Woods MeganDr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): Budgets are a numerical expression of a vision statement of a Government. What we have here in front of us in the Appropriation (2017/18 Estimates) Bill and Budget 2017 exposes a visionless Government that is out of ideas and stuck in the past. This is not a Government that is brimming with ideas to take us to an exciting and optimistic future to take us into the 21st century. Instead what we have is a Budget that simultaneously manages to express visionless cruelty and bland managerialism rather than leadership. That is what this Government is delivering to the people of New Zealand.What this Budget delivers is $400 million in tax cuts to the top 10 percent of earners. We heard at the time of the tabling of the Budget the debates that came after that the weeks that have ensued the rapid spinning on the head of a pin of National Government members and we have heard here today in this debate that this is New Zealanders' share in the dividends of growth. This is a Government that has exposed itself for wanting to give a disproportionate share of that dividend to the highest income earners.This is not a vision for New Zealand that Labour can get behind. We want to see our families flourishing. That is why we put together an alternative families package that sees 70 percent of our families better off. We want to see our health system and our education system funded so they can take us into the 21st century. We want to see that New Zealanders can get into housing and have affordable housing. These are things that we want to see.We also want to see a Government that is making protecting our environment a priority. This is not a Government that is either doing enough to protect our environment or doing enough to combat climate change. Budget 2017-18 delivered $4 million in the fight against the globe's most pressing issues; this is $4 million additional funding to address climate change. This is what this Government is delivering to New Zealand. What it is not delivering is the additional funding that is required to meet the unmet need in the health sector and particularly in the mental health sector.The Government will say that it has never spent more on health than it has in this Budget. That is correct but there have never been more people. Until this Government starts having an honest conversation about per capita growth in our economy and per capita spending then we are not having the conversation that is required in this country. It is why there are thousands of New Zealanders who are not getting the healthcare they require. It is why thousands of families are having to reach very deeply into their own hip pockets for those stationery bills that the schools sent home—up to $200 for some of the stationery bills that parents in the Wigram electorate showed me they were being asked to pay at the beginning of this year. Parents are being asked to fund some things that any of us would reasonably expect a school could fund out of its operations budget.The freeze on operations funding to our schools has meant that they simply cannot pay for the things that are required. I am not talking about fancy extras here either. I am talking about parents being asked to pay for the photocopy paper for the classroom to pay for the whiteboard markers and to pay for the tissues that children require in the classroom. I never recall my parents being sent a chalk bill when I was at school and frankly I am perplexed as to why it is that parents are being asked to fund this kind of thing now. So—if I can get over this coughing—one of the things that we simply have to do is we have to have an alternative vision. That is exactly what Labour's fiscal plan has delivered. The sixth Labour Government is going to be about putting people first and restoring fairness. This simply has to be what we see as a priority. We have come up with a detailed plan that shows how we can do that. We have come up with a detailed plan that shows how more of our families can be better off how more of our families will have additional money in their pockets how more of our families will not be having to go without to fund tax cuts for the top 10 percent of workers.We have also come up with a plan that can address those deficits that I have identified in health in education and in housing. What is more we can do it while still paying down debt. This is a fully costed plan that we have come up with that shows that we will do it. We have also said that we will stand up for New Zealanders. We will be there and we will be a Government that backs our people. Yes we will crack down on speculators by banning overseas speculators from buying existing houses. We will tighten the tax rules around that.What will we do with that additional income from that additional tax revenue? We will use that money to make more of our homes warmer healthier and drier. We are not content to leave hundreds of thousands of homes uninsulated like this Government is when it winds up its insulation package in the not very distant future. We will keep investing in insulating our homes because the job is not done. But it does not matter how much insulation a home has. Unless there is an efficient and affordable and sustainable way to heat that house it is not going to be warm. We have said we will make that funding available for those homes as well.We realise that even with good insulation and efficient and affordable forms of heating in a home for someone on the pension or someone on the main benefit winter power bills can still be a struggle. We are going to help people with their winter power bills because we know we are a richer country when we are not having to pick up the health tab for people who cannot afford to heat their homes adequately. When I look around when I meet with people in my electorate I know what a difference that $700 or $450 a year is going to make to people. It is not just the small things that we have observed that we know are going to make life better. We are going to be a Government that actually has a 21st century plan for infrastructure. We saw Jacinda announce on Sunday a light rail plan for Auckland. Well we have a vision that sees commuter rail in Christchurch also. We have a city that has grown and is reshaped in all different directions as we have recovered from our earthquake and we are not content as this Government is to fund simply building back the 20th century. We want to look ahead and see what we require for the future and commuter rail has to be part of that picture for us and we are absolutely committed to that.We will back our young people. We are not going to call them pretty damn hopeless and consign them to a scrap heap. We will really back our young people by reducing New Zealand's unemployment getting apprenticeships up and running and working with young people to make sure they are ready for the workforce and to be part of an exciting future that should be there for all New Zealanders and not cast to the side.There is a real choice for people with this election. Unlike National's cynical tax bribe of $400 million to the top 10 percent of earners Labour is sketching out a plan for a future. It is full of ideas. It is full of doing things differently. It is not just about the bland managerialism that we are seeing from the Government at the end of three terms. This is a Government that does not have ideas and certainly is not thinking about the future. It is not a Government that is addressing the most pressing issues of our time. It is a Government that is not even willing to think about what we have to do to address climate change in any meaningful way. It is not a Government that is thinking about what the health sector for the 21st century looks like. It is not a Government that is producing the kind of exciting education policy that my colleague Chris Hipkins is. It is not a Government that is looking out for its people and that is what the sixth Labour Government will do.