Bayly AndrewANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Thank you Mr Speaker. Yes it is a pleasure to be talking on this document which is an important perspective on where New Zealand is heading with debt. It's interesting; the Minister of Finance just sat down and I listened carefully to his speech and of course he was accusing the deputy leader of not talking about climate change—I seem to recall that she did. But the one thing that I would acknowledge around climate change: it's interesting that emissions have actually increased under this Government over the last three years so obviously the Government is making a lot of progress with regard to that and of course the Minister seemed to focus almost exclusively on climate change. The one thing he did not talk about which was clearly identified in the Treasury's report was superannuation because superannuation for the Labour Party is one of those issues that they want to ignore and just hope it goes away. And of course as the Treasury says it is one of the huge factors that will have an impact on future debt levels and as the Treasury has highlighted current debt projections—under the current arrangements—will see that debt getting to unsustainable levels in New Zealand and unless there are decisions made around superannuation—health is related to that of course particularly with older people and their health needs—and climate change of course then we will be on an unsustainable track and we are already on an unsustainable track. It's interesting; the Minister loves to crow about debt and how we're low and that means that we don't need to basically worry about it. But it's interesting; when you look at the actual figures in the document debt has gone from roughly $60 billion 24 months ago to about $124 billion today. Under this Minister we have doubled our debt in 24 months—almost a record. I suggest it is a record doubling of debt. That has occurred at a time when New Zealand is the country that has spent more on COVID response than any other country apart from the US. We've spent more on COVID response than any other country other than the US. Whilst we support the $24 billion that has been paid towards supporting businesses through this difficult time and their employees—that is something we have absolutely no truck with—the bit that we find absolutely concerning is the other $36 billion that has been blown by this Labour Government on so many issues so much wasteful spending—dumb spending—that has got us to a point where we are today. Of course New Zealand will not pay down debt under Grant Robertson. Under the Treasury projections the debt will go up to $182 billion in 2022-2023 and will stay at roughly at that level—$189 billion $175 billion. New Zealand under Labour will not be paying off any debt. The reason why the percentages decrease as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) is that the Government and Treasury is hoping that we will continue to grow the economy and if you grow the economy and you still have the same quantum of debt you get a decreased debt to GDP ratio. So one thing we should be mindful of is that in four years' time the country will still have elevated levels of debt of about $175 billion. That is a staggeringly high figure considering we were at $60 billion only 24 months ago. The issue about this document is that debt is an important way of managing the economy but it does have trade-offs. When you take on and double the debt as Grant Robertson has over the last 24 months it's fundamentally a trade-off between current wellbeing and the wellbeing of future generations. It does impose a real cost; debt has a real cost. It has a real cost in terms of interest rates that the Government has to devote to paying back that debt and the interest as well. And the principal needs to be paid back. We've already seen the cost of buying back the Treasury bonds that the Reserve Bank's doing. The out of market cost at the moment is about $6 billion and rising. So it's a cost imposition on all New Zealanders when a Government decides to take on a massive amount of debt. The issue we have with this is that the Government has been able to go and borrow this huge amount of debt—an additional $60 billion—because after the Canterbury earthquakes and the global financial crisis we—through prudent management both Labour and National—got our debt back to 19 percent of GDP. Also the reason why we've been able to go out and borrow lots of money in the market offshore is that we have a history of responsible fiscal management and sticking to it. That is why New Zealand is in a good situation and had an ability to take on this massive amount of debt over the last 24 months but we're at the risk of squandering that huge advantage and reputation we've built up. The long-term requirements of the fiscal responsibility Act that was set up in 1989 is that the Government must run prudent debt levels so as to provide a buffer against factors that may impact adversely on the total debt in the future by ensuring that we've got prudent debt levels. Once you've got prudent debt levels the Act also requires that you maintain over a reasonable period of time that total operating expenses do not exceed revenue—Government revenue. Guess what! When you look at what's gone on over the last few years and what is forecast in the Treasury projections we will continue to run operating deficits at a Government level. We will continue to lose money at a Government level. I think from memory we're going to rack up about $36 billion of operating losses by Labour since it's come to office and over the next two years as a result of running high operating budgets—by basically spending too much money. As I said before this is the trade-off. We need to be much more careful about how we manage it and of course Grant Robertson loves to talk about the paradox of not being able to either spend more on good stuff or reduce debt. Actually there are three choices in terms of managing the economy and to reduce debt to prudent levels. The first choice is you can increase taxes and gee don't we know the Labour Government's good at that. You can increase taxes—that's one way of dealing with debt. The second way you can deal with debt is to make sure you don't do dumb spending and unfortunately the Government is great at dumb spending. I'll give you some examples: $280-per passenger subsidy on the Te Huia Hamilton to Auckland train service; $15 million on the road to zero advertising campaign; $20 million on the unnecessary Radio New Zealand / TVNZ merger; $51 million on the bike bridge. I can just go on. I have a list Mr Speaker of wasteful spending projects. I don't intend to go through that. But if the Government stopped doing dumb spending—that's how you reduce your operating losses at a Government level. But the third way—and this is the issue that I never hear the Minister of Finance talking about—of dealing with debt in the long term is to grow the economy and that's one thing that the Government this Government does not know how to go about doing. It is about supporting businesses to grow aggressively to employ more people—not to sock 'em with $3.5 billion of additional costs as the Labour Government has done over the past four years. We want a Government that supports them because when business is successful they hire lots more people they can afford to pay people more money in wages and provide better working conditions to enable people to get ahead in life to be able to buy a house to be able to raise a family to be able to get the best education for their children—that's how you run an economy. You don't tax the hell out of people and you don't do dumb spending. What you do is you do things in moderation and you support the economy to grow and that's what National will do when we get back— SPEAKER: Order! Order!