Wood MichaelMICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): It is always a very tough act—DEPUTY SPEAKER: 8.52.MICHAEL WOOD: Thank you Madam Speaker. I'll make every second count.It's always a very tough act to follow on from the honourable member Lawrence Yule. He is the most dangerous man in this Parliament. You know you're in real trouble if he offers you a glass of water so I'd be looking out Andrew Bayly over there.I've been listening very closely to this debate and I was a little confused when I came into the Chamber because as far as I was aware we are in this debate set to be debating the Appropriation (2018/19 Supplementary Estimates) Bill but I actually heard very little from Opposition speakers about the Supplementary Estimates. I recall my time in Opposition and one of the things that a diligent Opposition does is to actually do its homework and work its way through the Supplementary Estimates and actually find the areas that might cause some political mischief for the Government. Actually it's not just a political issue it is actually a constitutional issue in terms of how this place operates. This Parliament appropriates money to fund the business of Government. The Supplementary Estimates which we are here to debate are the additional appropriations required to meet Government expenditure that were not appropriated in the year before. And so it is actually a fundamental duty of the members of this House and in particular the Opposition to actually do the work of going through the Supplementary Estimates and hold the Government to account and actually say something about them actually say something about the over and underspends that are detailed in the Supplementary Estimates produced by Treasury heard by the Finance and Expenditure Committee and presented to this House. But that Opposition simply hasn't put the work in and has had not a dicky-bird to actually say about those Supplementary Estimates.As a member who does care about these things I'm going to help them out by actually speaking about some of those Supplementary Estimates that they haven't put the time into actually having a look at. One that I want to pick up on was in fact referenced by Mr Yule over the previous 10 minutes or so; it felt like longer. This relates to the fiscal situation of our district health boards (DHBs). Now if Mr Yule had looked on page 15 of the Supplementary Estimates document produced by Treasury he would have seen that in fact there has been an additional $95 million of equity funding put in to fund our district health boards. Of course it begs the question why is this? Why is it that the Government is having to put additional funding in to support our district health boards? What New Zealanders are aware of is that it's because of nine years of neglect. Nine years in which our public services were run down by that previous Government. Nine years in which fundamental public services such as our DHBs weren't given enough to do the basics on. That is what this Government is cleaning up. These Supplementary Estimates reveal we had to put an additional $95 million into those district health boards to ensure that they could keep the doors open and do the job that they have to do. On this side of the House we're proud of the fact that we are willing to make those investments but we're not happy about the fact that we have to do so through this process because of the neglect of that previous Government.I might note that up until pretty recently in general terms the people who have been overseeing the governance of those district health boards have been appointees of the previous Government so there's no call to say that they haven't been governed well. The simple fact is that those entities are underfunded and this Government has a plan to deal with it.I might note that as much as the Opposition might try and make a point out of this—and over this very week of the Budget debate we have had those members complaining about that additional investment needed into the health system to plug the deficit—at the same time those members have been arguing for tax cuts; at the same time those members have been arguing that debt should be paid down at a faster rate. So they want it all. They want taxes cut. They want lower debt. They want increased expenditure. It simply doesn't add up. Those Opposition members have no fiscal credibility. The figures don't add up. The evidence on the basis of this debate is that they don't even engage in the most basic elements of the work that an Opposition should to understand what is going on in the Government finances and hold the Government to account. It's just the same boring old line about tax cuts. That party can simply not get over the fact—they simply cannot get over the fact—that there is more to life and more to running a good Government than cutting taxes.Carrying on in the Supplementary Estimates I want to acknowledge the fact that in the Supplementary Estimates there is additional funding here by way of capital injections into the Defence Force carrying through on the good work of our Minister of Defence the Hon Ron Mark. He is in fact picking up on some of the work that was carried out under the previous Government in terms of the defence white paper making sure that our defence services have the equipment that they need to protect and preserve New Zealand's interests particularly in the Pacific and in the southern seas. I want to acknowledge that and put that on the table some of those additional capital injections into defence that are in the Supplementary Estimates.We're also debating the imprest supply bill an important piece of legislation that ensures that the business of Government goes on until the Budget process is complete. I'm very pleased that we're able to support this bill because what it does is make sure that some of the important initiatives that this Government funded through its Wellbeing Budget are able to get under way. I'm very proud of this Budget and I don't think there is an area that I'm more proud of than the investment into mental health.This is a Government that is finally taking mental health seriously. For too long our society and let's face it successive Governments haven't dealt adequately with this issue. I remember when the Minister of Health in the previous Government dismissed New Zealanders who came to this Parliament putting forward the people's mental health inquiry as politically motivated and mischief-makers and basically turned them away at the door. This is a Government which has brought together people from the sector and said that we will prioritise the mental health of New Zealanders because that is what a Government that is concerned with the wellbeing of its citizens does. This is a $1.9 billion package that comes through in the Budget that we are supporting through this piece of legislation in getting that investment under way. It will ensure that New Zealanders have access to community-level mental health services. It ensures the beginning of a $40 million investment into reducing suicide in our country. Isn't it absolutely appalling that the single biggest cause of death of our young men under the age of 25 in this country is suicide? No member in this Chamber would believe that that is acceptable; no member of this Chamber would want to see that carry on as it is. This Government is doing something about it. I am very proud of those investments. I'm proud of the investments in here as well that we are supporting through this legislation which are going to lift between 50000 and 70000 of our children out of poverty. No society that values the wellbeing of its people that values the notion that our children should be able to achieve their very fullest potential and flourish in their lives could or would accept the level of child poverty that we have in this country. This Budget and the legislation that we are supporting has been shown to lift between 50000 and 70000 of our kids out of child poverty. The Children's Commissioner Andrew Becroft last year told us that the single biggest thing that we could do to help our kids who were in poverty was to index benefit rates to wages. That is done in this Budget and that will make an absolutely enormous difference. This is also a Budget which invests in the public services that are so important to New Zealanders. I just want to touch briefly on health. Over each of the next two years $850 million dollars of capital expenditure is going into health to make sure that we don't have the shameful spectacle of sewage running down the walls of Middlemore Hospital again. That was preceded last year in the 2017 Budget by a $750 million capital investment. Under National the year before that it was $100 million; the year before that it was zip. This is a Government which is investing in the wellbeing of its people. Whether it's pulling our kids out of poverty whether it's giving our people access to the mental health services that they need whether it's investing in the public health system for our people that is what this Budget delivers. This is a Government which is here for the many not just the few. I'm immensely proud of this Budget and pleased to support these pieces of legislation in the House tonight. Thank you.