Joyce StevenHon STEVEN JOYCE (National): I move That the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance.It is excellent to have the opportunity to debate in this House a very important document. It's an important document because we have seen so little up until now of the new Government's fiscal commitments of how they are going to pay for their coalition promises of how they are going to structure their fiscal commitments over the next several years. So this is not just this House's first opportunity it is also the public—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! Sorry I'm going to ask both the Hon Carmel Sepuloni and the Rt Hon Winston Peters to sit down. We did have a slight problem the other day as a result of this.Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Thank you Mr Speaker. This is not just this House's first opportunity; it is also the public's first opportunity and the business sector's first opportunity to have a look at the fiscal and economic plans of the new Government.I thought I'd start this discussion with the economic plans. There is no doubt that in the short to medium term the Government and Treasury are now expecting softer growth than was predicted just a few months ago in the pre-election fiscal update. More than that they're expecting Government expenditure to make up more of that economic activity than we saw just a few months ago and that is something that we'll be keeping a very close eye on because actually substituting the activity of households and businesses with more Government spending leads to long-term problems in terms of increased debt and higher Government activity choking off the private sector of the economy. So we'll be watching that very closely.If you have a look at the fiscal numbers that are in this particular update at first blush they look sort of positive. But actually you just have to look a little bit below the front cover of the book to find that they are let's just say ambitious" to quote the finance Minister in the extreme. These are very ambitious numbers. Why are they ambitious numbers? It is because they have only a very small number of costings of the new Government's plan actually included in the document—a very small number of those costings indeed. Yes it does identify the tertiary education package. Yes it does identify the changes to the previous Government's Family Incomes Package and yes it does include paid parental leave. But beyond that the numbers are very squishy indeed. We have a whole range of things that this Government has said they will do but they haven't included any numbers for them at all in this half-yearly update.This is interesting actually because in the Public Finance Act if you are making a decision to do something then actually you are honour-bound to include it in the accounts pretty quickly after you've decided. I've sat in this House and heard how the new Government is going to spend $8 billion or thereabouts additionally on health over the next four years and weirdly that number doesn't appear anywhere in this Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update. Similarly we don't see anything here about early childhood education.There are also absolutely no numbers here for the Regional Development (Provincial Growth) Fund. You may recall that the Provincial Growth Fund is a very very important part of the new Government's Budget but there is a little inset box that says "We're talking about it. We're not quite sure how we're going to do it yet. We don't know how much of it will be capital or how much of it will be operating. We're not sure exactly how it's going to be laid out but as soon as we get Shane Jones off the couch and actually get him to do some work then we'll be able to actually have some understanding of what the Provincial Growth Fund is." Then he'll be able to get his nephews off the couch to do some actual work. So it's a bit of a chain reaction that's required before we'll actually get some details of the Provincial Growth Fund in this half-yearly economic update.There are a few other things that aren't here. There are a few other things that aren't included in this document which is a bit of a concern—I think a genuine concern—for New Zealanders. We've heard a lot about for example increasing police numbers. There's been a lot of talk about that in recent times and also a lot of talk about increasing police salaries and how those need to be funded but of course there is no reference in this document to those commitments in terms of additional money. So we have to assume that the increase in police numbers has been put a bit on the long finger by the finance Minister.So that's some of the things and there's more. We had a colleague of mine asking about science investment because the new Government has made a big commitment to increase science and research investment. However so far there has been nothing included. Now the finance Minister when he stands will undoubtedly point to the new Budget operating allowances and it is true that he has increased one of those for the next financial year. It's gone up to $2.6 billion. I think for the previous Government we had about $1.8 billion—Hon Grant Robertson: $1.7 billion.Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Thank you Grant—$1.8 billion and $2.6 billion is the actual number that he's put up now.However a very straightforward calculation of his health commitments and his education commitments and his Provincial Growth Fund means that he would have absolutely nothing for anything else whatsoever. That does explain to this House why it is the Government has got very wound up about the fact that it hasn't allocated $350000 to KidsCan: because the finance Minister is undoubtedly wandering around to his colleagues and saying "Whatever you do don't move don't spend any money because it is so tight it's tighter than it was for the previous Government during the global financial crisis."He is expecting to spend so little additional money on the actual operation of Government over the next couple of years that he's had the agricultural Minister raid the primary growth fund to pay for the rebadging of the Ministry for Primary Industries to please their friends in New Zealand First.So that's the problem immediately but there's more. And it's really interesting this question of exactly how many fiscal risks are included in this document. I've counted 28 new fiscal risks—Hon Member: How many?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: —28—that Treasury has identified at this time that have not actually been included. For example the Green Party: the coalition partner is very keen on the Green Infrastructure Fund. Treasury identifies that as a specific fiscal risk because no money has been allocated to said Green Infrastructure Fund. While we're on the Green Party: funding for Department of Conservation. Treasury notes that there's significant increases required there but also notes that nobody's given it any indications so it can't include any allocation for it. It's just a specific fiscal risk.Then there's the small matter of the 36th America's Cup. Now you'd think actually that under the Public Finance Act once you have David Parker going around measuring up Halsey Wharf and the Wynyard Wharf in Auckland—you know a layperson might think that that could be the time to put some money into the Budget for the America's Cup bases because the new Government is going to invest in those they've made absolutely clear. But weirdly it's included only as a specific fiscal risk. No actual money no ability to spend any money and yet it's just sitting there.Another one which is closer to Grant Robertson's heart is that Treasury points out that there is a commitment to extend further the "fees-free" tertiary education policy. But there's nothing in this document about that either in the out-years. Then we have a whole range of some things that are actually passed. The healthy homes legislation is passed but it's still listed only as a specific fiscal risk because nobody's got any idea how much it will cost the Government's housing provider to actually provide the additional money.And it goes on. I want to focus on one in particular because I see the deputy leader of the Labour Party over there the Minister of Corrections. Justice commitments are noted as a specific fiscal risk in this document because the Government doesn't want to do public-private partnerships anymore because it's ideologically opposed including that finance Minister to doing public-private partnerships. And so suddenly they have created their own little justice hole and Treasury has noted it as a specific fiscal risk. Those of us on this side of the House who have been involved in this area know that if you're not prepared to build a prison with a public-private partnership you're up for a very big number indeed. And that's not included in here.Another one that isn't included is Mr Twyford's rail priorities in Auckland and Wellington. They are not included in here at all. You may recall actually Mr Robertson earlier this week talking about how he was going to spend $15 billion building light rail not just to the airport but out to Phil Twyford's house. They were going to do that and it was going to be $15 billion but weirdly that's not included in here despite the absolute assurance from the finance Minister that it was coming. So we have Auckland and Wellington rail priorities to add to the 27 other specific risks which leads me to believe that it might have saved a tree or two—with deference to Mr Peters—if they'd just listed one specific fiscal risk. They could have just said "Specific fiscal risk: Grant Robertson finance Minister." That would have been the right specific fiscal risk to list in this document and could have saved us all a huge amount of time.Then it's interesting that even with the fact that they've left out 28 things that they've left out all their other commitments and that they've left out the various Budget things and they've only put in a very tight allowance for next year—despite all of this they are lifting public debt. Despite what they've left out they are lifting public debt.So under the pre-election fiscal update just a few months ago Government debt—the amount owed on behalf of taxpayers of New Zealand—was dropping from just under $60 billion at June of this year over the next five years to $56 billion. People said "Well that's actually what we need to do." because as has been pointed out plenty of times on the other side of the House—plenty of times on the other side of the House—debt has built up because of two big events: the global financial crisis and the Canterbury earthquakes. Those involved the Government of the day borrowing money to support vulnerable New Zealanders. That's what we did. We built that debt and now when it's the good times it's time to pay it down—until Mr Robertson comes along. And now in four years' time he plans for debt to be at just under $70 billion. So instead of dropping to $56 billion it is going to go up to nearly $70 billion and that is before the 28 specific fiscal risks—before the 28 specific fiscal risks.Before I conclude I want to make a brief note on the Families Package that the Government has tabled today. We get to discuss that shortly when the bill comes before the House but the documents that come with the Budget make quite a significant point about the number of children lifted out of poverty—and that's important because we all want to see that occur. The interesting thing is that the previous Government's package lifted 50000 young people out of poverty immediately when the package came into force. So here's the interesting thing: the Government are now comparing that with a number that is 88000 which seems a lot better until you note the fine print and they're not talking about until 2021—they're not talking about until 2021.So I call on Mr Robertson when he stands up to explain to this House why he didn't compare apples with apples. Why didn't he actually put the number in and compare apples with apples? Why did he feel the need to embellish it by using 2021? He knows that the previous Government was planning a second Family Incomes Package in 2020.Hon Grant Robertson: Oh you were planning it?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: That's right because we weren't going to spend all this money on tertiary students instead of actually paying median - wage workers more money so that they would be encouraged to work harder earn more and grow the New Zealand economy.The problem with this half-yearly fiscal update is that there is very little in it. This is like the dance of the seven veils and this is Grant's first veil. This is the first thing he has shown us—Mr SPEAKER: Order!Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Grant Robertson's first veil—sorry Mr Speaker—Grant Robertson's first veil. And he's shown us a little bit the 100-day plan. He hasn't shown us all the other commitments. He's left out 28 fiscal risks and he's left out the biggest specific fiscal risk of the lot and that is the Minister of Finance Grant Robertson."