Brownlee Gerry: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBrownlee Gerry: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 31 May 2016. Volume:714;Page:11475. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Minister supporting Greater Christchurch Regeneration): I am very pleased to speak in support of the motion moved by the Hon Bill English and to encourage my colleagues in their condemnation of the motion moved by Andrew Little. Budget 2016 has been entitled “A Budget for Growth”. It continues the approach of Prime Minister John Key finance Minister Bill English Cabinet the caucus and indeed the National Party in being responsive to the needs of people while balancing those expectations against the ability to deliver.That however is not the big story of the day. The big story of the day is that the reaction to this Budget positive as it has been from the general public has caused the Labour Party and the Green Party to enter into some sort of Bachelor/Bachelorette - type production handing each other a rose and indicating the grand coalition of Opposition parties into the future. I want to know who is Naz and who is Fleur and I want to know above all who is Jordan. Who is Jordan? There can be only one leader. What have we got here? We have got Andrew Little with Grant Robertson—off shaking hands with him now. Grant is really the leader of the Labour Party. We have got Metiria Turei and James Shaw who of course is also the leader of the Green Party battling it out for that Jordan role and I guess that makes Grant Robertson Naz and of course Metiria Turei the lovely Fleur.What does this mean long-term for politics in New Zealand? It has to mean that some of the dyed-in-the-wool views that there is only one way the way of the left to deliver prosperity for New Zealanders is going to continue. The really interesting thing about today also was that Grant Robertson the Labour spokesman on finance revealed to the House that he had read as far as 1.1 in the Budget. The sad news for him is that there are not enough question times between Budget 2016 and Budget 2017 for him to be able to indicate he has read all the way to the end of it. That of course will be evident to anybody who listens to him delivering some of his more crazy policy statements and particularly anyone who wants to—and I am not going to suggest you go and look at the interview on the weekend but if you have got insomnia go for it. You are going to cure yourself in no time at all.One of the most interesting things about the very impressive figures in this Budget is to have a look at some of the assumptions that are behind it. They are extremely conservative—extremely conservative. When we have questions today about what the average wage will be in 4 or 5 years’ time etc. those sorts of questions can only be answered in time but the questioner needs to look at the assumptions made in the Budget. They are conservative which means that although there is optimism in the Budget that is also constrained in the possibilities for New Zealanders. If they stick with the current regime and the current way in which we are delivering for them then the outlook should be considerably better. For example it is predicting only a very very gradual easing in growth of trade by New Zealand into other countries. No other Government has pursued trading options with the same vigour as this Government and it will continue to do so. So that is a conservative estimate of what trade may mean for us in the future.The other point is that the Budget talks about recovery of commodity price on a very slow basis. We all know that we are about at the bottom and that there is that slow rise but it can take off at any time. The world is not getting smaller; nor is demand. There is absolutely no chance that oil prices will double in the next 4 years yet that is the assumption inside this Budget. That has huge effect potentially on the savings that many businesses will make in their operation out to 2020. Migration flows are also strong in this country and predicted to fall off. But why would they fall off when we are a country that is safe that is stable and that is predictable and where life can be lived more freely than in any other nation in the world? It does not matter how many times our opponents like to go out and point out some of the less-desirable aspects of New Zealand society the fact remains that comparative to other countries we are an absolute paradise.I want to talk a little bit about the specifics in this Budget. The first one I have got to say is around the issue of science and innovation and the whole idea that research is going to produce more value for New Zealand. You have only to look in the Budget where it talks about some of the aspects of how the New Zealand economy grows and particularly look in the area of non - service-based manufacturing which is now equal to our dairy exports. It is now equal to our dairy exports. That does not happen without there being some kind of encouragement. So the $760 million - odd that is going into that over the next period of time is supporting an industry that over a relatively small period of time has become a $15 billion industry. That is the sort of investment that is smart and it is worthwhile. It is appalling that our opponents are condemning that sort of activity.Then looking at the core services—health is a huge winner in this Budget. All our opponents can say is that because we were putting in so much money and getting such a terribly ineffective service and now National is getting more out of it we must be squeezing it. Those deliveries of health services come from the professionals who respect the way the National Government has engaged with them over a period of time. This year Dr Coleman has been able to get a significant increase in funding—over $500 million for the year. I have pointed out to him on numerous occasions what others could have bought with that particular $500 million but I want to assure him that there is no bitterness on my part. I think that getting that money for health is absolutely essential and is in line with the expectations of New Zealanders.When it comes to education there is an $880 million rebuild programme across the delivery of educational services in New Zealand. This recognises as was raised today by an Opposition member in a half-hearted sort of way that education is changing. The needs are changing the modes of delivery are changing and this Government is keeping well and truly ahead of that.I want to speak specifically about Christchurch where obviously we have had a big engagement over the last few years. Government expenditure in Christchurch under this Budget rises to about $17.5 billion. That is a huge amount of expenditure by any Government on any one aspect of its requirements. There has been no stinting of funding available for Christchurch. In fact the generous way in which the Prime Minister has taken a personal interest in Christchurch is largely to do with the fact that we have successfully gone into a transition period where we are seeing a return to local government at all levels inside the Christchurch City Council. What I do want to signal is that inside that $17.5 billion there is all of the money that goes into the Earthquake Commission (EQC).I want to congratulate the EQC on the work that it has done. It is very easily criticised. It is now down to about the last 200 or 300 cases which are the hardest of all to deal with. The commission is making every effort to ensure that they will be off the books by the mid-part of next year. In a normal circumstance if someone loses their house to a fire it is around about 18 months before they get settlement and are able to move on because of all of the various activities that have to take place around those investigations etc. The EQC inside 5 years to have dealt with 167000 repairs as well as another 40000-odd over-cap claims that have gone off to the private sector is a huge undertaking and a great tribute to the board and staff of EQC.I said earlier that this was a Budget for growth. That is how it has been characterised and I think that is how it is seen by New Zealanders. I think the reaction today from our opponents suddenly recognising that if they are to get some sort of movement forward they are going to have to hold hands if not swap flowers—but there are dangers in that. I was just thinking before that Phil Twyford has managed to change his views on housing substantially over the last 18 months swinging more towards the sorts of policies that National has. Now you can expect him to come back to the House next week and say that the Labour policy is more houses but they must have thatched roofs be built of mud and have jamjar windows. That is no future for this country.