Luxon ChristopherRt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Prime Minister): Well I have to say that that was quite a sad pathetic and embarrassing speech from Chris Hipkins wasn't it? I've got to level with you: I'm not sure he actually wrote that speech and I'll tell you why. It's because Helen Clark is writing the foreign policy stuff we've got David Parker and the Piketty Pirates" writing all the tax policy and we've got Michael Wood and Craig Renney doing everything else. But the one thing we know for sure is that Kieran McAnulty is writing Chris Hipkins' valedictory speech and what I'd say to Kieran McAnulty is that it's not long son—your shot and your time is coming. Now you can see that they're not happy campers on the Labour side. You can see it up here real close and personal and you know that that's the case when Carmel Sepuloni the deputy leader takes time off to go on Celebrity Treasure Island which when you think about it is a bit like the Labour Party isn't it? It's a lot less drama but a lot more time on TV when you think about it. But for Chris Hipkins his life is more like Survivor because he has been hanging on to power doing anything he can to maintain his role. Last year he was campaigning against David Parker and against Grant Robertson on having a capital gains tax; now he's miraculously for it. Just six months ago he thought that exploring AUKUS pillar 2 was a good idea just like our Government did and now no he's not doing that. But I'll tell you what was interesting: last year he was campaigning and supporting Michael Wood in Mt Roskill and he's not doing any of that at this point in time. I've got to tell you Carlos Cheung the great National MP who won it for National for the first time ever—he actually didn't count on Chris Hipkins being his greatest ally for re-election in 2026. I've got to say that it was a sorry sorry sight seeing Chris Hipkins deliver that speech. It was sorry because here's the truth: he had six years in power—six years in power—and deep down when he looks in the mirror each morning he knows that he messed it up and he blew it big time. That's what he did. Once again as I said that speech as I've said before illustrated Chris Hipkins: he is the arsonist that returns to the scene of the fire that he lit and then he tries to criticise us as a fire brigade putting it out—and that's exactly what happens. But let's remind New Zealanders as to the firestorm that Chris Hipkins and Labour created because here's the record—here's the record. They hired 18000 more public servants and yet they delivered worse results. I've got to tell you that that's a special and a unique skill set to be able to deliver that. He increased Government spending by 84 percent and he taxed everyone a lot more in the process. He borrowed more. We went from $5 billion to almost $100 billion worth of debt. We're now paying $9 billion in interest payments and that's $9 billion we don't have to spend on schools and hospitals and infrastructure and on our kids in New Zealand. Inflation hit a 30-year high interest rates went right through the roof we've had the economy in recession for four of the last five quarters and we've got Kiwis losing their jobs and getting out of work. I've got to say regardless of the leader of the Labour Party and regardless of the finance spokesperson it's the same economic strategy and plan and it's pretty simple: it's spend more it's borrow more it's tax more and it's worse outcomes. That's what it's going to be. The problem with that is that it's pain and suffering for everyday New Zealanders—that is what the legacy of the Labour Government will be. New Zealanders are having to battle with high inflation high interest rates economic recession and losing their jobs—losing their jobs. So I want to say that it should have been a much shorter speech. It should have been much much shorter. It should have just been two words—just two words—long and the two words should have been "Thank you." It should have been "Thank you coalition Government and thank you Nicola Willis."—"Thank you Nicola Willis and coalition Government for putting out the fire. Thank you for cleaning up my ungodly mess. Well done coalition Government." That would have sufficed and that's all it needed to be. But I've got to say wasn't that a brilliant Budget—a brilliant Budget—from Nicola Willis? I've got to say that if the last few years have shown us anything it's actually that we need a caring intelligent thoughtful hard-working finance Minister and thank goodness we've got one in Nicola Willis—an outstanding finance Minister. Our economic plan is very simple with this Government. It's about rebuilding the economy so that we can get rid of inflation and reduce the cost of living; it's about restoring law and order so that Kiwis feel safe in their homes their businesses and their communities; and it's about making sure we deliver better public services on education and healthcare. That is how we get New Zealand back on track. But despite all the wittering we heard from Chris Hipkins and Labour do you think they're actually interested in restoring and rebuilding our economy? Hon Members: No. Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: No. Do they support fast-track legislation so that we can actually get things done in this country? Hon Members: No. Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: No. After spending $1.2 billion do you think they've fixed three waters? Hon Members: No. Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: No. Do they support roads of national significance and regional significance? Hon Members: No. Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: No. Do they support reversing the oil and gas ban so we've got energy security? Hon Members: No. Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Do you think they support giving working Kiwis—the people they used to care about—tax relief? Hon Members: No. Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: No no—absolutely not. Now we have more wittering from Labour and from Chris Hipkins but do you think they're interested in restoring law and order? Hon Members: No. Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: No. Do they want to abolish the prisoner reduction target? Hon Members: No. Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Do they want to give more powers to police to go after our gangs? Hon Members: No. Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Do they support cracking down on youth offending? Hon Members: No. Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: No. Do they support three strikes? Hon Members: No. Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: No no—they didn't. That's right—they didn't do that. I've got to say that after all that wittering—again a long speech a sad speech from Chris Hipkins—do you think they're actually interested in delivering better public services? Hon Members: No. Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: No no of course not—of course not. Do you think they supported banning the mobile phones in schools? Hon Members: No. Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: No. Great idea—don't know why. Do you think they support having an hour of maths an hour of reading and an hour of writing in our primary and intermediate schools? Hon Members: No. Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: No. Do you think they support delivering structured literacy so our kids can learn to read? Hon Members: No. Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Definitely not—no. No—no way. No way. Do you think they support rights and responsibilities in welfare? Hon Members: No. Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: No they don't do that. Do they deliver better health outcomes for Māori? They definitely didn't do that. Hon Members: No. Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: No and do they fund Pharmac's medicines in the Budget properly? Hon Members: No. Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Definitely not. Do you think they got more security into our emergency departments? Shane Reti did that in a couple of weeks—yeah Shane got it in there—and do you think they support public sector reform? Hon Members: No. Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: No. So not one—not one—initiative do they support to make sure they'd rebuild the economy restore law and order and deliver better health and education. But this Budget had three key objectives. The first was to cut the wasteful spending and the dumb programmes the second was to invest in the front-line services that Kiwis value and need the most and the third was to deliver tax relief to the squeezed middle. So I've got to say to you that this is a responsible Budget. This is a careful Budget. This is a Budget for the squeezed middle and it is a Budget for difficult times. It is a Budget under pressure and I've got to tell you under pressure makes diamonds. Isn't it a Budget that Nicola Willis did such a great job with delivering so much for the New Zealand people? Look what's being delivered—look what's being delivered. There is more money for health there is more money for education there is more money for disability services there's more money for police there's more money for corrections and there's more money for defence. Above all I have to say that this is a good Budget because we are keeping our word and our promise to New Zealanders. Nicola Willis said it but after 14 long years this Government is delivering personal income tax relief to working Kiwis. It is fiscally neutral tax relief funded from savings and new revenue measures—exactly as we promised—within the spending limits that we campaigned on. From 31 July 94 percent—94 percent—of all New Zealand households are going to receive some tax relief from this year's Budget. That's right—up to $102 for an average-income household who may well then be eligible for up to another $150 of FamilyBoost support to offset early childhood education expenses. This is great news. It's great news for the squeezed middle those low and middle income working families—the folk that Labour purported to care about but don't any more—battling to get through from pay cheque to pay cheque who actually are going to benefit from tax relief in this year's Budget. So whatever the conditions whoever is the leader let's just be clear it's more of the same from Labour: more spending more tax more borrowing and worse outcomes. Now you heard it from Nicola Willis that our priority is to rebuild the economy and this is a Budget that delivers on that objective. It's a Budget that charts a pathway back to surplus it's a Budget with a plan to get the debt down and it's a Budget that shows that inflation is going to come down. We want it below 3 percent by the end of the year. We'll have interest rates cuts after that so we can get the show on the road and get the country growing. I've got to say that it is a Budget that when I talk with those families that I've sat with at budgeting services who are risk of losing their homes because of high mortgages and because of high inflation and because of ridiculous spending—they're going to really appreciate that. That's a Budget when I meet the families out in foodbanks who actually never imagined they'd be there and they're there in record numbers because they can't afford the groceries because of the mismanagement from the previous Government—they're going to love this Budget; they're going to love it. This is a Budget that actually also creates the foundations for further economic growth. That's what it does—economic growth to be created so we can end Labour's recession.We said it before but we are going to be an infrastructure Government. We are going to have world-class modern reliable infrastructure in this country because we are going to get Kiwis moving and we're going to get this economy growing again. That's what it's about.So there's a lot of money for fantastic new roads of national significance. And we know the power of roads. We've seen great roads: the Waikato Expressway the Kāpiti Expressway Pūhoi to Warkworth—fantastic roads. But of course Labour and the Greens don't like roads. I don't think they even like tunnels—that's the reality of it. But more importantly they don't like building anything—they don't like building anything. Do you think they actually built Auckland light rail? No. Do you think they got Wellington moving? No. Do you think they solved three waters with $1.2 billion of taxpayers' money? No they didn't—no they didn't.Well here's the deal. We're going to get things done in this country because this is a coalition Government that knows how to build things and get things done. We want to see more wind farms. We want to see more solar farms. We want to see more geothermal. We want to see more natural gas. And so there's going to be more homes there's going to be more businesses and there's going to be more infrastructure—more of everything that we need to get this show on the road and get this country growing again.I want to put a serious challenge to the Labour Party and to the Green Party and just say very simply that if you cared about housing affordability—if you genuinely cared about it—if you genuinely cared about climate change and if you cared about energy independence rather than importing coal from Indonesia you would back these reforms. You honestly would. You would back these reforms if you cared about those things. But you don't want to get anything done in this country and you just want to keep playing student politics. Well we are serious people on this side and we are seriously going to get things done.Now I have to say this is a Budget that is about driving better value from every dollar that we spend. And you heard great examples from Nicola Willis that we spend on behalf of taxpayers and we will spend carefully and responsibly and with good discipline—that's what it's about. We know it's not just how much you spend but it's actually how you spend it and importantly what results and outcomes are delivered. That's what matters to the New Zealand people—that's what matters to them.So I want us to take law and order because we have some great Ministers doing amazing things to get more cops on the beat to make sure we get more corrections officers more funding for rehabilitation services more consequences for serious youth offenders. Cracking down on our gangs—that's what they're doing. And we're able to do that because we saved hundreds of millions of dollars in savings to actually support our fight to restore law and order. That's what we did. So we're targeting the programmes—the actual programmes—that work and we're shifting money from the back-office bureaucracy out to the front-line services.And that means that we can make some real choices—real choices—in law and order things like actually expanding rehabilitation services to remand prisoners. These are people with substance abuse and serious trauma in their life and that's going to be a success story because of the savings that have been made by this Government to support those front-line services.We can take education because I've got to tell you Erica Stanford is doing a great job fighting for the future of our kids and making sure they get the education they need. She's done an incredible job moving hundreds of millions of dollars from the back office of the Ministry of Education out to the front-line services.We've got nearly $1.5 billion in this Budget to fund and build new classrooms and maintain existing ones—well done—$67 million to support structured literacy so we teach our kids the same way every day how to read and how to write. We know it from the Labour side. We heard it this week didn't we from Jan Tinetti that they don't like structured literacy. No they don't like it—they don't like it. And if they could just get past the ideology and actually take an evidence-based approach to education I'm telling you right now the kids of New Zealand would be reading better and the future would look so much brighter wouldn't it?And I have to say evidence in education kind of matters. It really matters because actually when you look at it the evidence from Chris Hipkins' time as education Minister for five years in the last Government is pretty bad. Half the kids show up at high school not ready to go. They don't know the basics well enough. Over half the kids aren't attending school 90 percent of the time—incredible. And actually we just lost half a decade with Chris Hipkins as education Minister where nothing was achieved.I want to talk quickly about health in the time that I've got because we are going to have to fix the healthcare system too—that's what we're going to do. Labour spent truckloads didn't they? They spent truckloads. They restructured the healthcare system they moved the bureaucracy around and they shuffled paper and people. But at the end of the day what have we got to show for it? What have we got to show for it? Nothing. Nothing—that's right. We've got increased wait times for emergency departments and we've got increased wait times for first specialist appointments and elective surgeries. We've got less kids being immunised under the age of two so they're not protected and we're going to fix it. And we're going to have Dr Shane Reti shake it up and that's what he's going to do.And that's why we've brought back targets; that's why we're changing the leadership. And in this year's Budget we are going to make big investments that are focused on the front line—billions of dollars to health to fund nurses and doctors so that Kiwis can get those services when they're unwell and when they need it. So $1.8 billion to lock in permanent funding for Pharmac after Labour put those medicines at risk for everyday Kiwis.I've got to say it's about the little things too right? It's about the little things. The $24 million going to Gumboot Friday to help 15000 kids—15000 kids who desperately need those free counselling sessions—so that they can move forward with their lives and deal with their mental health challenges. We are all proud of that commitment on this side—we are proud of that commitment. So what did Labour say about that? Oh they said it was tin-pot politics. They said it was disturbing. They said it diminished trust in the democratic process. Well here is what I think erodes trust in the democratic process: it's a useless previous Government that didn't deliver anything for New Zealanders. That's what erodes trust in the democratic process. That's what does it. What Labour didn't learn in six years was that Kiwis don't just want activity; they want achievement they want delivery and they want a Government to get things done and that's what we're doing here.I have to say I want to thank our coalition partners who have worked incredibly hard on this Budget—incredibly hard. David Seymour and the ACT Party—we have a Minister who actually gets that red tape is creating our obstruction economy and he gets the impact that charter schools are going to have and the difference they're going to make for kids across New Zealand. And it's great to see those things funded in this Budget.And we've got Winston Peters and New Zealand First. And I want to say thank you for what they've done as well because we finally have a Foreign Minister now who's out there championing for New Zealand on the world stage after three years of Labour sitting here at home and sitting on their hands. And New Zealand First believe in economic development—they do. And that's why we're seeing a regional infrastructure fund that's going to deal with things like flood protection. We're seeing them make sure that they accelerate fast-track consenting so we can get things done. So I want to say thank you to our partners there as well.Well I have to say this is a very good Budget. It is a very good Budget from a very good finance Minister Nicola Willis. And we are so proud of her—we are so proud of Nicola Willis. And I'm telling you New Zealand is damn lucky to have her in this role and she is an excellent finance Minister and we just saw that today.This is a careful Budget. This is a Budget for the squeezed middle. This is a Budget for difficult times. And it's a Budget that despite the mess and the difficult economic conditions that we've inherited from the previous Government actually has still found a way to spend more money on health more money on education and more money on law and order. And those are the things that New Zealanders care about. Those are the things that New Zealanders want us to deliver for them. So it is a Budget that is actually for all those Kiwis and all those families who've had to tighten their belts over the last couple of years all those businesses that have done the same thing and now they have a Government with good financial management tightening its own belt as well.Can I just say in closing this is a Budget that starts to restore the promise of New Zealand and that promise is pretty simple: it's that if you're prepared to work hard in the best country on planet Earth you deserve and should be able to get ahead. So I just say to you this is a Budget that is going to start to get New Zealand back on track."