Tuesday, 17 September 2019

TUESDAY, 17 SEPTEMBER 2019

TUESDAY, 17 SEPTEMBER 2019

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Visitors

Parliament of the Republic of Fiji—Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence

SPEAKER: I’m sure that members would wish to welcome the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence of the Parliament of the Republic of Fiji, which is present in the gallery. [Applause] And we wish them luck for the game against Australia at the weekend.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—Prime Minister

1. Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by all her Government’s statements, policies, and actions?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes, particularly our Government’s focus on mental health. As members will be aware, that includes the focus on ensuring that there is the roll-out of primary mental health services across the country, starting with 170,000 New Zealanders; our suicide prevention strategy and action plan; the appointment of the initial Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission, which we made last week; establishing a suicide prevention office; and, of course, a further $8.68 million for mental health services in Canterbury. That was on top of $8.5 million invested in Budget 2019 in response to 15 March. We are a Government that is finally taking mental health seriously.

Hon Simon Bridges: Has she had a hint at the GDP figures due out on Thursday, and is she pretty pleased with them?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: No.

Hon Simon Bridges: Was growth running at 3.7 percent when she became Prime Minister, and is it now 2.5 percent?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, of course, the member will recognise that that is not an accurate reflection of the long-run average under his Government, which I believe was closer to 2.1 percent. Of course, New Zealand is experiencing the same changes in growth forecasts here that other countries are experiencing. In fact, I recognise that Australia in particular is seeing annual rates now, I believe, at around 1.4 percent. We are performing well in comparison to others.

Hon Simon Bridges: Was that a yes or a no?

SPEAKER: No, the member knows well that he cannot require that sort of answer. He is an experienced member, and he should not ask questions that he knows are disorderly.

Hon Simon Bridges: Was growth running at 3.7 percent when she became Prime Minister, and is it now 2.5 percent?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, no. I was reflecting on the member’s long-run average of 2.1 percent in my last answer, and I stand by that.

Hon Simon Bridges: You’ll have to correct that.

SPEAKER: Order! Both of you.

Hon Simon Bridges: Given GDP was 3.7 percent when she took office and is now 2.5 percent, what, roughly speaking, is that 1 percent difference worth in dollar terms to the economy?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, I want to reflect that annual GDP growth is at 2.7 percent.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Could the Prime Minister advise as to whether or not New Zealand’s current growth rate is superior to the EU, the UK, Japan, and, indeed, our friends in Australia?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes. Again, yes—absolutely. We are all in the middle of, essentially, global headwinds that have led to the IMF and others downgrading their forecasts for growth globally and Australia experiencing growth rates at 1.4 percent. Of course that is going to have an effect on New Zealand in the long run, but given our unemployment rate is at an 11-year low, our wage growth rates are good, and we are running Budget surpluses, we are in a good position to take on those global headwinds. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! Order! Can I just ask the Minister of Finance and the Leader of the Opposition to stop their side—[Interruption] Oh, I apologise. Well, that actually makes it worse, the fact that it is the Leader of the House that’s doing that. I’m very tempted to pick up a recent comment from the Mother of Parliaments, from John Bercow there, and apply it to that member—[Interruption] The member wants to know what it was? “Be a good little boy.”

Hon Simon Bridges: Does she accept our terms of trade as our exports are at near-record highs?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I’m glad the member’s mentioned that. Of course, we have seen the export prices boosted by issues like African swine fever in China. That is not a structural change, though—

Hon Shane Jones: China!

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: —so that does not mean that our exporters, despite getting good, solid prices, will necessarily have the confidence to make different investment decisions. So that’s something that the commentators have made remarks about and is something that’s clearly being experienced in New Zealand.

SPEAKER: I didn’t want to interrupt the Prime Minister, but I am going to say to the Hon Shane Jones that some of his interjections are far too loud. They resound through my microphone and the Prime Minister’s microphone, and we all get the feedback of it, as do viewers and listeners. If he must parrot comments, please do it at a lower volume.

Hon Simon Bridges: Is her position that exports are going well because of swine flu but our economy has lost a percent in GDP in the last couple of years simply because of global headwinds?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: No. Again, I repeat for the member, export prices have been affected by the significant issue caused, for example, by African swine fever in China. It means that our beef and lamb prices have been advantaged by that. The point I’ve made to the member is that the export price does not mean that our exporters are looking around at the global environment and trading with as much confidence as they otherwise might. The member might reflect that he refers often to the Australian economy, and would the member like to reflect on why it is that the Australian economy is experiencing similar issues?

Hon Simon Bridges: How much responsibility does she accept for current petrol prices at the pump?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: If the member thinks that this Government is responsible for oil prices being impacted by a drone strike in Saudi Arabia, his belief in our powers is extreme.

Hon Simon Bridges: Is the 24c her Government is increasing excise tax by this term the largest reason for increases in petrol prices in the last two years?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: What consumers will be experiencing at the pump right now is what consumers internationally will be, and that is that there has been an attack on global oil supplies in Saudi Arabia that has been sufficient enough to mean the US has had to make a decision to open up strategic reserves. That means the price globally has jumped, and we’ve seen that in New Zealand almost instantly at the pump.

Hon Simon Bridges: Is the 24c her Government is increasing excise tax by this term the largest reason for increases in petrol prices in the last two years?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I reject the premise of that question.

Hon Simon Bridges: When will she deliver on her commitment to build either a second fuel pipeline or more petrol storage at Wiri?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I relish in the opportunity to comment on the report that was released today looking into what happened just before the election to security of supply. Members will remember that we of course had planes grounded by the fact that a fuel pipeline was damaged—

Hon Simon Bridges: Answer the question.

SPEAKER: Order!

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: —just before the election. It’s now been found—

Hon Simon Bridges: Answer the question.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: —that that was done by an—

SPEAKER: No, the Prime Minister will resume her seat. I am sick of the Leader of the Opposition reflecting on my chairing of the House. He will stand, withdraw, and apologise.

Hon Simon Bridges: Point of order.

SPEAKER: No, he will stand, withdraw, and apologise.

Hon Simon Bridges: I stand, withdraw, and apologise. I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I asked a very simple question about her commitment to build a second fuel pipeline. She hasn’t answered that.

SPEAKER: That’s right, and that’s because she hadn’t finished yet. [Interruption] Right, those members who interjected then will stand, withdraw, and apologise.

Hon Members: I stand, withdraw, and apologise.

SPEAKER: And Mr Carter.

Rt Hon David Carter: I never said a word, sir.

SPEAKER: Well, the member’s mouthing appeared that he did. I apologise to him for reflecting on that.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: To conclude my answer, it’s been found that that was indeed an Oravida contractor digging for swamp kauri. As a result, the inquiry has made a number of recommendations, including that the Government should consider regulation in this space, and we are currently considering the recommendations we received today.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can I ask the Prime Minister as to whether she’s received any reports preparing her for this thinly veiled attack on the member for Papakura?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Mr Speaker—

SPEAKER: No, no, I think if it had been expressed in a different way, we might’ve got there, but I think that was a reflection on the Leader of the Opposition, which was unfair.

Hon Simon Bridges: Is Jacinda Ardern’s promise to build either a second fuel pipeline or more petrol storage at Wiri another broken promise by this Prime Minister?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: No.

Question No. 2—Prime Minister

2. Hon PAULA BENNETT (Deputy Leader—National) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by all her Government’s statements and actions?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes.

Hon Paula Bennett: Does she stand by her answer to question No. 5 last Tuesday that “we need to make sure that we have environments in all of our workplaces that meet the expectations of alleged victims, and that respond to those situations.”, and does she think that Grant Robertson’s refusal to answer questions about what he knew and when, regarding the allegations of sexual assault by her former—

Hon Shane Jones: It’s a speech!

Hon Paula Bennett: —staff member, meet the expectations of the victims?

Hon Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Prime Minister doesn’t have ministerial responsibility for what Grant Robertson knows about a parliamentary matter.

SPEAKER: And the Prime Minister will answer the first part of the question.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: To answer the first part of the question, yes.

Hon Paula Bennett: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I had someone shout out from the Government side while I was midway through my question.

SPEAKER: I’m sorry; I was focusing very carefully on the member and her question, and it wasn’t quite loud enough to register with me.

Hon Paula Bennett: In light of the fact that the complainants have gone public with their allegations, whose privacy is Grant Robertson protecting?

Hon Chris Hipkins: A point of order.

SPEAKER: The same—no, I don’t need the point of order. I’m just going to rule it out.

Hon Paula Bennett: Does she stand by her statement yesterday that her “general value set and philosophy … is to take a victim-centred approach,” and does she think that Kelvin Davis’ speech in this House last week during the general debate—that issues that have been raised in the media and by me regarding the allegations of sexual assault by her former staff member were all based on rumour—is a good example?

SPEAKER: Order! I have read the corrected Hansard of that, with the Minister’s interpretation, and that is not an accurate record of the Hansard.

Hon Paula Bennett: Is it her expectation that all Ministers and ministerial staff that were aware of the sexual assault allegations involving one of her former staff members will be interviewed by those reviewing and inquiring into the allegations and process?

Hon Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The latter part of that question clearly is not a matter of ministerial responsibility, and I think the first part of the question would be very marginal at best.

SPEAKER: Well, certainly, I’m going to give the deputy leader of the National Party the opportunity to rephrase the question within the Standing Orders, rather than just ruling it straight out. Can I say to the Leader of the House that it would be better on those occasions if the question could be put before the member intervenes, in order for me to make an assessment.

Hon Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The issue that we have, I think, across the House is that where a member puts a question that is deliberately out of order and then a Minister doesn’t reply to it because it is out of order, that actually creates some issues for the House, particularly where one of the parties in the House is clipping things from the House, allegations that have been made in the House by way of question, and using them online through social media.

SPEAKER: Yes. I understand the second part of it, but I’m not going to take any responsibility. If I am convinced that a member is deliberately asking questions that they know are out of order, I will regard that as disorderly and take the appropriate action.

Hon Paula Bennett: Is it her expectation that all Ministers and ministerial staff that have been accused of knowing that there were allegations of sexual assault will be involved in the processes, in the investigations, as she has laid out?

SPEAKER: No, that’s out of order, and I just warn the member: I think she should know that.

Hon Paula Bennett: Has the Prime Minister had any Minister or members of her staff come to her at any time in the last six weeks and admit that they actually did know that there were allegations of sexual assault?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I am going to reflect on the comments that I have made in the public domain, repeatedly, on this point but particularly in the last 48 hours. The criticism that can rightly be laid at the feet of the Labour Party is that there has not been an appropriate investigation into the complaints brought. If we listened to victim advocates like Louise Nicholas, she would point out that we need to be victim focused. We’ve created a pathway now for those complaints to be rightly heard, and that is where I am going to make sure that all of the focus lies. The ongoing litigation within a parliamentary debating chamber of sensitive complaints is not victim centred, and I think the member knows that.

Hon Paula Bennett: Does she believe that it’s victim centred for Ministers that may have known there was a sexual assault, or senior staff in her office, not to participate in the investigation?

SPEAKER: The member absolutely knows that’s out of order. No further questions.

Question No. 3—Environment

3. Hon JAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green) to the Minister for the Environment: Why is the Government proposing to look at water-quality measures beyond those of physical and chemical water quality to also look at aquatic life, habitat, water quantity, and ecological processes?

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): Because the scientific advisory group, Kāhui Wai Māori, and the Freshwater Leaders Group advised that these measures are necessary to stop our freshwater quality from degrading. In many of our waterways, sediment continues to pile up, choking our estuaries and smothering our shellfish beds. Nitrate levels are still on the increase in many rivers and aquifers, including in Canterbury. Twice as many rivers have declining macroinvertebrate populations as have them improving—a clear indication that these rivers are in decline. We want to fix this because we agree New Zealanders should be able to swim in their local river without the risk of falling ill. We believe that this is in the interests of all New Zealanders, including farmers and exporters, because if we let it get worse, it costs more, takes longer, and is harder to fix.

Hon James Shaw: How is this holistic approach an improvement to the existing regime?

Hon DAVID PARKER: The existing regime allowed problems to get worse. The deadline to start giving effect to the 2017 national policy statement (NPS) was allowed to slip out to 2030, and the bottom lines, according to all advisory groups, did not adequately protect our waterways. New Zealanders want this Government to stop this getting worse, and, when we do, to then allow it to be fixed up over a generation, which is what we are proposing.

Hon James Shaw: And how does this change in approach in measuring water quality reflect mātauranga Māori principles of water management, like recognising the innate value of water?

Hon DAVID PARKER: It’s fair to acknowledge the last Government for already giving expression to Te Mana o te Wai in the current NPS, which was introduced by the prior Government. We’re giving clarity to the principles of Te Mana o te Wai, which are, first, to meet the needs of the river; second, human uses; and, third, commercial uses. It’s a concept reflecting the values of all New Zealanders, and we’re also giving effect to it further by a proposed “mahinga kai” attribute, which provides for the health of eels, kōura, and whitebait.

Hon James Shaw: Why are the proposed changes to water-quality bottom lines needed, and what difference will that make to improve the health of our waterways and ecosystems?

Hon DAVID PARKER: The new bottom lines will improve the health of our freshwater ecosystems. The changes being consulted on to achieve this include stopping further loss of wetlands and streams; controls on further intensification; and new nitrogen attributes. The new nitrogen attributes have been included for consultation because the scientific and technical advisory group considers the current NPS is insufficient for soft-bottomed rivers. The proposals take a phased approach to addressing water quality to stop degradation of our rivers and lakes, to achieve a noticeable improvement within five years, and to restore our waterways within a generation.

Hon James Shaw: What has the Minister done to ensure that his proposals are supported by those with expertise in freshwater management and ensure that communities are involved in the changes?

Hon DAVID PARKER: The Government brought together advisory groups to advise and make recommendations on the proposed changes, encompassing scientific, farming, Māori, and environmental experts. There was unanimous consensus across the scientific advisory group, Kāhui Wai Māori, and the Freshwater Leaders Group that further action is necessary to halt the decline in freshwater quality. In addition to that, prior consultation included a decade of work by the Land and Water Forum—and in addition to that, of course, we’re consulting with the public for them to have their say on the proposals as well.

Question No. 4—Finance

4. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) to the Minister of Finance: Does he stand by all of his statements, policies, and actions?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Yes, in the context in which they were given, delivered, and taken. In particular, I stand by the Government’s economic policies following the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research consensus forecasts released yesterday, showing that economists expect stronger employment and wage growth over the next three years than previously, and the unemployment rate to remain down at around 4 percent as the economy continues to grow.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Which of his Government’s policies have contributed most to the slowdown in the New Zealand economy, from averaging 1.7 percent growth per person for the last five years of the National Government to around 0.7 percent now?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I know the members opposite believe I have great powers, but I don’t think that the US-China trade dispute is something that I will take responsibility for in this House.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Is he aware that New Zealand’s growth rate, once we strip out population growth, has fallen from 11th in the OECD, for the last five years under National, to 25th this year?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I prefer not to strip certain things out of the way in which growth rates are worked out. What I do know is that if we look around the world, New Zealand continues to outperform other countries like Australia, like Canada, like Japan, and I do worry for the member that he’s going to have to explain himself to Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg for why he is so down on the Australian economy, given his criticisms of the New Zealand one.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Going from the last question, when did he first hear reports of the need to strip out population growth?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Well, it certainly wouldn’t have been during the last Government, given that that was what was propping up the growth.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Does he stand by his statement last Thursday, agreeing that he would expect senior Ministers in any industry to react promptly if they were aware of claims of serious misconduct?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Yes.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Does he think it right that a Government which holds New Zealanders that it regulates to certain standards should also hold itself to those same standards, or indeed to higher standards?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The Government holds itself to high standards, as the public would expect.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Is he sure that he and his Government have attained the exemplary standards of conduct that he said on Thursday he expects from executives in regulated industries?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Yes.

Question No. 5—Finance

5. Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central) to the Minister of Finance: What recent reports has he seen on the New Zealand economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I have seen a number of bank economists’ reports ahead of Thursday’s GDP release from Statistics New Zealand, detailing how they expect the economy to keep growing in the face of global headwinds. A Bloomberg poll of economists showed a medium growth expectation of 0.4 percent in the June quarter from March, with an annual quarter-on-quarter growth of 2 percent and an expected annual average growth rate of 2.4 percent. New Zealand’s GDP growth rate began falling at the end of 2016, which is why this Government is focused on turning that around. It will take time to shift the economy to a more productive, sustainable, and inclusive growth footing. Our initiatives, including R & D incentives, record infrastructure investment, skills training, and revitalising the regions, are significant parts of turning this around.

Dr Duncan Webb: What reports has he seen about the international context for the New Zealand economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I have seen a report from Westpac economists this week, where they said the global backdrop was a key contributor to slightly slower growth in the New Zealand economy. The Westpac economists said, “Economic activity in many of our major trading partner countries has been slowing as the US-China trade war drags on, while events such as Brexit have added to the downside risk for global growth.”, and, indeed, just this month, the Australian economy recorded GDP growth of 1.4 percent in the year to June, as activity in their manufacturing, agriculture, and construction industries contracted. The fundamentals of the New Zealand economy are strong, and we are well placed to withstand these headwinds, but we have to acknowledge we will not be unaffected.

Dr Duncan Webb: What reports has he seen on future economic activity?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Yesterday, the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER) released their consensus forecasts, polling economists on their picks for the next three years. NZIER warned about the impact of the volatile international situation, saying there is heightened uncertainty about how the trade war between the US and China will play out. Despite this, the forecasts showed economists expect GDP growth to rise to 2.3 percent in the year to March 2020, and then to 2.7 percent in the year to March 2021. They also forecast stronger employment and wage growth over the next three years than they had previously expected, and the unemployment rate to remain down around 4 percent as the New Zealand economy continues to grow. So, in short, economists are expecting businesses to employ more staff and pay higher wages, meaning that more working New Zealanders will be benefiting from economic growth under this Government.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: If the international context is all to blame for the slow-down in the New Zealand economy, why has New Zealand fallen from 11th, under the National Party’s last five years, to the 25th fastest-growing economy in the OECD?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I would have to check the member’s figures before I responded to the detail in there, but what I do know is, on this side of the House, we’re committed to an economic programme that increases productivity, improves sustainability, and increases inclusion. We’re not prepared to sit on the sidelines and hope that a housing boom and population growth will actually grow the economy. We want it to be more sustainable than that.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Rather than blaming international factors, isn’t it more sensible to look at home and consider the way that this Government’s added cost to businesses, increased uncertainty, and demonstrated incompetence through KiwiBuild have all combined to undermine business confidence, and that is the main reason why the economy has slowed down?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: No. If the member actually takes a look at the economists who are making their forecasts about what they expect to happen in the June quarter, every single one of them refers, at the beginning, to the global environment that we are in at the moment. On this side of the House, we’re committed to actually growing an economy where New Zealanders get higher wages, which they are, where unemployment is coming down, which it is, where we’re investing in infrastructure, which we are, where we’re supporting research and development, which we’re doing—all of the things that the previous Government gave up because it was just a bit too hard.

Hon Simon Bridges: Can he name one genuinely new infrastructure transport project they’ve started?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I certainly can. There are a range of projects, which I will hand over to the member at the end of the question time today. We have invested, I believe—the Minister of Transport will tell me—how much? How much have we invested—$3 billion?

Hon Phil Twyford: $3 billion.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Three billion dollars in the first part of the transport plan—the same amount of money that the member’s party had done in the first part of their transport plan.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can I take it from that Minister that whilst all of the Opposition leader’s colleagues have been going to infrastructure openings, you’ve never invited him?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Indeed, and the $41 billion that this Government is putting into infrastructure over the next five years—$10 billion more than the previous Government had forecast for the same period—is understood right across New Zealand.

Question No. 6—Environment

6. Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel) to the Minister for the Environment: What reports, if any, has he seen on the economic cost of the proposed Action Plan for Healthy Waterways, and do any of these reports estimate the total cost to the New Zealand economy of the proposals?

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): The most recent report I have seen was one from the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER), which was released yesterday, on economic impacts, and it concludes: “the impacts of the government reforms are unlikely to be major at the national level, and not felt for many years due to the long lead in times proposed.” I also agree with their comments that effects will vary regionally, which is why the consultation document proposes a range of options to take this into account.

Hon Scott Simpson: Is the regulatory impact statement correct to state that the changes required to meet his proposed sediment bottom lines are expected to cost between $5 billion and $7 billion?

Hon DAVID PARKER: I’d have to check the context in which that is said, but if that figure is there, it will be over many, many decades. I would also note that the same NZIER report that I just referred to says this: “Experience here and overseas with environmental regulation is that often unimagined innovations result, reducing the costs and increasing the effectiveness of those regulations. … innovation is bigger than big inventions or new technology. At the farm level, it includes adopting advanced management practices already used on the best farms.”

Hon Scott Simpson: Does he agree that the social costs of the changes, including permanent afforestation of over a million hectares, are not well captured by the modelling?

Hon DAVID PARKER: The supports that the Government has to bring forward forestry have subsidies in respect of indigenous planting on erosion-prone land. Contrary to some assertions out there, we are not subsidising pine plantations. The effect of that improved planting of indigenous species on erosion-prone land will be both to address our climate change obligations and to improve water quality.

Hon Scott Simpson: Is the Minister concerned by the finding that under his proposed sediment bottom line, 17 percent of current Otago pastureland is expected to be converted to permanent forestry, including the whole of the Clutha catchment?

Hon DAVID PARKER: The idea that we would put out a proposal that requires the Clutha catchment to be forested is nonsensical and not correct.

Hon Scott Simpson: Does he believe that the social costs of planting the entire Clutha catchment in permanent forestry—which will create no long-term local jobs—are an acceptable outcome of his freshwater policy?

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Despite the last answer from the Minister, this questioner has got up and repeated the allegation without any factual basis whatsoever, and he should be stopped or asked to provide some evidence for the question’s basis—

SPEAKER: No.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: —in the first place.

SPEAKER: No, no. Order! Order! There’s not a requirement to be consistent in the asking of questions. In light of the previous answer, I think the question might be regarded as one which is hypothetical, which used not to be allowed, but has in recent years been within the Speakers’ rulings. So I’ll allow the member to repeat his question.

Hon Scott Simpson: Well, sir, may I quote from the document?

SPEAKER: No, the member will repeat the question he asked.

Hon Scott Simpson: Does he believe that the social costs of planting the entire Clutha catchment in permanent forestry, which will create no long-term local jobs, are an acceptable outcome of his freshwater policy?

Hon DAVID PARKER: That’s a ridiculous suggestion and we’re not proposing that.

Hon Member: Scaremongering.

Hon DAVID PARKER: It’s scaremongering. Last week the National Party said water quality was getting better, not worse. Then they falsely claimed—and it appears they’re doing it again today—that we want pristine water, pre-farming or cities, which is not true; we want swimmable rivers. Then they said that this was going to be a hammer blow to pastoral farming. Then they said it would devastate the economy to the point where we couldn’t afford education or healthcare. What National’s really saying—because none of those allegations are true—is that they want us to do nothing and let our rivers continue to deteriorate.

Question No. 7—Education

7. JAN TINETTI (Labour) to the Minister of Education: What action is the Government taking to ensure that large school rebuilds are delivered for their communities?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): Heaps. This Government is providing additional funding into existing large school redevelopments to get them on track and completed so that staff, students, and communities can finally use and enjoy them. A total of $52 million of additional funding is being invested into just four legacy school rebuilds, for example, that were announced back in 2015. These are Western Springs College, Cashmere High School, Aotea College, and Wellington East Girls’ College.

Jan Tinetti: Why did the Government have to put further investment into these four school rebuilds that were announced nearly four years ago?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: On becoming Government, it became clear that the budgets set aside for a significant number of school redevelopment projects were insufficient. There was a fiscal hole—if you could describe it as that—in the budgets that had been set aside for those schools. So we have now increased the budgets so that those school rebuild projects can be completed.

Jan Tinetti: How many other school rebuilds announced over two years ago has the Government approved additional funding for because their budgets were previously set too low to absorb additional costs?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: There were a further eight school redevelopments agreed to by Cabinet prior to October 2017 that required more than $123 million in additional funding. This represented a number of schools that had been in the redevelopment pipeline for some time. These projects simply did not have large enough budgets to complete the work that the previous Government had approved.

Jan Tinetti: What other changes is this Government making to improve its ability to deliver school rebuilds?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Heaps. The Government’s introduced a multi-year appropriation and a longer-term redevelopment pipeline. That will mean that the ministry can establish a much longer-term relationship with the market and with the contractors to provide certainty for the construction sector. The ministry’s now publishing its capital works forward pipeline on a quarterly basis, which provides much greater transparency to the suppliers and to the wider building and construction industry. This means that suppliers are made aware much earlier of forthcoming tender opportunities, and they can resource and gear up appropriately.

Question No. 8—Transport

8. CHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South) to the Minister of Transport: Is the Government considering reallocating money from the rapid transit activity class in the National Land Transport Programme to the State highway improvement activity class; if so, why?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Transport): The New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) continually monitors spending profiles against the activity class ranges set out in the Government Policy Statement on Land Transport. I received some papers on this topic and have met with officials to be briefed on the issue. However, any decisions on reallocation are for the NZTA board.

Chris Bishop: Has he received advice on the amount of money that could reasonably be reallocated from the rapid transit activity class to the State highway improvement activity class, and, if so, what is the range of money provided by officials?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: The amount of money that officials have suggested can be reallocated away from the rapid transit activity class is $313 million.

Chris Bishop: Have officials provided advice on what projects could be brought forward if money was reallocated from the rapid transit activity class to the State highway improvement activity class, and, if so, what are those projects?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Yes.

Chris Bishop: What are those projects?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: I don’t have the list of projects in front of me. In fact—actually, let me clarify that: the officials recommended a number of different activity classes rather than projects.

Chris Bishop: Has he received any correspondence on ministerial letterhead or Green Party letterhead or otherwise from the Associate Minister of Transport related to the possibility of reallocating money from the rapid transit activity class to the State highway improvement class?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: No.

Question No. 9—Energy and Resources

9. Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) to the Minister of Energy and Resources: What reports has she seen about damage to the fuel pipeline from Marsden Point to Auckland in September 2017?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Energy and Resources): I have received the report on the Government’s inquiry into the Auckland fuel supply disruption. This is an excellent report that not only covers the how and when of damage to the pipeline in 2014 but lays out a detailed series of 21 proposals as to how we can better protect our fuel security in the future.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: What reports has she seen of attempts to cover up the damage done to the pipeline?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: According to the inquiry report, the pipeline was damaged by a digger of a contractor looking for swamp kauri. Paragraph 4.26 of the report found that the contractor had put some soil back over the pipeline to cover up the fact he had hit it. It is disturbing, obviously, that such a vital piece of infrastructure could be damaged and steps taken to hide that damage.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: In 2014, at the time the pipeline was damaged, who owned the digger in question?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: According to paragraph 4.15 of the report, Oravida Kauri Ltd, or Kauri Ruakaka Ltd (KRL), owned the digger and arranged for and paid for its transport.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Is it a fact that Kauri Ruakaka Ltd, which owned the digger, changed its name from Oravida Kauri Ltd in April 2015, after the damage was done?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Yes. I refer the member to footnote 38 of the document: “KRL is the current name of the company. It was previously called Oravida Kauri Ltd but its name was formally changed in April 2015. Documents show that both names were being used in 2014.”

Rt Hon Winston Peters: A supplementary question to the primary question today from the Leader of the Opposition: which member of Parliament was associated with this company?

Hon Dr Nick Smith: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Speakers’ ruling 159/5 says, “It is not reasonable to use questions from the governing party or its support parties to attack other members of the House.” I think it’s clear that what the Deputy Prime Minister is doing is deliberately targeting a member of the House.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: I’ll hear from the Deputy Prime Minister.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: That protest might sound meritorious were it not for the fact that the very leader of his own party raised that question during a supplementary in the first question today.

SPEAKER: Well, I’m not convinced that team-tag would make something like this appropriate. My view on this—and it’s a very strict view—is that attacks, especially on the families of members of Parliament, are generally inappropriate. I think that the question was an invitation to attack a family member of a member of this Parliament, and on that basis I’m not going to allow it to proceed.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I’ll go and stand outside then.

SPEAKER: Order!

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Speaking to the point of order.

SPEAKER: No, not speaking to the point of order.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Well, can I raise a point of order?

SPEAKER: No, the member will resume his seat. I regard that as a reflection—and I think the member probably does himself—or at least a comment on my ruling, which he knows is out of order. He will withdraw and apologise.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I withdraw and apologise. I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. This last ruling of yours appears to be awfully stringent not only in this Parliament’s past but also in the Parliaments of most of the British Commonwealth, for that matter. What has been said now is that if somebody in Parliament happens to be associated with a company that has done wrong, then that person’s name is impervious to being disclosed in the House. That surely cannot be the ruling. We’ve got an open and transparent democracy, and when I made the comment—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: All right. Order! The member will resume his seat. Mr Bishop will stand, withdraw, and apologise.

Chris Bishop: I withdraw and apologise.

SPEAKER: Can I just remind members of the Opposition—I mean, I think people can probably tell that I’m finding this point of order to be slightly testing, myself, but having interruptions doesn’t help. Now, I’d like the Deputy Prime Minister to come to the point.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: My point is that I would suggest that such a ruling is so stringent that it has changed the very character and shape of our democracy when it comes to transparency. The point I was seeking to make was not by way of retort to you, but if somebody’s prepared to walk out of the House and say, “I’m going to say this and take whatever the consequences are.”, it perhaps suggests that they’ve got the courage of their convictions and the facts to back up what they’re saying. That’s all I’m saying.

SPEAKER: Right. Well, I think all of us understand what the member was saying; the question is whether he should have said it or not. I have indicated that he should not. I will draw people’s attention to Speakers’ ruling 40/7.

Question No. 10—Health

10. Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei) to the Associate Minister of Health: Does she stand by all her statements, policies, and actions regarding vaccination and the measles outbreak?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Associate Minister of Health): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Yes, in the context they were given.

Dr Shane Reti: Can she confirm there have been measles outbreaks in eight DHB regions this year, and, if so, which?

SPEAKER: Order! I think we had this last week—and that is the requirement to link a supplementary question to the primary question; the member did not do that. I’m going to give the member another shot without penalising the supplementary.

Dr Shane Reti: Where the Minister has declared an outbreak in Auckland, are there eight other DHB regions that have had measles outbreaks this year?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: If the member would like to put that question down in writing, I’d be happy to answer it.

Dr Shane Reti: Was the Institute of Environmental Science and Research reporting of two measles outbreaks in the Waikato and Bay of Plenty in January this year an early-warning red flag that was missed?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: I didn’t have the delegation for population health in January of this year, so I’d have to go and look at the data to answer that question. I’ve been very focused on responding to the current outbreak in Auckland.

Dr Shane Reti: How is there no issue with supply, when, last Thursday, Waikato DHB offered only 10 single measles vaccines each to Thames and Waihī?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: In the past few weeks, an unprecedented number of vaccines have been delivered—about 32,000 across the country. Just today, 52,000 additional vaccines arrived in the country; they will quickly be distributed around the country. I’d like to thank the general practices, the primary health organisations, the regional public health service, the Ministry of Health, and Pharmac, who’ve all been involved in delivering this extraordinary delivery of vaccines.

Dr Shane Reti: Will she take responsibility if New Zealand loses its World Health Organization measles-free status because of the mismanagement of this Government; if not, why not?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: I’m sure that member would like to congratulate the general practices and the Ministry of Health, who’ve been working so hard to deliver tens of thousands of vaccines over the past few weeks and to respond to the current outbreak in Auckland. The member will also be aware that the United Kingdom and the United States have already lost their measles-free status, and that, globally, there’s been a 300 percent increase in the number of measles cases. It’s my absolute priority to make sure that we ensure that the most vulnerable people are able to be vaccinated—and that is children under the age of five—over the coming weeks. I’m very proud of the response so far.

Question No. 11—Health

11. ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour) to the Minister of Health: What recent announcements has he made about suicide prevention?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): Every member of this House knows our rate of suicide is too high and it is a long-term national tragedy. Last week, I joined the Prime Minister in releasing Every Life Matters, the suicide prevention strategy and action plan. The plan has three main focus areas: promoting wellbeing, responding to suicidal distress and behaviour, and supporting individuals’ whānau and communities after a suicide. At the same time as we released the plan, we also announced the establishment of a suicide prevention office, which will provide strong leadership and monitor our progress delivering on the plan. There are no quick fixes here, but the range of actions we are taking will mean better support for people in distress.

Angie Warren-Clark: What other actions is the Government taking to prevent suicide?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: Suicide prevention requires a range of community-led and Government responses. We’ve invested a record $1.9 billion into mental health in this year’s Budget, and just last week we began the roll-out of new front-line services in places like GP clinics. We’re also doing more to support people in crisis. We’re increasing suicide prevention services in DHBs. We’re supporting Māori and Pacific suicide prevention initiatives. We’re funding improved support for the 15,000 people each year who arrive at hospital emergency departments experiencing a mental health crisis or who are at risk of suicide. We know that not all of the answers will be found in Wellington, so we’re continuing to work with local communities and people with lived experience as we develop further initiatives and services.

Angie Warren-Clark: What is the Government doing to better support people who are bereaved by suicide?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: For too long, we’ve left families that have been bereaved by suicide without support, and we know people who have lost someone to suicide can be vulnerable to suicidal thoughts themselves. That’s why we are funding free bereavement counselling for 2,500 family members per year. On average, it’s expected that four sessions of counselling will be provided per person. That will make a huge and long-overdue difference to families struggling with grief.

Question No. 12—Housing

12. ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua) to the Minister of Housing: How much funding, if any, will each household receive in her progressive home ownership proposal that is expected to help 2,500 to 4,000 households with a budget allocation of $400 million?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Housing): As I explained to that member last week, we are currently designing the $400 million progressive homeownership scheme. Work on this scheme is under way, and I will take a detailed design to Cabinet later this year. There are a number of options for this scheme that we need to consider and analyse, and uptake in amounts per household will vary depending on design features and variables, such as house prices, how much equity the Government provides, and whether an equity share or a rent-to-own scheme is in the final mix. The 2,500 to 4,000 households is an initial estimate based on varying numbers of factors such as the amount of shared equity and the cost and location of a house.

Andrew Bayly: Does she agree that if $400 million is allocated to help 2,500 to 4,000 households, the approximate average amount each household would receive must be between $100,000 and $160,000?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: The member is getting ahead of himself. As I explained on numerous occasions, we are currently working through the detailed design features. This will have a huge impact on the amount that each household receives. The estimates that we are using are based on a 15 to 25 percent shared equity for a lower quartile house in Auckland. That equates to about $97,500 to $162,500 per household. But if we were to move that down to Christchurch, for example, where there are lower house prices and a lower equity taken, that could be as low as $75,000. The member needs to wait for the final design features.

Andrew Bayly: When she stated last week in the House that under a shared equity scheme, a loan would be repaid back over time, would this payment include an interest component?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: What the member and I talked about last week was a variety of products that fall under the broader heading of progressive homeownership. When there is a shared equity scheme, a portion of the home is owned by the homeowner and another portion of equity is owned by a third party, usually by a community housing provider in this country at the moment, because we have yet to have a Government that has been active in this space—unlike this Government, that is committed to helping more New Zealanders into the opportunity of homeownership. That is a commercial mortgage, with interest payments. However, as I explained to the member last week, if it is a rent-to-buy scheme, which also falls under the progressive homeownership banner, that can be a cashing out of the amount of equity built up through rent over a period of time, such as through Habitat for Humanity—typically around nine years.

Andrew Bayly: Where a first-home buyer defaults on their mortgage, will the Crown be first in the queue to receive its money back if the property has to be sold?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: I think that member should wait for the Opposition spokesperson for housing to get home, because the week we announced this, of course, the Hon Judith Collins said, “I’ve always been a big fan of those. I think it’s a great way of getting people into homes they can own and that they can leave for their children.” We are proud we are committed to expanding homeownership opportunities for New Zealanders. We have a number of these schemes operating in New Zealand successfully now. We on this side of the House are committed to making sure that we can help more New Zealanders into the opportunity of homeownership.

SPEAKER: That was a very extensive answer which didn’t address the question. I’ll ask the member to repeat the question.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I would have thought that my primary answer and most of the answer to my supplementary question that said we are working through the detail—

SPEAKER: No, no. Order! One can’t back-date one’s answers. I’ll ask the member—if she remembers the question, I’ll just get her to at least address it.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Mr Speaker, as I have explained to that member in the answer to my primary question and I think every supplementary question that he has asked me, we are currently working through the design detail, and we will have those. We are proud that in our first term of Government, we are expanding homeownership opportunities for New Zealanders.

Andrew Bayly: Why, after seven delays of a KiwiBuild recalibration, two years in office, a Cabinet paper seeking an allocation of $400 million—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member will now ask a question.

Andrew Bayly: —can she not provide the House with the most basic detail of her progressive homeownership scheme?

SPEAKER: Oh, right. Well, I can understand what the member was getting at, but she’d better address it.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: OK. We are committed to expanding homeownership opportunities for New Zealanders, and that is what we are delivering. We stand by our record that in our first term in Government, we have allocated $400 million and will be delivering a progressive homeownership scheme. That party, when in Government, promised 39,000 houses through the special housing areas; they delivered 3,100, only 100 of which were affordable. I’ll take our record over theirs any day of the week.

Hon Chris Hipkins: What indications of support for progressive homeownership has the Minister seen?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: I was very pleased to see, on the day that we announced it, such glowing admiration for the scheme from the Opposition spokesperson for housing, the Hon Judith Collins—and I think that member should probably talk to her about this when she gets home from her trip—“I’ve always been a bit of fan of those. I think it’s a great way of getting people into homes that they can own and they can leave to their children.”

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Who said that?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: The Hon Judith Collins.

Question No. 9 to Minister

Hon SHANE JONES (Minister of Forestry): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The ruling you gave earlier is an important ruling because it affects the rights of members of families and the decorum of the House. But, sir, given that the person in question has a reputation and has already spoken about these issues in this House and around these precincts publicly over the three or four years, surely your ruling is both too restrictive and denies members of the House from bringing colour and character back to this Chamber.

SPEAKER: Well, I’m just going to deal with this one very, very easily and refer the member to Speakers’ ruling 20/3.

Standing Orders

Sessional

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): I move, That Kiwi Group Holdings Limited, the Judicial Conduct Commissioner, and the Māori Television Service be public organisations for the purposes of Standing Orders.

This motion will make Kiwi Group Holdings Ltd, the Judicial Conduct Commissioner, and the Māori Television Service public organisations for the purposes of the Standing Orders. The effect of that resolution would be to subject them to an annual review. An organisation that isn’t a department, an Officer of Parliament, a Crown entity, or a State enterprise is subject to an annual review only if the House has resolved by sessional order that the organisation is made a public organisation. As they have not yet been made public organisations, these entities would not otherwise be subject to the scrutiny of a select committee annual review process. This motion will rectify that issue.

To be clear on the three entities concerned, Kiwi Group Holdings Ltd is a holding company for a number of subsidiary companies, the major ones of which are Kiwibank Ltd, Kiwi Wealth Ltd, Kiwi Insurance Ltd, and New Zealand Home Loans—Kiwibank Ltd being the main subsidiary, which makes up 88 percent of Kiwi Group Holdings Ltd businesses’ operating revenue.

The Judicial Conduct Commissioner receives and assesses complaints about the conduct of the judiciary. The Judicial Conduct Commissioner’s statutory officers are the Judicial Conduct Commissioner and the Deputy Judicial Conduct Commissioner, and, of course, they receive public funding.

The Māori Television Service is a statutory corporation. In the 2018-19 year, the Māori Television Service received over $19 million in funding from the Crown and $16 million in additional funding through Te Māngai Pāho, and the Māori Affairs Committee has conducted five separate inquiries into the financial performance and current operations of the Māori Television Service since it was established, because the Māori Television Service would not otherwise be subject to an annual review. This motion will correct that anomaly and make them subject to an annual review.

Motion agreed to.

Bills

Imprest Supply (Second for 2019/20) Bill

First Reading

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I move that the Appropriation (2019/20 Estimates) Bill be now read a third time and that the Imprest Supply (Second for 2019—

SPEAKER: No, no—no, no. I think you might have the wrong run sheet. I think you’re just moving the first reading of the imprest supply bill.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I move, That the Imprest Supply (Second for 2019/20) Bill be now read a first time.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Imprest Supply (Second for 2019/20) Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 63

New Zealand Labour 46; New Zealand First 9; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 8.

Noes 57

New Zealand National 55; ACT New Zealand 1; Ross.

Bill read a first time.

Bills

Appropriation (2019/20 Estimates) Bill

Third Reading

Bills

Imprest Supply (Second for 2019/20) Bill

Second Reading

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I move, That the Appropriation (2019/20 Estimates) Bill be now read a third time and the Imprest Supply (Second for 2019/20) Bill be now read a second time.

Not long after the Budget was read on 30 May, the Salvation Army said the following thing: “The 2019 Budget heralds a change in direction welcomed by The Salvation Army. This wellbeing Budget, with its greater socioeconomic approach, is a step on the path towards lifting New Zealanders out of poverty. We”—this is the Salvation Army—“welcome the Government’s focus on our most vulnerable communities, including those with mental health and addiction issues, children and families in challenging situations, and Māori.”

That is the change in direction that this Budget is about, because, fundamentally, this Budget draws a line underneath the narrow focus on GDP as the only indicator of success for our economy. We, of course, need a growing, prosperous, sustainable economy, but, if we are simply to draw the line and say that that means is the end, then we let down and we leave out hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders, and, on this side of the House, we are not prepared to do that. So we set out, in Budget 2019, to create New Zealand’s first wellbeing Budget. Not only does that Budget measure our success differently by moving beyond that narrow measure of success to look at the health and wellbeing of our people, the protection of our environment, and the strength of our communities; it takes the evidence and the indicators we have about those four areas and uses that as the evidence for what we will invest in as a country and through this Budget. That has not been done before in New Zealand. That is the change of direction that is being welcomed in this Budget. So having set that Wellbeing Budget up in that way, we are able to prove to New Zealanders that we are focused on the issues that will have the biggest long-term effect.

I want to make it clear: on this side of the House, we know that the issues that are priorities in this Budget—mental health, dealing with climate change, closing the gap in the disparity between Māori and Pasifika and the rest of the population, child wellbeing, and making sure that we’re adjusting to the future of work—are long-term issues. It will take sustained investment to be able to turn around the challenges we have, but we are not afraid to take on those long-term issues. Equally, we’re not afraid to fix the mess that we were left with, because in both of the Budgets that I have had the honour of presenting to this House, sadly, it has been necessary to spend billions of dollars fixing up the mess of the previous Government. So in this Budget, one of the really different things we have done is move towards a four-year capital allowance. What that allows us to do is give certainty, so that we have five years’ worth, actually, of funding for school building, and so the construction sector, schools, and parents know the certainty they’ve got.

But we’re also doing that in health. We’ve got two years of funding—$850 million a year—to invest in our hospitals. The sad reality for Dr David Clark as the Minister of Health and myself as we make the decisions about where that health capital goes: so much of it is catch-up. So much of it is fixing up the mess that was left from the previous Government. If members opposite want to know the detail of that, then we can go back to the year before this, in Budget 2017, when the grand total of expenditure in health capital was $150 million—that was it. The year before that, it was nothing—nothing at all. In the three Budgets that we put in place, we put in $750 million and then two years of $850 million, not only to give certainty but to start fixing up the mess that has been left in terms of our health capital—let alone the investment that we’re making in the rest of the health system.

So this is a change of direction for the way that we do Budgets. It’s about planning for the long term. It’s about intergenerational wellbeing. It’s also about having Government agencies actually work together towards these goals. In this Budget, I’m extremely proud of the more than $300 million that we are putting into addressing domestic and sexual violence. That proposal comes from a joint venture of eight different Government agencies coming together for one—one—outcome and one goal. Now, members of the public might say, “Well, surely that should have been happening for ever.”, but the reality is it hasn’t been—it simply has not happened. So I’m proud that in that area, in the area of mental health, in the area of getting more sustainable land use, we have brought together teams of Ministers, Government agencies, working with the private sector to make sure we’re delivering on those goals, not worrying about the silos but making sure that we actually get what we need done done. So this is a change of direction. This is a different Budget. This is one that takes on those big challenges.

One of those that I want to highlight today is the one around child poverty and child wellbeing, because this Budget contains, for the first time, a child poverty report presented by the Minister of Finance. The good news is—and I’ll give credit to the other side of the House—by a vote of 119 to one in this House, we agreed that every Minister of Finance from now on must report on child wellbeing and child poverty at Budget time, because what’s the point of a Budget if we’re not actually holding ourselves to account for those matters? In this Budget, based on the work that this side of the House has done in establishing the Families Package, and, indeed, in some of the initiatives in this Budget, including the indexing of main benefits to the average wage, and working on making sure that more benefits are retained for certain types of—particularly solo mothers—we have proof that we will lift between 50,000 and 74,000 children out of poverty as a result of what we have done, and I am proud of that achievement.

It’s been said before that a major focus of this Budget is around mental health, and it is: a $1.9 billion package. Now, the reason we did that is because the evidence showed us that we had not, as a country, invested in mental health to the extent that we needed. We know that nearly nine out of 10 kids who are under the care of Oranga Tamariki have experienced or been in a household where there have been issues around mental health and addiction. We also know that about those who are in our prison system as well. It’s time that as a country we came together and took that seriously. It’s time we got those front-line services sorted out, that we have proper support for addiction right around the country, that we invest not only in the services but also the capital and the infrastructure that sits behind that. If there’s anything about this Wellbeing Budget that we know has resonated with the public, it is that question of investing in mental health, and just this week we’ve seen the beginning of the work around the suicide prevention strategy, and the independent mental health commission coming on board, as well. I am extremely proud of those investments.

But across the board, we in this Budget can see this Government’s plan to transform our country. When it comes to making sure that there’s investment for business, we’ve got the $300 million venture capital fund being set up. Where we saw a gap, where we were told by entrepreneurs the investment support’s not there, we stepped up and said $300 million goes on the table to support those businesses to grow. We’ve got a plan to support our rural sector in the transition to more sustainable land use. Right around the country, New Zealanders called on us in the last election to do something to make sure that our primary industries could continue to grow, but do that in a sustainable way—a $229 million package in this Budget for sustainable land use that will do that. So on this side of the House, we know that it is the investment of an active Government alongside our communities that will make sure that we are able to deliver for New Zealanders.

This Budget also uses evidence to decide that we needed to significantly invest in supporting Māori and Pasifika aspiration. This Budget shows that if we get in behind Māori business, if we get in behind Pasifika business, we can grow jobs right across New Zealand. This is the Budget that delivers the second year of the Provincial Growth Fund. This is the Budget that delivers more social housing places, more places in the Housing First programme, and more support for transitional housing.

Across the board, this is a Budget that does things differently. This is a Budget that addresses the long-term challenges that New Zealand faces, and this is a Budget that truly delivers to the New Zealanders who have felt left out and left behind for the last nine years. I am immensely proud to present this Budget to the House and to see it come to fruition today. It is a Budget that lays further foundations for New Zealanders to achieve their wellbeing.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Well, it’s amazing to think that only four months after this Budget was delivered, the great so-called Wellbeing Budget, nobody has been talking about it, and it has been long, long sent off to the dustbin of history when people have been focusing on the so-called year of delivery, where there has been nothing delivered. The postman has never come and the only delivery that we’ve seen is a sharply slowing economy and fewer opportunities for New Zealanders to get ahead. What we’ve seen is no delivery on the things that matter to New Zealanders: getting home from work on time through all the traffic congestion—all the things that were promised and are not being delivered.

So what did we see in the Budget? Remember, we saw a massive increase in spending, and this Government’s obviously shown that it’s very capable of making announcements on spending. What we haven’t seen so much is good quality spending. We’ve seen a lot more money sent off to the free fees at university, which, of course, has led to no more students—in fact, fewer students. We’ve seen more money go off to Shane Jones, and Shane Jones has wandered around the countryside and he’s hung it out. We still actually haven’t seen any tallies yet of how many jobs have been created. I think I got to 54. I think he might be up to 63, maybe 72—who knows—but there’s $500 million gone into the one billion trees and we’re not sure what we’re getting for that other than destroying jobs in the countryside, converting land from sheep and beef to native forestry. So it is very marginal quality spending there.

Then, of course, we’ve seen the lack of delivery on the promises. They’re great at announcing things. This is the great gonna Government: “We’re gonna to do this, we’re gonna to do that, but we haven’t quite got round to doing it yet.” They’ve taken $3 billion in this Budget out of infrastructure spending for the next five years, because they haven’t got around to doing anything. What have they done on infrastructure?

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Thousands of kilometres of road maintenance.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Julie Anne Genter—of course, she hates roads, hates cars, doesn’t like “car fascists”. So what they’ve done is they’ve cancelled a whole lot of projects that were ready to go, because they didn’t like them, and replaced them with a whole bunch of projects that are not ready to go and won’t be ready to go for five years. So what we’ve seen is a great hole opening up in the infrastructure. All the people with the diggers have got nowhere to go. They’ve got nothing to dig any more, and that is leading to a hole in infrastructure, nothing getting built, nothing being delivered.

We saw today the embarrassment—the embarrassment—of the Minister of Finance being asked “Name one project—one project—that they’ve started in the last few years.” One project, and he couldn’t. He couldn’t. He fumbled around and he fumbled and he flummeried and he ummed and he ahhed and he had nothing, because there is nothing. They’ve started nothing new. There’s been some continuation of work that started under the previous Government, and thank goodness we did some stuff. We’ve got the Transmission Gully and we’ve got a few major roads in the Waikato being built and completed, but once that’s finished there’s nothing to replace it, because this Government’s opposed to building anything. They don’t like the car fascists, and Mr Twyford said that we’ve overinvested in roads. OK, so they’ve spent a lot of money, or they’ve announced they’re going to spend a lot of money, but they haven’t actually got around to doing it half the time.

Then, we talk about wellbeing, and this is the great Wellbeing Budget. The Minister of Finance, again building great scarecrows, said, “No one says that GDP is the only measure. Nobody claims that GDP is the only measure of success in any country.” Of course nobody claims that. One of the greatest things about this country is that we live in a place which has a wonderful environment that we want to preserve and protect. It’s a place where there’s a strong rule of law, where we have strong social cohesion, where we have high trust, low corruption—all these things are precious to this country and they’re not measured by GDP. So nobody nowhere claims that GDP’s the only thing that matters, and every Budget that has been passed in this House has been focused on improving the wellbeing of New Zealanders. So the arrogance of this Government to assume that they are the first people to wake up and consider—the first people ever to think and consider—that they care about the wellbeing of New Zealanders is incredible. The arrogance of these people is unbelievable.

Anyway. So they’ve brought in this Wellbeing Budget, but the problem that we have with it is that it’s just a smokescreen. It’s just vague and billowing. The point of a Budget is to say: this is what we’re going to spend and this is what we’re going to buy for it and this is how it’s going to improve the life of New Zealanders. That’s what Budgets are about. But when they bring in all the sun and the moon feelings and all these things, the potential that it has is just to make it harder for people to hold them to account, and that is unfortunately one of the hallmarks of this Government: avoidance of being held to account.

So in the year of delivery we wanted to know, “Well, what happened in this Budget? Where did they talk about extra money for cancer drugs?” Well, there wasn’t any—there wasn’t any. So we’ve got all this extra spending, no extra money for cancer drugs. And once—

Hon Dr David Clark: The member’s wrong—the member is plain wrong.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: The member is not wrong. There has been no increase. There was no increase of any substance to the Pharmac budget. In fact, it was less—

Hon Dr David Clark: There was $10 million in the Budget.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: —than the increase in the population that was required. So in real terms—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Just to remind the Minister: he does have a turn next.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Thank you. In real terms and in per-person terms, the Budget had less money going into pharmaceuticals, including cancer drugs. With all the money that they’ve got, they’re actually putting less into that area, so they had to make some changes now out of embarrassment, because they realised that it was out of touch with what people expected.

What about the food parcels? We heard the Auckland City Mission. Remember, the Prime Minister was going to solve all those problems? And yet we’ve got the largest queues ever for food parcels. We’ve got more homeless on our streets. Why is that? Well, it’s primarily because they’ve greatly added to the costs of rental properties. They’ve laden costs on to the people who provide rental properties and—surprise, surprise—quite a few of them have decided it’s all too hard and they’re going to get out. So there’s been a reduction in supply of rental properties, the prices have gone up about $50 a week, and fewer people are struggling to get into houses. Surprise, surprise, there’s more pressure on food parcels and more pressure on homeless people in this country as a direct result of the things that this Government has been doing.

Then they’ve added petrol prices. The first bill that was passed after this Budget was an increase in petrol prices, making it difficult for New Zealanders to get around and to get ahead. But there was no tax relief at all—no tax relief to be seen anywhere. The Minister of Finance has quite clearly declared that over the next three years, there will be no tax relief for any New Zealanders. So any extra money that comes into Government because of any growth or inflation, “We’re going to take it all, and we’re going to take it all because we know how to spend it.” No tax relief, in contrast to what National has offered. The only people that got any kind of relief out of this Government were the deadbeat dads, because the mothers no longer have to name who the father is if they want to go for a benefit, which is a disgraceful policy. Fathers should always be held to account for their children.

So what have we got in this Budget? We’ve got lots of spending, lots of flummery around wellbeing, but no growth plan—no growth plan. The biggest growth policy in this Budget was a $1 billion subsidy for rail, and Shane Jones—you’ve got to hand it to him. He’s very good at getting the money—very good at getting the money—but he’s not so good at spending it. And, yet, with the extra $1 billion going to rail, the question that’s on everybody’s mind in Auckland is “Why on earth don’t they get on with building the third rail line through Auckland so that commuters don’t have to wait for freight trains all the time?” So the one job that they should be doing on the rail, they’re not doing, and I’d love to hear an explanation from the Minister about that—why he thinks it’s so important to spend a billion dollars everywhere else on the rail network but not make any progress on the one job that needs to be done.

Secondly, the other thing that this Budget hasn’t focused on is a growth plan for this country. So what we’re seeing is a rapidly slowing economy. We were in the top half of the OECD in growth in the last five years of the National Government—11th—and that was per person, because that’s the only thing that really matters. If you’ve got the population growing by 2 percent every year, then, if your economy is growing by only 2 percent every year, well, you’re not making much progress. Under National, we were growing, on average, 1.7 percent per person over the last five years. That has fallen away under this Government to barely growing at all per person, and the reasons for that are not, as the Minister of Finance claimed today, all Donald Trump’s fault, or the Chinese’s fault, or the Iranians’ fault—or any number of people they’ve blamed for what’s going on. It’s not all international causes. Of course, there’s an element of what’s going on internationally, but the main reason is domestic, and it’s the fact that this Government, through all its combination of policies, has driven down business confidence to the extent that nobody’s prepared to invest. Well, people are holding off investing because they’re too scared. They don’t know what’s happening.

The third thing is that this Government keeps every week adding costs to business and to families, and making it harder for people to get ahead. Secondly, they’ve created so much uncertainty, with all the 230—I can’t remember how many—working groups we’ve got at the moment. They’ve tossed all their things up into the air; everybody is wanting to see what’s going to happen, where it’s all going to land, and in the meantime they’re keeping their hands in their pockets, not investing, because they don’t know what’s going on. They’ve added costs, they’ve created uncertainty, and the third thing, Dr Clark, is that they have demonstrated incompetence in some of the key areas which they’ve had responsibility for. KiwiBuild is the most dramatic. They came in and Phil Twyford was going to solve the housing problem—we’re all idiots; he’s going to solve them! And, two years later, he’s admitted that it’s a complete failure. We see that same failure in their transport policies, and that is why New Zealanders have lost confidence in this Government, and the sooner they get replaced the better.

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): Thank you, Madam Speaker. There was a lot to say about that speech. I don’t want to dwell too much upon it other than to note that, of course, years of neglect and under-investment in our health services will be a theme of my contribution, but also a reflection just around the nature of the economy we inherited. That was really being pushed by population growth—huge immigration during the previous Government’s tenure—and also from people selling houses to one another. Those were the things that were propping up the economy, and that is not a sustainable plan for an economy that we want to see. We want to see a prosperous economy where the benefits are shared across the population, where the wellbeing of our citizens is at the core, not just GDP but also looking more broadly, looking to the environment and looking to social connection, looking to education and skills, looking to all of those things that make a good society that everyone benefits from.

I do want to concentrate my contribution on a few of the issues—the long-term challenges—that we’ve inherited in health and the investments that are being made in this Budget to tackle those long-term challenges. It is true that the previous Government under-invested in health, and independent research suggests that was about $2.3 billion worth of under-investment. And, of course, you cannot strip $2.3 billion out and not see service levels drop. That’s what we’ve inherited as a Government and we are absolutely committed to investing more.

So, in our first Budget, of course, we put a record amount into DHBs—$2.3 billion—and then, in our most recent Budget, we went higher again, at $2.8 billion into our DHBs to make sure we have more doctors and nurses, because those workforces had been stretched for far too long under the previous regime and were showing the signs of stress and strain, and certainly I had plenty of people come and talk to me in Opposition about the difficult situation they found themselves in in our hospitals. We are investing in those workforces, and we’re going to make a difference, but, of course, we can’t train the workforces overnight; that neglect has a long tail. We have to build up workforces. Some of them take five years to train, some of them 10 and 12, but we’re getting on with that because we’re determined to address the problems that we’ve inherited, to make sure that we are investing in our nurses and doctors.

Another area where there’s been significant neglect that we have put more money into is cancer treatment. The previous member, Paul Goldsmith, raised this and tried to claim that no money went into the Budget into Pharmac—after the prior Budget was a record amount. A huge amount went into Pharmac and this most recent Budget put another $10 million in. We know that hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders have benefited, in just two Budgets, from more access to medicine. And then, subsequently, we’ve put yet more money in—another $60 million into Pharmac more recently, in recent weeks, alongside our cancer action plan—and much of that money will be spent on cancer medicines, and I think that is a really good thing.

But, of course, we’re looking at the whole spectrum of cancer care. So we’ve also invested $25 million in the linear accelerators to make sure that the fleet of them is upgraded, because they, again, were not funded or supported under the previous Government, and that postcode lottery that we inherited in cancer care is something that we are determined to address, to get on. We’re not going to crawl over the troubles that led us here—the neglect of the system under the previous Government—but we’ve inherited that situation and we are determined to make sure that we are investing. So, for the first time, we will have linear accelerators in Taranaki, in the Hawke’s Bay, in Northland—areas that had not had that level of cancer treatment available to them. People have had to travel—or haven’t travelled, because they couldn’t neglect their families—to go and get that cancer treatment.

We’ve also rolled out more bowel screening, and we continue to roll that out so that now hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders can access that bowel screening, and that programme has already revealed 320 New Zealanders had bowel cancer detected in the two years the programme has been up and running, and many more have had polyps removed that could have developed into cancer. So that programme—the screening and prevention aspects—that we’re promoting and funding through the Budget will continue to grow, and I’d expect more investment in future Budgets in that area, because we are committed to that programme.

Another area that I noticed the finance Minister touched on was the huge capital investment that this Government is making. And, in the area of our hospitals, many people will remember that we inherited hospitals with rot and mould in the walls, and in some cases sewage in the walls, and that is largely a result of under-investment under the previous Government’s watch. Well, we have decided to turn that around, and, in two Budgets—just our first two Budgets—we have put more money into our public hospitals, in total, than they put in in the whole nine years that previous Government was there, for a point of comparison. Not just more money in two Budgets than they put in in nine years, but twice as much money in just two Budgets as they put in in the whole nine years they were in office, and shame on them, because our public health system has been neglected. But we are determined to build it up again, so that we have the kinds of facilities we think New Zealanders expect and deserve when they’re wrestling with cancer, when they’re needing the care that they need, when they’ve got other health conditions—whatever it is. When they show up at a hospital, they should have access to modern facilities here in New Zealand. We are a First World country.

We’ve better funded our ambulance services. We’re paying family carers what they deserve in the Budget, and, of course, I mentioned the cancer care—the range of areas we’ve invested in. But on top of that, in cancer care, one of the significant things is meeting our promise of establishing a national cancer agency. We’ve got an interim director in there who is going to set tumour standards across the country, and that will make a significant difference. We’ve already seen with bowel cancer tumour standards that some DHBs are providing better care than others. It’s difficult for DHBs to hear that, but it’s actually a part of finding the solutions, working out where we’re doing better, and how we support those areas that are not doing so well. We are going to tackle those challenges, those long-term challenges that we have inherited.

Of course, recently, I had the privilege of going and launching a couple of new helicopters that were funded out of the additional money we put into helicopter services to ensure a better level of care. The previous Government seems satisfied with single-engine helicopters, where people couldn’t be treated in the back of the helicopter. The previous Government seemed satisfied with that situation. They were not interested in raising the standards around the country, making sure everyone had access to high-quality care no matter where they were. In fact, some of them argued that some areas should have access to lower-quality services, just because of a parochial interest, but we won’t say more about that now.

There are many more areas where we are cleaning up after the previous Government. The Holidays Act provisioning—I know, in the DHBs, the work that’s going on there. You know, that was an issue that they had the whole time they were in office and didn’t address, and that’s meant that New Zealanders had been underpaid for years. We’ll hear more about that. We’re also going to have to be writing off money associated with the National Oracle Solution—a failed IT system, a failed project of the previous Government. All of that money will come through the DHB funding system.

So as a Government, we are determined to tackle mental health, and I want to say a few words about the recent announcements we’ve made on mental health. In the past couple of weeks, we have, firstly, rolled out the first funding for services that had already been piloted across New Zealand, supporting 170,000 New Zealanders to get supported at primary care level. It was, of course, one of the central findings of He Ara Oranga, the inquiry into mental health and addiction, that we needed a primary care service available to those with mild to moderate distress, and those with anxiety or depression, and, as a Government, we are determined to ensure that every New Zealander in distress, every New Zealander with anxiety, can access the support that they need to wrestle with that mental health challenge.

So, shortly, there’ll be a request for proposal going out—it’s just gone out, in fact—that will call for more projects around the country, so that we can expand these services and make sure New Zealanders—no matter who they are, no matter where they are in the country—can access primary care support, be it through an NGO—$62 million of the $455 million associated with that initiative is for kaupapa Māori services, recognising that while most Māori continue to access mainstream services, kaupapa Māori are becoming increasingly important. So we’re going to grow our kaupapa Māori services, so that people can find support where they would normally go in the community to find support: through community development agencies, through youth one-stop shops, through their GP, through kaupapa Māori services, and so on.

Of course, beyond that, we’ve also announced a suicide prevention strategy. Of course, there was a gap. That last one ran out in 2016. Again, He Ara Oranga said that we needed to get one in place sooner rather than later. That is now in place, and there is support for the bereaved associated with funding in the Budget, because that has never been supported in the past adequately. Beyond that, we’ve announced the Suicide Prevention Office, which will drive accountability across the sector. We’ve announced a Mental Health Commission and the initial commissioners for the interim period—another promise delivered on. There are so many promises that we’ve delivered on already in health. A very busy Government, and a big mess we are cleaning up.

Hon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua): This is almost like comedy hour. The last speaker in this debate, David Clark, said there were so many promises delivered on. Well, this isn’t the year of delivery; it’s a year of non-delivery. That Minister in health can’t even arrange for babies in Lumsden in the South Island to be delivered in a hospital. He stands in front of us and he talks about the National Government. Well, what he doesn’t tell anybody is $16.8 billion of extra, additional funding was invested in health by National over the last nine years—$16.8 billion. You know what we’ve seen over the last two years under this Minister as the health Minister? See, National Party in Opposition had to drag him, kicking and screaming, towards an announcement on cancer treatment in New Zealand.

What he’s announced, amongst a few other things, is a very small amount of extra money at the same time having delivered a cut for Pharmac—less money for Pharmac. He’s announced slightly more than a working group: an agency, but an agency after two years. Well, where were you, Minister, for the last two years, when New Zealanders were wanting you to deliver on your promise of better health service and better delivery and cancer treatment for New Zealanders? That’s right; we hear nothing at all, as the door slams on New Zealanders who deserve more—$16.8 billion under National. What do we hear from the Minister? He’s bought a whole lot of helicopters. Actually, when it comes to emergency services in New Zealand, the Government doesn’t own a single helicopter. They don’t own them; the private sector and their trusts do.

You know how they’ve got a few more helicopters? They have canned services. They got rid of the rescue helicopter in Rotorua that was paid for by the people of Rotorua through fundraising. Did he turn up? No, he didn’t. He said to the people of Rotorua, “If you want your answer, look at the slamming door.”, because, actually, when it comes to delivery in the health service, this Minister is the Minister of deferred achievement, and that’s just not good enough for New Zealanders.

Actually, this was the “botched Budget”. It was a botched Budget, and it’s leading to a botched economy. Do you know, when they talk about wellbeing and caring, what was the first piece of legislation passed under this Budget in urgency?

Rt Hon David Carter: Bet it was a tax. It’d be tax.

Hon TODD McCLAY: It was a tax increase. So they care so much about New Zealanders that they went into urgency, and the very first thing they did to show New Zealanders they care—they put taxes up, and it was on petrol. Now what we’re going to hear is, actually, the reason petrol is so expensive in New Zealand is all the things that are happening overseas. Well, actually, what we heard from the Prime Minister today is that the reason that GDP has fallen from 4 percent growth under National to around 2 percent, if they’re lucky—it’ll only be 2 percent, because, over the last two weeks, they haven’t been paying attention to the economy. So actually, businesses’ confidence has probably gone up, because the Government have been so useless in this area. So what did the Prime Minister say? The reason the economy’s slowing is because she can’t control African swine flu in China, and I agree with her.

Now, the only reason we know that she is sure of this is that she didn’t promise it at the last election. What we’ve heard from the Prime Minister as the reason the economy is slowing is because of what’s happening in Iran. The reason, she said, the economy is slowing is because of uncertainty around Brexit, and, of course, the reason the economy is slowing is uncertainty because of a trade war between the US and China. Well, to the Prime Minister: none of those things are correct, and none of them are true, because, if you look at what our export sector is doing, exports are at record levels.

This is a Government that inherited a strong economy—4 percent growth, falling unemployment, benefit numbers going down as more people were being trained and going to the workforce—and what have they done in two years? Created more uncertainty in the business community than existed during the global financial crisis. Now, the Prime Minister is right: her Government’s not responsible for the global financial crisis. But they’re responsible for the business community having less confidence than when the whole world’s economy was up against the wall, and that’s, frankly, not good enough.

So what we’ve been having this year between the Prime Minister and Simon Bridges, as Leader of the Opposition, is not a debate or an argument about whether the economy is slowing—the Prime Minister accepted that—it’s a debate and argument about who’s responsible. If you look at this Budget—the “botched Budget”—clearly, responsibility sits on that side of the House, with this Government.

You know, you say to the Prime Minister that you can’t go out and just make decisions like “Let’s go out and get rid of all exploration for gas in New Zealand.” because you want to flip off to Paris and talk to a number of your international friends and make a great big grandstanding speech, and it doesn’t have an effect upon confidence in New Zealand. Go to Taranaki, where, actually, they are in favour of exploration for gas because it’s good for their economy, and what do we see in this Budget: $20 million to replace the lost revenue that that part of regional New Zealand will lose. You know, there are people who had invested there and who were buying houses there and their kids were going to school there. Well, $20 million to look for some other type of energy just won’t make it.

We have seen uncertainty around tax increases, and, to the credit of the Opposition, the Government didn’t go ahead with their capital gains tax. It wasn’t in this Budget, not because they didn’t want to, but because they got rattled and they got scared because they saw what it was doing to their polling numbers. But you can’t promise it, then say you won’t do it, then promise it again, say you won’t do it, then actually come forward and ask Michael Cullen, the man that will always find more tax for a Labour Party, to put together a group to come forward with a Government report that proposes it—18 months of uncertainty of people in New Zealand not knowing whether, if they invest in their businesses, if they buy another house, or if they have a small lifestyle block, they will be hit by the Labour taxman—and then, all of a sudden, say “We’re ruling it out, and that’s it.” In the very next breath, the Prime Minister said that she had always been in favour of a capital gains tax, but it was just not possible at the moment.

Well, do you know what New Zealanders know? Because it is a Budget, you just can’t trust Labour on tax. You can’t trust them to deliver their promises. You can’t trust them on tax, because the very first bill and piece of legislation passed in the “botched Budget” was not about wellbeing; it was about a tax increase.

When we were in Government, in our last term in Government, there were 10,000 jobs a month being created—jobs for hard-working Kiwis to get ahead and to deliver for their families. There have been months this year where we went backwards, where the economy was actually doing so poorly that fewer jobs were being created than were being lost—

Hon Julie Anne Genter: What’s unemployment, Todd?

Hon TODD McCLAY: —10,000 jobs a month. Well, the Minister over there—the “Minister of Everything But Having People Allowed to Drive at the Speed that They Should or They Want to on Our Roads”—asks what’s happened to unemployment. It’s really straightforward. There are businesses up and down New Zealand who are crying out for workers, skilled and unskilled. They need them to pick the fruit, to work in their factories, to—I don’t know. It’d be good to build a couple of roads—there would be some. What happens? We’ve seen the unemployment benefit numbers go up by 15,000. They were falling under the last Government because jobs were being created. So that’s right: unemployment levels, through the statistics, are at a record low because that party and the Government opposite inherited a strong economy with a falling unemployment rate.

But I tell you what will happen next year: all of the predictions from the experts around the country of a slowing economy will come true. The ANZ has just said that later this week, there’s a 30 percent chance that in the second quarter of this year our economy was going backwards and GDP growth had fallen below zero. I hope that hasn’t happened. I hope that hasn’t happened, because it’s a bad signal for the economy, and it’s an even worse signal for businesses who want to invest and they want to grow. But it’s the ANZ that have said this, and if that is the case and if our GDP growth rates are not on the way up and if they are falling, it’s got nothing to do with African swine flu and it’s got nothing at all to do with Iran. It’s purely all of the decisions that have been made by that Government opposite.

I would say, finally, that there are some signs of optimism around as spring comes. We know that in the kiwifruit industry, they are feeling very, very good. But I would say to every member over there: get off your chuff, get out of your list places in some of our electorates, and talk to businesses. They need workers. They need a plan. They don’t need a “botched Budget”. They need a growing economy. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Hon SHANE JONES (Minister of Forestry): It is time to inject some optimism, time to inject some facts into this—well, to the extent that it’s a debate, it’s contesting ideas, because the ideas that I’m about to elaborate upon lie at the heart of the legislation empowering this side of the House to take stewardship with $97 billion worth of expenditure. Our economy is about $300 billion, so let’s just very modestly go through some of the highlights.

A key feature of New Zealanders’ sense of wellbeing is whether or not they feel secure, whether or not they feel confident that in the event—God forbid—of some element of criminality, some offences committed, then they can call the police or they can see a greater level of visibility in terms of our police force. Now, these kinds of developments and these issues don’t loom large in terms of the media’s coverage of what we’re doing, but the numbers do not lie: an inordinately larger number of sworn police officers, trained police officers.

Now, it is a sad indictment that as we pick up the pieces from the last regime, we’ve inherited in that particular area an awful legacy of neglect to come to terms with the drugs and the P culture. Now, I give this speech, obviously, as a Cabinet Minister but also as a Māori. If there’s an area where we wished there had been a more robust approach and a host of more critical interventions in rural New Zealand, we are now left to pick up the pieces because, Lord knows, the downside of having allowed the gang culture and the P culture to spread is very, very costly and it’s cruel, and having more police officers actually is a key feature in terms of dealing to the supply side.

I want to now turn to the infrastructure space. For a long period of time—in particular, the last regime of nine years—they had an infrastructure consultation committee. It was located in some obscure corner of the empire otherwise known as Treasury. It came to this side of the House—and I have to say that as a consequence of the obvious emotional quotient I have, I secured the support of the other side of the House to create an infrastructure commission, but behind that commission lies a whole lot of infrastructure projects that I will now elaborate upon.

For nine years and beyond that, KiwiRail was the unknown political cousin, economic cousin, held at bay in the attic of the National Government. It has now come out into the open. It is now being substantially funded by nigh on $500 million just from the Provincial Growth Fund—of course, I’ll have more to say about that very shortly—so at long last, we’re renovating KiwiRail. We’re building tracks to the future which will enable the relocation of business and industry and the expansion of employment in neglected areas.

We don’t have this cult-like mentality that you’ve got to tarmac your way to prosperity. We think that there’s a place for coastal shipping, for rail, and for roads. We actually prefer the integrated approach, which is why in some parts of the country, unfortunately, there’s a lemming-like effect. People are listening and, unwisely, following empty promises with no pūtea—no money.

Now, I’ve heard a number of the rural MPs make these bold promises that they’re going to four-lane certain regions into a high quality of prosperity, but where is the money? With $4.5 billion and a system that we pay as we go, and the promises that were made at the last election, I guarantee you’ll hear those promises again next year: no pūtea—no money. So if you contrast what this Budget represents in terms of infrastructure: this time around, a huge amount of money put aside for KiwiRail. Now, I know that there are antagonists and there are people very hostile, on the other side of the House, to rail. I will gladly contest that space at the end of next year politically, but at the moment I’m too busy taking responsibility for driving the development of KiwiRail, with my colleagues, and allocating the pūtea. It is quite tiring work. Let me just elaborate as to when, most recently, we’ve done that.

So there are allegations that this is not the year of delivery. Helensville may not loom large in the mind and the consciousness of the other side of the House. Of course, part of that town’s name, Helen, does loom large over here, but the less said about that the better at the moment. The actual fact of the matter is not only are we remedying historical neglect; we are opening up vast new opportunities. Of course, in the paper today I observed that the Provincial Growth Fund has made an allocation of several million dollars to Northport to begin the relocation process of the naval presence and all the assets that it represents out of that valuable site in Auckland. We’re starting, with our due diligence, to effect the relocation of the dry dock facility, which will be sorely needed as the bigger vessels come into the naval fleet, as we seek to replace the interisland ferries, and as we seek to create an Australasian commercial hub for that part of the maritime industry. But that takes boldness. That takes an appetite for risk, something that was, sadly, absent on the other side of the House.

Now, let’s just quickly move through a sum of $3 billion—1 percent of GDP—a massive financial impulse. By the time that this House rises for the next election, and in the event that there’s munificence in the mind of the treasurer—highly unlikely—I would like to add to that $3 billion and dedicate it to infrastructure as we prepare for the next Budget. But, of course, those things are shrouded in a level of secrecy denied the other side of the House because we won and they’re in Opposition. So you don’t get to know that information, irrespective of how you exaggerated certain leaks earlier this year. Now, that was a tiny episode where people mistakenly thought on the other side of the House that they’d won Lotto. No one remembers that. No one even gives it a second thought—a tiny, small episode which has largely been forgotten about.

Now what people are focused on out in the provinces is us working very effectively with the leaders of local government—funding their key projects. Just go to Tai Rāwhiti. Go to Southland. For a long period of time, despite the National Party complaining unwisely and with great factitiousness—there’s no threat to whitebait. The only white-baiting going on down there is trying to pick on the local Pākehās. Now, that’s probably not a good idea.

Southland—handsome endowments already announced there. Then go to West Coast—fantastic endowment. I’m not responsible for the fact that the Mongolians—Simon Bridges’ new friends—bought the local dairy company. I didn’t do that. He might know about African flu in China, given he’s spoken about every single thing in his interview about China. Actually, I know a lot of backbenchers are angry about Simon for doing that interview.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: This hasn’t actually got a lot to do with the Estimates.

Hon SHANE JONES: Oh, very well, OK. Well, I’ll leave that matter to my leader, who’s probably more authorised to speak about such matters, perish the thought.

Now, let’s go further. For the edification of the members of the other side of the House—which may be of some assistance when they go out to the provinces—we have funded artificial intelligence. We often see evidence of it on the other side of the House in terms of artificial attempts to come up with policies and ideas and philosophies that will take the country forward.

More recently we’ve put money into roads, because I’m a pro-road politician. We’ve put hundreds of millions into the roads associated with Te Tai Rāwhiti. That particular area has been starved for a long period of time while the roading money was sucked out of the more provincial, marginal areas and plonked right into the middle of the Waikato. They have feasted long enough, hard enough, richly enough; now we are effecting a redistribution of that roading pūtea. In Tai Rāwhiti, it is running up into hundreds of millions. In addition to that, we are going to restore the robustness and the usefulness of maritime infrastructure so more Kiwis can earn their living from the interface between the land and the coast.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: It’ll be nice to see some.

Hon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central): Well, this Estimates should actually not be called “Tracks to the future”; it should be called “Back to the future”. That’s right, because we have a Government that is more ideological than we have seen in decades.

It is important that I set out the context of this Estimates with regard to former Governments. When we look at the previous Government—and Budgets don’t lie—we were handed a decade of deficits. That’s right. We had the Canterbury earthquakes. Now, despite this, we saw 10,000 more jobs a month. The economy was growing. We saw Māori and Pasifika achievement rising. We saw a significant drop in crime. That’s right; with the toughest fiscal circumstances in a generation, this was a Government that left this Government with a growing economy and some social indicators improving.

So what have we got here? We’ve got a Government—and ultimately, Governments are kicked out when they lose the trust of the people. What have we seen over the last few weeks? We’ve seen major issues of trust and leadership, and I would argue that this Budget sets out very clearly a few reasons why. The first reason is that in this Budget, ultimately, there is nothing for the economy. That’s right; we’ve got an economy that is slowing, despite the former Government having 10,000 per month. The reason for that is—and the Government can’t hide behind things like the international circumstances. It has to own up to these things. It has to own up to the fuel taxes: 24c. It has to own up to Draconian employment law. This Government has to own up to cancelled infrastructure projects.

We can see that in this Budget. We can see that in the education infrastructure underspend. That’s right; we’ve got tens of millions of dollars that the Government can’t even spend on schools and classrooms. We can also see that in plummeting business confidence. I saw the other day, in terms of Auckland business confidence, a 25 point drop. So what we’ve got is a situation where New Zealanders are increasingly not trusting this Government on the economy because of their failed policies: increases in fuel taxes, Draconian employment law, the skates put on a number of infrastructure projects, including roads, and not even being able to deliver the basics around school property—that’s new schools and new classrooms.

The next reason why this Budget is a botched Budget and it is a failure is what I call false hope—false hope on the major flagship areas that this Government campaigned on. Firstly, KiwiBuild: it was supposed to be 100,000 houses. Literally, a few hundred houses have been built, and next minute it’s cancelled. One of the biggest reasons why I saw that a group of young people did vote for this Government was on the principle that Jacinda Ardern was going to be Robin Hood and redistribute to the next generation. Well, they choked on capital gains tax, they’ve scrapped KiwiBuild—

Dr Shane Reti: Fees-free.

Hon NIKKI KAYE: —ultimately—and we’re going to get to fees-free; I acknowledge my colleague Shane Reti—major flagship programmes, false hope, canned.

Fees-free—let’s talk about fees-free. Again, massive PR campaign about how fees-free was actually going to mean free education for everyone. What we know with Labour is pretty much divide it by 10 and that’s what you’ll get, and this is what we saw with fees-free. Miraculously, they’re not talking about the second and third year. Miraculously, they’re not now talking about actual take-up in participation, to the extent that in this Budget a number of those funds that were allocated for fees-free have now been put into vocational reform, which nobody agrees with. So, again, major flagship policies botched and canned.

The next thing that is a hallmark of this Budget is a Government that can’t be trusted, not only because its flagship policies have failed and the economy is tanking but also because it can’t fulfil its basic promises and it can’t deliver. So if we take the education area—we’ve got 37 broken promises that have not been delivered, and it’s not OK, Shane, to say that this is because it was a decade of neglect. The reality is this Government was left with extraordinary circumstances in terms of the economy, with growing surpluses and a growing economy. So the reality is that this is a Budget of broken promises, whether it’s the early childhood education ratios, whether it’s 100 percent qualified teachers, whether it is, actually, the donations policy—again, another example whereby Labour say one thing and promise parents that, somehow, donations are going to be scrapped, then next minute it’s deciles 1 to 7 and it’s a very complicated policy and it won’t actually cover all costs. Typical Labour—they break their promises and they can’t be trusted.

This is a Government that is the most flaky when it comes to policy and delivery. The reality is there are huge amount of slogans, and there’s enough in a line item to make sure they sprinkle a bit into communities so they hear the headline. But when it comes to actual delivery, actual infrastructure, be that road, be that rail—under the last National Government, actually, in infrastructure, let’s take Auckland, my electorate. The Victoria Park tunnel—talked about for decades but actually delivered under National. Electrification of rail was delivered—yes, that is public transport—under National. The City Rail Link—put up, again, under National. This is a Government that is failing on infrastructure, despite billions and billions left for them by the previous Government.

I mean, ultimately, what New Zealanders are saying to me is that when it comes to this Budget and these estimates, how could they be so incompetent? That’s the feeling that I’m getting from New Zealanders. How could the Government be left an economy that was growing—strong business confidence, social indicators heading in the right direction—be handed piles of cash in capital and operating areas, and then somehow not even be able to deliver their basic promises, but also see the country going backward from an economic perspective and also from a housing perspective? We’ve seen waiting lists increase in a number of areas. Learning support is one area which I’ll be talking about shortly where, again, the promises don’t match the delivery.

So from National’s perspective, when we look through this Budget we put aside the PR spin and we say: is this a Government that can ultimately deliver, or has a record of delivering, their promises? The first answer to this question is no. Education is an example, and you can go to Labour’s report card online and see the 37 promises that haven’t been delivered. The second question we ask is: on the major flagship areas like fees-free or KiwiBuild, have they demonstrated that they can do the mahi and deliver major projects that are flagship, that are crucial to why people voted for them? The answer is no, to the extent—and we’ll see it in the next Budget—that they’re having to cancel programmes like KiwiBuild. Then the third question that we ultimately ask of them is: are they able to commit to their promises? This Budget, in the area of education alone, is a great example where they can’t. So they’ve put a little bit of money around careers plans, but, actually, the School Leavers’ Toolkit—they promised $197 million in this Budget; there’s a couple of million. Again, donations reform—it was going to be all deciles, but in this Budget it’s deciles 1 to 7. Again, when you look at the infrastructure spend—and we heard today, the Minister was out there talking about the last National Government. The reality is we left them $4.85 billion in school infrastructure, and in this Budget alone the Prime Minister and the Minister of Education are admitting they have 50 percent of the money that they need for growth.

I mean, ultimately, Budgets are a window to the soul of a Government, and in that window to the soul is etched what they see are their priorities, but it is also etched whether they deliver on their promises. We would argue, on this side of the House, that not only have they provided false hope but they’ve botched all of the major flagship policies that they promised. They’ve left a litany of broken promises, and I would argue that the emperor has no clothes.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Associate Minister of Transport): I’m going to start my contribution to this debate by reading from an article that was published nearly a year ago—eleven months ago: “The world’s leading climate scientists have warned there is only a dozen years for global warming to be kept to a maximum of 1.5C, beyond which even half a degree will significantly worsen the risk of drought, floods, extreme heat, and poverty for hundreds of millions of people. The authors of the landmark report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released on Monday say urgent and unprecedented changes are needed to reach the target, which they say is affordable and feasible although it lies at the most ambitious end of the Paris Agreement pledge to keep temperatures between 1.5C and 2C.”

Now, we are seeing a rise globally and here in New Zealand in demand for action from our young people, and that is right. Our Budget this year isn’t just about the immediate wellbeing of New Zealanders; it’s got to be about the future wellbeing of our children and their children, the long-term prospects of New Zealand to respond to climate change, to mitigate by reducing our dangerous carbon emissions, and to adapt to the changes that we already know we will face that will affect our farmers, our food production, our infrastructure.

This Budget has significant commitments that start us on the pathway to where we need to go. There are huge opportunities, and I particularly want to refer to transport, because transport infrastructure is one of those areas where we have everything to gain and nothing to lose by investing in those modes of transport that are going to enable more people and more goods to move around our country while reducing pollution. In transport, in this Budget, we had a significant commitment to rail that we haven’t seen in decades. I refer to the previous Minister for Infrastructure’s speech on the amount of money that has been invested in KiwiRail—just this morning, the Minister of Transport and the Auckland mayor announced a new interchange at Puhinui station, which is going to result in a high-speed bus link through Puhinui that will link up the airport and east and south Auckland to the southern rail line. It’s that type of infrastructure which was not funded under the last Government. That project would not have happened if we had not had a change in Government, but it will result in significant improvements into the ways that people visiting Auckland and people living in Auckland can move around their city.

There is a need for much more, and that is why our Government policy statement on transport, which lays out the priorities and the funding levels for each three-year transport budget period, the National Land Transport Programme, identifies these priorities—using the infrastructure we have, improving it, making it safer, ensuring that we’re making best use of our rail corridor so that more goods can move by rail, and getting those big heavy trucks off the road which damage the road and make it less safe. Of course, there’s still going to be a need for trucks, but the more we can move on rail, the better for our existing road network. The same goes for public transport in our cities; of course, our major cities are the ones that currently have the biggest improvements in public transport, but there’s no reason why medium-sized and smaller cities can’t have frequent, fast, reliable bus services, and that’s something that we will be working on in the coming years. Safe walking and cycling—our children have a birth right to walk and cycle safely. In order for that to happen, we need to ensure that we have the infrastructure there that means that there’s safe and appropriate speeds around their schools and around the places where they live, but, also, on those arterial roads with higher levels of traffic, that there’s that safe, separated infrastructure.

That’s not just a benefit for the climate. Yes, it’s a benefit for the climate if we can have more kids walking and cycling to school, if we can have more goods moving by rail, if we can have more people at peak hour moving by public transport. That’s good for the climate, but it’s also just good generally. It’s good for public health. It means our kids learn more; because they’re more active, they can be more independent. It’s good for our air quality and our water quality. It costs less money—and this should be obvious, although I have to explain it quite a lot to members of the Opposition. It is way cheaper for people to make short trips by bicycle or by foot or for more people to share a bus or a train than for every individual to have to go in their own car. The infrastructure required is less, the cost of running it is less, it saves individuals money, it saves businesses money, and it saves the country money.

Because there has been a lot of confusion coming from the Opposition, I feel the need to come with some graphs to show exactly what is happening and set the record straight on transport funding. The blue line here is the transport budget from 2011-2015, the darker blue one is 2015-2018, and the green one is from 2018-2021. Now, as you can see, this Government is spending slightly more on State highways over three years than the previous Government did in the previous two Budgets. Now, that makes sense, because there’s more money in the Budget and because there are more people travelling, but this doesn’t tell you about how we’re spending it, so I will get into that.

What you can also see is that we’re spending significantly more on local roads. Local roads carry half of our traffic. Half of our car and truck trips are on local roads. The previous Government were so focused on delivering just seven motorways over nine years. You know, in 2009, they announced seven motorways, two of which had been committed by the previous Government. The next five, two of them aren’t even complete yet. So they didn’t manage to deliver seven roads in nine years, but they did spend the vast majority of the transport budget on those extremely expensive roads which only carry 4 percent of all vehicle trips. It’s an extremist transport policy. It’s one that is pouring all of the money into just a few stretches of road, and letting the local roads—where the traffic actually is—just languish without the investment and without the maintenance and safety improvements that were needed. So we’ve significantly increased spending.

If the members are interested: we had a 51 percent increase in local road improvements; a 12 percent, at least, increase in local road maintenance; and in State highway maintenance, an almost 20 percent increase—that has meant that over 2,000 kilometres of State highway, additional, have been maintained just in the last year.

Of course, people out there in New Zealand are still going to see potholes on the roads. Why? It’s because under nine years of the last National Government, they sweated the assets and they didn’t invest in road safety and they didn’t invest in maintenance where it was needed. And that is why the road toll rose inexorably between 2013 and 2017—no one can deny that. The Opposition cannot deny that despite record amounts of spending on a few small State highways, the number of people dying and being seriously injured on our roads increased. That is because the money was not being spent all across the road network; it was only being spent, primarily, on seven extremely expensive highways.

We have increased the money for road policing and safety promotion, and we have massively increased the money that is going into public transport, rail, and rapid transit infrastructure. That makes sense, because that gives people choice. That’s where I have to say that this Government is absolutely committed to giving New Zealanders more choice when it comes to transport, because it’s the right thing to do: it’s the right thing for the environment and the climate, and it’s actually the right thing for Kiwis’ back pockets.

Now, it is very easy for the Opposition to confuse people on this issue and to mislead, and they have been doing so in regular social media attacks, but I think New Zealanders deserve to know the truth. The truth is that this Government has an extremely balanced transport plan, one that will invest for the future, for our children’s children. We’re already seeing, luckily, some curbing of the deaths and serious injuries, and we haven’t even begun to truly invest in the road safety improvements. We have the road safety strategy, Road to Zero, out there. It’s just come back in from consultation—very strong support from New Zealanders, Kiwis, right around. I am absolutely committed to ensuring that we have an evidence-based and balanced approach.

Although the Opposition has claimed that we’re looking at blanket speed-limit reductions, there is nothing true to that claim. Every time I sit down with ordinary New Zealanders from right around the country or people who work in the freight industry, and I explain to them what our transport policy is, do you know what they say? They say, “Well, that just makes sense.” And it does—it just makes sense. It’s exactly what New Zealanders would expect. It’s what a responsible Government does. We don’t go out and mislead, we don’t have extreme impositions, we don’t hate anyone, and we are investing not only for the Kiwis of today but for the future.

I’m very proud of this Budget and the steps we’ve begun to take in the right direction, but it will take a few more years to undo the damage that was done under the nine years of the last Government and their extremist transport policies and their negligence.

Rt Hon DAVID CARTER (National): For those people stuck in traffic, listening to this debate, north and south of Auckland: that contribution that has just concluded was from the Hon Julie Anne Genter, the Associate Minister of Transport. So if you’re stuck in traffic, then consider carefully every word you’ve just heard from the Hon Julie Anne Genter.

In question time today, we actually had our finance person ask the Labour finance Minister, Grant Robertson, to name one roading project that has been commissioned, and is under way, by the Labour - New Zealand First - Green Government.

Hon Member: What was the answer?

Rt Hon DAVID CARTER: The answer was a babble of words that said absolutely nothing, but it equalled the fact that Grant Robertson couldn’t name one single roading project that is under way. So for the people listening, stuck in traffic: for the next 12 months, nothing will get any better until you get a chance to vote this dreadful Government out.

We’re here in the appropriation debate, and I want to take the opportunity to acknowledge the contribution from the Hon Shane Jones, because he said, in his contribution, “No one remembers the delivery of the 2019 Budget.” So I’m going to take the opportunity to remind everybody about the delivery of the 2019 Budget, because it’s the only Budget that I’ve ever known where the Minister of Finance was too ashamed to deliver his own Budget, and he got the Leader of the Opposition, the week beforehand, to start dribbling out bits of information, and leaked the Budget via the announcement on the Treasury website. It was a dreadful Budget. It’s been called the Wellbeing Budget. It was completely botched by the Labour Government, and even Grant Robertson doesn’t want to spend much time debating it today.

We’ve had this debate; it’s a regular on the parliamentary calendar. Normally, the Prime Minister would make a contribution to the debate; she hasn’t so far. I suspect—if I follow the media and the media is accurate—she’s actually unlikely to make a contribution to this debate today, because, I’m told, the Prime Minister’s already on her way to Japan for the Rugby World Cup. Now, I equally know that the Rugby World Cup’s first game is Saturday, and today is Tuesday. I think when New Zealand—

Hon Julie Anne Genter: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought we weren’t supposed to refer to the absence of members from this Chamber.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: That’s right. He hasn’t. He’s close—he’s close—but he hasn’t actually said that she’s not in the Chamber.

Rt Hon DAVID CARTER: Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. The point I’m making is that you would expect the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern to want to make a contribution on her Budget. But, no, things haven’t been tidy for the Labour Government over the last week. So go and watch the rugby, go four days before the game actually plays, but I say to the Prime Minister: Prime Minister, you can run from the current scandal of the Labour Party but you cannot hide from it.

This Budget is a Budget of high taxes, it’s a Budget of wasted spending, and it’s a Budget of promised spending but with no detail. I’ll give the House one example of the final of those three, the spending without detail: the huge announcement, the wonderfully acclaimed announcement of $1.9 billion on mental health. And I thought, “That’s a good initiative. It probably should have been done by earlier Governments.”, but then I was astounded to find out that there is absolutely no detail at all on how that huge amount of money is going to be spent. After the Budget, the Government then embarked on another roadshow going round New Zealand, talking to people in the mental health area, saying, “We’ve appropriated $1.9 billion but we don’t really know how to spend it. Would you give us some help?” So that’s an example of the amateurish way the Budget was put together.

I mentioned also it was a Budget of wasted spending, and I can look no further than the Hon Shane Jones with his $3,000 million slush fund, which is nothing more than an attempt by New Zealand First to spend taxpayers’ money to buy votes for the next election. And I can say to Shane Jones—the Hon Shane Jones—yes, the Minister knows how to spend the money, but I guarantee today that he doesn’t know how to get the votes. So $3 billion spent and sprayed around New Zealand and the photo opportunities for the man who claims he’s the champion of the provinces won’t assure the Hon Shane Jones of a pathway back into this House after the next election and nor should it.

And then the final point about the Budget was the fact that it’s a Budget again of high taxes. As the Hon Todd McClay reminded us, after the urgency motion followed the Budget what was the first legislation the Government slammed through this House in urgency but, again, two more fuel tax increases. So you’ve got the Prime Minister today suggesting that all of the promises around fuel taxes, the concern about the price of fuel for New Zealanders, are more associated with international events and recent events in Saudi Arabia. That’s not right: approximately half the price of fuel today—when those Auckland people finally get home with their tank nearly empty after they’ve been stranded on the motorways, when they fill up next time, approximately 50 percent of that money goes into the Government coffers in the form of taxes.

The point I want to make finally is the current attack by this Government on the part of the economy that’s performing. So we have an economy that’s now straggled with low confidence. We have an economy that’s growing at half the rate that it was when Labour became the major party in the Government. We have GDP figures out on Thursday, and whilst I say the growth rate is half, it may prove to be less than that. And the Prime Minister and Grant Robertson continue to blame international reasons entirely for the declining New Zealand economy. I accept part of that argument, but the greatest reason the New Zealand economy is slowing is because business has no confidence in this Government. You’ve got the Reserve Bank Governor, Adrian Orr, now reducing the official cash rate to 1 percent—we haven’t seen that since the global financial crisis—and the likelihood he’ll have to reduce it further, and the Governor of the Reserve Bank out there actively encouraging businesses at this price “Go and borrow.”, and the businesses aren’t prepared to do so, because they are worried about this Government and this Government’s management of the economy.

Yet the sector that’s performing and performing well is our primary sector. Our terms of trade are good. So what do the Hon David Parker and the Hon Damien O’Connor then do? They then attack the primary sector. We’ve got their freshwater strategy, ill-thought-out, rushed and announced, and now there are meetings being held urgently all around rural New Zealand. There were 400 that attended a meeting in Ashburton last week. There wasn’t enough room to accommodate the 400 concerned farmers who travelled from all over Canterbury to try and find out the details from Ministry for the Environment officials. And as if they haven’t got enough to worry about now with the freshwater strategy, we’ve got the zero carbon bill before the select committee as well.

Dr Duncan Webb: Great bill—great bill.

Rt Hon DAVID CARTER: Well, the Hon Shane Jones, the champion of the provinces, says it’s a great bill. Let me tell the Hon Shane Jones he’s got no chance of seeing farmers reducing their methane emissions by 50 percent by 2050. It is not possible. Well, I’m now learning that it wasn’t the Hon Shane Jones that interjected; it was Dr Duncan Webb, that member from Christchurch—he wouldn’t know a farmer if he fell over one. He wouldn’t know a farmer if he fell over one. But let me tell him the way this Government is treating the primary sector will not be forgotten at the next election, and I don’t think the ramifications will only be in rural New Zealand, Dr Duncan Webb; it will be in Christchurch Central as well. So take that smug smile off your face, sir, because you may well be going back to practising law in about 12 months’ time after a very brief experience as a member of Parliament and, frankly, as a member of the Labour caucus, a member like that deserves absolutely nothing better.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Minister of Employment): What a shocking speech from David Carter, a former Speaker who was quite a reasonable Speaker, Madam Speaker—not as good as yourself, of course. But it was a sad speech from that former Speaker. I want to ask him, I want to ask the National Party: who said the other day that this Government did in two years what the last Government didn’t do in nine years? We’re talking about mental health here.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’m sorry to interrupt the member, but I didn’t say this is a split call.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Oh, right. Thank you, Madam Speaker. I was on a roll there, but never mind; I’ll say it again—missed the effect. I ask the question again. We’re talking about mental health here and I know that the former Speaker doesn’t want to hear this. Who said that this Government did in two years what the last Government didn’t do in nine years? That’s the question. They’ve gone out into the communities. They’ve talked to actual people at the front line. The last Government paid nine years of lip service and did absolutely nothing. Who said that? Who said that? The New Zealander of the Year said that, Mike King—Mike King.

So that, basically, does away with all the nonsense kōrero about mental health that the previous speaker talked about—absolute nonsense in terms of this Government’s commitment to mental health. It’s a huge commitment—some agreement on the other side, I’m glad to hear that. When you have a man of that calibre saying how useless—in effect, what Mike really wanted to say was that the last Government were useless in terms of their support of mental health, they didn’t care about it at all, they didn’t support it, they got rid of the Mental Health Commission. And we as a Government are totally supporting that.

I’m so pleased today to be talking about the support that Māori got through the last Budget, and mental health is a huge part of that. So I was very proud of the announcement the other day that our Prime Minister made in terms of us going forward with regards to mental health. We’ve put in an interim commission and we have key Māori representatives and leaders on that interim health commission: none other than Hayden Wano from Tūī Ora up there in Taranaki, who my National Party friend over there from Taranaki—Jonathan, of course, who does a great job up there, might I add. He knows the work that is being done by Hayden Wano, a key part of the new interim commission, Julie Wharewera-Mika, Kendall Flutey—three Māori on there and two good Pākehā too of course: Kevin Hague and Kelly Pope.

This is a crucial commission in terms of overseeing and managing mental health. We need a commission that’ll be accountable to the Government—whoever the Government is. We’ve got so many problems at the coalface, so I’m just so pleased that we have started the campaign in terms of mental health. Māori mental health remains, though, a huge priority in this Budget. So $61 million was appropriated for Māori health for our Māori providers over four years in terms of health and addiction services, $10 million in terms of Māori health workforce, and 1,600 more staff who will be supported over the next five years by this Government. That is a Government that cares about what’s happening in terms of Māori health, and our people out there have been very supportive in terms of the strategy going forward.

Also, what appeals to me, in terms of Māori in this Budget, is Mana in Mahi. Mana in Mahi has been a revelation for this Government. Over 300 young people have commenced employment from Mana in Mahi placements right across the spectrum: in hospitality, in construction, in hairdressing—young people who’ve been written off by society. There has been $49.8 million appropriated over four years, and we’ll be funding up to 1,850 places.

We have a success rate in terms of Mana in Mahi of 80 percent. That’s a success rate to be proud of. Sadly, it’s been a percentage that has been roundly criticised by the National Party, but we are investing in young people who have been written off by society, written off in terms of communities. So I’m incredibly proud of Mana in Mahi and our people participating in it.

He Poutama Rangatahi, of course, is another venture that we are incredibly proud of: $26 million appropriated for that fund, right around the regions, supported by the man from the regions, Shane Jones, in terms of his Provincial Growth Fund. Again, supporting young people at the coalface who have been abandoned. They were abandoned by a National Government, and Māori were abandoned by a National Government.

We came into this job and we saw the minimal investment that the National Party had put into Māori, but we, in our Budget, have put up $571 million in terms of Māori in the next four years. That’s investment that Māori have never seen, and would never have seen under a National Government. We, as a Māori caucus, are very proud of that investment. We’re on the right track. Well done, Grant Robertson and the Māori caucus. Kia ora tātou.

MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): Oh, thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I rise to take my call and follow on from that last speaker, to talk about the issue of mental health. In fact, it wasn’t that long ago that this Government used to use words like “transformational” and “transforming mental health”, but, interestingly enough, with all the firestorm of last week and the sexual assault allegations, what got hidden amongst that? Well, the announcement of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission. Why would you release it that week? I can tell you why: because it’s taken them two years to announce something for the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission. The commission is something that is not only Labour’s but, of course, it was a key plank of New Zealand First for their election manifesto in 2017. Here we are, two years into Government, and they announce their Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission.

What’s the detail around this commission? It’s going to be set up in two years’ time: 2021. Yes, there’s an interim one in place, but I would argue that 2021 would be four years in. This is a Government that made mental health a key election issue. They were going to focus on it, make it transformational, and transform, and here they have a Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission that’s going to take them four years to set up.

It speaks volumes of the problem with the Labour Government, because what Labour Governments do is they come in and they throw money at things, but they have no detail on mental health and they have no plan. Yes, they announced a huge amount of money—$1.9 billion—but, funnily enough, when I asked the Minister how you would break that down, $200 million of it goes into Housing First—potentially, there might be some crossover with mental health there. Three hundred million is going into transitional housing—I think you can start to sense a theme that’s taking course here—$70 million into the establishment of the royal commission into historical abuse, and $100 million into resolving claims of historical abuse. Now, I’m not here to say that any of those announcements are not valid, but my point being, when you reiterate $1.9 billion, the public believes you are spending that in mental health services, and you’re not. Already, of those amounts I outlined, around $700 million of that $1.9 billion is not going towards front-line mental health services.

Now, we in the Opposition want to support the Government on mental health—we’ve joined the cross-party mental health group—but our bottom line is that anything we do in mental health needs to provide more front-line mental health services, to respond to the growing demand. What does this Government do a few weeks ago for their new front-line mental health service? The first announcement is $9 million. To new services? No; $9 million to cover the cost of existing mental health services and GPs. There’ll be no new services delivered with that $9 million. This is the problem: talking big on numbers but, in fact, no detail and no plan. Now, the health Minister is saying, “Oh, hold on, though. We’re thinking it might take four or five years to roll out.”

This is the problem: delay after delay. We had a $6.5 million inquiry that they kicked the can down the road. They delayed the report, and then here we get all this money. What was interesting is that out of all the Budget lines for this $1.9 billion—I went back and checked, because, of course, in 2017, the former National Government announced $100 million for 17 mental health initiatives. How many of them reappeared in Budget 2019? Thirteen out of 17. So they came in, they cancelled 17 initiatives, and relaunched them two years later. They’re initiatives and projects that could be making a real difference on the ground today, to vulnerable New Zealanders. That’s the problem with a Labour Government. They come in, they announce a lot of money, they throw a lot of money at issues, but let’s never forget the State of the Nation Report in the last Labour Government in their last year that said that for all their increased expenditure, they did not increase social progress by 1 percent. It’s clear this Government has no detail on mental health and has no plan.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order. The member’s time has expired.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā. It’s a real pleasure to stand and speak in this debate, and it’s with some pride that I stand here as part of this Government, led by Jacinda Ardern with a group of Ministers around her, who are doing such great work. I’ve been privileged to be made the chair of the Environment Committee, and I was really surprised to hear the Hon David Carter speak in a quite derogatory manner. I don’t mean when he said that he thought I was Shane Jones. What I really mean is when he was trying to drive a wedge between rural and urban. I am a central city MP, but, you know, that’s not to say that I don’t bring to the Environment Committee—and all the work that this Government is doing around that—a real sensitivity to what’s going on there, and a listening ear. It’s very clear in the work we’re doing—he mentioned the zero carbon bill—that absolutely the farmers are on board. They want to play a balanced part in bringing New Zealand to a world, which addresses climate change, because it affects us all. And we absolutely want to have a framework where the best farmland is protected, we adapt appropriately in terms of climate change, and we mitigate as well. So it’s quite inappropriate to try to pretend that New Zealand is not at one here, and we’re all working together there.

What’s more, in terms of what this Government, in this Budget, has done in terms of the environment, protecting our elite soils and sustainable land use, the fact is that we recognise on this side of the House how important the agricultural sector is. Only today we heard of the great results that have come from our primary sector and that, in fact, our trade is flourishing: our kiwi fruit, our honey. Incidentally, our honey exports have skyrocketed on the back of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. On the back of an open market into Japan, our farmers and our primary sector are doing better. I’m really glad that we’re part of that.

So we’ve got research grants so that people can transition into this new low-carbon economy. Of course, the Minister of Revenue very recently introduced research and development tax credits: a universal scheme where people who are innovating and moving our economy into a much more productive sector are going to be rewarded for that by what I must say are very, very generous tax credits. I know that the select committee there has been working on that, making them more easily accessible and more workable, and that’s going to be great as well.

But it’s not just that; of course, this was and is the Wellbeing Budget. It is called “wellbeing” for a reason: focusing not just on a single aspect to what goes on. Money doesn’t make us healthier, but health services, good exercise, a good diet, a strong community—all of those things—make us healthier and contribute to our wellbeing. So it’s time we started joining those things together. As part of that, I was disappointed to hear Mr Doocey be derogatory in respect of the mental health reforms. We are doing much more in this short two years than National did in the nine long years that they let the health service—mental health in particular—languish. It languished and deteriorated.

Of course, we can’t magic up mental health nurses; we’ve got to find them. We’ve got to find the young students who want to train as mental health nurses and rebuild a health sector that deteriorated over many long years. So that’s what we’re doing: we’re putting money into vocational training. We’re tidying up that sector—a sector which was neglected as well. So we’ve got to start on ground zero there as well.

And, of course, addressing properly, for the first time, suicide—the scourge of our society—the scourge that hits our young and Māori and Pasifika most heavily. Introducing a suicide prevention agency—something that that Government could have done but never did. Thank goodness we’ve got a Government on this side that looks to those things. We can’t do it all at once, but we’re doing it. We’re starting it right away. We’re not going to sit on our hands any longer.

Of course, mental health, again, isn’t just about those acute cases. We’re putting in a front-line service so that anyone who has mental health issues can go and get that help at the front line—at the primary level. So whilst we accept there’s huge need in our hospitals—like with Hillmorton Hospital, in Christchurch—equally, people need to be able to access mental health services at their GP as well. We’re doing that as well. In Christchurch—and I know, I hope, elsewhere in the country over time—Mana Ake is an absolutely fantastic initiative; an initiative which typifies the wellness approach in this Budget, bringing, through the education system, through the schools, social workers, educators, and mental health professionals together to bring a cohesive and coherent approach so that we can look at the children who are at risk, who may be suffering anxiety or other moderate mental health issues, and those professionals can intervene there in a way which is appropriate and is right sized so that we can avoid the huge costs—not only money costs but the catastrophe that hits those young people’s lives if those things are not addressed right away—and so that they can learn better, they can be participants in their social networks better and their family better, and, as they grow up, they can go on and lead meaningful lives.

You know, one of the great things about the wellness approach—and something I think that, I hope, we can build on over time—is it doesn’t necessarily say the only thing to do is to enter into the productive workforce; it recognises caring and volunteering as well—those people who are absolute cornerstones of our society but don’t necessarily appear on the GDP figures. They don’t necessarily appear on the employment figures, but they’re out there. They’re engaged in what I consider—and on this side of the House, we consider—to be meaningful work, and they’re absolutely supporting the network of our society.

Our Minister of Health has been working so hard, and he has had to work hard because of the huge deficit that he has been handed. The fact is that our hospital system has been run down, and I still remember as a very new member in this House learning of the huge problems he was having at Middlemore Hospital—a hospital that simply hadn’t been maintained. And, of course, Dunedin: this Government is rebuilding Dunedin Hospital. There is a real need down there for a world-class modern hospital, not a sprawling mess across all kinds of building, downtown there. So that’s a massive spend.

And, of course, we’ve taken action—this Government has taken action—on cancer care. We’ve listened and seen where the need is and taken action by having a cancer agency which can have a coordinated approach so people’s cancer care does not depend upon where they live, does not depend on some kind of lottery, but it will be appropriate, it will be measured, and it will be doctor and therapy led and not based on the basis of cheap party politicking.

But really, the big push here—and our Prime Minister’s push, Jacinda Ardern’s push—is to reduce child poverty, and that’s what we’re doing. We are absolutely reducing child poverty because we see that as one of the biggest barriers. A child living in poverty will struggle.

I mean, even a small thing. It’s from small beginnings, great things grow, and we’re starting with trialling school lunches. That’s fantastic, because we know that nutrition is at the heart of wellbeing. So this Government is going to make sure that those young minds are fed and fed properly, because that’s a critical part.

And also our Families Package: lifting 74,000 children—74,000 children—out of poverty. That is a huge lift. Now, on a family-by-family basis, the payments to you and I may look small, but the fact of the matter is that those payments—whether they be $25 or $75—they will make a huge difference to be able to buy better food, send the kids on school trips, and so on and so forth.

Speaking of that, of course, our move in respect of school donations is well overdue. This is a situation where the framework was broken. The idea that it was a donation on the one side but the schools depended on it on another was absolutely wrong. So we’ve come in and we’ve said, particularly for those schools in the lower deciles, we are going to give them an opportunity to do away with those donations altogether. We’re going to fund them more so that they don’t need to ask and they don’t have to put those families in the invidious position of choosing between school donations and giving their kids what they need—their soccer boots or whatever it might be. So yet another small—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! The member’s time has expired.

IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is a pleasure to take a speaking spot in opposition to the third reading of the Appropriation (2019/20 Estimates) Bill. I know it’s disappointing I’m opposing it, but, none the less, I am. I thought the most interesting factor I’ve heard this afternoon was that you know you’ve got trouble with the Government, when Minister Jones makes one of the more plausible speeches of the day—particularly for the first five minutes, until he started veering off the point. But it is a privilege to speak in a debate like this.

I want to spend some time today speaking about the manner in which many of the so-called structural changes to our economy this Government is looking at introducing are in fact impacting on the very people they’re setting out to assist. I think that’s one of the shames—it is a shame—of the activities of the last Budget and also of some of the legislation that’s been introduced to the House in the meantime.

Some of the things I’m talking about with respect to that are things like the ring-fencing of losses on rental properties, which, effectively, have penalised the very people that drive the New Zealand economy—the tradies: those people who work hard and save a little bit of money and invest in a rental property for their retirement, or for whatever reason they invest in it, only to find they’re now unable to write off their tax against those properties, consequently either having to force the rentals up—and we’ve seen rentals rise by $50-odd a week in the time of this Government. That’s a pretty significant lift in rentals. So that’s the first thing that’s happened as a result of this. The other thing we’re going to see is those people who have historically invested in this put their investment elsewhere—not necessarily in the productive sector, and that’s where the investment needs to go, whatever the productive sector might look like at the time.

The other thing I want to talk about is the proposed introduction of taxes and tax relief on vehicles—again, an area that hugely affects the poorer and less well-off part of our community. Those people that live in rural and provincial New Zealand who have to drive to work every day, they don’t have the kind of income or the opportunity to invest in an electric vehicle. They probably never will have. This, in my view, is tax relief, effectively, for the rich; not tax relief or assistance for those people who struggle in life. Again, this action has impacted significantly on the tradies, the service sector of our economy, and the people that do the work out the back that make the money that drives New Zealand and the Government’s opportunity to do what they want with the tax they take.

Petrol tax, as well, impacts explicitly on those people who have to drive cars, whether they like it or not. We heard the Minister Julie Anne Genter, just a short time ago, going on and on about public transport. Well, most parts of rural provincial New Zealand have no access to public transport and probably never will have. That is the challenge we face in New Zealand, because not only do they have no access to public transport but that’s the very part of New Zealand that produces the income that drives the Government’s opportunity to do stuff—and I’ll get on to that a little bit later as well. But these people have to drive their kids to school, they have to drive daily to work, and they will never be able to afford, most of them, to drive an electric vehicle. Those are the challenges that we face as the result of the activities of this Government.

New Zealand’s job creation has slowed significantly in the last two years, and I think that one could ironically consider that to be fortunate, when you think that we no longer have people to work in many parts of our productive sector, and that’s created by a shortage of people to do that work. So our immigration settings have been not necessarily right; they haven’t necessarily helped us to drive this part of our economy. But none the less, it’s hugely important for both agriculture and many other sectors in our economy, particularly the construction industry and the tourism industry, that we have enough people to do the work in those areas.

I want to speak a little bit about that—again, related to rural New Zealand and provincial New Zealand—and that’s the standard of our education and our provincial or rural secondary schools. That’s not caused by the lack of very good people trying to do that, trying to provide that education; it’s caused by the fact that those schools are challenged by numbers. Unless we find a way of enabling those kids to participate in sport—because they struggle to participate in sport because, frankly, they can’t afford to get there, and when you live in a place like Taumarunui, it’s quite likely you’ve got to travel to Hamilton for sport. Very few people are going to be able to do that. They don’t even have enough kids in these schools to provide a full rugby team or a sporting team in many of these areas. That’s a huge challenge for them. They also struggle, because of the size of them, to provide the opportunity for those kids that every larger secondary school in New Zealand can provide. We need to find ways around that, and that’s one of the reasons that some of our young people face real challenges getting into work and, I think, progressing in life.

When you think of the fact that we’ve put $2.6 billion in the last 18 months into the fees-free scheme, which provides primarily for those people who either could have afforded to put themselves through those courses already or who have had access to an appropriate education that’s given them the opportunity to get on and make their way in life, that’s $2.6 billion which could have been spent in an area of our society, I guess, that would have enabled a whole lot more people to acquire the skills that would enable them to commence that type of education, let alone get into it. So that’s a challenge, I think, that we’ve got in rural and provincial New Zealand, which is not being addressed by this Government and has not been addressed by the spend and the Wellbeing—I suppose—Budget that’s been put in place to get us to this point.

I heard the finance Minister say today that they’ve stepped up. Well, unfortunately, in a lot of areas there’s been no planning behind the step, and I think that’s a shame, because some of the initiatives that we are looking at as a country right now—and I speak about the climate change amendment bill, I speak about the water planning papers that have been put out—they’re all very well, but the work hasn’t been done behind them, and when the work’s not done behind them that creates fear, which creates anxiety, which creates opposition. It’s no doubt that that opposition is going to grow when people, effectively, fear for their future. We’re seeing this not only in the primary sector; we’re seeing it—well, the fishing industry is part of the primary sector. We’re certainly seeing it in the fishing industry, where fishing families who’ve been involved in the business for almost hundreds of years are seeing a very bleak future in front of them. So some of the things we’re doing are being done for the right reasons but in absolutely the wrong way, and we’re seeing initiatives rushed at us at a rate that we can no longer keep up with.

I guess, getting back to the climate change bill, I think the climate change amendment bill, and the commission it sets up, is an absolutely appropriate way of going about things. The problem is the Government’s then rushed a whole lot of targets into there which are subjective—they’ve got no reason for putting them in there—and that, again, has created a whole lot of opposition to a piece of legislation that would have been very good without those targets in it, but certainly has made or created a rash of uncertainty, particularly in our primary productive sector.

Yesterday, we saw Forest & Bird, Fish & Game, and Greenpeace release a report which is clearly misleading. It talks about the 3 percent of GDP that the dairy sector puts into New Zealand. It talks about the 3 percent of people that work in agriculture in New Zealand. It does not make any mention of the thousands and thousands of people who work in the service sector behind it, who live, work, and are educated in rural New Zealand. It doesn’t talk about the 50-odd percent of our cash receipts that come into New Zealand from those sectors. It’s a grossly misleading report, and that is one of the challenges, I think, we are putting on to our productive sector in New Zealand which is creating uncertainty, which creates opposition, and that’s unfortunate, because some of the things that I said that are being done are actually being done for the right reasons.

The last issue I want to talk briefly about is the tree issue, and I accept that a lot of the things we’ve done around trees and the policies that are in place around trees are probably useful for New Zealand, but surely the ability to be able to write off your pollution by planting a tree is completely ridiculous. I think that this is a challenge that we haven’t addressed in New Zealand in a manner we should have done, and we need to do a lot of work on it. We need to do it quickly, because the tree-planting programme is setting a future for us that in 20 years we may well regret significantly. I think we need to give this a lot more consideration, and it needs urgent consideration, because the activities that are going on at present are running the risk of—and I’m not saying they are, because I think that there’s such a lot of work that hasn’t been done in this area, as with many other things this Government have not done. They haven’t done the work on the potential ramifications of the actions that are taking place as a result of the policy that’s been introduced. So there’s a lot more work that needs to be done on that, and I think we have, in the National Party, a policy of the right tree in the right place, basically, and I think a little bit of work on the legislation and the policy around the tree-planting thing will create an opportunity for that to happen, rather than trees just being planted randomly across the country. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn): In amongst the ranting, the shouting, the—well, raving would be a rude word, so I won’t say that, but of Mr McKelvie—the rambling of the speeches that are coming from the Opposition, there is an occasional pearl of wisdom, and I wish to refer to one of those pearls of wisdom that one of the Opposition speakers came out with today, to talk about something very important that relates to this entire debate. It was something that was said by the Hon Nikki Kaye—a beautiful aphorism. She said that Budgets are a window to the soul of a Government. Budgets are a window to the soul of the Government. How true that is, and if we look at the soul that is being displayed by the Opposition today, it’s all about the money, it’s all about the technicalities, it’s all about the machinery, and it is not about the people. That is the difference between the soul of the Opposition and the soul on this side of the House. On this side of the House, we are concerned with wellbeing for all New Zealanders, and it shows very much in our Budget, it shows in the rhetoric from the Opposition, the difference between them and us. On that side of the House, the people serve the economy. On this side of the House, the economy serves the people, and that is a window into our soul and what we are about. Thank you, Nikki Kaye, for that wonderful aphorism.

So if we’re going to look at the economy—something that the Opposition has been criticising us about—let’s look at some of the economic indicators. Our growth rate is slightly down, but it’s holding up well in comparison to our trading partners and it’s holding up well in comparison to the global headwinds. It’s a tough world out there at the moment, and we’re doing well enough in it. The farm-gate milk price is holding up reasonably well: between $6.25 and $7.25 a kilo, depending, but it’s doing quite well. Net Government debt is falling. We are in a better financial position. Unemployment is at an 11-year low. We are getting people into jobs, and, really importantly, Māori and Pasifika unemployment is down too. We are achieving something in that space. The median household income is up. It’s now over $100,000, so we’re doing well in that space.

And if we look at what’s going on with all this, we are actually seeing growing confidence in the business sector. Our services sector is continuing to expand at a greater rate than its long-term average, and there is more spending in the economy. Consumers are confident. The business sector is hiring staff. That’s what’s going on with that falling unemployment rate.

And just in the last few days, the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research has released its consensus forecast for the next three years. Now, it’s polling all the bank economists; not talking to the person on the street necessarily, but trying to get that educated view on what is happening with the economy. In actual fact, it shows that bank economists expect that the economy will go from around about 2.3 percent GDP growth in 2019-20 to 2.7 percent in 2020-21. Now, maybe it would be better if it was higher, maybe not, but the fact is it’s doing well and it’s growing. Retail spending is increasing. Seasonally adjusted retail card spending rose 1.1 percent in August. All this shows an economy that is doing well. Perhaps it could do better, perhaps not, but it is by no means a disaster. In fact, it is a solid performance by this Government in terms of the economy, as Labour Governments always do. So this economy, despite what the Opposition is doing, is doing well.

Moving to the Budget, the Budget that is a window to our soul; it is an ambitious Budget. Why? It’s because it focuses on wellbeing. If we are what we measure, then we need to work out what to measure so that the Budget serves the people of this country. We have chosen this time to present a Wellbeing Budget where we focus on increasing not just GDP, not just the economic indicators but we look at what those economic indicators need to serve, and that is the wellbeing of New Zealanders. When we are asked what is transformational about our Budget, that is what is transformational about this Budget. Not just the dry numbers but what purpose those numbers serve. So that is one reason for why we are very, very proud of this particular Budget.

Like many of us, I want to focus in particular on what we are doing in mental health, because that is especially about the people, and this Budget had a huge emphasis on mental health. We all know that there cannot be a family in this country who is not affected by mental illness; some of us, quite severely so. When we were campaigning in 2017, there was a display that was going around the country: a pair of shoes for everyone who had committed suicide. It was devastating. It just showed how prevalent suicide is in this country. When we spoke to people, they told us that the thing they wanted us most to have a look at was mental health, because it was making a real difference to New Zealanders. And in this Budget, we have responded to that call from the electorate to work on the mental health of New Zealanders, and we have put in place a whole variety of actions to ensure that we do work to improve the wellbeing of New Zealanders through improving their mental health.

Let’s start with the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission, which we talked about just last week. It was announced last week. Did you know that we used to have a Mental Health Commission? We used to have one.

Hon Member: What happened there?

Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: It was shut down in 2012. It was shut down. The previous Government shut down the Mental Health Commission.

Tamati Coffey: That’s outrageous.

Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: It is outrageous. This Government that cares about the people has set it back up again. We’ve got that Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission back in place. Why? It’s because of the need to focus on New Zealanders’ wellbeing.

In response to suicide, we have set up the suicide prevention office. Why? It’s because one suicide is one too many. And that suicide prevention office was explicitly endorsed by Mike King, the New Zealander of the Year. He praised us for that action, and said we really needed to get it going. It’s a really great action under that mental health care. We’re putting in place much greater support for young people to ensure that they thrive and that they are not debilitated by mental illness. The nurses in schools programme is designed, in part, to support the mental health of young people. The Piki pilot is helping 10,000 young people. The Mana Ake programme is in 219 primary and intermediate schools, working on helping young people with their mental health.

We’re helping about 170,000 New Zealanders through the roll-out of mental health providers in GP practices, so that when you or I, our brother, our mother, our employee, or our friend is in need, we go to our GP and that support for mental health is right there. It’s an incredibly important series of measures that shows that this Government is taking the wellbeing of New Zealanders seriously through mental health, and it will be measured. It will be measured through Treasury’s Living Standards Framework Dashboard, looking at the key indicators that show that New Zealanders are thriving. If we are what we measure, then we’re going to try to measure subjective wellbeing, we’re going to measure social connections, we’re going to measure civic engagement—all things that show that people are thriving and their mental health is thriving.

So what this Budget does is it tackles some of our long-term problems. It doesn’t brush them under the carpet or hope they’ll go away, or just, kind of, manage along, day to day, because managing is fine. It takes positive action to address our long-term problems, to put in place solutions that are going to last for 30 years, not just the next three.

After those nine long years of neglect under the National Government, we needed to take some serious action, and here it is in this Wellbeing Budget, which is not just about the dry measures of the economy, which is not just about how many dollars are spent here, there, or everywhere. This Budget is a transformational Budget that is focused on wellbeing and focused on wellbeing for all New Zealanders, because the economy serves the people. That is the soul on this side of the House. We are here for all New Zealanders. This window into our soul is one that I am so proud of.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): Well, what a boring speech. I think that it looked like it had come from some PR from the ninth floor, actually.

Hon Scott Simpson: No passion.

ANDREW BAYLY: Yeah, no passion delivered. It was rather robotic. And if you’re going to be talking about something you really believe in, get into it. Show some passion.

So the question for me is: what do I talk about? You know, there are quite a few different issues. It could be the economy, and I’ve heard the Hon Paul Goldsmith’s talk about that. That’s not going well, you know. Every 1 percent drop in GDP is $3 billion of lost activity in the economy. That means fewer lattes, fewer people being employed, fewer people growing their businesses, taking on staff. Well, I can talk about that.

Nikki Kaye did a pretty good speech around education or certainly highlighted some of the issues there today. And then—oh, actually, I think I’ve got to talk about that wrecking ball, that wrecking ball called KiwiBuild, that slayer of reputations, that thing that has just highlighted one of the biggest issues about this Government, this combined Labour - New Zealand First and the Greens Government, which is that inability to actually do what you’re going to say you’re going to do, that ability to implement, that ability to deliver. That is the issue with this Government. I do not think there is a better example of that than what we’ve seen in KiwiBuild, and it’s wrong, because, actually, in New Zealand we wanted the Government to build some houses. We do need houses—we all recognise that—not only the houses for first-home buyers but the social houses, all that range of things. All New Zealanders wanted it and we wanted them to build houses because there is an issue. We recognise that.

But what have we ended up with? It’s hard to get a handle on it, but I think it’s 258 houses that have been built by this Government in 20 months—in 20 months.

Tim van de Molen: What was their target?

ANDREW BAYLY: The original target—that’s right, Mr van de Molen. The original target—I think it was a thousand, wasn’t it, in the first year, and then 2,000 and then 5,000 and then 10,000. But it’s that slogan. I just heard another slogan before. It’s that slogan: 100,000 homes in 10 years.

This is the issue—this is the issue. They are not even going to get close to it. And, unfortunately, we’ve seen one Minister get shunted off this project because he was very good at claiming and making all these aspersions when he was in Opposition, but actually, in Government, it’s a lot different. And, actually, we’ve now ended up with a mess because, unfortunately, the worst thing that’s happened under this Government is that, by adopting this brand of KiwiBuild and putting so much store in it and then not delivering on it, unfortunately that brand has probably been destroyed. It’ll be a question for us in 2020—what we might do with that brand; whether in fact we want to take it forward and continue with it or whether in fact we need to rebrand it, because we do need to build houses, and we will be building houses.

The interesting thing is that I went to the Registered Master Builders’ Constructive forum last Thursday—

Fletcher Tabuteau: Constructive forum? Are you sure that’s what it was called?

ANDREW BAYLY: Yes, it was. It was, Mr Tabuteau. There were about 600 attendees. These were all people who are developers, large-scale builders, and contractors, and also smaller builders that, obviously, build a lot of houses. It was insightful because these people, after the last election, were hopeful. In fact, many of them said that they were hopeful, but a lot of the undercurrent—and some people were very explicit about it in their speeches, saying how disappointed they were with all the fine rhetoric that had been said up to and after the 2017 election. Where we are now, in 2019, and the absolute lack of clarity, the lack of delivery—and it was slightly sad, but the worst thing: I was there for the session when Ministers Twyford and Salesa were giving a speech about the Government’s objectives going forward. Mr Twyford talked very highfalutin about what they’re going to do around developing economic policy, and then Minister Salesa talked about what she was doing in the building construction industry. I’ve got to say—and I don’t wish it ill—it was actually embarrassing, and I know a number of people said that, and the media reports have said it subsequently.

There were two key issues. One was around procurement practices in general and how they’re carried out both by Government and also by territorial local authorities—and central government procures about $43 billion a year, just to put it in context. So that was the first question: how do we improve procurement practices? But the underlying and the overarching theme was this issue around how risk is allocated appropriately between parties—whether they be central government and the building firm and the developer, or architect and the designer. And this is something that all these people in the industry—and it’s a massive industry; 250,000 people employed in it. This was the central issue for the day. The Ministers were tested repeatedly, and, unfortunately, in many occasions, it showed up that our Ministers, and particularly the Hon Jenny Salesa, did not understand what special conditions were as part of a contracting arrangement. That is where risk allocation is made and assigned in a contract, and I could tell that the 600 people, unfortunately, found out that we do not have people that actually know what they’re talking about in detail about this industry—

Hon Scott Simpson: Just not competent.

ANDREW BAYLY: That’s right; not competent. I think it’s unfortunate because we shouldn’t be having Ministers in that situation, because it is a huge, huge industry, and for that reason I was slightly—I was glad I was down the back; let’s put it that way.

What I would have expected to hear in this industry were things around what we are doing around the shortfall—bringing in and dealing with a shortfall of people in the industry. We need about another 50,000 to 80,000 people, and in figures supplied by the Hon Chris Hipkins, even he acknowledged there’s been only a very small portion. We train about 46,000 apprentices in New Zealand, but the change—the ripping out and the closing down of BCITOs, the building and construction industry training organisations—is something that we are fundamentally opposed to because this is an entity that trains half of our apprentices and does exceptionally well in terms of building the level of apprentices. This proposal to rip that apart and centralise it and have some bureaucrat running it is implacably opposed by us, and I know that many in the industry are very, very concerned about it.

The other issue I heard nothing about in the speeches is consenting issues, and we do have some fundamental issues with consenting. We have delays in terms of people getting building consents, we have delays in terms of getting resource consents, and we have delays in getting issuance of certificates of code of compliance. All of that is holding up the industry, holding up new developments, and if you wanted new houses to come on board, as a Minister that’d be one of the first things you’d focus on, because that’s where the biggest element of delay occurs in terms of starting and commencing projects.

I also didn’t hear anything from the Ministers about encouraging new products and technologies, and we’ve got a CodeMark system in New Zealand that the Australians—we used to do it jointly with the Australians.

Fletcher Tabuteau: It’s still there. It’s OK.

ANDREW BAYLY: They have now walked away from it. The Australians have walked away from it, Mr Tabuteau, and we do not have a CodeMark system that works well, and there are no initiatives around how we might improve it. I heard nothing about warranty statements from suppliers of products that are less risky, which is a key factor the industry is asking for—absolutely zilch from the Ministers because they haven’t done their homework.

Then I heard nothing about off-site manufacturing although there has been lots of rhetoric from this Government about off-site manufacturing. The only first attempt has, unfortunately, been the Stanley Group involvement with the 68 apartments in Māngere. We as a Government, as this Government should have done, should actually support that and underpin that industry quite significantly in terms of making sure that the scale of that industry could get up and running very quickly—but, again, silence.

The last issue, which, again, is most pertinent, is the one around contracting arrangements and looking after subcontractors. Again, just the issue has not been dealt with—not even discussed—and I don’t think that’s appropriate, because subcontractors need to be looked after. At least Nick Smith put in the retentions Act, which has gone some way to protecting them, but nothing from this Government, because it doesn’t know how to implement and deliver an outcome.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): This is a split call. I call Fletcher Tabuteau—five minutes.

FLETCHER TABUTEAU (Deputy Leader—NZ First): Unfortunately, it is a split call, but, look, I just want to say it’s great to see the heavy hitters sitting in the Opposition this afternoon giving their contributions to this meaty debate. It’s been fantastic. Mr Bayly, can I say that you have been the standout contribution of this afternoon. Actually, I do have to say that often you come down to the debating chamber and you feel like you have to raise your voice, and I say that because there the members opposite sit and they refuse to listen. Not only do they have their fingers in their ears, they refuse to listen to facts. So I wanted to very quickly go over a few facts in the House this afternoon and put it to them just how important these bills are.

Now, what I want to do is put that into context very quickly. I admit I missed the first half of this appropriations debate because I was in my office talking to some very concerned, good people who were talking to me about gangs in their region, in their home town, close to their homes. They are worried about gangs. I get angry when I have those conversations, because for nine years the Opposition, when they were in Government, told us they were being prudent and saving a dollar today. And, technically, that is exactly what they were doing. They were putting a dollar aside in their Budget and, technically, saving money. But what does that cost us today? I put it to this House that that dollar saved is costing New Zealanders exponentially in the money that must be invested now to combat these issues. This is exactly what this appropriations bill is having to deal with. It is having to deal with and combat the kind of 80s-style, bean-counting theory from the Opposition, who said that they are not a tax-and-spend Government. Well, they taxed, but they refused to spend it, and they made a commitment that they were going to give a tax cut to their mates. And all of this—all of these problems—we know would have continued.

So I am here to say today that this is an appropriations bill that focuses on and is about the wellbeing of New Zealanders. It is, essentially, what we have always said it would be: a Wellbeing Budget. We say that because we are tackling long-term issues facing New Zealanders, like mental health, child poverty, family violence, homelessness, and, I say, gangs and drugs in our street; a symptom of neglect from the Opposition. We’re doing all of that with a particular focus on our regions, which I am particularly proud of. Here’s the good news for the members opposite—these are the facts for the members opposite: we are balancing record levels of investment from this Government, and, actually, from business. I’m not sure if the Opposition remembers, but it was only a few months ago that the House noted investment from private business was at some of its all-time highest levels. We are maintaining fiscal responsibility, meaning we’re spending within that Budget that we set ourselves.

We are delivering a strong surplus at the same time. We are growing at a rate greater than the average of the OECD, and I put it for the members opposite, who don’t seem to understand long-run average forecasts: actually, this Government will see growth greater—I say it again—average growth greater than that Opposition party saw in their time in Government over the next few years. This is a Government that is delivering, and we’re doing that at the same time that we made a commitment to increase wages in the community, at the same time we’re experiencing record low unemployment.

The doom and gloom merchants opposite forecast that all hell and doom was about to break out because we were going to pay New Zealanders a fair, liveable wage, and we’re working on that trajectory. They said it would all fall apart. Businesses wouldn’t employ people. Yet here we are, the lowest unemployment levels in 11 years, and it’s forecast to continue for the foreseeable future. It is this Appropriation (2019/20 Estimates) Bill and Imprest Supply Bill which are helping this Government to achieve it. It is our policies, it is the hard work of our Ministers and Cabinet, and those outside, it is the hard work of everyone on this side of the House, and I tell you what: I’m incredibly proud to be part of it. Thank you very much.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m pleased to take a call in the appropriation Estimates debate, and, of course, this is about how the Government of the day chooses to spend taxpayers’ money, and they talk a big game. They’ve always talked about being a more kind and caring Government. But the reality is, this Government—Labour, the Greens, and New Zealand First—are failing to deliver for hard-working New Zealanders. I think it’s actually quite appalling, because what they’ve done in a whole range of areas—whether it’s in housing, whether it’s in child poverty, whether it’s in the wellbeing of Kiwi families—is they have, actually, you know, built up these incredibly false hopes, and, unfortunately, many Kiwi families now are starting to see the emptiness of those words. And, whether it’s KiwiBuild—and my colleagues, I know, have traversed this in detail, so I don’t intend to cover it much. But 100,000 houses—that was a big promise, and a promise that was made back in 2012.

We’ve seen also, in terms of families, an increase—15,500 more people on jobseeker benefit, half a million hardship grants, of which nearly 50 percent of those are for food. We’ve seen an increase—8,000 more children, living in benefit-dependent homes, which we know means that they are having a much harder life than we on this side would like them to. The other side said, “No one should need to be accommodated in a motel”. At the time that National introduced them, Labour said they were appalling and they were disgusting. So what do we have? Three thousand people now living in motels. We’ve also had the Minister Phil Twyford say that no one needs to live in a car this winter. Well, guess what! They’re all living in motels, and, actually, there are still people living on the streets and there are still people living in their cars.

So Labour have absolutely failed to deliver on their promises. So actually, you know, the majority of people want to be able to look after themselves and their families. They want to be in work. They want to have a roof over their head and they want to be able to afford to put petrol in their car, and food on the table. Unfortunately, two years into this Government, they’ve realised they can’t be trusted. They’ve realised they cannot be believed, because they are not delivering. So what is some of what’s going on? Some of it, of course, is what we’ve seen in terms of the increase in the cost of living, the fundamental basics around the increases in rent. It’s pretty hard to escape an increasing rent. I heard, unfortunately, a story, just recently, where both a landlord and their tenant were begging not to have to get the extra insulation standards, because they knew it was going to be an impact directly on rent. That was a landlord who didn’t want to have to put the rent up, and the tenant who didn’t want to have their rent increased.

So we’ve seen some very perverse results for families. Petrol; increase again in petrol tax. The Prime Minister says, oh, well, she’s appalled about the price of petrol right now. Well, actually, the Prime Minister tomorrow could reduce excise tax and relieve that burden for Kiwi households.

In terms of the number of jobs, we’ve also seen a significant reduction in the number of new jobs being created, and that has a massive impact on people who want to be in work, who can work, who are able to work and can’t. That’s incredibly frustrating for them and frustrating for their children. Again, if you think about the expectations and hopes that have been created, there’s 27,000 New Zealanders between the age of 18 to 24, that are currently on the jobseeker benefit—18- to 24-year-olds. The Government have dreamed up this initiative called Mana in Mahi. That was originally for 4,000 places. They kicked off with 124, and, unfortunately, a third of them dropped out in that first period of time. Now the Government’s reduced that number to 2,000, and that’s over four years.

So it’s about building up all these great expectations, only to have the Government of the day absolutely prick that bubble; it bursts, and what are people left with? They’re left with less hope, and more frustration at a Government who said, and promised, they would look after them. Actually, the most vulnerable New Zealanders are doing it pretty tough right now—and this is a Government that’s supposedly kind and caring.

So what are some of the things that were promised? Well, there’s a whole raft of them. The doctors visits were going to be $10 cheaper per doctor’s visit. For those families where they have rare disorders, there was going to be greater access to medicines for those rare disorders. Annual health checks for seniors; not delivered. There was going to be funding for early childhood education to have 100 percent qualified teachers; that’s not there. All students were going to have access to digital devices; again, not delivered. Increasing breast screening—that would be free up to the age of 74. There’s a whole list of things that were not delivered that were promised, and that’s a hell of a lot of people that are now feeling ripped off by this Government, because they have failed to deliver in so many different ways.

I do want to acknowledge the Government, though, for a couple of things, because they’ve seen sense in a number of National initiatives that they have continued to fund, whether it’s the transition support service for young people in care, He Poutama Rangatahi—which is for young people who are not in education, employment, or training—the Integrated Safety Response work for family violence, Housing First for those who are homeless. So I am pleased that all of those National initiatives, the Government has continued to fund. But there’s no secure funding for KidsCan, and KidsCan, as we know, have provided critical food for thousands of children across New Zealand. But no; that funding wasn’t delivered for a four-year period.

A lot of people say, “Well, you know, if this was National’s Budget, what would have been in it?” Well, I can tell you what would have been in it; National would have continued to make sure, through its Better Public Services targets, that the focus on Government agencies and taxpayer spending is on the things that matter—whether it’s reducing welfare dependency, because we know the number of children who live in benefit-dependent homes have the poorest outcomes over their lifetime; child hospitalisations; child harm and abuse would be minimized; crime victimisations were counted; the waiting times for social housing had targets; reoffending rates. These are the things that New Zealanders say matter to them, and yet not one of those things the Government is now measuring. If you look at health, for example, not only do they not measure it but they don’t report on it. As we’ve seen with the measles outbreak, the very people—the very children—that the Government of the day should be protecting the most are being let down, and that’s appalling. This Government is failing to deliver for the most vulnerable New Zealanders.

Now, National recognises through its social investment work that, actually, you’ve got to change lives, often, individual by individual, whānau by whānau, and you’ve got to deal with the cause, not the symptom. This side of the House is not interested in servicing misery. Our side of the House believes absolutely in the ability of New Zealanders to deal with the challenges that they are thrown in life. We do firmly believe that when people experience times of difficulty, they do expect others and the State to help to give them a hand up. But the important thing is we also recognise the need and responsibility of those people to work with the Government to help themselves to get back up on their own two feet, as well, and that those who can work should, and that is because, fundamentally, we have a belief in New Zealanders’ ability to rise up.

Unfortunately, the other side of the House has talked a big game in terms of people’s wellbeing and talked about being kind and caring, and over the last weeks and months we’ve seen absolutely the opposite: big talk, small results, very little action, lots of working groups, and, at the end of the day, some of their policies hurting the most vulnerable New Zealanders the most. Child poverty numbers are going up, suicide rates have gone up, homelessness has gone up, the number of people on benefit and jobless has gone up—these are statistics and results that I don’t think the Government should be proud of, and it’s fascinating that they are silent on these matters because, unfortunately, they know. They know that they have failed to deliver to the most vulnerable in our communities, and it’s a shame.

National believes in the opportunity for people to get ahead. Our social investment approach to change lives and actually improve outcomes for every New Zealander—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! This is a split call. I call David Seymour—five minutes.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of the ACT Party in opposition to this bill and in opposition to this Budget.

For as long as New Zealand has been a country, the economy has been cyclical. It goes up and it tops out, and it goes down and it bottoms out. The previous Government took power at the bottom of an economic cycle and—surprise, surprise—for their term in Government, things mostly got better. This Government has inherited power at the top of an economic cycle, and, unfortunately for them, almost whatever they do, things will get worse. But that doesn’t mean that Government policy is irrelevant, or that there are not good economic policy choices and bad economic policy choices that make a difference to the wellbeing, the welfare, the income, and the future of New Zealanders, and I oppose this Budget on behalf of the ACT Party because it is a series of poor-quality choices. In fact, this Government’s two years in office has been characterised by poor public policy decisions.

What would this Government do to prepare for an economic downturn that would safeguard the welfare of New Zealanders? Well, it would do three things: first, it would stop beating the proverbial out of business and New Zealanders who want to get ahead and make a buck.

It’s not difficult to see examples of where this Government has not only failed to help grow productivity but has actively attacked it: the unconsulted, surprise ban on oil and gas exploration; the threatened fair-pay agreements, which would take labour relations back to the 1970s; the ban on foreign buyers of residential property, when this country for all of its history has struggled to attract capital and foreign investment; and, while not directly under control of this Government, the Reserve Bank’s threatened capital ratio adjustments, which could put down returns on savings and put up interest on borrowings and which risks putting this country over the edge. The market studies into sectors of the economy that have done nothing wrong, where the Commerce Commission tries to decide how much a particular business should pay to get petrol to one of the most remote areas on Earth—these are examples of things that this Government threatens or actually does all the time that beat the proverbial out of business, and the best thing that this Government could do is simply stop stopping New Zealanders from being productive and getting ahead.

But we could not only stop doing bad things to business; we could actually start doing good things. This Parliament could choose to have the fairest, most competitive, most aspirational tax system in the world. We could have a 17.5 percent single rate of company and income tax. That would be simpler to administer, it would be fairer because everybody would pay the same rate, and it would be competitive because it would attract investment and innovation activity to New Zealand.

What would be the impact of that on the Government’s coffers? Nine billion dollars—an amount of money that could be saved by stopping the Shane Jones corporate welfare machine, the middle-class vote-buying machine, and the current surpluses. The Government waste that saps the productivity of New Zealand could be reduced to achieve a single tax rate of 17.5 percent. That is an example of the kind of policy that this Government could have introduced in this Budget. It could have stopped constantly characterising New Zealanders as vulnerable and in need of help and somehow a client of the Government that must come along and solve all of their problems.

It could have said, “We are going to stop attacking business, and we are going to put in place tax policy that doesn’t triple the tax rate of people who go along and work, save, invest, and upskill themselves, but charges the same rate of income tax and a low 17.5 percent of company tax too for every $1 of personal and company income in New Zealand.” That would be a way to prepare for the coming economic downturn. But, sadly, the Government has done nothing remotely like it.

TAMATI COFFEY (Labour—Waiariki): Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Government has done lots, in contrast to that previous member, David Seymour, who seems to see the doom and gloom, and, obviously, things were rosy when he was part of the last Government. Unfortunately, he’s not, and under this Government, we’ve got a wellbeing Budget that is absolutely targeted at looking after the people of New Zealand.

As we say in Māori, “He aha te mea nui i tēnei ao? Māku e kī atu, he tangata, he tangata, he tangata.” [“What is the most important thing in the world? It is people, it is people, it is people.”] It is people. It is people that we need to be focused on, and for that reason, under the leadership of Jacinda Ardern, this Government has actually pulled its socks up and started to deliver for the people of New Zealand so that they’ve got hope and aspiration.

We saw under the previous Government child poverty at its worst. We heard the terrible stories about the degradation of our hospitals and the degradation of our schools, and it’s in this Government that we’ve actually decided to do something about it. We’ve invested in our hospitals in an unprecedented way. We have invested in our schools to make sure that if we’re looking after our teachers and our students, and we support teachers as well in schools—if they’re doing the best they can to look after our children, then we’re better off as a community, as a society, and as New Zealand of the future. We’ve taken mental health seriously. We’ve improved child wellbeing, and we will continue to do that.

But also, as a Māori member of Parliament from a Māori electorate, anything that supports the aspirations of our Māori people is a great thing for New Zealand. We know, obviously, that so many of our Māori are incarcerated in our jails, and we thank our Minister of Corrections, Kelvin Davis, for actually putting a strategy together—Hōkai Rangi, it’s called—to ensure that we’re transitioning our Māori people out of that place. It is absolutely foreign, the idea of jail, to traditional Māori society, and that’s why we’ve decided to turn that around. An active group of experts in the field have got together, worked out how we’re going to get our Māori people out of prisons so that they don’t just walk out the front door and come back in around the back door again, but that we’re actually making long-term change—long-term change. That’s something that you’ll keep hearing from this side of the House because it’s something that we’re focused on as a Government: long-term change. It’s for that reason that we’ve had record levels of investment into family violence and record levels of investment into sexual violence. These are things that—the call has come from our communities out around New Zealand. Where I come in Rotorua, I won’t disclose the number, but we have a significant amount of domestic violence calls calling out every single week; it is an absolute concern. There is nothing but praise coming from the people in our community that see that our Government is focused on making sure that we’re absolutely tackling the long-term challenges that this country faces.

When it comes to looking after our families: Whānau Ora, yes it was brought to our Government, actually, by Dame Tariana Turia many years ago and it’s still got legs—it’s absolutely still got legs. We were criticised for being the Government that was going to do away with it, but no, we saw the good in it, to the point where we’ve actually funded it in a way that it’s never been funded before: $80 million over four years. That’s going to make an incredible difference because those navigators, those people that go out into the households, the hard-to-reach communities, the gang houses, the places where nobody else wants to go, they’re going to be able to get in there and try and make a real difference. They couldn’t do it before because they didn’t have the resources for it, but, under our Government, we’ve undertaken the Whānau Ora review. We’ve reformed things and we’ve actually put our money where our mouth is on that as well.

When it comes to supporting our families—he tangata, our whānau—what we’re doing is we’re making sure that we relieve some of the pressures off the wallets so, when it comes to sending kids to school, they no longer have to stump up with the “voluntary” school donation, which we all know was never really voluntary anyway. Parents had to pay out for the school donation, and there were some horrific cases that were coming forward about kind of being shamed into paying your school donation. So, thankfully, this Government’s taken the cost of that.

Ending NCEA fees: knowing that that was a barrier to our young people being able to succeed in education. It’s our Government that has ensured that, actually, we’re taking care of the NCEA fees because, why? Absolutely, we have an aspiration for free education. Education is the thing that’s going to turn a child who is growing up in impoverished circumstances into a young achiever, into somebody that can actually be a circuit-breaker for their whānau. So I have got no problems with the direction that we’re travelling in as a Government to ensure that education does remain free, and for that reason fees-free tertiary education is absolutely something that I will continue to crow about as I go out there and I talk to our people. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

CHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South): Thank you very much. Well, I’m looking forward to Mr Coffey continuing to crow about fees-free tertiary education—possibly the stupidest public policy decision in a very long list of this Government. The fees-free tertiary education has actually seen fewer students go into tertiary education. It has seen by far the most overwhelming benefits of that education go to wealthy, white, middle-class kids. It’s not poor Māori and poor Pasifika that are benefiting from fees-free tertiary education. The Government’s own figures released just last week, I think it was, show that actually the benefits are not going to them. They’re being captured by middle-class kids from Remuera and Epsom and central Wellington, which is exactly what National had said would always be the case: that there is a case for helping people to get to university and survive through university and to succeed at university, but the case for that is not a massive handout from the taxpayer to increase the subsidies on an already extremely generous student support system. The way to do that is targeted scholarships; it’s things like the First Foundation that I’ve had a little bit to do with which is a fantastic organisation helping students who would struggle to go to university achieve and get there in the first place. It’s not an argument for an untargeted free-for-all, which is exactly what fees-free is.

So Tamati Coffey, well, frankly, I’m looking forward to hearing him campaign up and down the campaign trail next year, because New Zealanders, I think, know that fees-free is a failure, just like everything else in the so-called year of delivery from the Government. I mean, it was just comical that the Prime Minister, frankly, started her year—I mean it probably sounded good in the focus groups, sitting around there with her advisers and said, “Oh, we’ll make it the year of delivery. Last year was the year of the working group; this year we’ll make it the year of delivery.” And she probably meant well by it; she always does mean well. But, of course, what she wasn’t counting on was the incompetence of her own self and the incompetence of her colleagues, and their total inability to deliver.

Tamati Coffey talked a lot about child poverty. And I want to talk about child poverty, because this is the raison d’être, apparently, allegedly, of this Government. Apparently, why Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern got into politics in the first place was to eradicate child poverty. Well, the facts are these: that child poverty fell drastically under National’s watch, and that’s in complete rebuttal and contrary distinction to what Tamati Coffey said. The facts are these: in 2008, there were 170,000 children living in material hardship in New Zealand. Those numbers increased during the global financial crisis (GFC) to 220,000 in 2011. Then something quite remarkable happened. Over the next five years, the number of children living in material hardship all but halved down to 135,000 in 2016. What caused that, members? Well, what caused that was strong economic growth, rebounding out of the GFC at low rates. And then, of course, we had the Christchurch earthquake to deal with as well, but by 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016, the New Zealand economy was growing 3, 3.5, and 4 percent per year. And, of course, wages were growing at double the rate of inflation—wages were growing at double the rate of inflation. What that means is over time, families get ahead. And, of course, we cut taxes in 2010 as well. We incentivised earning and—

Marja Lubeck: That’s why they ended up living on the streets?

CHRIS BISHOP: That’s why what? Sorry, I honestly couldn’t hear you. I mean, when wages increase at double the rate of inflation, families get ahead and, of course, they’re able to provide more their children.

Marja Lubeck: And that’s why they lived on the streets and on the bridges and in cars?

CHRIS BISHOP: I’ve just talked about children living in material hardship halving between 2011 and 2016, Marja Lubeck. If you actually supported proper urban planning reform and got on board with that then we’d be able to do something about homelessness and be able to do something about our housing market as well. But I look forward to you supporting urban planning reforms and getting rid of the Auckland urban boundary one day in the future!

Of course, the previous National Government has left this legacy for the current Government, and what do we see? Well, what we see in the Budget we’re talking about and we see in the appropriations bill is an economic outlook stretching off into the distance that is a gloomy one. Yep, of course some of it is to do with the international challenges that we’re facing: the global headwinds, to use a sort of clichéd phrase, that are confronting New Zealand as a small economy—again, to use a cliché, a cork bobbling around on the ocean at the bottom of world and all that stuff.

But actually, most of it is self-inflicted. Most of it is economic incompetence demonstrated by this Government; uncertainty created by 300 or more working groups. The uncertainty created by what’s going to happen with the reregulation of the labour market. You won’t hear much about that any more from the Government. They got rid of the 90-day trials and that was all very easy, but all these grand plans of the national awards and the reregulation of the labour market by old mate Jim Bolger and the back-to-the-1970s approach to industrial relations, which, by the way, was a time of economic disaster for New Zealand, when productivity massively slumped and the economy went to the toilet. So why we would want to return to those days led by Labour, no one knows.

So business confidence is down and consumer confidence is down, and there is no plan. The economy is slowing. And the Government will say, “Oh, well, we’ve got these industry transformation plans.” I mean, I kid you not; it’s like something out of some sort of Stalinist-style 1970s five-year plan. We’ve got the industry transformation plans. Don’t worry—David Parker says, “Trust us, I know what I’m doing.” Has there ever been a more depressing and worrying phrase ever uttered by a New Zealand Government Minister? “Trust me, I know what I’m doing.”, says David Parker. Well, New Zealanders will judge whether or not—I mean, to be fair to him, he was actually saying it about—well, not to be fair, but just to point out he was saying it about water quality and agriculture. He’s so proud of himself, he would say it about the economy as well, and he’d say it about his industry transformation plans. I can’t even believe I’m saying it; they’re so comical as to be unbelievable.

So this is the year of delivery so far for the Government—thankfully for us, disastrously for them. It has been a year of disaster. If you look through the manifesto and you look through the portfolios and you look through the Estimates of what the Government is doing, it’s very hard to find something that is actually going well. KiwiBuild—well, I mean even the Government doesn’t talk about KiwiBuild anymore. Their heads are down, they know what I’m saying is correct; even they don’t talk about KiwiBuild anymore. We had the reset, that’s gone off into the long grass, the tumbleweeds are coming. We don’t talk about that anymore because that was an utter disaster.

I’ll tell you what’s going to be next: the next thing to be reset is transport. We saw the first sign of it today in question time when Phil Twyford—the man who says we’ve over-invested in roads for decades—was forced to his feet to admit that the Government is reconsidering its allocation of money into rapid transit. Now, there’s a story there about why they are having to do that, and I’ll let you in on a little secret: it’s a story of incompetence, because that’s the running theme with these guys. But they are reallocating money or they’re going to reallocate money, let’s face it, from rapid transit back into State highways. Now, we welcome that because projects like the Tauranga Northern Link, and Penlink up in Marja Lubeck’s electorate—well, not her electorate but the area she claims, she’s a list MP—

Hon Member: Where she lives.

CHRIS BISHOP: Where she lives—all of these roads that are shovel-ready. That’s not my language; that’s the language of Treasury—shovel-ready, market-ready roads, all of them that are ready to go. The Tauranga Northern Link, for example, was funded, consented, and out for procurement in one of the fastest growing areas in the country, one of the most dangerous sections of State highway in the country, and it was cancelled by Labour. So we welcome the money going back into State highways. Our point is: what was Phil Twyford doing for two years fluffing around by putting money into rapid transit?

Now we come to the incompetence, and I’ll end my speech on it because that’s the theme of this Government. Rapid transit—they’ve put all this money into it. Fuel taxes are going up, petrol taxes are rising, and we’ve got the Auckland fuel tax—all this money going into rapid transit. The light rail, a slow tram down Dominion Road—when’s it going to be built? Jacinda Ardern and Phil Twyford say, “We know it’ll be built by 2020.”. What do we find out last week or the week before? We find out no spades in the ground till 2021. This is an incompetent, useless Government and I can’t wait for them to be thrown out of office in a year or so’s time.

KIRITAPU ALLAN (Labour): Well, it’s always a delight to be able speak on behalf of our Government’s Budget priorities, because one thing that this—why the heads are up on this side of the House and why they’re all looking a little bit doomy and a little bit gloomy on the other side the House is because they still haven’t worked out that they are in Opposition. I heard this afternoon from the shadow Attorney-General, Tim Macindoe—he still refused to believe that they lost the election last year. So I know it’s hard for that side of the House to grapple with the fact that they can’t give a thousand buck - tax cut to their mates; they didn’t get that one over the line, the electorate didn’t like it. They’re still whinging two years on that they are not on this side of the House.

Erica Stanford: I can’t hear you, what?

KIRITAPU ALLAN: You can’t hear me? Do you need me to speak up? Let me speak up, because I’ll tell you something: something about the other side of the House, too, that kind of got me and I had to have a wee giggle was the member Andrew Bayly. He started out with a huff and a roar and he said, “Woah! They’ve got no enthusiasm on that side of the House!”, and then towards the end he just whispered. He was whispering as he closed his speech because he had nothing to say, he ran out of puff at about four minutes. We had to lean in to hear what he was saying, because they didn’t have anything to say but that they were gutted that they didn’t get tax cuts for their rich mates over the line when they were last in Government.

But the reality is—and the last member, he wanted to talk about some facts. He wanted to talk about facts when it came to child poverty, because I’ll tell you: on this side of the House, we’re absolutely proud of the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern’s drive to bring down child poverty here in Aotearoa New Zealand. But let’s turn to some facts, because he wanted to talk about child poverty rates in totality. Well, I’ll give you some facts about when that member and his government—when they were last in Government, we had 135,000 children living in material hardship in 2017, 80,000 New Zealand children were living in severe poverty, and we had 290,000 children living in homes that were low-income. What the Office of the Children’s Commissioner went on to say in their report in 2017 was that, comparatively, children in 2017—27 percent of them were living in families experiencing income poverty, in contrast to the 1980s which was only around about 14 percent.

The reality is that that side of the House, when they had their chance in Government to radically make some transformational shifts they blew it, and now they’re sitting on that side of the House throwing stones. Well, throwing stones gets you nowhere. I’ll tell you something else: under this Government, just this week, we saw that the communities that they attest to stand on the side of, the communities that they are going around whipping up a frenzy in, communities like ours down there in Lawrence, over there in the Wairarapa, at my home in the East Coast, rural communities, provincial communities; the reality is that our communities who thrive on primary industries—primary export revenue is at a record high, $9 billion under this Government in export revenue. Under this Government—36 percent increase in dairy exports, 34 percent increase in forestry exports, 22 percent increase in horticulture exports, 11 percent increase in seafood exports, and 10 percent increase in meat and wool revenue. All the while, that side of the House is running around, up and down the country attesting to how doomy and gloomy it is because of this Government. But I’ll tell you what: under the leadership of the Hon Damien O’Connor, the Hon David Parker, the Hon Grant Robertson, and a raft of our members on the executive, on this side of the House, we stand right beside those rural communities.

Now, if I may turn to the Wellbeing Budget at hand. This is a third reading that marks the end, if you will, to enable this appropriation for this Budget to go through. We commenced with the Hon Grant Robertson, in May, delivering what became known as a world-first Wellbeing Budget. Now, this here, this Wellbeing Budget, what it does is it marks a transformational shift in the way that we prioritise New Zealanders, in the way that we measure and benchmark the indices of what makes life worth living. It was Robert Kennedy in 1968 that talked about GDP—that it failed to measure what makes life worth living. Well, this Budget goes on to ensure that we are investing in areas that New Zealanders have been crying out for attention for for nine long years under the previous Government. Now, what the finance Minister, the Hon Grant Robertson, decided to do, he was going to make investments not just for the short term, three years, but he was making investment in New Zealanders for the long term. Now, what that meant—in mental health, $1.9 billion investment. Why mental health? Well, because it didn’t matter where you lived, it didn’t matter what way you voted in the last election, and it didn’t matter whether you were old or whether you were young, mental health illness does not discriminate amongst anyone. What the constituents across New Zealand were calling out for at the last election—but for many years prior to then, it fell on deaf ears under the last Government, because in 2012 they shut down the Mental Health Commission because there was no mental health crisis. But the reality is there was, and the reality is there is. The reality is that on this side of the House we know that as an indices of wellbeing, we must see the investment into mental health. We had to increase the investment into mental health in order to redistribute and bring about a restoration—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I’m sorry to interrupt the member, but it has come time for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Debate interrupted.

Personal Explanations

End of Life Choice Bill—Actions During Debate and Vote

Hon MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I seek leave to make a personal explanation relating to a matter in the House last week.

SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that? There appears to be none.

Hon MAGGIE BARRY: Thank you. I apologise to the Hon Ruth Dyson for my actions during the debate and the voting on the End of Life Choice Bill last Wednesday night. For me, it was a highly emotionally charged situation, and I acknowledge now that I was overzealous in expressing my disappointment with the way things were progressing.

Bills

Appropriation (2019/20 Estimates) Bill

Third Reading

Imprest Supply (Second for 2019/20) Bill

Second Reading

Debate resumed.

KIRITAPU ALLAN (Labour): It is an absolute delight, just to finish off in the remaining few minutes I have, to speak to the significance of this Wellbeing Budget that the Hon Grant Robertson has introduced that is world-breaking.

Before I turn to my final remarks in terms of the impact that this Budget has on Te Tai Rāwhiti, I want to make note that this approach to the Wellbeing Budget has received international acclaim from many commentators—but, in particular, from Cass Sunstein, who is a Harvard law professor and he’s, actually, also a former White House officer of information. He said that New Zealand has taken an important step in the right direction, and that for other nations it’s well worth copying New Zealand’s approach to the way in which this Budget has been delivered. I could not agree more.

When I look up to the electorate which I am proudly from, the East Coast, in practical terms what does this Budget mean? Well, in practical terms it means that when I speak to the principal of the school of Murupara Area School, a school that is decile 1 in a community that has felt left behind by the previous Government, I speak to Angela Sharples, she has just over 300 students at this school; some of those students are living in hard home environments in terms of poverty. We put children at the forefront of this Budget—that meant that for every student in a school under a decile 7, $150 per student would be provided to those schools that did not ask for a school contribution. When I spoke with the principal, Angela Sharples, from Murupara Area School, she said, “Kiri, we have not been able to ask for a donation from parents for so long, and we’ve just gone without.” Well, this Budget means, in practical terms, an additional $50,000 per annum for Angela to be able to exercise at her discretion.

In terms of what this means to the wellbeing of those children, it means that those families can feel slightly relieved that they don’t have the burden of having to scalp around for an extra few bucks to try and get those kids off to sports games. It means that those teachers that are often called upon to provide lunches don’t have to scrap around in their own personal pockets to try and find that additional resource. Murupara Area School—amongst many others in my electorate—is one of the schools that will be receiving school lunches.

Now, that to me is a benchmark of a kind, caring, and compassionate Government. I am proud to endorse this Budget—the Wellbeing Budget—to this House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Appropriation (2019/20 Estimates) Bill be now read a third time and the Imprest Supply (Second for 2019/20) Bill be now read a second time.

Ayes 63

New Zealand Labour 46; New Zealand First 9; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 8.

Noes 57

New Zealand National 55; ACT New Zealand 1; Ross.

Appropriation (2019/20 Estimates) Bill read a third time.

Imprest Supply (Second for 2019/20) Bill read a second time.

Bills

Imprest Supply (Second for 2019/20) Bill

Third Reading

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I move, That the Imprest Supply (Second for 2019/20) Bill be now read a third time.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Imprest Supply (Second for 2019/20) Bill be now read a third time.

Ayes 63

New Zealand Labour 46; New Zealand First 9; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 8.

Noes 57

New Zealand National 55; ACT New Zealand 1; Ross.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Kāinga Ora—Homes and Communities Bill

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 12 September.

Dr LIZ CRAIG (Labour): I’m proud to be part of a Government that’s tackling the long-term issues facing New Zealand, and one of the most important is the housing crisis that we’ve been left with under this Government.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’m sorry to interrupt the member, I got a bit confused—this is a split call.

Dr LIZ CRAIG: Yes, that’s right. Cool. So down in Invercargill, we’ve been left with an incredible shortage of social housing because, under the previous Government, a huge number of our State houses were sold off. What that means is that many, many people in need of State and social housing are absolutely struggling to find somewhere. Fortunately, this Government’s put a huge investment into emergency housing, but it still is not the best in terms of ensuring that people get access to long-term, secure housing.

The other issue that’s critically important is housing quality. Just thinking back to a documentary that was run by Bryan Bruce, under the previous Government, called Inside Child Poverty: A Special Report, what he did is he took some cameras into a whole series of homes of families that were living with children. What he was showing was just the huge substandard nature of the housing that they were in. So he walked through this whole series of different flats, all connected, one after the other, and just showing the huge amount of black mould that was in the ceiling, the curtains waving in the breeze because of the gaps in the joinery, and curtains turning black within a period of months just because of the damp, substandard nature of the house.

So I think this is where this bill is critically important, because what Kāinga Ora does is it brings together two core functions: being a world-class public housing landlord and also leading and coordinating urban development projects. I think we’re going to need both to make sure that we can build those houses on a scale that is going to get us out of that housing crisis.

I think one of the most important things for me, looking at this bill, is that what the bill does is it enshrines Housing New Zealand’s recently introduced social housing objectives into legislation. And what they’re talking about is providing decent housing; being a fair, compassionate landlord; and helping to sustain tenancies. Those are core principles that I think would have made a big difference to many, many children living in State houses over the past decade.

So what I want to do is just take you through the operating principles that are laid out for Kāinga Ora in this bill, and talking about those that the board will be required to enforce. What they include is providing good quality, warm, dry, and healthy rental housing. Now, that sounds really simple, but if you contrast that to the lived reality for many children in our State houses over the past decade, there’s a big difference there in terms of some of their experiences. It also talks about supporting tenants to be well connected in their communities, to lead lives with dignity and the greatest degree of independence possible, and to sustain tenancies—so talking about secure housing. Again, it sounds, you know, as if that would be just self-explanatory—but again those lived experiences over the past decade, and so this is why I think it’s incredibly important that we enshrine this in law. It also talks about working with community providers to support tenants and ensure those most in need are supported and housed, because again something that has been lacking in the past is providing that crucial wraparound support for those tenants in our social housing.

The other operating principles—some of them include looking at supply and making sure that housing supply meets demand. And so just a couple of them: managing its housing stock prudently, including upgrading and managing its housing to ensure it remains fit for purpose. Again, basically, this is some stuff that again hadn’t been happening over the past decade. So we end up with rundown State houses, deferring the maintenance because they had to take off a profit. So, basically, putting this back in legislation is really important. Ensuring that housing is developed and is a mix of public, affordable, and market housing and is of good quality is again really, really basic. So, for me, thinking through what would have been the experience of many of those families living in our State houses if this had been in legislation at the beginning of the last decade—thinking through those hospital admissions for kids with all those respiratory infections—if it was enshrined in law that we had to provide warm, decent, quality housing? So this bill is incredibly important in that respect.

The other thing that it does is it requires the Minister to issue a Government policy statement and that just basically outlines the intended direction and priorities in housing and urban development. And again it sounds self-explanatory, but having that broader long-term vision laid out is something that we haven’t had for a very, very long time. So this is an absolutely critical and important bill and I therefore commend this bill to the House.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): We’ve arrived at the moment, haven’t we—the Kāinga Ora—Homes and Communities Bill. I suspect people on the other side might be wishing, “Gee, I wish that this wasn’t coming up tonight.”, because we know as soon as we start talking about KiwiBuild, don’t we, that’s a wrecking ball for the Government—a wrecking ball. It’s a slayer of reputations, as I said this afternoon when I was talking about the KiwiBuild, and, of course, this bill is about smashing together three entities to try and make it work better. Of course, we’ve got Housing New Zealand, the development subsidiary HLC—or Hobsonville Land Company, as it used to be known—and the KiwiBuild unit, and I’m not sure this is actually going to solve our issues for the Government. Of course we want the Government to actually build some houses—not the 282 that they’ve built so far, but actually some real, decent houses, and get them out there—but, unfortunately, they haven’t, and we’ve arrived at this situation where we are way under the budget that they promised and promised and promised they were going to do for years and have failed to in the first 20 months. And this bill is not going to make a jot of difference in terms of achieving that outcome.

I think the idea that by merging stuff, you get better outcomes—well, in fact, if you look at the history of mergers, normally they don’t work. Partly, and the main reason, it’s because you get a cultural divide going on when you put entities together. I’m sure that when you merge two very high sort of Government-focused entities such as Housing New Zealand and KiwiBuild and put them together with a commercial arm like HLC, that is going to be a problem.

But the real issue with this is that you can see what’s happening already in the market. This unit is already out poaching consenting staff from Auckland Council, paying a lot more to get the same people out of Auckland Council consenting unit. They’re hiring them in here and paying a fortune more for them because they think somehow this entity is going to deliver a better outcome. It will not. It’s another failure and it won’t achieve anything towards a real significant move towards building a heck of a lot more houses, which we, ultimately, need in New Zealand.

PAULO GARCIA (National): Thank you, Madam Speaker. The Kāinga Ora—Homes and Communities Bill: I understand that the world adheres to the standard that when a promise is made, the promise is made with the intention of making good on it, and that the promise is not made unless the promise-maker, with experience and skills and knowledge and honour and dignity, has reasonable cause and intention to make good on that promise. The promise that 10,000 homes would be built—1,000 in the first year, 5,000 in the second year, and so on—had been made. After two years, 258 homes have been built.

Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi: How many?

PAULO GARCIA: Two hundred and fifty-eight homes have been built. Yes, and 169 have been sold. All indications are that the promise could not have been fulfilled at the time that it was made, yet it was made, and repeatedly. The promise is now no more.

Under the bill, Kāinga Ora will take control of 27,000 homes in the pipeline under each year when National left office. Taking control of these homes, and the merger of three existing entities into one, without any substantive reform in the Resource Management Act or addressing the needs of private sector developers in the building industry, we believe will not achieve better outcomes. For that reason, we oppose this bill.

ANAHILA KANONGATA’A-SUISUIKI (Labour): It is an absolute privilege to speak on this Kāinga Ora—Homes and Communities Bill. I grew up in a State house in Onehunga in Auckland when I arrived here in New Zealand in 1980, and that’s because that State house was built by a Labour Government. And that was because there was a need in the community in New Zealand to provide for those who we may say are vulnerable but actually it’s providing for those—both my parents were working at the time but they still needed support. It is to provide for ordinary New Zealanders—ordinary New Zealanders.

So before I talk further on this bill, I want to reflect on what the New Zealand Public Service Association said, because it sums up the bill. I just want to say it just in case I talk on and on and I forget to include that in my speech. The New Zealand Public Service Association said, “We welcome the commitment from this Government to strengthen the role of central government in the planning and co-ordination of housing and urban development. The merger of Housing [New Zealand], HCL and parts of the KiwiBuild programme into one agency with housing and development powers is a positive step forward towards a more co-ordinated approach from central government. We look forward to the accompanying piece of legislation to see the detail of the new agency’s development powers.” So that’s what it is about. That’s what Kāinga Ora is all about.

This coalition Government is about fixing the long-term, hands-off approach by the previous Government in their last nine years. Kāinga Ora reflects our Government’s commitment, like I said, to the hands-on approach to tackling homelessness and unaffordable housing. Kāinga Ora will be our housing delivery arm right across the housing continuum. We have designed Kāinga Ora in a way that reflects our values and focuses on the wellbeing. The fact this bill is actually called Kāinga Ora brings a new perspective into lenses of a Te Ao Māori world view that has been missing from some of our conversation in this country. In a collective term it actually talks about the wellbeing of the community, and if a bill in law starts off with the intent of providing for wellbeing in the community, then I say it is the right thing to do. It is the right thing to do.

Previously, we’ve heard, from the last nine years—I had been a diligent public servant during those times—of the trickling-down effect. Actually, what we’ve just heard from Dr Liz Craig, the Labour list MP based in Invercargill, in the documentary that she alerted us to was that actually mould was trickling down the walls, the curtains—the breeze was coming through holes in the wall.

I know Invercargill. I actually spent most of my time in Tāmaki-makau-rau, but I know that in Invercargill, it is a lot colder. It is a lot colder in Invercargill—curtains move indoors because of what the conditions of these places were. I think that the perspective of kāinga ora, of a well community, well home, actually is the right way to go.

The Tongan word for kāinga, which, in Māori, is about home and a place to stay, is called ‘api. When you’re talking about ‘api, that’s why I reflect on this in terms of a collective point of view of wellbeing, is that I connect to it because ‘api means the whole property, the people that live in the home. So I think that kāinga and ‘api actually are about the same.

So what does Kāinga Ora do? Well, Kāinga Ora has two core roles: being a world-class housing landlord, and leading and coordinating urban development projects. It will be a powerful delivery entity capable of integrated urban development that provides a mix of public, affordable, and open-market housing in large and small urban development projects throughout the country.

As I’ve said before, I grew up in a State house, and I’m used to having the lawn in the front and the lawn at the back, whether you lived in the State house or you had your own home. What New Zealand is going through is a new way of living. Whether you were living in an affluent community or whether you grew up in a State house, we all had a backyard—most of us had a backyard. We’re going into the new future of New Zealand now where there is a possibility that might not be a possibility for many. If kāinga ora is about looking at the wellbeing of the community, that we will take into place urban spaces where people could have recreation places, parks that will actually support the growth of urban living.

So for some large-scale, complex development projects, it will have access to a range of statutory powers that will better enable development. It is a new agency to power us to partner with local government, iwi, and the private sector to build—here comes the word, it’s called quality State and affordable market homes, creating thriving, living, and planned communities.

So why do we need it? Why do we need Kāinga Ora? Why do we need Kāinga Ora—homes and communities? As I said before, New Zealand is becoming more urban with more people living in cities and towns than ever before. I’m not sure what my view is on Invercargill, but I’m glad that my parents chose to live in Tāmaki-makau-rau, but my view may have been different if I grew up in Invercargill.

Traditionally, as I’ve said before, in towns and cities we have grown by turning neighbouring rural land into suburban homes. Second-generation, or brownfield, development is often difficult and risky with poor quality and ageing or at-capacity infrastructure. I speak from experience in terms of having families and people that every day I come in connection with who live in homes that actually reflected what Dr Liz Craig had said about the homes that were in that documentary. If we have this in place then we know for certain the future of New Zealand housing will be, as we’ve often said on this side, affordable, will be warm, and will be able to reflect the people living in that community.

So I am a grandmother of six, soon to be seven—I’m a grandmother of six, soon to be seven—I said before, I’m 50—[Interruption] Yeah. This is about building for the long term. This is about building beyond the 30 years. What I would want for my grandchildren, I would want for every person in this country, because we are building for generations and generations and generations.

I often reminisce on how we used to have a backyard and we had those round State house cement houses at the back where we fit the lawn mower. But the thing is—

Hon Member: But everyone’s got one of those.

ANAHILA KANONGATA’A-SUISUIKI: On Moana Avenue in Onehunga we did. The thing is that there was—

Hon Member: Not these days.

ANAHILA KANONGATA’A-SUISUIKI: Yeah, not these days. So now—now—it is about bringing in the future development and futureproofing it for every New Zealander—every New Zealander.

Kieran McAnulty: Did they do that?

ANAHILA KANONGATA’A-SUISUIKI: I don’t even think they thought there was a housing crisis. I don’t think they thought it was a housing crisis. I don’t know. I thought they were good at maths, but if one was selling off State houses, not building them, and if one were not building new homes, affordable homes, then—

Hon Member: Minus one.

ANAHILA KANONGATA’A-SUISUIKI: Minus one. Then why do we think there is a housing crisis? Because there’s not enough houses—there’s not enough houses. If you’re selling State houses—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! It would be nice if the member actually talked about the Budget.

ANAHILA KANONGATA’A-SUISUIKI: OK.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I have given a lot of leeway.

ANAHILA KANONGATA’A-SUISUIKI: All right. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: It would be nice just to bring it to the Budget for the last bit.

Hon Members: Kāinga Ora bill.

ANAHILA KANONGATA’A-SUISUIKI: OK.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’m sorry, back to the House. I beg your pardon.

ANAHILA KANONGATA’A-SUISUIKI: OK, let’s come back to Kāinga Ora.

I want to take this opportunity to all those that contributed throughout the select committee stages. The bill—as I said before, if I didn’t say it before—lays out a set of operating principles for Kāinga Ora, which the board will be required to enforce. Having a group of people to enforce with a set of principles is always a good start when we’re talking about a bill. If we know what the board has to work alongside in terms of providing great principles for this building for the next 30 years, then that’s what Kāinga Ora will provide. It will also be supporting tenants. I know that every landlord wants to look after the wellbeing of the people within the homes that they’re actually getting a livelihood from. On that note I commend this bill to the House.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you, and I do apologise for interrupting the member. I call Hon Ron Mark.

Hon RON MARK (Minister of Defence): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, it is my duty and privilege to take a call on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on the Kāinga Ora—Homes and Communities Bill, and I do so gladly. I think—just having a bit of a chat with my colleague here, the Minister of Finance, and jokingly saying to him, “Well, I am speaking, but someone might ask what does the Minister of Defence know about housing?” I will just start by saying that I am actually the New Zealand First spokesperson on housing as well, and building and construction, although I tend to play—

Matt Doocey: Bring back Denis.

Hon RON MARK: I’m glad “Mr Juicy” raised the question.

Hon Member: Doocey, not juicy.

Hon RON MARK: Juicy Doocey from Rangiora—my brother from another mother, as we often refer to each other—raised Denis O’Rourke’s name in the House here tonight, because, I think, when—

Rt Hon David Carter: He was a good member.

Hon RON MARK: A great member from Christchurch, and the Hon David Carter’s quite right.

I recall working alongside of the Hon David Carter’s brother, Philip Carter, and Denis O’Rourke when they were both city councillors of Christchurch. Both those gentlemen displayed one thing when it came to housing: a great understanding of the need for social housing—both of them. In fact, I know how committed Mr Philip Carter was, and the Carter family were, to providing social good, because as an MP down there I actually went to the trust which they run and gained assistance for some of my constituents on occasion, whom I could not otherwise get assistance for. I thank David Carter and his family for that sense of community and that commitment to community that they’ve always displayed in Christchurch over the 30-odd years that I lived down there and was privileged to be a list MP for New Zealand First.

I’m going to go back to that because Mr Doocey actually has triggered something that I think we need to talk about, particularly when we address the comments made by the Opposition speakers around the need for Resource Management Act reform.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Could we just relate that to the bill.

Hon RON MARK: Well, we will come to back to that.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Relate it to the bill. We are on the third reading.

Hon RON MARK: So the bill, so, right now, well this is housing and this is—I’m going to bring my comments to the contribution by the Minister, Minister Twyford, when he spoke right at the commencement of the second reading. He reflected on certain matters. I want to discuss those matters that he reflected on, with a view to better understanding the rationale and the thinking behind the creation of this bill.

Minister Twyford said that public and affordable housing are at the heart of the coalition Government’s agenda. I’d say yes, but I’d go one step further and say it’s at the heart of our social wellbeing agenda. It’s at the heart of our more holistic social wellbeing agenda. Minister Twyford’s comments that public and affordable housing creates a space and place where young families and otherwise homeless people can be able to reside is very true, but it goes beyond that. It actually, I think, creates a space where these people can thrive—more than survive; thrive—and where they can raise their children in safety and security. When I reflect on those parts of his speech, it reminds me of another person, a great Prime Minister, as far as I’m concerned, who probably summed all this up very well. His name was Norm Kirk, and I quoted him in my maiden speech in the House, in 1996. If I look at what the Government’s trying to do here—cater for vulnerable New Zealanders who are homeless—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Look, I’m sorry to interrupt the member, but this is actually a third reading. Second reading is quite different from a third reading. A second reading is concerned with the principles of the bill, but this is a third reading, and—

Hon Grant Robertson: Point of order.

Hon RON MARK: Well, it’s the second.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: —I’m speaking—you must address yourself to the principles of the bill before the House. You’ve been quite esoteric. We actually have a piece of legislation in front of us here. Oh, beg your pardon. Oh, God—it’s one of those nights, isn’t it! Beg your pardon. I’ll put it all away—and carry on.

Hon RON MARK: Thank you, Madam Speaker. So this is the second reading. In Mr Twyford’s second reading speech, he spoke about these matters about social wellbeing—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Is that what you were going to say?

Hon Grant Robertson: Yeah, it was.

Hon RON MARK: —and catering for the House, which brought back memories of my speech in reference to Norm Kirk. Now, Norm Kirk probably put it better than Minister Twyford did—and better than we are—because, when you look at the social housing problem that this bill seeks to address, it does the one thing that Norm Kirk spoke of. He said, “Kiwis don’t want for much, they simply want someone to love, somewhere to live, somewhere to work, and something to hope for.” It is the acceptance of this by the Labour, New Zealand First, and Green parties, when we were in Opposition last term, that drove us to this point. That’s the thinking and the rationale that is behind the creation of this piece of legislation.

But, of course, to believe that you need to do this, we have to accept that there is a problem that needs addressing. Now, we, quite openly, said last term there was a—there is a—housing crisis. It seemed clear to us, with so many reports of people living in cars. We’re not talking about one homeless man living in a car; we’re talking about families in a van.

Kieran McAnulty: What did they say?

Hon RON MARK: Well, there was no housing crisis in their eyes, Mr McAnulty. The question is: if one believes there is a housing crisis, then one has a choice. One does something about it or one doesn’t. This coalition Government has decided to move on this problem through this legislation. I’m proud that we have done this.

Of course, if one disagrees with it, as the previous National Government did, one doesn’t move—which I find somewhat ironic in a way, because I do remember reading many articles where the former Prime Minister openly talked about the privilege he experienced of growing up in a State house. So there we have one man who’s a clear example of what can happen—of a young boy raised in a State house becoming successful, wealthy, and a role model for other people who likewise started in circumstances like that—not seeing the value of the very type of home that he was privileged to have.

I’m from a background which is a bit different. I am one of those people who see huge value in the State picking up its responsibility and housing people in an affordable manner. It is only by doing that that one gives those children the chance to grow and thrive so that they might also arrive at a place such as this—the same way that your Rt Hon John Key did and the same way that I have. Mind you, I didn’t live in a State house. My foster parents couldn’t afford one. There’s another story. But I think there’s more depth to this legislation as outlined by Minister Twyford that I’m very pleased to be able to endorse from the New Zealand First perspective.

The Government policy statement is probably an area, in my closing minute, that is worthy of mention. I think that will lay down some ground rules and ensure that the conditions that the community expects, that the Government expects, that developers and councils adhere to are those which provide for sustainable housing and which will also mitigate environmental concerns that may exist in those particular locales.

There was one other thing that does worth mention: mana whenua. Pleased to see, at the heart of these developments, we have the opportunity for Māori providers to enter into the stream. I’d just like to remind the House that this is actually not new. If we go back to the 2005-2008 Government, it was the Rt Hon Winston Peters who initiated the papakāinga funding, which the Hon Parekura Horomia advanced, and which I was privileged as a member of Parliament to turn the first sod on a papakāinga development at Hurinui o Rangi in Carterton a year or so ago, and unfortunately I missed the opening of those houses, but they are there for everybody to see. The success is there being enjoyed right now by our kaumātua and kuia, and for that I thank the visionary politicians in Government who can actually see the need for underpinning the social wellbeing of our communities.

The question was put that the amendments recommended by the Environment Committee by majority be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendments be agreed to.

Ayes 63

New Zealand Labour 46; New Zealand First 9; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 8.

Noes 57

New Zealand National 55; ACT New Zealand 1; Ross.

Amendments agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Kāinga Ora—Homes and Communities Bill be now read a second time.

Ayes 63

New Zealand Labour 46; New Zealand First 9; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 8.

Noes 57

New Zealand National 55; ACT New Zealand 1; Ross.

Bill read a second time.

Bills

Public Finance (Wellbeing) Amendment Bill

First Reading

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I move, That the Public Finance (Wellbeing) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Finance and Expenditure Committee to consider the bill.

I am delighted to introduce this bill, which will embed the pursuit of New Zealanders’ wellbeing as an enduring aspect of how our country’s Budget is developed. In the precincts of this building a month or two ago, I spoke at a conference for the 30th anniversary of the Public Finance Act. It would be fair to say that when I looked at the remainder of the list of speakers, I thought perhaps I may not have been entirely welcome at the event, and I did miss out on the dinner, where Ruth Richardson and Roger Douglas reminisced about the creation of the Public Finance Act. I didn’t take the opportunity—I had considered—of reminding Roger Douglas that one of my first significant political acts was to march up to him at a public meeting at Otago University and say, “How do you sleep at night?” Interestingly, he said, “Very well, actually.”

That conference did highlight for me the aspects of the Public Finance Act that are positive and that we do need to celebrate, and that is the fact that, internationally, we have a system of public accounting that is well regarded; it is transparent; it requires Governments to report on a regular basis to be able to give the public of New Zealand a very clear idea of the state of their finances, both at Budget time and, indeed, throughout the year; it also has put into law fiscal sustainability as a concept, and those are important things. It actually introduced accrual accounting, and it would be quite odd, I think, for most people who work in the Public Service of New Zealand to consider a time before accrual accounting. So there are some good things within the Public Finance Act.

But it has long been my view—and, I know, the view of other parties who make up this Government—that the exclusive focus of the Public Finance Act on fiscal matters means that we are not, in creating our Budget, looking at the full range of measures that define a country’s success from an economic point of view or, indeed, specifically here, that define what should be in a Budget. So as part of the Labour Party’s confidence and supply agreement with the Green Party, there was a commitment to look at alternative indicators of success and sustainability, and we’ve taken that on and actually gone significantly in advance of that in the legislation that is in front of the House today.

What we are doing here is embedding the concept of wellbeing at the core of the piece of legislation that defines how we put Budgets together. For those who are interested in the particular detail of that, there are two documents that, effectively, make up the Budget documents that are managed, in a sense, by politicians, and they are the Fiscal Strategy Report and the Budget Policy Statement. What most people are thinking about when they think of the Budget isn’t all of the accounts, necessarily; it’s the narrative, it’s the description that goes around that. What this legislation does is say that in that Fiscal Strategy Report and in the Budget Policy Statement, the Government must explain how wellbeing objectives have guided the Government’s Budget decisions and if the wellbeing objectives that guided the Budget decisions differ from those that were indicated in the Budget Policy Statement, and then, obviously, in turn, in the Budget Policy Statement itself, those wellbeing objectives have to be there. Those objectives relate to the social, economic, environmental, and cultural wellbeing of New Zealand and New Zealanders, and to any other matters that the Government considers support long-term wellbeing in New Zealand.

That is a fundamental shift in the way we put Budgets together, and we did this this year within the Wellbeing Budget. So we produced, for example, a wellbeing outlook to replace the economic and fiscal outlook that has traditionally been inside the Budget. That is because it’s important for New Zealanders not just to see how we’re going on those core fiscal measures around issues like debt and the surplus and Government spending—and they are important and they are still there—but in addition, what we are doing to address the wellbeing of New Zealanders, the living standards of New Zealanders, through the lens of those other objectives around economic, around social—natural capital and human capital.

So that is what this bill does, and I am extremely proud that we are putting this in front of the House now, at this time in New Zealand’s history, because 30 years on from that Public Finance Act, we as a country need to accept that if we are going to get on top of the big, long-term issues and problems and challenges that New Zealand has, we have to embed in our legislative framework a focus on those challenges. They can’t just be dealt with through the framework that we were left with at the end of the 1980s, because the companion bit of legislation to the Public Finance Act is the State Sector Act, and Minister Hipkins has reforms for the State Sector Act that will shortly be put before the House. What they are designed to do is to create the idea of a unified Public Service, to break down the silos that have bedevilled Governments in New Zealand for the last 30 years. It is these two bits of legislation together that, I believe, will have a fundamental effect on the way we do Government in New Zealand to the good, so that we will actually look at how we address those long-term issues, not at just the inputs, not at just the amount of money that goes in, not at even which Government department is responsible, but, rather, focus on those outcomes.

So, as we did in this Budget, if we are trying to address an issue like domestic and sexual violence, what we did under the leadership of Parliamentary Under-Secretary Jan Logie is actually bring those agencies together, set a goal, one outcome—not an outcome based on the individual agendas of the agencies but on what is needed for New Zealand. The same with the other objectives that we had in the Budget around child wellbeing and mental health: they are not the sole responsibility of any given agency, and it is vital at Budget time that we are talking about them. So the major manifestation of that in this year’s Budget was the child poverty report, which is covered by a different piece of legislation that also amended the Public Finance Act. That requires us to report on actions we are taking to reduce child poverty and improve child wellbeing. What this bit of legislation does is take that a step further and say we need those wellbeing objectives to be clear right across the Budget, not just in one area like child poverty but, in fact, across all of those areas of our economic, social, and environmental wellbeing.

So this is an important bit of legislation because the legislative framework is what guides the work of the Public Service. It’s all very well for an individual Minister to decide, as I did with this year’s Wellbeing Budget, that this is how I want to run it, but actually it’s important for getting the Public Service on board to pass this legislation so it’s understood by everybody that wellbeing actually is what matters, the outcomes are what matters, and, yes, part of that is being fiscally responsible. This does not change those aspects of the Act, but what it does do is put an imperative on Governments to talk about the effect of our Budgets, to understand how those social objectives are being advanced, to understand how we’re protecting the environment, to understand how we are lifting our own people in terms of their health and their education.

This piece of legislation will strengthen our public finance system. For me, it is the first stage of reform. The next stage of reform is actually looking at the way in which Government agencies themselves do their work, their planning, their accountability documents. What this piece of legislation does is set out that at least once every four years, the Government has to produce an overall stocktake of our wellbeing and the indicators of wellbeing, but in the intervening period, what we need to do is make sure that Government agencies are acting together, that they are actually working towards these wellbeing objectives. That will be the next stage of reform as we look towards how they go about their planning documents, how they go about their accountability regime, and how we ensure that they work together.

So this is a piece of legislation that I am immensely proud of. If I look back over the last 30 years, yes, there were some good things that came from the Public Finance Act around transparency and around accountability, but that piece of legislation was inadequate to reflect the values of New Zealanders, the value that we ascribe not just to being fiscally responsible but to being socially responsible, to actually delivering to New Zealanders wellbeing and increased living standards. We will not get there if we don’t have the legislative framework to back us up, and that is what this piece of legislation is designed to do. I hope that all parties in the House will send this bill to select committee so that we can hear from the public of New Zealand about what they want from the Budgets that come out of this House, so that it reflects their values, because it is my judgment that this bill that embeds wellbeing in our public finance framework does reflect the values of New Zealanders—that we value, yes, prosperity, but we value who shares in it as well.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Now, there is a bit of a theme developing in this Government, in that it’s very good at great gestures and big talk and bold, sweeping statements about their aspirations, but the delivery has been very poor. So there’s all talk but no delivery, and when I think of what the slogan might be for the Labour Party next year, I think it would be “Labour—it’s the thought that counts”. That seems to encompass everything that we see in this Government: lots of very smart talk but no delivery. So this Labour-Greens proposal that we’ve got here to change the Public Finance Act is very much in that category, because it’s based on the false assertion that everybody prior to the arrival of this magnificent, sort of, saintly Government didn’t think about wellbeing, didn’t care about anything other than the GDP, was only interested in the raw data, had no interest in social capital and all those sorts of things, which is nonsense.

Every Budget that’s been produced under the fiscal responsibility legislation and the many Budgets before that have been focused on the wellbeing of New Zealanders and improving the standard of living of New Zealanders and improving what we do. And the Budget, of course, is not all of what Government does. Government has wide-ranging interests in preserving what is special about this country and our environment and our social cohesion and the many other things about it, but apparently nobody’s thought about this before Grant Robertson and Jacinda Ardern descended from the clouds and said that now we will focus on wellbeing. Well, time will tell.

It’s also a sad reflection that this is an area where, usually, Governments have tried to bring about widespread support for changes to this legislation and this kind of legislation, but no such real attempt has been made. Unfortunately, we will not be supporting this, because our concern is that absolutely countries should be focused on wellbeing, but the purpose of the fiscal responsibility legislation is to deal with the way that the Budget is put together. It started in response to a long period of our history in New Zealand when Governments were, frankly, very murky about the money that they were taking, what they were spending it on, and the long-term sustainability of that. They would come every year with Budgets that didn’t actually disclose the full liabilities, and promises were made in election periods, in election-year Budgets, which said that we were going to be in surplus when it turned out we were in deep deficit. So we built up this robust framework which outlines clearly what Governments are taking in forms of taxation and borrowing, what they’re spending it on, and a robust analysis of what they’re actually spending and what particular programmes are going to cost over an extended period of time, what the liability is for current taxpayers, based on that, and whether that spending stacks up and whether it’s been done in a sustainable way.

That’s a very complicated area and quite a hard thing to get your head around, and the point is that this Government is not doing a good job in that core area. They don’t have any good track record on actually having a clear sense of what they’re trying to achieve from the money which they take and allocate. They’re marvellous at making big announcements. So if we looked at this current Wellbeing Budget, there was $1.9 billion allocated to help with mental health. Most New Zealanders would say, “Yes, we should invest more in dealing with mental health issues.” But this Government seems to think that just making an announcement that they intend to spend $1.9 billion on mental health is enough. Problem solved! They don’t actually have any clear plans for what to do with it. There is no analysis about it. No evaluation plan—well, there’s actually no plan about how to expend the money.

We’ve just had recent announcements that they’ve come up with $9 million that they’re going to spend, but the actual—

Hon Andrew Little: The member’s been living under a rock—what has the member been doing?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: —process. Oh, well, I’m very pleased to see the Attorney-General has woken up and has continued to contribute to the debate, but he hasn’t made much progress so far. So if we think of the $3 billion Provincial Growth Fund, for example, an amazing situation where $3 billion is going to be spent and the only current plan of this Government to assess whether we’re getting good value for the money that they’re going to spend is that once they’ve spent the $3 billion, they’ll do a quick analysis over at the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to find out whether they’ve got anything for the money. I mean, that’s the way that this Government operates.

If we think of the $2.8 billion spent on the fees-free programme, what have we got for that? Fewer students. Think of all the tens and tens of millions of dollars that have been invested in programmes to help young unemployed Māori through the projects for people who are not in education, employment, or training, yet at the same time they’re doing away with the 90-day work trial, which affects that very same group and makes it less likely that they’ll get an opportunity to get a job. Then we think of $1 billion put into subsidising rail. So all these things that, in the normal course of events, any good sound sensible Government in a Budget would have a clear sense of what exactly they are purchasing, what they’re buying, what we’re going to get for it, what sort of evaluation is in place and a clear sense of whether the overall spending of the Government is sustainable—we don’t get a very good response on that. We don’t get very good answers, but what we do get is an enormous amount of waffle about the intentions that they have.

So our concern with this legislation is that that is an opportunity for them to lose focus on the core task of the Budget process. That, as I say, is no way indicating that Government doesn’t have much broader interests in what we serve to govern, in Government. Of course we have a deep concern about preserving what is special about this country, about our environment, about our social cohesion, and about the happiness of New Zealanders, but all those things are legitimate concerns of Government and should not be thrown into the mix in the Budget process in order to dilute attention and focus on the simple clarity with which we go about the Budget process. They’re replacing clear accountability with porridge, and that will do us no good.

So, on that score, this is yet another example of a Government that has lost its way. New Zealanders are seeing that and recognising that every day—that they are very quick to come out with great announcements, are quick to make great claims about what they are going to do when they get a chance, but the delivery and the focus on actually making a difference with the investment that they’re making, and being held to account for the progress that they’ve made, have been woeful.

Never before, in my experience, have I seen a Government come along with their major plan, their major programme, which in this case was KiwiBuild, two years down the line—turning up and saying, “Well, yeah. We’re sorry. We failed with that. We got it wrong and we’re going to start again, but trust us. We’ll do it better next time.” That kind of lack of delivery is the thing that is of concern to everyday New Zealanders who are just struggling to get ahead. They’re conscious of the added costs that are being piled on through petrol prices and taxes and various other things. They want to see a clear sense of direction and a clear growth plan from this Government, and all they see is vague statements that they don’t understand and they can’t get their heads around. This process will only make that worse, and on that basis we will not be supporting this bill.

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Associate Minister of Finance): That member is trying, it seems, to live up to the negative National stereotype. There’s no other explanation for that speech, where he said he could agree with all of the principles in the bill but he couldn’t bring himself to support it. He thinks that GDP is, of course, not the only thing Governments ever do; they, of course, are concerned about wellbeing and other matters. But could he bring himself to support the bill? No, he could not—no, he could not. Negative National over and over and over again. They just seem to be opposing things for opposing things’ sake.

This bill represents a huge step forward, building on the successes of the Public Finance Act, the transparency, the accountability that came in 30 years ago, and acknowledges that in 30 years things have changed. The world has changed. We do have a more nuanced understanding of things. We do believe that we can walk and chew gum at the same time, that it is possible, on this side of the House at least—on this side of the House—to have other objectives, other than simply growing GDP. We believe that you can grow GDP and actually share it with the population, for goodness’ sake. We think we could actually make sure that everybody is better off, not just the precious few that might be represented by interests on the other side of the House. We all know why GDP is not the perfect measure. I mean, if we go and smash the window out the front, then of course that contributes to GDP, because some insurance money comes in and the economy gets a boost. But if somebody stays home and looks after a sick child, that does not contribute to GDP, because they’re not earning the money that would keep the economy going. Yet we know that looking after the sick child is the more important of the two.

We all know why it’s important to measure things more broadly, and we’ve got an example of the Budget just gone where the Minister of Finance provided the leadership and worked with the Chief Science Advisors to come up with some clear wellbeing objectives, to look out for child wellbeing, to make sure that we actually take mental health seriously. We are the first Government to take mental health seriously and to make the significant investment necessary to get us on that path, and I’ll come back to that because I can’t let some of the things that the member opposite said go unchallenged around the delivery that’s already happened in that area.

We also looked at Māori and Pacific aspirations and the wellbeing in that area. We looked at how we could make our economy more sustainable to ensure that our growth wasn’t just built on trading houses with each other or on immigration or growing the population, as seemed to be the strategy from the other side of the House. We’re more interested in going from volume to value, making sure that we have an economy that’s truly sustainable in the longer term and that benefits all of our citizens in a shared prosperity. So, on this side of the House, we do believe that you can walk and chew gum at the same time.

Now, I do want to concentrate just a minute on mental health delivery. I heard a colleague challenge member Goldsmith across the House about the fact that he might have been sleeping under a rock if he’d missed the progress on mental health, and the member didn’t directly confront that; he carried on, after pausing briefly, with another set of accusations that were just ill-founded. In mental health, already we’ve delivered a Mana Ake programme that has mental health workers on the ground across Canterbury and Kaikōura in all of the schools—in all of the schools—to make sure that people are supported in the wake of the quakes. We have the Piki programme across the Greater Wellington region having free counselling and, thanks to the Greens, as part of our agreement with them, free counselling available to young people from 18 to 25. We’ve got the nurses in schools programme, which we’ve continued to roll out, which has good evidence around it thanks to Simon Denny of the University of Auckland. We know that contributes to mental wellbeing. We’ve lowered the cost of visiting a doctor for 600,000 New Zealanders, making it easier, because we know many people go to the doctor to get their first mental health consultation.

Angie Warren-Clark: How many?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: 600,000 New Zealanders have cheaper doctors visits as a result of action this Government has already taken, and we put $200 million in our first Budget into specialist mental health services; $213 million in our second Budget into specialist mental health services. We’ve put $200 million into buildings to make sure that the stock of buildings that were tired and run down after the previous Government are built up again, and that’s just the mental health and addiction buildings—that $200 million that we put aside for that. So we’re getting on and delivering, and already there are 170,000 New Zealanders able to access—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Is this related to the bill?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: —primary mental health services, which was specifically mentioned in the Budget that mirrors exactly this bill that we’re putting through with the wellbeing objectives that are being implanted into this bill. I bring it back to the point that I was making, Madam Speaker, with your guidance.

So these are the very things that we know we can do, and we know, if we embed them in this bill and require the reporting of the wellbeing objectives, we can then measure the progress we are making as a nation toward ensuring a shared prosperity across our country. So the bill itself, of course, requires the Government to state the wellbeing objectives upfront—those wellbeing objectives that will guide the Government’s decisions as it goes through the Budget process, and each Government will have the freedom and the flexibility to describe its own wellbeing objectives. It will have the ability to articulate its own vision for wellbeing for this country. It’s not prescriptive, and it’s very disappointing that the member Goldsmith opposite thinks that it is too challenging to both think about wellbeing and grow the finances in the corner. I mean, history will tell us that Labour-led Governments have actually grown the economy faster than National-led ones, which is an interesting observation along the way that shows that maybe walking and chewing gum is more productive than just walking alone, if we want to continue the metaphor a bit further. But maybe that’s stretching it a bit far, if I can step into bad puns as well.

The bill also, then, in Part 2, requires Treasury to report back periodically on the state of wellbeing in New Zealand, and that first report would be due at the end of 2022 and then at least once every four years. We know Treasury are developing tools around this. So we’ve got the Living Standards Framework, which looks at physical and financial capital, which is, of course, the stuff we’re familiar with through the normal Budget process, but also looks at social capital: the connectedness and cohesion of our society. It looks at human capital—the skills, the education, the wellbeing of our citizens that goes with that—and also looks further at the environment and its sustainability over the longer term, recognising that that is also important to our wellbeing and prosperity in the longer term. So it’s a balanced package. We think Treasury is capable of giving us a broader picture of how our Budgets are shaping the future of our nation, of how they are contributing to us being a wealthier, more prosperous, and happier nation in the future.

We know that achieving genuine, enduring change requires establishing a public finance system geared towards this new way of working—this newer way of looking at the world. We know that the Public Finance Act has served us well in the past, but it is actually time to require Governments to set wellbeing objectives to make sure that we are reporting to the public transparently and having that conversation about where we are headed, and then reporting back on how we are achieving better wellbeing for our populations, and, of course, we know this is against the background of long-term challenges. Unfortunately, under the prior Government, whilst it did grow the economy, certainly sometimes faster than at others, we saw homelessness grow, we saw child poverty grow, and we saw the inequalities rising under that Government’s watch.

The OECD data backs this up. It’s not conjecture. The OECD has put out reports on how this has happened and how it’s grown over time. If we set in train a Public Finance Act that measures our progress towards prosperity and towards addressing homelessness and child poverty, addressing inequality, making sure that our Māori and Pacific people are sharing in our prosperity, making sure that we are addressing the mental health crisis that we’ve inherited, with so much growth in need but the services are not geared up to deliver and respond—we know all of this is possible. We are determined to have a Public Finance Act which brings us into the modern age, which sets objectives to be reported on periodically, and that is accessible to the population so that we can see how Governments are delivering for the people of New Zealand.

Certainly, this Government has many achievements, which I have already listed, in the mental health area. We want to be able to report transparently across all of the areas that we’re delivering, and I want to thank all of the partners to this Government for their constructive contributions to this. I hope the negative National view does not continue opposite. I hope they find it within themselves to not only support in spirit this bill but actually to put their vote towards it, recognising that New Zealanders will actually value having objectives around wellbeing spelt out and accountability around those objectives. It should not be something that a National Party opposes, in my view. I hope they see the bigger picture and support this bill.

Rt Hon DAVID CARTER (National): Well, certainly after listening to that contribution from Dr David Clark, he hasn’t convinced me that National is not on the right side of the argument in opposing this legislation. I think it is actually a rather unfortunate night for Parliament that we’re fiddling with a piece of legislation which, in my mind, has been highly successful and, in fact, iconic—and that’s the Public Finance Act. If you couple that with the Fiscal Responsibility Act, for any of us members of Parliament who are lucky enough to go overseas and talk to other parliamentarians around the world, those two iconic pieces of legislation have stood this country in good stead for its ability to reveal quite accurately Government books as we approach elections. We’re fiddling with this particular legislation, and after listening to the Hon David Clark and the Minister of Finance, the Hon Grant Robertson, I am none the wiser as to why this legislation is before the House.

The Hon David Clark kept talking about his ability to walk and chew gum, and I think he mentioned that four or five times. I don’t know what walking and chewing gum and the ability to do both those actions at the same time has anything to do with the Public Finance Act. Then, as I listened to Grant Robertson’s contribution, he lamented the fact that he had been invited to a 30-year celebration of the Public Finance Act but that he didn’t get asked to the dinner that followed that particular function. Looking at Mr Grant Robertson, I don’t think his body noticed the fact that he didn’t get to the dinner.

As I consider what this legislation is about and the Wellbeing Budget, I think what’s happened here is that the Minister of Finance now knows that in the year of delivery, the thing that it didn’t deliver were any brownie points at all for the Wellbeing Budget. So they’ve had an emergency-type Cabinet meeting and have said “What can we do to have another crack at presenting the Wellbeing Budget in front of New Zealanders?”, and the lame attempt is now before this House tonight as we look at the Public Finance (Wellbeing) Amendment Bill.

The Wellbeing Budget was a botched Budget—there’s no doubt about that—but when you look then at the issue of any Budget that’s named a Wellbeing Budget, it’s hard to see how this particular Budget was any different in its aspirations than any other Budget that I’ve seen delivered in 25 years in this House. I can tell the Government side of the House that every Minister of Finance, be it Labour, be it—on one occasion, sadly—a New Zealand First member delivering a Budget, and, whether it’s National, Labour, or New Zealand First, when that Minister delivers his or her Budget, that Minister is trying to improve the wellbeing of every New Zealander.

So while this particular label’s been attached by Labour in the year of delivery, it doesn’t change the fact that any Budget is about delivering outcomes for New Zealanders that will improve their standard of living. So what we see now is a Government that’s spent the last two years removing targets so that we can keep an idea on their achievements. They’ve removed every possible target that National had established under some better Government targets—the ability to actually measure the number of children entering early childhood, or the number of children getting immunisation, for example, and now we have this, I think, flummery or puffery that the Hon Paul Goldsmith spoke about earlier—

Brett Hudson: “Flummery”—he said “flummery”.

Rt Hon DAVID CARTER: —“flummery”; wonderful word—being presented now before the House tonight as an attempt for the Government to relaunch its very sad positioning of a Budget as a Wellbeing Budget.

I think it is actually a sad night when we see this particular Public Finance Act being fiddled with for nothing more than an attempt by the Government to repackage its Budget, and that’s what we’re seeing tonight. The Budget, we all know—and New Zealanders understand what it delivered for New Zealanders. It delivered wasted expenditure. It delivered higher taxes. It delivered in the area of mental health—that the Hon Dr David Clark spoke about—$1.9 billion, and then an attempt to run round to New Zealanders, saying, “Well, we’ve appropriated the money. We don’t know how to spend it. Give us some ideas.”

The Budget has been a disaster, and this attempt by the Government to relaunch it as a wellbeing Budget will not convince any New Zealander at all that the last Budget delivered by the Labour Government was significantly different to any other Budget presented, from an aspect that any Minister of Finance will be delivering a Budget that he or she thinks will deliver to improve the wellbeing and the standard of living of all New Zealanders. That’s why National will oppose this legislation.

I look forward to the submissions we receive at the select committee. I suspect they’ll be very similar to the many submissions we had through the briefing we had on the wellbeing initiative by the Government. It certainly didn’t convince me that it’s delivering to New Zealanders at all.

FLETCHER TABUTEAU (Deputy Leader—NZ First): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise to speak on behalf of the Public Finance (Wellbeing) Amendment Bill. It’s worth noting that the person who created GDP said, when he created the tool of measuring economic activity “Do not use GDP as a measure of welfare of a nation”, and for the illumination, the elucidation, of those on the other side, it was Kuznets, the economist who said, “Don’t use GDP as a measure of wellbeing”. So after all this time of economies around the world going back to the simple number, because it was a simple sales technique—actually, full credit to the members opposite, the National Party there. They used that one number, GDP, quite effectively in their sales pitch to New Zealanders, whether it was 1.9 percent, or, I think they got as high as 3.6 percent—I’ll be corrected if I’m wrong—

Hon Tracey Martin: For a short period.

FLETCHER TABUTEAU: For a very short period. They sold to New Zealand this figure of GDP. But what we have to ask ourselves, and what we have asked ourselves in this House, is what is it that we, as a Government, and that we, as the people of New Zealand, use to measure success? The man who created GDP said “Don’t use GDP”, so what is it that we use? We’ve asked ourselves, well, what is wellbeing? What is it that New Zealanders should be able to stand up, and proudly affirm, and say that we have achieved these things for New Zealand, and we are proud to be part of a country who has done this great work and contributed to an economy.

For the benefit of the previous speaker, David Carter, I just want to touch on some of the issues he raised about the Budget, which was slightly off topic, but kind of on topic when you speak about wellbeing. This Government is focused on wellbeing. How are we doing that? We refuse, unlike the previous Government, to use population growth and house prices to define success in this country. So what we’re saying through this Wellbeing Budget and, actually, through these mechanisms here, in the Public Finance (Wellbeing) Amendment Bill, is to ask ourselves, well, what is success? I put it to this House that investment in infrastructure in a planned, coordinated way over the next few decades, so that businesses in this country know what they can commit to, know that they have business that they can do with this Government and invest in, and invest in their people and invest in this country themselves—that is a measure of wellbeing.

We can ask ourselves, well, what else can we do for our businesses in New Zealand so that they are more productive, and they can pay their employees more? We can ask the fundamental question about why has New Zealand for so long, because of the apathy on the other side of the House, not invested in research and development and said to businesses “Actually, we want to encourage you to do more in the R & D space, so that you can ensure that you are more productive and you are competing on an even platform around the world”, and so that is what we have done.

I suppose one of the great measures of wellbeing, and one of the indicators that we will use, is the distribution of wealth amongst New Zealand. So one of the fundamental questions to that—which I’m proud to say New Zealand First asked of both parties quite a while ago—was, “What are we doing for the regions?” So investment in the regions is a measure of success, not only for a Government but the people in the regions—the wellbeing of the people in the regions themselves.

So this Government proudly stands on its record already, and it has done more than the Opposition did in nine years. We focused on wellbeing, and we’ve done so much. I think—

Hon Member: What does that mean? What does wellbeing mean? How do you measure it?

FLETCHER TABUTEAU: Here we go, for the member opposite who hasn’t read the legislation—I forget his name, it’s been five years—but, what the bill does—[Interruption] Simpson—Simpson? We know that achieving genuine, enduring change requires establishing a public finance system geared towards a new way of working. The Public Finance (Wellbeing) Amendment Bill does so by requiring the Government to set wellbeing objectives, and explain how those objectives will guide the development of its Budget. So what we’re doing is asking “What does success look like?”, and then we’re going to the Ministers, and asking the fundamental question, “How does this measure up against the Public Finance Act, and the measures in wellbeing? Why, Ministers, are we going to give you money in internal affairs, in finance, in immigration, in children—why would we do that?” So the fundamental question comes back to the questions we ask through this Public Finance (Wellbeing) Amendment Bill: “What are the objectives that will guide the development of your work?”

So Treasury will report back and, actually—

Matt King: Here we go—here we go.

FLETCHER TABUTEAU: You can tell the members opposite are excited, but I don’t want to get them boiling too soon. You don’t want to peak too soon, members opposite. I put it to those members opposite that this Wellbeing Budget, unfortunately, and what we’re setting here through the Public Finance Act is about fixing, kind of, the mistakes and, actually, the non-action of the past.

I was in the electorates of several of those members opposite who are the most vocal right now—and I do appreciate the egging on. I was in their electorates having conversations about gangs and P, and so this is the context and what I’ll end on for this evening. They are now finding this Government is doing work on trying to get rid of that scourge, that blight, on our society that is gangs, and the insidious work—or they call it work—in terms of distribution of drugs in our society.

Good people from their electorates are coming to us and saying “What are you going to do about it?”, and the problem with that question is what was done in the past and what is it that we’re trying to deal with now, because, funny guys on the other side of the House—because this isn’t funny—they failed to invest in police, they failed to invest in our Customs Service, and they failed to invest in our children and schools and in mental health. So what does that mean? Well, right now, we here, on this side of the House, are dealing with the outfall of that—the negative externality of their inaction. For every $1 they presumed to save, we’re spending $10 now to fix it up, and that is what we’re dealing with in this Wellbeing Budget.

So thank you to those members opposite for egging me on, because they reminded me why I’m so proud of being on this side of the House and why the work we’re doing is so important for this nation and our regions. Thank you very much, Madam Speaker.

IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I was accused of waffling earlier on, so I’ll get straight to the point now: this bill is rubbish.

I will continue a bit further. The Finance and Expenditure Committee has had a number of briefings on what we should perceive as wellbeing, and I would bet that anyone who comes to this House should have a very good understanding of what wellbeing is all about. I would bet that anyone who comes here comes here for that very reason—to create wellbeing for everybody they provide legislation for—and I think anyone who read a Bill English or a Michael Cullen Budget would also have understood what wellbeing was about. So I don’t see that altering the Public Finance Act to include a whole lot of what I’d call waffle around wellbeing will make any difference at all to the way this Budget or future Budgets are presented. They’ll be presented as they always have been.

Now, this is a play on words, on people’s minds, and, in fact, on Treasury’s mind, and they’re challenged enough. I guess they’re challenged enough because Mr Twyford’s told us on numerous occasions that they’re challenged enough. Treasury’s role is really to provide sound fiscal advice, drive productivity in the public sector, identify risk and wasteful spending, and advise the Government on where it should go.

I’m not sure how we will ever measure wellbeing. I was trying to imagine measuring what I feel like in the morning when I get up. There would be no chance of measuring that publicly.

To do away with fiscal measurements and measurements using figures is, I think, a flawed system and I don’t see that in any way this is going to improve either the delivery of our Budgets or the delivery of services that those Budgets are designed to deliver. It, effectively, excuses Governments from real measurements, and I think that’s a shame, because I do think that we’ve made some progress in recent years in measuring all sorts of things from health statistics to the way the economy was growing, and, of course, we have to have a growing economy in order to fund the things that we need to provide for in the course of Budgets.

I just want to finish by commenting on a couple of things that were said from the other side. I was often thinking, as David Clark was talking about walking and chewing gum, that maybe the gum will get stuck at some stage and that’ll be the end of that, because it might have solved the problem and a lot of noise. In response to Mr Tabuteau, he was going on about what our people are saying about us to him, and I would hate to tell him what our people are saying about him to us. I won’t go on and say that, but I’m sure that the polls and the voters will in due course. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Hon JAMES SHAW (Associate Minister of Finance): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Thirty years, I think, is a good time to review an important piece of legislation, and so I’m delighted that we have turned our attention to the Public Finance Act.

I wanted to start my comments just by responding to some of what I’ve heard in the debate from members of the Opposition. Ian McKelvie, who has just concluded, referred to one of the roles of Treasury as advising the Government on where it should go—in other words, policy advice. In that sense, then, having a sense of the context in which that policy advice is given, I think, would be useful. Alastair Scott interjected a number of times, asking what wellbeing is—of course, he would have to ask—and I would like to say most of it came from Paul Goldsmith.

Paul Goldsmith: the nature of his argument seemed to be that all Budgets are wellbeing Budgets and, therefore, this piece of legislation, and having this kind of context for the finances of a country, is irrelevant. But I just wanted to remind him of a Budget that was written by the author of the Public Finance Act, Ruth Richardson, and that Budget had the moniker the “mother of all Budgets”. In that Budget, one of the things that they did was they looked at what the minimum level of income would be for someone really on the breadline—what was the minimum required to get by—and then they set income support levels 20 percent below that, because they thought what that would do would be to incentivise lazy beneficiaries to get off their bums and get a real job. The consequences of that decision we are still living with today. We are still cleaning up the mess that was left by the “mother of all Budgets”, and by the mother of the “mother of all Budgets”.

So I have to say, if you had—as we are suggesting in this piece of legislation—a requirement for the Government to lay out what it thinks wellbeing is in social and in environmental and in economic terms for all New Zealanders, you would have to then justify the decisions that you’re making in that Budget, and I find it hard to imagine how the “mother of all Budgets” would have gotten through that filter if this amendment had been in place back then. So whilst Paul Goldsmith likes to write this off as just this kind of woke irrelevancy, actually, the consequences could be huge for the lives of New Zealanders. I mean, I think he referred to it as porridge at one point. But the people who were living on the breadline after the “mother of all Budgets” couldn’t afford porridge, Mr Goldsmith, and so I do not think that this is mere symbolism. I think that this can have real consequences for people.

I just wanted to move next to the heritage of this bill, and this is a source of some pride for myself and for members of the Green Party. I want to refer, if you’ll allow me to read a portion of a speech given in this House by a predecessor of mine, Jeanette Fitzsimons, in September 1998—21 years ago. In that speech, she said, “After 20 years of reasoned argument, one should not have to say again how inept GDP is as a measure of our economic well-being. All that GDP measures is the total amount going through the cash registers of New Zealand, regardless of what the money is … spent on. It assumes that the most important thing is for the economy to be big, rather than to be healthy, … If there is a car crash or an oil spill, the money spent on cleaning up the mess adds to our economic growth. If people drive to work, the petrol cost adds to growth; if they walk, it does not. … GDP totally fails to register the scarcity of resources. The first fish and the last fish in the oceans register the same. High growth in GDP is usually a sign that we are consuming our capital—both our social capital and our ecological capital.”

She then went on to say, in 2003, “GDP is both too narrow and too generalised to measure anything useful. It does not tell us whether the poor are getting poorer, and if most of society’s wealth is held by a few. It does not tell us if we’re paying more and more to control pollution and crime, rather than for real goods [or] services.” What is true is that our nation’s wellbeing is not a number on a GDP chart. The tragic thing is that GDP does not measure human happiness or wellbeing; it mainly measures the rate at which resources are turned into trash. Every tonne of metal mined, timber logged, fish caught raises GDP. Every tonne of trash dumped raises GDP. Every million dollars we spend trying to mitigate these effects from landfill management to land restoration, remediating toxic sites raises GDP. Finally, she said, “We will continue to be a voice for a different political philosophy, a new value system … where our success is counted not by the size of our GDP and our incomes, but by the warmth of our relationships with each other and with nature; by the health of our children and our elders and our rivers and our land.”

So this amendment, of course, isn’t going to change all of that, not at all. GDP will still be one of the core economic measures that we rely on to give us a sense of how things stand. But what we are talking about here is to create a broader view of the health and wellbeing of our country in economic and environmental and social terms. I also want to just reference Dr Kennedy Graham who, a number of years ago, introduced another public finance amendment bill: the Public Finance (Sustainable Development Indicators) Amendment Bill, which tried to find a way of introducing some ecological indicators into the Public Finance Act so that, at the very least, we would be able to measure the throughput and the stocks of our natural capital in a way that referenced things against the way that we measure the economy and the state of the public finances. So that attempt—although we were in Opposition and while it was drawn from the ballot and while it did get to a first reading—unfortunately didn’t progress through the House. But today’s bill, the Public Finance (Wellbeing) Amendment Bill I see as the inheritor bill of Dr Kennedy Graham’s Public Finance (Sustainable Development Indicators) Amendment Bill in many ways.

So I do want to say that I am tremendously proud, alongside Grant Robertson, to be sponsoring this bill into the House, because in many ways it brings 30 years of Green economic advocacy to—well, not to a conclusion, but to an actual evolution in how things move through.

I know that other countries are feeling somewhat salty that they don’t have this level of thinking in their own set of public finances. We know that other countries are looking to us and saying, “It seems like New Zealand is making some real progress here in advancing economic and fiscal thinking in public finances in terms of which we’re thinking about things.” And I know that the reforms in the 1980s and the early 1990s—we actually exported that, warts and all, to some parts of the world. And whilst we’re attempting now, 30 years later, to clean up some of the damage caused by some of those reforms, I hope too that we can export the next evolution: this idea that, actually, we can take a more holistic, more all-encompassing view of social and environmental and economic wellbeing, and to say to the world, “Actually, there is a way that we can do this better.” So to all of those Greens, Jeanette and Kennedy and Russel and very many others who have gone before and who have advocated for this, I say booyah.

BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Look, I think this Government’s about as confused as anything I’ve ever seen before, and, interestingly enough, on a finance bill. So we’ve heard tonight that the Finance and Expenditure Committee have had briefings on wellbeing. Look, the last National Government had 10 Better Public Services targets: reducing welfare dependency, increasing infant immunisation rates, reducing assaults on children, just to actually begin. There’s a list of 10 and I won’t go through them all.

Greg O’Connor: Cheaper public services.

BARBARA KURIGER: But the message that I’m going to give you, Mr O’Connor, is that actually we had targets. And then we had a Government that came in and decided that they didn’t like targets because targets are too hard. I mean, look at KiwiBuild, for example. Let’s take the targets away and, “Oh, now we’ve figured out that it isn’t going to work.” Well, these Better Public Services targets were going to be too hard for this current Government so they moved them. So all of a sudden now they want to have Treasury then start measuring these things again.

Let me tell you, we’ve heard a lot of put-downs tonight about GDP and all the rest of it, but Deborah Russell over there’s an accountant. She will know that a ledger has two sides, and you have to have money coming in before you can have money coming out. So it’s not that hard; it’s one side to earn the money, and then to be able to put it in, measure it, and make targets. It’s not actually that hard.

Now, something that I’m really, really, really disappointed about right now is that the latest Situation and Outlook for Primary Industries has just come out, and we all know the importance of a strong economy to wellbeing. Well, I can tell you that the people who hold up this economy have never ever felt so down and out. The phone calls that I’m getting at the moment and the phone calls my colleagues are getting—and I tell you what: we talk about one suicide being one too many. Just watch this space, because if this attitude from this Government carries on with farmers, that’s what’s going to happen. So don’t talk to us about wellbeing, because, actually, actions speak louder than words, and right now I’m not seeing it. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): The next call is a split call. I call the Hon Poto Williams.

Hon POTO WILLIAMS (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. Madam Speaker. It might surprise you to know but I have been waiting for 30 years for this piece of legislation, for the changes that this brings out. In all my years in working in the community sector and all the conversations that we have had, one of the biggest, I guess, handbrakes on our ability as a sector to fully effect our ability to work with the people who come to us and to work with the causes that we hold most dear has been the Public Finance Act. Why I say that is for a couple of reasons.

When somebody comes through your door as an NGO, and they bring with them the myriad of issues that come with them, and you have access to a dollar of health and a dollar of justice and a dollar of education funding to support this person, but in front of you they have all the complexities of a modern person. There may be issues of income, there may be issues of housing, but the ability to actually cater to that person’s needs in relation to your Government contracts has seriously hampered your ability to deal with the person that’s in front of you. You have not been able to deal with the important needs that they have and actually effect good outcomes. So in many ways we have been totally missing the mark with our Government funding in terms of supporting the community sector.

So we are now better able to see that person and actually acknowledge the issues that they present, and actually work much more closely to their needs because we are thinking about their wellbeing and because we are thinking about outcomes as opposed to accounting for those dollars from the pūtea that they have come from. We’ve created an ability to work across Government organisations. We’ve created the ability to work across ministries and actually see the need in our community. And it is about wellbeing. It is about wanting to move people into a different space. It is about wanting our communities to thrive and to survive. And the important thing here is we’ve set this up using two frameworks.

So in Treasury they’ve got the Living Standards Framework, which looks at all of those wellbeings—social wellbeing, they look at human wellbeing, financial wellbeing, and natural wellbeing—and match those against all the other current wellbeings that we look at, which are things like civic engagement, cultural identity, environment, for example, and actually move us into a space of resilience. So Treasury has invested in these wellbeings. We overlaid that with the five priorities for the Wellbeing Budget, which are about taking mental health seriously, improving child wellbeing, supporting Māori and Pacific aspirations, building a productive nation, and transforming the economy. Together, Treasury and Government have created a framework with which we can look at our wellbeings and address the issues that are presented to us in the community sector. It is a really important day for us to be celebrating this.

My desire around the community sector and our engagement with civil society, as a Government, is that they could become much more an equal partner and be able to drive Government policy. The only way to do that, really, is to allow them some power in this relationship; allow them equality and, actually, be able to talk to us about what they see on the ground, because what people in the community sector see on the ground is an accurate reflection of what we, as a Government, should be putting our resources into if we’re wanting our nation to thrive and survive.

So I see this as a really important first step. There is much more to be done, and I know that the Minister of Finance signalled that in his speech earlier in this debate. I, for one, am looking forward to seeing those other pieces in the wellbeing puzzle come together to give us an absolute clear pathway forward so that our communities are engaged with their Government, are driving Government policy, and we can fully deliver on what we know is the best for our nation. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): Madam Speaker, thank you. I’ve just been thinking about things tonight, and it’s interesting just thinking about this bill; I think that Grant Robertson must be Treasury’s best friend. He must be their bestie—or what’s the acronym if you’re a really good friend? You’re a BFF, isn’t it—best friend forever. Because if you think about Mr Robertson, since he’s become the finance Minister he’s done virtually everything Treasury has been pushing for for years. So what’s the first thing he did? Well, he had the Reserve Bank—OK, so now we’ve got a dual mandate. The bank had a very clear mandate to have inflation between 1 and 3 per cent, so on Treasury’s advice that got changed so now we have this one about full employment. Then we had the issue around how you set monetary policy. So what did Treasury want? They suggested we should do the monetary policy committee, and, of course, that’s now come into law. What’s the third thing that Treasury wanted? Oh, that’s right, Treasury wanted to have a role on monitoring the Reserve Bank, because they’ve been trying to take it over years. So, of course, we now have a Treasury official that sits, ex officio, on the monetary policy committee so when we do set the official cash rate, of course, Treasury is there.

Now we’ve got the next piece of legislation, this wonderful piece: the Public Finance (Wellbeing) Amendment Bill. Gee, don’t I feel better after reading that! Of course, National recognises that we have much wider measures than GDP. Of course, we don’t talk about GDP per capita because under this Government it’s gone backwards dramatically—except prior to coming into power it was everything about GDP per capita, according to Mr Robertson. But somehow we’ve forgotten that in time. But the trouble is we’ve seen an economy go backwards under this Government in 20 short months, and we all recognise that having a strong economy powers all the type of stuff we’re talking about in this Wellbeing Budget, which is about how you fund new schools, how you deal with social inequities, how you deal with good health outcomes—that’s what gives you the money to do it. As my learned colleague beside me, Barbara Kuriger, mentioned, we had very clear objectives about measuring outcomes; not just GDP but a whole stack of them—in fact, the Hon Steven Joyce was fixated with measurement. But, hey, now we’ve got a Government who wants to talk about wellbeing but doesn’t want to measure it. That’s the trouble.

I’ll leave you with this best example, the one I’ve been talking about multiple times today: why has KiwiBuild got no targets? Why has it got no targets? Because this is a Government that doesn’t want to measure itself and see how bad it is in performing and executing good policy because it doesn’t deliver.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): This is a split call. David Seymour.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a great pleasure to rise on behalf of the ACT Party in opposition to this bill, and to speak to you late in the evening about a matter of grave national importance. I have to say, the speech that I just heard from the member who has just resumed his seat would have to be one of the most confused and confusing contributions to this House that I’ve heard in a very long time. He didn’t know his outputs from his outcomes. Well, let me try to help the member Andrew Bayly with what this bill is about.

The Public Finance Act was a world-leading piece of legislation. It required the Government to keep proper accounts on an accrual basis so that New Zealanders could assess the performance of their Government and understand what was really going on, and not have the wool pulled over their eyes as it had been pulled by the likes of Sir Robert Muldoon and his predecessors in Government as Minister of Finance. But added to this world-leading piece of legislation tonight are a series of outcome measures—not output, outcome measures—that will be as confusing to the public and anybody trying to get an idea of what’s really going on as Andrew Bayly’s speech, because the problem is this Government is proposing to have Treasury try to measure the wellbeings of New Zealanders when what it should be doing is measuring the outputs of Government.

If we want to improve New Zealanders’ wellbeing, here’s a few things that Government departments could be doing. I’d be very happy, as an Aucklander, if Government departments introduced proper infrastructure and, possibly, priced roads correctly so that we didn’t spend so much of our lives in congestion—that would help our wellbeing. I’d be happy if this Government, or any Government for that matter, would try to run a corrections department that rehabilitated just some of the prisoners so we didn’t find that 50 per cent of people released from prison were back inside within four years. I’d be happy if we had a Government that ran an education system that did not leave one in five New Zealanders functionally innumerate and illiterate, according to the OECD, by the time they reached 15—that would help our wellbeing. I’d be happy if we had a Government that, when it came to the ownership of public assets, didn’t own 28 State-owned enterprises (SOE), many of which are losing money in competitive markets and for which there is no basis for the Government to own—for instance, a post office, a television station, or a weather forecasting business. I’d be happy if the Government focused on its ownership of State assets, which is hopeless—

Greg O’Connor: It worked for Air New Zealand.

DAVID SEYMOUR: We hear from Greg—I forget Greg’s second name, but Greg from somewhere in Wellington. Greg says that he thinks it worked for Air New Zealand. Well, he’s absolutely right; the partial privatisation of Air New Zealand has been a success, and there’s a lesson in that. Privatisation increases the productivity and effectiveness of firms. We should do more of it.

But, in any case, the Government could do a lot better if it also focused on better performance for the regulation that it makes. If the regulatory systems didn’t constantly impose costs on New Zealanders without even having identified the problems the Government was trying to solve—and it happens regularly in this country—then I would be very, very happy. But, unfortunately, this perversion of the very good Public Finance Act is going to distract from the performance of the Government, giving the Government the excuse of focusing only on the wellbeing of New Zealanders rather than the performance of Government departments and its contribution to that wellbeing.

It is a distraction; it is an excuse; and it, ironically, will lead to worse wellbeing for New Zealanders to the extent Government can influence it. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Just a reminder to the member that it’s one of the rules of the House to refer to members by their full name.

David Seymour: I just forgot his name.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Well, then don’t use his first name.

KIRITAPU ALLAN (Labour): It is a privilege to speak on this bill. It is a privilege to speak on this bill, because, on this side of the House, we look back to 30 years ago when the public sector went through a raft of transformational changes. If there’s anything that I can align and agree on with the previous speaker, David Seymour, the singular thing I will agree with is the fact that the Public Finance Act is a world-leading piece of legislation. It brought transparency and accountability into a public financial system that had none at the time; it was running awry. You had a public sector that was relatively agnostic in terms of following direction of its Ministers. You had books that were quite easily able to be—I think it’s not too much of a stretch to say that it was quite easy to duck and dive and hide the true measures of what was happening fiscally within that sector, and, coming off the back of the Muldoon era, that became very apparent, across the raft of areas, that greater transparency was required in the State sector. So we saw the introduction of the State Sector Act in 1988, and it was followed with the Public Finance Act in 1989.

Now, what that Act did then—as the previous speaker said—was it brought in a whole raft of measures that required transparency and accountability. It set targets which this House and the Minister of Finance were required to go through in terms of being able to audit those accounts of every dollar publicly spent.

Now, it’s interesting, though, to note, in this House, that there is near unanimous support for what the intention of—and, thus, actually, the output of—that bill was in 1989. I can say that, in 1989, the Opposition sat there and said it would have absolutely no effect, it would have little to do in terms of increasing transparency and accountability, and it was just a raft of measures that this fairy Government wanted to bring in—much like the arguments over the course of this afternoon and this evening have been from the Opposition. “What is wellbeing?”, says the member over there. Well, interestingly enough, it was Treasury under the previous Government’s watch that developed the Living Standards Framework. It sat up there on the bench, but it was under that previous Government’s watch where that Living Standards Framework was developed, which assesses multiple capitals in terms of understanding and seeing, beyond GDP, what wellbeing is; what the standard of living is. If we look back to what Robert Kennedy said—and there’s been a raft of measures in terms of people who have spoken about GDP, but it’s very hard to measure when you’re using purely fiscal outputs and measures to measure wellbeing, happiness, and a standard of life that this side of the House thinks should be made as a benchmark for all.

So when I look at the amending legislation that we’re considering this evening and what it requires us to do—well, it doesn’t supplant one for the other, as the previous member said. It doesn’t trump one and trump the other; it sets out a very clear public accountability regime. For example, section 26KA in the current Act sets out the contents of fiscal strategy reporting in terms of fiscal responsibilities and outputs. New section 26KB, inserted by the bill, is in addition to those fiscal responsibilities and accountabilities. This bill here sets out the wellbeing objectives that a Government must also be accountable to the public for. Now, why is that not a good thing at any state or in any measure that we look to? Of course it’s about financial wellbeing and accountability but so too the measures that were all set out in Treasury’s Living Standards Framework, which the previous Government actually developed.

So, look, I’m finding this debate a little bit reminiscent of those major transformational changes that were made back in the 1980s. We could almost take word for word the Opposition’s debate notes on that night 30 years ago to the debates that have been given in this House today. This side of the House and this Government has always been about transformational change. It might look a little bit tricky. It’s pretty easy to criticise change, but this side of the House believes it’s fundamental, and we’re doing it.

LAWRENCE YULE (National—Tukituki): Well, I have to say that, in my view, this bill will achieve absolutely nothing and it’s all fluff and is, simply, a distraction—the Public Finance (Wellbeing) Amendment Bill. If you ask any member of this House what “wellbeing” means, it will be very different. Chlöe Swarbrick will have a different view to Greg O’Connor, who may not have a view on wellbeing. Tracey Martin will have a different view than I have on wellbeing. And the last speaker, Kiritapu Allan, will have a different view than I have on wellbeing. The problem is that when you end up with fluff, you can’t measure anything. You end up with such a broad criteria that you end up not achieving anything.

I want members opposite to imagine that they’re running their electorate and their election campaign. They don’t focus on everything; they focus on the things that matter, and the important things—for us, on this side, that’s the economy, it’s jobs, and it’s exports. Once you’ve done all of that, as my colleague Barbara Kuriger has said, then you have some money to spend. Unless you’ve got the money, you can’t spend it. What I’m seeing in this bill is, really, a broadening of everything, no deliberate measures, and, really, a lack of focus.

It’s very easy for a Government to spend money—very easy; that’s the simplest part. The hardest part is to earn it. What I worry about in this bill is that all we’re talking about and what we’re charging Treasury with doing is broadening the framework for decision making. In my experience—and I have watched a number of Budgets over the years, with my political interests—all Governments manage the books in the best way they think they can at the time. Their view of wellbeing will vary from one chapter in time to another, and one party to another.

Most New Zealanders have three basic things they want: they want shelter, they want food, they want income, and they want to feel safe.

Hon Chris Hipkins: That’s four things.

LAWRENCE YULE: Four things—four things. My apology, one wrong; four. That’s important. I’m trying to be generous. But after that, then the discretion comes down as to what they can and want to spend their money on.

What I worry about in this bill is that we’re going to broaden the whole framework out, and we’re not going to concentrate on the things that matter, the economy, and those four things. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn): We’ve had a long series of speeches on this bill tonight. I want to take it back to the very basics of what this bill is about, and to trace some of the, if you like, intellectual history behind wellbeing. It matters, and it matters because it is an ancient idea; it’s part of the ancient wisdom.

I believe one of the speakers on the other side of the House said that I was an accountant—that is, in fact, true. I am an accountant, but, as it turns out, I also studied philosophy to a reasonably high level. As part of that I spent a long amount of time examining the ancient accounts of the good life and what different people thought the good life was. It relates so directly to wellbeing.

The ancient Greeks, in terms of thinking about wellbeing, talked in terms of eudaimonia—e-u-d-a-i-m-o-n-i-a. It can be translated as “happiness” but it can also be translated as “flourishing”. And in terms of thinking about how to live their lives they thought, “How does the civilised man”—and that would have been the way they thought about it—“achieve the life of eudaimonia? What is the eudaimonic life?” and they had different theories about it.

The Cynics, that would be Diogenes in the market place, thought that the way to achieve the good life was to get by on as little as possible, to have the littlest and the simplest things. If what you had was bread and cheese, then you enjoyed that bread and cheese to the fullest and you didn’t ask for any more, and you simplified, simplified. The story of Diogenes casting his bowl aside in order that he would drink water just out of his hand speaks to the simplicity there.

The Epicureans were not the way we might think of as some who had a very sort of esoteric taste. Instead, Epicureans, again, very much focused on enjoying what you had to the fullest. That was their account of wellbeing. I found the Stoics more interesting—again thinking in terms of how they would live the good life. And they talked in terms of control—the control of emotions. It wasn’t that someone wouldn’t feel emotions, but that, in fact, a Stoic would attempt to control his emotions. There is a degree of asceticism in Stoicism but it’s not extreme; it’s in terms of enjoying the life you have, not looking for luxuries, not luxuriating in it, but enjoying what you had living a comfortable life, living a life in control.

One of the interesting things about these ancient accounts of the good life is that they are very individualistic and they look to the individual man’s account of the good life. Some of the later accounts have a more expanded idea of the good life looking at a whole of society. And this is where, I think, the one that appeals to me most is the philosophy from Aristotle, who is the favourite—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): I would invite the member to come back a little more specifically to the bill—

Hon Members: Oh!

Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: And I will. I’m moving there, Madam Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): —disappointing though that is to other members of the House.

Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: In particular, he had an account of the good life, of wellbeing, of the way that the well-rounded person lived their life. It was a man living on his property with his wife, his slaves, his cattle, and, in particular, what that meant was that he had a life of autonomy—and the person who was that was a citizen; a person who had standing; a person who had his own account and was worth being considered as part of the polity of the city.

Indeed, that is, in some ways, how we think of citizens as well. Now, of course, in our society it is not just propertied people who are regarded as citizens; we regard everyone as citizens. We regard everyone as being important and in that regard we think it is important that everyone has access to a life of wellbeing, that we structure our society and we structure our Government in such a way that we try to ensure wellbeing for all the people who live in our country—all those who are citizens here; not in the formal legalistic sense but everyone who is part of our society.

And that is precisely what we are trying to achieve with this bill. We are asking our Minister of Finance, we are asking the Budget process, to consider not just the bare bones of—I think it was Mr Yule who put it—“GDP, jobs, and economy” but to think about wellbeing, to think about how we achieve a good life for all our citizens. And this goes back straight to those very ancient ideas of thinking about how we achieve that good life. Now, famously, we know that GDP doesn’t measure what we need it to measure. I think Marilyn Waring, famously, said that when a man marries his housekeeper GDP goes down. Part of what happens with GDP is we don’t count unpaid work. GDP doesn’t assess what we need it to assess and that is part of what we are trying to do with this amendment to the Public Finance Act: to achieve a way of measuring more than GDP, more than the bare bones of the economy, more than the basic structures. And we are trying to do it in a way that Governments will be held accountable for achieving wellbeing.

So if we look at the particular aspects of the bill that’s sitting there it says two very important things in the bill. It says, first of all, that a Government in the Budget Policy Statement each year must set up the wellbeing objectives that will guide the Budget, and then it invites the Government to decide what those wellbeing objectives are. It says they must relate to the social, economic, environmental, and cultural wellbeing of the country and to any other matters. And having set those wellbeing objectives, then the Government will be held accountable on them.

And it’s quite important that individual Governments have the capacity to set different wellbeing objectives. Just as there were a variety of different accounts of the good life, a variety of different ways of understanding what a good and flourishing life looked like for different citizens, so each Government in turn could well set different wellbeing objectives, could choose different ways of setting out what it intended to do, of what was important to it, and then how it would measure those objectives. So in terms of what is going on in this really rather short bill, that’s the substantial change that is sitting in there: define what wellbeing is for that particular Government, then measure it, because we are what we measure.

So it is a profound change in the way we do our Budgets. This much-lauded Act, the Public Finance Act—and a justly lauded Act—did revolutionise the way we do our Budgets in New Zealand and it was part of a whole suite of changes to the way we did our public finances at the time. But in terms of what it sets out for our framework of how we understand the role of the Government, it is at best an attenuated framework. It is thin, it is narrow, it is concentrated only on the measures of the economy.

What we are doing with this Act is we are expanding that notion. We are creating a much richer account of how Governments go about the process of governing, how they go about the process of setting Budgets, how they go about the processes of holding themselves accountable. That is why this is such a revolutionary and a transformational approach to doing our public finances. I am looking forward to discussing this in depth in the Finance and Expenditure Committee.

The Finance and Expenditure Committee is well prepared to discuss this. In the last few months under the leadership of the former chair of the committee Michael Wood we had an intensive look at Treasury’s Living Standards Framework. So we went through the Living Standards Framework. We consulted experts like Paul Dalziel, Caroline Saunders, Arthur Grimes, and Marilyn Waring—it was such an honour to hear from her—and talked about how the Living Standards Framework was constructed, what was done well about it, what needed to be improved, what sorts of things it tried to measure, and where it wasn’t measuring stuff. So as a committee the Finance and Expenditure Committee has already had a good look at some of those issues. It means it will be well briefed to consider this particular bill.

I’m looking forward to considering it in the committee. I hope that in the process of doing that, that as the members of the Opposition grapple with the concepts in this, they too might realise that this change is worth supporting, that it is worth doing something like this to make our country a better place. I commend this bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Public Finance (Wellbeing) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 63

New Zealand Labour 46; New Zealand First 9; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 8.

Noes 57

New Zealand National 55; ACT New Zealand 1; Ross.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Finance and Expenditure Committee.

Bills

Education (School Donations) Amendment Bill

Third Reading

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): I move, That the Education (School Donations) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

Today is a great day for the tradition of a free education in New Zealand schools. The passing of this bill represents a significant step towards our goal of removing financial barriers to participation in education in New Zealand at every level. This bill delivers on the Government’s commitment to restore the right to free schooling for New Zealand school students, be it at primary school, intermediate school, or secondary school. This bill goes a long way to delivering on that commitment.

The Government recognises that for some time now, parents have been under significant pressure to bridge the funding gap that schools often find that they are experiencing. They have been saying for some time that the funding they’ve been receiving from the Government isn’t enough and that parents need to dip into their pockets in order to make up the difference. Parents feel under enormous pressure to pay those donations. We know that for some schools that is leaving them at a serious disadvantage because the parents in those schools simply cannot afford to pay those donations.

I think of some low decile schools where I go into them and I’ll speak to the principal and the principal will say, “We ask for a $50 donation, and we’re lucky if 10 percent of our parents will pay that in a given year.” I then go into some of the other schools who are in a more fortunate position who are asking for very large donations and they get in a very high proportion of those. We know that the reliance on donations across the schooling system is creating a significant inequality in our schooling system, and our Government is committed to addressing that. That is why we are starting with all decile 1 to 7 schools and making an extra $150 available to them if they do not ask for donations.

The analysis that we have done in implementing that policy is that the vast majority of decile 1 to 7 schools would receive on average less than $150 per student per year in school donations; decile 8, 9, and 10 schools—that’s not always the case. In fact, probably the significant majority of those would be receiving on average more than $150 per student per year in donations from parents. We know that those lower decile schools in particular will find the playing field significantly levelled as a result of this policy.

We also know that schools face significant uncertainty when they’re having to rely on revenue from what are donations. These are voluntary donations, they cannot compel parents to pay them, and yet the schools are finding that they are reliant on those in order to make ends meet. This policy is going to deal with them.

This comes on top of other moves that the Government has made to restore the rights to free schooling in New Zealand. Abolition of NCEA fees will help 168,000 secondary school students and 150,000 former secondary school students to meet the costs of their education by removing those fees that they have to pay for their qualifications.

How will this scheme work? First of all, we had to create a way of getting schools the money with the conditions attached to it. So this bill allows a new form of grants to schools called discretionary grants that can be recovered if the school doesn’t meet the condition of those grants. The school board will have to opt in to the extra funding in lieu of donations by way of a resolution of their school board. We’re asking them to consult with their parent communities before they make that decision.

The Minister will be able to place conditions on the payment of those discretionary grants, and that funding will be able to be recovered if a school does not comply with those conditions. It’s important that when we go to schools and say, “You can have this extra money if you don’t ask for donations.”, they shouldn’t then be able to turn around and keep that money if they continue to ask for donations. This bill will allow the Minister to recover the funding if they deliberately don’t follow the rules.

There are some issues that this bill has surfaced. The issues that the bill has surfaced are actually to do with the current rules around a free school education, not with the changes this bill implements. For example, we’ve made it clear—and I’ve made it clear as a Minister—that I will be exempting school camps from the requirements imposed on schools who take the extra funding and agree not to ask for donations. But the issue here is that many schools have been charging a fee for a school camp. The reality is that under the current rules—the rules that exist today, before this bill is passed—schools cannot charge a fee for a school camp that is part of curriculum delivery. They can ask for a donation towards the cost of that school camp, but many schools have been calling that a fee. The reality is, under the current rules, rules that have been in place a long time, including under the previous Government, they cannot compel parents to pay a fee for a school camp.

The exemption that we’re putting in place will mean that the status quo when it comes to school camps—in terms of the rules, not necessarily the current practice—will continue in force, which means that they will still be able to ask parents to make a donation towards the cost of a school camp. They will not be able to charge a fee. They cannot charge a fee now.

Questions have been asked about what’s the definition of “a school camp”, so let me clear that up once and for all. A school camp is something that involves an overnight stay as part of the activity. That’s pretty clear. That’s a camp. So if it’s a trip to Wellington, where they do some activity—they might go and visit the Reserve Bank; that was an example that was used—then, if they’re staying overnight in Wellington, it’s a school camp and they can ask for that. If they’re doing a day trip somewhere and they’re not staying overnight, it’s not a camp, therefore they can’t ask for a donation to cover the cost of that.

There are some things that schools also won’t be able to charge a fee for: swimming lessons. They can’t charge a fee for swimming lessons at the moment; they can ask for a donation towards that. If they opt in to this scheme, they won’t be able to ask for a donation towards swimming lessons.

It’s pretty clear to understand. What is clear also is that under the current rules and under the new rules, non-compulsory, voluntary, optional activities that schools currently charge a fee for, they’ll be able to continue to charge a fee for.

Alastair Scott: A fee or a donation?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: No, a fee. If a student is participating in a sporting activity in the weekend, for example, a school right now can charge them a fee for that, and, if they opt in to the donation scheme, they’ll still be able to charge them a fee for that. It’s a voluntary activity. It’s not directly related to curriculum delivery. It’s not done during school time—although school time is not the only requirement here, because some sporting activity happens during school time, for example, and the students make up that time elsewhere. The school can still charge a fee for that, providing it’s not a compulsory activity that everybody needs to take part in.

So parents can choose whether or not they pay donations now for most things that happen in school. I guess the other point that I should point out is that where there’s a materials fee involved for a take-home component—so students who are doing technology, for example, they might make something that they take home—parents can be asked to pay for the materials for a take-home product. They can be asked to pay for those materials now under the current rules. They’ll be able to be asked to pay for those materials under the new rules.

I’ve also been very clear that the decile 1 to 7 targeting for the first roll-out of this policy is not the end of the matter. Our Government’s objective is to remove financial barriers to participation in schooling in New Zealand at every level. That means that decile 8, 9, and 10 schools will have to be a little more patient, but we are going to be working with them about how we can make sure the funding system is equitable for every school in New Zealand.

I want to finish, in the last two minutes, by covering some of the reaction to the policy, because the policy has been very much welcomed. I think of schools like Masterton Primary School, for example, with its 300 pupil roll, where they get about $2,000 per year in donations. They’ll get $45,000 under this policy. Solway Park school principal, Mark Biggs, estimated that his school is going to be $20,000 better off. “As a decile 6 school we’re piggy in the middle. We do not get the considerable extra Government funding like decile 1 to 4 schools, but our families are not wealthy enough to ask for large donations either. The biggest winners will be the children and our average hard-working families struggling to pay mortgages and meet the rent.” I think about Kuranui College principal, Barbara Caldwell, who said, “The Government donation scheme is another step towards equity and education.” or the Whareama School principal, Darren Kerr, who said, “It’s a system that will see more income for us to use on students and makes the need for voluntary payments a thing of the past. It will also remove the stigma for parents who cannot afford to pay the donation.”

This one story comes from the Wairarapa, and it covers the reaction of principals over there. There have been stories like this up and down the country from school principals who have welcomed this extra funding. They have welcomed the extra equity that this will put into our school system, because it says to every student in the country that they deserve a quality education regardless of their parents’ ability to pay. We know that at the moment, for low- and mid-decile schools, that’s a real struggle. They are reliant on parental donations. They shouldn’t be reliant on parental donations, and this Government is doing something about this. This is a great day for the tradition of a free school education in New Zealand, and I commend this bill to the House.

Hon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central): Look, it is with a heavy heart that National has to oppose this bill, and I want to set out the reasons why, but first I’m going to start with a quote from a school, because we’ve just heard from Minister Hipkins with some quotes about schools. Kaharoa School: “Rotorua does not have any rich suburbs. Our decile 10 [schools] do[es] not equate to Remuera.” Another quote from a school opposing this bill: “Maybe Minister Hipkins can explain this to our families who have just seen their husband or wife die and leave behind three children, or the solo Māori mum in an over-crowded house.” Equity, Minister—equity. This, from another school, Oropi School, who has raised concerns regarding the bill—Andrew King: “The Budget announcement seems to perpetuate a lack of collectivity, providing a band-aid, using a simplistic tool from the past, which is in hope of addressing the issue of inequity in our system.” This from another school, Amuri Area School: “All or nothing, Minister.”

So our first point on this side of the House is that we absolutely believe in reducing costs to parents. That means petrol at the pump, that means lesser rents, that means higher wages. When it came to this bill, we supported it to select committee, but what we found was a shambolic process. We were blocked, actually obstructed, from information. We had a two-week submission process involving 800,000 students affected by this, but also potentially several million parents and grandparents that are subject to this bill. Why would you put such a shambolic process for this bill when, actually, this affects 800,000 students and potentially a couple of million parents? We had the farcical situation of the school camp issue being amended in the House, when it’s a very complex issue, this bill, and we absolutely don’t agree with the process.

But the second biggest reason that we have opposed this bill is actually the issue of equity. Now, I was the Minister in the short period that I had, where I proposed to scrap the decile system, and what we heard throughout the select committee process was, actually, there’s a need to deal with the fundamental issues of inequity in our education system. So the concept, as has been highlighted in the quotes from many of the schools to our select committee, was: deal with the fundamental issues of inequity. Don’t put over an inequitable decile system another mechanism that will see inequity. So 95 out of the 139 submissions said, “Please deal with these issues of eligibility. Deal with the fact that in decile 8, 9, and 10, there will be disadvantaged children that will not have the same opportunity.”, and it’s very much highlighted by that quote from Kaharoa School—completely unfair and inequitable.

We will not hear that Minister say “free education”. We heard, and we’ve heard, the shifting sands from Labour MPs. They now talk about “cheaper education”. Why? Because we’ve got 37 broken promises, and what we know when it came to donations was that a year ago, we heard that the Minister was going to bring this policy; it then landed in the Budget and it was scaled back. So, fundamentally, a flawed process. We would have thought that he would have tried to have brought the Opposition on board with this. Instead, a truncated select committee process, but then inequity on top of an already inequitable funding system.

The next issue is it’s very unclear about the policy. Now, the Minister has said, “Look, this is very easy. That’s why I had to, basically, put an amendment to the House around school camps.” But I want to ask some questions which I’ve been trying to get answers to through this legislative process. We have now this complicated manual—that’s all it can be described as—by the Ministry of Education around you can charge for some school lessons but you can’t charge for other school lessons or ask for a donation. You can ask for a donation for some work books but not for other work books. You can ask for a donation for some music tuition but not for other music tuition. A “school camp” is an overnight school camp, but, actually, if you go on a school camp in the daytime—so our other point about this bill is we now have this incredibly complicated process that we’ve had to literally define “parents” in legislation.

What some principals are saying to me is that not only is it inequitable, it’s also built on this fact that Labour promised free education, and it’s also incredibly complicated to the extent—if members opposite don’t believe me, go and read the guide and then ask the question: why did the Ministry of Education tell our select committee that they would need eight people to police schools on this donation issue? Because we’ve created a bureaucratic nightmare.

The other issue that has been raised by many a submitter is this issue of we would have been much better to deal with the fundamental issues in terms of inequity of our funding school system. That would be a much better approach, because, effectively, this is an operational grant subsidy. I want to also say to the Minister that I would bank my reputation right now that there is not going to be every single decile 1 to 7 school that will take up this policy. Because I’ve heard from them, and they’ve said, “We’ve done the maths. We’ve now done the maths with this complicated guide, and it doesn’t work for some of us.”

So what I would say to the Minister is that it is a broken promise. It is a massive scale-back. People expected that donations would be ended, scrapped, under Labour. That is not the case. People expected free education. That is not the case. But also, from an argument of fairness and basic equity, there are children and families that will not have access to this policy because the Labour Party chose to scale this back, and we heard that loud and clear throughout the select committee process.

So from National’s perspective, we absolutely believe in reducing costs to parents. We absolutely believe we have to do a lot better around equity of funding for schools. That’s why we propose to put more money into schools’ budgets and to reform the decile system. That is a much more intelligent and fairer way to provide schools the funding that they need so they don’t have to charge parents for some of these costs. But the reality is that what Labour have created, in my view, is massive expectation. They’ve put principals in a situation now where there’s a number of parents that think that they won’t be charged any form of costs in terms of schooling. That is simply not true, as we know from the complicated guide by the Ministry of Education.

The second thing that they’ve done is they have broken a promise. The third thing that they’ve done is they’ve embedded a more inequitable education system, and we on the other side believe in paddling in a different direction. That is about reducing costs to parents, but it’s about travelling in a direction that is fundamentally about more equity in our country, because that is one of the single biggest issues that we have. So we, with a very heavy heart, are not able to support this bill to the House and we are very sad about that.

JAN TINETTI (Labour): It’s always a pleasure to follow that speaker, Nikki Kaye, in this House. I find—

Hon Chris Hipkins: Because she gives you so much material to work with.

JAN TINETTI: I was just about to say “because I get so much material to actually speak on”. I find that argument quite hollow, considering that we are in the third reading of this particular bill, and during the committee stage it took roughly 10 minutes to move through the committee stage—an opportunity the Opposition had to be able to put up their Supplementary Order Papers, and they didn’t put up arguments in that particular stage. A bit hollow, just like their nine years in Government. When they could have made a difference for parents, in their education, and made a difference to free education at that point, they didn’t, but now they stand there in a huge rage saying that this bill is a bad thing.

Well, this might be a simple bill, but it has huge positive implications for the education sector—absolutely massive implications. We are putting money into schools that are not going to be charging donations any longer, voluntary donations, to their parents. That is a good thing. We have heard here this evening that those schools who are going to be making an increase in funding that is going in to their school, that is making those principals and those people, those whānau in those schools, incredibly happy.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.