Goldsmith Paul: Public Finance (Fiscal Responsibility) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGoldsmith Paul: Public Finance (Fiscal Responsibility) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 27 August 2013. Volume:693;Page:12906. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): I am very disappointed that Mr Parker and the Labour Party have found a reason to not support this Public Finance (Fiscal Responsibility) Amendment Bill this very important bipartisan bill that has usually been held to by all parties in the House. It is unusual to find the Greens and New Zealand First certainly being more responsible on such a matter. We tried hard during the Finance and Expenditure Committee process. We listened to Kevin Rudd—I am sorry I mean David Cunliffe—making long speeches in the select committee working on all the details and huffing and puffing. We listened to all that and we thought we had made something that everybody could agree with and Labour did not support this bill. That is very sad for the country given that that glue that holds us all together in our agreement over basic fiscal responsibility has been weakening as we have seen Labour losing its way I think. It used to be the party for the workers and it is no longer. I think National is the party for the workers these days for the people who look after themselves who look after their families who work hard and who are involved with their community.We recognise that the world does not owe us our living standard that it is not written in stone that New Zealand will always be one of the rich places in the world and that we have got to go out in the hard world and make a living. Mr Parker says that what is being talked about in this fiscal responsibility legislation is all motherhood and apple pie. Well you can look at plenty of countries around the world that have not understood that motherhood and apple pie idea. They have not understood that you have actually got to spend less than you earn and that Governments have to be responsible over a long time. New Zealand has been very fortunate that broadly speaking parties have all understood that. I do acknowledge that for a long period the previous Labour Government did hold a basically responsible approach. I criticise it in the sense that it left us at the end of its 9 years with a whole lot of spending projections and a whole lot of decisions that were leaving the country pregnant with debt which was going to be building up over the next 5 years.Having said all that we have had a tradition. It is a very important tradition and I think we should be reinforcing it not finding excuses not to be supporting this fiscal responsibility bill. The Western welfare States all around the world are having to face up to the fact that we have to change—[Interruption]The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order!PAUL GOLDSMITH: I am sorry Mr Assistant Speaker.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): That is all right. I think someone is using a telephone in the House—PAUL GOLDSMITH: Oh right.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): —and this is not a call centre. This is a debating chamber.PAUL GOLDSMITH: Indeed and these are grave matters that we are debating. So Western countries are facing up to the challenges and the good news in all this is that New Zealanders can adapt. They can see that the world is changing and that we cannot just expect to have an entitlement culture dominating the way that we see the world but we have to go out and work hard and make a living. So it is about controlling expenditure and this Government has a very good record on controlling expenditure. Nobody believed that we would be back in surplus next year but we will be. We are reforming the welfare State that we have inherited for the first time in seven decadesand getting some practical boundaries around the welfare State and that is going to make a big difference.Just drawing in on the bill itself I think that one of the more important aspects of it is the tweaking that it has done in the reporting requirements for the fiscal strategy reports and in particular I want to make note of requiring fiscal strategy reports to be clear about what the Government is trying to achieve and how its management of the Crown resources contributes to its goals. I think that puts its finger on the issue. I would be interested to hear from Labour speakers because Labour increased spending on health by 50 percent for example. But that is not an end in itself. Just because you have increased spending by 50 percent it does not automatically make the world a better place so what were the outcomes that it actually achieved with that 50 percent increase in spending? That is the thing that we need to be focusing on and that is how this Government has turned things round and has focused on asking: “Well OK what are we trying to achieve in health? What are the results that we want to get in terms of immunisation and in terms of access to surgery and those things?”. Increasing the results in that area is the important thing. When you shift that focus and concentrate on results you get a far more disciplined approach to spending. So that ultimately over time will be one of the great contributions of this Public Finance (Fiscal Responsibility) Amendment Bill. On that basis I commend this bill to the House.