Bridges SimonBUDGET DEBATEHon SIMON BRIDGES (Leader of the Opposition): Nothing in recent history has brought about such global disruption as the COVID-19 pandemic. Kiwis have sacrificed much through the restrictions of lockdown but we can all be proud that the collective efforts of everyone have so far worked well. Today is not just about the Budget but about the direction of New Zealand more generally because the decisions we make now are generation-defining ones that will affect the next decade and beyond. This is about whether we have a society where people have jobs and growth or are saddled with uncertainty debt and taxes. Tens of thousands of Kiwis have already lost their jobs and similarly large numbers of business people have had to close their doors for good. These New Zealanders have through no fault of their own paid a huge sacrifice because of COVID-19. You've lost your livelihoods and the nest eggs you've worked so hard to build up. National stands with you. It's important we take a moment to reflect on the last eight weeks. A lot of our response has gone incredibly well. New Zealanders have self-isolated and social-distanced and sacrificed. We have flattened the curve. But just having a low number of COVID-19 cases isn't success when we have tens of thousands of people out of work and more coming. Figures from the Reserve Bank yesterday estimated that there will be 150000 job losses over the next six months and this Budget puts it at 160000. First credit where credit is due: this Government's speed at getting the wage subsidy scheme up and running reduced early economic calamity. Our lockdown however has proved excessively hard. As I've said workers and businesses have watched in horror as week after week of lockdown has washed away the foundations of their businesses that they have spent years or decades building. One thousand people a day are joining the dole queue since lockdown began and those numbers are increasing. That is 1000 people a day who are losing their livelihoods 1000 people a day who face a very uncertain future and 1000 people a day who don't know how they're going to pay their bills. Having gone hard and early on lockdown we've gone soft and slow on the economy. While lockdown was justified we should have opened up the economy sooner to get New Zealand working again. Having flattened the curve we must not flatten the economy. We must unlock New Zealand and get New Zealand working again. Today's about the future not the past. We need to lighten the lockdown to save jobs by getting cash to small businesses in need in the very short term. Even now lockdown of a kind continues. Yes at level 2 more workplaces can open but there are many rules and many workers and business people are still going backwards. I say Prime Minister get Kiwis back to work unless there's an overwhelming reason not to. Put more trust in everyday New Zealanders. We recognise we're in the deepest economic recession in our lives. That involves us ensuring we don't make the economic disaster worse than it needs to be. We must not spend more than we need to in poorly prioritised areas. After health and after education we need only ask one question with our taxpayers' money: does it save jobs and create growth? Big spending in the Budget should be focused on saving jobs because we understand the suffering from a thousand people a day going on the dole queue and businesses shutting up in record numbers. It's much easier to keep someone in a job than it is to later find them a job from the dole queue. There's much that's good in this Budget: the business support and the extension in a targeted way of the wage subsidy. But I note the priorities where $400 million is in tourism for 400000 jobs and yet rail is $1.2 billion for fewer than 4000 jobs. I'm disappointed because I don't see a plan for jobs and growth. I see pet projects whether rail or pest eradication and they may have worth but added up they mean colossal debt and they don't create sustainable jobs for workers from small to large businesses. There's an additional $140 billion in debt taking us to $200 billion in debt in this country. I note Bill English I think didn't really ever have over an extra $1 billion in a Budget in his time as Minister of Finance. That's an extra $140 billion in debt taking us to 54 percent debt to our gross domestic product or what we earn as a country—54 percent—when private debt in this country we know is high. That is $80000 a household—a second mortgage for New Zealanders that this Budget brings in—and $100 billion in deficits over four years and we know that part of that $140 billion is a $50 billion COVID-19 response and recovery fund. Sadly a $50 billion slush fund is not a plan for jobs and growth. Spending money is the easy part but Grant Robertson doesn't even today know how he will spend it all. It's not a plan. Much isn't allocated leaving over $20 billion to spray prior to election 2020. We run the risk of turning a deep economic recession from a $50 billion one to an over $140 billion one in debt. Through poorly prioritised spending the Government risks making this economic disaster worse than it needed to be. We've seen it over this term with $3 billion on a provincial growth fund which has created more jobs in Wellington than it has in Wairoa or hundreds of millions on fees-free which has led to fewer students at our universities. That unavoidably means much more debt to everyday New Zealanders. As I've said at $140 billion that's $80000 for every household around our country and it all needs to be paid back. That in turn inevitably means far fewer choices more taxes and less money in Kiwis' pockets. That is why we need discipline from the Government. Weeks ago the Prime Minister said that we had stopped a wave of devastation and thanks to the sacrifice of New Zealanders we have flattened the curve. But today we see a tsunami of debt about to wash over us—the greatest burden of debt in our country's history by a long way. Last week the Prime Minister wouldn't rule out increasing income taxes or introducing new taxes. We know Labour is instinctively in favour of increasing taxes and now they have their chance to do so for Kiwi businesses and everyday New Zealanders. Vote Labour and—you mark my words—this time next year the kindness will be gone and because of wasteful spending you'll get more taxes and less money in your pocket. Higher taxes are the last thing New Zealanders need right now but they are a certainty under a Labour-led Government. What we need now is an economic recovery strategy that gets New Zealanders working again rather than wayward spending debt and taxes. Every day that New Zealand isn't working again the debt and the taxes increase. Even now at level 2 where more workplaces can open too many restrictions remain. There are too many bureaucrats angsting over every aspect of our lives and along with politicians making calls on our behalf. You need to trust everyday New Zealanders Prime Minister.It's relatively easy to go into lockdown. New Zealanders made the sacrifice. It's much harder to lead an economy back into recovery but the best thing you can do is make the way back as simple as possible. That takes an understanding of business and the private sector and a clear economic plan for jobs and for growth. Unfortunately we know this Government has a poor record of delivering. I worry about the Government's ability to get us out of this crisis. I worry about their ability to come up with an economic plan and to execute it. Remember this is the same Government that failed to deliver KiwiBuild the same Government that failed to deliver light rail down Dominion Road the same Government that has failed to build any new roads—in fact has cancelled most of them. This year it announced a lot and in this Budget we see a lot of announcements and it will continue to make those announcements but nothing's happening. It's one thing to have a Labour Government in the good times but not in a deep recession. We must not let mismanagement missteps and missed opportunities continue.National has the team with the track record of managing New Zealand through times of economic crisis whether the global financial crisis or earthquakes. We won't keep on talking with working groups and committees and reports; we will trust everyday New Zealanders and competently pragmatically implement our plan. We've got the competence and the track record to do what we say we will. National will deliver on its promises. It was National that invested in Kiwis getting ultra-fast broadband which has made the past couple of months more bearable and productive. It was National that started and had a plan to continue the roads of national significance. It was National that built the Waterview Tunnel and gave the green light to the City Rail Link in Auckland. It was National that increased investment in R & D and science during its nine years to help accelerate innovation. I was deeply involved in all of those actions as were so many of my colleagues here. New Zealanders want a Government that can deliver and I would back National's Paul Goldsmith over Grant Robertson Judith Collins over Phil Twyford Todd McClay over Kelvin Davis Michael Woodhouse over David Clark Louise Upston over Carmel Sepuloni plus the rest of my team over any of Labour's team any day of the week.New Zealanders know that National will get the job done and get New Zealand working again. A National Budget would include a five-point plan back to progress for our country. First lighten the lockdown: get Kiwis back to work unless there's an overwhelming reason not to. Second save jobs by getting cash to small businesses most in need. Last week we announced that we would introduce an $8 billion GST cashback scheme for businesses. That would allow them to claim up to $100000 GST refunds and up to $250000 in low-interest loans. That would do much more—much more—than the Government's less targeted and less generous loan scheme or anything announced in the Budget today to save businesses and jobs in the private sector where we know it's small businesses through large businesses that actually are the engine room of growth and a plan for prosperity for our country. We also announced we would allow businesses to instantly deduct investments up to $150000. That would incentivise investment which would help to stimulate the economy as we recover from this crisis.Third we need a bit of common sense and pragmatism around the rules for the one- or two-metre world. It's one thing to allow bars and cafes to reopen but if the rules mean that you'd just lose money what's the point? Fourth—and I'm serious about this—we would unlock private sector investment which is the key for growth and innovation. We won't rely on Wellington committees to reinvent the economy; we'll trust Kiwis to work out how to get back on their feet. We'll keep taxes low. We won't regulate firms to death or keep changing the rules; we'll back them to succeed. And fifth we'll use the Government's balance sheet to invest in large high-quality infrastructure and we'll actually get it done like National did with ultra-fast broadband and upgrading our skills turbo-charging the innovation sector and improving the quality of public services such as health.We need a Budget that backs New Zealanders. I urge the Government to implement our proposals. They will save businesses and jobs and inject the massive stimulus required into the economy. Instead when New Zealanders look at today's Budget they'll see some of the bleakest economic forecasts this country has seen in living memory widespread unemployment growing debt a decade of deficits. It's easy to get lost in all of the big numbers today—the four-year projections of spending the extra billions in debt the debt-to-GDP ratio. We forget that each of those numbers—all of the numbers in fact—represent a bigger challenge: the burden we place on New Zealanders and the responsibility we have to them. We forget that a decade of deficits and debt means fewer choices for our kids down the road. The obligation we as parliamentarians have is to make sure the next generation is better off than we are that they have more choices more opportunities more ability to succeed in the world because we back them not burden them with debt.I want my two-year-old daughter Jemima in a couple of decades to buy her first home without having to pay higher taxes. I want the young apprentice from Timaru who emailed me and who wants to set up his own business to do so without having to pay higher taxes and be crippled by that tax. I want all New Zealanders to have the future they want. That means a Government with a plan that doesn't just accept that debt and deficits are our future. That means a Government with the vision and the determination to get New Zealand working again and that means we need a plan for growth we need a plan for saving jobs and we need a plan for keeping debt low so future generations are not saddled with more debt.We are yet to see a comprehensive plan from this Government. As I said before it's easy to spend the money but there's no plan here. We needed to see in this Budget specific solutions to save businesses and jobs the growth engine of our country and a plan on how this Government will responsibly manage that very same economy. We need to put trust in Kiwis to unleash their creativity and their ingenuity. Let Kiwis unleash their potential and plans. Let's back and trust everyday New Zealanders to succeed. Let's unlock New Zealand and get New Zealand working again.