Woodhouse MichaelHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. I think that last minute of the member Shane Jones' speech speaks volumes about New Zealand First and whose well-being they really are interested in. We've heard the use of this well-being Budget" term a lot and it's being bandied about as if it is somehow a new concept but every Budget is about well-being. There isn't a single dollar that is spent by any Government that they don't honestly believe is going to improve the well-being of New Zealanders. If there's any failure I would suggest of the previous Government I could say that the idea of well-being was so obvious so fundamental in the raison d'être of that Government that we didn't speak about it enough. But I want to talk about things like the Better Public Services targets. There were about 10 of them I think—120 separate individual targets under 10 categories. They were categories like reducing long-term welfare dependence reducing crime and improving skills and employment. Every single one of those targets was a well-being target. The national health targets: access to better cancer treatment faster emergency departments better immunisation—these are all about the well-being of New Zealanders and if the previous Government didn't speak enough in the language that we're now using it is because it was so self-evident it wasn't felt necessary. The disappointing thing about where we're at now is that this Government has dismantled massive machinery around well-being for one reason and one reason only and that was it was the previous Government's framework. That is deeply disappointing because effectively we've gotten to a point of stasis where we've been here for 18 months on things like mental health where there were specific measurable well-being targets to improve the mental health services for particularly young New Zealanders and because the previous Government had come up with them they were dispensed with and we started again. We didn't start again with new initiatives; we started again with a review—a review into mental health and addiction which has spawned I don't know how many other reviews. But we've got more committees than you can shake a stick at all talking and thinking about mental health but not acting on it despite the fact that mental health is one of the five priorities specifically listed in the Budget Policy Statement. Before I go on more about the health well-being challenges I just want to reflect on a couple of things that the Minister of Finance made because he did make two important points. He said firstly that he as Minister of Finance needed to report on well-being matters annually and he used the issue of child poverty targets as an example of a well-being target that he'll need to report on. But simultaneously with the introduction of the child poverty targets was the dispensing and non-replacement of any health targets. He also said that this Government was going to use evidence. I was fascinated by that use of the term "evidence" because on the basis of evidence I wonder what the evidence was for the investment into the education system of $2.8 billion of free fees for tertiary students. If one was to spend $2.8 billion today in education does the evidence show—Hon Chris Hipkins: We didn't spend that. That's not how much the fees-free cost. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Over four years? I'm pretty sure that's what it was. Hon Chris Hipkins: No that's not how much it cost. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Well the Minister was talking it up big time when he announced it. Now he's trying to make the target as small as possible actually—Hon Chris Hipkins: No because he's adding in the student allowance increase. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Oh OK so that doesn't matter. That wasn't money that was taken out of one taxpayer and given to another so it doesn't count—only that's exactly what he did. So my question remains: if one is to invest $2.8 billion in the education system does the evidence show that well-being is served by giving free fees to the children of millionaires or by increasing the number and remuneration of our secondary and primary school teachers the number and quality of the teaching and learning resources that they have the number of teacher-aides that we have in our schools or the number of special education services? The evidence I would suggest is that the well-being of this country and its young would be much better served by investing those billions into a different part of the education system and let's hope actually that the next Budget is less about pork and more about well-being because that's my perception of what Budget 2018 was. In health the same question needs to be asked—that is how is the well-being of our population enhanced by the complete removal and non-replacement of any health targets? What has that done? Well it's done a couple of things. Firstly fiscal discipline is gone and the Minister of Finance before he even gets to look at new spending in Budget 2019 on health has to work with his Minister of Health to find out how on earth they're going to stem the flow of what could be as much as half a billion dollars of combined district health board deficits—complete blowouts. This is before they even look to replace the $100 million of mental health funding that was ripped out in Budget 2018 and before they remedy the issue of the savings in pharmaceutical purchasing that could've been reinvested into new medicines so that cancer patients don't have to have a Givealittle page set up so that they can have their modern cancer drugs paid for. Instead that money went back into the slush fund to stem the flow. Where is the well-being of New Zealanders when independent midwives are leaving the profession in their droves because the Minister of Health has sat on a report that says that these fantastic female professionals are worth far more than they are being paid and the Minister has done nothing but pay lip-service about that? What about the well-being of the adults who are going profoundly deaf and would benefit significantly from cochlear implants when the $6.5 million that the previous Government put in to increase and double the number of adults who would get those implants was taken away? What about the well-being of every single New Zealander who was promised by Jacinda Ardern and David Clark that they would get discounts in their GP fees only to find in Budget 2018 that that did not happen and there is no prospect in the future of that coming back? A broken promise. So as we approach Budget 2019 and as we look at this Budget Policy Statement and hear the wonderful warm fuzzy virtue-signalling words about well-being what New Zealanders really want to hear is: "What's going to happen to my health services and my education services? Will I be protected at home and on the streets? Will my well-being be better or worse as a consequence of this Budget?" It's a question they may not articulate using those words but they have done so every year since Budgets were set and the idea that well-being is something new is completely wrong. Now I've laid out a few of those very very profound fiscal challenges in the Health vote alone—and actually in education—and what that means is that in order for the Minister of Finance and Cabinet to stay within their own spending disciplines something else has to happen and that is that revenue has to go up. The way the Government clearly has chosen to do that is to put a tax on the capital increments of the hard-working New Zealanders in our small businesses on our farms our cribs our baches—the things that have been worked at over many many years—without any recognition of the time value of money and inflation and without any recognition that the tax gained could've been accrued over 15 20 25 years and that the actual marginal tax rate at the time of realisation is probably going to be far far greater than if that impost had been put in over each successive year which is a reality that other jurisdictions in the OECD represent by simply having a lower tax rate for capital gains. But these Ministers are so desperate to fund their high-spending promises and their fiscal irresponsibility over the last 15 months—particularly in the health sector—that they are not able to do that. They're not prepared to do that. In order to keep this fiscal envelope the way they describe it in the Budget Policy Statement there is a tax coming to a pocket near every single New Zealander and that can only harm this economy."