Brownlee Gerry; Dean JacquiHon GERRY BROWNLEE (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. Can I begin by acknowledging the comments made by my colleague Mark Mitchell in support of the late Bruce Lamb and his family and the great service that he gave to the New Zealand Police and by virtue of that the community that he lived in and the example that he gave to so many that have seen his own family continue his legacy inside the police force. A truly valuable member of our community who will be I'm sure sorely missed.Well this afternoon of course we're talking about the Budget. And this is a Budget that people on the other side of the House have been standing up repeatedly saying It's wonderful. It's fantastic. It's the Labour Government caring about New Zealanders." Well here are some things to consider. First this Budget was constructed and based on $4 billion worth of savings that were announced by Mr Robertson ahead of the Budget. And then it includes $1.3 billion worth of what was his new allowance. So that takes us up to $5.3 billion. And then on top of that add the $7.2 billion that we're in deficit. And suddenly you see a Budget that has spent $13 billion that the country doesn't have. Somehow this is according to members over on the other side about how to build a future for a nation. Well debt is no way to do it. And I think some of the targeting that should have gone on in this Budget was totally missing.Let's just look for a minute at the headline policy that everybody on the other side of the House the Government members has been talking about today: prescription charges. Well there was no public clamour that I was aware of or that any of the media were aware of for the removal of co-payments. And if there was a problem that was being articulated then targeting would have been the answer. I heard the member from Palmerston North stand up and say that "Oh I go down to my local chemist—he's a good bloke; he's been there for 30 years—and he's got shelves and shelves of unclaimed prescriptions." Well I am quite sure that he would have been able to work out whether or not those people had a community services card or whether there should have been some targeting of that. Because people like Anna Lorck don't need the $5 prescription charge. She does not need to save $100 a year on her prescriptions. I think you can look across the country and say "Well of that $680 million policy how many are going to benefit who were not asking for that who did not need it and who are on incomes that allow them to pay for that sort of level of prescription?" It would be a reasonable speculation that there is about $500 million being spent there that could easily go into alleviating some of the massive waiting lists that this Government has managed to accumulate because of their health changes and because they don't like targets being set for health delivery. No answer over there.Targets are the way—members over there might like to consider—of knowing that the service that's supposed to be provided is being provided. And that $500 million would have made a huge difference to all those people who are sitting at home with bad hips bad knees cataracts and all range of other sorts of conditions that will be found on that waiting list. The worst of it is that they're saying "Well we're going to attack the waiting list by writing to people who are on that waiting list and asking them if they still need the surgery." Now what sort of an abdication of responsibility is that? So all the back-slapping over the $5 prescription charge being taken off is a waste of time because the people who really really need services are not getting them through the health budget in this particular 2023 Budget.I've got some responsibility for the foreign affairs Vote. I've been looking through it and I've found a very interesting sort of statistic in here: one is that we are going to spend apparently $87 million—$87 million—on capital improvements for the ministry. You'd assume then that most of that is going to go on upgrades for various facilities that the ministry has across the world. And some might say "Well that's perfectly reasonable. We've got to look tidy got to look up to it." But the interesting thing is that there's about $26 million earmarked for the upgrade of the embassy and residence in Moscow.Now just in case people on the other side of the House don't know Moscow is the capital of Russia and Russia is the nation that has put the whole world on alert through its attack on the Ukraine—its unsolicited and indiscriminate attack on the Ukraine—a country that's put the rules-based system of the world out the window. Their capital is Moscow and the New Zealand Government having condemned Russia for their actions are turning around to spend $26 million upgrading the interior—just the interior—of a building that would house our embassy there. The building itself interestingly is owned by the Russian Government. So here we have all these sanctions—all these sanctions—against the Russian Government. Businesses can't deal with Russia and everyone agrees with that. Cut them off they're terrible get rid of them. But then the Government turns around and says "Oh but we'll spend $26 million in the Russian economy because we want to keep channels open." Channels open with who? I think it's a disgrace and it makes me think that when there is a pencil taken to all the lines in this Budget there will be more than the $4 billion he was able to find that apparently didn't upset anything. There will be billions in there.So some of that $13 billion that this Government chose to spend when we don't have it can be sliced back. And it's interesting that in a time when New Zealanders are saying they would like some tax cuts all the Government can say is "Well look people in the middle bracket all they're going to get is $800 a year under National's bracket-moving proposal."—$800 a year. "But guess what folks we're not going to give it to you"—says Labour says Grant Robertson—"but we'll save you $100 on your prescription fees." What sort of a Government is it that imagines that because it spends money there is no inflationary effect?Treasury makes it extremely clear—and this is something the Government always used to when they did those early Budgets: "Treasury says this Treasury says that." I've never been one to actually listen to Treasury just by the way but they are saying that if a tax cut is given it does not have the same inflationary effect as expenditure by a Government. Very clear. What they're saying is that if people keep more of their earnings—and it might only be $800 a year that's of no consequence to members on the other side of the House; no consequence at all. Rail about the difficulties people have with cost of living but then deny them that extra $800—that's the sort of mentality that we're dealing with. Those people are likely to use that for debt reduction. They're likely to in some cases do a bit of saving and that has a deflationary effect. But no they've just gone out and spent $13 billion the Government doesn't have encumbering New Zealanders with a greater level of debt than they already have managed to pile upon them.I just want to finish with two comments from a previous speaker Dan Rosewarne. One was about the "wonderful" apprenticeship scheme and the $500 payment that's now going to be apparently paid out perpetually. Well the big question to look at is: what's the completion rate on apprenticeships? That's the big question. How many start an apprenticeship and finish it? And I think that's the unanswered question and we got absolute silence on the other side of the House. Perhaps over the next few hours we'll be able to get some degree of answer. I think we're going to find that that is not the great panacea that they are proposing. Then there was the ridiculous comment that this Budget has done wonders for defence. All it's done is correct the damage that was done with the long duty that they had to perform on the isolation hotels. And that's not disputed. I think the other point that's worth making is that this barely brings New Zealand's defence spending up to 1 percent of GDP—barely brings it up. So I think it's interesting to listen to some of the speeches on the other side of the House. It would be more interesting to read the propaganda that they've all been supplied by the Labour research unit in order to make their outrageous support speeches for the Budget.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Tracey McLellan—five minutes."