Lee DeniseDENISE LEE (National—Maungakiekie): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. There's a theme whereby the Minister of Finance Grant Robertson points out that his updates are truly just the starting point. Well this is the starting point of my parliamentary career. I've started other roles before and I've reasonable expectations of the environment that I normally come into. The expectations—they're not unrealistic or onerous; they're reasonable and they're sensible. Who wants to sign on to something that doesn't create a good future?On election night the country overwhelmingly chose the National Party. The majority of New Zealand expected the National Party to retain the Treasury benches. Why? So that we could continue certainty and we could carry on with the growth that earned us the lion's share of support in the first place. Some liked our ability to create 10000 a jobs a month for the prior 18 months or achieve 4.5 percent unemployment rates in December 2017 a nine-year low. Some liked our 21st century economy where the IT industry grew 9 percent per year since 2007. The total value of $3.6 billion to the economy in 2015 that's massive and some put simply felt quite safe knowing that we'd achieved 3.5 percent general economic growth over the past three years—higher than anyone thought.That was my starting point and I wanted to know that I was getting good governance clarity of direction wise spending and avoiding debt. I also wanted honesty about where the risks are to avoid them and to gauge where they are. Well the post-election period kicked up something different and that's what we have here today: a Budget Policy Statement that reads not at all what I would call a decent starting point. Instead of certainty risk mitigation we have a Budget Policy Statement that promotes uncertainty and a small taste of the new Government's spending appetite. Do you know what certainty would have been? It would have been if the Government had fully costed up their full policy programme. Instead the pre-Christmas half-yearly update contained only items in the 100-day plan. Where's the rest?There's a huge number of election commitments yet to be included in the Government accounts. Where are they? What's happening is cost cutting in some very regrettable areas to support the incredibly expensive 100-day plan—for example Aspire Scholarships for disadvantaged students and a fund for rare diseases. Infrastructure spending is up in the air and we've got road projects in uncertainty all around the country.If you think I'm nit-picking let's see where the benchmark lies. Let's take Treasury's own technical thresholds for what it considers to be a specific risk. It's $100 million. Does that sound like small bickies? Does that sound like pocket money? How many specific risks do you think the new Government has clocked up with Treasury? Benchmark—it has to be a minimum of $100 million. Twenty-nine specific risks. That's right—29 with a minimum level of $100 million each. Do the math—that's some serious uncertainty.If one's not concerned about the Budget Policy Statement at this point then let's add my final kicker. I said at the start that my starting point for any role was good governance wise spending and avoidance of debt. You build debt only when you need to at the times when it's required—let's say a couple of catastrophic natural events or a global financial crisis—but when it's good times you do what? You pay it down until now. Debt has been dropping down under the previous National Government and now in just four years' time the current Minister of Finance plans for debt to be at $70 billion. That's on top of the 29 specific Treasury risks at $100 million each minimum.Finally when I survey this Budget Policy Statement I think it's plainly obvious the Government have not prepared themselves for any future risks. We're in uncharted territory here. They're walking on a tightrope and we need only a small bit of wind to blow them off.