Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBudget Debate[Sitting date: 29 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:10495. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Budget DebateDebate resumed from 28 May on theAppropriation (2013/14 Estimates) Bill.Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Economic Development): I think we have just had a demonstration of why these guys have been on the Opposition benches for so long. Just under 2 weeks ago this Government delivered its fifth Budget and in fact Bill English delivered his fifth Budget. The verdict is in. Budget 2013 has been received by the public as Bill English’s best Budget yet.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! Just one moment Minister. Order! Those who are leaving the Chamber please do so so that we can continue the debate. I would like to hear what the Minister is saying.Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Like I said the jury is in and its determination is that it was a resoundingly positive Budget for New Zealand. Actually there have been a number of polls in the last few days that have indeed confirmed that the public have given a resounding endorsement of this Government’s approach to economicmanagement. New Zealanders understand that the Government has performed well in tight economic times.Members on the other side of the House are still road-testing their slogans as to what they believe that they should be saying about the New Zealand economy. I see that their latest one which is being road-tested at the moment after the failure of “all the crises in the manufacturing sector” and so on is apparently the “two-speed economy”—the two-speed economy. Well there is nothing two-speed about the New Zealand economy. The New Zealand economy is doing better than just about most economies in the Western World. The only thing two-speed around here is the Opposition and it has got only two speeds: we have got go-slow on the Labour side and we have got absolutely no-go on the Greens side. That is exactly correct.We are living in a time of two very fundamental changes in the world. The global financial crisis continues to cast a very large shadow over much of the Western World. We see that regularly on our TV screens. We also have another fundamental change and that is a massive transfer of consumer power from West to East. This Government is focused on making the most of that for New Zealand. China of course was our largest export destination in the March quarter of this year and that makes Mr Peters’ latest attempts to grab some publicity even more inexplicable than normal. Over that time—the global financial crisis as well as what is going on between Europe and Asia—New Zealand has also had to deal with the Christchurch earthquakes which are now a $40 billion series of events. The Government’s share of that cost is now $15 billion.Through those challenges the public have seen that we have steered a sensible moderate path between the austerity that we have seen in some countries in the world and the profligacy frankly that we have seen in other countries of the world. In this country there are those on the left who have spent much of the time saying that we should spend more money. Over the last 4½ years we have seen so many examples where they have said: “No you should not cut that. You shouldn’t change that. You should spend more money.” Of course now they are telling us that they would have got back to surplus at the same time. That is probably one of the best Tui billboards that I have ever heard. On the right of course there are those—most of them outside this House—who say that we should have spent less. But in actual fact Bill English has got it exactly right.We are now one of the few OECD countries that will be in surplus next year. Even our friends in Australia are looking at a A$20 billion deficit at the same time. We now have a situation in which New Zealand is currently one of the most successful economies in the OECD. We have had 3 percent economic growth in the last 12 months; the UK 0.3 percent; the eurozone minus 0.9 percent; Japan 0.4 percent; and the US 1.6 percent. And there is good news for New Zealand households because we have confirmed the lowest cost of living increases in this country over the last three quarters since 1999—the last time we had a decent Government in this country.We also have the lowest mortgage interest rates in this country since March of 1965—1965. We have a low cost of living low mortgage rate increases and after-tax wages are continuing to rise faster than the cost of living. And then we come to employment. One of the members over there—I cannot remember his name because I do not think he has stood up since he has had a job—was saying “What about employment?”. Well job numbers are up. The quarterly employment survey says there were 54000 new jobs over the last 2 years. Unemployment is coming down—6.2 percent as against an OECD average of 8 percent.Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga: How much?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: An OECD average of 8 percent. Unemployment benefit numbers are down 13000 from their peak in December 2010. And compared with Australia yes we do still have—Dr David Clark: December 2010 was it?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: It was called the global financial crisis young fellow. Compared with Australia unemployment is 6.2 percent—slightly higher—but interestingly in terms of employment we are significantly higher than the Australians with 63.7 percent of adult New Zealanders employed in this country. In Australia it is only 61.7 percent of Australians. And we have more full-time employment in this country. Seventy-eight percent of New Zealanders in work are in full-time employment. In Australia it is just 70 percent.This Government is doing a very good job with the New Zealand economy. We are dealing with the challenges of a high exchange rate because we are seen as doing better than many other countries in the world and we are focusing on growing our exports. Exports of goods and services have gone up 4.6 percent a year on average in the 4 years to March last year. Our comprehensive Business Growth Agenda is delivering the results of increasing exports despite the headwinds of a high dollar and the ongoing international financial crisis.So you see the initiatives in building exports and you see our initiatives in building innovation and we talked about those earlier today in question time. We see the importance of building up the capital markets and investment. One of the great ironies is the Opposition’s approach to the mixed-ownership model when one of the most important things in this country is boosting our capital markets to be able to get more companies more opportunities for investing in growth and jobs.Then we come to skills and all the investments we are making in our university sector in our polytech sector and in industry training. There are the Resource Management Act reforms in our natural resources space and of course the building of infrastructure. There is a massive programme going on and the public of New Zealand know it. They know it and they endorse it. We see that in the polls that are going on right now around the country. There have now been three polls. The average result for the Government after 4½ years is now 48-point-something percent. For the National Party alone it is 48-point-something percent and the Labour Party is down at 33 percent.So why is the Labour Party down there on 33 percent? Because it has hitched its wagon with the Green Party and we now have the anti-growth coalition—the Labour - Greens anti-growth coalition. These guys have an uncanny ability to have precisely the wrong ideas at exactly the wrong time. It is uncanny how badly they come up with ideas—for example the capital gains tax. How do you encourage business growth in New Zealand? I know slap a new tax on every productive business in the New Zealand economy. That would be a smart idea—not. Then they talk about what else they could do to help the economy and they say: “Let’s increase the cost of the emissions trading scheme. Let’s put up the emissions trading scheme costs”. They grizzle about the petrol tax but they want to put $500 a year on New Zealand households with the emissions trading scheme.Their next plan—if they have not wrecked the economy enough by then—is to nationalise an industry a big industry of New Zealand. So they want to nationalise the power industry to teach those terrible KiwiSavers and those dodgy investors that they should not be interested in a Labour-Greens Government—and the good news is that they are not. They have worked it out.Also Labour members want to borrow more money rather than pay down debt. Then there is the coup des grace: the print money division—the Greens’ print money division.So here you have it—the wrong policies at the wrong time while opposing everything that encourages jobs and growth. They are opposing the Resource Management Act reforms—that was just this weekend—opposing the convention centre opposing oil and gas opposing international investment opposing Denniston and opposing aquaculture. We are not quite sure whether they oppose Denniston or not but we think they do.So on the one hand you have a Government that is focused on encouraging new investment encouraging growth and jobs internationally focused and lifting real incomes for Kiwi families and on the other hand you have an Opposition that is reactionary inward-looking intent on scratching every political itch no matter what it means frankly anti-growth and at times—with Winston—downright xenophobic. It is a very straightforward choice. Eighteen months out we are very happy with the contrast.Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I do take offence at a member of this House being described as xenophobic. That has been ruled out on a number of occasions and that member did it then.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Yes it has. I would ask the member to withdraw that comment.Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I do withdraw it.JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): Just because Steven Joyce says it it does not make it true. That was an absolute load of rot. He had to spend a quarter of his speech trying to tell the rest of the country what Labour thinks. I want to pick out one example of where he was completely misleading the public and that was around the International Convention Centre. Labour has never said that it was opposed to the idea of a convention centre. But we were never willing to make a trade-off that meant we would increase harm against our most vulnerable communities in order to develop it. It did not have to be an either/or. There were other options on the table. All we asked as a party was that we look at the options that do not harm those who can least afford the harm of problem gambling.Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. That member knows that in 2001 Helen Clark and her Government—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No no. That is not a point of order and we will not have interjections like that.JACINDA ARDERN: The chair of the Social Services Committee clearly is still upset from the committee meeting today. Whatever this Budget was it was not a Budget that acknowledged the struggle and the hard times that Kiwi families are having in this country right now. This Budget was not a Budget for the most vulnerable and it was not a Budget for our low-income New Zealanders. Sure there were some sticking plasters in there. Some of them we will not begrudge. Some of them we acknowledge that in the short term they were absolutely necessary. But it is absolutely foolish and negligent to refuse to acknowledge that programmes like food in schools are just that a sticking plaster.We need to acknowledge that currently we are living in a low-wage economy that currently things like Working for Families—which the Prime Minister holds up as the one great bastion that is stopping the recession from hurting our families the most; the thing that he actually originally called communism by stealth—is actually a subsidy for the fact that we have a low-wage economy. We are subsidising the fact that employers are not paying enough in sufficient wages for families to survive. We have no qualms though about continuing to support those families in the way that they need but we have to do something about the low-wage economy that members like Mr Joyce have made even worse since he has taken office. Things like food in schools the $1.9 million per annum that the Government announced yesterday—somewhat begrudgingly it must be acknowledged—yes we are pleased to see they are there. Yes we are pleased to seethat the Government has handed over 18c per week for every child in poverty to feed them—I should note that $40 million in this Budget went to private schools. Yes we are glad that that happened. But let us not be naive that this is somehow going to magically change the overall outcomes for those children.What we needed was a plan. We needed a plan to reduce what is a complex situation and that is a plan to reduce child poverty. But what did we get instead? Well if you asked Paula Bennett what it was that was in her portfolio she probably would have claimed that although we have not cut benefits—well actually that is debatable as 50 percent of the people rocking up at the Wellington City Mission 50 percent of them had been turned away from Work and Income for support—50 percent. We have seen a tripling of sanctions under this Government for families who are on Government support.But what did she put into this Budget? Well she said we are going to procure whiteware en masse so it is cheaper for families who need to get a grant to purchase a new system of some description. We have no problem with that. We are pleased that we are acknowledging that actually some families end up buying second-hand kit that breaks down and they have to purchase it again anyway so great. But again this is only ever going to be a sticking plaster on a wider problem. A shiny new fridge that you cannot afford to put food in or indeed afford to plug into a socket and run is not overall going to lift a family out of a state of poverty. That is what we need to start asking the big questions about.Our community organisations that are working with these families they did not even get just crumbs; they got less than crumbs. The Community Response Fund ends in this Budget. That means that over 290 organisations will be worse off after this Budget. One of the issues with that is that although this Government claims that the Community Response Fund gave those organisations more money a lot of them were in line for Pathways to Partnership—sustainable long-term funding. The Community Response Fund was a short-term plug that they then had to lose and now they are told by the Government they are meant to be thankful for that.The only organisation that was saved was budget advisory services. This Budget gives them an extra $1.5 million but again that is the equivalent of about $9000 per service and 80 percent of the increase in demand that some of those services have seen is a direct consequence of changes to Government policy. Again this is a Government that is claiming it is rescuing these organisations when in fact it is causing their demand in the first place.What has happened in health—particularly what has happened in health according to our most vulnerable? Well we saw more money go into swabbing for rheumatic fever but as we have constantly pointed out cold damp overcrowded housing—factors related to child poverty—are the causes the precursors of rheumatic fever. Although the Government has put some extra money into Healthy Housing checks it actually equates to roughly $42 per child per annum and for kids in Auckland only. No matter which way you cut it $42 per annum per child is not going to fix an overcrowded damp house. While that side of the House starts talking about its insulation scheme functionally what the Government announced in this Budget was a cut to the insulation scheme programme. And the only other thing—Hon Trevor Mallard: Half.JACINDA ARDERN: The Government has halved the insulation programme in this country compared with what it was putting in in previous years. It also claims that the warrant of fitness was somehow not only a response to the expert advisory group but is one way that we are going to ensure that children in poverty are in warm dry houses. The warrant of fitness applies according to that Government to only State houses. But80 percent of children in poverty do not live in State houses. They will not be affected by that Government’s trialled warrant of fitness programme while on this side of the House—Hon Annette King: It is only considering a trial.JACINDA ARDERN: It is considering a trial—“We are considering the idea of whether or not cold damp State houses are a good or bad thing.” It is absolutely outrageous. On this side of the House we have committed to warrants of fitness across all rental properties—across all rental properties—and that is exactly as it should be. But we must—we must as I have said—go beyond stopgap measures because not only have we seen the Government pull out a cork and stick it in the dam but it has put it in the wrong part of the dam. We need much much more than this if we are truly going to make a difference to this situation.The Government does not have to look far for ideas. The Expert Advisory Group on Solutions to Child Poverty produced 24 working papers. These are summary documents of the work that it did. It produced 78 detailed recommendations. This was not a partisan group; these were members of the community who were experts in their field. It included Phil O’Reilly from Business New Zealand. The group spent over 10 months coming up with ideas for that Government to adopt—10 months—and what did the Government do? After it received that report it took 5 months to produce a 13-page double-spaced report which it shoved into a folder when it released the food in schools programme. The Government barely announced it was even responding. And what did it say in that report? It said: “Significant investments made over the past four years are testimony to the Government’s commitment to preventing child poverty and alleviating its impacts.” and “Low interest rates are helping New Zealand families save more.” Low interest rates—what to get into the non-existent homes? And: “For low-income families the Government’s 2010 tax cuts have made a difference.” They have made a difference all right. We are now the most unequal we have ever been and those tax cuts were a significant part of us reaching that record.The Government’s response to the expert advisory group was I think quite frankly shameful. There was much that could have been said. Even if the Government developed a longer-term plan setting out what it would do on child poverty that would have been a start. But instead we have sticking plasters swabbing and corks none of which will help our most vulnerable.Hon CHESTER BORROWS (Minister for Courts): I appreciate the opportunity to take a call in this Budget debate. Those people sitting at home listening in to this debate will no doubt understand what is going on here. We are debating the Government’s Budget which has recently been put before the House. The Labour Party hates it. The Green Party hates it and so does the Mana Party. New Zealand First does not like a lot of it. And the Government loves it. That happens to be the nature of being in Parliament for whoever happens to be in Government at the moment. You know what? Not only do we love it over on this side of the House but the public out there love it too. As has been reflected in the polls that are reported time and time and time again at the moment we happen to be enjoying on this side of the House a popularity with the public that has never been seen before in the history of this country. It has lasted a lot longer than it ever has before in the history of this country and Labour hates that.It is interesting too to note that there are such things as parliamentary language and unparliamentary language in our particular rules of parliamentary debate here and one of them is around hypocrisy. I am not allowed to call anybody a hypocrite on the other side of the House and they are not allowed to call us hypocrites over here either. What you do notice is a level of duplicity though that goes on from time to time. It isinteresting to point that out every now and then. For instance it was not that long ago that I was roundly applauded by members on the other side of the House for a level of collaboration and consultation across the parties of the House and they used that to smack around one of our Ministers who was promoting a bill under urgency as if that had never happened before whatsoever.Upon being baled up by Radio New Zealand I was happy to answer the question about what I thought about this response. I was able to point out that one of the first things that I voted on—voted against—coming into the House was a bill that was going to make $800000 of unlawful spending by the Labour Party lawful. Not only that but not long after I also had to consider 1500 submissions that were dropped in at the select committee process which was also rushed and stymied and in the House processes as well through the emissions trading scheme. I also managed to be able to sit from time to time on the select committee considering the Electoral Finance Act where the chair of that committee said repeatedly time and time and time again: “We got the numbers and we are going to”—Hon Trevor Mallard: Has National paid the GST yet? Still thieving off the taxpayer?Hon CHESTER BORROWS: It is interesting to note that the major interjector at the moment is Trevor Mallard who not long ago raised a point of order about the word “xenophobia”. He took offence at it and the person who had used the word “xenophobic” had to stand up and withdraw and apologise. Yet only minutes before the same member Mr Mallard had pointed out my wonderful cousin the Hon Chris Finlayson and called him “Gutless Finlayson”. So he is happy to call out on the one hand and happy to take offence on the other. But that is just the way it is.We have also heard the speaker immediately before me Jacinda Ardern talking about all the things that she hates about the Budget. That is her role—she is the Opposition spokesperson on social development. She is not expected to love our Budget. But she talked for instance about the promotion of a convention centre in Auckland and the fact that 230 extra pokie machines would be put in there without conceding—I just repeat this and make the point for members of the public who are listening—that in the former Government the one that she supported and the one that she was part of the then Prime Minister and Cabinet a number of members of which are sitting there had agreed to a plan where there would be a further 230 pokie machines for a convention centre—Hon Trevor Mallard: That’s a lie.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! The member knows he cannot say “That’s a lie.” and I will ask you to withdraw that comment. Let us have some—calm it down because I actually want to hear what the speaker is saying. I will ask the Minister to continue but first I ask the member to withdraw that comment.Hon Trevor Mallard: I withdraw.Hon CHESTER BORROWS: Thank you to the member the Hon Trevor Mallard for explaining the point I made earlier. He is happy to make an unparliamentary comment across the House knowing full well he will have to stand up and withdraw and apologise.The fact was that that previous Government agreed to a deal where it conceded an extra 230 pokie machines in exchange for a convention centre that the then Labour Government would pay for which was about a third of the size that is proposed under this current deal. Thankfully it did not get any suckers who took it. There you go.We have also had another part of the impassioned speech by the former speaker. She was talking about insulation in homes. She was talking about cold and damp and overcrowded homes. There are 215000 families now living in insulated homes whichthey were given grants to be able to insulate. It was a constructive suggestion that was taken up by the previous Labour Government. However it was terribly unsuccessful insulating only about 800 homes as I understand it in the time that Labour was in Government.Hon Annette King: No that’s wrong Chester.Hon CHESTER BORROWS: Oh that is wrong?Hon Annette King: That’s wrong.Hon CHESTER BORROWS: OK my cousin Annette King is shaking her head and saying—oh I am prepared to concede just because it is her—that I may be a few hundred out. In any event when we came into Government we took up that suggestion with the Green Party. We continued with that programme and now we have seen 215000 homes insulated under that particular scheme. We are continuing to do another 46000 homes under this Budget and we are also bringing into effect a warrant of fitness for State houses.People say: “Well OK. Why only State houses?” and the answer to that is fairly simple. How can we expect other landlords to do what we are not doing ourselves? So we get stuck in we insulate and we provide a warrant of fitness for State homes to make sure that there is a base level of accommodation that is at least healthy to counter exactly the conditions that the previous speaker Jacinda Ardern was talking about—that they are not cold and damp and overcrowded. For the same reason then we are building on to the back of 300 of those State homes extra bedrooms to get people out of garages and get people inside the house so that they can be warmer and they can be healthier.There is never ever a concession—and I guess we would not expect it—from the other side that this Government has been working towards helping those people who are vulnerable and who are at risk within our communities. We have seen recently—this week—the launch of a programme to provide breakfasts for kids in schools. Previously that had been running for 2 days a week in low-decile schools. The Government has recognised that there is a need for people who may well be hungry who are not being fed at home for the reason that money is unavailable for whatever reason and we need to account for that because kids cannot learn if they are hungry and they are worried about where their next meal will come from. So the Government has recognised that.You would expect then that Opposition parties might even applaud that but they do not. They say we should be doing more. The fact that the Government is not paying for the whole lot but is doing it in partnership with communities and with businesses is anathema to them because of course business can be only bad. Families who want to for instance invest in shares in Mighty River Power must be rich. They cannot be real families—they cannot be real people apparently—if they happen to own shares or if they happen to have a family trust. They cannot be mum and dad New Zealanders and yet I would ask those members on the other side of the House how many of them—Dr David Clark: 185000 in 2 minutes.Hon CHESTER BORROWS: There is my good old Presbyterian brother forgetting that he is no longer in the pulpit and yelling out. He should remember the words of St Paul to be careful what you say unless you are thought a fool. I cannot dig you out scripture and verse but let us face it: you are the one with the theological degree not me. I was the lay preacher; I did not need the ticket.But let us just finish off with this point. The problem we have with parties on the left is this. They hate people who get on and succeed in spite of the circumstances that are thrust upon them. They hate that. What we on this side of the House applaud is people who in spite of things that happen to them go on and succeed in any event. Let us face it: in this life it is not about what happens to you; it is about how you respond to whathappens to you. On this side of the House we believe that people should take responsibility for the predicaments that they find themselves in whether or not they are the result of bad decisions they have made or circumstances that are thrust upon them and they should do what they can to help it. On the other side of the House those members would encourage their voters to sit there and wait for Government handouts. That has been the message of their policy for decade upon decade upon decade upon decade. What we know now is this: the public agree with us and they disagree with them and Labour hates it.Hon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai): I have to say to my cousin Chester Borrows the member opposite who just spoke that Labour does not hate success. What we do hate is excess and greed and that is what we have seen in this Budget—but not just in this Budget. In every Budget that has been laid down by this Government we have seen excess and greed for a small group of New Zealanders. It is not for the majority of New Zealanders the hard-working people who go to work every day to support their families and we saw that when the Government gave tax cuts to a very small number of New Zealanders—the top wealthiest New Zealanders got the tax cuts. Even though there was a global financial crisis and we did not have enough money to feed the children we had enough money to give tax cuts. We have seen deals done around films. We have seen deals done around convention centres. We have seen appointments made that are not transparent and where there is a certain level of cronyism. That is what we dislike and that is why we will speak out against it.You know I saw this Budget very much as a political point-scoring and posturing one because there were a lot of feel-good factors and I think John Armstrong got that right today when he talked about the response to the report of the Expert Advisory Group on Solutions to Child Poverty. He said there were feel-good factors in it but in fact what you really got out of it was a disgrace—just enough money to get a headline but not enough money to make a difference. I say that you can fool the people some of the time but not for long.So when the sugar hit from the flurry of press releases and the TV coverage and the extended interviews are all over eventually it turns to the headache you get when you start to unpick what the Budget actually means. I do not think you could get a better example than the response to the expert committee on child poverty. You see the day that the Government responded to that expert committee’s report with its 78 recommendations was the day that the Government put out its response to the call for food in schools. Why? It was deliberate. It was to bury its response to the expert working party report on child poverty—work that had gone on for months and months with very good and detailed recommendations. The Government put out its policy and it gave it a little bit of money that does not go quite far enough or make a difference but does manage to cover up its pathetic response to the expert committee.Well I have to say that a lack of acknowledgment and concern and policy development to address disparities in New Zealand does not exist just in social development; it is a major problem in the provision of health services in New Zealand. I found it staggering at a meeting I was at last week with health professionals when they told me that the Minister of Health Tony Ryall had told them that if they raised the question of disparities again he would not meet with them. They had to stop talking about disparities. That was told to me by highly competent and trustworthy health professionals. He would not meet with them—Hon Tau Henare: What’s his name?Hon ANNETTE KING: Oh privacy matters. Privacy matters of course. We cannot release names. We would never be able to give names Tau Henare. I am following the example of the Minister of Justice—it is a privacy issue. But what I can tell you is that Itrust them and I trust them when they say that Tony Ryall said that if they did not stop speaking about disparities in health he would not meet with them.You know the Government was warned about health disparities. This will be of interest to Mr Henare because the Auditor-General just very very recently warned that we needed to address the disparities in health for Māori for Pacific Islanders and for Asian New Zealanders. The Auditor-General said this: “We consider it vital these disparities be addressed with the goal of eventually eliminating them.” That is a very very recent comment from the Auditor-General. I will repeat it: “We consider it vital these disparities be addressed with the goal of eventually eliminating them.” Well the only thing that has been eliminated is any mention of disparities in the health sector. Tony Ryall removed all mention of disparities out of documents even though there is a statutory requirement to report on disparities in New Zealand. The Auditor-General in this very same very recent report pointed out that there is a lack of any targets to reduce disparities in health.So here we have a Minister who likes to set targets. He loves targets that you can tick: “Tick I have done this; tick I have done so many of those; tick I have reduced this time on that.” But he will not set a target to reduce the disparities for New Zealanders the poorest and the sickest New Zealanders because he does not believe there are disparities. Well I think that that is a very poor approach to improving the health of New Zealanders.You see this Budget was all about getting a headline—all about posturing and posing. The Minister of Health announced there was $1.6 billion extra in health over 4 years. What he did not say was that the $352 million a year going to Vote Health is $200 million short just to stand still—$200 million short just to stand still. District health boards got $70 million less than in the last Budget—$70 million less. That does not take account of the need of the growth or of the cost of providing health care. He then claimed that $191 million was coming from reprioritisation and savings.Well it is very interesting when you read the Budget documents. We have not got the savings yet. We have not got the reprioritisation yet. But he has banked the money and he added it on to give himself the $1.6 billion that will be spent in health. So I asked the question: where is this reprioritisation coming from where are the savings to be made? I got his one-line answer back: no answer at all. He will not say where the savings will come from. He will not say which areas which district health board how much what will be cut or what will not be carried out—no answer at all. It is a case of just bank the money and say you are going to get it but there is no plan as to how it is going to be achieved.You know the Auditor-General warned this House 3 years ago at Budget 2010-11 that we faced serious challenges and expectations that there would be financial pressure on health services and that it would worsen. Three years ago that was told to this House by the Auditor-General. The Government said that it intended to keep restraining funding of expenditure over the next 3 years or more. Much of the increase the health services received the Auditor-General said would merely keep pace with demographics and cost changes. That was 3 years ago. I have to say that the situation has now reached code red in many district health boards. So something is going to give. There are going to be cuts in services and more user-pays services pushed into the community with the community having to pay for them or there will be growing deficits.So I say to members opposite: look under the heading Health Services Funding in Vote Health and there you have tucked away $90 million to pay for the rising deficits. That is what it is for. So when the Minister tells you members opposite that everything is going fine in health you will see in your district health boards around New Zealand this year a blowout in funding and deficits growing and he has put $90 million aside tohelp pay for it. I do not know whether that will be enough but health is under huge pressure.Right now district health boards are writing their district annual plans. They have to provide the Minister with a break-even budget but they have told me they do not know how they are going to achieve that. All they can do is write and say they are going to do it but they have no idea how they are going to be able to achieve it.And one last thing: the Minister makes wonderful announcements about what he is doing for women and children in maternal health which I applaud. He makes announcements on what he is going to do for children under 5 but then you find the very place that he cut funding in this Budget was in maternity care. He cut $12 million out of maternity care over 4 years by reducing the amount that is paid to the lead maternity carer. He has cut $3 million each year for 4 years out of the lead maternity carer. Who is going to provide the maternity care for our babies? So he gives with one hand and he takes with the other. I find this Minister to not be straightforward in terms of what is happening in health and it is my job to ensure that people know what is really going on.Hon TAU HENARE (National): I want to start by giving a message to my relation Shane Jones that if he thinks he is the new standard-bearer for Māori he has got another think coming. What he has to do is actually turn up to the Māori Affairs Committee to do some work. If he wants to be deputy chair he should turn up to work; not just say “Oh I’d like that job.” but never turn up to the select committee and do the hard yards like Nanaia Mahuta or like Rino Tirikatene who is a new member and he has been there chugging away and doing the work. Oh no not Mr Jones. He wants to be deputy chair but does not want to come to the committee and do the hard yards. So that is the first message.Here is the second message and I want to read out about some of the “excess and greed” of this Government—the “excess and greed” of this Government. Economic growth is at its highest in 5 years. It is at almost the same rate as that of Australia and higher than that of almost every other developed country. Yes if that is excess and greed we will take that. Here is some more “excess and greed”: wages are growing cost of living increases have been modest and interest rates although they are not at their lowest for 50 years are at their lowest in 48 years. If that is excess and greed we will take that as well.ACC levy cuts will leave another $300 million—yes that is right $300 million—in the economy for businesses and households in 2014-15 increasing to around $1 billion next year. If that is the excess and greed that Annette King talks about yes we will take that as well. The allocation of $1.5 billion of proceeds from the successful Mighty River Power share offer in Christchurch will put money into Christchurch hospitals irrigation infrastructure the upgrading of schools and also the KiwiRail Turnaround Plan. If that is excess and greed we will sign up to that too—and Meridian Energy will be next.How about this for “excess and greed”: $100 million over 3 years goes to insulate 46000 more homes than we have done. Already 215000 homes have been done have already been insulated and now we are doing an extra 46000. And they say that is excess and greed. I have one message for my friends in the Green Party: keep doing what you are doing because at least you believe in what you are doing at least you put the message out there that says: “This is our plan and we are going to stick with it.” So congratulations to the Green Party. Shame on the Labour Party. Do you want to hear what Labour members say about their mates in the Green Party behind closed doors and round behind the bike shed? It is not nice—it is not nice.If you thought for an instant that it was poor form for Annette King to talk about excess and greed just imagine what Labour is saying about the likes of that honourable member over there Kennedy Graham.Grant Robertson: Not “That is outrageous.”?Hon TAU HENARE: “That is outrageous.” But here is the other outrageous thing. We have seen the so-called comeback of New Zealand First. That is not really in the polls it has not shown up in the polls yet. But what are members of New Zealand First doing? They have got nowhere else to go so what do they do? Well what they did was they sacked one of their MPs Brendan Horan for having a family dispute OK but they would not sack the man who got up and talked about “Wogistan”. They actually said “Oh no you can stay because boy have we got a policy for you.” Just wait till I talk about the Chinese—“sin city”.Tracey Martin: Oh here we go.Hon TAU HENARE: That is what he—oh no it is not here I go. It is here Winston goes—it is here Winston goes. It is rolling out. I am just waiting for his ostentatious housing speech to be coming online next week. New Zealand First members should be ashamed of themselves. This is the so-called former Minister of Foreign Affairs talking about—Andrew Williams: No he’s not.Hon TAU HENARE: Oh he was not a foreign affairs Minister? He is not a former? Oh OK. Now they are trying to tell us—Andrew Williams: He helped sign the FTA.Hon TAU HENARE: Exactly. He helped sign the free-trade agreement—Tracey Martin: No he didn’t.Hon TAU HENARE: He signed it but then what did he do?Tracey Martin: He never signed it.Hon TAU HENARE: Oh he never signed it with the Chinese. Now they are trying to tell us that as Minster of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters never signed the free-trade agreement never even helped sign it never even helped work out the details and never once went to China. I bet you he was never even ever in China in his days of being the Minister of Foreign Affairs. For goodness’ sake it most probably was one of the baubles of office that he misplaced. He misplaced one of his baubles.But this is the lie of the land. This is such a good Budget—this is such a good Budget—that if you open up theDominion Post this morning and you open it up on page 2 what does it say? It says that 49.7 percent of the country believe that National is the one to pick for the next election—49 percent. [Interruption] I will leave out the other little bits—49 percent.Dr David Clark: 51 say no.Hon TAU HENARE: OK. Yeah OK. Look I know about Swiss accounting. Let us just round it up to 50 percent and be done with it because that is what it is talking about. That is what it is about—that is what it is about. The country is in such a great state that no one wants change. No one wants a new Government—Andrew Williams: Half the people don’t want it.Hon TAU HENARE: Well at least—no I should not say that. My friend Rajen Prasad looks at me in an incredulous way and I say to him that I accept that. Not everybody wants change—not everybody wants change. In fact 49 percent of the people actually quite like the fact that National is in Government—quite like the fact that National is in Government.Here is how many people would have voted for New Zealand First if there was an election yesterday—2 percent. You cannot have a party—I mean at least Labour got 30 percent of the poll and that is good. That is good—and that is good.Grant Robertson: What about Mauri Pacific?Hon TAU HENARE: He asks the question: what about Mauri Pacific. Well that just morphed into the National Party. I am glad that I am a member of this party. I am glad that we have got this country back on the road. I am glad that in the next 3 years it will still be a National Government.I should not have missed the opportunity to welcome back Mr Clark from his overseas holiday. It is good to see people back at work. It is good to see people not in the trough of the public purse. It is good to see people at work hard at work. So I just want to say welcome back from being over in America for about 6 months.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): The—[Interruption] Order! The next call is a split call. There will be a warning bell at 4 minutes.Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green): Budget 2013 says the Minister of Finance confirms that we are on the right track. The forecasts he says are of economic growth more jobs rising wages and a return to surplus. New Zealanders he says can look to the future with well-earned confidence and optimism. So let us look at it. The claimed priorities are secure employment rising incomes economic growth and fiscal rectitude. These are the ingredients for National’s self-image that it portrays to the public. These are the goals that it wishes to be judged on when election time comes next year. So how does this contrast with Green budgetary priorities? What would be different if the Greens were introducing the 2013 Budget into the House? Do the Greens share or reject those National goals and priorities? The answer is yes we share the same underlying goals for New Zealand and no we do not entirely share the same priorities. The reason is that fundamentally we perceive a different reality and because of a different perception the path to the same goals is fundamentally different.National’s perception of the world is this: “The world is a tough place. The main thing that matters to a brave little trading nation is the global economy. This has taken a hit in recent times the biggest in nearly a century but it will prove to be just a blip. Economic growth has slowed but will recover. We”—that is National—“do not believe for a second that the setback gives due cause to reconsider our economic theories or lose confidence in our ability to govern our way through. We see the global population continuing to soar with greater pressure on global resources and that unwelcome irritant called climate change. We have no real time for that because we have responsibility to meet a 50 percent increase in food demand and a golden opportunity to increase our export income as we go. No change of course is required. Steady as she goes through the squalls and the occasional storm. That way we shall give our children a brighter future. Our Budget is part of that.”The Green perception of the world is this: the world is a tough place. The main thing that matters to any country large or small is global sustainability. The global economy has taken a hit in recent times the biggest in nearly a century. This will prove to be the beginning of a series of major global crises—financial economic and ecological. We believe that this requires a fundamental rethink of our value systems our political doctrines and our economic theories. We see the global population continuing to soar with greater pressure on global resources and the unprecedented challenge of climate change. We must plan our stewardship of the planet in the Anthropocene steering the global economy within the nine planetary boundaries. We must have regard to our ecological footprint. We must change course. If we do not we condemn our children to a catastrophic future not a brighter one. A Green Budget would be a transformational Budget not a steady-as-she-goes Budget. Enough of the steady-as-she-goes approach. Enough of this Government’s self-preening about sound macroeconomic management when in reality it is stumbling blindly along.So what values do we need? The values of enough. The challenge of a post-growth economy beckons us where the quality of life is based on a more caring and economically insightful sharing of resources on a finite planet. This applies to sharing between nations as well as within nations. Humanity now exceeds the limits to growth. Our global ecological footprint began to exceed our bioproductive capacity in 1981. Today our ecological overshoot is 50 percent. As Jeanette Fitzsimons put it recently two futures stand in stark contrast: the failed growth economy and a steady-state economy. A steady-state economy will usher in a future that is dynamic congenial prosperous and ecologically and socially rich. We shall have less stuff and richer lives. But this requires fundamental change to our economic goals our tax and monetary systems and the use of capital and change to our values and even our image of ourselves as humans. That is what a Green Budget would address.EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. National’s plan for the economy is to sell off our assets to hope to strike oil and to expand the gambling industry. The Government says it is planning to get its books into surplus but its apology for an economic plan is in fact increasing New Zealand’s indebtedness. This Budget does nothing to improve the health of the overall economy. It means that our current account deficit continues to increase to 5 percent of GDP this year—that is the second-largest in the OECD—when the average is 1 percent and we are looking at an increase to 6.5 percent of GDP in 2017.This is a Budget from a Government that acts for vested interests rather than for all New Zealanders—a Government that gives tax cuts to the top 2 percent rather than implementing policies that are in the interests of all New Zealanders. It is a Budget that is about selling assets that have been built up over generations. It is about changing our laws to benefit those few vested interests at the expense of our shared prosperity and at the expense of common good.It is a Budget that is bankrupt of ideas beyond asset sales exploiting human misery through encouraging gambling and exploiting nature. We have seen it with the sleazy Skycity deal with the changes to the Resource Management Act and with the Budget housing legislation which will increase urban sprawl and allow the Minister to ignore due process under the Resource Management Act and override local democracy override urban limits and push through new subdivision and property development without notification and public submissions. A Property Council New Zealand spokesperson said the changes went beyond his wildest dreams and that is because this Government’s policies are about benefiting vested interests.The Government is happy to use our “100% Pure New Zealand” marketing image to sell primary production and attract tourists—it is able to find another $158 million in this Budget to spend on tourism promotion—but it fails to recognise the credibility gap between the image and the reality. It is not investing in protecting the landscapes the wildlife the threatened species that visitors come here to see and enjoy because in this Budget the Department of Conservation gets a mere $163 million to spend on natural heritage management. Over the last 5 years since 2008-09 spending on pest and weed control and intensive management of our threatened species such as the kākāpō has increased by a mere $4.2 million. The Government can throw an extra $80 million to subsidise irrigation it proposes to spend another $400 million from the proceeds of asset sales but it cannot find anything substantial to increase and improve the prospects for our threatened species and our conservation land. Certainly it reduced the size of the cuts by $5 million and it saved 70 jobs but that is a mere crumb.Steven Joyce in question time talked about $2 million going to develop a broader New Zealand story to promote exports. That is part of the Business Growth Agenda. But that whole Business Growth Agenda which is such a fundamental plank of thisGovernment’s economic strategy focuses very much on the short term rather than the long-term future of this country and of New Zealanders. It is not about protecting a healthy environment. That is why we are seeing posters in Canterbury like the one I am holding asking Mr Joyce the hard questions: where is our water going? Are we looking at this the lakes on this poster that represent our “100% Pure New Zealand” image or at dead fish in our streams?In Canterbury this Business Growth Agenda has seen an expansion in irrigated land since 2007 equivalent to the size of Lake Taupō. That has seen the sort of water pollution that kills fish. It is seen when you drive south in summer and see rivers that are deprived of water. People want answers. They do not want a new New Zealand story that gets rid of “100% Pure New Zealand” because of the yawning gap between that marketing image and the reality. If we had the Greens in Government we would seek to give integrity to that brand. We would have strong rules for water strong policies that protect our environment because we recognise that is the basis of a healthy economy.Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister for the Environment): I moveThat the debate be now adjourned.Motion agreed to.