Woodhouse MichaelHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Why thank you Mr Speaker. I'll give Barbara Edmonds credit for this: she tells half a story really really well and she's picked a number of—well she's probably got that sort of bug that Grant Robertson's got. You know I'm so good; just ask me how."Hon Scott Simpson: Figjam.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Well I wasn't going to say that Mr Simpson but I think that's probably not too far from the truth. Let's go through some of the things that she said are so heinous that the National Party are opposing them. I want to start with better access to health services. So apparently if we oppose the Supplementary Estimates and the imprest supply we oppose better access to health services. If only there were better access to health services. What we have in the health sector right now is better access to bureaucrats. Bureaucrats are rolling in it thanks to the half a billion dollars that was appropriated for a health restructure that isn't going to add a single procedure treatment X-ray or immunisation and the only people that are happy about that are my friends in the consulting firms and a plethora of bureaucrats. Where's new Dunedin Hospital by the way? If they wanted better services and better capital programmes and better emergency department wait times and better rheumatic fever and better immunisations for children surgeries set some targets. Set some targets for actually doing something rather than throwing a whole pile of money at something a whole pile of restructures at it and then hoping. Hon Scott Simpson: But Labour don't agree on targets. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Well no that's right. I think they say something like they have adverse outcomes. You know they might have adverse outcomes like treatments being done or cancers being detected or kids' rheumatic fever being avoided. If that's an adverse outcome I'll take it. She then went on to talk about innovating in the tourism industry. Here's a really really good way to innovate in the tourism industry: let it open up and then let them get the staff that they need to feed it. My friends in Queenstown and Wānaka are absolutely panicking over the ski season. Great to see the snow; there's more of it this week. The only thing they haven't got is people to actually man the ski fields—person the ski fields staff the ski fields—and the hospitality and the entertainment services that need to go along with it. Rural broadband initiatives was one of the things that Ms Edmonds crowed about. Well if it wasn't for the previous National Government we would not have survived COVID thanks to the high-speed broadband and rural broadband initiatives of the previous Government that actually got us the internet speeds and capability to be able to go online. I mean this is something that I know is very close to her heart as the Mana MP but Pacific housing initiatives—crowing about Pacific housing initiatives at the same time as the Government presides over the highest level of house price inflation in New Zealand's history is I think a bit rich frankly because the reason that those initiatives are so desperately needed for Māori and Pasifika first-home buyers and other vulnerable people is because houses are now completely out of the range and the reach of those communities.Then of course we had the Minister of Finance kind of normalising what we're doing here as if "Oh this is what we do every year with both Supplementary Estimates and imprest supply." On one level he is correct but we are now two days away from the end of the muddiest most opaque most profligate Budget spending period in this country's history. And it's not so much the fact that we're doing the Supplementary Estimates; it's the sheer scale of the things that have been approved in between Budgets with zero scrutiny by the select committees zero scrutiny by this House. And the only time we get to see this—which is billions and billions of dollars of spending on top of Budget 2021—is on Budget day 2022. Now he's right. There has been a lot of money spent on COVID—necessarily unexpectedly. Not all of it frankly I think is needed but that's an argument we couldn't have. And also the Air New Zealand recapitalisation support for the Office of the Auditor-General through a very difficult period—there are a number of things that are necessary and appropriate in a normal Supplementary Estimates process. But in the 54-page bill that we have here there is also a huge list of things that by any measure should not be part of Supplementary Estimates. They are essentially business-as-usual Budget appropriations that the Government did not put into Budget 2021 when it should have: things like biosecurity risk management managing the fisheries resources sustainably—well as if that's something new and unexpected. Writing off software as a service intangible asset may have been unexpected but I bet not because if you're going to write off a $120 million asset one doesn't do that on a whim. Energy and resources: $20 million for oil field decommissioning as if the oil field just kind of sprouted up and needed decommissioning. It's been there for 40 years. Why on earth is that part of a Supplementary Estimates process? I could go on. Radio spectrum management rights—as if they came up unexpectedly. None of this should be in Supplementary Estimates. So if we oppose this bill it's not because of the process; it's because of the quantum. Let me just talk about imprest supply because both the Minister and Ms Edmonds did talk about that as well. I say this: yes imprest supply is a normal part of every Budget cycle. But under the previous National Government the imprest supply values for the first imprest supply were around $7 billion or $8 billion. In 2021 this Minister gave himself a $56.5 billion dollar slush fund. Last year it was a $41 billion slush fund and in 2023 it's a $30 billion slush fund just to get going. Now both of them say "Oh well that's far less than previous years' imprest supply." Well that frankly is gilding the lily because it is still more than three times the greatest amount of imprest supply than the previous National Government gave itself. It's lazy budgeting and frankly it's no wonder—Anna Lorck: Oh National were lazy.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Oh there we go. The Berocca has kicked in. I think we need a bit more magnesium over there. It is lazy budgeting and it's actually an insult to drunken sailors to say that that's what this Government is spending like. I'll say this about drunken sailors: they spend their own money. This Government is spending taxpayers' money. It has a responsibility to make sure that for every single dollar—in the good times but especially in the tough times—of taxpayers' money that they lift out of the pockets of hard-working New Zealanders and spend on these initiatives they've got to be able to hold hand on heart and say two things: (a) this is good value for money and (b) we know that because it has been scrutinised by select committees and this House. I don't think we can say either of those things about the Supplementary Estimates and certainly I predict that the spending that's going to go on in a still eye-watering $30 billion imprest supply is going to be exactly the same. Over the past year in various roles I have been quizzing the Reserve Bank Governor and the Minister of Finance about the inevitable place we have found ourselves and probably are going to in terms of inflation and the Government spending is a contribution and a driver of that inflation. All we've heard from the Minister of Finance is equivocation and avoidance and "Not my problem." and "Isn't there something going on in the Ukraine?" and "We're kind of about the middle of the OECD." This Government needs to take responsibility for profligate spending in a heated economy driving prices when supply is low. I mean it's fourth-form economics. It was predictable 18 months ago. It's going to take another 18 months to get under control even if the Government takes the steps that it needs to take in order to get the inflation curve going back to within the Reserve Bank range of 1 percent to 3 percent. And not only are they not doing that they are adding fuel to the inflationary fire by the spending that they continue to do in the name of wellbeing. Well the legacy we're going to leave our children and grandchildren is hardly wellbeing for them. It's kicking the can down the road but the can is getting heavier and they can't kick it far enough for them not to be able to take responsibility for their decisions. That reckoning is coming in the next 12 months."