Bidois DanDAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote): It's a pleasure to make a contribution in the third and final reading of the Public Finance (Wellbeing) Amendment Bill. It's a really important debate to have today and at least on this side of the House we're having a good debate on that bill. Now we're not arguing about whether wellbeing is important or not. In fact I was at the OECD for three years just after they released the Better Life Index that the Living Standards Framework is based on and I think we all hailed the introduction of the OECD Better Life Index as a way to acknowledge the shortcomings with gross domestic product and the narrow nature that economic measures provides. But there were also limitations with the OECD Better Life Index: that it was subjective in nature that what one country or one person places as important in fact is different to what another country or another person places as important. That's why the OECD Better Life Index actually gave individuals the chance to weight the variables in the index so that they measure what's important to them.What we're actually saying is that of course we acknowledge that wellbeing as a holistic measure is important and that goes way back to the Aristotle days in ancient Greece who actually debates the importance of not just money or finance but overall wellbeing for an economy. What we're essentially debating though is the role of wellbeing in the Public Finance Act and the role of wellbeing in Treasury's advice and the work that they do on behalf of the Government. I come from the business world where essentially I've helped companies all over helped them through assessing how do they actually achieve their goals that they want to achieve and what are the measures that they need to put in place in order to achieve that. I think what we're getting at here in the Public Finance Act is that while wellbeing is important there are limitations to assessing wellbeing and the subjective nature of that. So we think first and foremost on this side of the House that the core function of the Public Finance Act is to set up a framework to scrutinise Government expenditure Government assets and Government liabilities.I want to raise in the House an important quote from Peter Drucker a management expert who says you can't manage what you can't measure. Let's just think of that statement in the House today as we're about to pass this bill: you can't manage what you can't measure. If we want Treasury and all departments associated with Government to manage the Budget and manage the resource allocation that we give them as this House then they must be able to measure that. It's pretty simple stuff. That is the subjective nature of what we're getting at here and we already saw that with the OECD framework. That is why very few countries have actually adopted that framework embedded into their public finance or budgetary nature. Now it's great that the Government wants to be first mover on this but again there are limitations in actually providing sound recommendations to our civil service as a result.SPEAKER: Order!DAN BIDOIS: I want to get back to the matters of the bill which is that we think that what matters is the tangible outcomes—right?—stuff that you can measure. That is what our civil service and our Treasury should be focused on—SPEAKER: Order! I just remind the member: we don't have a civil service in New Zealand. They have one in the United Kingdom.DAN BIDOIS: OK thank you Mr Speaker.Rt Hon David Carter: Public Service—Public Service.DAN BIDOIS: OK Public Service—there we go. Public Service. On the—Rt Hon David Carter: That's your school lesson for the day over and done.DAN BIDOISThank you. On those measures can I say that this Government has made a terrible job of those tangible measures.Hon Willie Jackson: Government—start again.DAN BIDOIS: Let's go through them. Child poverty is up. Housing—how many houses have we built Willie Jackson? How many KiwiBuild?SPEAKER: Order! Order! I can see the member's struggling for relevance but I'm going to remind him to come back to the third reading of this bill.DAN BIDOIS: Thank you Mr Speaker. What I'm getting at here is that we need to focus right now on the stuff that we can measure. My colleagues have talked about the range of measures that come under wellbeing that are just subjective in nature and that is why I raise the issue of housing child poverty incomes jobs the environment. We had the member from the Green Party get up and say that this is airy-fairy. Well let me talk about a hard-and-fast measure for the environment which is carbon dioxide emissions. If we want to measure carbon dioxide emissions they're going up under this Government—right? So that's a hard measure right there. Work-life balance—if you want to talk about safety crime victimisation is up in New Zealand. Workplace deaths are up in New Zealand. Those are the hard measures that we want Treasury and the Public Service of New Zealand to focus on because those are the things that matter for New Zealanders—those are the things that matter.Let me bring this back to my own electorate of Northcote. What are the things that matter to the people of Northcote right now? Well I'll tell you Mr Speaker and I'll tell this House that we've done a poll and most recently I'm happy to tell you the most important issues in the area of Northcote: the economy jobs incomes transport—SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! Second warning—refer the member to Speaker's ruling 121/7. It's a 1962 one from Algie which means that the member has to refer to the main purpose and contents of the bill. The member may not refer to at any length matters not provided for in the bill. I think the member has spent about two-thirds of his speech so far referring to matters that are not in the bill.DAN BIDOIS: Thank you—Rt Hon David Carter: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.SPEAKER: Well I hope the member's not going to dispute my ruling.Rt Hon David Carter: I'm going to ask for a bit of consistency Mr Speaker.SPEAKER: Well the member will resume his seat now and I'll call the member before the member gets into trouble.DAN BIDOIS: Thank you Mr Speaker. What the importance is here in this bill is that it empowers Treasury to embed the wellbeing framework into New Zealand but what the issue is is how not a single member on that side of the House has been able to tell us what wellbeing is. If we want Treasury to be able to assess wellbeing then we'd better be able to articulate it for them. That is the issue that we've talked about wellbeing in some cuddly airy-fairy concept but we're not giving Treasury guidance on what is wellbeing. That is the essence of what we're discussing today. National opposes this bill at a time like this that we should be focused on the things that matter to wellbeing right now. We've talked about the things that matter: jobs incomes. So National opposes this bill and does not commend it to the House.