Thursday, 28 May 2015

THURSDAY, 28 MAY 2015

THURSDAY, 28 MAY 2015

Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Business Statement

Business Statement

Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Acting Leader of the House): When the House resumes on Tuesday, 2 June the Government will look to continue the Budget debate and progress a number of first readings on the Order Paper, including the Accident Compensation (Financial Responsibility and Transparency) Amendment Bill and the Electronic Monitoring of Offenders Legislation Bill. Wednesday is a members’ day.

CHRIS HIPKINS (Senior Whip—Labour): I note the analysis of the Parliamentary Library indicating that Parliament currently has the least business before it that it has had in 20 years, and wonder whether the Leader of the House has had further opportunity to consider my previous offer to increase the number of members’ days to ensure that the House is usefully occupied.

Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Acting Leader of the House): The only comment I would make to that member is that this is an extremely efficient Government.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Relationships Aotearoa—Closure

1. Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) to the Minister for Social Development: Does she stand by her statement that “this Government is working with a number of service providers to make sure that those clients of Relationships Aotearoa are well looked after”?

Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister for Social Development): Yes. I understand that a meeting has taken place today between the Ministry of Social Development, Relationships Aotearoa, Barnardos, Family Works, Stand Children’s Services, and Lifeline Aotearoa to discuss the continuation of counselling services to those clients.

Hon Annette King: Is she aware that Lifeline Aotearoa, which was not deemed good enough by the Ministry of Health to provide a national telehealth line, is now considered good enough by the Ministry of Social Development to provide Relationships Aotearoa’s clients with a service staffed by volunteers, and is that the quality service that she promised?

Hon ANNE TOLLEY: First of all, the member is wrong. Although it is the Minister of Health who is handling it, it is my understanding that those negotiations have not been completed. Secondly, the member is correct: there is an 0800 number that the Ministry of Social Development has set up urgently with Lifeline Aotearoa. That number is: 0800 543 354. It would be more helpful if the member took account of the clients who are worried about these services and provided that emergency lifeline that has been made available to them because Relationships Aotearoa has closed its doors precipitately.

Hon Annette King: Why did she say that there were five organisations that the Ministry of Social Development and the Government were working with to replace services provided by Relationships Aotearoa when, in fact, one of them, Stand Children’s Services, only heard that it was to provide a service on the news this week?

Hon ANNE TOLLEY: There are a number of organisations that have offered their services. I provided only the names of organisations that I had been advised were being dealt with by the Ministry of Social Development. As I say, there are a number of individuals and organisations throughout New Zealand who have offered to help.

Hon Annette King: Well, in light of the Minister’s confusion around who is providing what, does she believe that the named providers, who have no experience with very high-needs clients, are capable of providing a competent and safe service, as claimed by Mr Edridge yesterday?

Hon ANNE TOLLEY: As I said in my answer to the substantive question, I am very confident that the work that the Ministry of Social Development is doing with a large number of providers around the country will see some of those extremely vulnerable people successfully transitioned and well supported. But the member would be far better not to go scaremongering on radio while we are all working to make sure that those support services are put in place for them.

Darroch Ball: How can the Minister guarantee that those clients of Relationships Aotearoa will be well looked after when one of the named replacement providers, Stand Children’s Services, is already resource-stretched, being able to provide just 17 social workers for around 8,000 students within the schools it provides services to?

Hon ANNE TOLLEY: Well, I am not taking part in the negotiations. As I said, they met today, and the Ministry of Social Development is determined to make sure that all of those clients are well supported into their new services. The difficulty that we have had is that Relationships Aotearoa demanded up to $2.4 million extra in order to transition the clients over the next 12 weeks, and that does not address its $1.5 million deficit. That is the difficulty that we have had. When it was refused, it closed its doors.

Hon Annette King: Is she aware that among the 500 serious and urgent cases requiring service are 22 suicidal clients, two homicidal clients, 25 severe domestic violence victims and offenders, and five sex offenders; and could she please name the organisations that are capable of handling these very complex cases right now?

Mr SPEAKER: The Hon Anne Tolley—either of those two supplementary questions.

Hon ANNE TOLLEY: That is why I have been at pains to make sure that we have some emergency capability, and that is what that 0800 number for Lifeline Aotearoa is providing for them immediately so that there is emergency help for those people who need it. What that member needs to do is to stop playing politics with people’s lives and support us as we try to transition those very vulnerable clients.

Hon Annette King: Why did she claim that services could be provided by other organisations when Abuse and Rape Crisis Support Manawatu and Family Works South Canterbury, to name just two places, have said that they are already at maximum capacity and would struggle to provide any extra services?

Hon ANNE TOLLEY: Obviously, around the country, judging from the offers that have come in from many, many organisations, there are people who are willing to step up and provide these services. So the member can play politics and scaremonger all she likes; this Government is focused on making sure that we have those services available, that those services transition those clients, and that those clients are well supported.

Budget 2015—Better Public Services

2. NUK KORAKO (National) to the Minister of Finance: How does Budget 2015 continue the Government’s plan to deliver Better Public Services?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Associate Minister of Finance) on behalf of the Minister of Finance: Three years ago the Prime Minister set 10 challenging targets for the Public Service. These included improving health and education outcomes, reducing crime, lowering welfare dependence, and increasing online connectivity. The framework has contributed some significant improvements. For instance, there has been a 38 percent reduction in youth crime since 2011, the number of teenage sole parents on a benefit has dropped by 40 percent since 2011, and the Government has recently revised upwards its workforce skills target due to better than expected results. Budget 2015 builds on this with a $790 million child hardship package, as well as more investment in health, education, welfare support, and the justice sector.

Nuk Korako: How did Budget 2015 deliver on the Government’s continued focus on supporting the most vulnerable New Zealanders?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: One of the most important things that we can do for vulnerable families is to help the parents into work, and that is why, in the Budget, we increased obligations on those on a benefit to be available for work. The solidly growing economy has produced 194,000 extra jobs since late 2010, meaning that we have already surpassed our aim of 170,000 jobs by the middle of this year, which we set in Budget 2011. Another 150,000 jobs are expected by 2019, and we are continuing our focus on helping those on welfare into work, where this is appropriate. We are having some success with this approach. Last year we reduced the expected cost of supporting current beneficiaries over their lifetime by $7.5 billion. A key part of this was getting more sole parents into work.

Nuk Korako: How is better data helping the Government to meet the needs of vulnerable New Zealanders?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: We are using data to get a better understanding of the people who use our services and need our support. For example, if you take the most vulnerable 1 percent of all 5-year-olds—that is around 600 children in a year, or a 20-year pipeline of 12,000 children—we know who these kids are and we also know that, on current trajectories, three-quarters of them would not get National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 2, that 40 percent would be on a benefit for more than 2 years before they are 21, and that a quarter of them would have been in prison by the time they are 35. They would face hardship, but, on average, these children would cost taxpayers $320,000 each before they turn 35, and some of them would cost well over $1 million. So we are changing services in order to intervene earlier to help people lead more fulfilling lives, and where this works, the Government’s books will also improve.

Nuk Korako: What other steps were taken in Budget 2015 to advance the Government’s focus on delivering Better Public Services?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The flagship initiative of Budget 2015 was the $790 million child hardship package, which provided more support for 160,000 beneficiary and working families with incomes below $36,350 a year. As I mentioned earlier, the child hardship package also increased the requirements of those on a benefit to be available for work. The Budget also provides over $100 million for further initiatives to support vulnerable children, including $49.8 million to continue funding Whānau Ora navigators to help families tackle problems, $36 million over 4 years to support the Children’s Action Plan for at-risk children, and an extra $23 million to bolster the work of Child, Youth and Family.

Free-trade Agreements—Saudi Arabia Negotiations

3. JAMES SHAW (Green) to the Minister of Foreign Affairs: Has a full and final settlement been reached with Mr Al Khalaf; if so, what is the total cost to taxpayers?

Hon MURRAY McCULLY (Minister of Foreign Affairs): As I said to the House yesterday: “the New Zealand Government specifically resisted the concept of compensation to the Al Khalaf group”. Therefore, it is not appropriate to use the term “full and final settlement”. However, the Government is satisfied that the partnership outlined in the Cabinet paper I have previously tabled has fully resolved the prospect of any litigation.

James Shaw: Was the Government given a written assurance from Mr Al Khalaf that these payoffs constituted the equivalent of a full and final settlement?

Hon MURRAY McCULLY: What I can say, as I said in the primary answer, is that in the process that played out, the Government was fully satisfied that the partnership outlined in the Cabinet paper that I have previously tabled fully resolved the prospect of any litigation.

James Shaw: So is the Minister saying that New Zealand taxpayers flew sheep to Saudi Arabia, built a farm in the middle of the Arabian Desert, bought out property in New Zealand, bribed a wealthy businessman, and yet have no written guarantees that they will not get sued in the future or be required to hand out more taxpayer dollars?

Hon MURRAY McCULLY: No.

James Shaw: Why did the Minister agree to pay off Mr Al Khalaf with no legal advice about whether there was any credible cause of action?

Hon MURRAY McCULLY: The Government took advice from very senior officials in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, including from the legal division.

James Shaw: Is it normal practice to enter into a business arrangement on the basis of a strongly worded letter from Mai Chen?

Hon MURRAY McCULLY: I have never received a strongly worded letter from Mai Chen in my life.

James Shaw: Can the Minister rule out that no other foreign businesses have been paid off to prevent lawsuits or influence trade outcomes?

Hon MURRAY McCULLY: As I indicated to the House yesterday, I have not seen an example of the appalling behaviour by a Government that required rectification on the scale of this one.

James Shaw: So would he say—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Would the member start again.

James Shaw: Would he say: “Bribing a Saudi businessman ain’t working, that’s not the way you do it. He’s got your money for nothing and your sheep for free.”?

Hon MURRAY McCULLY: No.

Free-trade Agreements—Saudi Arabia Negotiations

4. Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) to the Minister of Foreign Affairs: Did he seek advice from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade about whether using the multimillion-dollar payment for the benefit of Hamood Al Ali Al Khalaf—a Saudi Arabian businessman—to cause the Saudi Arabian officials to advance the GCC FTA, which had stalled, breached the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions?

Hon MURRAY McCULLY (Minister of Foreign Affairs): Not specifically, but officials confirmed that the transaction was lawful and within the scope of the ministry’s appropriation.

Hon David Parker: If, as he has already acknowledged, he sought no advice on the OECD convention on bribery and no proper legal advice on the threatened lawsuit from Al Khalaf Group, does that not show he wanted to keep this pay-off under the table and avoid proper scrutiny by officials and by the Cabinet?

Hon MURRAY McCULLY: A requirement of the convention that the member refers to is to have a domestic law that gives effect to the convention in New Zealand. I am satisfied that the ministry would have been aware of this in assuring me that the transaction was lawful.

Hon David Parker: I seek leave to table the OECD convention on bribery, which covers pecuniary advantage to a third party in order to get a public—

Mr SPEAKER: It is possibly freely available, but on the basis that the House can determine it, I will put the leave to table this particular copy of this convention. Is there any objection to it being tabled? There is not. It can be tabled.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

Hon David Parker: Why is there no record of this first multimillion-dollar deal with this Saudi businessman ever having been announced, when all other ventures are always proudly announced by him or his National Government colleagues?

Hon MURRAY McCULLY: There have been various references to the establishment of the Saudi hub over the last couple of years.

Hon David Parker: I seek leave to table a 26-page list in typewritten script of all of Mr McCully’s releases since 2012 that relate to—

Mr SPEAKER: No, those releases are available to all members. Is there a supplementary question?

Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I was not seeking to release the releases; I was seeking to release the list of all the releases, none of which include these matters.

Mr SPEAKER: No, the point of tabling a document, as I have explained many times, is to further inform the House. What I think the member is attempting to do is make a political point. That is not the purpose of tabling. I am not putting the leave. Does the member wish to ask a further supplementary question?

Hon David Parker: Can he assure the House that neither the Saudi officials with links to the Al Khalaf group nor anyone in the Al Khalaf group had any involvement in the tender process for the second deal—the $6 million model farm deal?

Hon MURRAY McCULLY: The arrangements with regard to the $6 million and the establishment of the hub were undertaken by New Zealand Trade and Enterprise in full, according to its normal practices.

Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER: I am going to invite the member to repeat the question because it has not been addressed.

Hon David Parker: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Can he assure the House that neither the Saudi officials with links to the Al Khalaf group nor anyone in the Al Khalaf group had any involvement in the tender process for the second deal—the $6 million model farm deal?

Hon MURRAY McCULLY: I just want to be clear that I have no ministerial responsibility for trade and enterprise and therefore cannot give the precise answer that he requests. But I can say—

Hon David Parker: You fund it.

Hon MURRAY McCULLY: —that is correct—that to the best of my understanding that is the case.

Hon David Parker: Has he received any reports that his unethical behaviour—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! That is going to end up with the question being ruled out of order. I invite the member to ask the question without that imputation.

Hon David Parker: Has he received any reports that this behaviour has set such a low standard that other organisations operating in the Middle East using Government-funded businesses have also been tainted?

Hon MURRAY McCULLY: I have received a number of reports suggesting that it is a matter of great regret to the New Zealand business community that it had in place before 2008 a Government that was prepared to mislead investors in this country, and it required this Government to try to find a resolution. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Is this is a supplementary question from Fletcher Tabuteau?

Fletcher Tabuteau: Yes, it is.

Mr SPEAKER: Then you need to call.

Fletcher Tabuteau: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Can the Minister clarify for the House that it was never actually this National Government that entered into a contractual agreement to supply Mr Al Khalaf live sheep for him to export back to Saudi Arabia, before it was done in the form of compensation?

Mr SPEAKER: If you want the question repeated I can get it repeated.

Hon MURRAY McCULLY: Thank you.

Mr SPEAKER: Because it was quite a complex question, could the question be repeated? [Interruption] And could I have some silence on my right-hand side?

Fletcher Tabuteau: I just want clarification, to establish that it was never actually the Government that entered into a contractual agreement to supply Mr Al Khalaf live sheep for him to export back to Saudi Arabia, before it actually became a compensation exercise.

Hon MURRAY McCULLY: I hope I am addressing the question that the member is trying to ask. If he is asking me whether the original business that Mr Al Khalaf was involved in was business with the New Zealand Government, the answer to that is no. The issues that have arisen with Mr Al Khalaf relate to events more recently as a result of the change to Government policy.

Hon David Parker: In light of his answer to my last supplementary question to him, is he aware that every Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Trade, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Minister of Agriculture in the Clark Government, going back to 2005—that is, Messrs Clark, Cullen, Peters, Goff, and Anderton—have all confirmed that they never once had an approach from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade in respect of the allegations he said were behind his facilitation payment?

Mr SPEAKER: The Hon Murray McCully, if he has the knowledge to answer that.

Hon MURRAY McCULLY: What I am prepared to say is that the statement made in the Cabinet paper I released about the concerns that Mr Al Khalaf raised about being misled were verified by me by looking back over the history of this matter, but some of the references were redacted from the paper because I wanted to remove material that would be prejudicial to New Zealand’s interests, so I will not take that matter any further than that.

Hon David Parker: Has he heard of any complaints about how the New Zealand Middle East Business Council, which is part-funded by the Government, has been operating; if so, what are those complaints he has heard of?

Hon MURRAY McCULLY: No, I have not.

Fletcher Tabuteau: Given the answer to my earlier supplementary question, is this then a precursor of the investor States dispute settlement clauses within the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, for example—we have not even signed a free-trade agreement with the Middle East, and yet the Government is being sued by foreign business because this Government exercised its sovereign right to implement our own laws?

Hon MURRAY McCULLY: That question might more properly be addressed to my colleague the Minister of Trade and, should the member ask it, I am sure he will get a lengthy and very interesting answer.

James Shaw: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek leave to table my letter today to the Auditor-General for her to investigate procedural improprieties with the contracts—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Again, that is not going to inform the members of the House. That is simply an attempt to make a political point.

Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I waited until the end, Mr Speaker. In one of his answers earlier, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Murray McCully, indicated he had no ministerial responsibility for New Zealand Trade and Enterprise. The previous position of the House and the previous rules of the House have been that where a Minister delegates one of their functions to an Associate Minister, the primary Minister still remains answerable and accountable to the House for that delegation.

Hon Steven Joyce: Speaking to the point of order.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I will hear from the Hon Steven Joyce.

Hon Steven Joyce: My understanding is that New Zealand Trade and Enterprise is overseen by the Minister of Trade and the Minister for Economic Development, not the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Mr SPEAKER: And that is certainly my understanding.

Hon Trevor Mallard: Their web page, which, of course, I am not seeking to table, does indicate that the Associate Minister of Foreign Affairs is one of three Ministers responsible: Mr Groser, Mr Joyce, and Mr McClay, who is down as Associate Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Hon Steven Joyce: Mr Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER: No, I do not need further assistance, but I do appreciate the points that have been raised. At the end of the day the matter that is important here is for the Minister to be responsible for his answers. He has made an answer to this House. If he regrets that, he has got the ability to change it. If other members think that it has been an answer deliberately misleading the House, they also have a process.

Budget 2015—Ultra-fast Broadband

5. BRETT HUDSON (National) to the Minister for Communications: How does Budget 2015 continue the Government’s commitment to the Ultra-Fast Broadband programme?

Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister for Communications): Budget 2015 shows this Government’s strong commitment to investing in communications infrastructure through our Ultra-fast Broadband Initiative. With the first phase of the Ultra-fast Broadband Initiative running 10 percent ahead of schedule and within budget, this Government is delivering on our election commitment to expand our investment in high-speed internet connectivity. That is why the Budget included up to $210 million in capital funding from the Future Investment Fund, which will allow us to expand the coverage of ultra-fast broadband to reach at least 80 percent of New Zealanders. That is an estimated extra 200,000 New Zealanders, and it brings this Government’s total investment in improving connectivity to $2 billion.

Brett Hudson: How can communities who want to be part of the next phase of the Ultra-fast Broadband Initiative get involved?

Hon AMY ADAMS: As part of the extension of the Ultra-fast Broadband Initiative, we are asking councils and communities to work with us to get the best result out of the investment. This could involve providing local knowledge on existing networks and infrastructure, working with IT companies to make sure the builds can be faster and cheaper, or having specific plans and opportunities ready to make the most of the social and economic gains that ultra-fast broadband can deliver. This gives communities the chance to be involved from the outset and to work with us to ensure we design the best programme possible for stage two of the Ultra-fast Broadband Initiative. The process closes on 3 July, and I urge all councils to take up this exciting opportunity to help us bring faster connectivity to their communities.

Health and Safety Reform Bill—Progress

6. CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First) to the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety: What is the status of the Health and Safety Reform Bill, and what feedback has he received on it?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Economic Development) on behalf of the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety: My understanding is that the bill is at select committee. The Minister has received a wide range of feedback—in fact, you could say the full 360 degrees of possible feedback—over many months, for what is a significant piece of legislation.

Clayton Mitchell: Given this Minister and the Minister before him were warned as far back as 2013 that the vast definition of a “person conducting business or an undertaking” was a bridge too far, does he accept that several years should have been ample time to, and I quote his spokesperson, “get it right”?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I think the member should, of course, appreciate that this is a very complex piece of legislation. There are 289 pages in the bill, and actually there is a wide range of views. The member represents one view; there are many other views. It is important we land this piece of legislation in a way that achieves the aim of dealing with the challenges of workplace safety, but takes a risk-based approach.

Clayton Mitchell: Does the time extension for this bill reflect that National Party backbenchers like the Hon Maurice Williamson were prepared to cross the floor and support it, as reported by Richard Harman—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! There is absolutely no ministerial responsibility for that.

Clayton Mitchell: When the Hon Judith Collins says about the bill, and I quote her from Stuff: “I just think it needs a bit of tweaking, and that’s the right thing to do.”, would the “bit of tweaking” really need 2 months?

Mr SPEAKER: That is a marginal question as well, but the last part of the question can be answered.

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The National Party caucus and, more particularly, the select committee will continue to deliberate on it because it is important that we do end with a piece of legislation that achieves—[Interruption] Shh! Be quiet, Mr Shearer. You are one who does not have a caucus. You do not have a caucus at all, mate.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The interjections from both sides were not helpful to the order of the House.

Clayton Mitchell: I will just have to wipe the smirk off my face as well.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member, when he is called to ask a supplementary question, will rise and ask it; no more.

Clayton Mitchell: Given that New Zealand First is the only party to lodge a minority report expressing concerns that the bill opens up a legal Pandora’s box for farming, small business, clubs, and even bodies corporate, does this show the Minister is out of touch with his own MPs, as he is with business—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Again, there is no ministerial responsibility. The member is referring to something that is currently before a select committee. [Interruption] Order! If members are keen to leave early for the afternoon, they could encourage me to make that happen.

Forestry—Afforestation Grants Scheme

7. ALASTAIR SCOTT (National—Wairarapa) to the Associate Minister for Primary Industries: What recent Government initiatives encourage the planting of forests in New Zealand’s regions?

Hon JO GOODHEW (Associate Minister for Primary Industries): We have recently confirmed a $22.5 million reboot of the Afforestation Grants Scheme. We understand that forestry is a long-term game, and this Government knows that start-up costs can be a huge barrier. This scheme invests into grants to lower the establishment costs of new forest planting in our regions. It is expected to result in 15,000 hectares of new forest. This scheme was announced in the Wairarapa electorate, on Jamie Falloon’s property. Those who attended the launch were shown forestry areas that were established under the previous Afforestation Grants Scheme. Therefore, they saw the considerable benefits.

Alastair Scott: What other environmental benefits will this scheme achieve?

Hon JO GOODHEW: Based on the previous Afforestation Grants Scheme, this new scheme will increase the productivity of erosion-prone land, improve water quality, and reduce the impact of severe flooding. In other words, this is an ideal scheme for erosion-prone and other under-utilised land. The scheme is also expected to result in 1.9 million tonnes of additional carbon dioxide stored in our forests.

Future Investment Fund—Spending Commitments

8. GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) to the Minister of Finance: Does he stand by all the spending commitments made in Budget 2015?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Associate Minister of Finance): on behalf of the Minister of Finance: Yes, I particularly stand by our commitment not to means test superannuation. I also stand by our commitment to increase benefit payments for families with children by $25 per week, the first increase in real terms since 1972. I stand by our commitment to increase health and education spending by $1.7 billion and $680 million respectively over the next 4 years. I thank the member for his question.

Grant Robertson: In light of that answer, does he stand by the statement in Budget 2014: “The share sale proceeds saw $4.7 billion go to the Future Investment Fund and we said we would spend $1 billion of that on schools, and a further $1 billion on health,”?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I cannot recall the exact details—and, knowing the member, I would like to check them—but I can say that the Future Investment Fund has been of great benefit to New Zealand, not just in education and health but in broadband, the rail network, and in a whole range of things that would not be existing today if we had taken the advice of the other side of the House and not proceeded with the share offers.

Grant Robertson: Is it correct that, as stated in his media release last week, so far $635.6 million in education funding and $684 million in health funding have been allocated from the Future Investment Fund?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: If it is in my press release, I am happy to vouch for it.

Grant Robertson: Is it further correct, as stated by Minister Nathan Guy, that $400 million has been allocated from the Future Investment Fund for irrigation, of which $120 million has been spent so far?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The Government has made a commitment to, over time, invest $400 million if it is required, and certainly $120 million has been committed so far. In terms of whether it all comes from the Future Investment Fund, that will all be out in the fullness of time.

Grant Robertson: Given that page 41 of the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update 2015 states that there is $526 million left in the Future Investment Fund, how will he pay for the $680 million required to meet his promises for health and education and the $280 million that he has promised for irrigation from the Future Investment Fund, meaning a total shortfall of $424 million?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I would say to the member that probably equates to the amount that the Government did not make because of the appalling political behaviour by the Opposition during the floating of those companies. But the member shall find out in the fullness of time—there are at least two more Budgets before the next election.

Grant Robertson: So which of the following is correct: that he has now promised $424 million more spending from the Future Investment Fund than is actually in the fund, or that he will break his promises on funding for health, education, or irrigation? Which of them is correct, Steven?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: What is correct is that once the Future Investment Fund finishes—

Grant Robertson: You’ve run out of money.

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Well, no, actually, Grant. The Government will actually continue to have capital expenditure allowances, including in Budget 2016 and Budget 2017—and, for all we know, Grant, maybe even in Budget 2018. We will just have to wait and see.

Corrections, Department—Staff Safety

9. TODD BARCLAY (National—Clutha-Southland) to the Minister of Corrections: What announcements has he made regarding the roll-out of new stab-proof vests to Corrections officers?

Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA (Minister of Corrections): Malo le soifua, lou afioga, le fofoga fetalai.

Earlier this month I announced that the Department of Corrections would invest nearly $4 million to roll out around 3,500 lightweight, stab-resistant vests to all front-line corrections officers. Our corrections officers work in some of the most challenging and often high-risk conditions, and these vests will provide them with another level of protection within the prison environment. Although assaults with stabbing weapons are rare, these newer, lighter vests will enhance the current stock of response vests, which are bulkier and not suitable for prolonged daily use. The investment of nearly $4 million in these New Zealand - made vests is a result of our comprehensive safety plan and aligns the Department of Corrections with the same type of vest issued to New Zealand police and courts staff.

Todd Barclay: What other measures has this Government delivered to help improve the safety of our corrections officers?

Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: Good question. The safety of our staff is of paramount importance. We want to create a safe working environment where staff and offenders interact without violence. The Department of Corrections launched its staff safety plan in 2014, which focused on five key priorities: visible leadership, increased training, effective communication, enhanced resources, and appropriate tools and improved resources.

Māui’s Dolphin—Preservation

10. EUGENIE SAGE (Green) to the Minister of Conservation: What action, if any, is she going to take to prevent Māui’s dolphin going extinct by 2029 given new research showing the population has declined from an estimated 55 adult dolphins to an estimated 43 to 47 adult Māui’s dolphins?

Mr SPEAKER: In calling the Minister, can I advise that my office has been advised that the answer may be longer than normal.

Hon MAGGIE BARRY (Minister of Conservation): Talofa lava, Mr Speaker. We are already taking significant action. The most recent abundance survey for Māui’s dolphin is between 48 and 69 adults, which gives us the approximate number of 55 individuals, which is the scientifically accepted number, and that number has not changed. In 2012 we extended the set-net ban area by 350 square kilometres and put in place a 100 percent observer coverage on all fishing beyond this area, a total of 6,200 square kilometres. That adds up to more than 100 square kilometres of set-net ban area for each of the 55 Māui’s dolphins. The Māui Dolphin Research Advisory Group will be set up next year to provide independent and balanced advice to the Government on the dolphins’ recovery. We are carrying out an extensive abundance survey that will be completed next year, and that covers 1,600 kilometres of surveys. It is being done by taking skin samples, which are then analysed for DNA, from dolphins across two sighting seasons. That is required to give us scientifically robust and rigorous figures rather than non - peer reviewed, computer-based modelling based on old data from 2012.

Eugenie Sage: When 95 percent of all human-induced Māui’s dolphins’ deaths are from being caught in trawl nets and set nets, is allowing trawling in 95 percent of Māui’s dolphins’ habitat and set-netting in 81 percent of their habitat consistent with protecting Māui’s dolphin from extinction?

Hon MAGGIE BARRY: That is not correct. Let us be really clear on this. There have been no confirmed records of Māui’s dolphins outside the set-net ban area. The predominant area they inhabit is between Kaipara Harbour and Kāwhia Harbour, which is completely covered by the set-net ban, which already extends between Maunganui Bluff and Hāwera. It is important to know that it is impossible for experts to tell the difference between a Māui’s dolphin and a Hector’s dolphin, without DNA sampling and “necropantsy”—whoops, necropsy; it is a terrible word. It basically means examining them when they are dead.

Mr SPEAKER: Carry on.

Hon MAGGIE BARRY: But the Department of Conservation—thank you very much, Mr Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER: Bring your answer to a conclusion.

Hon MAGGIE BARRY: It is very important to know that even the experts cannot tell a Māui’s dolphin at a glance. You do need to do those figures and those studies first. Thank you.

Eugenie Sage: Does the Minister accept the 2014 recommendations of the Scientific Committee of the International Whaling Commission that Māui’s dolphins should be fully protected from set-netting and trawling across their entire range, from Maunganui Bluff in the north to the Whanganui River in the south, 20 nautical miles offshore; if not, why not?

Hon MAGGIE BARRY: No, we do not accept it in any way. As far as we are concerned, and as I have said in my previous answer—and I do not want to test the Speaker’s patience around this—and, at the risk of repeating myself, we have already put in place all the set-net bans that are required for any recorded sightings. They have been verified scientifically. We have that all covered off. So, no, we do not accept the committee’s recommendations.

Eugenie Sage: Does the Minister agree with Auckland University’s Dr Rochelle Constantine that “What we do know is that we need to do everything we can to help this dolphin survive”; if so, how is allowing trawling and set-netting in the marine mammal sanctuary doing everything we can to help Māui’s dolphin survive?

Mr SPEAKER: The Hon Maggie Barry—either of those two supplementary questions.

Hon MAGGIE BARRY: We are doing everything that we can to protect the Māui’s dolphin. We have put a great deal of money into it; some three-quarters of a million dollars, which is what we spent on kākāpō recovery, actually. We are vigilant. We are working across the Government with the Ministry for Primary Industries and the Department of Conservation. We have put independent observers on the boats. We have banned set nets in the areas where they are. All of those things that we have taken—they are prudent. If that member from that party wants to do bans across all the fishing areas, in the same way that a former member of your party wanted to stop seismic testing and all of the rest of it in areas that would cost this country $3 billion in mining and exploration, that is not the kind of financial wisdom that this Government will ever accept, because it will take us to hell in a handcart.

Eugenie Sage: I seek leave to table the 2015 report by Barbara Maas of NABU International to the International Whaling Commission, entitled “Estimated Population Size and Decline of Māui’s Dolphin”.

Mr SPEAKER: I will put the leave. Leave is sought to table that particular document. Is there any objection? There is objection.

Health and Safety Reform Bill—Progress

11. IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North) to the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety: Does he agree with the Prime Minister who said yesterday that the Health and Safety Reform Bill needs more work because “despite what we might say there isn’t great divisions, there are just interest in making sure we get it right”?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Economic Development) on behalf of the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety: Absolutely. The Government strongly believes that every New Zealander who goes to work in the morning should return home safe and well at the end of each day. We are committed to passing workable and effective risk-based health and safety legislation to help reduce the rate of serious harm in our workplaces.

Iain Lees-Galloway: If he does agree with the Prime Minister that the bill needs more work, why did he originally ask Jonathan Young to call a meeting of the select committee to conclude deliberation on the bill a day early because he wanted to proudly reveal the contents of the bill when he addressed the Safeguard National Health and Safety Conference at Skycity this morning?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The matters of the select committee are for the select committee.

Iain Lees-Galloway: How disappointed is he to have been rolled by his own caucus on a bill that he is proud of and was eager to talk about publicly?

Mr SPEAKER: In so far as there may be some ministerial responsibility, the Hon Steven Joyce.

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Unlike the Labour Party, we do not discuss what happens in our caucus. And unlike the Labour Party, we do not have three ex-leaders, something like five or six aspiring leaders, and no actual leaders sitting over there.

Grant Robertson: I seek leave of the House to table the transcript of the 7-minute interview Judith Collins—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! It will not be necessary to put that leave.

Iain Lees-Galloway: What advice has he received from National MPs about changes that need to be made to the bill that have not already been recommended by the select committee?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: We are constantly reprising and considering our views on a range of legislation. This is a very busy Government, as we know. This is a 289-page bill. It is a complex bill, and it is important that we all get it right, because this has an impact on all sorts of businesses and people up and down the country.

Iain Lees-Galloway: Has he been advised which National MPs are revolting against his bill? Is it Chester Borrows, the good bloke sidelined by the Prime Minister—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! There is no ministerial responsibility for that.

Iain Lees-Galloway: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I asked my question very carefully, and I asked whether the Minister has been advised. It is a question about advice he has received relating to a bill he is in charge of.

Mr SPEAKER: I will allow that question that has just been asked, but there was no need to add names, as the member was heading on down to do in his first supplementary question. I will allow the Minister to answer that part of the question.

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: What was the question?

Iain Lees-Galloway: I will repeat the question—

Mr SPEAKER: Just that question, or else I will rule it out.

Iain Lees-Galloway: Well, I have got to give him some help. My question to the Minister is: has he been advised which National MPs are revolting against his bill?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Can I say to the member that his salivation at the prospect of that occurring is about 3,000 percent in excess of any chance of it actually occurring.

Budget 2015—Kiwi Conservation

12. SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel) to the Minister of Conservation: How does Budget 2015 help to secure the future of the kiwi?

Hon MAGGIE BARRY (Minister of Conservation): Our national bird, the kiwi, will receive $11.2 million in operating funding over the next 4 years, and that is on top of the $4 million the Department of Conservation currently spends every year on kiwi work. Predators like rats, stoats, and ferrets mean that kiwi numbers are declining by 2 percent a year and there is a very real risk that our national bird will be extinct on the mainland in our grandchildren’s lifetime. My aim is to turn this 2 percent decline into a 2 percent annual increase as a matter of urgency. The Department of Conservation will work closely with the Kiwis for Kiwi trust over the next 4 years to distribute $3.5 million among community initiatives to boost breeding programmes, extend predator control systems, and establish a robust monitoring programme that includes acoustic recording devices and intensive tracking.

Scott Simpson: How will this investment be used to boost kiwi numbers in the wild?

Hon MAGGIE BARRY: The extra $11.2 million of funding announced last week means that the Department of Conservation will be able to more than double the area of public conservation land that is actively managed for kiwi. This means additional predator control of more than half a million hectares. The existing Kiwi Crèche kōhanga sanctuaries around New Zealand are very successful, and we will be expanding on these, collecting and raising chicks in protected sanctuaries until they are approximately 1 kilogram in weight, when they are better able to survive predator attacks in the wild and can be released. There will also be a programme of research to implement new tools and techniques for kiwi protection, in conjunction with New Zealand’s biological and scientific challenges. [Interruption] Although the Opposition may think it is a joke, our kiwi are under threat, and this Government takes it very seriously.

Budget Debate

Bills

Appropriation (2015/16 Estimates) Bill

Debate resumed from 27 May on the .

Hon JO GOODHEW (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector): It gives me great pleasure to rise and speak in this Budget debate. When we heard the Budget being read last week, the members on this side of the House had a sense of confidence because this is a plan that is working and helping the families of New Zealand. This is a plan that is working and helping the regions of New Zealand.

What we saw on the other side of the House was a gobsmacked sort of reality sinking in because those members knew that there was so much in our Budget that they could not argue with. In fact, that must have been a dreadful realisation for them. Since there was so much that they could not argue with, what was this week going to bring to the House? Well, yes, there is the Budget debate, but it also gave the Opposition the chance to fire questions at Ministers about what was announced in the Budget and to hold them to account for what they have not done. And what have we seen in question time today? One question about the Budget—well, from the Opposition, anyway.

However, we are quite happy on this side of the House to be trumpeting what has happened in the Budget. I for one was enormously disappointed when there were no supplementary questions about my Afforestation Grants Scheme. I had spent a bit of time preparing answers for supplementary questions that never came.

Yes, the Afforestation Grants Scheme is great for the regions. It is not just going to increase forest cover; it will count towards our emissions targets. It is going to help reduce soil erosion. It is going to make water quality better. It is going to reduce the severity of flooding. The Ministry for Primary Industries has had more than 80 inquiries about this already, and the applications for it opened only yesterday.

How did the rest of the country react to the Afforestation Grants Scheme? As you heard, it was announced on Jamie Falloon’s property. He had 170 hectares planted with the last scheme. Here are the media headlines: “Forest owners gain confidence from scheme”, “Tree grant revival ‘smart’ ”, “Forestry scheme for steep land applauded”, “Forestry devotees welcome return of seed fund”, “Forest owners gain confidence from the scheme”, and “Government reviving afforestation grants scheme”. I have got to confess, though, that there was some criticism in some of the articles, which is that they simply want more of this. This is a measured response right now—15,000 hectares is a great start. This Government is carefully and prudently managing its finances. Here is a revelation: that has been happening for as many years as we have been in Government. It varies vastly from what we saw before, does it not?

The Budget continues to support New Zealanders, but we have got a responsibility to manage what is a growing economy—an economy that is the envy of many other nations around the world—and to make sure that every single dollar that the taxpayers of New Zealand give to us, the Government, to manage is managed very, very carefully. As we know, we have got an average of 2.8 percent growth over the next 4 years. We are predicting a $176 million surplus for next year, growing larger in subsequent years. As a Government, we are investing in priority areas. We have a plan that sees us active on all fronts, trying to help this economy to grow at the same time as making sure that we look after the most vulnerable New Zealanders. We intend to be reducing debt. We are not the Government that profligately spends, spends, spends and forgets about the fact that you have to pay the bills as well—not you, Mr Deputy Speaker, of course.

We will see higher wages. The average wage is expected to rise by $7,000, to $63,000 by 2019. There will be more jobs. We have already seen an additional 194,000 jobs since the beginning of 2011, and another 150,000 new jobs are forecast over the next 4 years. It is particularly important that those jobs are sustainable jobs. It is not the Government that is creating jobs; they are jobs that are coming out of businesses expanding. We know that business confidence tells us that people are intending to take on more employees, and that is a wonderful thing to know. We know that there are many, many unsung heroes doing an extremely good job in the regions, and it is our job to get the word out that that sort of thing is happening in the regions.

In terms of the reaction to the Budget, what we saw on the front page of the Timaru Herald the day afterwards was “SC mums see promise in budget”, and then on page 3 “NZ’s poorest families set to benefit most”. That was a sucker punch, was it not? That was a sucker punch, because, you see, members on the other side of the House think that it is only ever down to them to care about people in hardship. After 43 years, we are giving this additional amount to the budgets of those families who are in the most hardship—in the most hardship.

Hon Trevor Mallard: The member cut it in between—that party did.

Hon JO GOODHEW: The member opposite says that we cut it in between. I think that he has got a very long memory, or perhaps he has had a very long experience of this place—both of which would be quite true. However, the member was part of a Government that did absolutely nothing for 9 years, and it took John Key, on election night last year, to promise New Zealand that he would look after the most vulnerable families in hardship. And he has delivered, but that is not the end of the delivery—that is not the end of the delivery.

The pathway out of low-income situations is going to be work. That is not always possible, but where it is possible, the assistance that this Government is giving families in hardship will see them come out of that very difficult place. That is when hope prevails—that is when hope prevails. There is a $790 million package to help those children living in some of poorest families. As I have said, employment is the way forward for them, and this Government is giving real assistance to them. Not only have we seen that—and I can report from my electorate—but also we have seen a huge drop in the number of sole parents. The sole parents who are getting assistance and case management work from this Government have been telling me about the hope that they have for the future—the fact that they know what their job is going to be when they continue and finish their education. They know that their children are going to benefit from the fact that we are supporting them to finish their education. I have got wonderful examples of this in my electorate.

We are committing an extra $32.5 million of operating funding to help those on long-term welfare dependency, because we are putting our money where our mouth is. It is not about cutting and slashing; it is about investing. We are investing in New Zealanders, and I well recall, very soon after she was made Minister for Social Development and Employment, Paula Bennett said in this House: “I believe in the possibilities these New Zealanders have.” We will go through welfare reform, and my colleague the Hon Anne Tolley is continuing with that so that we can deliver to those New Zealanders who, through no fault of their own, have found themselves in circumstances that can be improved, and they should have the Government’s assistance to improve. We are making changes to Working for Families as well, so that low to middle income families that are not on a benefit are also going to get some money. The line between these groups is quite narrow, and they certainly need a bit of assistance as well. Working families earning less than $27,000 a year in gross income are going to get an extra $12.50 a week in in-work tax credits. That is part of how we are assisting New Zealanders, but there is more.

Just before I conclude, I want to focus on some of the things that we are doing within the health sphere. There is more funding for elective surgery, because, boy, do electorate MPs get to hear about the want for more elective surgery. It is not a small amount—we are putting $98 million into that. In my electorate, we have a fabulous hospice, Hospice South Canterbury, and there is $76.1 million of extra money to support hospice care—that is, the specialist palliative care nurses, who do an absolutely incredible job. Another area where there is real tension is bowel cancer. My region has a high incidence of bowel cancer, so there is $12.4 million extra in the Budget to extend the cancer screening pilot. We are working towards rolling it out nationwide. New Zealanders want that, but we could do a real disservice to New Zealanders if we announced it and did not have the workforce or the ability to deliver it. It would fall flat on its face, and it would not serve New Zealanders well. So it is particularly important that we get that process right.

I want to finish with the $80 million to support New Zealand businesses to invest in research and development. The Opposition will say that we do not do this, but the absolute proof of the pudding is that there is more money in research and development—more than $1.5 billion. In finishing, this is a great Budget. We have a fantastic Prime Minister, who is delivering on his promise to New Zealand to look after the most vulnerable. Thank you.

Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour): Talofa lava, Mr Deputy Speaker. There is a tradition in New Zealand of giving the Budget a name. You can think back to the Black Budget, the “mother of all Budgets”, the “chewing gum Budget”, or the “block of cheese Budget”. Nick Smith endeavoured to give it a name this week. He called it the “best Budget he’d seen in 25 years”. But, of course, no one took any notice of anything that he said because he is inclined to become over-emotional at times—and he is the person who wants people to live next to an exploding substation. But, no, the person who has given the Budget its moniker this year is the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister has called this Budget the “it won’t make a blind bit of difference Budget”. That is what this Budget is going to be called—“it won’t make a blind bit of difference Budget”. Why the leader of our country would want to use blindness to make his point is another matter.

The Prime Minister said, when bringing in a new tax under the guise of a levy, under urgency, and in the dead of night, that it would not make a blind bit of difference to people wanting to travel. Of course, he did not say this when he flew to London—first class, no doubt—on behalf of the taxpayers to argue with the UK Government not to impose the same sort of tax. And he called it a tax at the time. He said that it would not be good for New Zealand—that it would, in fact, hurt New Zealanders travelling. But, of course, he did not mind it being put on here in New Zealand, because, at the end of the day, most of the people who will pay it will be New Zealanders. Of course, he did stand on principle. His principle is that a levy is a tax and a tax is a levy, and if you don’t know what it is, then: “Google it.” He then said it will not make “a blind bit of difference” to the number of people enrolling if the Government gets rid of the $1,000 kick-start to KiwiSaver—it will not make a blind bit of difference. Of course, those members forgot that they said in Budget 2011 that they would never take away the $1,000 kick-start. But then they do stand on principles—their principles—do they not?

Speaker after speaker from the National Government has exploded with pride that after almost 7 years of urging and shaming, they have increased the benefit for families with children who are on the benefit by $25 a week before tax and deductions, which is about $2 a day. But, of course, it is so urgent. I heard them last night giving impassioned speeches, saying: “Look what we’ve done. We’ve increased the benefit. After 43 years we are the first Government to increase the benefit.” They forgot to say that they were the first Government in 43 years to reduce the benefit—the first Government to reduce the benefit—but they proudly say that they are the first in 43 years to increase the benefit. They say that there is such hardship out there and that that is why they have done it. So why—and not one of the National members has answered this question—do these people in such hardship have to wait 10 months for it? Why do they have to wait for 10 months before they get any relief, when National is taking the $1,000 kick-start from KiwiSaver? That change starts immediately. The money is coming in, but it ain’t going out to those whom it said were in such hardship.

Oh, the amnesia of the National Party. I have never seen so much propaganda pumped out in such a short time frame. National has forgotten many of the things that it did. Of course, the Minister of Finance and Nick Smith, who is the brains trust of the National Government, are the ones who voted to cut the benefits way back then. They have also forgotten—and I would like to remind the new members who do not have a lot of memory of what their party did in the past. It was in 1999—not that long ago really—that the Minister of finance, who was Bill English, reduced by legislation the average net weekly payment of superannuation from 65 percent to 60 percent. He cut the amount that old people were getting by legislation, in this House, from 65 percent of the average net weekly wage to 60 percent. Have a look at the papers. Ask Bill to show you the papers. He wanted it to be cut to 55 percent but he was stopped. It was the Labour Government that restored superannuation to 65 percent of the average net weekly wage.

Now let us get on to the part of the Budget that I was incredibly interested in, and that is the health budget. Well, we are told that we have got more money. I have to say that it is not about whether there is more money; it is about how much more has been put into the Budget and whether it covers the costs of running the health system in New Zealand. Some of you might have been awake in December when I released in this House a leaked Cabinet paper on how much Cabinet had agreed would go to district health boards. That Cabinet paper said that they would receive $320 million. They would receive money towards demographics and a contribution towards cost pressures. The Minister of Health stood in this House on a number of occasions and said that I was wrong, that you could not trust anything I said, that this was not correct, and that this was not what had gone to Cabinet. Can I tell you that the Cabinet paper was 100 percent correct, even down to the allocations that individual district health boards received. So I was not the one who was wrong. I have to say that there is a word for what the Minister did in this House, but perhaps I will not use it today, Mr Deputy Speaker, just because you are a very good presiding officer indeed and I would not want you to tell me off.

What I would like to do is read from that Cabinet paper. Perhaps the members opposite were not given this bit of information. What did Treasury say would happen if health was given $320 million? It said: “there are some major fiscal risks sitting in Vote Health stemming from the wind-up of Health Benefits Limited”—that fantastic organisation that has cost millions of dollars in health money and that got a kick in the teeth yesterday when Hawke’s Bay District Health Board said: “Take your health plan to send down flu from Auckland away, we’re not interested in it.” So there are some significant risks coming from Health Benefits Ltd being wound up. The Cabinet paper went on to refer to the TerraNova pay equity case: “Announcing a funding signal of $320 million to DHBs now will make it”—listening, everybody—“extremely challenging to manage pressures in Vote Health within a $400 million package”. What did they get in health? They got $396.5 million, which is the health funding package. It was going to be a challenge at $400 million, and they got even less than that. Treasury also said that district health boards will be required “to achieve combined efficiencies of around $191 million.” So all your district health boards are going to have to go out there and find efficiencies, and they are already under huge pressure. “There is no doubt,” Treasury went on to say, “that the financial pressures facing DHBs … are considerable, particularly in terms of upcoming wage negotiations.”

I have to tell you who the losers are in this health budget, because it is obvious that the members opposite have not been told anything other than the bright, shiny story that the Minister of Finance, the Prime Minister, and the Minister of Health have told them. There are many members sitting on the backbench who are members of rural constituencies. Well, I am afraid to tell them that their constituencies are the losers. Rural health in New Zealand is a loser. It is no wonder that rural doctors and rural pharmacies are dismayed. What you find is that rural doctors have been told that there will be no increase in rural health workforce retention. The member who has taken over from Bill English ought to know that down in his area and all around the rural areas of New Zealand, it is very hard to staff rural doctors, rural pharmacists, and rural health providers. The poor old pharmacists have really been hit. They have a 0.37 percent increase in one of their services only, which amounts to 80c per patient per month. That is what they got out of this Budget.

Members opposite will find that the rural GP flexible funding has been decreased. Then there are all the small rural hospitals around New Zealand, and the biggest losers come from the southern part of New Zealand. Their district health board got a 1.89 percent increase, not the 2.8 or 2.4 percent, or whatever, that the Government said it got—it got 1.89 percent. I have to tell you that that is why the community has written to Minister Coleman, after a thousand people attended a public meeting, saying: “We have resolved a vote of no confidence in yourself as Minister of Health.” This is why: the funding of health services is ultimately the Minister of Health’s responsibility. He decides, with his Cabinet colleagues, on the priorities of Government expenditure. Quite clearly, running two public referendums on a New Zealand flag, reportedly costing over $26 million, is far more important than using the money for rural health services. Those health services in Dunstan, in Alexander, in Gore, in Balclutha, and in Queenstown are under threat, and they are likely to close services or close altogether.

Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): Talofa lava, Mr Deputy Speaker. Tēnā koe, otirā, ki a tātou katoa. I join a very proud line-up on this side of the House in standing to speak on this Budget. It is a fine Budget. It is a balanced Budget. It is a Budget that is responsive to the times that we find ourselves in, and it is one that is as fair to all sectors of our society as it is possible to be. It reflects the very deep aspirations and ambitions that our Prime Minister, John Key, has consistently led this Government with since we came into Government at the end of 2008. His commitment to the most vulnerable is reflected in this Budget, as is his very sharp appreciation—unlike the Opposition—that money does not pour from a pipeline in the sky but that it actually comes from hard-working New Zealanders up and down the country. This Budget reflects a recognition of this by both investing in the immediate term, through a reduction in ACC levies, and by looking to the middle and long-term future of our country, through investing in regional science foundations.

This Budget delivers on the commitment that the Prime Minister made during the election last year: that we would do our very best to lift up those who need support the most and that we would do it in a way that is as fair as possible to all New Zealanders. That is why we see this $790 million package at the heart of this Budget, and as we go further into the detail of the Budget, we will see just how caring, sensible, and practical the policies and funding initiatives in this Budget are for families—for hard-working families both those who find themselves in circumstances where for a while they are dependent on benefit support from the Government, and those who are on low-wage incomes.

This Budget reflects another principle that is resonant of a National Government: while giving, also expecting reciprocal obligations. That is the nature of our National character. It is to ensure that we do help those who need help the most, but that we do so in a way that does not induce the disease of dependency, which the Opposition is so proud of. This is the first Government in 43 years to make a real contribution to lifting benefit incomes. It has done so while understanding that, nevertheless, we believe absolutely in the virtue and value of work. So there are incentives and requirements within the provision to these families. Approximately 110,000 families are estimated to benefit from an extra $25 a week through this new package. That accounts for approximately 190,000 children. We are unable to give the specific detail of this because, of course, New Zealand families, whānau, and aiga come in all shapes and sizes, and it will be the particulars of their circumstances that will determine, in the end, the level of extra support that this Budget holds out for them.

How is it that we are able to provide this support? It is through very prudent management of our economy, in the very stable, conservative, and sensible hands of our Minister of Finance, the Hon Bill English. We have come from deep recession to a very solid 3 percent growth, which has resulted in more jobs. We expect 150,000 more jobs. We expect to see the average wage go up by $7,000. At the same time, we have an inflation rate of 0.1 percent, so we expect that interest rates will remain relatively low. All of these things make a difference to hard-working New Zealand families. They get the value from this, and we continue to place emphasis on what their needs are. Families like my own, from heartland East Coast, Ngati Porou, Ruatōria, will benefit in the same way as families from Porirua and Paraparaumu. Of course, we have heard already this afternoon about Gore and Dunstan and all of these heartland towns, which, like a string of pearls, make up the beauty of what this country is, in all of its colourful diversity.

Our Government is absolutely committed to reflecting and representing that diversity but to doing so in a meaningful way, to ensure that those families can earn a decent income—for instance, so that they can have, as a result of this Budget, a 20 percent increase in the childcare allowance for up to 50 hours a week. That is both at early childhood levels and for out-of-school care provision. That means that while we are supporting families, we are also encouraging them to get back into work, and to do so, we are being realistic about what that takes and are providing childcare support.

In the vote for which I am responsible, Vote Education, we have seen a significant increase again in the seventh Budget of this Government. As I have said in this House many times, this Government understands the critical contribution that a good quality education makes to all young New Zealanders. It is a passport to a better future. It does give people better options. It does not mean that we all make better choices, but it does mean that we have more options available. This Government understands that those choices should be ones made by individuals and by families. We do not prescribe what they should do. We invest in creating an environment in which those choices and opportunities are available to people, and this Budget reflects this. We have a plan that is working. It is one that we have continued to grow incrementally from the end of 2008 to where we find ourselves now, in May 2015. Yes, there is still more work to do, but it is based on a very solid foundation.

Let me turn to families in particular. Of course, this Budget speaks very directly to families and to the specific contributions that we are making to support them. This Budget carries on a number of investments, not least of which is the increase in paid parental leave that we are getting under way this year. It recognises that families do want to be at home in the first months after they have their babies to ensure that they are well brought up. That is supported by free GP visits up to the age of 13. It is reflected in the HomeStart grants for first-home buyers. I am looking forward to holding one of these evenings in Porirua in the next couple of weeks—I wish I could remember the date. Perhaps someone in my office who is watching will helpfully text me that date so that first-home buyers in Porirua can seize the opportunity that this Government is providing to them to become first-home buyers in the fabulous Mana electorate, which stretches from Tawa in the south to Paraparaumu in the north.

We have had record child immunisation. When we came into Government, there was much less investment, despite what the Labour Opposition speaker on health, Annette King, said. There is a lot of talk in health—the Opposition is very good at a lot of talk—but we had to wait until this Government came into power to see actual investment going into targeting those families who need it the most. Māori and Pasifika immunisation has gone up from about 60 percent to over 90 percent. That means healthier babies. We have got warmer, drier, healthier homes. We have breakfasts in schools, much to the chagrin of Opposition members, who want to legislate rather than just accept right now that every school in New Zealand that wishes to run a breakfast programme can, courtesy of the support of Sanitarium and Fonterra. We have better education for children. We have more kids starting school earlier, staying longer, and leaving better qualified. We have more jobs and higher incomes. We are helping children living in hardship, as I have covered. And we have put more money in the pockets of hard-working New Zealanders.

My colleagues have already covered a range of investment areas, so for the last 2 minutes I am going to focus specifically on the new funding in Vote Education: $10.8 billion, which I have said is a shipload of money. I thank the taxpayers of New Zealand who continue to contribute their taxes to support this level of investment in education. There is $10.8 billion—

Todd Barclay: How much?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: —$10.8 billion—being invested in education. Of that, $1.6 billion is for early childhood education, which is more than New Zealand Police gets. We want that to be the case. We want money to be going on to the productive side of our citizenship balance sheet, if you like. We have added to the special education provision, which currently sits at just over $530 million. In this Budget, we have put another $69 million into special education. About $32 million of that is to expand the Ongoing and Reviewable Resourcing Scheme, and the remainder is to ensure that there are extra teacher aide hours in schools.

There are three new initiatives—she said, holding up four fingers just to test whether anyone in the Opposition was actually taking any notice. But no, they were not, and do you know why? It is because this is good news, and the Opposition members thrive on being miserable and mean. In the weeks and months leading up to this Budget, there were commands that the Government must make sure, in this Budget, that it attends to families in deep hardship and that it focuses on those children who are the most vulnerable and in the poorest of circumstances. And when this Budget delivered exactly that, the Opposition was gobsmacked for about 5 minutes, but then it defaulted to its usual, miserable, carping, unhappy, depressing approach to life.

Is it not great for New Zealand that after 7 years we continue to have as high aspirations and as full ambitions for each and every New Zealander as we started with. What this Budget—delicately, finally, profoundly, beautifully, and elegantly put together—demonstrates is that we also have the funding and investment to deliver on the platforms of those aspirations. Thank you.

IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): I took a close look at the Vote Labour Market documents that relate to this year’s Budget and I noted in there that there was a total of over $15 million for shared services for WorkSafe New Zealand. That is good to see. That is important. There is also a total of just under $6 million in non-departmental capital for the WorkSafe New Zealand capability change programme. Both of those funding lines are going to be very important this year for the implementation of health and safety programmes by this Government. I have no doubt that when WorkSafe went to its Minister, the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety, and when the Minister went to the Minister of Finance and they made their Budget bids, they had in the back of their minds the implementation of the Health and Safety Reform Bill, which is currently—and remains, much to our great surprise on this side of the House—at the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee right now. That is an important piece of legislation, which is going to need resourcing from this Budget to make sure it can be implemented properly.

But at this stage we do not even know whether we are going to need this year’s Budget to implement the Health and Safety Reform Bill because it could be stuck at the select committee for another 12 months whilst the National members sort out exactly where they stand on this legislation. This is a really important piece of law reform and I want to remind members on the other side of the House that the catalyst for this—for them, anyway—was the Pike River disaster. Just because time has moved on and the Pike River disaster seems like more of a distant memory to those members over there, it does not make it any less important, it does not make it any less relevant to the families of those miners, and it does not make health and safety law reform any less relevant to the families of any one of the workers who are killed across our country, particularly in industries like farming, like forestry, like fishing, and, of course, like mining.

The National Party MPs might have forgotten. They might have forgotten about the pain and the heartache of the Pike River disaster, but we have not. Frankly, even if that disaster had not happened, then health and safety law reform was long overdue. What was introduced was a good piece of legislation based on two things primarily. One was the Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy and the recommendations that came from the Pike River commission, and the second was the Australian model law that has been operating in Australia for over 10 years. So if members opposite think that this legislation, which has been introduced and has been sitting at the select committee for well on a year now, is somehow going to be impracticable and impossible to implement by businesses, they need just look across the Tasman and see how it has been implemented over there. I do not want to be disparaging to our Australian cousins, but, frankly, if they can do it, then so can we.

I want to know where the rebellion has come from. We know that the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety, to his credit, actually was very comfortable with the Health and Safety Reform Bill and where it had got to at the select committee. I want to say that on this side of the House we were less comfortable. We were not pleased with the direction that it had taken at the select committee, and I wish I could say more about that at this stage, but the Standing Orders preclude me from doing that. But certainly the changes that had been made by the National Party MPs seemed to be very much in line with what the Minister wanted. In fact, he was so enthusiastic about it that I got a phone call from him last week asking whether we could deliberate on the bill early so that he could go to a health and safety conference this morning and tell all the delegates at that conference about this wonderful new piece of legislation. That is how enthusiastic the Minister was about it and the enthusiasm seemed to be there right up until Tuesday afternoon, right after the National caucus, when the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety was rolled by the splits and divisions in his own caucus.

I want to know where those splits and divisions come from. I think there are three suspects. The first I cannot name, Mr Deputy Speaker, but he is a good man, who has played a good role in this Parliament. He has, unfortunately, been sidelined by the Prime Minister, and lately he has been making some bizarre comments, particularly in saying that WorkSafe officials are “dickheads”. He has been making some other comments as well, and I suspect that that member might be one source of the rebellion, the revolt, from within the National Party caucus.

There may well be another. That is one; here is No. 2: Maurice Williamson. He does not participate all that much at the select committee, let us be honest, but maybe whilst he has been sitting there quietly, what we have not realised on the other side of the table is that he has been texting the ACT Party, telling it all about this appalling piece of legislation and what an anathema it is to the hard right and the libertarian right of the ACT Party, which Maurice so keenly wants to join now that he has also been sidelined by the Prime Minister. I think he is suspect No. 2 for the revolt and rebellion from within the National caucus over the health and safety law reform.

But let us be honest. Suspect No. 3 is the most likely: ah, yes, the Hon—ahem—Judith Collins. With one eye on the leadership, no, two eyes on the leadership and her desire to pay back her enemies double—we know how Judith operates—we think that Judith Collins is the leader of the revolt. She is the most revolting member of the National caucus, leading the fight against the Minister Michael Woodhouse, and against the members of the National caucus who are on the select committee, who have worked so hard and tirelessly on behalf of their Minister to craft a piece of legislation that he thinks he might be able to get past the National caucus. That is where we think the revolt is coming from. It is from Judith Collins, the leader of the hard right faction in the National caucus, which is pushing back against John Key’s efforts to shift the National Party into the centre. Of course, in this Budget debate we have heard a lot from National Party members about how this Budget shifts them into the centre and occupies some space that they think is traditionally the space of the Labour Party. Well, I think Judith Collins hates it. I think there are other members of the National caucus who hate it.

The hard right faction of National is pushing back, and this health and safety reform legislation is the Korean War of the Cold War going on inside the National Party caucus. It has been bubbling away for a long time now, and now we are just starting to see the little skirmishes happening. This might be the Korean War. We will probably have a Viet Nam War a little bit further down the track. The splits and divisions within the National caucus are certainly starting to come to the fore, and this is the first fight—the fight over health and safety. This is good legislation that this Budget appears to support. This Budget appears to have the funding to implement the health and safety law reform. The question is: have the National Party members got the guts to stand up against their core constituency, who have spread rumours and innuendo about what this legislation does, and say: “We stand for health and safety. We stand for workers going to work, being safe, and coming home at the end of the day to their families.”?

That is what the National Party should stand for, but that is the very thing that its members are divided over. What an appalling thing for them not to be able to agree on—the idea that people that should have their health and safety upheld and that they should be able to go to work, do a good, honest day’s work, get a good, honest day’s pay, and go home again at the end of the day to their families, and not be injured and not be killed at work. That safety is what this legislation is about. I am appalled that the National Party cannot line up and support a piece of legislation that is designed to do that. It has already been thoroughly watered down by the select committee. It can only get worse from here on in. If it has not gone far enough, then any further that National plans to go is going to end up with legislation that will be absolutely pointless and we will have a health and safety regime that is weaker than what we have right now.

I want to see the National Party members line up behind this, and if they cannot do that, then I want them to be honest. Where are the factions? Where are the splits and divisions? Who are the leaders? Who are the ones who are anti-worker? Who are the ones who want workers not to be safe at work? Who are they? Is it Judith? Is it Maurice? Who is it? Speak up, tell us now, because we want to know who wants to weaken our health and safety laws in New Zealand.

SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Yawn. What a speech we have just heard then from the Labour Party member Iain Lees-Galloway—what a speech. We hear yelling and screaming in order to try to replace good, reasonable argument. In fact, those members are not sure what they are saying. They are just going to yell it louder. Conspiracy theories around revolts, and so forth, and yet one just had to look at the Labour Party caucus on Budget day as its leader—well, its current leader—gave a speech. The heads were hung in shame and with much concern, and embarrassment I am sure. It was very reflective, one would say, of their own party. We also hear now from the previous speaker more metaphors being given. We heard a whole lot from the leader of the Labour Party when he gave his Budget speech. He was having a crack at some of our communities, talking about seven veils. He was floundering around and flapping his arms. Now we have got analogies to do with North Korea, South Korea, and wars. I think, for me, it is just the sign of a Labour Party that is out of touch but also a Labour Party that is out of touch with its history.

Very early on in the debate today we were challenged on this side of the House by the Hon Annette King and the Labour Party about understanding our history. This was in particular relation to the benefit cuts, and so forth, of the 1990s that National went through. They were trying to rail against what we are doing now. This is the first time in 42 years that real benefit rates have risen. This is under a National Government. We were getting lectured from the other side that we do not understand our history. So a little bit of history for the Labour Party, of course, is that the likes of Annette King and others were in a Government years before us, railing against the cuts that happened in the 1990s. Yet they did not do one thing to change it. These were people who in their time in Government did nothing to change it. In fact, the likes of Annette King were in Government before National came into Government in the 1990s, and they did absolutely nothing. I encourage the Labour Party to look at its own history—its own inept history—and its action of doing absolutely nothing, and then have the audacity to come into this House and challenge us.

What was delivered last week by Bill English was a great Budget. It has gone down very well in Tāmaki. In fact, a lot of the changes and debates currently going on before the House are well accepted in Tāmaki, that very strong blue seat. I am very pleased that the members and constituents are behind what we are doing. This is a Budget, I would argue, that is ultimately about caring. It is about caring for people at the beginning of life, through their life, and at the end of life. I want to touch on two elements of care. The first is around the health budget—obviously, as a member of Parliament in the first instance, but also as the chair of the Health Committee. The health budget has now reached a record high of $15.9 billion. I think it is one example of the level of care that this Government shows, to continue to increase the health budget. Elements within it like $12.4 million to extend the bowel cancer screening project are, I think, very, very important. We have seen some really good signs there. There has been $98 million announced to increase elective surgery. We have a very proud record in this Government of increasing the level of elective surgery. There are now tens of thousands more surgeries being done. Many in this House will know from their own experience, and certainly Kiwis in general will know, that these surgeries make an enormous difference.

But what I am particularly pleased about is an extra $76.1 million to be invested over 4 years in the area of hospice and palliative care. A big part of that spend is actually to assist hospices to reach out into the community to provide palliative care at the end of life. I think that is fundamentally important. More often than not people will think about hospices or end of life and think about it as people in little bedrooms hooked up to machines and being pumped full of drugs. That is not the case in most circumstances. The work of hospices and palliative care is often in homes, providing pharmacological treatments and the counselling support, the love, and the generosity that is required. I think it is just absolutely tremendous that this Government is putting even more money into that space. It would be remiss of me not to acknowledge the wonderful volunteers and workers at the Eastern Bays Hospice in my electorate, particularly those who work in the dove shop raising funds, again, to support their fellow Kiwis in need of pain relief, particularly at the end of life. I am particularly pleased about this spend because I personally think that caring for the most vulnerable in our society is critically important.

We are a Government that cares for those who are suffering, who are unwell, and who are frightened and scared. It is a big part of why I support this Government. For many who will know my background, I have spent a considerable amount of my life working in the community and voluntary sector caring for people. I proudly stand on this side of the House as a National Party member and support the decisions this Government makes around care. When I talk about care, I am talking about genuine, heartfelt care—care that talks about compassion in the truest sense. Compassion that talks about suffering with people—not that I am wanting to go into a Latin derivation, but “compassion” means “to suffer with” and to be with them. That is my understanding of care.

I want to touch just briefly on the question of euthanasia because it keeps cropping up in these spaces. People will talk about euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide as caring and compassionate. I want to go on the record very clearly to say that is fundamentally incorrect. I would like to make some points for the record here in the House today. I do not do this just as a member of Parliament or someone of a particular religious persuasion but as someone who has also spent a lot of time in his life—if I can speak in the third person—studying these serious philosophical questions. I do it too because constituents often lament—and you hear it in the media asking who is going to talk about this issue. Again, I want to go on the record very clearly to say that I unambiguously oppose euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide in this country. It is not genuine care and it is not genuine compassion.

There is no such thing as a right to die. There is a right to life. Those of us who have worked with people to the end of their days understand the fight that is in there to preserve life. There is no such thing—and I say this as a rights theorist—as a right to die. There is an illusion when people talk about choice in these areas. The fundamental thing with something like euthanasia—and this is the opposite to what we are talking about around good palliative care—is that the choice is being given to others. We are all free agents to exercise how we want in our choices, but something like euthanasia is giving the choice to others to make for us. Again, I think this is a fundamental problem we need to consider. I also just want to add, finishing on this little part—because it is a heavy topic, but it is one that is often shied away from in talking about the heavy issues. I want to say to those in our vulnerable sectors, particularly those with disabilities, that I and, I am sure, many in this House stand beside you when you watch and hear these discussions with concern. I want to say very clearly to you in those communities that I believe in genuine care and genuine compassion and the need for us to stand beside you. So I am very proud of a Government that has put more and more money into palliative care to provide that assistance.

I am also very pleased about the welfare reforms. I read some opinionator on Stuff who said that those on the centre-right are people who “generally despise the poor”. I thought that was just a shocking, shocking statement. In fact, I would challenge that writer, who says, basically, that we on the centre-right generally despise the poor, to write down all the stuff that she has ever done to support people, and I will do the same. I would be pretty sure whose list is going to be longer. I am very proud to stand in this House—

Sue Moroney: The arrogance. How arrogant!

SIMON O’CONNOR: —actually, not arrogant—and to back a real record of experience. It does not mean that I am any different from any other New Zealander, but I back the work that I have done supporting people in the hospitals and in the hospices, on the drug scene, people in the homeless shelters and the counselling that is required, and the people on Karangahape Road struggling with issues of their prostitution or their sexuality—genuinely working with these people. It does not mean that I stand here and have all the answers, by any means, but I derive from them some experience that informs the way that I think. Really important, and what the left misses, is that we then marry that up with training in academics, which asks: “Why do I feel what I do, and how can I express that in words that can be understood?”. That is one of the fundamental differences between this side of the House and the other side of the House. This side of the House has genuine experience, genuine learning, and brings them together and attempts to help New Zealanders as best we can. We have seen it with the marvellous Budget, bringing in extra money to help the most vulnerable in our society. Amongst those are families with children. Again, I said at the start that this is the first time since 1972 when benefits have actually been increased—not by a Labour Government, but by a National Government. I am very proud to be part of a Government that genuinely cares.

CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to take a split call with Fletcher Tabuteau to talk about the Budget. I think I will start by asking: what is the difference between God and Simon O’Connor? It is that God does not think he is Simon O’Connor. Simon O’Connor certainly did suck the life out of this room in the last few minutes. It is a little bit towards the end of our Budget debate so everybody is feeling a little bit tired, but I fear to say that that just about drowned us in sleep and woeful thoughts. It was certainly a debate that will come up later in time. We would certainly love to have it with you, with regard to the right to die.

I thought I would also start by coming up with something thought-provoking and provocative with regard to the Budget, because we have heard so much over the last week or so, listening to everybody. The only thing that I could think of that comes out as remotely profound and provocative was just: “Wap-wap-wap-waah.” I think this Budget has failed in just about every sense, and certainly on a decent scale. I will actually give this Budget a 10—out of 40. I think there has been so much misplaced with this Budget, and it has been irresponsible of the Government to take away the future of New Zealanders by taking away the $1,000 kick-start programme—the Government members have all got their heads down now pretending not to be interested—and to give it to the—

Todd Barclay: We’re not interested.

CLAYTON MITCHELL: Oh, Todd Barclay is interested again. Todd, you are like a sneeze waiting for a mouth to shoot out of.

Look, at the end of the day, this Budget giving $25 to beneficiaries is the one good thing that I think this Government has done. It is certainly a step in the right direction. I would like to spend my time discussing the emergency services, which did not feature in this Budget. I think that everybody in this House would agree that those people add probably some of the best value to our communities, from Cape Reinga through to Stewart Island. They are the volunteer fire brigades, the people who are actually completely underfunded for their role. Their role over the past several decades has been changing more and more for the simple fact that there is less funding available, and they are actually going on community support and fund-raising measures to be able to give that support to their communities. I am talking about the likes of the ambulance service, which, again, is suffering from a lack of funding, and the Fire Service, which is actually providing a lot of that care.

Around the country at the moment we are talking to the volunteer fire brigades and the rural fire services, which are going out there and shaking the bucket—to use the terminology—to gain funding for their organisations. One outfit in the north had to shake the bucket because it did not have a defibrillator and it was regularly being called out to first aid response. It needs to get that support from this Government and this Budget, but it has not featured. It is certainly interesting to know, also with regard to the lack of funding, that since 1994, when the current situation with the way the Fire Service is funded—which, of course, is through the Fire Service levy, which is through your insurance—was looked at, it has been looked at 16 times for new funding arrangements. It has been looked at 16 times over 21 years, and most of those reviews have come out and said that the current way we are funding our Fire Service is inadequate. It is not fit for purpose. Something that this Government keeps talking about with its Budget is that it is fit for purpose, but whose purpose is it fit for? We seriously need to get back to our grassroots.

Something else I would like to touch on is the number of fire brigade volunteers we have. Currently in the country we have got 1,700 career firefighters out there doing a fantastic job. Many of them are my friends, and I think that in terms of the high regard that they have within the community, those Fire Service providers are No. 1. [Bell rung] Five minutes goes so fast—I had better not waste any time.

I would like to tie this into Surf Life Saving New Zealand, which is another very important organisation around the country, which, again, has got no funding in this Budget. To recognise Surf Life Saving New Zealand as an official emergency service provider, one that comes under the umbrella of our emergency service providers—considering that it performs some 350 search and rescue operations around the country, and several thousand lifesaving exercises—we need to look at the search and rescue services, our Fire Service, and Surf Life Saving New Zealand being put into a package that this Government supports and looks after in a much better way. I will hand you over to Fletcher Tabuteau. Thank you.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I call Fletcher Tabuteau—a 5-minute call.

FLETCHER TABUTEAU (NZ First): This Budget has cemented in place National’s acceptance and reinforcement of its reality of having a designated and permanent underclass in New Zealand. This Government is deeply in debt and the promise of that surplus is always for tomorrow. This Budget claims—actually, quite wisely, Mr English does not actually claim this Budget will do anything in particular—that it is a plan that is working. So all the Government members planned for Australia’s economic decline and a drop in world oil prices. Without doubt there is nothing in this Budget that will fix this Government’s finances and secure New Zealand’s economic prosperity. Net core Crown debt has risen consistently under National and is now greater than $80 billion. What is more, the sell-off of Crown assets did nothing more than undermine the revenue we could have received from these very assets.

Despite consistent and thorough evidence to the contrary, this Budget promises that everything will come right in 2017. Is that not amazing? It is just before an election. One can be a bit suspicious. I suppose we should be grateful that the Government is not promising that everything will come right in 2018. At least New Zealanders will be able to judge for themselves on the evidence as to whether this Government can actually keep a promise. Although, to be fair, election after election, promises are made and promises are broken. I tell you what, New Zealanders are the most forgiving people I know. However, for the benefit of some members, the Budget forecast is actually made, given a few assumptions. It is made by Treasury, and the assumption that the Government has chosen to accept is that everything will be rosy only if a few things come to pass. So what has the Government taken as given? Businesses will enjoy higher commodity prices, and we will have only moderate wage inflation, reasonable interest rates, and a dollar that works for all of us. Given this scenario, the Government will come out all pretty and blue—higher tax revenues, actually reaching the Budget surplus, and cutting income taxes—all just in time for the 2017 election.

But I want to point out today that that is not the only version of the future. There are several scenarios, and one of them is not quite as rosy. If, for example, the Chinese economy continues in its slow decline and if commodity prices and inflation remain stagnant, then GDP growth does not materialise and the tax take hits the slides as well. And, what do you know, Mr English’s deficits will once again materialise out of nowhere, in his plan that is working. Add to this the likely fact that dairy prices will remain low for longer—with most of Europe gearing up to produce more milk than ever before and with restrictions being lifted by the EU—and National’s rosy interpretation of the future is starting to look a shade of grey. I put it to this Government that not only has it failed to address the issues even under its preferred interpretation of the world—for example, there is a bit more nominal money for health, education, corrections, and other core services in this Budget—but even in National’s rosy world those small increases do not cover the increases in the population and the rising costs of provision, and if inflation rises as forecast these so-called increases are actually a real decrease.

But my point goes beyond this. More significantly, this Government has its head buried in the sand and has no plan or idea for any other quite plausible eventuality arising in New Zealand or around the world. There is a real world that needs to be dealt with. I would ask this Government to stop trying to bribe the nation with talk of tax cuts coming into 2017. I would ask it to deal with the very real and explosive debt it has allowed to happen, and try to reduce its debt with some actual surpluses before bribing the people of New Zealand. Get a plan, stop inadequately filling the gaps, and actually lead this country into a prosperous future. It is well past time. Thank you.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Land Information): Last week I was fortunate to visit the Hutt with Chris Bishop, our MP based there. We visited the children at Waterloo School. I was there in my capacity as the Minister for Land Information, awarding a prize to a student who had named one of Land Information New Zealand’s drones. Who would have thought that drones are an important part of educating our children?

These kids were part of a classroom. There were 96 classrooms that went on a virtual field trip to the Mackenzie Country. The amazing technology and advances in modern learning that this Government is providing provided the opportunity for 96 classrooms from one end of New Zealand to the other to learn, through a virtual field trip in the Mackenzie Country, about a place that many of their parents would never have visited. So to have the opportunity to learn about issues that are challenging for this country, such as infestations of wilding pines, and to learn about science and geography, and important technologies like mapping, was absolutely fantastic.

It was interesting because these children live in quite a different world, and the winning name of the drone was manu. “Manu” in Te Reo means bird, or kite. So they actually see technology as just an extension of the natural world that they are growing up in, and it is a natural extension of how they learn. They and their parents can thank this Government, because this Government’s Budget 2015 will take the total spend on early childhood, primary, and secondary education to $10.8 billion.

I have spoken on a number of occasions as to how my fundamental belief is that education is the passport to opportunities. For children who participate in schools from one end of the country to the other, the best start that we can provide for them is an education. But more than that, $790 million has been provided for children and families in this Budget.

It was priceless on Budget day, when our very fine Minister of Finance delivered the Budget, to see the clear looks of shock and horror on the faces of the members on the Opposition benches. They had not anticipated what, for us, was a very fundamental, logical, common-sense delivery of a promise from our Prime Minister to govern for all New Zealanders and to look after those who had the most challenging of circumstances.

So $790 million—and I want to echo the words of my colleague Simon O’Connor, who talked about care and compassion. This is a Government that has care and compassion for families and communities, that has put children at the heart of Budget 2015, and for that I am enormously proud.

But I want to come back to these students at Waterloo School, because, actually, it is about ensuring that our young children—every single one of them, irrespective of their circumstances, or their upbringing. Every single child, we believe on this side of the House, deserves a great education. One of the things that we have put spending into in this Budget is school infrastructure, the modern learning environments that we walk into. The children at Waterloo School queue up outside the digital classroom at 8.30. They queue up, dying to get into the classroom so that they can get in there at 8.30 and start learning. And the class does not even start until 9 o’clock. That is exactly what we want for every one of our children, and it is just so incredibly inspiring. When you look at teachers and principals in schools like that, when they have students who are just hungry for learning and queueing up at the door—I think it is absolutely stunning, and that is what this Government is providing for through education funding and through funding for school infrastructure.

But there is another really critical part of that, and that is what we are funding in terms of ultra-fast broadband. In terms of our Budget 2015 we have also set aside funding to deliver on our commitment to roll out world-class internet connectivity for New Zealanders, with an extension to our flagship broadband initiatives. I know, years ago, when we made this commitment to ultra-fast broadband and our Rural Broadband Initiative, I think there were some who thought that it was just kind of beyond what we would be able to deliver. But if you think about schools that are connected, homes that are connected, health care facilities that are connected, and businesses that are connected—Cambridge, Tokoroa, and now my own electorate, Taupō, are now fully fibred.

So if that side of the House talks about the fact that this Government is not delivering for the regions, well, I can tell you it is. It is delivering for regions in every part of the country. If you look in Tokoroa at a decile 1 school, every single child is able to access digital connectivity and to learn at a pace that suits them. No longer do we have the scenario where a teacher is at the front of a classroom, teaching to every child at one level. No, you can have children in that classroom who have a variety of learning challenges, who are able to learn at their pace, and because of that, they are not being excluded, they are not isolated, they are fully engaged in their learning, and, more important, their learning results and achievements are incredibly and significantly increasing, which is exactly what we want for every one of our students.

So let us look at broadband. If we look at broadband in Taupō, which is a well-known tourist spot, a significant part of our economy is around broadband roll-out. What we want to do there is make sure that—because we actually launched the Chorus roll-out in a backpackers. International visitors come into the backpackers, and, as we well know, social media is just an integral part of a backpackers’ experience. They are taking videos, photos, and images of Taupō and beaming them around the world. So if there was one simple way to promote our country, actually, connecting Taupō to ultra-fast broadband, with Chorus picking Taupō as its first town in the North Island, has been a pretty stunning result.

Broadband, clearly, and our ultra-fast broadband roll-out significantly benefits small business. I know that many of my colleagues here have been involved in businesses in a variety of ways. That is why we understand small businesses. We understand the issues that they face. I want to give you one very small example of a great piece of work by my colleague the Hon Paul Goldsmith. This Budget gave $12 million to the New Zealand Business Number. We have just introduced this legislation. It is a really fundamental way of simplifying and getting rid of some of the duplication, paperwork, pain, and suffering that small businesses have to undertake, which we have been able to remove. I am very proud to say that the Minister sitting beside me was instrumental in getting that piece of work concluded.

Sue Moroney: 2 minutes left, Louise. Talk about women.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: The member opposite is saying: “What about women?”. Well, absolutely, many women are at the heart of the families who will benefit very directly from the $790 million that has gone to families. It is fantastic. I am proud to say there was no change in the Ministry for Women’s budget. What we are doing is looking at—

Sue Moroney: A 14 percent cut.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: No cuts at all, Sue Moroney. Do not tell lies in the House—no cuts whatsoever.

Sue Moroney: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I take offence at that. I am happy to table—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! That is not a point of order. The point of order about the offence relates to Speaker’s ruling 42/2, and I will just ask the member to be mindful of that one.

Sue Moroney: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I informed you that I took offence. I wish to see an apology, please. That is the normal course of action when a member takes offence.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): The offence was in relation to what?

Sue Moroney: Are you asking me to reply?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am asking you what the offence was that you have taken exception to.

Sue Moroney: She said that I lied.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): That is right. I have told her under Speaker’s ruling 42/2, which is why I quoted it, that she is not allowed to do that. That is why I quoted Speakers’ rulings.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: One of the significant pieces of work that I am progressing is at the heart of this Budget. The heart of this Budget is around children and families. It is fantastic that we have increased paid parental leave.

The next piece of work for me is looking at how we can work with small businesses, which are the heart of this country, and looking at how they can be more flexible in having women in their workplaces, making sure that women’s skills are fully utilised in part-time environments, and I am very proud of the flexible work requests that we have brought into this House. It came into force on 6 March. We did not hear the Opposition talk about that, because they know that piece of legislation alone is significant for women.

This Budget is a great Budget. As I said, in terms of education there is the significant opportunity for every young New Zealander to do well. This is a Government that is investing in them. It is investing in their very early days, it is helping individuals, and it is helping families and children. This is a caring, compassionate Government, which is delivering for each and every New Zealander.

Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): Talofa lava. Malo le soifua, Mr Assistant Speaker. Can I commend the member who just resumed her seat, Louise Upston, for spending an entire 10 minutes of the House’s time without making a single mention of the 14 percent cut to one of the ministries’ departmental budgets that she is responsible for. She spent 10 whole minutes without giving any explanation or any word of apology, and without hanging her head in shame. There was a 14 percent cut, and there was not even a mention of it. This is not a surprise because we know that when we went through the, I suppose, meaty part of the Budget debate, between last Thursday afternoon and Saturday night at 10 p.m., when we actually debated the legislation that arose from the Budget—and it was so important that it all had to be dealt with under urgency—there was consistency in the National members’ contributions.

The backbenchers are getting paid $150,000 - plus to take a call in this House and say: “I move that the question be now put.” That was the only contribution that we had, from the start of the legislative debate on Thursday afternoon right through to 10 o’clock on Saturday. How can those members go back to their constituencies, or even back to their families? How can they look in the mirror and say: “I am worth $150,000 for saying: ‘I move that the question be now put.’ ”? What a waste of space. What a waste of money. What a disgrace to the parliamentary process and the importance of the law that we were changing—and it was important law that we changed.

I bet that Gerry Brownlee is wishing that we had followed the time-honoured tradition of Budgets, which is that we have the legislation arising from the Budget, we have the debate under urgency, and then the House adjourns. He will be wishing that the House had adjourned instead of coming back, because what we have seen is a revolting National caucus. Some members of the National Party have been revolting, and we know who they are—that is pretty clear from the media comments. The only person who seems not to know who they are is the Hon Steven Joyce. He stood in this House and said: “Nobody leaks from our caucus.” He cannot read the paper or listen to the radio much. I thought that he would, given his involvement with MediaWorks. I thought that he would have kept in close communication with the media, but he does not seem to.

What the National members are revolting over is the workplace health and safety legislation. We have had some robust debates in this House, and so we should. This should be a place for robust debate. But I find it extraordinary, and extraordinarily sad, that after 29 men were killed in an incident in the Pike River mine that could have been prevented by decent health and safety provisions, members of the National Party are trying to water down the already watered-down legislative changes that were recommended by the royal commission that arose from that incident. It is bad enough for workers, who can look at the National Government and say: “They don’t give a toss about our health and safety. They don’t care about it.” How is it for the family members of those dead men? Those lives were lost. The families have been totally misled by the Government, which made a commitment to stand by them. It made all sorts of other commitments that the families have been let down on. Those families were hanging out the hope that at least those lives had not been lost for no reason at all, but now we see members of the National Party trying to water the legislation down, and a further delay in the select committee.

Who are those members? Well, we have got, allegedly, the Hon Maurice Williamson, who has just been rejected as deputy leader of a one-member party. That is a pretty sad indictment, actually. Being rejected by David Seymour must be pretty embarrassing for anyone. We have got Judith Collins—the Hon Judith Collins, I apologise—who very conveniently had an urgent matter to attend to in the lobby while Steven Joyce answered a question and trashed her reputation. We have got another member who does not seem to have gone quite so public with his opposition but who is certainly causing a lot of grief, and he is a very, very highly regarded member of the National Party. He is a senior member and a provincial member who has been treated, I and other members think—including those from his own caucus—very unfairly by the Prime Minister in regard to his position in the National Party.

The National Government is actually falling to pieces. This is a terrible look for the National Government just a week after the Budget that was meant to save its bacon. We have got all that going on, and then, of course, just to make sure that it does not get completely overshadowed or that we miss anything, the Hon Murray McCully has had a shonky Saudi deal exposed in this House. There are clearly some big, unanswered questions remaining about that deal. Minister McCully looked to be on very slippery ground. In fact, he looked slippery today answering questions. I understand from social media that he has left the building to apply for a job as president of FIFA. That seems to be entirely appropriate, given the behaviour with that sheep deal. I want to commend the Green contribution to the debate today. I thought the rewording of historical music was very clever, but, actually, it is a very serious issue.

New Zealanders pride themselves on having no corruption in their Public Service. It is one of the many things we love about our country. We have had funny television programmes about the Public Service, such as Gliding On, and we have had Yes Minister - type behaviour, but, actually, if we are serious about what our Public Service is like, what our police are like, and, we hope, what our politicians are like, we have always been able to say proudly that we are corruption-free. Well, I think the last couple of days have dealt a big blow to that, and it makes me feel really unwell to think of that reputation being tarnished by Minister McCully. I hope that we get to the bottom of this sad saga very quickly, that the truth is exposed, and that any members who have to take the consequences take them fully.

Back to the Budget—what a wasted opportunity. I would have thought that on the back of such a resounding victory at the last election, National might have finally got some courage to have a plan and a vision—to have a plan and a vision for our country. There is none.

Todd Barclay: Where’s Labour’s plan? Where’s Labour’s vision?

Hon RUTH DYSON: “Mr Hedges” should just pipe down before he gets laughed at any more. There is no plan and no vision from the National Government. This has been a Budget of totally wasted opportunities for a nation that is desperate for leadership, a nation that desperately wants to see a Government providing it with a pathway forward. We have had a massive number of broken promises. You know, some are pretty significant. In 2011 the No. 1 pledge was that in the 2015 Budget there would be a surplus. In the 2014 campaign, the No. 1 pledge was that there would be a Budget surplus. It was even up on the National Party website. I read it on the National Party website: “We promise that there will be a surplus in the Budget in 2015.”

Has anyone looked at the National Party website recently? It is not usually something that I recommend as preferred reading, I have to say, but if you look at the National Party website now, that promise has been taken down. It should never have been made, but it was made in the 2011 campaign, it was made in the 2014 campaign, and it has now been broken. Where is the apology? Where is the apology, National members? Are you going to say sorry, any of you? No. No, it takes a little more than any of them have to say sorry for breaking promises made, not once and not lightly but in two election campaigns, as the No. 1 commitment to the public of New Zealand. Should they feel let down? Well, I certainly think they should.

We also heard, of course, National saying: “No new taxes will be introduced by National.” What a joke that has turned out to be. But, oh no, it was not a tax, was it? We did not increase the broadband tax; we increased the broadband levy, which is not a tax, of course.

Paul Foster-Bell: It’s not a new tax.

Hon RUTH DYSON: “No, we are not going to increase taxes. No new taxes. We are not going to increase taxes.” The broadband tax increase has been misrepresented, including by Paul Foster-Bell now. I thought that he had more integrity. Thank you for putting me right on that point, Mr Foster-Bell. It is not a tax, of course; it is a levy, so increasing it without any advance warning, for no justification, is fine. It is a tax, it was an increase, and it is another broken promise. And then, of course, finally we have the Government saying to parties on this side of the House—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member; her time has expired.

Hon NATHAN GUY (Minister for Primary Industries): Well, what a great Budget it was for the National Government. It is interesting that we have just heard a contribution from the not so fresh-faced member of the Labour Party, who has been here for, I am not sure how long—

Hon Paul Goldsmith: 22 years

Hon NATHAN GUY: 22 years, Minister Goldsmith says. It is 22 years that Ruth Dyson has been here. That is the future of the Labour Party—not. Anyway, let us focus on this Budget because it was such a good Budget. It was so well-received in my electorate of Ōtaki, and yet when Andrew Little came in and made his contribution, was it not an absolute shocker? Those members’ heads went down over on the other side of the House, and they were embarrassed about their leader when he stood up and talked about roosters on heat and fiscal gender reassignment. We could call his contribution the Gene Simmons speech, which went down like a lead balloon. What the Government actually did was steal the Labour Party’s thunder by making a significant contribution for beneficiaries. In 43 years this has been the most significant contribution ever made by a Government. This particular policy announcement of $790 million has been—

Hon Ruth Dyson: Total lies.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! You cannot say that.

Hon NATHAN GUY: —extremely well-received. I can handle the rebuttal from the other side, Mr Assistant Speaker. In fact, the members of the public would be disappointed by that comment from the Hon Ruth Dyson. But let us focus on the good news of this Budget, because the centrepiece is about families. Before I get on with talking about families, let us talk about the future focus of this Budget. We are indicating we are going to reach surplus next year. Of course, the other side will say: “Oh well, it should have been reached this year.” Well, the reality is we have managed the books through the global financial crisis and we are rebuilding the large city of Christchurch. We have come through commodity price fluctuations, and that is being experienced right now by our dairy farmers, who will get through this because the medium to long term outlook for our dairy farmers is indeed very positive. But, of course, members on the other side are not interested in the dairy industry until they find that the forecast milk price payout drops, and then it is all the Government’s fault. But we did not hear from anyone from that side of the House from 2002 to 2006, when the average price of milk solids was $4.20. We did not hear a whisper from them about their being concerned about our rural communities, provincial New Zealand, or, indeed, our dairy farmers.

We have done well on this side of the House. We have created thousands of jobs, and we are forecast to create another 150,000 jobs in the next 4 years. This economy has created 194,000 jobs since 2011. Wages have increased by 15 percent over the last 5 years, which is fantastic. Public services under the John Key and Bill English regime are more efficient, and the exciting thing is that unemployment is forecast to drop to 5 percent next year. Of course, all of that is not acknowledged by the other side of the House because those members just cannot believe the fact that this Budget has gone down particularly well in places like Ōtaki, in places like Foxton, and in places like Levin in my electorate.

But, importantly, what I want to focus on this afternoon is the great Budget for the primary sector. This is a fantastic Budget for rural New Zealand—$25 million is going into biosecurity, my No. 1 priority. It is an extra $2 million of capital, which means more dogs, more X-rays, and more people. And, of course, there is the passenger levy that we introduced under urgency on the weekend. It is supported by our support parties, but, importantly, it is supported by the Green Party, which has got a vision. It realises that this levy should be paid by users. It should be paid by the 55 percent who come from other countries around the world. This levy should be paid by users, and the importance of the Green Party’s support is that those members get the fact. Those members get the fact that biosecurity is hugely important for biodiversity. They also get the fact that volumes are growing. Tourist numbers are increasing, by a forecasted 3.5 percent every year for the next 6 years. With that comes extra risk, so it is only fair that as passengers come across our border, with them flows this money so that we can continue to increase our biosecurity and border control.

Also in this year’s Budget, an extra $10 million is going into strengthening the animal welfare system. I acknowledge everyone in the House for their support in passing the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill—which is now law, and that is fantastic—about a month or 6 weeks ago. What we have got to do is implement the regulations. We have got to work closely with the SPCA. Some of this $10 million over the next 4 years will go into getting the regulations ready and into implementing them. We are working closely and funding the SPCA because animal welfare is hugely important. We export to about 130 countries around the world, 66 percent of New Zealanders have a pet, and we rely heavily on our animal exports, to the tune of $25 billion, so animal welfare does matter.

What has also been exciting for rural New Zealand is the announcement I made this week. We are putting $25 million into the Irrigation Acceleration Fund. That is a fantastic Budget initiative starting next year—$5 million a year. This is going to mean that we can ensure that these regional water storage projects get up and off the ground and get up to the investment-ready stage. We know that there is the potential for 400,000 more hectares of land that could be irrigated in New Zealand. We know that it is good for economic growth, not only for our GDP but, importantly, for our regional economies. I have been into areas where they have told me that the school has been on the brink of closure. With irrigation the school the school has revitalised.

What has also happened is irrigation projects have been good for the environment. We just need to look at the Ōpua, which ran dry this summer and where Fish and Game were out rescuing fish species and releasing them in the Ōpihi River, which is fed from the water storage project. Also a lot of these water storage projects flow through into regional towns and cities. The Ōpua helps to underpin the water supply for Timaru.

But on the other side we do not hear any support for water storage projects. We do not hear much support for rural New Zealand. Those members did not support the border levy, which I think is an absolute shocker. They do not support the primary industry. Every primary industry came out and supported the border levy being introduced. Yes, we have got some consultation to come, and that will be happening next month and we look forward to the feedback from everyone who is interested.

Also there was an announcement made recently, on the weekend, about $7.5 million over the next couple of years to ensure that we are doing more in skills, because we know that we need to attract more people into the primary industries. So we are going to be working closely with the Ministry of Education there. We are going to put more money into OVERSEER. We know that that is hugely important, managing our environmental footprint sustainably going forward, and also we are going to give farming systems a bit of a boost. We want to do some detailed data analysis to ensure that we are celebrating and saluting the best performers of our country and making that information more readily available to the average farmer because we believe if we can lift productivity by 10 or 20 percent, then we can return exports into this country of about $4 billion to $6 billion of GDP. Also there was a great announcement for agriculture students—an increase of 20 percent for their tuition fees, which is fantastic.

I could go on. There is a long list. Minister Goodhew this afternoon was talking about the Afforestation Grants Scheme, which she has introduced, which has been really well-received by the foresters, which is a very important exporter—No. 3 exporter—for New Zealand’s primary sector. There was $22.5 million there. Also Minister Joyce announced the regional research institutes where, hopefully, in the next couple of years, we will have the roll-out of these happening in our regions, taking science into the regions to boost them. Also we are going to be working on the Te Ture Whenua Maori Act review and, importantly, focusing on a new MetService forecast, because we talk about droughts and things, and farmers and rural communities rely very heavily on the MetService. Let us not forget ultra-fast broadband, because putting infrastructure in the ground, whether it is building the Kapiti Expressway—which is hugely important through my electorate—rolling out infrastructure like ultra-fast broadband, or working on those black spots like Minister Adams talked about, rolling it out for rural communities is hugely important.

So, in summary, this is a great Budget. I salute and celebrate Bill English’s seventh Budget. We are on the right track. This Budget has gone down particularly well, whether it is in our cities or whether it is in our provincial towns, and I back our rural communities. Thank you.

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Seven years of this National Government—seven Budgets, and how many surpluses? Zero surpluses—zero surpluses.

Hon Ruth Dyson: Not a single surplus.

RINO TIRIKATENE: That is right. Not a single surplus. That was the No. 1 priority that the Prime Minister took to the nation. Let me see. He said: “We will be in surplus.” or “We are in surplus.” That was the No. 1 priority and it was an epic fail. This Government has missed the mark not once, not twice, but seven successive Budgets in a row. Contrast that with the last Labour Government. We managed the economy responsibly and we had 9 years of surpluses. With those surpluses we were able to pay down debt, put money away for a rainy day. We handed a wonderful set of books to this incoming Government and what has it done? Seven years of no surpluses. But it gets worse, because next year we are looking at more of the same. We are seeing a $7 billion hole in the returns from our dairy sector through the slump in commodity prices. So these are real challenges that our country faces. But what leadership is this Government showing? No leadership at all. It has not been able to deliver on its No. 1 priority for its Budget.

This is symptomatic of this Government: broken promises, underperforming, and not delivering on any of its undertakings. It was demonstrated best by the laconic Minister from the Horowhenua, who said, in his rural drawl, what good news there is in the Budget for the primary sector. We heard a lot about agriculture, animal welfare, ultra-fast broadband, and the like, but what was in there for my No. 1 concern—what was in there for the fishing industry? Nothing. Yet again the Minister for Primary Industries has abandoned the fishing industry, the No. 7 export industry in our country. He has abandoned that industry. He has forgotten about it, absolutely forgotten. Yet again it was demonstrated by his speech, which was all about dairy. Look, we do support strengthened biosecurity. We do support increased—

Hon Nathan Guy: But you didn’t vote for the levy, Rino.

RINO TIRIKATENE: The levy was already paid for through our general taxes. It did not need to shift to a user-pays charge. There was nothing in there for the tourism industry, Mr Guy. Returning to the failed promises from the Minister, yet again there was nothing in this Budget for the fishing industry. All we hear about is what is happening in rural New Zealand. Well, there is a fishing industry in this country, the length and breadth of this country, and there is nothing in the Budget. Budgets are big documents and there is a lot of spending that comes in and goes out. Money comes in and money goes out, but what has been put in that Budget for the fishing industry and fisheries policy? Nothing. There is no change whatsoever. Operational management—there is no change whatsoever. So, the once great fishing industry, which was supported by this Labour Government, has now been buried and forgotten within the Ministry for Primary Industries. It has been buried and forgotten.

There are many areas where this Minister has been negligent—absolutely negligent—in terms of his obligations under the Fisheries Act and to the fishing industry. Just to point out a few areas: research and management plans, better spending in terms of the science that the industry contributes to, and projects such as Better Information Better Value. That was a 6-year project that worked in conjunction with the industry and the Ministry of Fisheries, now within the Ministry of Primary Industries. It worked for 6 years on the difficult issue of the discarding of fish. In many instances this happens because the total allowable catch settings are wrong and they need to be adjusted. For 6 years the industry worked with the ministry on a project to come up with some solutions to that very difficult issue. And what has the ministry done? It has abandoned that project. There is no extra funding going into it. Shame on that Minister for abandoning our fishing industry.

There are other areas, around the penalty regimes. The penalty regimes in the Fisheries Act are 30 years old. The deterrents and the high penalty rates were set 30 years ago, but technology has moved on. Vessel monitoring and other activities that have been implemented by the industry have moved on, and yet the penalty regimes are in place and are hugely punitive on commercial operators. Has the ministry addressed that issue? No, and there is no additional funding going into that policy area under this Budget. Again, it has been abandoned by this Minister.

I could go on and on, but the bottom line is that this is an ineffectual Minister. He has abandoned the fishing industry. His view of the primary sector is that it is all about cows, animal welfare, and the rural sector. He does not care about the fishing industry, or the fact that it generates over $1.5 billion in export dollars for our country, and that it employs nearly 10,000 people up and down the length and breadth of our country. He does not care about that. Yet again, he has stood on his feet and has not made any reference to the benefits that he is delivering for the fishing industry. I think I know why now. He does not actually know anything about fishing. He does not know anything about fishing at all. If he knew, he would have actually articulated and presented something in his speech about what he is doing to assist the fishing industry.

Hon Nathan Guy: What do you think about foreign charter vessels, Rino? Why don’t you talk about that?

RINO TIRIKATENE: I am talking about this Minister’s failure to support the New Zealand fishing industry. It has been abandoned, and I hear its members. They are talking to me very loudly and clearly. They are very, very upset. Yet again, this seventh Budget from this Government, which has failed to deliver a surplus, has failed the New Zealand fishing industry, and that is a shame. It is a shame on that Minister especially and on this Government.

Just returning to the broken promises—not only have we not seen a surplus but what that has done for our nation is that we have accumulated under this Government a national debt of up to $88 billion. Let the people of New Zealand hear that again—this National Government has racked up $88 billion in debt during its 7 years in office. That is an absolute disgrace. That is $88,000 million that every man, woman, child, and whānau is now having to pay back at some stage, but it will not be next year because there is no surplus projected next year. We know the difficulties facing the rural sector with the commodity price slumps. There is a $7 billion hole—a $7 billion hole. You cannot fill that hole with just more debt, although this Government will. That is all it does. It will just borrow some more to try to meet the deficit. It is living beyond its means.

What the Government has done, though, is look after the rich. This is a classic example: in news out today, Television New Zealand will screen a new $8 million drama next year called Filthy Rich. It is a real slice-of-lifer from our biggest city. Let us use it as a metaphor for this National Government—filthy rich. The Government has mismanaged our economy, looked after only its rich mates, given tax cuts for the rich—they are the ones who have benefited—and the rest of New Zealand has been languishing and suffering. It is proven by 7 years of non-delivery of a surplus. This is a pathetic Government, it is a pathetic Budget, and, just like that show, it promises that there will be no substantial benefits to the people of New Zealand.

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Health): Well, I am really hurt by that speech. That was very, very nasty from the member for Te Tai Tonga, Rino Tirikatene. My advice to him is that he needs to cheer up, because it just ain’t that bad. He needs to get out and talk to his constituents in the greater Wellington region and throughout the South Island. My advice is that he should spend a lot less time with Andrew Little, because it is having a really negative effect on that member’s outlook on the economy and on life. As for calling Nathan Guy ineffectual—well, I am just appalled by that. This is the greatest Minister for Primary Industries we have ever had. In fact, he is the first Minister for Primary Industries we have ever had. But look, this is a great Budget. I just encourage Rino Tirikatene to open the books, to really have a good look, and to actually read it, because he needs some education. Stop hanging out with Grant Robertson and all the naysayers. Get in touch with the real people out there. This is a Budget—I tell you—that has gone down so well with the electorate, Mr Tirikatene. It has been a real hit.

One thing that really disturbed me about the member’s speech was he seems to think that the answer is more spending. He is going to spend more and more and more, but he is not focused on the results. Where is he going to get that money from? Where is it going to come from? Is he going to conjure it out of thin air? What is he going to do? There has been no answer in the last 10 days as we have sat through speech after speech from the Labour Party members. All the Green Party has contributed to the debate is that vicious attack on metrosexuals by Kevin Hague that was reported in the New Zealand Herald today. There were no ideas coming from the left at all, and yet here we have an excellent Budget delivered by the greatest Minister of Finance ever.

What you see if you look back over the last 7 years is that we have done things in a very considered, incremental way. You know, we have not gone in there and slashed and burnt. We have been all about rejigging the spending within baselines to deliver the best possible outcomes for the people of New Zealand. I heard a report the other day from the Hugo Group, where a lot of National Ministers went and spoke, and then the Labour people got up. Andrew Little and Grant Robertson were there. The Hugo Group compère got up and said: “Look, you’ll have to excuse Labour, they’re in a rebuilding phase.” It is year 7 and it is still rebuilding—no policy, no ideas, just a lot of negativity coming out.

What I can say is that I am thrilled as Minister of Health with the gains that we have achieved in this Budget. There is $403 million in new spending going into help working families in New Zealand achieve more access to the health system. It has been quite spectacular. The Prime Minister and I were out at Kenepuru Hospital the other week launching the $98 million initiative for more elective surgery for New Zealanders. We have been very targeted in our approach to health. These have been tight financial times but we have been very focused on delivering the services that people need, and elective surgery was an area where the Labour Government was dramatically failing. We have lifted the numbers of elective surgeries from 118,000 to 162,000 while we have been in Government. That has been a massive increase. We have lifted the number of specialist appointments by 50,000. More New Zealanders than ever are getting the appointments they need and they are getting the surgery they need. And do you know what? There are more doctors and more nurses in the system. So there are over 1,500 more doctors and 3,000-plus more nurses. That is a massive achievement, because we have brought that very targeted approach.

We have been all about looking at what money we have got and how we can increase that—a 2.5 percent increase in the baseline this year. When Labour was in Government it doubled the health budget but was doing fewer elective surgeries. It was pathetic. It was just not providing what people were needing.

Hon Nathan Guy: Bloated bureaucracy.

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Yes, there was a bloated bureaucracy. There was not a focus on clinical outcomes. If you look at those six health targets, for the first time, with the announcement of the third quarter results this week, we are hitting that emergency department target of 95 percent of patients in and out of the emergency departments in New Zealand within 6 hours. Is not that great? It is so different from when Labour was in Government. I can remember going to North Shore Hospital—

Hon Nathan Guy: What happened there?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Well, there was a young man there with a broken leg who had been waiting under the neon lights for 24 hours in the corridor. That just does not happen at North Shore Hospital any more. We have turned that place round. It was in deficit, it was performing poorly, and people were not getting access to the medical services they needed.

Immunisation is another very good example. We have really targeted immunisation. We have lifted those results. You know, when we came in, Labour was delivering about 70 percent of Māori children being immunised, and slightly lower for Pasifika. That is now up into the mid-90s percent. There is real progress.

Hon Ruth Dyson: All your own work, Jonathan.

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Well, actually, it is not all my own work. It is the work of the excellent officials, doctors, and nurses right across the system, who have been working on that.

If you look at cancer care, cancer care is just incredible. When Labour was in Government, 761 people had to go to Australia for cancer care. It was an embarrassment. It was shocking. Do you know how many people go now? Zero—absolutely zero. So we have turned that round. We achieved the first cancer target. We are now moving on to the second one, which is people getting their whole cancer treatment pathway achieved within 62 days. That is the international gold standard. So very real progress has been made there.

We are also focusing on primary care, so a record amount of money is going into primary care this year. And, of course, there is palliative care—very important to New Zealand families. We have funded substantially into end-of-life care.

Hon Nathan Guy: Very emotional.

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Well, it is a huge deal for people. There is new money going into hospices and new money going into the provision of palliative care nurses. It is a very important contribution to something that really makes a difference for New Zealand families.

But we are not focusing just on procedures; we are actually taking a very clear view on preventive care as well. So, in this Budget for the first time, we are funding multidisciplinary teams in health in the joint and bone pain area. That is going to keep a lot of people out of hospital. They are going to get the treatment they need much earlier and, actually, we have had a very good response to that. So there are multidisciplinary teams out in the community.

The other thing that we are doing at the moment, actually, is that we are looking at the health strategy again. It has not actually been totally revamped for many, many years, so we want to get more services out into the community. We have got to use all the skills that we have got across the health sector. We are going to use the skills of our nurses. We are going to use the skills of our pharmacists—all the allied health teams working out there in the community in primary care with the doctors and nurses who already work there. I will tell you what is interesting. When I go around the health system—I have been to all 20 district health boards—I sit down and say to the doctors and nurses and all the other members of the allied health team: “Well, OK. I have heard your view of the world. Tell me, is the health system getting better, is it the same, or is it worse than 10 years ago?”. And do you know what they say universally? They say it is getting better. So I am very confident that we have health going in exactly the right direction in New Zealand.

I tell you that it is very noticeable that since the Budget Labour members have not asked one single question on health. I think they have given up on health. Health has moved into that space where actually we have got it happening exactly the right way. I will take you back, though. It is a week ago since the Budget speech and Andrew Little’s contribution. There was not one single idea that came from the lamentable leader of the Labour Party—not one single idea. I think that what really happened was that he had had the ground pulled out from under him, but not by Grant Robertson, for a change—although some of those questions Grant has been asking us during the week have been a clear set-up of his leader. Yes, check the Hansard, Grant. We have moved there into that middle ground, where we are producing policy that appeals to all New Zealanders. I must say that I reckon that Labour members will be ashamed that it took a National Government to raise benefit rates for the first time in 40 years, and they really had no answer to that. I would like to hear the next Labour speaker get up and congratulate Bill English on a finely crafted, very elegant Budget that, in tight fiscal times, has really focused on delivering the things that New Zealand cares about and what people need.

The other thing that is coming up—Grant Robertson will be very supportive of this, and I would expect him to mention it in his speech—is free GP visits for under-13s being rolled out from 1 July. That is a real achievement, and once again it was delivered under a National Government.

Grant Robertson: Every child? Every child, eh.

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: And Grant Robertson is very pleased about that. I am sure he will actually take a call on that. I am just surprised, after 7 years, that the Labour Party is not able to come up with a single new policy idea. I do not know where those people are going to go, but I think there is a crisis on that side of the House. I think if you ask people like the fictional Gene Simmons - type character out there on the North Shore of Auckland whether he is happy, I would say the average Kiwi is extremely happy with the Budget and with the National Government. Thank you.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): The next call is a split call. David Clendon—5 minutes.

DAVID CLENDON (Green): The Minister of Justice recently, in an article in LawTalk, talked about the legal profession. She confirmed the National Government’s respect for the rule of law, and in particular the principle that everyone is subject to the law and the law must be applied equally to all. I will quote briefly from that argument. The Minister said: “… we’d all agree it’s wrong for someone to receive preferential treatment in our courts. That is if you have more money or look a certain way that you might get a different outcome to someone else in your situation.” The Minister is dead right. That is not a situation we want in New Zealand, but sadly that is the situation we are confronting in our justice system in New Zealand. We have academics, judges, legal professionals, advocacy groups, and people—just everyday members of the public—who are embroiled in the justice system. What they are seeing is a user-pays system emerging in justice. They are seeing large numbers of people going to quite desperate measures on occasion to endeavour to get justice. They are seeing people forgoing it all together because they simply cannot afford to enter the justice system. That is a failure of the rule of law, by any measure.

The National Government has ushered this in, and sadly the opportunity in the Budget to reverse that trend and to properly fund the justice sector has been missed. It is one of the many missed opportunities in this Budget to restore some decent funding to the justice system. It is perhaps naïve to suggest that every New Zealander will gain equal access to justice and will get the outcomes they want, but we should at least seek to ensure a minimum level and a fair expectation of reasonable access to justice, regardless of circumstance. This Budget continues the trend of cuts for most of the agencies that might contribute to producing a more equitable outcome and a more just and decent outcome. Funding has remained static in many instances, and in the context of inevitably rising costs they effectively are cuts. The agencies and the resources available to agencies are stretched to the limit, which has inevitably resulted in more people being denied access to justice.

Take the example of a person, typically a woman, who might be seeking a protection order in the context of a relationship that has become abusive or become violent. The likely cost of engaging a lawyer to prepare, to do the affidavits, to present the documents, and to do the minimum necessary legal work is likely to sit at around $2,000. That is often a sum that is well beyond the means of a person who is in that very unfortunate situation. Enter the legal aid system, one would hope, which is intended to provide financial support to people who cannot, by their own means, get access to justice. Unfortunately, legal aid expenditure has been dropping in nominal terms since 2011, when it peaked at around $166 million. In the current Budget it sits around $112 million, the lowest in nominal terms it has been since 2008. There is about a $5.5 million reduction in legal aid for criminal cases, and a $5.4 million reduction in legal aid for Family Court cases.

Access to legal aid is determined largely by income thresholds. A person earning annually the princely sum of $27,540 is deemed to be too well off to be eligible for legal aid. A person working for 40 hours a week, on the minimum wage of $14.75 an hour, misses the cut by something like 10 percent. They are too well off, earning the minimum wage and working a 40-hour week. The Legal Services Act has put an interest component on to legal aid, which means there is something like a $6 million interest liability on some of our most vulnerable and least well-off people. Given time I could offer a list of other appropriations that effectively represent funding cuts to both governmental and community agencies, non-governmental organisations, that exist to support people’s well-being and access to judges—for example, our community law centres, Victim Support, and the refuges have all seen real cuts, often nominal cuts, and certainly real cuts in spending power.

We can do better than this. New Zealand is better than this. We can and we must do better. The National Government must realise that citizens deserve better. This Budget has let New Zealanders down.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I call Steffan Browning—5 minutes.

STEFFAN BROWNING (Green): This Budget fails to make the visionary change we need for Aotearoa New Zealand, especially in the era of urgency around climate change and especially with agriculture as a major component of New Zealand’s economy.

Let us focus on agriculture. The Government, in this Budget, is maintaining its approximately $10 million spend on the Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Research Centre and on some pastoral research as well. Its contribution is all around climate change mitigation. But what are those things that the agricultural greenhouse gas consortium is up to? It is looking at inhibitors to put in the rumen of cows, for example. It is looking at nitrification inhibitors—the same sort of thing that we found, when we had nitrification inhibitors for a short period, until we found it in our milk, that was also damaging flora and fauna in streams. Those are the sorts of things it wants to do. It wants to get inside the gut of the cows and change it, treat it like a factory, rather than as an animal that could be producing in a more natural way.

Where in this Budget is there a decent allocation of anything—in fact, where is any allocation for the organics sector, which has solutions for these things as we speak? The Government is doing $10 million there in mitigation. Organic milk, for example, at this moment makes up only 1 percent of production. But there is a mismatch. Organic milk is $10,000 per tonne for milk powder, if any of us wanted to buy it off Fonterra at the moment. All Fonterra can get for its conventional milk powder is $3,000 per tonne. The farmers do not get all that balance, but this Government should be doing something to acknowledge that value proposition when it wants to double export values.

It also should be looking at the fact that the greenhouse gas consortium is wanting to look at soil carbon. Well, organics in dairying has 28 percent higher carbon storage in the soil. We already have the answers. There are 43 percent more earthworms. There is more diversity. It is a more resilient pasture that will be able to resist some of the issues around climate change, whether that be flooding or drought—it has a higher capacity around resilience. It has a massive 58 percent less nitrate leaching into waterways. Where is the money for organics to be part of our “100% Pure New Zealand”?

Another aspect that really concerns me is that this Budget is finally doing another pesticide residue test in baby food. The total diet survey that comes out, theoretically, every 5 years—Australia does it every 2 years—is overdue by a year. This Budget, thankfully, goes there, but it is woefully inadequate and has just a minor amount of testing over a minor range of food. If we look at babies, in particular, and young children, which is something that the Primary Production Committee has been looking at, we know from evidence supplied there, which is open to the public, that this is woeful. This occasional spend is woeful. Pesticide residues are coming through food in a consistent way.

In organics, the level of pesticides found in food is very marginal, but in conventional agriculture it is commonplace; the majority of foods carry pesticide residues. We could be going down the organic path, which would look after our citizens and our community, would reduce our health bill—it would reduce the cancers, reduce the endocrine disruption issues, reduce the neurological diseases, if we went down that path—at the same time as mitigating climate change and dealing with our economy. Thank you. This Budget is woeful for agriculture.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): The next call is a split call. Dr Jian Yang—5 minutes.

Dr JIAN YANG (National): This is a great Budget. This is a Budget delivered by a very capable, very responsible Government. The National-led Government has a proven record of responsibly managing our finances, increasing our productivity, providing better public services, and rebuilding Christchurch.

I have been following the reactions of the Chinese community. I am very pleased to say that the reaction from the Chinese community has been very, very positive. There are a number of reasons why the Chinese community has been so supportive of this Budget. Firstly, they see this as a very responsible Budget. The National-led Government has over the last 7 years been trying very hard to limit its spending while at the same time trying to take a series of creative initiatives to develop our economy. Our deficit has declined steadily from about $18 billion in 2011 to about $9 billion in 2012, and then to about $4 billion in 2013, and to just under $3 billion in 2014. It is about $684 million this year. While our deficit has declined steadily, our economy has kept growing rapidly. We are outperforming most OECD countries.

Secondly, members of the Chinese community see this Budget as a very sensible Budget. This Government knows what all New Zealanders care about. The Government represents the interests of all New Zealanders. This is highlighted by the $790 million child hardship package. Thirdly, members of the Chinese community share the values of the National Government, such as an emphasis on personal responsibility and rewarding hard work. Many Chinese immigrants once lived under Marxist socialism when they were in China, and they are fully aware of the problems of that system.

Finally, and perhaps most important, the Budget is yet another example of this Government’s superb capability of running this country. In 2008, when National came to office, our economy was a mess. It was a nightmare. Today we are the envy of other OECD countries. According to a media release issued by Statistics New Zealand just a couple of days ago, 83 percent of New Zealanders surveyed were highly satisfied with their lives. I believe that one particular reason, or factor, that makes New Zealanders feel satisfied is our world-class education. We all appreciate the importance of education, and we see education as a passport to the future. According to Budget 2015, the total spending on early childhood, primary, and secondary education will reach a record $10.8 billion in 2015-16. Here I must acknowledge the wonderful work done by the Hon Minister Hekia Parata.

A few years ago—4 years ago, actually—when I was the deputy chair of the Health Committee, we went to visit the people at Fisher and Paykel Healthcare and we asked them what challenges they were facing. One challenge they mentioned was the difficulty of finding qualified engineers. So this National Government has steadily increased the funding for engineering degrees over the past few years, and this is just one of many examples of our good policies. This indeed is a great Budget. Thank you.

IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): I have got a great feeling at the moment. Never in my time have I heard sheep have as much mention in this House as they have in the last couple of days. Of course, you would have to go back to the 1951 wool boom to get the feeling that it is as good for agriculture as it is right now.

Secondly, and most important, what a privilege it is to be a member of a Government led by the Prime Minister, John Key, who is able and prepared to spend a significant amount of money and a significant amount of energy supporting those people who do not have the best start in life, through the child hardship package. Like everything else, it comes with some obligations. There will be an obligation to look for work. There is also an obligation to the taxpayer of this country—who funds these things—to be work-ready where possible, and having their children in education or care from the age of 3 will assist them to make good progress. We are increasing the childcare assistance rate from $4 to $5 and putting an extra $25 a week in their pockets. It does not sound like much, but when you go to some of my communities, and Taumarunui would be a good example of that, it could well be an injection in excess of $1 million into that economy—follow that up in Marton, Feilding, and about a half of that in Raetihi, Shannon, Taihape, and so on.

This is a significant boost to rural and provincial New Zealand. It will also help those people, I guess, to grow in confidence and to give them the confidence to have a say in those communities, where there is no question that the tourism and agricultural sector will increase their job opportunities. So I think we are going to see quite a significant change in provincial New Zealand as a result of those initiatives.

Whānau Ora, of course, also received some $48 million in the Budget, and, again, if you go to some of the communities in my electorate, particularly Taumarunui, you will see a programme that is working so well in this respect. It is pretty amazing, in fact. I think it does a great job, and it is making a significant difference for our community.

Ultra-fast broadband will benefit by some $210 million, and that, in turn, will put 80 percent of all New Zealanders on that track when complete. But more important for us, of course, is the Rural Broadband Initiative and the extension to it. It is critical to us, and I certainly support the telecommunications levy, which will help fund the rural broadband extension. If we want our rural and provincial areas to grow, rural broadband is one of the single most important factors that we can concentrate on. It will enable them to get moving very quickly.

The regional research institutes are another great initiative, I think, as are ACC levy cuts, which will put some $375 million into our economy in 2016. In fact, the ACC cuts will have amounted to just on $2 billion, from 2012 to 2017. I am also very pleased to see the significant injection into science and innovation, and I am equally as pleased to see the re-funding of the Riddet Institute at Massey University, which has made a significant contribution in the last few years to research around, I guess, critical science and food-related factors. I am very pleased to see that be re-funded, and I think it is going to produce great results for us. The investment in KiwiRail is vexing for any Government, I guess, but the $210 million of new capital introduced into that organisation will make quite a big difference to rural and provincial New Zealand. Much of our produce comes out of rural towns and ends up in our ports, and KiwiRail is a very important part of getting that produce into the market.

I also want to talk very briefly about workplace safety, because I think it is critical to rural New Zealand. It is a fact that it has been giving a significant amount of grief to those of us in rural New Zealand. We certainly have an accident rate and a death rate that we cannot be proud of, and I think this Government is making significant steps in the advancement of workplace safety. I am sure that when we get this legislation back into the House, we will see it put in great order, and we will see a significant improvement in our performance around this in rural New Zealand.

There is so much in this great Budget aimed at continuing the strengthening of our economy, and certainly of significant assistance to rural New Zealand. I look forward to the result of this and I think we are going to get a great result as we move on in the next year or two from this. Thank you.

LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Talofa lava, Mr Assistant Speaker. Thank you very much for the opportunity to contribute to this Budget debate and analysis. I have got a question for the House: how many children will be lifted out of poverty as a result of last week’s Budget? How many children will be lifted out of poverty as a result of last week’s Budget?

Grant Robertson: They don’t know.

LOUISA WALL: They do not know. Thank you, Grant Robertson. Those members do not know. They conceded that this morning on Radio New Zealand National. This Government does not know how many children will be lifted out of poverty as a result of last week’s Budget.

Beneficiary families are supposed to be grateful because beneficiary families are going to get $25 from 1 April 2016. Why? Because Prime Minister John Key said: “Supporting children in hardship [is a] focus of the Budget.” That was the title of his press release. It is such a focus, ladies and gentlemen, that beneficiary families have to wait for only 307 days to get the $25 a week—307 days. So that is the National Party’s definition of compassionate conservatism. You beneficiary families and your children are such a priority, such a focus, that you have to wait for only 307 days. So what is so compassionate about having to wait for 307 days?

Well, the Government has tried to claim that this is the first increase since 1972, forgetting that National—that is, Ruth Richardson and Jenny Shipley—in the 1990s had actually cut benefits. So the National Government in the 1990s cut benefits—

Chris Bishop: Yep, and you had 9 years to reverse them and you didn’t.

LOUISA WALL: —and Chris Bishop is proud of that fact. How much are those cuts worth today? Well, ladies and gentlemen, that is $43 worth of benefit cuts today. So, in fact, in giving them $25 you have actually ripped them off $18. That is how much this Government wants to address poverty and address the hardship in beneficiary families.

And now I want to focus around another aspect of this Government’s compassionate conservatism. It is actually related to the Taxation (KiwiSaver HomeStart and Remedial Matters) Act. I am going to do a little bit of facts and figures, and some people who were here on the weekend will have heard this. But of the 4.471 million New Zealanders, 52 percent—2.35 million people—have actually enrolled in KiwiSaver. Of those, 350,000 children and young people have been enrolled. So congratulations to the parents out there for enrolling their children in KiwiSaver and committing them to a life of saving, so that one day they might be able to own a home, one day they might be able to get an education, and one day, when they are 65-plus, they will be able to have a great retirement—because that is actually what it is all about. We want to prepare people for the future.

Of the 2.121 million people who are not enrolled, about 340,000 have opted out. They have made an informed decision to not be involved in KiwiSaver. Of the 1.7 million, or 40 percent, of New Zealanders who now are not entitled to the $1,000 KiwiSaver kick-start contribution to their retirement scheme—who are they? Because I am really interested to know who the 40 percent of New Zealanders are who are missing out.

I am going to focus on a couple of cohorts. One cohort: those are the people who earn under $30,000, actually. They are missing out on this KiwiSaver scheme, and these are people whom I would classify as living in hardship. These are those families whom John Key said that his Government is focusing on. All of those families are going to miss out. Who else is affected? Well, actually, according to the Inland Revenue Department in its February 2015 report Who is enrolling in KiwiSaver?—I am basing this on the just under 40 percent of KiwiSaver members who were automatically enrolled. And who was automatically enrolled in KiwiSaver? You had to be aged between 18 and 64 years. It had to be a new job with a new employer, and you were either in full-time or permanent part-time work. Or you could have been an agricultural worker in the job for more than 3 months.

So you are part of the 40 percent of New Zealanders who used to be automatically enrolled in KiwiSaver. What do you look like? What is the profile of this cohort of New Zealanders? They are single and aged between 18 and 24. They are Māori and Pacific Islanders. They are people who are secondary school educated. They are working in lower white-collar positions. They are working in retail, trade, and the accommodation industry. And they are earning between $30,000 and $50,000 in employment income. So these are the people who, based on the Government’s Budget and its piece of legislation, the Taxation (KiwiSaver HomeStart and Remedial Matters) Act, now miss out on KiwiSaver.

I would actually now like to quote from a couple of sources. The first source is the Child Poverty Action Group. It had a breakfast, both here and in Wellington. And this is from its 2015 Budget analysis: “We know parents prioritise their children and this extra money will be spent to meet their needs.” This is the $25 that this Government is so kindly giving them in 307 days. “It is a shame that this promise will not be delivered until April next year. It is also a shame that the thresholds for access to Accommodation Supplement, income-related rents and supplementary assistance have not been adjusted. This means that much of the increase in incomes will be instantly eroded.” So the net effect of the Government’s prioritisation of families and children in hardship, based on that analysis, is nil. It is zip. It is nothing. So thank you, National Government, for prioritising families and children in hardship! You care so much about them they only have to wait 307 days.

I would also like to quote from Dita De Boni, who wrote an excellent article in the New Zealand Herald today: “In the UK there is a movement called the ‘Good Right’ project, which wants non-conservatives to ‘appreciate the right’s moral strengths, and for conservatives to deepen their belief in social justice’… a conservatism that is more compassionate and visionary. But to be visionary you’d have to concede there are problems that need fixing, and an even better country that could be built. By that measure, our lot would fall at the first hurdle.” So there is an assessment from Dita De Bona about this Government’s—

Hon Member: De Boni.

LOUISA WALL: —De Boni, thank you; De Boni—for this Government’s commitment to, as John Key said in his press release, “supporting children in hardship”, which is a big focus of this Government.

I think that, in the final analysis, what this Government will be seen as is a Government that takes from the poor to give to the poor. Actually, it is the complete opposite of Robin Hood. I actually think it is the “Sheriff of Nottingham” Budget, because this Government has deceived everybody into thinking that it is compassionate and that it actually cares. But the reality of the situation is that this Government has not prioritised children in poverty. Otherwise, it would have been able to answer this question: how many children will be lifted out of poverty as a result of last week’s Budget? Actually, this will be the defining legacy of this Government: a growing inequality, an entrenchment of inequality, and, actually, a lack of compassion and a lack of care and consideration for those most in need.

Chris Bishop: You need to join the Greens.

LOUISA WALL: Excuse me? I am happy in the Labour Party, and very proud to be the MP for Manurewa, who is advocating for the needs and aspirations of my community.

Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: Could be a bit more aspirational.

LOUISA WALL: I do. Education is a pathway out of poverty, and that would be a focus for our Government if we were in power. A focus would also be assisting and helping those most in need.

So I think what people have seen from the analysis that I have shared this afternoon is that this Government is incredibly deceptive, and this Government likes its platitudes about caring for families in hardship and saying that it actually wants to address child poverty, but at the end of the day look at the actions. If families have to wait 307 days to get $25, because you want to prioritise those in hardship and children living in poverty, then you have failed miserably. Kia ora.

PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): It is actually a pleasure to follow on from the member who has just resumed her seat, Louisa Wall. I have a lot of respect for her. She is a very gracious member of this House, but she is utterly wrong in almost everything she has said this afternoon.

It is a great time to be a New Zealander. This is a hard-working Government, and we have delivered an excellent Budget that will make a real difference for young New Zealanders, vulnerable New Zealanders, and children who are in poverty. I want to put this in some context. We have just come through the greatest financial crisis in recent living memory, and I appreciate there are some members on the other side who should be superannuated—who can remember back, probably, to the Great Depression—but on this side of the House we do take fiscal responsibility, along with our social responsibilities, very, very seriously.

Last night in the United Kingdom we had the Queen’s speech delivered, giving an outline of what the Britannic Majesty’s Government intends to do, including capping off benefit payments, reducing by £3,000 the entitlement of maximum support, whereas this is the first Government in 43 years in New Zealand that has actually increased support to those families who are the most vulnerable. I am very proud to be a member of the party on this side of the House. In this vein, New Zealand too has maintained a sensible fiscal situation. The Tory party in the UK has said there will be no more increases to income tax or VAT. I point out that they have a higher VAT rate of 20 percent than we do.

On this side of the world, we too are maintaining an approach that will help build growth whilst protecting those who are most vulnerable. We are putting investment into health—I am, actually, very impressed with what Dr Coleman has managed to deliver in the health budget—but also education, which provides for the future of our young people. That has been driven in large part by Minister Parata, and I would like to congratulate her on that.

I want to talk about some specific initiatives that will be of benefit to Wellington and Wellingtonians. We have seen an extra $2 million to complete the Pukeahu National War Memorial Park—the National War Memorial—and get the further memorials to other allied partners in there. There is excellent investment, too, in the $4.6 million for extra hospice services, particularly Mary Potter Hospice and Te Omanga Hospice, two of our local hospices that do such great work in palliative care—

Chris Bishop: And the Hutt.

PAUL FOSTER-BELL: —and, as my colleague Chris Bishop points out, in the Hutt as well as Wellington. There has been $40 million of capital works for Te Papa, our national museum, and that will be a boon to our local economy as we see the woeful neglect of the previous Labour Government reversed with that investment. There is $41 million worth of screen production grants for Avatar and Thunderbirds season two, which is being filmed right now out at the wonderful Miramar studios of Sir Richard Taylor. There is $64 million for Callaghan Innovation’s strategic growth infrastructure, which my colleague Chris Bishop is going to refer to. There is massive ongoing investment for Transmission Gully in this Budget, and we have not heard the Green members talk about that since the flooding knocked out transport links in our region, proving how necessary that emergency route is, as well as the extra time savings and efficiency it will bring to our local economy.

I am particularly proud—I am particularly proud—of the $113 million worth of new money for tertiary education, a goodly share of which will go into our local institutions: Victoria University of Wellington, Massey University, the Whitireia Community Polytechnic, and WelTec, which do such a good job, and I am looking forward to seeing the ICT Graduate School announced here soon. In education there has been more funding for special education. Over the course of this Government, under the leadership that includes Minister Parata, we have seen special needs investment increase by a quarter. That is a large extra amount of funding going into autism, dyslexia, dyspraxia, and learning difficulties; support for the kids who did not traditionally qualify for that extra support; more hours for teacher-aides; and also, unlike the members opposite, who could be characterised as a bunch of supine protoplasmic invertebrate jellies, we actually have a—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): At least one member understands that, and the member will withdraw. The member will withdraw the comment.

PAUL FOSTER-BELL: Oh, sorry, Mr Assistant Speaker. You do understand that?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I do, and therefore I require the member to withdraw.

PAUL FOSTER-BELL: I withdraw—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Thank you.

PAUL FOSTER-BELL: —and apologise to you, Mr Assistant Speaker. On this side of the House we have a backbone, so we are proud to be able to deliver a non-ideological policy that benefits children and does not take into account sectional interests. For that reason I proudly back the fact that we are funding parent-led early childhood education, including Playcentre, including kōhanga reo, and other forms of early childhood education, because these are so important for the future of our country. This is a great Budget, and I am proud to support it.

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 $1,000 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.

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga): Can I first say a big thank you to the whips for giving me a speaking slot during Auckland drive time. My adoring drive time audience hangs on all my words. It is 25 past 5; however, Auckland drive time started about 2.15 this afternoon and will continue till about 9 o’clock tonight. For those of you who are not Auckland commuters, this is known as Auckland drive time. First of all, I say thank you to my party whips. To my adorable drive time audience, I want to make a few key points about the Budget.

The second point I want to make is that I am not going to get into the individual elements of the Budget tonight in my speech, because so many of the members on this side have covered all of the fantastic bits. What I want to try to do, as this is the 28th Budget I have sat through in this Parliament—

Tim Macindoe: How many?

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: It is 28—28. I know, I know. Yes, I can walk into a forest and be the oldest living thing there; that is right.

What I want to do is say that the general public view of a Budget that a Government puts out is very similar to how they view their own circumstances. They view it in terms of their family—like how much money is coming into the house and how much they are spending—or, if they are running a business, how many customers are buying their products compared with how much it is costing. It is exactly the same for a Government, with a couple of slight qualifications.

First of all, Governments do not earn their income. It is other people who earn the income, and Governments take a slice of it. That is a very big difference to a family that could go and take a second job or go and do some more work or get their kids out doing some extra work. Governments do not actually earn that money, and so we have to be very, very careful with what we take in by way of taxation—that we take in a correct amount; a balanced, sensible amount.

There is an element of spending that the Government must do. I think that everybody accepts that the Government must spend money on health, education, and law and order—like the police and corrections and so on—but I know that a lot of New Zealanders want to be sure that what is being taken out of their PAYE packet each week is spent sensibly. When a guy is coming in out of a dirty old mechanics’ bay and is covered in grease, and it is cold and dirty, and he gets his payslip, he does not want to look at 400 and something dollars in PAYE being taken off him and think: “Well, I know what those guys have done; they’ve squandered it.” So we have got an obligation, at that revenue end, to get a good balance.

Secondly, we have got an obligation to make sure that what we spend our money on has good outcomes. This is Bill English’s seventh Budget. I think he is rapidly becoming, without doubt, in my view, the best Minister of Finance this country has had in terms of keeping a very steady, stable direction at a time when we were into a headwind.

I have given this analogy before, but I want to give it again to my adoring drive time audience. It is to do with teachers, who keep saying: “We don’t want to have a performance-based assessment put on us. It’s not fair, because we may have a very low-end decile, hard kids to teach, and another person has a decile 10, with stunningly capable top students, and therefore they’ll get the merit.” I agree with them. What you do want to do is have a measure of what difference they make—what difference do they make to those children? If you get someone who picks up the very bottom end of the kids and actually lifts them quite a way, they have done way better than someone who had people in the very top echelons and did almost nothing with them. That is why I want to make an analogy between that and this finance Minister: he did not come in with a phenomenal tailwind, a phenomenal surplus forecast, and a phenomenal: “Hey, I’m decile 10, and I’ve got the best kids in the country.” He came in at probably the worst time you could possibly come in in a financial cycle for this country. The world was at the beginning of the complete meltdown of the global financial crisis. In 2008, it sort of started during the course of that year, and by the time we got elected, it was sort of a situation of hands covering your face and saying: “Oh, my God—what does this mean for the future?” Not to be done with just that, we then got smacked around by some of the worst ever, mutilating earthquakes that this country has ever seen, with damage running into the billions—no, into the tens of billions—to our infrastructure and so on.

I pay great credit to a Minister of Finance who then says: “Right, we’ve got a problem here, and the problem lies around this: we have to be very careful not to take more money off people, because it is actually their money that they have earned, but we do have to make sure we maintain spending so that we do not end up with an education system and a health system that completely collapses.” So we went into a borrowing mode, and do you know what? I am not a big fan of debt—I prefer that Governments do not borrow and get into debt—but there are times when it is justified. There are times when you can say that it is no longer right to pull back on the revenue lever, and it is time to no longer try to cut to the bone on spending. It has been done before. I was a member of a Government in the early 1990s that had an alternative solution.

I want to send a message out to some of the more left-wing members of this House, mainly the Greens and some Labour members, who keep saying as regularly as clockwork that the rich should pay more. In fact, I have heard them say many times that the rich should pay their fair share. So what I want them to do now is get an Excel spreadsheet—I have got it for them if they want to get it from me—that shows what percentage of income tax the rich in this country actually pay. It is done in the segments of nought to $10,000 of income, and then $10,000 to $20,000, and $20,000 to $30,000, and so on. Here is the percentage that really matters, because I have added in two extra columns to it. It is not just the gross amount of tax that each of those income groups pay, but it is how much gets paid back to each of those groups by way of Working for Families and subsidies, and all sorts of payments that are transfers back. Then there is a final column of what the net income tax paid is, and here is the number: 17 percent of taxpayers in New Zealand pay 97 percent of the income tax.

Tim Macindoe: Say that again?

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: I am going to say that again because it is worthwhile saying. The top 17 percent of taxpayers of New Zealand pay 97 percent of the net income tax. That is after you have corrected it back. So I am not prepared to listen to lunatics saying that the rich should pay their share, or the rich should pay more, because they already do pay more. And they actually do not pay their share; they pay way more than their share.

Your obligation when you are doing your family budgets is to say: “This is how much money we have got coming in.” Bill English has had to do that exact same transfer at the level of a Government: “This is how much money we can bring in without distorting the markets too heavily by ramping up the taxes. Here’s how much we have got to spend in core, in terms of keeping all of the general stuff afloat, and we’ve got a margin for some new initiatives that we can spend some money on each year.” It is not a lot—about $1.5 billion, I think Bill English has concluded, should be the new spending in each year. Compared with previous Labour Budgets, which were in the order of $7.5 billion of new money in one year—well, that happened to be an election year. But, I mean, it was just actually crippling to the economy.

On the question of Budgets, believe me, I used to be a kid listening to the Budget at night, because it used to be at night, and I used to listen to it on the radio. Everything about New Zealand society was determined in that Budget on that night: the price of cigarettes, the price of alcohol, and whether you raced up to the petrol station to fill up your tank. Budgets today are no longer like that. What they are is just a general statement of principle: where is the country going, is it being well managed, and of that money that is coming in by way of revenue from the hard-working people out there—because, I repeat again, Governments do not earn a cent, and there is not a single cent of money in this country that the Government actually earns; it is earned by hard-working New Zealanders, whom we tax to get it in—is there scope for spending a bit more in certain areas?

I have never ceased to be amazed by the New Zealand public. Certainly, I have done a tally at National Party conferences, and over a 5-year-period, I think, there were 138 remits for the Government to spend more money and 25 remits calling for the Government to cut taxes. And that is the problem. California actually did it. It had about the same number of propositions for spending more money and a whole lot of propositions for cutting taxes. You cannot do it. So it is that finely tuned balance of trying to keep the ship afloat, trying to make sure that the necessary and standard services are there, with a few new initiatives, and there were a few new initiatives in this Budget.

I am actually pleased that we have moved to some user-pays charges. I like them; I think we should have more of them. When I was the Minister of Customs, I actually advocated for a border charge. I did not get it through, but congratulations to the new Minister on getting that through and getting a border charge, because I think that people who are using a service should pay for it. I am really happy that there is a telecommunications levy still there and that is going to be expanded, because it is going to allow the roll-out of the most important infrastructure for our society.

But, in the end, what you have got to do is forget the minutiae. It is like the family budget. You do not care whether the ice cream costs 20c more this week or not; what you care about is whether your overall spending is in tune with your overall income, and that you have got a chance of progressing forward. This Budget did this for this country. I am really proud to be a member of this party and to serve under somebody as good as the Minister of Finance, Bill English.

TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): Talofa lava, Mr Assistant Speaker. This is a Budget that I joined the National Party for. This is a Budget that I put my hand up to be an MP for. This is a Budget that I knocked on 10,000 doors for. And this is a Budget I am very proud to say that I am going to vote for, because it speaks to the National Party: economic competency, Better Public Services, and being there for those who are the most vulnerable.

Economic competency was throughout the Budget that we heard last week. It was great to hear a return to surplus plan, despite the global financial crisis, Christchurch, and, in particular, the low-inflation environment that we have had over the last year or so impacting on revenue. To see the projection, looking out, of 3 percent growth over the next few years—from the perspective of the Bay of Plenty, where I come from, I say that it is great to be part of a region that is topping the regional growth at the moment with 5 percent. What an extraordinary projection that is.

When you see that we have created 190,000 jobs over the last 4 years and we plan for another 150,000 in the next 4 years, it is great to have a Budget that is that positive, as my colleague Mr Bishop outlined before. To see, as part of that, the average wage lifting every year to be up over $63,000 by 2019, and to see unemployment under 5 percent, is competent economic management. In the Bay of Plenty we are seeing that flowing through well, with a record number of jobs. It is 41 percent up, year on year—41 percent—in the Bay of Plenty.

In the area of Better Public Services, with a particular focus on health, was it not great to see the additional investment in elective surgeries, which is really popular in my area of Tauranga, with more hip and knee replacements going to happen in that hospital over the next year. Also, there was the $76 million to help Waipuna Hospice. I was part of that opening a few weeks ago. It is great to see that it is going to have an additional investment. Also, in education, in early childhood education there is the $75 million and there are more places in the ongoing resourcing scheme, which I know is going to be particularly well received in my local area.

In recent political history, when the country is on its knees it turns to the National Party, and, historically, once we have corrected the ship and helped families to get back to being more established then the country looks perhaps to other parties to look at the social investment. Well, that is not going to happen any more, not after this Budget, because we have signalled very clearly to this country that this is the party. The National Party is the party that knows how to get the balance between the environment for economic growth and then to be able, off that encouraging position, to invest for families. What a package that was. Mr Bishop was right. To be able to stand there and watch this Budget being spoken about, and seeing the reaction on the other side—those members knew that this is going to be a defining part of this Government. This is a defining package of being there for those who need it in their hour of need, and they certainly do.

When Louisa Wall talks about the legacy of the Government, she is right in one sense. This package will be a part of the legacy of the Government, but she is too quick to be talking about legacies, because we are not even halfway through. We have got a fantastic vision for this country, and you saw that in very much of what we discussed in respect of the Budget last week.

In response, I would have to say, the Opposition’s arguments have been very weak. To be standing there, as Grant Robertson and others do, decrying the surplus as being too low and saying it should be higher, well, Mr Robertson, what would you cut? Mr Robertson, what would you cut? You say the debt that we have accumulated over the last few years is too high. Well, Mr Robertson, you cannot say that in one word and then in the other have a list as long as your arm of new Government spending that you would then want to see. Either you have to tax people to make it happen or you need to cut. That is why on this side of the Table we have got the right answer.

To hear the Opposition talking about means testing superannuitants—by all means, keep it up. I would love to be part of a debate in Tauranga when the people of Tauranga send the message back to you that your vision for the country is wrong and our vision for the country is right. I support this Budget.

BRETT HUDSON (National): Talofa lava, Mr Assistant Speaker. It is an absolute privilege to stand in this House to speak in my first Budget debate, but I am absolutely delighted that I get the opportunity to speak on this Budget in particular. It is a Budget that continues on with the strong economic and fiscal responsibility that this Government has now shown for 7 years and that takes advantage of the settings that the country sees itself at now and into the future to help those in the most need.

The previous speaker from the Labour side of the House, Louisa Wall, bemoaned the number of days it is going to take before our $790 million package for families in need takes effect. Well, I say to her and to those members in Opposition that they may count the days until this package comes into effect, but what we know, and what New Zealand knows, is that it took more than 43 years for a Labour Government to raise benefits in real terms. We can only speculate as to how many more years it might have taken if this National-led Government had not done it right now. The families that are going to benefit from this package are the beneficiary families, with a $25 a week increase in real terms to their benefits. That will impact, in a positive way, 108,000 families and 194,000 children. This Government is doing something real to assist those in need.

Along with that improvement to those in the most need, we are continuing with our plan to grow the economy and to increase jobs and incomes—a plan that has seen 194,000 jobs created since 2011 and a forecast of a further 150,000 jobs over the next 4 years. We have seen average wages growing faster than inflation. Average wages have grown over 15 percent over the last 5 years and are forecast to continue to grow faster than inflation. But there is more: on 1 July an additional 400,000 children in this country will be able to take advantage of free doctors visits and prescriptions through the policy we announced at the last election campaign to extend those visits and those free prescriptions to children under the age of 13.

This Parliament has been busy. We have increased paid parental leave, which we will do again in 2016, and we have also increased the parental tax credit, the first Government to do that in many years. On top of that we have also seen this Parliament and our ministry put into action the investment of over $350 million that we announced to improve educational success for all of our children—investing in teachers and in school leaders to get better outcomes and a better future for our children.

This Government has shown, and shown again with this Budget, a very strong concern and an action to help our most vulnerable and our future. So in addition to the money we are giving to beneficiary families, we have also announced, for low and very low-income working families, an additional assistance of between $12.50 and $24.50 a week, because we recognise that although work is the best means to lift our families out of hardship, simply getting a job is not enough for every family to get them to the place where we, and they, aspire to be. On top of that, we are increasing our guaranteed childcare assistance payment from $4 to $5 an hour and up to a maximum of 50 hours a week. So that sees some 41,000 lower-income families anticipated to benefit from that assistance over the next year.

The industry that I come from is the information and communications technology industry. It would be remiss of me to finish without noting our continued investment in rolling out ultra-fast broadband and rural broadband across New Zealand. There is an additional $350 million boost for our world-class connectivity, $210 million from the Future Investment Fund for ultra-fast broadband to expand it to cover 80 percent of the New Zealand population, and an additional $150 million of funding to extend rural broadband capability to make sure that rural New Zealand can also share in the benefits of such connectivity. This is a commendable Budget, one that I am extraordinarily proud to stand here and represent, and I commend it to the House.

RIA BOND (NZ First): I am happy to rise to take this call on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on the 2015 Budget. I have heard since last Thursday this Budget described in various ways, shapes, and forms, from Split Enz to a Budget that National has delivered by delivering a sudden raid on KiwiSaver by abolishing the $1,000 kick-start contribution. This came without any warnings, and it is outright mean to introduce a retrospective law that did not give New Zealanders the time to register to take advantage of the kick-start contribution.

I have heard from the Government that economically we are heading in the right direction, and that a Budget surplus will be found in 2017. Yeah, right! This sounds more like a Tui ad, except a pig just flew right past it. What happened to our rock star economy? Where are the rock stars now? We all know that Auckland and Christchurch have their own rock star, standout economic status, but this is not caused, in the case of Auckland, by massive corporates relocating head offices there. It is caused by Auckland acting like an economic vampire. It is sucking the life out of the regions in order to fuel Auckland’s growth. Lurking in the shadows are the smaller regions that do not share this National Party’s love.

Just think of the word “national”, which is meant to include Northland, Gisborne, Manawatū, Whanganui, Wairarapa, Hawke’s Bay, West Coast, and Otago. These regions have all natural assets going for them, except one—love from central government. Gisborne, for instance, has the smallest contribution to New Zealand’s GDP, at only 0.7 percent. Why? Well, I will tell you what—a new rail line would help, at a fraction of the cost of Len Brown’s train set. Where is the help to grow Gisborne in this 2015 Budget? There is zilch in this Budget. Let us look at the regions that are currently performing in the spotlight—Southland, Waikato, mid-Canterbury, Taranaki. These regions are facing factors that could drag them down, like the doubt around the Tīwai Point aluminium smelter, falling dairy prices, falling oil prices, falling timber prices, and a strong New Zealand dollar. I think it is safe to declare that we have, in fact, come off the rock star peak as a country.

As my colleague Denis O’Rourke said recently, we need an inquiry into sea freight, road, and rail. He cited one company in Taranaki that may have to leave the region because it has lost its container services. Guess where it is going to be ending up? A lot has changed in the way that we now no longer add value to our export commodities, like sending raw logs and unprocessed fish offshore. Milk powder as ingredients is value-added, but not if the processes are overseas-owned, right along with the farms.

Where are and what happened to small businesses in this year’s Budget? This Budget is surprisingly light on initiatives to support the vital small business sector, which makes up 96.5 percent of all businesses in our country. Small to medium sized enterprises employ 754,820 employees. Small businesses contribute to nearly 30 percent of New Zealand’s GDP. There is no doubt that small business is really, in fact, big business. If we count family farms, they contribute most of our exports, too. Big things do come in small packages. Small businesses are known for being the safety net and the backbone of this country’s economy.

This Budget does not put cash back into owners’ pockets, it does not help improve the movement to retain skilled workers, and it has no incentive to close the productivity gap. Why, in the last 40 years, has New Zealand’s GDP per capita slipped from being 20 percent above the OECD average to now being approximately 30 percent below? We are slipping down the productivity ladder. We as a country need the Government to help small to medium sized enterprises. A strong focus in the Budget should have been to help small to medium sized enterprises fight their way up the OECD ladder. This Budget has been rather underwhelming for small to medium sized enterprises.

I will tell you where this Budget failed to deliver and that is to small businesses. It does not tackle the market failures, because there has been no funding allocated in the 2015 Budget. The Government needs to understand the characteristics of small and medium sized businesses that determine their success. Again, I do not see this evident in this Government’s 2015 Budget. I would like to suggest that this Government has taken a shotgun approach with this Budget, but it has not loaded a shot to grow small businesses.

I know that small to medium sized enterprises have been left wanting more from the Government’s Budget. They wanted to see more specific policies that recognise the importance of growing that vital sector of the economy. I know that small to medium sized enterprises in Invercargill will be looking to the Government to provide them with reduced bureaucracy, reduced compliance costs, and things that will make an immediate difference across the board. Is this the Government’s plan for the Resource Management Act? New Zealand First, along with the rest of the country, wants to see your plan and proposals for the Resource Management Act reforms, especially the things impacting homeowners, businesses, and farmers.

Small businesses are concerned that workplace safety reforms will see them responsible for an electrician injuring themselves on their worksite, because at that point in time the electrician will be considered an employee. In Australia the health and safety laws are so stifling that one church had cancelled its weekly food service for homeless people because there was a risk that someone could get sick from the surplus food.

This Budget did not invite any stimulation at all. In fact, according to the latest Mind Your Own Business survey, 71 percent of small to medium sized enterprise operators thought that small businesses should have received more attention, especially in the retail and hospitality sectors. When I walk around Invercargill and count how many empty shops there are in the central city area, I am concerned—I am really concerned. One only has to scratch below the surface to see that there were cracks in the Government’s Budget even before it was delivered.

Although Mr Key talks up Air New Zealand, it is a monopoly in Invercargill and acts like a monopoly. Westport, Kaitāia, and Whakatāne—they know what I mean. Then we turn to the lack of funding for roads, despite Southland being key to New Zealand’s tourism, as it is to the exports we generate on and off farms.

I cannot finish without saying that we need core services like policing and health. Yet Bluff has lost a third of its police presence, while the Southern District Health Board gets crumbs—so much so that our crumbs will come down from Auckland to be reheated. Sadly, the jobs it will cost cannot be reheated.

It is a sad day when even Treasury recognises that a surplus from Bill English has become a forlorn hope, pushing out the estimate to 2019. This Government has mastered the skill of switching small sums around to give the people of New Zealand an illusion—or should I say it is a deception—that this projected surplus will come from prudent management of the economy, although it comes from raiding KiwiSaver and the future prosperity of our children. Thank you.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Malo le soifua, Jacqui Dean.

JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): Malo, Mr Assistant Speaker. It is just wonderful to be the last speaker of the week.

Grant Robertson: This is the top time of the day, Jacqui. They pick the best person for this slot.

JACQUI DEAN: The top time—some might call it the graveyard shift, but not me. No, I am excited to be the last speaker on a Thursday afternoon. And do you know what else? I love my region. I love representing—

Tim Macindoe: They love the member.

JACQUI DEAN: Oh, stop it. I love representing my region and I am surrounded by caucus colleagues who also love representing their region. All the way from the top of the North Island right down to the bottom of the South Island we have got hard-working list MPs and electorate MPs who just love getting out there into their regions. I tell you what. They are well supported by this Government and they are well supported—

Chris Hipkins: What about Northland? You’re not doing so well in Northland.

JACQUI DEAN: We love Northland. We love Northland a lot and we are going to get it back in the next election. That is what we are going to do. We are going to get it back in the next election. We are working hard for the people of Northland, just as we are working hard for the people of my region, of which I am inordinately proud, and all the other regions in New Zealand represented by National’s fine caucus and supported by this very, very good Budget.

I want to focus on regional development, which is being so well supported by this Government in its broadband network roll-out. This is a programme that has been in play for something like 3 years, or even more, at a total investment so far of $1.5 billion into rural broadband.

Brett Hudson: How much?

JACQUI DEAN: “How much?”, says my colleague. Well, I will tell that colleague. It is $1.5 billion, a significant investment in ultra high-speed broadband and rural broadband, which is making an incredible difference in the regions in New Zealand. It is creating opportunities for regional development like we have never seen before.

With all due respect to the previous speaker, Ria Bond, it is not the Government that exports logs from New Zealand. It is not the Government that exports cherries from New Zealand. It is not the Government that exports dairy products from New Zealand. It is private enterprise. It is business. It is small businesses—many of which operate in the regions. What can the Government do to support those small businesses in the regions? Well, just at the moment I am talking about rural broadband.

So on top of that $1.5 billion investment that has been rolling out over the past—is it 3 years or is it 6 years? I am turning to a colleague who knows a bit more about these things. OK, it is 3 years. We will say 3 years. It might be 6 years. In that time a number of communities around New Zealand have been fully serviced by broadband, and I am really proud to say that Ōāmaru, the town where I live, my home town, in the heart of the Waitaki electorate, is fully serviced with high-speed broadband. It is fantastic. The schools, the hospital, small businesses, retail, and homes are all serviced with high-speed broadband. That is a huge investment in the potential of what might happen out of Ōāmaru.

I just think about one of the businesses in Ōāmaru, which is called Milligans Food Group Ltd. It produces and repackages products, ships them out all around New Zealand, and also exports. It is a business that employs around about 50 workers, which is not a bad employer for a small town. What does it rely on? It relies on connectivity. So it is that infrastructure that is proving to be most beneficial for Ōāmaru. I think about the investments that have been announced in this Budget, such as an extra $360 million that has been set aside for the roll-out of connectivity. So that is $210 million for the ultra-fast broadband and $150 million for the Rural Broadband Initiative. That is fantastic. That means that there will be other communities all around New Zealand that have the opportunity to leverage off.

It is not the Government that does the exporting. It is not the Government that sends logs offshore. It is small businesses and large businesses, run by New Zealanders, for New Zealanders, that do that. I do not know that that is well understood by our new colleague from New Zealand First.

Let us have a look at the Welcome to Gigatown initiative, which was warmly embraced by many communities all around New Zealand. Dunedin won it—damn it—and Wānaka did not. Wānaka came around fifth, so good on it. But what has Wānaka managed to do to leverage off that opportunity that has been provided by Chorus but also by the Rural Broadband Initiative? Wānaka has been able, as part of that competition, to position itself to take full advantage of the opportunities that broadband is presenting to it. For our wine industry, which is a big exporter, what does it need? It needs connectivity. It needs to be able to be nimble in the market. The industry needs to be able to respond quickly in the market to get its products offshore at the best price. There is the cherry industry—again, a perishable commodity. What does the industry need? It needs to be nimble and it needs to be quick. What enables that to happen? It is broadband, which connects these communities out in the regions.

Ōāmaru, which is a small part of New Zealand, a small town, has got the connectivity. Businesses are leveraging off that. It is not for the Government to tell small business what to do. It is for the Government to enable small business to take advantage of these excellent announcements such as we have had in the Budget.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 6 p.m.