SpeechDAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote): It's a pleasure to speak in the Budget debate today and I want to start out on a positive note. I want to start by acknowledging the Government and the public of New Zealand for the response to COVID-19; in particular the health response. So we've had no cases for 13 days. We've had 34 days of no community transmission; 92 percent of New Zealanders agree that the Government's approach to the health crisis has been beneficial. So look I just want to acknowledge that—it's my olive branch to that side of the House—and on this side of the House we think that that is evidence of why we should be in level 1 immediately. So we do call on the Government to go to level 1. Let's get back to business and get our economy moving.But this Budget that we're here to debate today was about jobs. It was about the economic response to COVID-19. Somebody's mentioned in the House it's a jobs Budget—that it's a Budget that is about rebuilding together. That is what I want to spend my contribution on here today going down into the details with that because we do face a significant economic crisis throughout our community. In communities what it means really is lost jobs lost incomes and lost livelihoods and that economic cost—that is very real in my community of Northcote where just yesterday the Warehouse announced that it's closing a longstanding store in my community that's going to force 40 staff potentially to lose their jobs. So we understand that we are entering tough times and that this Budget was all about the economic response. However I don't have faith that this Government or this Budget delivers the economic response that's required to get our economy back on track. All they've promised is more debt going up to 54 percent of GDP in the next few years more spending but no real plan to drive private enterprise and drive our economy forward. As my colleague David Carter mentioned all of the assumptions that the Budget is based on are very rosy and we have significant concerns about the downside effect if those assumptions don't hold up. Really there is no plan to get the thousands upon thousands of people right across New Zealand back into work and earning good incomes and no plan to actually deliver for New Zealand. Let's be clear: the people in New Zealand realise the Government is weak on delivery. Need we say more than KiwiBuild light rail and a very close project to my heart the SkyPath project? So what makes us believe that this Government after 2½ years of virtually delivering nothing will deliver on the economic response that's required to get our economy back on track and what confidence do we have that they will spend the $20 billion extra that they have allowed in an effective way to get our economy back on track? That's the question that we have and we have no faith in the answer to that. Let's dive down into some of the actual Budget announcements that were made. Apprenticeship support—that's fantastic. I did an apprenticeship a few years ago. It took me 2½ years but 140000 unemployed people in New Zealand are not going to go and do an apprenticeship for 2½ years. What about education and training? Well this Government had a fantastic report that it was sitting on: the Productivity Commission report into the future of work. How many recommendations did they pull out of that report? Zero—oh and I was ambitious for this Government to actually do something in that area. What about the wage subsidy which we've heard a lot about today? Well that wage subsidy yes that does help but it's not enough and after months of no delivery on things like commercial rents the Government announces something today to that effect. Well that is too late and it is not enough for those hard-working thousands of small businesses out there that need support now. What about mental health? This Government's talked up a big game in mental health. Well in my community of Northcote we've received no extra funding for mental health in our community under this Government.Dr Duncan Webb: Have you got nurses in schools?DAN BIDOIS: So what else should I say? Let's talk Duncan Webb about the shovel-ready projects shall we? Let's talk about those shovel-ready projects. Well tell me how many jobs that's going to create tomorrow because unless that side is able to tell me then that is not going to be sufficient to get our economy moving. So all we see is a massive amount of throwing money at things willy-nilly getting us more into debt without a significant plan—without a significant plan—of getting our economy moving. What are some of the massive effects? Well unemployment—under Treasury's scenario nearly 10 percent; I think it's going to be higher. We've got debt going up lost incomes and I think just a contraction of our economy over the next few years. So now we come to what National would have done. What would we have done differently than this Government did? Well firstly we would have got us back to business earlier. We would have taken us to level 1 earlier as the Government's own advice indicates—that we should be in fact in level 1 getting our businesses back together. The second thing we would have done is focus on real private sector investment and making it easy to hire new staff. That is why the leader of the National Party announced JobStart which is a fantastic thing and actually we hope the Government adopts it. JobStart provides $10000 for a business to take on a new worker.Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: Ah chucking money at the problem.DAN BIDOIS: What about a GST refund?" I hear you say Iain Lees-Galloway. Well we're going to give businesses a GST refund. We're also going to give businesses who invest the chance to write off the depreciation of their assets. What we need in this House is a Government that is focused on enabling the private sector to deliver jobs because they aren't delivered in Wellington. The jobs are delivered by the private enterprises and the people who go off and invest their hard-earned cash and not the sector in Wellington. What else would we have done? We would have again focused on massive infrastructure spending but more targeted to that effect. Again we had 12 roads of national significance 2½ years ago. Labour cancelled those projects; they were shovel-ready. They were shovel-ready. Now what have they done? They've put them back online.So let me come back to what this is all about which is that our economy is going to be facing some really tough challenges. I believe that with the right plan with the right vision with the right team New Zealand can come through this well and position our country successfully for the post-COVID-19 world. But I don't see that in this Budget today. I don't see the team that has the private sector nous to deliver for New Zealanders with respect to a greater and more prosperous economy. I see that team on this side of the House: small-business owners farmers investment bankers the creators of our economic growth and our economic agenda heading forward.My colleague David Carter talked about the election. This election is going to be fought on who is best-placed to deliver for New Zealanders where it matters most. We acknowledge the Government's done a fantastic job on the health crisis. Yes we can pull apart and say "You know here they should have done things better." But on the economic side they will fail. They will fail because they lack the team they lack the plan they lack the vision to deliver for New Zealanders. That's what National's going to do and I look forward to campaigning for the National Party vote in September."