Barry Maggie: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBarry Maggie: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate[Sitting date: 24 June 2014. Volume:699;Page:18814. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore):Well the Opposition’s speeches in the House today fact-free and filled with inconsistency—as indeed are many of the members on Opposition benches—have clearly illustrated to us yet again that they are totally unaware and out of touch with what New Zealanders really need and want. The day-to-day reality of how most of us live our lives—not spending more than we earn saving for our retirement and working hard so that our families can get ahead—is almost a totally unknown quantity to these Opposition parties. We have heard a surfeit of evidence to support that this afternoon.Labour and its big-borrowing big-spending dogma-driven mates the Greens are determinedly ignorant about the issues that matter to us. The Prime Minister today in question time—just to remind you Mr Speaker—called it the Greens’ “economic lunacy”. Bill English in leading this debate on appropriations today raised many good questions and challenged the Opposition members to show us their plan their new initiatives instead of adopting their usual approach which is to fund the problems and not solve the problems which I thought was a very neat phrase he came out with. Opposition speakers today have not delivered anything new but let us look closely at the prospect of change.What would New Zealand have to lose if they elected that motley crew maybe with the “IMP Party” thrown in to boot the “Hone and Kimi” unholy alliance? Let us add up the risk to the voters if they embrace these deviant couplings. For starters they would destroy the fragile recovery and squander all the hard-won gains—gains that have been fought for by hard-working New Zealanders and led by our outstanding Prime Minister John Key and the Minister of Finance Bill English. The alliance of the hard left would rule the show and I would imagine totally torpedo our steadily climbing economic growth. To seal their shonky deals would cost all of us in this country in the billions.Let us just take one recent example that emerged today in the House and was last week mentioned in the House in question time. This is the nonsense specifically that the Greens are peddling around the Māui’s dolphin. They are trying to scaremonger and to ban all oil exploration in an area off the cost of Taranaki where there has not been one single incident involving the Māui’s dolphin over the past 44 years. That is despite 23 oil wells being drilled—not a single incident not a single sighting not a single problem. There have been more than 700 fishing trips where there have been independent observers on board—not a single sighting of the Māui’s dolphin.However it has been very clearly and scientifically documented that some 95 percent of the risk to the dolphins is from set netting which is a practice that has resulted in the Minister of Conservation Nick Smith doubling the area of protection because he does take that threat seriously. We do care as a Government because we do care about the real threats to this endangered species but we do not make up imagined threats to suit the political agenda as the Greens are doing. They would—and we have heard it today and repeatedly—make up these imagined threats. Really what they are going to be doing is sacrificing the economy of Taranaki and I reckon the whole country actually in order to attract the oxygen of publicity that they need to survive politically. If they get their way what would be the likely outcome for Taranaki? The Prime Minister started to spell it out today as did Nick Smith. By shutting down the Pohokura gas field which is essentially what the Greens are trying to do they shut down 50 percent of New Zealand’s gas resources. It would cost around 5000 jobs and it would cripple our ability to produce the gas we need to function as a country. That would mean we would probably have to turn on the coal-fired power station at Huntly. That would mean that our greenhouse emissions would go through the roof. We would end up having to import more of the fuels which would have a very bad effect on our balance of payments. New Zealand would not earn the nearly $1 billion in royalties and taxes that we get every year off those industries. It is precisely that sort of “loony tunes” reckless and irresponsible behaviour that would send New Zealand down the wrong economic path.There are on an upward-looking note many good reasons to measure the success of the economy as has been managed by Bill English and this John Key - led Government over the past nearly 6 years. If you measure the success of the economy by our GDP our gross domestic product has increased by a very healthy 3.8 percent. That is just in the year to the end of March. That makes New Zealand the third-fastest-growing developed economy in the world. Our 3.8 percent annual growth compares very favourably indeed with the 3.5 percent they have managed to get in Australia the 2 percent in the United States and around 0.9 percent through Europe. Our economic growth understandably is the envy of many other countries because it is broad-based. It has positive contributions from the construction industry from mining from agriculture and from the retail trade and accommodation sectors.There is even more to celebrate as that growth in the economy is matched by even higher levels of consumer and business confidence—business confidence being at around a 20-year high. So for those who do not evaluate their economic prospects in terms of GDP if they want to bring it closer to home and measure it more in terms of jobs and higher incomes the good news is once again delivered by this Government. In the past year alone 84000 more jobs were created. The Budget last month forecast an additional 170000 jobs by mid-2018. More jobs equal more opportunities for New Zealanders and then we will all be better off. If we stick with this Government’s programme even more New Zealanders will see the gains in their own wallets. The average full-time wage is expected to rise by $7600. That would mean that the average wage would be about $62300 over the next 4 years. This follows you will recall around a $3000 increase in the average wage over the past 3 years.To see how much progress we have made you need only look back to the previous Labour Government’s record. Maybe I will not dwell on that actually; I think enough time has been spent on its failed policies. The previous speaker Chris Hipkins spoke about education. Let us look at some of the initiatives that we have managed to put in place. Hekia Parata and the Associate Minister of Education Nikki Kaye despite the tight financial constraints have increased total spending on early childhood primary and secondary education. It is going to come out at around $10.1 billion this year. National as a Government is investing $155.7 million over 4 years in early childhood education. This is an area I think where we have had noticeable success and we have really made some gains. We did not just talk about it; we delivered on it. That is a hallmark of this Government. Giving children the best start in life is something that this Government believes in very strongly indeed. It is we believe one of the greatest investments we can make in the future of our children.With early childhood education we have targeted around 98 percent participation by next year to 2016. We have already hit 93 percent. We are looking very likely to achieve that goal in rapid time. I think the amount of money that we have spent on early childhood education is almost double that—$800 million under Labour and $1.5 billion under this Government. When it comes to health as many know that was one of the big spending areas in this Government and it is something that I think the Hon Tony Ryall has managed particularly well over the past 5½ years. Bringing in the policy of free general practitioner visits for under-13s—extending it out to that—has cost around $90 million but it is money very well spent. The earlier a child can get to the doctor the better their health will be ultimately. As I have said in speeches in my own North Shore electorate some things are priceless and children’s health is definitely in that category. The ability for parents not to have to worry about the money and to be able to get their children to the doctor in a timely fashion is an enormous addition to strengthening families. That is something very close to the heart and soul of this Government.Budget 2014 is going to deliver more than $32 million over the next 4 years to further improve cancer services and for the 20000 New Zealanders each year who are given the sentence that they have cancer that they have to live with it and that they have to go through the treatment the measures that we are putting in place to allow psychological counselling and support I think are going to make an enormous difference to their quality of life.Paula Bennett has also continued to deliver and in this Budget there have been huge gains for the most vulnerable. This Government is determined to protect the most vulnerable—particularly those who suffer from abuse and neglect. The tragic statistics are indeed sobering. I think that when you look at the fact that more than 50 children have died in the past 5 years because of extreme abuse it is imperative that we step in with policies with money with backup and with rigorously thought-through and well-argued support structures for families and always putting children at the heart of the equation which is something that the Hon Paula Bennett does very very well.So I am very proud of this Budget. I am very proud of this Government. That is why I commend the Appropriation (2013/14 Supplementary Estimates) Bill and the Imprest Supply (First for 2014/15) Bill to the House. Thank you.