Luxon Christopher; Mallard TrevorBUDGET DEBATECHRISTOPHER LUXON (Leader of the Opposition): I move That all the words after That" be replaced with "this House and the people of New Zealand have lost confidence in this Government because this Budget takes them backwards. Households are going backwards. The books are going backwards. Outcomes are going backwards. The country is going backwards."Grant Robertson had one task in this Budget and that was to ruthlessly focus everything in this Budget around overcoming the cost of living crisis and to stop New Zealanders going backwards. But it's clear that he's failed because Grant Robertson has delivered the "backwards" Budget. Now I have to say we had a moment. We thought about calling it the "Budget blowout" Budget then we thought maybe it's just the "band-aid" Budget but we landed on the "backwards" Budget because when you cut through all the words and you strip out all the spin and look at the facts of it the sad news for New Zealanders is that Kiwis are going backwards the books are going backwards and the outcomes are going backwards.Now the sad part of this Budget is that the reality is that Kiwi families and Kiwi households are going backwards. They're being squeezed by this massive cost of living crisis. And I want New Zealanders to get really clear about where we are and what's happening with this cost of living crisis because inflation is at a 30-year high. It's higher than most of our trading partners despite what Jacinda Ardern and Grant Robertson will tell us and it's actually getting a grip in this economy. Now some people like David Parker are students of economic history and if you go back to New Zealand in the early 1980s we remember interest rates being at 20 percent and we remember double-digit inflation. You look around the world and inflation destroys economies. And once it gets in it's hard to get out and it causes hurt and pain to people everywhere. We've got inflation now at just under 7 percent we've got wage growth only at 3 percent and that means all Kiwis are going back faster than they've been going in the last three decades. Mortgage costs are up because interest rates are up rents are up $150 food prices are up the highest they've been in over a decade and petrol is up over $3 a litre. And I can tell you Kiwis up and down this country are feeling that pain. And this Budget will be putting Kiwis backwards into the future. The Budget forecasts that inflation isn't actually due to come down below 3 percent until 2025. And what that actually means is that this cost of living crisis is going to go on for longer and for some time and Kiwis will keep going backwards. And rising inflation is going to mean that our mortgage rates and our interest rates are going to have to go higher for longer and sadly there is more pain on the way for Kiwi households. And what we saw in this Budget was that the growth forecasts have been slashed. Growth in 2024 will be less than 1 percent and only a few months ago growth in 2024 was going to be 2 percent and now it's been slashed and unemployment is going to continue to rise and by 2025 we expect it to be just under 5 percent. Kiwis are going backwards under Labour and the Budget shows that it's going to continue.Now to Grant Robertson my advice to you is quite simple: you need to get out more; you need to leave the Beehive get out of the Wellington Central beltway and go meet some real people up and down this country because I can tell you—the Kiwis will tell you—they're going backwards and you're not listening to them. And every week I get out of this place and I go to maybe two or three towns across this country and the message is clear: there is a big cost of living crisis it is broad-based it's affecting everyone and it's impacting everything. But there was basically nothing in the Budget for the hard-working young couple who came up to me on ANZAC Day at Stockade Hill in Howick the other day. They were a teacher and a nurse and they said to me "Chris we've got good jobs on average incomes we're really good with our money and we're trying really hard to save for a deposit for a house." But because of rising rents because of the rising costs on everything they can't get ahead and they can't get that deposit together. And then they started to say to me "We think there might be more opportunity for us if we move to Queensland." And I thought that is a tragedy that young people don't think that this is a country where there's opportunity for them and that they can get ahead. And they are what we call the squeezed middle because the Government doesn't care about them. They earn too much to get formal Government help and support but they don't earn enough to deal with the cost of living crisis the rising mortgage payments the rising rents the rising food and the rising petrol prices. So let me be really clear: the cost of living package that this Government announced in the Budget today is just a band-aid on a major wound—it's a band-aid. They deny that there was in fact even a cost of living crisis for a long period of time and now they've added a temporary band-aid which just runs out after three months. And I can tell you what we just saw was inflation's going to be running at 3 percent right out to 2025 so Grant Robertson's big solution to the current cost of living crisis is a temporary payment to a small group of people. And I have to tell you: if you're earning $71000 a year you get nothing. And that means nobody on the average wage gets a cost of living payment because these are the people that would have benefitted from income relief through a very good sensible logical plan—our plan which was just say "Take the current progressive tax system and in fairness why don't you just lift the tax thresholds up by the amount of inflation? And an average Kiwi household would have had $1600 a year to fight this cost of living crisis that they're facing." But Grant Robertson said no." And why did he say no? Because the dirty little secret is that inflation while it destroys savings it destroys people's purchasing power and it gets into an economy. The dirty little secret is that inflation helps Grant Robertson. Why? Because he's collected $17 billion more in tax revenue because as prices go up taxes go up. And Grant Robertson as we know is utterly totally addicted to spending and that means that he won't let Kiwis keep a single cent of their own money because he thinks he can spend it better than them. And on this side of the House we know Kiwis with cash in their pockets will spend it and save it a lot better than Grant Robertson.So in the spirit of wanting to help Grant Robertson I wanted him to think about—he could have adopted the National Party inflation fighting plan if he wanted to deal with the cost of living crisis. And what is that? It's (1) return the Reserve Bank to a single mandate to fight inflation; (2) remove the costs that you add to business so we don't pass through higher prices that further drive inflation—get rid of the rental property taxes get rid of the national awards get rid of the national income insurance; (3) remove the bottlenecks that are stopping productive growth in our economy—why don't we wake up Kris Faafoi and get the immigration settings in this country set right?; (4) why don't we review all the existing and new spending? It's obvious that it hasn't happened with this Budget. We have an unprecedented amount of money being spent here; and (5) prioritise tax relief as I just said for those workers. It wasn't ideological; it was sensible practical common sense just to say "Take the tax thresholds index them to inflation and give people a break." And what I want to say is anyone earning over $50000 would be better off under National's proposed inflation-adjusted tax brackets compared to Labour's cost of living package.Let me lay out the facts on why the books are going backwards because it is very very important that Kiwis register what has gone on here today because of the economic mismanagement and the lack of economic leadership from this Government. Kiwis up and down this country are tightening their belts at their kitchen tables. They are doing it. Grant Robertson should be doing exactly the same but he's not. And what we have seen from this Government is a loss of a culture of financial discipline. We've seen a loss of targets. They don't care about every single dollar being spent as if it's their own and they should because it's not their money; it's taxpayers' money. But I'm telling you Grant Robertson has a problem and his problem is that he is so deeply and utterly addicted to spending and I want to say that the impact of his addiction on our fiscal books is incredibly clear and when you think about it he's damaging New Zealand's economy very strongly. This is—be under no doubt—a massive Budget blowout. This Government—and I want to just step it through—has increased Government spending since coming to power by 67 percent. You haven't seen a 67 percent improvement in outcomes or services. And consequently we're spending $127 billion this year in Government spending. That is unprecedented and that is $51 billion more this year than it was in 2017—$51 billion more. And now let's just look at this year because Grant Robertson said he would spend $6 billion in the biggest Budget spend-up in the history of New Zealand and he's actually spending far far more than that. And I want to take the House and the country through this because it's actually really important everybody understands what's going on because he's trying to make out that he's fiscally prudent. And the reality is he's more addicted to spending than he's ever been before. There's the $6 billion he's already announced and then you have to remember earlier in the week he spent $3 billion from the Climate Emergency Response Fund earlier in the week—a lot on Labour projects and buzz words and strategies and plans and plans for plans.But not to be done there he's gone off and spent another $2 billion of new spending from the Budget next year. And then on top of that he's added another $400 million from the Budget after that. That's called Budget 2024. And he's so desperate to spend up that he's actually robbed $2.5 billion from the next two years of Budgets. But it's even worse than that because the cost of living payment is actually outside that new allowance. There is a massive Budget blowout and when everyone thinks seriously about 2023—he's going to be spending a lot more next year you just know it. Like someone who's addicted to spending he can say all he likes about the future but we just don't trust him because when you're addicted to spending you can't let it go and we know he'll continue to do it in the coming years. So it's no surprise that the surplus is pushed out another year; it's no surprise that a $2 billion surplus has now evaporated like a mirage into a $2 billion deficit; and it's no surprise when you think about the hyper-spending levels that we've now got more Government debt—it's nearly tripled; I mean Government debt has tripled to $173 billion. And the problem with that is there's no modern monetary theorist—you actually have to pay the interest on the debt and that bill is almost $5 billion a year and that means that that is twice what we spend on our police force. So that means that Kiwis cannot get better public services as a result of that debt because of his out-of-control spending addiction. Now I want to say that the books are going backwards and Kiwi households are going backwards and the outcomes are going backwards and the people of New Zealand see through this Government. I'm telling you now they can see it is all spin no delivery. They can see it is all talk no action. Lots of activity but no achievement is what's going on here. Listen I'm going to give you some advice because the fundamental problem with this Government is that they conflate and they confuse spending announcements with actually getting things done and getting outcomes for New Zealanders and they are two very different concepts. For you to spend money and to deliver outcomes there's something in the middle called "implementation execution delivery". Those are the things you need to do. But if you haven't run anything you don't know how to get things done and that's exactly the story of all of this front bench: they don't know how to convert the spending into outcomes. And you can pick any topic you want—any portfolio you want—and you're going to see a consistent pattern: more spending more bureaucrats worse outcomes.Let me give you an example; let's take Chris Hipkins and education because without doubt that's the most damning set of stats I've seen since I've come into politics and to this place 18 months ago. He spent $5 billion more hired 1400 more staff—staff earning $120000 or more has tripled—and yet we have less kids attending school and we have worse academic outcomes. What we've got from Chris Hipkins is more spending more bureaucrats and worse outcomes. Let's look at Megan Woods and housing because if you remember something called KiwiBuild—remember KiwiBuild?—we don't talk about it anymore but the flagship KiwiBuild; only delivering 1.3 percent of the promised 100000 houses. But even if we put that aside just think about the four outcomes you actually have to deliver in housing: house prices are up $400000; rents are up $150; there's a quadrupling—a fourfold increase—of people wanting a State house; and sadly this morning 4500 kids woke up in a motel in emergency accommodation. So what I've got to say is that from Megan Woods we've seen more spending more bureaucrats and worse outcomes. Let's talk about Kris Faafoi because he's probably going to wake up now. He spent an extra $150 million. He's hired another 500 people and on every single visa processing the wait time has got even longer. What is that? More spending more bureaucrats worse outcomes. I want to talk about Kelvin Davis just quickly because we should talk about Kelvin and Corrections. He spent $139 million. He increased the back office staff of Corrections by 50 percent and then those prisoners that desperately need alcohol and drug rehabilitation services dropped from just over 6000 down to 1000. More spending more bureaucrats worse outcomes. I really want to talk about Michael Wood and transport—that's the one I really want to get to because who would have thought that an $800 million bike bridge across the Waitematā was a killer idea? Brilliant idea. And then you go and spend $55 million on consultants looking at it and then we're still hiring an empty office building on Auckland's waterfront to run a cancelled project for $600000. He's tripled the communications staff we've had a tenfold increase in those that are paid over $100000 and even then they still can't communicate why you need two props of zeroes for $10000. I mean you honestly can't make this stuff up and I could go through every single portfolio and the story's the same: more spending more bureaucrats worse outcomes. They don't know how to get things done. I just want you to take yourselves back two weeks ago because two weeks ago Andrew Little came to this House and he stood up and he realised he had a problem with wait-lists on health. And he had a cunning idea I thought you know because the reality is this: there's been a fifteenfold increase in people waiting more than four months for their first specialist appointment and that was from when they came to power before COVID in February 2020 and it's only got worse since then. Anyway so Andrew Little came to the House and he said "Look I can't just go and create another working group because that's what we used to do. We spent nine years in Opposition we had no ideas we arrived in Government on day one and we formed 230-plus working groups." Now we lost count of them but that's what they did. So he didn't just create a working group; he thought about it a bit more and he created what we call a "task force"—that was task force. And the great thing about a task force—this wasn't just a normal task force or a bog-standard task force; no this was a "high-powered task force" OK. [Cheers from Opposition members] Yes and I've been thinking about it because as I look here and I look across the other side what you see is people who are tired and struggling to get things done in this Government. And New Zealanders are looking at this Government and they can see they're tired and struggling to get things done. I've been thinking about how I can help and how we can help and I think what this Government needs is a high-powered task force. Here's the idea for you: what I want to suggest to you is you could employ a high-powered task force called "the National Party" to actually go off and take over and run this Government and get outcomes for the New Zealand people. And I can tell you the National Party is ready. We are able and we are willing to step up and deliver for the New Zealand people—and the New Zealand people they trust us because they know we'll have an economic plan. They know that we can provide the economic leadership that this country so desperately needs. The bottom line is that we have to kick-start and enlarge this economic engine in this country of ours. And on this side of the House we know strong economic management a strong economy is actually how we lift prosperity for people. We know that a strong economy is actually how you lift wages; how people get ahead. It's actually how you get a world-class healthcare system. A strong economy is how you improve education a strong economy is how you have a police force that can keep communities safe and a strong economy is what enables us to protect our environment. A strong economy is how you get Kiwis ahead and that is what a National Party Government will deliver. You might remember but years ago Grant Robertson used to talk about an economic concept called "productivity" and he was actually on to something but he's actually given up talking about it now because he's got this addiction to spending that's running his life and taking control of everything. And the biggest thing that we can do is we can lift incomes for Kiwis by improving the productivity of our economy and what that means when you look at it is you've got to get into the fundamental drivers of an economic plan and that is about improving education it's about a world-class infrastructure system that connects us to each other and to the world. It's about technology and capital and innovation. It's about making sure we have a pro-business environment because we know the Government doesn't do things and get things done; it's businesses the lifeblood of New Zealand that get things done in this country. And we need connections with the world in order to sell our best products and services to the 7.8 billion people sitting in 195 other countries. That's how we back Kiwis to succeed that's how we get higher wages and incomes and that's how we give people more choice and freedom. In closing let me say that New Zealanders deserve far more than this Government has delivered. Labour has taken so much in taxes they've added so much debt and they've spent so much money but yet they have delivered so little in public services and outcomes. And this is indeed sadly the "backwards Budget". The books are going backwards Kiwi households are going backwards the outcomes are going backwards and sadly the country's going backwards and we're heading in the wrong direction. New Zealanders deserve a Government focused on outcomes and getting things done that listens and works with communities and businesses to do so and we're going to do that in the National Party Government that we lead. We do live in the best country on planet Earth. I'm optimistic about New Zealand. I believe we can do so much better than this. I want us to be confident. I want us to be aspirational. I want us to be ambitious. I want us realising our maximum potential—economically socially and environmentally. And that's what New Zealanders can expect and that's what they'll get with a National Government in 2023. Thank you. [Applause from Opposition members]SPEAKER: If the members would like the amendment put they will sit down. The question is that the amendment be agreed to."