Simpson ScottHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Thank you Mr Speaker. The Minister of Finance was quick to criticise the body language and the posture and the pose of my colleague the Hon Paul Goldsmith but anyone watching—in this Chamber and beyond—the body language of the Minister of Finance would know he did not have his heart in it. He did not have his heart in it because he's really good at being addicted to spending and addicted to borrowing and addicted to making light with taxpayers' money actually.So I want to pick up on the comments that my colleague the Hon Paul Goldsmith made in his contribution in his third reading speech. He made the point that on this side of the House we support endorse and accept that this is a good idea actually to have a holiday marking Matariki. It's part of what is the heritage of our country and it should be appropriately marked. But we humbly suggest that at a time of economic concern—some would say crisis—when there is a well-accepted now cost of living crisis and the squeezed middle of New Zealand society is being squeezed even harder the Government should be careful in the way that it is administering and stewarding New Zealanders' hard-earned taxpayer dollars.Now there's no cleverness in actually giving things away. There's no cleverness in making things free. But most of us know—I'm sure that Government members maybe don't know this but most people know; certainly most voters know most taxpayers know most business people know—that there isn't anything for free. Everything comes at a price at a cost and someone pays.So yes great have another public holiday. This legislation increases the number of statutory public holidays that we have in New Zealand from 11 to 12. There would be some—there are certainly some on the Government benches—who say Well look you know just keep creating public holidays. People love it." Look I'm the member of Parliament for the beautiful Coromandel. We love long weekends in the Coromandel. People come from all over the countryside and they do come and spend time and money in electorates like mine. From my point of view and for the hospitality and tourist providers in my electorate that's a good thing. We welcome that.But we all know that those people who do come and spend time and money during a long weekend are usually business people or employees or they are people who are contributors to our economy elsewhere than just coming to the beautiful Coromandel to buy coffee and have a lovely brunch somewhere around the beautiful electorate of mine. They know that if they are an employee of a manufacturing business for instance their employer will be having to pay them as if they were at work that day. So there is a cost—there is a cost to business and there is a cost to us as a society.It's the condescending derision that comes from the Government that I find most difficult to accept on this side. They seem to think that there isn't an associated cost with it and they seem to just have no respect or regard for other people's money. That's really the big problem with socialism. This is not just about the granting of another public holiday; this goes to the fundamental difference and principle of a socialist Labour Government that actually wants to spend other people's money with abandon in a reckless way.Now surely it makes sense over the last couple of years to be more prudent and more careful and less reckless with taxpayers' money. But no we have a Government that has taken it upon itself to spend more borrow more print more money than any Government in the history of this nation—and there have been some justified reasons for that. But no prudence and caution around the impacts not only for us and our generation but for the next generation and the generation that will follow and it will be our children and grandchildren who end up paying for most of their working life for the spending borrowing and printing of money that has occurred over the last couple of years.So this is just another example. Yes great Matariki—have the public holiday. That's all good. But at least give some consideration to balancing it out a bit. We have a number of public holidays that maybe have ceased to be relevant in terms of the culture and heritage and understanding of our society. My good friend and colleague Paul Goldsmith suggested in an earlier debate that maybe we consider looking at removing Labour Day. That's probably something that should at least be considered. I don't think this Government even considered it. In fact what we know from the impact statement and speeches and contributions made at earlier stages of this legislation passing through the Parliament—we know that actually no consideration has been given by this Government to even thinking about rationalising the range of statutory public holidays in New Zealand. I think that's an opportunity lost and an opportunity missed.What we do know is that the regulatory impact statement has calculated that something close to half a billion dollars will be the net dollar cost. Now in the great scheme of things half a billion dollars on a day's public holiday may not seem much to the Government. It certainly doesn't seem much to the finance Minister Grant Robertson. He's used to spending much larger amounts of money than that and he's addicted to it. He just keeps doing it. But what I'm saying to members of the Government and to anyone that is listening this afternoon is that I think our Government needs to be more careful more prudent and more assiduous in terms of deciding how it is that hard-working taxpayers' finances and money is spent. This is a laudable good example of a public holiday—don't have any problem with that at all—but at least some consideration should have been given to a debate a conversation consideration of a rationalisation of the number of public statutory holidays we have.So this piece of legislation will be passed by the Government using its absolute majority in this Parliament. That's the democracy that we live in and that's their right and privilege for the meantime to be able to do that. I think that this is just another example of them using that in a way that they see fit. We choose to take a different view. In a democracy that's not a bad thing—to have differing views. But what is a bad thing is not having the discussion not having the debate and not having the opportunity to at least rationally talk about a range of options that are available to us. That's the sad thing in our democracy—it's when there isn't a debate there isn't a discussion. Frankly far too little discussion on far too many important public issues has been the hallmark of this Government's administration. Thank goodness it's coming to an end very shortly. Thank you very much for your time and consideration Mr Speaker."