Williams Andrew: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWilliams Andrew: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate[Sitting date: 24 June 2014. Volume:699;Page:18808. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First):I take a call on behalf of New Zealand First in the debate on the Appropriation (2013/14 Supplementary Estimates) Bill which sets out a great array of financial figures and projections. There are in fact hundreds of cost figures in this bill.The probity of financial figures is vital; indeed it is central to any discussion involving Government finance so it is all the more egregious that the Government made its so-called surplus the centrepiece of its 2014 Budget. Yes balancing the Government’s Budget is an important economic objective but it has to be real balancing not the manufactured phony fiddling of the books that National did in the 2014 Budget to create a surplus.The 2014 Budget took the expression “smoke and mirrors” to a whole new height. For example the Budget is not really balanced when all sorts of creative accounting has been applied to the Christchurch rebuild costs. The Government has forecast a surplus of close to half a billion dollars in the Budget. At the same time it was reducing the current budget for Canterbury earthquake matters by about the same amount. Recently the Prime Minister indicated that the Government will have to spend a further $5 billion because the Christchurch rebuild costs will escalate. So on the one hand costs for Canterbury earthquake matters were written down for the 2014-15 Budget whilst on the other hand the same Government was forecasting an additional $5 billion for Christchurch over coming years which leads to the conclusion that the almost half-billion-dollar surplus comes at Christchurch’s expense or is the worst form of creative accounting.The people of Christchurch know they have been sacrificed so the Government can boast about its books. Holding back vitally needed money to rebuild Christchurch in order to generate the so-called surplus amounts to being a crime against its own people or another example of the Government fiddling the books. The facts are clear: the Government has jacked up the numbers from an insurance deal when the remains of AMI Insurance were taken over. AMI you will remember was turned into Southern Response Earthquake Services and that is where the fiddling started. The proceeds from this sale amounted to $252 million which is placed in Government bonds rather than in settling insurance claims. A Government deal with Southern Response required it to thereafter put surplus cash on its books into Government bonds as well. This has been boosted by money coming in from reinsurance companies—all going into Government bonds. So hey presto magic we have another deception against Christchurch and an impacting on the Budget surplus. It is shameless deception.Other areas of Budget duplicity include police funding which has been frozen. Now we have the police having to face an impossible choice: do they deal with vulnerable children or go after organised crime? Also border protection is reduced despite all the risk to biosecurity that that entails. Nothing has been learnt from the Psa incursion that struck the kiwifruit industry. Also defence capability is being undermined. Conservation is being cut despite all the environmental risks. The only genuine way to balance the Budget is to grow the economy and most important that requires a realistic and sustainable exchange rate.New Zealand First has a bill to reform the Reserve Bank to give it powers to take account of employment and exports not just the inflation rate. A flexible monetary policy will give a realistic exchange rate that will allow many regional industries including manufacturing to survive and thrive. New Zealand First also has policies including tax incentives research and development support and accelerated depreciation to support a broadly based manufacturing sector and not just rely on an increasingly narrow range of dairy agricultural and log exports. Dairy and forestry now account for 40 percent of export receipts. That is a highly vulnerable position for this country’s economy.New Zealand First also has policies to support regional development such as our royalties for regions policy whereby we would return 25 percent of Crown royalties back to their origins—the regions where the original mining or extraction was done. This would greatly benefit many regions throughout New Zealand by returning that 25 percent of Crown royalties directly back to where mining has an effect. We will tighten the rules of foreign ownership of land and housing something that this Government is afraid to do. New Zealand First will ensure that businesses stop draining New Zealand wealth by investing in speculating on New Zealand land and housing from abroad.What New Zealand needs is a comprehensive economic strategy and plan. New Zealand does not need a “smoke and mirrors” Budget that is taking money out of Christchurch that is fiddling the books and that is removing money from the likes of the police border protection defence and conservation just so that the Government comes up with a paper-thin surplus of $270-something million. There is no sign of that coming from the National Government after 5½ years of office. This is simply rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic and it is not going forward. New Zealand First has policies that will do so.