6. Question No. 6—FinanceHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) to the Minister of FinanceQuestion No. 6—Finance6. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) to the Minister of Finance: Does he have a clear idea of the costs of major Government policies and is he confident New Zealanders are getting good value for money from major Government spending initiatives?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. On 30 May this year I tabled a very detailed set of documents called the Budget and the Estimates of Appropriations which I encourage the member to read—well he didn't read them. These documents detail the costs of major Government policies like our record investment in mental health and investments to fix mouldy hospitals build new schools and grow our regions. Given that these policies are fixing many problems we inherited I am confident that New Zealanders are indeed getting good value for money from these major Government spending initiatives.Hon Paul Goldsmith: What is the best estimate of the potential cost to the New Zealand economy of the proposed national environment standards for water announced last week?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Those standards are out for consultation at this stage. Any costings in that regard would be entirely hypothetical at this point. Hon Paul Goldsmith: Is his Government acting competently when it is proposing measures impacting 60 percent of our export goods armed only with a draft regulatory impact statement relating to a critical piece of that saying The modelling to date of the economic impacts on farms has been very limited"?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: This is a really important area for New Zealand to get right because for too long Governments have ignored the decline in our water quality which in turn leads to health issues which in turn actually leads to damage to the very thing that we trade off in the world which is our clean green image and reputation. So on this side of the House we are taking meaningful steps to help improve water quality in New Zealand working alongside the agricultural sector to do that. So at this stage in the process those comments are the ones that you would expect to see. As we get more detail and as the consultation continues there'll be more work done.Hon Paul Goldsmith: Doesn't he think Kiwis expect the Government to care about the state of our water and how we make a living in this world and in order to make sensible decisions any Government needs to make reasonable inquiries into the economic consequences of its decisions?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: In answer to the first part of the question absolutely yes and what surprises me is why the member opposite didn't realise that when he was in Government.Hon Paul Goldsmith: Is he surprised that business confidence is at low levels when his Government first made the oil and gas decision having sought no analysis of its economic impact and now is proposing a very significant decision on water standards on the basis of very limited analysis?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: As I've said many times in this House the business confidence levels that we see reflect businesses who are in an international environment where they are facing significant headwinds and also reflect a historical trend whereby those confidence levels do unfortunately reflect some of the views already held by those who fill them out as opposed to the economic conditions they're in."