Bishop Chris; McKelvie IanCHRIS BISHOP (National): I almost feel sorry for the Labour backbencher having to read out the research unit speeches. I really do because honestly—honestly—we hear this stuff from Tāmati Coffey about the Homelessness Action Plan. Well unlike him I've read the Homelessness Action Plan and let me tell the Parliament and the people what it says about how the Government's going on homelessness. The latest update says that all bar two of the metrics and the trackers that the Government uses to measure homelessness are going in the wrong direction.Today we found out that the State house waiting list which measures the number of people who are in severe need of State housing—it's hit a new high since last month: 27000 people. In fact more than 27000 people—a new record State house wait-list. And here's the thing: it's quintupled since Labour came to office. Not doubled not trebled not even quadrupled; it's quintupled. When Labour came to office about 5000 people were on the State house waiting list—5000 people too many I fully accept that. Labour came to office and there were big promises from Jacinda Ardern and Phil Twyford and Megan Woods and Grant Robertson and they said Don't worry we've got this." Oh sorry actually it was "Let's do this."—let's do this. And everyone went "OK good stuff. Let's see what you can do." We've seen what they can do: 27000 people are out there on the wait-list a new record almost five years into this Government's time in office.And they said they would fix the housing crisis. The Budget contains hundreds of millions of dollars for emergency housing because tomorrow morning 4500 kids will wake up in motels paid for by the New Zealand Government. They'll wake up in motels up and down the country. It's not just in Rotorua. It's in Lower Hutt and Upper Hutt. It's in Northcote. It's in Wairarapa. It's all around the country. Kids will grow up in motels. Rents are up 150 bucks a week in the last 4½ years. And again this Government said they would fix this problem.But don't worry. The Budget also contains more money for the solution that Labour said would fix everything: KiwiBuild. It was 100000 homes they said they'd do in 10 years.Chris Penk: How's that going?CHRIS BISHOP: Well I'll tell you how it's going Chris Penk: 1300 houses in four years—1300 homes. Just 17 sold this year. I think it is fair to say that KiwiBuild is the biggest public policy failure in recent New Zealand history. I can't personally think of one. Absolute disaster. And Tāmati Coffey stands up in the House and says "Oh well the Budget addresses homelessness." Yeah right!—yeah right! They've been saying that for so long and yet this Government has failed a generation of New Zealanders when it comes to housing.There's three things that I looked for in the Budget three takeaways that I had that I think we need to be aware of. The first is the inflation numbers because the Government spent quite a long time denying that we're in a cost of living crisis. You remember the start of the year? February March the Prime Minister didn't want to use the words. She didn't want to say that people were doing it really tough. Eventually she brought herself to say "Yeah actually it's really tough." And they tried to blame Ukraine but they now at least accept that we are in a cost of living crisis. But if you look at the Budget inflation's 6.9 percent currently—let's say 7 percent. The Budget shows or the Budget predicts—forecasts—that that inflation rate will still be above 3 percent in 2025. So this is something that's not going away. That's I think the most startling thing out of the Budget—is that inflation is set to be above that 1 to 3 percent band that the Reserve Bank's meant to keep inflation to for a very long time.Look I'm 38. Mr Speaker without being too pejorative you will remember inflation much higher than 7 percent—around 10 12 15 20. There'll be a few other members in the House not that many but there'll be a few others who remember inflation when it was at a serious level. But for 30 years in New Zealand because of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act and because of the reforms of the late 1980s and early 1990s we've got used to inflation being kept low—price stability or close near enough to price stability. And what New Zealanders are discovering now is that inflation is the thief in your back pocket. It erodes the real value of money. It erodes the purchasing power of your money. Superannuitants are discovering it every time they go to the supermarket. Hard-working families are discovering it every time they go and fill their car up at the pump.And isn't it interesting to see petrol above three bucks a litre again? So that 25c reduction that knocked all the money out of the National Land Transport Fund didn't last that long. And Phil Twyford's sitting there and he's a former Minister of Transport and he knows full well that the Government might have got a little sugar hit out of the 25c reduction but it's saving up money for a rainy day and they're saving up a problem I should say for a rainy day. In the same way the three months of cost of living payments is a little bit of a band-aid economic solution but it's saving up a problem for a rainy day.Here's a prediction. Is the Government really going to go into Christmas cutting people's pay? That's going to be the effect of it because the money runs out in November. Is the Government seriously expecting us to believe that they're going to turn up on 1 December and the money that people have had three months of turning up in their bank accounts—for three months in a row—the Government's going to go "Oh well sorry boss run out of money. That's just the way things are."? Yeah right!—yeah right! We'll see. So the inflation rate is going to be high for the next three years and beyond.Here's the other thing the second point I wanted to make. The scale of spending in this Budget is just unbelievable. I've been doing business audiences in the last week or so and speaking to community groups and when I explain to them the spending splurge that Grant Robertson is on they actually can't believe it. When you run them through the numbers it's truly phenomenal right? A 68 percent increase in the last four years 50 billion bucks added in terms of Government spending—that's before you get to this year's Budget. Then you turn up to Budget 2022 this year. He took the operating allowance of $6 billion—that in and of itself was the single biggest increase in Government spending in New Zealand history. And then what he has done a very good job of submerging from New Zealanders is he's taken $2 billion from next year's Budget and brought that forward—people haven't quite cottoned on to that yet. What they also don't know is he's taken half a billion from Budget 2024 and pulled that forward. And then for reasons that I do not understand yet and I'm looking forward to someone taking a call and explaining he's just decreed that the cost of living payments are just outside the operating allowance. It's new spending but it's just gone. It's not in the operating allowance. So he's just decided that.So the net increase is $9.5 billion this year. Remember we started with $6 billion. That all gets baked in and if you look at the Budget documents you will find over the next four years $38 billion in increased spending. That's on top of the 68 percent increase that we've seen in the last five years. And I just put it to the House: are we 68 percent better off for the level of that spending? Have we seen a 68 percent reduction in child poverty? No numbers have gone up. Has there been a 68 percent reduction in the State house waiting list? No numbers have gone up by 500 percent. Has there been a 68 percent increase in hip operations? No not at all.So for all of that spending what's been the net outcome? What has been the net outcome? Well I'll tell you what. It's stupid things like $30000 to be spent on massive illuminated red zeros—oh sorry I'm wrong they're not just red; there's also a green one and there's a yellow one. I noticed there weren't any blue zeros. But they spent 30 grand through the New Zealand Transport Agency on big red zeros and we're going to have a lot of fun with those photos over the next 18 months or so. They've got 10000 more bureaucrats baked into the system in Wellington working on three waters and working on the health reforms. And if you're at KPMG or EY or PricewaterhouseCoopers or literally any consultancy in Wellington or Auckland it's clover. It's happy days for you my friend because there is so much money to be made out of bureaucratic restructuring and bureaucratic goings-on inside Wellington. And this Government's never seen a programme they didn't think would benefit from a working group or a good dollop of consultancies to throw some money at—they've never seen a project—and of course we are all bearing the consequence of that.And so here's the question. Grant Robertson spends 38 billion bucks over the next four years and he expects this House to believe through this Budget next year election year he'll turn up here and he'll say "Oh look I'm just going to have to keep the fiscal spigot under control this time. I've only got $2.5 billion to spend this year because I spent a little bit extra last year." Yeah right! There'll be another blowout because every year Grant Robertson turns up to Parliament and says "Next year I'll get it under control." It's like my diets. I turn up every year and I say "Oh next year I'll start the diet. Next year I'll get my weight under control." It'll never happen.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): I call the Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall for five minutes."