Salesa JennyHon SIMON BRIDGES (National—Tauranga): You know the most significant thing in the Prime Minister's statement and her speech was what wasn't in it. I listened very carefully to everything the Prime Minister was saying yesterday.David Seymour: Why?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Well because it was a thought experiment—it was a thought experiment. Barely a whisper about the economy and I was just listening to Grant Robertson—well there was a little bit; he talked about wages for about 15 seconds but did he mention the word inflation" cost of living and the pain New Zealanders are feeling? Not a murmur from Mr Robertson. In fact I think what you'll find is he spent much much much more time in that speech than on anything else talking about Christopher Luxon and the New Zealand National Party. I'll tell you why that is: he's worried. He can see the National Party coming; he understands we're a party that's reset and that's focused on issues like cost of living and inflation that really matter to New Zealand and that are worrying them and they're not hearing a bean from the New Zealand Labour Party in Government. And I want to say those naysayers over there: when we talk about the economy we're not talking highfalutin stuff we're not talking about the most wealthy we're not talking about those things that David Parker and Grant Robertson are obsessed about with their envy of the rich. We're actually talking about the regular Joes and Joannas who actually are really worried right now because when they go to the petrol station—at some places a bit under at some places $3 a litre—they have to decide whether they're going to fill it a quarter or a half full. They can't afford the petrol at the petrol station. They're worried because when they go to buy fruit and vegetables they know the price of cauliflower the price of broccoli the price of tomatoes and these things are unaffordable today and actually whether it's mum or it's dad and they're going to get their school lunches for their children they understand that sometimes they get to the checkout and they have to put things back in a way they didn't have to because of the economy that Grant Robertson and Jacinda Ardern are presiding over. New Zealanders understand that they've still got their 30-year-old at home in the basement in the garage because that 30-year-old today—more than ever in New Zealand's history—can't afford a home. They can't move out of home because inflation is so high. And as Nicola Willis has said so clearly today and could not get a straight answer from the Minister of Housing on—she would not straight answer the question—rent has gone up $50 a week last year; the highest ever as I understand it in New Zealand; $50 a week. New Zealanders are going backwards. So I want to focus on today a few of the things that should have could have would have been in Jacinda Ardern's and Grant Robertson's speeches as they set out their float their priorities for the year in the Labour Party parade that matter to New Zealanders. The first one—I've already mentioned but I want to come back to—is 5.9 percent inflation. It is the highest in 31 years in this country. It's been higher that's true but I tell you what actually for myself for David Seymour for Chris Bishop for Simon Watts for Simon O'Connor—I think I'm the oldest of all of the people I've just mentioned right there; I know I don't look 45!—for all of us in our adult lifetimes we have never experienced inflation like that. A lot of New Zealanders haven't. It is a thief in your pocket. It is an invisible tax and it hits the poor and the most vulnerable and those workers close to the minimum wage are hit the hardest. We have inflation that's one of the highest in the Western world. We hear a lot of nonsense from the Government. Their excuse today in this Parliament is "It's all international." Well here's the thing: actually domestic inflation was up over 5 percent last year. It's a big part of it. It is growing. At the end of last year on the last figures we have faster higher than the international part. So it's simply not right to say that.And here's what the ANZ New Zealand's biggest bank said about the question and the blame that Grant Robertson and Ardern put on the international picture. They said on 27 January "The domestic economy is … highly inflationary". It's New Zealand. Infometrics said on the same day "Inflation isn't an offshore problem that New Zealand is caught up in."; it's domestic and it is hurting New Zealanders. Jacinda Ardern and Grant Robertson need to front up to that.Wage growth and here's the real kicker: it's only 2.6 percent. Again obfuscation—I'd use some other words but we're in Parliament—from Grant Robertson today when he tries to hide the lack of wage growth relative to inflation the cost of living going up in New Zealand. It's very simple. It just means this: New Zealanders right now are going backwards—they are going backwards. They can't afford the kind of economy that Jacinda Ardern and Grant Robertson are presiding over. And interest rates as a result because the Reserve Bank will have to act as a result of what Grant Robertson is doing and the spending that he keeps on spending and spending and spending—interest rates will go up several times this year. It will be a double whammy for New Zealanders as they face high inflation and high interest rates and we have real problems for them being able to afford the basics for their whānau for their family.So what can Grant Robertson do? Because his excuse is "Well you know I've saved us from COVID. Hasn't it been amazing—the business subsidy all of these things!" Well he can now—not back then; now—rein in the spending as he continues to spend more and more and more. We've come a long way. He wants to spend more than he was spending at the height of COVID in the next Budget. That's what his public documents tell us. He wants to take spending from 40 percent more than National ever spent to 68 percent or $128 billion in the next year from a position where we are second only to the United States who by the way has the highest inflation in the Western World fundamentally—second only to them for the most spending of any Government in the world as a proportion of our GDP. That's not success. It was a sugar hit for a time but actually there's an unsustainable hangover that comes in the form of inflation and interest rates that really knock Kiwis back. And so we're saying pretty clearly: Grant Robertson rein it in. It's not cuts. It's not austerity. It does not at any level—in fact it is a lie to say that it means health spending education spending and investment have to go down. Rein in the new spending—the many billions more and the biggest operational spending we've ever seen—that you want this year Grant Robertson. Rein it in a bit actually and focus on the quality. Don't take my word for it by the way. The OECD Treasury and every commercial bank in New Zealand is saying the same: Grant Robertson please rein in the spending so that New Zealanders aren't socked in the back pocket; they're not stolen from by the thief that is inflation. The real tragedy here is that economic commentators on the left who I don't always agree with like Bernard Hickey like Max Rashbrooke and so on—actually they've got a real point. The pumping in of cash that we have seen relentlessly from Grant Robertson has made the rich and the asset classes richer and it has made the poor and the vulnerable—sometimes called the working poor—poorer. All of that money. Jacinda Ardern has made despite what they campaigned on the generational divide in this country worse: more kids more young people 25-year-olds 30-year-olds living in their parents' garage. His answer to all of this is: low unemployment. He boasts about it at Parliament but engineering long-term dependency and a long-term dependency crisis all the while as the jobseeker support benefit goes up and up and up: up 90000 since Grant Robertson has been the Minister of Finance; and 50000 more people have been on that benefit that welfare for a year or more. That's a shame actually at a time like this in a hot economy. You know Norman Kirk said something that Jacinda Ardern likes to refer to: basically there are four things that matter—people have to have somewhere to live food to eat clothing to wear and something to hope for. That's actually pretty un-aspirational but at the end of the day Labour on its own terms because they are failing in a cost of living crisis are making it worse for the Kiwi battler for the strugglers for the vulnerable in this country. National is needed to turn back the clock—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! Order! The member's time is up."