McKelvie IanIAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. I want to commend the last two speakers Marja Lubeck and Liz Craig. Neither of them blamed the previous Government for everything that's wrong in the country—very unusual.There are two things in my experience in public life which inevitably lead to one losing an argument and that's abuse and mistruth. There's no need to abuse or accuse to prove a point and in this House we see too much of it. I'm referring of course to the issues around the Budget hack. What a farce for the Government but more so what a farce for Treasury to think that when their website had been visited 2000 times they were under pressure from an anonymous hacker. I would be extremely disappointed if I was Treasury to think that only that number of people were interested in me. Frankly it proves the Treasury really have little value to us.Anyway I'm also proud of our performance in Opposition. Our role is to hold the Government to account and ensure the integrity of democracy is upheld—a very important role for the Opposition and one that I think we should continue to carry out and be proud we do carry it out. This Budget's been referred to as a botched Budget a Budget of broken promises. But I want to deal with what I would refer to as a broken Budget and my colleague Andrew Bayly touched on that a few moments ago.That's the issue that we've got in this Budget with a significant lift in Government debt. In fact across Government the debt is lifting from some $111 million to $130 million-odd in the next year or so and that's plainly in my view irresponsible. The issue I want to raise with respect to that though—well two things really. One is that as the economy slows that debt's likely to increase. The other one is that a fair bit of this debt is being slid into the agencies of Government—in other words the Housing New Zealand Corporation and things like that. That's a dangerous practice in my view for a Government because they don't have direct control over the activities of that debt. I think that is where we see the real risk of increasing Government debt. I'm a little nervous about that. I think it's a disappointing factor of this Government.Missing out in this Budget I think are teachers Pharmac seniors and early childhood education funding—and more on that later as I want to talk about that with respect to some rural issues. The surgical waiting list is a big issue for us in New Zealand. I remember some seven or eight years ago when I first came into this business it was a big issue for our electorate offices. It's becoming a big issue for our electorate offices again now. I think that points significantly to either an underspend in health or a misdirection of funds or a direction of funds that's taken a new track. It is the biggest worry most people have particularly when they get to my age when they can't afford to have those operations that they so desperately need to keep them mobile and keep them moving.The other victim I think of this Budget is all things rural. We don't want massive handouts in rural New Zealand; we want a hand up for those that need it and some decent policy to enable us to thrive as rural areas. Despite Shane Jones' $3 billion fund Infometrics today in its Regional Wellbeing report effectively tells us that the Wellbeing Budget is not creating any wellbeing at all for provincial New Zealand. In fact the self-professed champion of the provinces is anything but. He and his policies are failures. He's failing to deliver in the year of delivery. Some of the billions will no doubt stick but as we have seen so often before with what I would refer to as Government subsidies most of it is frittered away. So it's somewhat ironic that I want to speak a little later about the tree policy. Other things that affect rural New Zealand—the midwife situation. I want to point out that for a rural midwife a large part of their time is spent travelling. That's just one of the facts of rural New Zealand. We've got to deal with that in rural New Zealand. But they get paid the same amount whether they're travelling in rural New Zealand or whether they're sitting in the middle of Auckland or Wellington or Christchurch and have to drive around the corner. That's another challenge and disadvantage for rural New Zealand.I want to move on to education now. The report from Infometrics says particularly about education in rural New Zealand—and in fact in my electorate; it points specifically to a part of my electorate—that especially in knowledge and skills the low level of children attending early childhood education is a significant problem for rural New Zealand. I think that points directly to our rural secondary schools which are challenged. They are challenged in many ways that urban schools are not challenged and it is extremely difficult for them. We have young people leaving town to go to school elsewhere because the numbers and the resources available in our small rural or even provincial secondary schools are not adequate to provide the same amount of service and the same opportunity that kids in urban New Zealand get. That is a serious challenge for us and it I think is an issue that we're going to have to deal with and deal with urgently in rural New Zealand. It received no further assistance in this Budget and the other issue that it creates in rural children is a lack of aspiration and that's big for us. I think that's what keeps our people in our provincial areas. That's what keeps people working in our productive sector.This brings me on to the billion trees project. Sure it's a result of the last Budget but it's received again additional funding in the course of this Budget. There are a few things that I think are causing distortions in this and I want to make the point right from the start that we're in favour of the right tree in the right place. I think that goes for the National Party as well. Certainly there is plenty of room in New Zealand for more trees to be planted and those trees need to be planted. They create a whole lot of benefit for us. But I want to talk about a couple of things that I think are distorting the market. One is the overseas investment exemptions which have been granted solely to planting trees that for every other sector of landownership in New Zealand from an overseas investor perspective is very difficult to attain. Planting trees you've almost got an automatic exemption. That's creating a distortion in rural land prices which I don't think is necessary to have. In fact the market would probably take care of it. The other one I'm critical of—and I don't have an answer to it but the short-term carbon market is a long-term tragedy for New Zealand more especially if those trees cannot be processed and many will not be; they'll sit there for ever. You only need to read the environment commissioner's report on this matter to understand the challenge that that creates for us. As I said I'm certainly in favour of more trees and the trees should be planted in the right place. It's ironic that as I speak here today we've had also a report out today stating very clearly that our meat and milk receipts are at record levels in New Zealand. Both of those things are threatened by the policies that have been instigated in the last year or so and funded to some extent in this Budget. It is a challenge for us the environmental factors around some of these things but we need to find ways and make plans that give us a great future. I'm very much along the lines of the right tree in the right place; I'm also going to talk briefly about the right train in the right place. I think there is a place for rail in New Zealand but it's got to be in the right place. I think some of our decisions around rail are again going to distort the transport situation significantly very much along the same way that we distort—once Government enters any business enterprise in New Zealand they create distortions. There's no question that I think the rail in the wrong place is going to create distortions. There are some parts of New Zealand where we certainly need rail and the boost to it will be welcome; however it is also a risk for New Zealand and I think it's something we should be very cautious of how we deal with. I want to give the Government a couple of accolades one around the mental health because I think that there was certainly a great cause to spend more money in mental health. I think the challenge for the Government is going to be how they spend it and whether that spend gets the result they're hoping for because there are some significant challenges in that area. I suspect that some of that investment should be put into resilience of our communities because that's where a lot of these mental health issues arise from. The other area I want to talk briefly about and I know Mark Mitchell spoke of it a bit earlier was the contribution to defence. I look at Ōhākea air force base out of my window and I'm just hoping that there's still an aeroplane or two for me to look at when I have nowhere else to go but look out the window—and that could happen to be in the future. But I also think that it is important that we maintain our defence spend in New Zealand and I think that's a positive part of this Budget. The other issue I'm concerned about is the petrol tax and the reason I'm concerned about it is that if you live in Levin and you think that we're collecting all this extra petrol tax and it's heading off to Auckland to pay for some light rail going to the airport you're going to be pretty disappointed. As the next couple of roads of national significance are finished leading to Levin there's going to be some significant challenges in that area and that I think will disappoint people. The other thing petrol tax does is it impacts on rural New Zealand to a greater extent than anywhere else because unfortunately we've got so far to travel. That's one of the factors that happens in rural New Zealand and it also puts pressure on the poorer families in rural New Zealand. That pretty much concludes my time—Kieran McAnulty: Oh no!IAN McKELVIE: —it's a shame eh?—but this is a complex Government making some increasingly simple matters very difficult. Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker.