Bayly AndrewANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Well it's a pleasure to be talking on the Appropriation (2023/24 Estimates) Bill and the Imprest Supply (Second for 2023/24) Bill. Gee that was a dreadful speech. It was shocker from a senior Minister. It was actually full of a whole lot of mistruths—if I can say that—particularly around the issue of the winter energy payment. National is going to maintain the winter energy payment and I don't even know where the comment around the KiwiSaver reduction came from—it's just absolute figments of her imagination.It looks like a morgue over there. What has happened over there? There's no energy. I reckon they're all on their phones looking for jobs: I wonder what I'm going to do in 55 days' time." You couldn't even support your senior Minister; you're all sitting there going "Whoa woo oh ooh." What is happening? Show a bit of enthusiasm fight to the last! They're just giving up—you're all giving up. It's just disappointing to see.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! Order! The member knows that when he refers to and uses the term "you" he's referring to me. Please do not bring me into the debate.ANDREW BAYLY: I know I know Madam Speaker; you would never give up I know that. So maybe it's worthwhile just—[Interruption] Oh look they've come alive now! Well why don't we talk about a few figures? Because I know these people are so well versed with what's happening in the economy. Gee I listened to Mr Grant Robertson talking about fiscal responsibility. He loves using that term. I just wish he'd use the word "discipline" because he has never shown any discipline. Of course these two bills which we're meant to be talking about are about providing a little bit of extra cash—so do you have to spend a little bit more? Well unfortunately he's only got 55 days—hopefully.So we have witnessed six Budgets where Mr Robertson has overspent what he said he would do; technically referred to as operating allowances. But we have seen year after year of him blowing these Budgets and this is partly what this is about. We have seen during the last six years a record increase in tax. What I find staggering is if you are a business with a type of growth in the amount of new tax revenue that this Government has sucked out of New Zealanders out of their back pockets out of businesses it has gone from—back in 2014—about $75 billion this year it'll hit about $123 billion $124 billion. That's a $50 billion increase this year—a $50 billion increase in revenue.Gee if you had a business that suddenly went in a matter of six years to suddenly having $50 billion extra of revenue—or basically more than half of the value that you were getting six years ago—you'd think that's a pretty good business. This is what the Government's had because we've had such rapid inflation partly driven by the Government. Tax revenue has gone up because people have gone up into higher tax brackets and they're paying more out of their back pocket. It's called fiscal drag the technical term.But even with this $50 billion of extra money this Minister of Finance keeps spending even more. That's been the most appalling thing about what's happened over the last six years; we have racked up these incredible losses. And do you realise Madam Speaker—and I'm talking to you—that from the period 2020 to 2023 four years this country has racked up $45 billion of losses. You imagine going to your bank even if it's $45000 or $45 million whatever going to your bank and saying "Every year for the past four years we continue to rack up losses".What's worse the Budget even anticipates another $10 billion of losses over the next two years. That's $55 billion. But what is even worse as we've heard from Westpac who are normally pretty conservative they think because we have got a declining economy even worse than it was projected in the Budget that this country will rack up another $15 billion of losses on top of that. That's a staggering amount of money. That is $65 billion of losses because even though our tax revenue has gone from $75 billion to $125 billion we cannot—and this Government has not been able to contain itself. It is unbelievable how wasteful how inefficient how inept this Government has been. That Minister who was just speaking before Megan Woods she is an associate finance Minister; she should be appalled at their record because whatever way you cut it it has been disastrous management of the economy. And most of it has been driven by wasteful spending. Most of it has occurred during COVID. We would have done some of the $60 billion of additional spending that was spent by that Government during COVID. We would have done the wage support we would have done some more support but there's probably a missing $25 billion that has just gone into the ether. As Nicola Willis said before "What have we got to show for it?" What have we got to show for that $25 billion that's just gone into the ether? Have we had a new harbour crossing in Auckland? Have we seen new roads around the country? Have we seen lots more projects with hospital builds? Well we've seen the Dunedin Hospital build; even though we signed off on the business case six years ago it's only just really starting—six years later. That's how inept these people are and that is why we're so worried about it.We have just got rid of truckloads of money out the back door with nothing to show for it. I'll tell you another thing: if you think about the increase in the Public Service and I know the members opposite love talking about this but we have seen a 14000 increase in public servants and many of them are well meaning don't get me wrong. But that 14000 increase in the Public Service is a cost to the country to all of us of $1.4 billion. If you extrapolate that over 10 years—and remember this Government has been in power for six already—another four years of that would be the equivalent of $14 billion. That is the same amount of money that we could do an across Auckland Harbour crossing without even talking about funding. That is the scale of the wasteful spending that has gone on from this Government. Of course what we've seen is this rapid increase in debt because where do you go if you've got increasing tax revenue but you spend more and you waste it what's the balancing factors there?So we've seen debt go from roughly $6 billion to $73 billion. That is a staggering increase. Our gross debt stands at about $135 billion. If you were a household and you kept going to your bank and saying "I want to keep spending it like this" they would have made you bankrupt—they would have put you into bankruptcy.Of course the other really worrying thing—and we started asking the Reserve Bank about it; I started asking questions about this 18 months ago—is the current account deficit. Of the top 40 economies in the world New Zealand has currently got the highest current account deficit. I'll tell you what: going from the bottom back upwards—this is in the first quarter of 2023 to be factual—we are at the bottom; we're behind Latvia Belgium Hungary and Colombia. Oh God Colombia is a wonderful financially managed country I'm sure. Nice country but I'm not sure. Mexico: they've got a lower current account deficit than us; Brazil: Brazil's had a few economic issues I believe but hey don't worry they've got a lower current account deficit; India; and what about Greece? Greece has got a better current account deficit or lower than we have.That just shows how shameful this management of this economy in New Zealand has been by this Government and people know it. People in the street know it. They don't always know the details and they don't all know about the tax revenue and all that sort of stuff. But they understand it and it's burning a hole in their pocket because what this Government has been doing is taking that money out of their back pocket and just spending on this wasteful stuff and eventually people work that out and this Government finally is being found out. It is horrendous what's going on and the worst thing is it's working New Zealanders now—mum and dads who are working for a wage have got children—seeing their interest rates on their mortgages just dramatically increasing their food costs skyrocketing fuel prices gone up. They are the hard-done-by in New Zealand.We will come in and have to fix this mess. But it is such a bad state that this Government has driven New Zealand back to. It is appalling when you actually look at it and analyse it and think about it for more than five seconds. It has been pitiful. This is a Government bankrupt of ideas. This is a Government that needs to leave. This is a Government that needs to be voted out of office."