Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT as part of this general debate and of course next week is Budget week. There's a prayer most commonly attributed to St Francis of Assisi and it says Lord grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference." Now I think if Grant Robertson was around in the time of Assisi it would read quite differently; it would say "Lord grant me the credit for the things I cannot change the courage to ignore the things I could and someone really good at marketing to hide the difference." That's what it would say if Grant Robertson was around 600 or 700 years ago and that sums up the Government's approach to this Budget. It's very happy to take the credit for things it cannot change—the fact that New Zealand's isolation has been the best possible defence against a viral pandemic; the fact that we live in the "Adrian in Wonderland" era of modern monetary theory where you just keep printing it and everything's going to be OK; and the fact that our terms of trade give homage to what John Clarke or Fred Dagg used to say we don't know how propitious are the circumstances with milk prices near record highs.That's the backdrop for this Budget and it's easy for a Government to say "Well we're not doing as bad as countries that are actually physically connected to the rest of the world. We can pay off the debt while interest rates remain low—or at least afford to keep it where it is—and while we've closed the border everybody has a job because we're starving this monetarily and fiscally primed economy with cheap money of labour."The problem with all of that is that if we mistake good luck for good management then we actually don't turn our minds to the real problems—and they're many. Middle New Zealand is feeling increasingly squeezed from every angle: all the prices going up—petrol and electricity food rent rates they're all going up. And what does this Government do? It says we're going to do nothing in the form of tax relief. The Minister of Finance did everything he could to avoid saying it but they're going to keep taxing New Zealanders hard. Even then they're going to put a freeze on New Zealand's most hard-working public servants with no pay increases for three years. And you think about the meanness of that. We live at a time of great uncertainty and yet they've decided this is the time to go three years out in their freezes on pay. I'm getting emails from principals in the Epsom electorate who will tell you that even the Secretary for Education can't tell them what this freeze means because the truth is it means no more money.Enter into this environment the ACT Party—10 MPs one-twelfth of this Parliament—putting forward real solutions. Some kind people say that I'm the Leader of the Opposition. I want to tell you that ACT is the "Leader of the Proposition" because we have the ideas to get New Zealanders engaged in honest conversations and supporting better ideas for tomorrow. Our alternative Budget would give a generous middle-income tax cut to those middle New Zealanders who are being squeezed. We would deliver tax cuts of $1200 to $2200 for middle-income earners. We would ensure that the roadblocks that this Government has put in the way of wealth and job creation are removed—a relentless focus on business productivity investment jobs and growth that this Government can barely bring itself to utter. That's the kind of thinking that this Parliament needs; not how do we lock ourselves off borrow hope and pass around what money is left hoping on the part of the current Government's politicians to get re-elected. The real question is how we create the conditions for growth. I'm proud to lead an ACT Party in this House that does the work presents the ideas and shows middle New Zealand a way forward based on creating more wealth rather than politicians constantly competing to divide it. Thank you Mr Speaker."