English Bill; Tisch LindsayAPPROPRIATION (2016/17 ESTIMATES) BILLThird ReadingIMPREST SUPPLY DEBATEHon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): I move That the Appropriation (2016/17 Estimates) Bill be now read a third time and the Imprest Supply (Second for 2016/17) Bill be now read a second time. This debate is around the Estimates which for those in the House who have not paid too much attention set out all the spending of the Government for 2016-17. I want to start by acknowledging the efforts of so many public servants and organisations that the Government funds outside the Public Service for the care and attention that they give to the sensible spending of public resource—that is the taxation we gather off so many New Zealanders. What lies behind the John Key - led Government's approach is a simple reality: those people who got up at 4 o'clock this morning and went out to start work those who worked all day in the cold and the wet and paid their PAYE at the end of last week deserve that we make as good a use of it as they would have if they had been allowed to keep it. There are households right across New Zealand where another couple of hundred dollars would make a big difference. So that is why the Government pays attention to how money is spent. We only have billions because people pay 15 percent when they go and buy their milk and their bread at the supermarket. That is how we end up with billions of dollars.These Estimates are part of an ongoing process where this Government is trying to change the way public money is managed. Here is one of the challenges. It is related directly to our parliamentary process which I know Mr Assistant Speaker you know better than most of us. Parliament has to work on an annual cycle because the constitutional permission to raise tax and spend other people's money has to be renewed regularly. It should be. At least every year—in fact more often than that on confidence votes. But a whole lot of the issues that the Government deals with are not about annual cycles. When we are looking at the impact of Government spending on the environment that could be intergenerational—or should be in fact. When we are looking at educating our young that is not about 1 year's result or 10 years' results: for too many of those children it is the only chance in their lifetimes to change their prospects.So a big part of what is going on in the refocusing of the public sector is to get the right balance of complying with the requirements of Parliament—as expressed through these Estimates where we have to be able to track every dollar—on the one hand and making sure it is effective in a time frame that is relevant to the issues that the Government has a responsibility for on the other hand. Because frankly the Estimates do not tell us a lot about whether we changed that young child's life or whether we helped the prisoner not to reoffend or whether we wrote the right quality of environmental regulation that will have an impact for a generation—because that is how long it takes fresh water to get from the farm to the river carrying nitrates if that is what has happened. That is quite a challenge I have to say because our Government agencies are hard-wired for compliance. If there is one thing they have to do it is comply with the appropriations that this Parliament gives it—and Parliament's watchdog the Auditor-General—they have to do that. But at the same time increasingly they have to think in a framework that is relevant to the problem and particularly that demonstrates impact. This is because too often the spending that we are approving here disappears out into the wider community and people even with the best of intentions are not quite sure whether it worked. Because the spending here is not for the teachers it is not for the doctors and it is not for the police or the NGOs. They are all very influential sometimes too influential on how the money is spent. The money the spending the support is for the citizens or—the word I like to use because it irritates people including the Labour Party is our customers"—our customers. Not people who are passive recipients—and it annoys the Greens because they like Labour want the New Zealand public to be grateful recipients of their good intentions expressed with other people's money. That is what they like—people who just put up with what the Government gives them and say: "Well it must be the right thing because nice people from the Government said so." That model of Government is over and if Governments do not change it the evidence around the world is that voters will if they feel that the State can no longer be responsive and can no longer change when it should change.So that is what lies behind a lot of the direction and changes in the Estimates. And of course it covers a whole range of issues including spending on issues that have been discussed quite a bit lately one of which I will mention is housing. I thought it was notable today that the Labour Party had nothing to say about housing. And do we know why? It is because yesterday the Government initiated the process for the biggest housing development the country has ever seen—like ever seen—and it is only the first of a number. Chris Hipkins: How many houses? How many?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Well in Tāmaki it will go from 2500 to 8000 houses. Here is a challenge for the member: if the Labour Party housing policy was so popular Phil Goff would be using red billboards in Auckland and Justin Lester would be using red billboards in Wellington. But the Labour Party policies are so popular that Phil Goff is making every effort to look like the National candidate for the Mayor of Auckland. And Justin Lester is so desperate not to be labelled as Labour that he is using the ACT colours for his billboards. Of course the biggest issue for Labour is whether Stuart Nash or Nick Leggett is the most left-wing. That is the biggest issue. That is the one that really got them fired up.So we are very pleased with the way that the Public Service is responding to the challenges that have been given to it. We are pleased with the progress on housing because in this 3-year term of Government this country will rebuild Dunedin—this country will add to the number of houses that are in the city of Dunedin. And then in the next 3 years it will have to do that plus more. That is a combination of what we hope and believe will be sensible decisions from the Auckland Council which has to produce a plan that shows credible large increases in supply and the Government's building programme which is getting up and going and—as the Labour Party will find out—on getting into the middle of next year will be running at scale. I can assure it of that.So I commend these Estimates to the House. I want to thank all of the committees that have spent time scrutinising them. Sometimes in select committees very good questions are asked particularly by the National Government members. Sometimes not so good questions are asked by everybody else. But it is part of I think in the select committee a growing understanding of the way that public spending is being managed in New Zealand. And it is all about doing a better job for those New Zealanders who most need it—not doing crazy things like the Labour Party is suggesting like "Get your student loan wiped if you join the Public Service." I mean what happens if you join the Labour Party? Is it going to—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! [Interruption] Order! The member's time has expired."