English Bill: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeEnglish Bill: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 06 June 2013. Volume:690;Page:10892. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): It is a pleasure to close off the Budget debate for 2013 because the contentions set forth in the Budget by the National-led Government remain I think intact despite the benefit of 16 or 17 hours of debate here. What is pretty clear as a result of this debate but also the public debate around the Budget is that the Government is on track with its plans and so New Zealand is on track. As has been pointed out we are on track to surplus. We are on track to a more competitive economy that is creating more jobs and lifting incomes and that can do better; we are on track with Better Public Services despite a recession and despite considerable efforts to contain expenditure; and we are on track to rebuild Christchurch which is in itself a very substantial task. If I can I acknowledge the enormous effort of the Christchurch community through difficult times. They deserve all of the support including the $2 billion extra allocated to them in this current Budget.The Budget is another step in the John Key - led National Government’s approach to sensible economic policy and that is to focus on considered and consistent change over time. At no stage has this Government overreacted to the pressures of uncertainty in the global economy. We have not overreacted to the fact that in 1 year we had an $18 billion deficit—9 per cent of GDP. We have set out to explain the changes we are making to take considered steps rather than radical steps and to bring the public along with us because the most important change in this economy is the change that sticks—the change that is supported by the public. That is what contributes most to our long-term economic prospects.The Budget came at a time when confidence in our economic direction was rising and I think we can say that the Budget has helped with that. The track to surplus has come to be seen as something of a symbol of whether the economy is on track and the fact that we can confirm in this Budget that we are on track to surplus has helped lift confidence in the economy.Unlike our Opposition parties we know and we believe that the essential decisions made in the economy are made in households over the kitchen table in businesses in the smoko room and in organisations that are planning their futures over the next year or so. What is really important what has become clearer is that those people are now approaching those tasks with some optimism. It has been a while since they have done that. They have shown resilience and they have shown perseverance and now New Zealanders are starting to enjoy some very well-deserved optimism. They understand that they have become much better at handling economic uncertainty and that there are pay-offs for reorganising their households and their businesses in the same way that theGovernment has got to go through the same process. Relative to most other developed country economies they are in pretty good shape enjoying moderate and consistently rising incomes moderate and consistent new job creation and improving prospects for more of that.Through this debate we also learnt a bit about the Opposition. I think two things stand out in what we have learnt about the Opposition. The first is that the Greens are leading Labour by the nose. The Greens are leading Labour by the nose because they are more energetic they have got more initiative they have got more energy they have got a sharper tougher leader who goes right to the edge of personal abuse—as he did the other day—they are more active they have got more ideas and they are deciding the tone of the Opposition. And it is not just the public who can see that; we can see it in here pretty much every day.I am sure though—[Interruption] Hang on. We have also seen the Greens bare their teeth. We have seen them bare their teeth and it was a snarl. It makes very clear what the tone of that kind of Government would be. The snarl the put-down the personal abuse—that is the style and we see the subtle versions of it day after day. They make the Labour Party look polite. But I think there is one reason why they are getting pretty snarly—they are getting frustrated with the Labour Party.The Labour Party is in year 5 of Opposition—year 5 of Opposition. What it will do what it is doing is blaming David Shearer. Look Labour members are blaming David Shearer for the Labour Party being so hopeless. David Shearer has a very hard job and I know because I have had that job. I can say that with feeling.But Labour’s problem is not David Shearer; it is the rest of them. He is a reasonable guy who is developing some rapport with the New Zealand public because he is the only face of Labour that is not tainted with the failed Clark Government—the only face of Labour. But the rest of the Labour Party members are simply lazy. What they thought would happen—this is the little equation in their heads: “Recession! National will cut stuff all over the place and the Government will fall back in our laps.” That is what they thought would happen so they have not rethought anything in 5 years—they have not rethought anything in 5 long years. And I have been wrong. I have to own up to being wrong about Labour because I used to say that by about year 5 Oppositions start getting a grip—about year 5. And I was wrong because Labour has not got a grip yet.Even in Labour’s own corner of the political spectrum all its voters are working with us on innovative social policy that is starting to have a real impact on long-running complex public policy problems. We are engaged every day in gritty responsible discussions with people who are starting to wonder why they vote Labour. So if Labour cannot get its own supporters criticising the Government—because they do not; they work with us—then it has got no hope of getting the wider public to oppose this Government.We are proud of this Budget as part of a series of five Budgets that has helped New Zealand dig itself out of a hole that was a big deep hole the product of a worldwide recession and the failures of the previous Labour Government which drove us into recession before the financial crisis. In that context we have supported the most vulnerable New Zealanders when they most needed it and we can now if we stick to this path offer not just the most vulnerable but every New Zealander the prospect of a better job the prospect of a better income the prospect of a country with a sense of direction the prospect of a New Zealand growing faster than Australia and the prospect of a New Zealand that can build a brighter future on the huge opportunities across the Asia-Pacific region. We have only just begun.