Bayly AndrewANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): Thank you Mr Speaker. It is with pleasure that I speak in the general debate today. I just want to say at the outset that I wish the new Government well and congratulate it on forming its coalition. Many weren't happy with the outcome but it is of course democracy in action.Before I talk I just want to return to that dreadful speech I heard from the Minister of Defence who talked with a lot of disrespect about the former Speaker of this House. I find that dreadful for the Minister of Defence to take that opportunity to make that attack on him. I just think he should cast back and remind himself about some of his own actions. I with former military experience just want to remind that speaker about the importance of wearing medals and the respect that comes with that. I just think that's been significantly undervalued.The second thing: I was glad that he did speak of Peter Beggs from Antarctica New Zealand. I know Peter well too and they do do a fantastic job. I'm sure that speaker is now going to be able to claim he's a polar explorer by having touched some snow in the Antarctic and so I wish him well.But I do think this raises a bigger issue: that is being in power is a lot different from sitting in the Opposition. I think some of the new Ministers are now finding that it's harder to be accountable for the results that they must now seek to achieve than they anticipated when they sat in Opposition. One of the biggest roles for any Government—any new Government particularly—is to show leadership. I was glad that the coalition set out a 100-day plan but I've got to note that that plan is on a slow burn. I'm rather disappointed personally that most of the bills we've debated in this House to date have been National Government bills from a hangover from the 51st—Mr SPEAKER: Order! I'm just going to warn the member not to anticipate any orders of the day and remind him we haven't debated any bills yet.ANDREW BAYLY: Thank you. With the issue of leadership the big issue is about confidence. I think this is the biggest issue for a new Government. There are worrying signs that people do worry and increasingly are worried about the future of the New Zealand economy: where we're going and a general lack of confidence. It's great to be able to talk about hope as we heard before and about being relentlessly positive" but I just want to highlight some of the independent parties who have already in the last two months started to highlight this issue of lack of confidence.The first one was the Alleasing Equipment Demand Index that came out just recently showing that 71 percent of businesses are concerned about the impact of politics on their ability to grow their business. The second one the renowned ANZ Research's ANZ Business Outlook showed that business confidence has turned down sharply particularly between the October and November period. The third was the slump in retail sales during the September quarter—and of course we know the retail sector employs many many New Zealanders.More recently the Westpac economists who say that this Government—and these are their words—"will face economic headwinds in 2018" are increasingly joining a list of people downgrading GDP growth for New Zealand. They quote—this is not me; this is independent contractors—"the issues that are leading to this lack of confidence are the plan to introduce free tertiary education" which in time will be significant at $8 billion "an increase in fuel tax particularly in Auckland the cost of increasing the minimum wage to $20 an hour and the increasing Government spend."This is the issue that I'm most worried about: where this Government's going to take our debt level. Our debt level is going to climb significantly and I think that the importance of this for New Zealanders is that it removes the flexibility to do stuff when things go wrong. All Governments get blind-sided whether it's by an earthquake or whatever and the lack of flexibility to deal with that by spending everything you've got and agreeing to everything that everyone wants to ask you—that ill-discipline is going to come back to haunt this Government.The debate having concluded the motion lapsed."