Brownlee GerryHon GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam): Madam Speaker you warned the previous speaker the Hon Andrew Little that he should bring his speech back to the Budget. The problem here is that this is a Budget four weeks on from its delivery that is massively out of date and out of step with what this country needs right now. It's very hard to look back and debate the merits of this Budget when it is so short on information on encouragement and on projection of a positive future for New Zealand. We have a Budget that was produced by a finance Minister who just one week before lockdown stood in this House and told us everything was OK there were no dark clouds on the horizon no need for anyone to worry and that when the Budget was delivered a few weeks' time out from that point they would see that there was a bright future ahead. Well what about the thousand people a week—a thousand people a day I should say—who've been going on the job seeker benefit since lockdown? What about the thousands of people who are not eligible to go on the job seeker benefit because they have received a redundancy from their workplace? What about the tens of thousands of people who've lost casual work? What about the tens of thousands of people who've lost part-time work? Those people aren't recorded in statistics but they're there and they are real. Add to that the tens of thousands of families whose primary income has been slashed as a result of the COVID-19 response. They are the people who will certainly say with some gratitude that we're lucky to have dodged the bullet that was the worst possible eventuality from COVID-19 spreading throughout our community. But I'm sorry to tell the previous speaker that when it comes to election day they're unlikely to be still saying Thank you very much for what you did. I'm going to vote for you for that." They're more likely to be saying "Will I still have a job? Will my family members still have a job? Will my family still have income? How long will it be before we're able to securely wake up in the morning knowing that our household income is going to be coming in?" Those are the questions that will be asked in 14 weeks' time. And what we see in this Budget is a $20 billion slush fund there for the Government presumably to use during the campaign period to salve some of that concern. But New Zealanders are not silly. They will know that if money is received as a benefit it has a very very small if any growth effect on the economy. So there is no doubt that expanding the domestic economy is going to be the challenge that Governments need to answer or prospective Governments need to answer in the coming campaign. And they'll all turn back to this Budget and look at what the projections are for debt and there will be a discussion about how well that debt is incurred. Today we've heard the Government in the House talking about their infrastructure plans how they are going to build all these wonderful infrastructure projects that will create jobs up and down the country. The problem is all 11 of those projects that were announced today and that are part of a bill that is being rushed through the House today—ironically rushed through the House; three years almost into a Government and they are finally getting to a legislative position to deliver some infrastructure—were announced a long time ago. Some of them would have been delivered by now had there not been a change of Government. But very few of them—very few of them—will have the big effect of creating long-term jobs unless they are followed up by more. That is the challenge that sits out there for all political parties ahead of us. If we look back to other times when there's been a tough difficult economic period then it is generally infrastructure that is the answer. It is the purchasing effectively ahead of time of intergenerational assets that provide the opportunities for an economy to expand in the future. And remember that an economy is not some nebulous thing. Certainly it's impossible to put your hand on it and say "This is an economy." It doesn't come in a paper bag. You can't grab it off a bookshelf or a shop shelf. It is what's happening to you in your life and the lives of all those 5 million New Zealanders who at the moment are wondering just what the future holds. It's all about what they are able to do what they are able to purchase with the dollars they earn with the opportunities that come from the work that they do. An economy is a dynamic thing that everyone who gets up in the morning and does something contributes to and at the moment we are seeing massive contraction. Later this week we'll find out just how much that contraction has been and we'll be able to work out what the annual contraction would mean and from that some of the extrapolation of what that will mean in job losses I think will be even further exacerbated. So with all due respect to the previous speaker who spoke about the leadership that the Government has given and headed towards a recovery there is nothing yet that can give any New Zealander confidence that this is a Government that knows how to handle that. What we observe is a huge separation in the minds of New Zealand voters between the Prime Minister as an individual and the party that she represents the party that she leads. That party is seen largely to have let her down. The reality is they've let all New Zealanders down and it is a further reality that they are led by the Prime Minister. So separating the two is not going to last and there will be I think that turning back to say "What is it for me when I cast my vote? Will I still have my job? Will my family still have my job? Will my family income still be there?" Those are the questions that will be asked. And today we sort of heard a speaker earlier in question time talking about how the Government's put up loans for small business and we were told that there's been a billion dollars' worth of those loans taken out. It might be easy to say "Well it's a billion dollars against the 140 billion that the whole country is going to go into debt over." but that billion dollars has to be paid back. So the idea that simply being able to borrow money at a good rate means that employment will be sustained for people because businesses are jobs jobs are income—and if those businesses have to recut the cloth so that they can afford to pay the loans back that inevitably will fall back on smaller less or however you want to put it employment opportunities within their particular enterprise. There was then the claim that this Government has produced 8000 public houses in the last three years. Well the saddest thing is that of those public houses there was an ongoing programme from what was Housing New Zealand what is now Whānau Ora and that there is a natural expectation around that. Further nearly half of the 1600 they claim to be specifically introduced by this Government 800 of them were previously consented or under construction at the time of the last change of Government. These people are not good at infrastructure. They are not good at delivering. They are brilliant at announcements. They are amazing at standing in front of a camera and pronouncing what should happen. They are absolutely convincing on all of those scores. But it's like their snake oil: take it home try to drink it it'll probably knock you over. It's got nothing to it; it doesn't work. And that's exactly what the country is being sold by this current Government. We heard Mr Little just saying there "Aren't we lucky to be led by a Government like this?" Well the 5 million New Zealanders got behind the effort to prevent COVID19 coming into this country. Those same 5 million people now want to get behind an effort to get the country back into a reasonable shape so that we do have security around jobs security around family incomes security around the futures of all the young people that will be coming into the workforce next year. And they are not going to simply say "Thank goodness for all the announcements that have been made. I hope that they get delivered on." They will look to delivery records and this Government does not have one. They are bad for delivery. They are not focused on the economy and their list just proved it. The National Government will deliver."