Jones ShaneHon SHANE JONES (Minister of Forestry): I fear that the last contribution may have offended the Standing Orders because it would not be proper for the list member from Epsom to compare his leader to a possum. Not only the fact that it's a possum in the headlights; he hates the fact that we have spent money on getting rid of a pest that they were prepared to promise to get rid of but never put a penny in the purse. Now the reality is that's a characteristic of the last regime which is inversely related to the fact that we have made a promise under the cloak of well-being to fund our rhetoric. I with characteristic modesty wear the cloak of having to spread that message and with my Cabinet and ministerial colleagues we enjoy the mandate to ensure that the pūtea is delivered into those regions. Now I need to acknowledge—Hon Maggie Barry: The member's overshadowing the message. Hon SHANE JONES: Ah! I fear that we might need to increase the dispute resolution employment service bill with more contributions from that particular member but I'll leave that point alone for fear of being pulled up yet again by Mr Speaker for bringing colour and character back into the House. But let me move on. There actually has to be made by me an acknowledgment that there are people on the Finance and Expenditure Committee who do wade through this material who do wade through the various financial aspects of the State's administration. My colleague Fletcher Tabuteau—I have to mention him in memorable dispatches because I have a dim and distant memory of being the chairman of such a committee. For a brief period of time I had two mentors as to how I should conduct myself on that committee one being the current Speaker and another being Doug Woolerton. Doug Woolerton gave me lessons on language—I failed them—and a certain former Minister of Education gave me lessons on diplomacy. That's a work in progress—a work in progress. I just want to take us to page 7 and just want to quickly run through the elements that the Prime Minister regularly talks about along with our leader. Civic engagement: we are prepared to embed in our narrative and meet the pūtea obligations so that people are not atomised any longer so that people who don't capture the attention of the big end of town or don't capture the attention of the rūnanga or don't capture the attention because you're not a favoured caste of voter by a Government are brought right back into the middle of the social equation. Now if that requires additional pūtea and if that requires us to defend the fact that we can't immediately monetise the upside of that that's called democracy. That's called civic engagement. Now I've heard Mr Grant Robertson suffer some unwise and largely inaccurate remarks from the other side of the House but that is called social capital. If we don't have social capital we are trading away the birthright of New Zealanders to be in it together to integrate our effort for gated communities. That was the regime that's gone. We are not the gated community Government. We are an inclusive integrated Government and if it comes to pass that we have to bring the provinces up by taking a risk and increasing the amount of capital that goes into overdue infrastructure projects whether they be human capital financial capital or restoring natural capital we will do it in a heartbeat and we will defend it at the end of next year when judgment day arrives. Let me just carry on. Income and consumption: the reality is for the last nine years every week we heard about woeful and awful cases. Now what do we hear from the list member from Epsom? A celebration of the fact that they were willing to confine themselves to $1 billion as if that's some sort of religious zealous mark of respect. The public deserves to have politicians that are willing to invest in public infrastructure in public capital and will gladly stand shoulder to shoulder pāpāringa to pāpāringa face to face with the characters on the other side of the House because that's what we're doing. That's what this public document actually outlines. Let's go to another one: housing. Now there's been all sorts of depredations upon our colleague Mr Phil Twyford. What are the three things that the Government's doing which will contribute to well-being? We are going to create an uber-authority. Unlike the other Government we're not going to tolerate the endless reams of red tape in Auckland that have frustrated housing outcomes. I need only mention the words of Bill English who surrendered to the planners in Auckland Council who said that they had more authority than he did as a Cabinet Minister—an abject statement of failure. Mr Twyford's not going to let red tape in Auckland frustrate the ambitions of Kiwis to enjoy affordable housing and a transport system that we can afford to use because we have the ability to pay for it. Now on the question of such infrastructure in Auckland—I need to repeat it again. The last entity otherwise known as the Government under John Key they promised infrastructure delivery pipelines and we had a thousand-page document that no one ever read. It was holding the doors open of Treasury and it was holding the doors open of the bureaucracy so we're going to create an independent entity called an infrastructure body because the private sector want it. Although we wear the cloak of well-being we're actually working a lot more constructively with the private sector and they have a champion in the industrial prince of the regions—my good self. So not only are we going to create that entity; we'll turbocharge the ability of the State housing apparatus to deliver properties at a pace a lot quicker and in locations that were overlooked by the last regime. Now of course people might say Oh this is evidence of profligacy." and also that the $3 billion over the period of the Government is evidence that we're not keeping a tight grip on the fiscal tiller. It was so tight under the last regime—the reason we were elected the reason that we enjoy power is that people want to see reciprocity. They don't want to see this flinty ACT-like approach to how the State should relate to its citizens. They don't want to see this anaemic half-starved approach of only those people who represent constituencies that are close to a particular ideological view as reflected under the last regime such as the recipients of all the agricultural funding and the irrigation funding. No they want it widespread because when things are widespread the net brings the various elements that comprise both our economy and our society closer together. That is worth fighting for and fight for it we will. Now let's talk a little bit about the 20 percent debt figure that Grant Robertson has announced in terms of our rules the Budget responsibility rules. That's to ensure that if—God forbid—we should suffer either an international calamity or a further natural disaster there's enough freeboard for the economy to immediately respond and meet the cost of sudden expenses. So that 20 percent figure—from time to time I debate with myself as to whether or not such a figure is sustainable given the deficit in infrastructure and the huge need in our communities after a period of neglect. But we do have to maintain good qualities and a good sense of direction and discipline with the international agencies which this Government is doing. Do we need evidence as to whether or not we're doing it well? Well it lies there with the continual high gradings—much higher than Fonterra I might say—that we enjoy on this side of the House. So where capital decisions are made—and capital will be required to deal with the rehabilitation of KiwiRail. Capital will be required to meet the full costs of the project committed to unwisely in terms of the conditions by the last regime otherwise known as Auckland's railway loop. These things will all take and require capital. The Budget Policy Statement on page 25 outlines the size of the permission space as a fiscal envelope. That's why this document is not only very lucid; it shows that we're willing within those strictures to make the hard decisions. We have more pūtea we have more options because we cancelled the narrow the very stingy tax cut regime that the last Government campaigned on—[Interruption] If you thought it was so good how come you've got no power and we've got the privilege of governing? That's how good it was. It cost you the election. SPEAKER: Order! Hon SHANE JONES: It cost them the election. So we have recycled that pūtea and we are touching those constituencies long since neglected and they will reward us accordingly in 2020."