Leary IngridINGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): I'm so glad that the previous speaker Chlöe Swarbrick mentioned Michael Joseph Savage because my father was one of the first beneficiaries of that social security system. Their family home burnt down his mother was looking after six children and they were able to be housed. Later on he was able to win a scholarship to go to university and that transformed the chances for my family. So I'm really glad that the previous speaker raised that but it's time for some myth-busting because some of the claims from the other side of the House have been quite frankly outrageous. First of all let's be clear: the appropriation bill that is going through today the Supplementary Estimates is business as usual. This is a normal course of events in the budgetary cycle. The second myth: that somehow this Government is sloshing money around. We've heard from the Hon David Parker that the correct measure and I agree is core Crown expenses as a percentage of GDP. Let's go back to 2013: it was 32 percent; 2023 it is 33 percent. But what really galls is the notion that National and ACT somehow care for struggling New Zealanders. The difference is that they say that they are astute financial managers. I could save $100 a week if I was on a low income and say that I was an astute financial manager and I could send my children to school without lunch and without shoes and put them to bed in a poor cold house or I could look after them. So the idea that they say that fiscal discipline is needed—their fiscal discipline in my view is negative wet whining and actually rigid as well. May I also refer to the point made by Chlöe Swarbrick around the official cash rate and some of the conclusions that she made there. It was raised in the debate. There have been official cash rate rises; that lever has been used along with a number of levers to take the pain out of inflation. Those levers are working. Treasury predicts that we will reach target inflation by 2 to 3 percent at the end of next year. So just a point really that those levers are working. Madam Speaker I can see you looking at me wanting me to go to the Supplementary Estimates and can I just say it is a wide-ranging debate but what I feel is that this is around a Government that listens versus a very rigid negative and whiny approach. We have seen it before because the Opposition refuse to acknowledge that things happen in life after things have been budgeted for. Any household knows that any mother who runs a household budget knows that any business owner knows that and that is why the appropriations are estimates" and that is why there is a clean-up at the end: to account for the money to explain the change and also to explain any change in performance indicators. Now the Opposition may like to pretend things haven't happened but in fact there has been COVID there has been a pandemic of inflation there has been cost of living pressures the war in Ukraine and look what difference that made. The war in Ukraine directly led to the petrol excise reduction of 25 percent; that would not have happened without the war in Ukraine. That is why we need the Supplementary Estimates.If we look at the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) which was raised by Nicola Willis in her contribution I sat in the select committee that did the scrutiny of that and it is fair for the Auditor-General to say that there needs to be adequate accounting for money but the system itself does not allow for a quantifiable opportunity cost to be measured. It is very easy to sit with the benefit of hindsight and look at the systems that were used without taking into account what would have happened to those communities if the money have not gone out the door.Now the Auditor-General's office said "Yes you know that's why we haven't been so tough in our comments." There is no way currently in the system to numerate and quantify that. That is one of the issues with the system and I can guarantee you that there were communities that would have fallen over that were really struggling where that PGF money made a significant difference particularly to marae around the areas and certainly in my own electorate in Taieri where PGF funding has contributed to projects that are going to make a significant difference to those communities kept people employed kept the construction sector going and kept unemployment low. Now if we look at what National would do the last time there was a cost of living crisis National said they needed austerity. In 2012 instead of being flexible instead of being able to provide flexibility to support struggling people they imposed privatisation job cuts a tax on welfare and education; they gutted the Hillside Workshops in my own electorate of Taieri which led to job loss; they actually gave tax cuts to the rich which significantly impacted on poorer New Zealanders; and they increased the GST rate which is regressive. All of this had a massive—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! Order! If the member can just come back to this appropriations bill please.INGRID LEARY: Sure thank you Madam Speaker. My point really around this appropriation is there needs to be flexibility in the system and the flexibility does need to be applied with discipline as it has been but if there is a rigid approach taken as there was by the National Government in 2012 it leads to austerity and the social scarring that our finance Minister has spoken about so often. Somebody has raised the fact that the universities have received $128 million of funding today. That is fantastic. That is an example of a supplementary appropriation that has been brought about by need and it is an example of a Government that has listened. I just want to acknowledge today all those in my electorate and the electorate of the Hon Dr David Clark who have been grappling with the spectre of redundancy. I am hoping that this will put their minds at ease because actually somebody said that this was foreseeable—I think it was Damien Smith—in fact the Budget gave the university sector a 5 percent budget increase which is a significant increase. What wasn't taken into account when that Budget appropriation was happening was the numbers that would drop off both from COVID from inflation but also the very tight labour market that we find ourselves in. So it is absolutely appropriate to be able to respond flexibly and provide additional funding so that those thought leaders in our community those institutions of thought leadership can continue. If I look at Otago University it is the jewel in the crown of Otago and it will with the new Dunedin hospital remain the jewel in the crown because it positions our city as being a leading city for medical leadership and education. So it's really important that we do have those institutions. I was listening this morning to Andrew Geddis on national radio do a really interesting piece around electoral reform and the work that he's done sitting on that panel. Now that is the sort of thought leadership that universities can provide. We need to look after them and in this case the Government has done that. But it is not doing that in an undisciplined way. It has also introduced a review on the higher education funding system. That's entirely appropriate given that we find a number of universities in the same boat.So just to re-emphasise really this is business as usual. This is about Budgets being disciplined but having enough flex to respond to situations like pandemics like weather events like foreign wars like inflation which is being felt globally. That's what this appropriation does. If we look at the alternative which is to think that budgeting is somehow a perfect mathematical science—that there should be no flex no wiggle room; only austerity only cuts as a way to respond—that is going to leave not only struggling New Zealanders but middle New Zealanders behind. So there are two choices and our side of the House has very clearly shown that an ability to listen and to budget in a disciplined way but listen to the electorate and respond where it's appropriate is the right way to approach the Budget and the Supplementary Estimates. That's exactly what we're seeing here now. The amount budgeted in the Supplementary Estimates is actually lower than it has been for a number of years for the reasons that other speakers have said. So I just hope that listeners out there realise this is business as usual that it suits the National Party to try to say that they are astute fiscal managers when their astute fiscal management in my view takes no account of wellbeing takes no account of whether a child is sent to school with shoes on or whether they live in a warm dry home. So there's nothing more to say. It's a great bill. I commend it to the House.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The next call is a split call. I call on Sam Uffindell."