Woods Megan; O'Connor GregHon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): Sometimes when you're in urgency you'd expect the chair of the Finance and Expenditure Committee to give a more substantial contribution than what we just saw from that member. Budget urgency and the tax packages that often go through them they do go through under urgency but I think it is the Government's responsibility to at least take that process seriously. And for the chair of our select committee that is in charge of shepherding legislation in this area through to give a contribution like that I think exemplifies the disdain to which this Government holds New Zealanders.Now we heard the Minister of Finance today in her address talk about doors she had knocked on in the election. And Mr Speaker no one knows more than you how effective she was at that task. But what she would have also heard when she knocked on those doors is that National candidates were out there telling the voters of New Zealand they could expect $250 a fortnight in tax cuts. And many of them voted accordingly. Many of them voted expecting that they would be receiving that $250 a fortnight in tax cuts. And what has been delivered to them today? Well it certainly is not $250 a fortnight. In fact the Minister of Finance said something different in the House than she would have said on the doorsteps during that election campaign when she told us that for average New Zealand families that would be $60 a week. There's $190 missing there in terms of what people were counting on and what people were expecting.And how are they being paid for when we come to consider the taxation bill that we've got before us? And there's some detailed questions that we will get into at the committee of the whole House stage. But these are being funded by borrowing and make no mistake about that. The debt track that we are on sees us borrowing $12 billion to deliver $10 billion worth of tax cuts. This is a Government that is pushing the debt as a percentage of GDP higher than it already is and it's not to fund services for New Zealanders; it's to fund tax cuts. And that is what is putting our futures at risk. It is what is taking this country back.So not only are they not delivering on their promise but the choices being made within this Budget are going to make families worse off. Let's have a look at some of those things. I think housing is one of those areas. Let's leave it for another part of the debate where we'll get stuck into it—the lack of money for public housing that is in this Budget. But let's have a look what it does for homeownership. We'd already had the rushed and forced announcement that this Government was killing the Kiwi Dream for a generation of first-home buyers by taking away the First Home grant. But within this Budget we also see any money that our Government did not spend on progressive homeownership has also been taken away. That money has been put on to the alter of tax cuts. That is one of the prices that New Zealanders are paying.And what does the Government's economic adviser Treasury have to tell the Government about what the package that is being delivered in this Budget in the BEFU—the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update—what does it tell will happen to rents? Well the economic adviser to the Government tells us very clearly it is advising the Government there is going to be upward pressure on rents. That is the result of this package of measures. On page 19 of this document the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update—to direct those members to something other than the Minister of Finance's speaking points—you can see that rents are forecast to continue rising rapidly over the early years of this projection. It also says the reintroduction of rental property interest deductibility for tax purposes and changes to the bright-line rules [are] expected to have [an upward] impact."So very clearly we can see first-home buyers are being shut out by this Government. And the choices that this Government is making will put upward pressure on rents. That is not the Labour Party saying that; that is the Treasury—the economic advisers that were advising the people that put together this Budget. So when they go back out on the doorsteps they can ask them how in some cases their $4 and $5 a week tax cut is trending with their rising rents and the fact that they're shut out of the housing market.What then is this Budget going to deliver for those on superannuation? I am surprised like my colleague that New Zealand First let this one through—the fact that we are seeing that for most pensioners we are talking about a $4.30 per fortnight increase and that is for a couple. That is $2.15 for an individual. That is the benefit that they will see when other people are getting $40 and up to $60 a week increase. We know that our superannuitants struggle and ours was a Government that increased superannuation. To see what this Government is doing how miserly and mean-spirited they are being to superannuitants is something I am genuinely surprised that a coalition partner took through. And one of the things I will be interested in when we get to the committee stage is that the regulatory impact analysis goes through a number of the scenarios that ACT put on the table and a number of the options that ACT wanted modelled. And to be perfectly honest I've never seen a regulatory impact statement which is quite so partisan in terms of which party put up what. And what ACT argued for—it lays bare some of the coalition politics which I think in itself is entirely interesting. But what I do not see in that document is what New Zealand First put up which I find incredibly interesting given the impact that this is going to have on what once would have been considered a core constituency.Another price that New Zealanders will pay for these tax cuts is that we can see that the capital expenditure profile is far lower than that that was sketched out in the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update or PREFU. What we see is that there will be less invested in the capital track than was being projected before the election. This is something that the Government will have some serious questions to answer about because we know we have an infrastructure deficit. And what we have is a Government that is not funding that infrastructure spending to the level that it was going to be before the election. And we certainly will have some questions on this side of the House.Because when you have a Government that says they can't afford things like a homelessness action plan or transitional housing for rangitahi but they can give a $2.9 billion tax cut to landlords we have a Government that is laying clear where its values sit. The kind of choices that are being made show the disdain for which this Government holds New Zealanders. New Zealanders are realising that. They are realising that there is a string of broken promises. The things that they were told on the doorstep by their National candidates before the election are not being delivered. Top of that list will be the $250 a fortnight tax cut that people believed they were getting. There is going to be some explaining to do why it is that family that might be receiving $20-odd a fortnight is now going to have to pay for prescriptions why they're going to have to pay to put their kids on the bus to school. They're the kinds of choices that this Government has made. They have taken far more out of ordinary New Zealander's' pockets than they are putting back in with these tax cuts.But the tragedy is that the cumulative effects of those tax cuts will cost us intergenerationally. It is a Government that has slashed the funding for climate initiatives. It is hard to believe that a Government who is in power in the 21st century could make the kind of choices that are in this Budget around climate initiatives. And the fact that we have a revenue Minister who is also the climate Minister shows choices.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): The member's time has expired."