Goldsmith Paul; O'Connor GregHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): It's been a week of Shakespearean tragedy for this Government and now is the spring of our discontent as inflation runs right across the landscape eating into families' budgets adding pressure to Kiwis as they go to the supermarket as they pay their bills.And with inflation comes higher interest rates as the Reserve Bank scrambles to restore its credibility as an inflation fighter. Those interest rates will hurt families across the country. An extra $26000 a year for an average Auckland mortgage holder we were told today. And the Reserve Bank's task is being made harder by this Labour Government that still has its foot flat to the floor increasing spending adding to inflationary pressures and starving the country of the extra workers that it needs through overly tight immigration and incompetent visa processing. And it's still spending hundreds of millions on Depression-era make-work schemes like the Jobs for Nature.And in this hour of need do we see Jacinda Ardern or Grant Robertson standing up with a clear plan to get inflation under control to restore discipline to spending to reduce pressure on businesses and families to give people hope? No we don't. We see increasing desperation.They stand like Macbeth as they see the great Birnam wood coming against them crabbing relentlessly across the plain. All their announcements of spending all their good intentions they don't stop the relentless march of inflation of falling real incomes of worse outcomes on every measure: with the wait times in emergency departments on ram raids on school attendance on emergency housing on people on job seeker benefits on access to help for mental health all getting worse despite all the spending—despite an extra billion dollars a week since they came into office.And then—and then—enter stage left holding a dagger enters Dr Gaurav Sharma saying I have supp'd full with horrors and I'm out of here." The people of Hamilton will have their chance to give their verdict on the Government the ram-raiding capital of New Zealand will have a chance to stand up and say to this Government "How have you gone?" and their wrath will lie hot on the necks of this Government.And then lurking in the shadows we see Willie Jackson and Kelvin Davis like demented versions on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern accusing everybody who disagrees with them with racism and if they're Māori then they're not Māori enough and Jacinda Ardern looks the other way.As to the Shakespeare itself well that was a speedy U-turn wasn't it? The Prime Minister spent Monday saying of the Arts Council will when they pulled the funding for the Shakespeare festival "Oh it's nothing to do with us. They're independent." The next thing she tells the education Minister to find some money pronto—and he did.And the Prime Minister said she acted in the festival and there's a lot of speculation as to what roles she took. Was it Bottom from A Midsummer Night's Dream perhaps who said "The eye of man hath not heard the ear of man hath not seen man's hand is not able to taste his tongue to conceive nor his heart to report what my dream was." Maybe that was Bottom. But I think probably Cleopatra. It was said of her thatThe barge that she sat in like a burnish'd throneBurned on the water.I think that might be appropriate for the Prime Minister. But I have been told actually that it was Lady Macbeth. And then she wrung her hands together not with hand sanitiser but saying "Out damned spot! Out!" And yet Gaurav keeps coming back—he keeps coming back!What it doesn't remove is any of the changes that they've made: they've got Education paying for the Shakespeare festival but the point is the Arts Council said that the festival "did not demonstrate the relevance to contemporary art … in Aotearoa."Have we become so insular so small-minded that our kids can only engage in contemporary local stuff? Can we not find inspiration from the timeless glories of the past? Aren't we as a country best when we're fully engaged with the rest of the world we're confident when we take the best of what there is to offer and enjoy it? The Arts Council seems to have forgotten—it goes on about biculturalism but forgets that there are two sides to biculturalism and the British side of history has a lot to offer and a lot to enjoy and a lot to engage in. This attitude that comes from this Government has flowed through to the Arts Council and has ended up with Shakespeare. Well the only thing I could say is that it will come to a sticky end—DEPUTY SPEAKER: The soliloquy has come to an end Mr Goldsmith."