Finlayson ChristopherHon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National): It's a bit rich to be lectured on competency and transparency from Clare Curran the most secretive and incompetent Minister in this Government and that really is saying something when you see the line-up of these noddies. I want to make three points about this shabby and pedestrian Budget: first that the Budget represents a triumph for the bureaucracy over front-line services; secondly that Māori lost big time; and thirdly that the only winner has been New Zealand First.Let me go to the first point which is that the Budget represents a triumph for the bureaucracy. The previous speaker admitted the amounts of money in her area that were going into the provision of policy advice. I just want to take one small area in relation to arts culture and heritage because I have a personal as opposed to a political interest in the arts—a long-time lover of the arts—and if one was to believe what all the luvvies were saying the advent of the new Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage and her six or seven Associate Ministers represented the new dawn. Nirvana had come.Well I have to tell you round the country at arts events a chill has set in because they know that that is not the case—that all the promises have come to nothing. And where has any additional expenditure in arts culture and heritage gone to? Well unbelievably it's gone to the bureaucrats: an increase in the provision for money set aside for policy advice and monitoring of funded agencies; incredibly more money spent on ministerial servicing notwithstanding that there are about as I said four or five Associate Ministers; monitoring of funding agencies; and policy advice. I find that kind of additional expenditure simply incredible.In the six years I was the Minister for arts we had very tough economic times but I could always go to the now Sir Bill English and say that the ballet was in trouble they needed additional expenditure and they got help. Front-line services always came first. We were able to do a huge number of things on very little money—like for example being country of honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair and having the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra tour through Europe. These are the sorts of things where money should have gone. Instead it's gone to policy advice—looking after the bureaucrats but not the front line. And in what could only be described as a very pedestrian and mediocre defence in her Budget speech the Prime Minister said this was the start. But that was simply unacceptable. That's where the money has gone across the board. The bureaucracy wins out rather than front-line services.The second point I want to emphasise is that Māori have lost big time—no more eloquently stated than by John Tamihere who said there's a caucus of 13 MPs in the coalition caucus and basically all of them failed because the expenditure set aside for Te Puni Kōkiri (TPK) has been slashed. And incredibly they stand up and recite in a formulaic generic way as the previous speaker did the kinds of expenditure that have gone across the board. But they can't get away from the fact that funding for TPK has been slashed and that all the promises that were made before the election have turned to ashes.The particular area where a huge amount of work was done by the previous Government was on reform of Te Ture Whenua Maori and through shabby deals with various people they opposed that legislation even though they themselves in previous manifestos had promoted reform of Te Ture Whenua Maori. And not only has the bill gone for a skate but expenditure into the way in which Māori land could become more productive has gone for a skate as well. I see the Minister of Forestry in the House who talks grandly and at length—sometimes like a barrage balloon—about promises of planting a billion trees. It will not be achieved in this country unless we can deal with te ture whenua and nothing has happened there. John Tamihere is so right—their empty words their promises come to nothing.And then we have the only real winner—and this is the third point I want to make—and that is New Zealand First. An American humourist Will Rogers once said I never tell jokes. I just look at the Government and report the facts." And he was saying that in the last days of the Hoover administration but it applies with equal force to this shabby incompetent coalition Government. It so applies here. Let us look at the facts and we can see what Will Rogers was really talking about—for example that Tracey Martin and Ron Mark are Ministers that we have tax breaks for good-looking horses that we have $191 million for diplomats and massively increased overseas aid at the expense of the poor in New Zealand that we have the oil and gas industry destroyed in New Zealand so that the Greens will support the Peters waka-jumping legislation. We have a real need within the precincts of this place for rebuilding part of the Parliament—I refer to the proposals for the office building that was going to be situated behind Parliament. We all know that the old press gallery in the Beehive was a serious earthquake risk and has been yellow-stickered. Every party in the Parliament bar New Zealand First was in favour of that sensible development but it's been held up by one small irrelevant party and their small leader. And so what we have is all those proposals put on hold because of one person.Rt Hon David Carter: Why?Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: We have a regional development fund of—but "Why?" the Rt Hon David Carter asks. That's a question the answer to which will be developed over the next couple of months.Then we have a regional development fund of $3 billion where there are no criteria there are no tests—it's all discretionary. It's Hundertwasser one day it's the Taranaki Cathedral the next it's a forest in the central North Island the day after that. We have the three-strikes repeal dead but the process is a metaphor for the chaos of a Government which has simply no coordination whatsoever. And who does it come back to? Who is as it were the Mephistopheles behind this shabby Faust? Well we all know who it is. It's the failed member for Hunua for Tauranga and for Northland—our new great acting Prime Minister. He was a failure in the 1990 administration—Jim Bolger had to get rid of him after nine months. He was a failure in the 1996 administration—he walked out before Jenny Shipley could fire him. He was a failure in the last Government where he needed to be propped up by Margaret Wilson so that he didn't answer questions in the House. Everything he touches turns to dust and that is the person who today is acting Prime Minister. It would be funny it would humorous if it wasn't so sad for our beloved country.So there we have it. Three—only three; there is a litany of them—points that need be made: that the Budget represents a triumph for the bureaucracy that Māori lost big time and that the only winners in this exercise have been New Zealand First. And we who worked so hard over nine years in the toughest of economic times facing the kinds of challenges we did with for example the Christchurch earthquake produced prudent Budgets got this country back to sound economic health. We were starting to produce Budget surpluses and it's one of those dreadful tragedies that we all see it going to waste because ultimately a Faustian deal was done with a very unpleasant and nasty New Zealand First Party led by a very unpleasant person in Mr Peters and we are all going to have to suffer the consequences of that grubby little deal.So that's the Budget. That's the way things are. Mr Jones may laugh but unfortunately the laugh is going to be on him in 2020."