Smith Stuart; Tolley AnneSTUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you Madam Speaker. I'd actually like to start by addressing something my cousin from the top of the South over the hill from me Dr Smith raised about KiwiBuild and why they're not actually mentioning it. I think the Labour caucus has fallen into the trap of the well-worn habit of thespians not to mention the play. They won't mention the play Macbeth and the Labour caucus won't mention the word KiwiBuild". It's a curse. It's an absolute curse that they are trying to distance themselves from as much as possible. When the reshuffle is announced I have it on very good authority that Mr Twyford has statistics and seeing that James Shaw's made such a mess of the census he's going to get KiwiBuild so we'll just see an ongoing disaster unfolding in front of us. However I want to address the Budget the Wellbeing Budget. Wellbeing: no one can suggest anyone doesn't come into this House seeking to help the wellbeing and the livelihoods of New Zealanders. That's what we all come in for. However I think this Wellbeing Budget is actually a "well-meaning Budget." And Kiwis deserve more from their politicians than being well-meaning; we have to be able to deliver and that's why I support the amendment moved by the fine Leader of the Opposition the Hon Simon Bridges which was that we have no confidence in this Government and their botched Budget and all of the other promises that they will fail to deliver along the way.I think it's quite strange. Michael Wood raised some very interesting questions about the "Well-meaning Budget" saying that he thought it was going to do things differently. But what is "wellbeing"? That's what we'd like to know. What actually is wellbeing? It is a subjective measure. What wellbeing is to me may well be quite different to what wellbeing is to you Madam Speaker and to other Kiwis. So there is no definition of what "wellbeing" is and there are no measures. He said they were going to measure it. What are the measures? We haven't seen any measures. The Better Public Services targets were all deleted as soon as they got in—no measures. So if you can't measure it you can't manage it. That's a well-known maxim in business. It works because that's how it has worked many times through business—they know that if they can't measure it they can't manage it.Child poverty—he talked quite a lot about child poverty and how they were going to get it down but I would ask the member: what's happened to the stats on child poverty in the last 12 months? They've gone up under their watch—they've gone up. Where was that Wellbeing Budget? Why didn't they bring this Wellbeing Budget in in the first Budget that they had? If they cared so much about it and wanted to make some traction on it they should have moved on it right in the beginning.I think one of their biggest failings is the oil and gas ban that they brought. This is just an appalling piece of legislation. The cost of the ban has actually been estimated at $28 billion by 2050. Where is that $28 billion going to come from?Barbara Kuriger: What about the cost to climate change?STUART SMITH: Well the cost to climate change—the member Barbara Kuriger raises a very interesting point. In fact the Interim Climate Change Committee has actually pointed that out: it will likely increase our emissions. So where's the money coming from? Where are the jobs going to come from that are going to be lost because of this oil and gas ban? We know Taranaki has the highest GDP per capita in the country underpinned by that industry and we are all underpinned by it. I think the big issue really from this transition to a renewable electricity target which is in 2035 is that the climate committee estimated that electricity prices for consumers would go up by 14 percent and it would be 39 percent for industry. For those people who think that what electricity prices the industry pays won't affect them believe me they will. All of that will flow immediately through to costs in our economy and unless it is mirrored offshore that will also impact our exports. And that will have a huge impact on the wellbeing of New Zealanders.Higher electricity prices will also the committee points out slow the rate of decarbonisation in our economy. We will have to change quite rapidly to electric cars and electric cars are more expensive than internal combustion engine cars are higher priced and we also have an average age of our vehicle fleet of 15 years. We'll have to turn that fleet over far more quickly than we have been to date to get up to that target. Yet the people that are going to be impacted the most by increasing energy prices will be those on lower incomes. It is quite a regressive tax and that has not been addressed. Among other things we've seen from this Government they haven't actually done the homework. They had nine years in Opposition and they just simply didn't do the homework.It is estimated we have only a 10-year gas supply left and that is running down quite quickly. We've seen two exploration companies that have walked away from block offers just off the East Coast of the North Island which could have been a phenomenal resource for New Zealand. In the first quarter of this year we've seen an increase in coal consumption for electricity generation of 138 percent. We are on target to burn 500000 tonnes of coal this year in electricity generation and that is in part due to the interruption in supply for maintenance on the gas fields. We don't have enough gas here now. We need more supply and we need more than one or two fields; we need these fields on stream to drive our electricity system.The renewable electricity options are simply not here yet. They were just out here 10 years ago; they're still just about out here. We're almost there with these renewables and these batteries but we haven't got those technological breakthroughs enabling us to shift to a renewable electricity system by 2035 yet and it looks unlikely to be there. We need that oil and gas exploration for our economy to be less at risk. We only have to look at Germany where they tried to decarbonise there and push renewables by highly subsidising them but they have the luxury of importing electricity from offshore or from over the border. We don't have that luxury and ironically their electricity prices are the highest in Europe. And on top of that they also have increased their carbon emissions because they've had to burn more coal as well. So it's not been a very good outcome all round. Actually the last thing I'll close on on that is: can businesses and households afford a 39 percent increase in their energy costs? I would argue that they cannot.We move on to methane targets which is certainly an area of concern for anyone who lives in provincial New Zealand. These methane targets are out of line with what is being considered overseas. It's out of line with the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment's recommendations in his fine report and it is also—with these subsidies and all of the work that the Government is doing around its billion trees—forcing good productive farmland into forestry. The question for the members on the other side is: how many schools are going to close in rural New Zealand as a result of these policies? How many small towns will simply become ghost towns because of this target? It is unwise and also the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment thinks that the policy of allowing CO2 emissions to be offset with the planting of trees—we're the only country in the world to allow 100 percent of that—is a very bad policy and it should be done away with.I want to close on earthquake-prone buildings because the Minister of Finance actually—his own electorate—has a significant number of apartments in his area which are earthquake prone. I went along to the inner city Wellington meeting of those affected apartment owners and the finance Minister is acting like a backbench MP making quite sweet noises that he really sympathises with them; he's in a position to deal with it—overnight if he wanted to—for his constituents. Instead he put a miserly $10 million in the Budget to help those people in some way—and other apartment owners around New Zealand. It's totally inadequate. The Minister should actually man up. He's their electorate MP. If he can't do anything simply be honest and tell them that he can't and he won't but don't try and have a dollar each way as he is now.In closing I support the Leader of the Opposition's amendment. This is a botched Budget and it is really bad for New Zealand. We have no confidence in this Government. Thank you.DEPUTY SPEAKER: I understand this is a split call. I call Clayton Mitchell."