this Government who are looking to the future who are futureproofing our economy who when we give speeches about the economy we mention climate change unlike the Leader of the Opposition. The choice will be between a Government focused on the future and futureproofing our economy and a Government with their eyes in the rear-view mirror selling tired old ideas—selling a mirage as the Stuff editorial said today. That is the choice at this election: whether or not we want to go forward as a country confident prosperous and sharing that prosperity or whether we want to go back to selfish individualism on the other side of the House. The choice is clear. A Jacinda Ardern - led Government will be re-elected."