Robertson Grant: Oral Questions — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRobertson Grant: Oral Questions — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 25 May 2016. Volume:714;Page:11247. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]9.GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) to the Minister of Finance: Why has he brought forward spending previously earmarked for Budget 2017 into Budget 2016?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): Partly because of increase in population and partly because the Government has a range of positive opportunities to invest in strengthening the economy and in delivering better services.Grant Robertson: After 8 years will he now accept that his positive opportunities are in fact a social deficit that has led to a housing crisis a huge shortfall in health funding and parents bearing a greater cost of their children’s education?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Absolutely not and I would refer the member to the regular reporting of the Government’s Better Public Services results which show reducing welfare dependency and significantly higher pass rates in our schools particularly for Māori and Pacific students. I refer him to the results that show increasing skill levels among our young people reductions in rheumatic fever and higher immunisation rates. I might say it is a much better record than the previous Labour Government’s which increased spending by 50 percent and left almost all social statistics in a worse state.Grant Robertson: Does he believe that 1 year of focus on spending in health housing and education will deal with the problems built up over the last 8 years; if not will he rule out offering tax cuts in 2017?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The member is simply wrong. This Government has focused on doing the Government’s job better since the day it was elected. The Labour Party might wish that there was some kind of widespread breakdown in public services but it is absolutely not the case which is why around the country we are finding enthusiastic NGO and Public Service staff working very hard to do a better job for New Zealanders.Grant Robertson: Will part of the spending brought forward from 2017 fund an extension to paid parental leave to 26 weeks as the Labour bill being debated before Parliament tonight proposes?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The member will just have to wait and see. The Government’s stance on Labour’s bill has not altered. The Government extended paid parental leave I think in the last Budget in two tranches of 2 weeks in successive years. We believe that given the range of demands on the Government purse that is a fair and balanced outcome.Grant Robertson: Does he believe that 18 weeks’ paid parental leave is sufficient?Hon BILL ENGLISH: That is what the Government is funding and relative to all the other needs of which the member is regularly reminding us whether it is housing or health or education or anything he can think of we think that is pretty balanced.Grant Robertson: Can he confirm that for his future tax cut promises he will be relying on Treasury forecasts that economists regard as overly optimistic and which he has previously dismissed saying that “Treasury can barely tell what is going to happen before Christmas let alone forecast years ahead.”?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The economists have not seen the forecasts. I am sure that some of them will disagree with them—that is the nature of economists and the nature of forecasts. What we do know is that within reasonable variation around those forecasts the economy is growing we know that—2 to 3 percent per year—and the Government books are in surplus and those surpluses are likely to rise.