Bishop Chris: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBishop Chris: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 28 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:4150. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CHRIS BISHOP (National): Talofa lava Mr Assistant Speaker. This is a Budget of a confident Government in charge of a confident country. In my 5 minutes I want to talk about three things in the Budget and talk about the Labour response.The first thing I want to mention is what the Budget does for economic growth. The Budget somewhat unusually in New Zealand projects economic growth in the next 3 to 4 years of around 3 percent. That is coupled with a low inflationary environment. Actually in terms of New Zealand that is highly unusual. People say: “Well that is pretty boring. The Budget does not do enough for growth.” But actually if we can continue to grow for 3 to 4 years at 3 percent or around 3 percent with low inflation that will make a demonstrable difference to the incomes of New Zealand families and New Zealanders and to their jobs. The Budget projects increasing employment. The Budget projects unemployment coming down. It projects increasing wages. Actually that is good for New Zealand and good for New Zealand families.The second thing I want to mention that is a feature of this Budget is the $790 million hardship package that my colleague Mr Foster-Bell has talked about. I know from my time on the election campaign and from my work recently in my neck of the woods that there is hardship in our community and that there is concern in the community about that hardship and in particular when it affects children. That is why it is extremely important that this Government has acted upon that.The member who spoke a few minutes ago Louisa Wall—it is like the 2000s never happened for her. She was railing against the 1991 Budget cuts of Ruth Richardson the famous “mother of all Budgets”. Well Louisa Wall knows that the Labour Government was in power from 1999 to 2008 and chose not to raise benefit levels. It had nine Budgets it made the deliberate decision not to raise benefit levels and during that time the real value of wages increased and the real value of benefits in comparison with those wages declined because benefits were only inflation-adjusted whereas wages were rising faster than inflation. Because of that the gap has we believe on this side of the House blown out too far. We now have the fiscal conditions to make a difference to hardship in this society.This is not a Budget based on deception as Louisa Wall would have you believe; this is a Budget that is going to make a demonstrable difference to the lives of many thousands of New Zealand families and many thousands of New Zealand children. This is not a Budget based on platitudes as she says. The only platitudinous speech that was given in this House in relation to the Budget was that of her leader Andrew Little who mouthed platitudes clichés and hackneyed phrases dreamt up by Phil Goff and David Shearer and leaders gone by. He ran out of puff 15 minutes in and resorted to talking about former Kiss singers and roosters on heat. The only platitudinous speech given in this House was by Andrew Little the leader of the Labour Party.Social justice is only possible with a growing economy and that is why the hardship package is only possible under a National Government. That is why it is National that is raising benefits for the first time in 43 years not a Labour Government. We are growing the economy and allowing the Government to invest in the people who need it most.The third thing I want to briefly mention is the innovation package in this Budget as well: another $80 million over 4 years for Callaghan Innovation grants. Some people criticise these grants and say “Oh it’s just a bunch of bureaucrats handing out money.” That is not true. For starters they are non-discretionary grants right? Basically they go to people who are innovating in our community—our businesses involved in science and innovation. I think there is a legitimate debate to be had about the difference between grants and tax credits. The problem with tax credits is that they tend to allow people to reclassify existing expenditure as research and development. That is why in Australia which has a system of generous tax credits for research and development apparently the most innovative part of the economy is the financial services industry. I think we can all agree that that is not particularly innovative and actually what we want to do is grow the high-tech manufacturing sector grow engineering and grow niche manufacturing. That is what Callaghan Innovation is seeking to do.What was the response from Labour to this very good Budget? Well firstly it was dumbstruck silence. Was it not telling that when Bill English announced the first increase in benefit levels in 43 years we heard not a word in response from Labour Party members? They just sat there in dumbstruck silence. Their second thing was to complain about the surplus—that we are not meeting the surplus target. This was from the guys who spent 9 years massively increasing spending. They have spent the last 7 years opposing every piece of fiscal restraint and they are still spending—$500 million committed by Grant Robertson in a Stuff chat on the day of the Budget. He was promising to bring back the $1000 KiwiSaver kick-start a very ill-advised move. Their third response was a diversionary tactic: “I know; let’s talk about means testing superannuation.” Well that did not work out very well for them. This is a good Budget from a confident Government.