Bennett DavidHon DAVID BENNETT (National): Thank you Madam Speaker. Well you have to give the Labour MPs some kind of applause for trying to put on a brave face in the midst of a Government that's falling apart. You know they're actually speaking the lines that they've been told saying how wonderful this Government has been and how successful and isn't Grant Robertson the greatest thing that ever walked the earth and isn't Jacinda the kindest person you've ever met—you know all the beautiful lines the Labour Party tries to track out. But the reality is that the polls have shown the Labour Party has gone from—what?—51 percent at the election down to 32 percent 33 percent I think the last Labour poll was. They've dropped 20 points. The public—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! Order! Can the member come back to this imprest bill. Thank you.Hon DAVID BENNETT: Yes. We're talking about the impact of that and the public has said no to this Government's imprest bill. They've said no to it. They've said that this Government is on the wrong track; there's no doubt about that. The Labour MPs today are trying to resurrect the old issues of the past—Look how we saved the country from COVID." and "Look how great we are."—but the reality is the public can see through it. Ask anybody out there what's happened to their fruit and vege prices in the last year. Ask anybody out there what's happened to their cost of living in the last year. Ask anybody out there what's happened to their house price in the last year. It's gone down. Ask anybody what's happened to their interest rates. They've gone up. Ask anybody what they think about inflation. They know it's here to stay. And ask anybody what they want from a Government and that is somebody that is a prudent economic manager at this time. That's what the public demand; they don't want the unfettered social spending of this Government and that is the truth of what is out there. That is why the Labour Party is doomed at the next election. That is why members of that party should be trying now to actually change the narrative to actually look at what they're spending the money on and to do it properly.Some hard choices need to be made. You don't get away from inflation by looking at it. You don't get away from inflation by giving it more money. You don't get away from it by thinking you can spend your way out of it. It requires hard prudent economic management. There's no other answer to deal with the problem that we have. Once a household or a business is spending more money than it can afford it only has one option and that is to reduce that spending. It can increase its revenue if it wants to increase taxes but the Labour Party has already said they're not going to do that. But then they do it on the back ways through little tax incentives every so often. But the reality is in New Zealand it's where we spend that money that is the crucial thing. The Labour Party members have gone up today and said "Oh look National spent all this money in the global financial crisis and all those things." The reality is we spent it on things that actually mattered and helped the economy. New Zealand grew through that expenditure. We didn't get inflation as a result of that expenditure; we got infrastructure that actually delivered for New Zealand that meant we grew and then—Dr Duncan Webb: Like what?Hon DAVID BENNETT: OK: roads in the Waikato—look at those great roads in the Waikato—a new hospital in the Waikato. When we came into Government the Waikato Hospital had sewage coming through the sides of the walls. The National Party rebuilt that hospital. We put the fibre in New Zealand that enabled us as a country to get through COVID when we were in lockdown. Those things were done by National never by a Labour Government. They were all done by National.Hon Dr David Clark: Rubbish.Hon DAVID BENNETT: David Clark—he knows they were done by National. He says they were done by National because he knows they were done by National. We built those roads we built that hospital we put that fibre in—we did those things that actually made a difference and the economy grew as a result.Labour—all it can do is give money out chuck money away to people that are overseas or have passed away. They can't actually do anything good to actually build the economy. Where is this glorious infrastructure spending we're seeing from the Labour Party? We're not seeing any roads being built in this country. We don't see any rail connections being built in this country. All we see is social spending. It's all spending for today trying to get through to the next election and it will never work. The public know that and the public have seen through the Labour Party and that's why they're getting smashed in the polls. So the members over there should be depressed because they've ruined this country. This country when they came into power had very low debt. They will go and say "Well look at our debt levels. They're low compared to the rest of the world." Well they were the lowest when they came in. It's the percentage of debt that they have increased that needs to be calculated and that has increased exponentially under this Government. They have borrowed to spend to try and save themselves through an election process. It will not work. What we really need in New Zealand is a Government that balances the books that is prudent with the money that uses that money for infrastructure so that we have a growing economy and that actually looks at controlling inflation going forward. We can't carry on as a country forgetting about those things and a 1 percent growth rate is not good enough for this country.Jo Luxton: Better than others.Hon DAVID BENNETT: It's better than others—well 1 percent is not going to create an environment where New Zealanders will stay here. It won't attract people to come here. As long as it's better than someone else it's OK! That's not the game we're in. It's a game for world talent and our talent they can easily leave and have left and is leaving now. People are moving with their feet. They are leaving this country in droves because they know that 1 percent isn't good enough for them when their costs are going up at a much higher rate than that. There will be pain ahead for the New Zealand economy. It will be difficult for any Government to turn the ship around. This Government has set a trajectory that can only fail and with that New Zealanders will require a Government that actually makes some hard choices around how to get inflation under control. We will have to increase immigration contrary to what the Labour Party wants. We actually will have to be able to welcome people to this country if we want it to grow. We will have to prioritise where we spend our money and it won't be necessarily for short-term spending; it has to be in a long-term economic benefit. We will have to look at our tax system to make sure it's relative to the costs that people have incurred under the last few years and the tax changes that the National Party is looking at are really only to give people back their purchasing power that they have lost in the last few years. We will have to look at how we invest in housing and things like that where rental prices have skyrocketed because of the crazy policies of this Government that have taken away the ability for anybody to go into that business and provide housing. Those are some of the fundamental things that the Government should have been looking at in the Budget. It wasn't. What we got in the Budget was a whole lot of platitudes about what will happen in the future: dreams of environmental change dreams about transport change dreams about giving away money that they can't even work out where to spend it on—all those things that will be a fallacy and will not work.National would deliver a Budget that is what New Zealanders want and that's why they're polling so well and that's why the Labour Party has lost basically a third of its support in the last six months—a third of its support in six months. To those backbenchers there: don't let the talking notes dictate your futures. Actually be upstanding. Yeah—stand up and actually look at what you need to do. Grant and the rest of them in the front row they're still going to be here. You won't be. Stand up for what's right for your constituents because they demand better than what they are getting from this Government. Thank you.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The next call is a split call between the ACT Party and the Green Party."