Tuesday, 31 May 2022

TUESDAY, 31 MAY 2022

TUESDAY, 31 MAY 2022

The Deputy Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Karakia/Prayers

Karakia/Prayers

DEPUTY SPEAKER: In celebration of Samoan Language Week, I have asked Lemauga Lydia Sosene to say the prayer in Samoan today.

LEMAUGA LYDIA SOSENE (Labour): Tatou ifo ma tatalo. Le Atua Silisili ese e, matou te sulaina lau Afio mo fa'amanuiaga ma tofi ua e fa'au'uina ai i matou. E lafoa'i ni o matou lagona ma manatua ta'ito'atasi i le amana'iaina o le Masiofo o Peretania. Matou te tatalo ina ia tonu ma fa'amaoni fuafuaga ma fa'ai'uga uma i totonu o lenei Maota Fono. Ia talosia ta'ita'i o lenei Mālō ina ia maua le tōfā mamao, le fa'apalepale ma le agamalū, auā le manuia ma le filemū o Niu Sila. O le matou tatalo lea, e ala atu i le suafa pele o Iesu Keriso, Amene.

Visitors

Australia—Parliament of Victoria

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’m sure that members would wish to welcome the Hon Lisa Neville, the Minister for Police and Minister for Water, from the Parliament of Victoria; and members of the Legal and Social Issues Committee, Legislative Council of the Parliament of Victoria, led by the chair, Ms Fiona Patten, who are present in the gallery.

Obituaries

Joseph (Joe) Parata Hōhepa Hawke

Hon Stanley (Stan) Joseph Rodger

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Members, I’m sorry to have to inform the House of the death of two former members.

E pōuri ana te ngākau ki te whakamōhio i te Whare ki te rironga, i te 22 o Haratua 2022, o Joseph Parata Hōhepa Hawke MNZM, i mōhiotia rā ko Joe Hawke, nō Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei, Tainui, Uenuku, me Ngāti Maru, nāna nei i tū hei mema i runga i te rārangi o Te Pāti Reipa mai i te tau 1996 ki te tau 2002. I noho ia i runga i te Komiti Whiriwhiri Take Māori, me te Komiti Whiriwhiri Take Kāwanatanga ā-Rohe, Take Taiao.

[I regret to inform the House of the death on 22 May 2022 of Joseph Parata Hohepa Hawke MNZM, known as Joe Hawke, of Ngāti Whātua Ōrakei, Tainui, Uenuku, and Ngāti Māru, who was a list member representing the Labour Party from 1996 to 2002. He served on the Māori Affairs Committee and the Local Government and Environment Committee.]

I also regret to inform the House of the death on 29 May 2022 of the Hon Stanley Joseph Rodger CMG, known as Stan Rodger, who represented the electorate of Dunedin North from 1978 to 1990. He held a number of ministerial portfolios including Minister of Labour, State Services, and State Owned Enterprises.

I desire, on behalf of this House, to express our sense of the loss we have sustained and our sympathy with the relatives of the late former members. I now ask members to stand with me and observe a period of silence as a mark of respect to their memories.

Members stood as a mark of respect.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Fa‘afetai lava. Thank you, members.

Petitions, Papers, Select Committee Reports, and Introduction of Bills

Petitions, Papers, Select Committee Reports, and Introduction of Bills

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Petitions have been delivered to the Clerk for presentation.

CLERK:

Petition of Gloria Edward, requesting that the House change the law relating to the division of property on dissolution of marriage, so that the value of overseas property is included in the division of assets, where expatriate women are divorced after coming into New Zealand

petition of Aaron Joyes, on behalf of Forrest Hill School, requesting the House pass legislation to formally place Lake Pupuke within the protection of the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park

petition of Brian Borland, requesting that the House require that drivers’ impairment, rather than drugs, be used to determine whether they can legally drive

petition of Sukhdeep Kaur, requesting that the House urge the Associate Minister of Immigration to intervene and stop the deportation of Narinderjit Singh

petition of Barry Ramsay, requesting that the House urge the Government to direct TVNZ to abstain from mixing languages on English-language channels

petition of Toby Williams, requesting that the House urge the Government to protect Huiarua Station and Matanui Station from being converted to forestry by offshore interests.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Those petitions stand referred to the Petitions Committee. Ministers have delivered papers.

CLERK:

Accreditation Council Statement of Intent 1 July 2022 to 30 June 2026

Statement of Performance Expectations 1 July 2022 to 30 June 2023

External Reporting Board Statement of Intent 1 July 2022 to 30 June 2027

Statement of Performance Expectations 1 July 2022 to 30 June 2023.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Those papers are published under the authority of the House. Select committee reports have been delivered for presentation.

CLERK:

Report of the Education and Workforce Committee on the briefing on the 2020-21 performance and current operations of Immigration New Zealand

reports of the Finance and Expenditure Committee on:

the Controller and Auditor-General draft annual plan 2022-23, and

the Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s Financial Stability Report May 2022

report of the Health Committee on the continuation of the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020

reports of the Justice Committee on:

the four petitions of Peter Barlow

petition of Karl Thomas, and

petition of Stephanie Johnson

report of the Māori Affairs Committee on the Māori Purposes Bill

reports of the Regulations Review Committee on:

the complaint about resource management

national environmental standards for freshwater regulations 2020

examination of COVID-19 orders presented 2 May 2022, and

examination of COVID-19 orders presented between 16 and 29 March 2022

report of the Social Services and Community Committee on the petition of Jenni Dacomb.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The bill is set down for second reading. The Financial Stability Report, the briefing, the draft annual plan of the Controller and Auditor-General, and the reports of the Regulations Review Committee are set down for consideration. The Clerk has been informed of the introduction of a bill.

CLERK: Overseas Investment (Forestry) Amendment Bill, introduction.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: That bill is set down for first reading.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—Housing (Public Housing)

1. CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central) to the Associate Minister of Housing (Public Housing): Talofa lava, Mr Speaker. Does she have confidence in the current approach taken to enforcing the Healthy Homes Standards?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS (Associate Minister of Housing (Public Housing)): Talofa lava, Mr Speaker. Yes.

Chlöe Swarbrick: What advice, if any, has she requested or received on current levels of compliance with the healthy homes standards and steps the Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment (MBIE) could take to improve enforcement?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: I understand from MBIE that compliance is largely under way, that four of five landlords have already started the work that they need to undertake, and that we have a couple of years yet to run before compliance measures need to be completely in place.

Chlöe Swarbrick: How many landlords or property managers have self-verified that their properties meet an exemption to the healthy homes standards, and what checks, if any, does MBIE have to ensure that properties meet the exemptions that are claimed?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: Unfortunately, I don’t have the information on the exemptions—that’s quite specific—but I would be happy if the member would put that question down in writing. I’d be happy to answer that for her.

Chlöe Swarbrick: That question has been put in writing in the past. What additional resourcing would be required for MBIE to finally start collecting data on how many homes are healthy homes standards compliant?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: I apologise to the member; I didn’t catch the middle part of that question.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: And before she asks the question, warning: don’t make a comment, a narrative, on previous answers. Thank you. Just ask the question.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Understood, Mr Speaker. What additional resourcing would MBIE require to finally start collecting data on how many homes are healthy homes standards compliant?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: As the process traverses and as new tenants come on board and the tenancy agreements are in place and landlords have the 90 days in order to complete the work, this is a process that has a period of time to run. MBIE’s resources, for example, will continue to look at the compliance issues. Tenancy Services have undertaken over 1,000 compliance issues, but as we haven’t completed the process yet, it is difficult for me to actually give an estimate of that.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Is she concerned that, currently, the burden of compliance falls on tenants when the Ministry of Health has provided over 8,000 mould-cleaning kits over the past 10 years to tenants and around 0.16 percent of poor-quality rentals identified by the Healthy Homes Initiatives have been followed up by Tenancy Services?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: The burden of compliance lies with landlords.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Is the Minister aware that MBIE currently does not have data on how many homes are healthy homes standards compliant?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: As I’ve already explained, this is a process that will take until 2024 to complete, and Tenancy Services are undertaking compliance checks in that time. I’m fully expecting that over the course of time, landlords, as they’ve indicated, will meet the standards required.

Chris Bishop: How many State houses are yet to be brought up to the healthy homes standards?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: I understand that 29,000 homes have already been completed and a further 10,000 homes are under way.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Will the Government consider fixing this problem of healthy homes standards compliance with a rental warrant of fitness so that all tenants can be confident that their homes meet required standards?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: The Government is committed to ensuring that everyone can live in a warm, dry, and safe home. That’s why we introduced the healthy homes standards, which still have two years to run to reach full private sector compliance. Landlords who do not comply will either be investigated by Tenancy Services or be held accountable by the Tenancy Tribunal.

Question No. 2—Prime Minister

2. DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by all her Government’s statements and actions?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Acting Prime Minister): Yes. In particular, I stand by this Government’s policy of funding the largest ever increase to Pharmac’s medicines budget through Budget 2022. This investment of an extra $191 million over the next two years will allow Pharmac to buy more medicines for more New Zealanders. The Government is serious about funding medicine. By 2023, we will have increased the combined pharmaceutical budget to a total of $1.245 billion per annum—a 43 percent increase since we came into office in 2017. Most importantly, Pharmac is already consulting on introducing or expanding access to medicines for lung cancer, breast cancer, blood cancer, multiple sclerosis, hormone replacement, and HIV. The Government is committed to reforming our health sector and will continue to fund it.

David Seymour: Is the Prime Minister aware that four people related to just one Cabinet Minister Nanaia Mahuta have been appointed to Government working groups or governance roles since 2017 in areas for which that Minister had ministerial responsibility; and if so, is she comfortable that such appointments fit with the Cabinet Manual’s guidance that “appearances and propriety can be as important as actual conflicts of interest.”?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Aspects of the member’s question are inaccurate and I reject the premise of them. With respect to Ms Mahuta, she is scrupulous in the way that she adheres to the Cabinet Manual.

David Seymour: Which aspects does the Minister reject, and which are inaccurate?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Well, the member has to be responsible for that, but he is aware that aspects of the question that he has asked are not accurate. I repeat: Ms Mahuta is scrupulous in the way in which she manages conflicts of interests and adheres to the Cabinet Manual.

David Seymour: What responsibilities does she accept for Treasury’s conclusion that “Inflation is being driven by strong domestic demand” and “In response, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand has signalled its intention to tighten monetary policy”, and does the Prime Minister accept that some of that domestic demand is deficit spending by her Government?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Any one of those three questions.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: What I accept is the full quote from the Treasury as outlined in the economic forecast: “inflation is expected to peak in the first half of the 2022 calendar year. Inflation is being driven by strong domestic demand pushing up against constrained supply and has been compounded by the global supply disruption and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.”

David Seymour: Isn’t it correct that Government spending has forced the Reserve Bank to hike interest rates, which now means mortgage payments for some people represent 60 percent of their disposable income—the highest for that figure in 14 years?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: No, it is not correct—as the Reserve Bank Governor said the other day in response to a similar comment. That is simplistic and, frankly, wrong.

David Seymour: Does she accept responsibility for her Government seeing the largest single annual drop in real wages since the global financial crisis, and how will $350 over one period of three months help people who have mortgage payments, food prices, and petrol prices growing but, in many cases, aren’t eligible for even that?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The member is well aware that there is a global inflation spike affecting countries all around the world. In New Zealand, we have seen wages outpace inflation consistently and they are forecast to do so again from 2023. We are pleased with the fact that we’ve had wages rise by 4.8 percent. That, of course, does not match the rate of annual inflation at the moment but, in the future, wages will once again go ahead of inflation.

Question No. 3—Finance

3. BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana) to the Minister of Finance: Malo le soifua. Malo le soifua lau afioga le Fofoga Fetalai. What recent reports has he seen on the New Zealand economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Budget 2022’s focus on creating economic certainty now and in the future has been recognised by the credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s. It noted that New Zealand’s economic recovery continues with an improving fiscal outlook despite rising economic headwinds. Standard & Poor’s said the stable outlook on New Zealand’s rating is supported by the agency’s expectations that there is enough headroom within the current rating to address potential risks. This reflects the country’s sound and stable institutional settings, such as monetary policy, flexibility, and economic wealth. While the outlook does remain uncertain, and households and businesses are doing it tough, in the face of global inflation trends, our strong economic and fiscal position means we are in a good position to support New Zealanders as we deal with these challenges.

Barbara Edmonds: What other reports has he seen on the Budget’s impact on New Zealand’s economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: ASB’s economist said in its Budget 2022 analysis that the New Zealand economy is in a strong position and has sound foundation showing remarkable resilience and adaptability. Westpac’s economist said “Budget 2022 shows that the Government’s accounts remain in good shape.” The BNZ economist said it shouldn’t be overlooked that yet again the major fiscal theme is the ongoing strength in New Zealand’s fiscal accounts, relative to others, and the relatively speedy return to fiscal surplus.

Barbara Edmonds: What other reports has he seen on the economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The resilience of the jobs market is continuing to support the economy. Stats New Zealand reported that seasonally adjusted filled jobs rose 0.6 percent, or 14,173, in April, compared to the previous month. The gains were broad based, with the goods-producing and services industries up 0.6 percent, and primary industries up 0.4 percent. The Government is focused on securing our future. Budget 2022 continues our investment in skills and training, to provide New Zealanders with opportunities and provide businesses with a skilled workforce that will move them forward. Our immigration rebalance and the opening of the borders to foreign workers and tourists will also accelerate growth.

Question No. 4—Prime Minister

4. CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by all of her Government’s statements and actions?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Acting Prime Minister): Yes, I do, particularly the Government’s response to the Commerce Commission’s market study into New Zealand’s supermarkets. The Government will implement a mandatory grocery code of conduct for major grocery retailers and their suppliers, amend the unfair contract terms regime for grocery supply contracts, develop an additional mandatory wholesale grocery access regime to provide a backstop for the voluntary regime proposed by the commission and allow grocery suppliers to collectively bargain. Along with the legislation introduced on Budget night to break up land banking, this represents a significant step forward in making sure that New Zealanders pay fairer prices for their groceries.

Christopher Luxon: Why did the Government announce a record $38 billion in new spending at the Budget when inflation is already at a 30-year high; and does she accept that record Government spending is putting upward pressure on inflation?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The reason why the Government announced the spending that we did in the Budget is because there are important things that New Zealanders rely on, like a properly funded health system, like a properly funded education system and good schools for their children, like a housing system that makes sure that we deliver to New Zealanders. I do note, with respect to the second part of the member’s question, that the National Party proposed to spend exactly the same amount of money as we did.

Christopher Luxon: Does she accept that record levels of Government spending, when inflation is already at a 30-year high, means higher interest rates and higher mortgage costs for tens of thousands of Kiwi families; if not, why not?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: No, I don’t accept that. Demand is increasing in the global economy, that is absolutely true, but equally we have a number of commentators who have indicated that the Government spending makes up a very small part of that. And I reiterate, once again, that the National Party said they were going to spend the same amount of money. If Mr Luxon’s now changing his position, then he has to answer the question, “What is he going to cut?”, because it doesn’t add up otherwise.

Christopher Luxon: What does she believe is the relationship between very high levels of Government spending and record increases in interest rates?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: What I believe is that the Government spending in the year to June 2022, which is what the Reserve Bank was referring to, includes spending such as the wage subsidy scheme and the resurgence support payment. The National Party asked us not only to do that but to spend more, and now they want to come back and rewrite history. They do not get to do that.

Christopher Luxon: Is she concerned that the interest costs for a typical mortgage on the median house in New Zealand is now well over $700 a week, an increase of more than $300 since 2017?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I have said often in this House that we are concerned about the pressures that households are feeling as a result of the global inflation spike, and as a result now of the fact that, yes, for some of them, their mortgage interest rates will be increasing. Those are set independently by the Reserve Bank. On this side of the House, we’re focused on what we can do to make sure that we support New Zealanders. All of the things that we have to done to make sure that we support New Zealanders through this have been opposed by the National Party.

Hon Michael Wood: Does the Prime Minister stand behind the release of the emissions reduction plan and the policies within it to tackle climate change?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Absolutely I do. If we’re going to provide New Zealanders economic security now and into the future we need to invest in making sure that that future is a low-carbon, low-emission one. Once again, the Opposition have chosen the path of saying they want to do something, but they don’t want to take any action to actually do it.

Christopher Luxon: Does she think Kiwi families struggling with the cost of living crisis can afford to pay an extra $300 a week for their mortgage, and does she accept any responsibility for making the cost of living crisis worse for Kiwi homeowners?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: What I accept responsibility for is being the Government that has consistently looked after New Zealanders, through the COVID-19 period and now through the 1 April package where we significantly lifted the incomes of those on the lowest incomes, and now with the cost of living payment. We’ve also extended the fuel excise duty cut and the half-price public transport. These are all things the Government takes responsibility for in supporting New Zealanders through this, and they’re all things the National Party have opposed.

Christopher Luxon: What does she say to the thousands of first-home buyers who have had to take out huge mortgages over the last few years due to soaring house prices, who the Reserve Bank says will now find it difficult to pay their mortgages if interest rates continue to rise?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: What I say to those people is that the National Party’s policy is to put a billion dollars back in the pockets of speculators by removing the interest deductibility policy which meant that more New Zealanders have been able to get into their first homes.

Christopher Luxon: Isn’t it the case that her Government’s failure on housing and failure to rein in spending means the cost of living crisis is set to get worse for tens of thousands of Kiwi families facing soaring mortgage costs on top of everything else they have to deal with right now?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: No. What is the case is that many New Zealand households and businesses are doing it tough in the face of—off the back of COVID—cost of living increases and pressures that they’re seeing. What they also know is that they’ve got a Government that’s backed them by cutting those costs of living, by making sure we’re actually doing something about reining in our supermarkets and by making sure we fund public services properly. All of those things are things the National Party won’t fund, won’t support, and they will not be supporting New Zealanders through a cost of living crisis.

Question No. 5—Housing

5. SHANAN HALBERT (Labour—Northcote) to the Minister of Housing: How is the Government supporting more people into their first homes through Budget 2022?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Housing): The Government is backing first-home buyers by making changes to the First Home Grants and First Home Loans. These changes mean more New Zealanders can access support to get into their first home. We’ve increased the house price caps for the First Home Grant to align with lower quartile market values for new and existing properties in each different part of the country. We are also removing house price caps entirely from the First Home Loan to provide a greater choice of homes for prospective first-home buyers. Caps will be reviewed in six months’ time. These changes, along with other changes to the eligibility criteria, will help thousands more first-home buyers. Funding is available for approximately 7,000 extra First Home Grants and 2,500 extra First Home Loans each year.

Shanan Halbert: How else has the Government boosted support to get more people into their first homes through Budget 2022?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: In addition to increasing house price caps for the First Home Grant and removing the caps for the First Home Loan, we’ve increased the income cap for individuals with dependents to $150,000. We know a deposit can be a big barrier for people purchasing their first home, particularly for single parent families. With these changes, a single parent with two children earning up to $150,000 a year will now be eligible for the First Home Grant to help them with their deposit. Changes to the First Home Grant came into effect on 19 May and changes to the First Home Loan take effect next month.

Shanan Halbert: How is the Government supporting more Māori into homeownership through Budget 2022?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: We’ve increased the cap of the Kāinga Whenua loan from $200,000 to $500,000 to provide more choice and opportunities for people building, relocating, or purchasing a home on whenua Māori. Only 70 Kāinga Whenua loans have been paid out since 2010, so lifting the cap will make a huge difference. The Government is also working closely with Kiwibank to respond to concerns around access to finance on whenua Māori. Changes to the Kāinga Whenua loan cap come into effect tomorrow.

Question No. 6—Finance

6. NICOLA WILLIS (Deputy Leader—National) (remote) to the Minister of Finance: Does he agree with Treasury that “inflation is being driven by strong domestic demand”; and if so, does he believe his plans to spend an additional $38 billion over the next four years is adding upward or downward pressure on inflation?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I agree with the full quote that the member has selected from, which is: “As outlined in the economic forecast, inflation is expected to peak in the first half of the 2022 calendar year. Inflation has been driven by strong domestic demand, pushing up against constrained supply, and has been compounded by global supply disruption and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.” In response to the second part of the member’s question, as Government spending reduces from 35.4 percent of GDP in 2021-22 to 31.6 percent of GDP in 2022-23, the Treasury’s fiscal impulse model turns negative.

Nicola Willis: Does he agree with Reserve Bank Governor, Adrian Orr, that “higher than otherwise Government spending would mean, all other things equal, higher than otherwise inflation pressures”, and does he agree with the Reserve Bank’s assessment that current levels of Government spending are “very high”?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I agree with the Reserve Bank Governor when he said that, in the overall scheme of things, Government spending is “small beer” in the inflation picture.

Nicola Willis: Does he stand by his statement that “The short term challenge of inflation is significant.”, and would he characterise Treasury’s forecast that inflation won’t fall back below 3 percent until 2025, as a short-term challenge?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The challenge of inflation is particularly harsh in the short term because we are seeing a spike that is decades high. The Treasury forecasts that that spike will come off in the second half of 2022, and then, as the member states, will go back to the 1 to 3 percent band by 2025. None of that takes away from the pressure that that puts on households now and into the future, and that’s why the Government is supporting them.

Nicola Willis: Does he agree with ANZ that the Reserve Bank “might need to ‘make room’ for Government spending by inflicting higher interest costs on businesses and households”?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Well, I’d need to see the context of that statement. What I do know is that a range of the bank economists have not only said that the Government’s economic and fiscal position is strong but, just to pick one of them, the ASB said that the Government’s recent Budget spending is unlikely to have a huge impact on inflation.

Nicola Willis: Does the Minister think Government policy decisions impact business confidence, and is he concerned that the ANZ Business Outlook Survey published today shows business confidence is now the lowest it has been since COVID first hit, with inflation expectations continuing to rise?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The ANZ business confidence survey has been the subject of a number of questions in this House from time to time and there are many different reasons that lie behind it. What I do know is that businesses around New Zealand have been supported with confidence and cash flow by our Government through the wage subsidy scheme, the Resurgence Support Payment, and now the initiatives in this Budget that will support small businesses to be able to grow as well.

Hon Stuart Nash: Are we the only country in the world facing inflationary pressures or are other countries also dealing with this issue; if so, what are some of the global issues driving this?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Yes, this is indeed a global issue. And just around the time of the Budget, we saw inflation in the United Kingdom reach 9 percent, go over 8 percent in the United States. We know that global supply disruptions, both from COVID but also more recently in places like China, have been impacting on inflation as well as the war in Ukraine. Every country in the world is dealing with inflation. Our economy is well placed to deal with it, along with the support that we’re giving to people to get through it.

Nicola Willis: Well, isn’t it the case that in addition to any international factors, very high Government spending is putting pressure on interest rates and making life harder for any Kiwi with a mortgage?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: No, it is not. What the Government has done over the course of the last couple of years is make sure that New Zealand got through COVID with one of the lowest unemployment rates in the world—with growth over 5 percent, with debt at one of the lowest rates in the world. That’s what the Government has invested in over the last few years. We’re in a strong position to deal with these challenges and we will continue to support New Zealanders.

Question No. 7—Health

7. TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North) to the Minister of Health: How is Budget 2022 helping to secure the future of New Zealanders’ health?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Health): When we undertook to rebuild New Zealand’s health system, we accepted it would not only require commitment to making the necessary structural reform but also that a financial investment to secure New Zealanders’ health would be required. This is why, in this year’s Budget, Vote Health has received a record $1.8 billion funding boost. This clears the financial deck so that Health New Zealand and the Māori Health Authority can have a clean start and get on delivering a system that supports our medical staff to deliver better care for patients. This funding boost starts to overcome years of underfunding of the system. Also, to ensure greater certainty of planning, Budget 2022 secures funding for two years and provides a further $1.3 billion boost in the second year.

Tangi Utikere: What are some of focus areas in the 2022 health budget?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: Through this Budget we’ll be able to, amongst a broad range of initiatives, prioritise delivering better care at a community level, continue modernising our health system’s physical and digital infrastructure and assets, and build a national health service that consolidates our strengths while recognising flax-root needs. This Budget continues our work in rebuilding mental health services with specific investments in acute and specialist services, including addressing unmet demand for help with eating disorders. Budget 2022 also provides a significant boost to ambulance services, adding 61 vehicles to the fleet and 248 additional crew. This new investment will tackle the inequity and postcode lottery that for decades has meant patients with the same conditions in different parts of the country have had different access to care.

Tangi Utikere: How will this Budget support the delivery of primary healthcare?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: Budget 2022 funding will grow primary healthcare teams around the country and allow GPs to work more seamlessly with services like physiotherapists, pharmacists, and social workers to offer greater care earlier and closer to home. GPs in high-needs areas are also being backed with $86 million of new funding over four years so they can offer more care through improved opening hours and more appointments. These are key parts of the Government’s shift to ensure New Zealand’s health system can provide quality care at the right time and in the right place while taking pressure off our hospitals in the rebuilt system.

Question No. 8—Police

8. Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Whangaparāoa) to the Minister of Police: Does she stand by her statement, “I reject the premise that gang tensions have increased under this Government’s watch”, and how does she reconcile that with the 12 gang-related shootings last week?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS (Minister of Police): Thank you, Mr Speaker. And can I just thank and add my welcome to the Hon Lisa Neville from Victoria, who is in the House today.

I stand by the full context of all my statements. In response to recent shootings, police have launched an operation which has included the deployment of the armed offenders squad to conduct search warrants and make arrests. Today, the police have made 10 arrests, seized four firearms, recovered 250 rounds of ammunition, and carried out four warrantless searches and six search warrants. I’m confident the police will continue to put pressure on gangs through further enforcement activity, and the Government will continue to support them in these efforts. That’s why we’ve invested a record $562 million into Police through Budget 2022, doubled the number of organised crime staff since 2017, and introduced firearms prohibition orders to the House.

Hon Mark Mitchell: Does she accept that had the Government voted for the Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Bill last year, police would currently be making use of the additional search powers and taking guns off gang members?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: The police already undertake warrantless searches. They have significant search powers; you just need to look at Operation Tauwhiro, with nearly 700 warrantless searches undertaken since February last year.

Hon Mark Mitchell: So if the Minister’s premise is that the police already have the powers necessary to undertake searches, why did they introduce a weak firearms prohibition order (FPO) to the House?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: The Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Bill is before the select committee at the moment and being worked on. If the member believes that that is to be weak, I think that he is on the select committee and it is incumbent on him and the select committee to do the mahi to get that bill in order.

Hon Mark Mitchell: Point of order, Mr Speaker. That was a very direct question, there was no answer to that. She just told me exactly what I already knew, that there was an FPO bill in front of the committee. I asked her why the Government had introduced that if the police already had the powers that they needed.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: You might not like the answer, but the fact of the matter—that was addressed.

Hon Mark Mitchell: What additional powers will the FPO give the police that they currently don’t have?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: As I have just said, if the member is on the committee that is working on the FPO, there’s plenty of work that they can be suggesting. The police tell me they have sufficient search and surveillance powers and they have exercised those in their duties.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Point of order. Mr Mitchell’s question was very direct. There was no hyperbole or added questioning to it. It asked if—as the Minister had said in a previous answer—the police have the powers, why do we need the bill? That was not addressed.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’ll allow the member to ask the question again, and can I ask members to allow the Minister to answer. I did have difficulty hearing the whole answer, so it’s really up to the members.

Hon Mark Mitchell: Minister, if the police already have the powers that they need to seize the guns off gangs, why has this Government introduced an FPO bill?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: FPOs deal with the most significant criminals in our community, whether they’re gang members or not. That is the point of them—tougher penalties to ensure that those who would do us the most harm are taken off the streets.

Hon Mark Mitchell: So is the Minister telling the House that the FPO bill is going to have tougher penalties?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: The effect of the FPO will be tougher.

Hon Mark Mitchell: Does she agree with David Parker that it is better to be shot at by a shotgun rather than a semi-automatic, and is that the Government’s measure of success?

Hon Michael Wood: Point of order. The question has no connection with the primary question or any of the answers that were provided.

Chris Bishop: Speaking to the point of order, I think that is clearly wrong. We’ve had five or six supplementary questions in relation to firearms that follow directly from the primary and gang members that you have allowed, sir. The question from my colleague Mr Mitchell is in relation to the comments of another Government Minister about firearms. The question is clearly in order, and it’s just whether or not the Minister agrees with her colleague.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’m going to allow the question and the Minister can respond.

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: Firstly, I want to acknowledge that those who’ve been affected by the recent shootings, either as bystanders or those living nearby, have had a pretty tough time with it; it’s been quite scary for them. These incidents are completely unacceptable, and that’s why the police have responded so strongly. The police have launched an operation which has so far seen 10 arrests, four firearms seized, and over 250 rounds of ammunition. The operation supported by armed offenders squad staff who are deployed from across Auckland. The police are doing their job.

Chris Bishop: Point of order. Well that was very interesting, but it went nowhere near addressing whether or not the Minister agreed with the comment of the Hon David Parker in relationship to shotguns. There was no attempt whatsoever to address that question.

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: Mr Speaker, speaking to the point of order—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: No—go on then.

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: I did say that it was unacceptable.

Chris Bishop: Point of order—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: No. Let me rule on the first one first. Being very generous, in the widest form of possible answers, it was kind of addressed, so I will allow it.

Question No. 9—Police

9. NICOLE McKEE (ACT) to the Minister of Police: Does she agree with the Prime Minister, who told Stephen Colbert, “We had a buy-back scheme. People had legitimately and legally gone out and purchased these weapons, and we changed the laws. So, in fairness, we said that we will buy them back, and then we will destroy them. And so that is what we did”?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS (Minister of Police): Yes.

Nicole McKee: Does she believe that the Government’s gun legislation and buy-back has been a success, and, if it has, why did the number of violent gun crimes increase by 47 percent between 2018 and 2021?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: The buy-back—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Sorry to interrupt. In so far as that question relates to the primary, you can answer.

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: Thank you, Mr Speaker. The buy-back was necessary to remove high-powered semi-automatics from our community in a very tragic time, and we removed 60,000 prohibited weapons through the process. Police are taking action across a range of issues that are confronting our communities at the moment, and that’s why the armed offenders squad have been deployed across Auckland currently to conduct search warrants and make arrests.

Nicole McKee: How can she say the Government’s gun legislation and buy-back has been a success when there are daily shootings in Auckland and people are living in fear?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: The purpose of the buy-back was because the Government and the vast majority of New Zealanders recognise that there is no place in our communities for high-powered semi-automatic firearms. When it comes to dealing with the use of firearms by gangs and those who would do us harm, the Police launched their Operation Tauwhiro, which has taken 1,600 firearms off gang members, and since 2019, police have seized 10,000 firearms.

Nicole McKee: Does she stand by her statement that Aucklanders should absolutely expect a fall in gun crime, and when will that fall in gun crime begin?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: I do absolutely, because of the work that this Government is doing. The Government was first advised to implement a firearms register, for example, in 1997—a 30-year deficit of information when it comes to the number of firearms in our communities, which means that we are unsafe. A firearms register will ensure that imported firearms which are distributed to dealers and licence owners will be able to be tracked via their serial number. This Government has had a record investment in their police, ensuring that we’ve invested $200,000 into the firearms register, $185 million into front-line safety, and $94 million to crack down on gangs and to keep our young people out of gangs in the first place.

David Seymour: Point of order. That was very clearly a question about the outcomes and whether the Minister stood by her statement saying that people would get better results with the Government’s policies. Now, the Minister has talked about a whole lot of inputs and expenditures and initiatives, but she hasn’t given anything like an address to the question about when any of it will actually work, which is what the question was about and what, frankly, people want.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yeah, I have a different opinion. I think the information given did actually address the supplementary as it related to the primary question.

Hon Stuart Nash: Is it true that before the Labour Government changed the firearms Act to ban military-style semi-automatic weapons, anyone with the right licence could purchase the guns used by the Christchurch terrorist to kill 51 people, and now these weapons are illegal and the penalties for possessing these are harsh?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: Yes, I do agree with that. It is the very least we could have done for our Muslim community, our community of Christchurch, and the people of New Zealand.

Nicole McKee: What does she think victims of gun crime will make of the fact that the Prime Minister has been on American talk shows and at universities, talking about how good her Government’s gun laws are, meanwhile there has been shooting after shooting back here in Auckland?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: I think they would applaud the fact that this Prime Minister has presided over a record investment in our police: $562 million to keep our communities safer, to keep our front-line staff safer, and an investment into ensuring that we remove gangs from our communities. I stand by that, and I applaud our Prime Minister and the work that she has been doing overseas.

Question No. 10—Tourism

10. RACHEL BROOKING (Labour) to the Minister of Tourism: How is the Government supporting the tourism industry to innovate and recover?

Hon STUART NASH (Minister of Tourism): Talofa lava, Mr Speaker. The Government has made it a strategic priority to reset and rebuild tourism on a more sustainable footing. This is why, as part of Budget 2022, I announced the $54.2 million innovation programme for tourism recovery. We will work alongside tourism businesses to develop new, innovative ideas that will improve the sustainability and productivity of eligible businesses. The recent $250 million extension to the maintaining international air freight capability scheme announced by the Minister of Transport is also ensuring necessary air connectivity for the tourism sector as it recovers. And, finally, I announced a package to support three core networks within the tourism sector to gear up for the return of international tourists as the country fully reconnects with the world. This is funded from the international visitor levy.

Rachel Brooking: Why is there is a package to support tourism networks and how is it made up?

Hon STUART NASH: While I acknowledge that tourism is a sector of our economy that in many areas has done it tough over the last two years, our wider tourism sector is on the way to recovery. As visitor numbers scale up, our established tourism networks will receive new Government support to maximise opportunities for businesses, workers, and local communities. The chain of more than 60 i-site visitor centres will receive new funding, along with the tourism trade show Trenz and regional Tourism New Zealand, the umbrella body for 31 regional tourism organisations. They reinforce our international reputation for being good hosts and offering a friendly welcome, and help create great storytellers and brand ambassadors from those who have travelled here from afar.

Rachel Brooking: What feedback has he received on these initiatives?

Hon STUART NASH: There’s been a lot of good feedback on these, but let me give you two examples: Rebecca Ingram, chief executive of the Tourism Industry Aotearoa, the tourism industry’s peak body, has said that, and I quote, “The innovation programme for tourism recovery is a forward-looking initiative that will boost the work already being done to build a more sustainable tourism industry”; and Gráinne Troute, the director of Tourism Holdings Ltd, said that, and I quote, “The funding for Trenz 2023 and the Budget commitment to the innovation programme will be invaluable in helping tourism recover and innovate for a strong and sustainable future”.

Question No. 11—Foreign Affairs

11. Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National) to the Minister of Foreign Affairs: Does she have a plan for ongoing engagement with Pacific countries currently considering the China-Pacific Island Countries Common Development Vision; if so, when will we learn about it?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Minister of Foreign Affairs): Fa‘afetai lava, Mr Speaker. Let me start by acknowledging Samoan Language Week in this the 60th year since Samoa’s independence. I can assure the member we are continuing our already deep relationship with the Pacific. In the first term of our Government’s tenure my predecessor initiated the Pacific Reset. We are ramping up our focus on resilience priorities, because the compounding impacts of COVID-19 and climate change require a renewed emphasis of Pacific-led solutions. New Zealand will be a consistent, trusted, and reliable partner in the way we seek to ensure that the approach has bilateral and regional benefits, better coordinated multilateral support for Pacific development and climate change challenges, and builds regional peace, prosperity, and stability. That is why we respect a Pacific-led agenda that has regional benefits.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: When did the Minister’s ministry—their Pacific-based or Beijing-based diplomats—first report that China was proposing the China-Pacific Island Countries Common Development Vision?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: It has always been a prospect that China would put a vision or a strategy to the Pacific. The Pacific is contested space, and we have to remember that not so long ago Secretary of State Blinken from the US also visited the Pacific with a set of opportunities. So going back precisely to the nature of the question, can I say that it became evident to New Zealand around the time that the Pacific were made aware there was an interest by Foreign Minister Wang Yi to visit eight Pacific nations in a very short period of time that we had greater detail about the intention.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Why is it that the Australian newly minted Foreign Minister was within one day of being granted her warrant able to get into the Pacific to discuss this proposal in Fiji and our own Minister has not even commented greatly on it at this point?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: I’m not going to over-sensitise this, but the time that the newly elected Foreign Minister for Australia came into her office, the borders of Fiji were opened. You might recall that as soon as the borders opened in Fiji and I was able to travel, not only did I go to Fiji but also the Minister of Defence, and we also have the Associate Minister of Foreign Affairs going up very shortly to Fiji to discuss relevant issues for the region in terms of our bilateral relationship as well.

Brooke van Velden: Why is she still here and not visiting the Pacific?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: I want to be really clear. I’ve engaged with leaders of the Pacific all throughout a really difficult time. During the two years of COVID when borders were closed we had to use virtual platforms to engage with the Pacific. My first Pacific Islands Forum was conducted online. When borders opened up I travelled to Fiji to ensure not only that we could signal the importance of the bilateral relationship with Fiji but the regional contribution that Fiji is making as secretariat to the Pacific Islands Forum. Can I also be clear that when Prime Minister Brown was able to come to New Zealand when his borders opened up and the quarantine arrangements allowed, he came here and we hosted him on his inaugural visit. I intend to participate in the Pacific Islands Forum. I have signalled at my most recent bilateral with Foreign Minister Manele, when his diary permits we will meet in person, and I have also signalled that there are ample opportunities in particular meetings coming up, such as the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, and the Australia New Zealand Leadership Forum, for us to continue our strong relationship. We have a strong relationship with the Pacific. I’m really disappointed that members across that part of the House are trying to talk it down.

Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki: Faafetai tele lau afioga Fofoga Fetalai. Fesili faaopoopo. In her engagement with our Pacific Island neighbours over the last 19 months, what are their biggest concerns, and how is she responding to those?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: If you ask Pacific nations what the single biggest threat to regional security is, they have the same answer: it is climate change. That is why we’re providing $1.3 billion in climate finance over the next four years—a solid commitment. At least half of this will go to the Pacific to support their work to adapt to the impacts of climate change. My colleagues in the region have outlined that their second biggest concern is economic recovery after COVID-19, and my observation is that the compounding levels of debt across Pacific nations increases their vulnerability. We need to do something about it. I’m proud of the way that we stood alongside our Pacific neighbours and partners throughout the pandemic. In the last two years, we’ve provided 1.34 million COVID-19 vaccine doses across the Pacific, and committed $325 million in additional Budget support to Pacific countries. Overall aid to the Pacific—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member has answered the question.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: If the Minister is not immediately travelling into the Pacific to talk to those nations who have considered the common development vision proposed by China, how many of those 10 countries’ leaders has the Minister contacted by Zoom or by phone in the last 72 hours?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: I can provide a list, because I have had a number of engagements by Zoom and by phone, and, in particular, in response to significant aspects of their needs at a very critical time. Take, for example, our response to the Solomons and the unrest that occurred there. Take, for example, the Tongan eruption, and the regular cyclone events that occur in the Pacific. We are in regular contact. The relationship is strong.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I’m sorry to interrupt the Minister, but she clearly didn’t hear the question. In the last 72 months, she may have had a lot of contact with Pacific Islands. Really, the question was about the last 72 hours since the better understanding about the common development vision was understood.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: And one could reasonably apply anything that she said to the last 72 hours. Does the Minister have any further—

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: I want to just confirm so that there’s no misconception in the House: New Zealand’s relationship with the Pacific is strong, and it is important to ensure that we work alongside the Pacific on some very complex, challenging issues that partner their solutions. The fact that New Zealand is a trusted, reliable, consistent, respectful partner speaks volumes in the way that we engage with the Pacific.

David Seymour: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. If I could assist, it does actually create a real difficulty for the House when you interpret the answer for us as being within the last 72 hours. It’s not clear to anybody if the Minister was referring to meetings that happened within the past 72 hours. If you then imply that she was, she could have unknowingly misled the House, because people might take the impression she was referring to recent events when actually some of them happened last year.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: In response to what you’ve just said, at the time the point of order was taken, the Minister had not completed her answer. I have no idea what she was going to go on to say. When the point of order was made, I said that anything that she had said up until that point could have been—I don’t know, but could have been—applied to the last 72 hours. I don’t know if it was or not, because the answer was interrupted. At this point, the members have supplementary questions if they wish to use them.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Well, if that was the case, you could have admonished me for cutting the Minister off, and then the Minister could have finished the question and we’d know the answer that you sought. At the moment, the Minister does appear to have told the House, via her “yes” to your question, that she’s had contact with the vast majority of those Pacific Island nations considering the common development vision in the last 72 hours. That’s, in my opinion, something that should be articulated directly by the Minister.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: And I could have, had I heard the whole answer without interruption, offered an additional supplementary—which I will do to you right now. I will offer you an additional supplementary to ask about, if you would like to, the last 72 hours.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Has the Minister contacted in any way the 10 countries who are considering the CDV in the last 72 hours?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: It’s very difficult to try and tie down conversations over the weekend. But let me talk about the next 72 hours, during the working week, because I have scheduled a conversation with the Tongan Foreign Minister, with the Cook Islands Foreign Minister, and the Marshall Islands Foreign Minister. To belabour the point—but in order to provide clarity to the member asking the question—the last conversation that I have had with a Pacific leader was Minister Manele in relation to New Zealand’s concerns about issues relating to the security agreement with China.

Brooke van Velden: Is the Minister finding it difficult to focus on these areas because she is preoccupied with three waters?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Ah, no. That’s—

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: Not at all.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I think we’ll go on to the next question.

Question No. 12—Commerce and Consumer Affairs

12. JAMIE STRANGE (Labour—Hamilton East) to the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs: Talofa, Mr Speaker. What recent announcements has he made regarding competition in the retail grocery sector?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): Yesterday, I announced the Government is taking action. Supermarkets are on notice, with a clear message: change now to increase competition and be prepared for regulation. People and families are fed up with paying a premium for the basics, and they’re demanding a fairer price at the checkout. The Commerce Commission made 14 recommendations including introducing a mandatory code of conduct, ensuring loyalty programmes are easy to understand and transparent, and establishing an industry regulator. The Government has accepted 12 of the recommendations and is taking stronger action on the other two.

Jamie Strange: What other actions is he taking?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: Alongside the retail stores, supermarkets have wholesale arms. We’re calling on the duopoly to open these up to would-be competitors at a fair price. If supermarkets do not strike good-faith wholesale deals with their competitors, our regulatory measures will make it happen for them. We’re not afraid to unlock the stockroom door. The commission also recommended another review of competition in three years, but we refuse to kick the can down the road; instead an industry watchdog will provide annual state of competition reviews to keep supermarkets honest.

Jamie Strange: What reaction has he seen following the announcement?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: The Food and Grocery Council has welcomed the Government’s response and says, “[the particularly] strong emphasis on a mandatory code of conduct [has been a] goal since 2010.” The National Maori Authority said, “The changes were needed to break the backbone of the supermarket industry that has profited for a long time now to the detriment of suppliers, producers, and consumers.” Isobel Ewing’s piece on Newshub got to the heart of the issue by talking to Dinesh Patel who owns small grocers in Wellington, he says, “Under the current duopoly, other small retailers are shutting up shop because they can’t compete.” It’s clear competition in the sector is not working for consumers, but change is on its way.

Hon Stuart Nash: How much money in extraordinary profits did the Commerce Commission find the supermarkets were making from good, hard-working Kiwis?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: The Commerce Commission analysis indicated that every day, these supermarkets are making super-profits: excess profits in the order of $1 million a day out of Kiwis’ pockets—and that was actually their most conservative estimate. This is a problem that needs tackling and this Government is determined to get on with making the change that’s needed.

Chris Penk: Will improving competition in the supermarket sector make mountain bikes cheaper?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: Look, we have been very clear on our policy on this side of the House: we’re very firmly focused on the serious issue of lowering grocery prices. On the other side of the House, they’re making light of the issue. I notice and I welcome Chris Luxon’s comments that he was very supportive of the moves that were announced. But I also notice that Andrew Bayly almost immediately got out there and said that this was “window dressing”—he sought to undermine his leader’s comments straight off the bat there. Now the other member’s drawing attention to it. They’ve only got jokes on that side of the House; we actually take the ordinary matters that consumers are facing, the hard yards that Kiwis are doing, seriously. We’re determined to make change that matters.

Budget Debate

Bills

Appropriation (2022/23 Estimates) Bill

Debate resumed from 19 May on the .

Hon DAVID PARKER (Attorney-General): It gives me great pleasure to rise in support of the motion of the Minister of Finance in respect to the Budget delivered the week before last, and in opposition to the, frankly, absurd amendment to that motion from the Leader of the Opposition.

Before making a few of my own comments on the Budget and various priorities, I would like to quote from what the bank economists have been saying in the intervening week. ASB economists said in its analysis of Budget 2022 that the New Zealand economy is in a strong position and has sound foundations, showing remarkable resilience and adaptability. Westpac’s economists said Budget 2022 shows the Government accounts remain in good shape, and the BNZ economists said that “It shouldn’t be overlooked that, yet again, the major fiscal theme is the ongoing strength of New Zealand’s fiscal accounts relative to others and the relatively speedy return to fiscal surplus.” This, of course, is on the back of international credit agencies giving New Zealand triple A ratings, and Standard & Poor’s, just in the last day or two—as the Minister of Finance in question time has just said—again, gave a strong, stable outlook for the New Zealand economy.

It seems almost unbelievable that just a couple of years ago, in the middle of COVID, this country’s deficit was 7.2 percent of GDP as we supported New Zealanders to stay attached to their work, and had various supports that were so important at the time. This coming year, the Budget deficit is down to 1.7 percent of GDP, and that is an absolutely remarkable turn-around, which says something about the sound economic management of the economy.

At the time of that very significant deficit—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: What about the debt?

Hon DAVID PARKER: —we, as a Government, were already thinking ahead. Unlike the Hon Gerry Brownlee—who just interjected—at the time of the Christchurch earthquakes, when his Government did nothing to train the workforce needed to rebuild Christchurch, this Government—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: That’s not true.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Well, virtually nothing—that’s true. We have had 100,000 additional people in work-based training, many tens of thousands of them in the trades, and that’s because we were already preparing for the rebound in the economy that we knew would occur if we kept people attached to their work.

We trained people to fill the jobs that we knew would bounce back in the likes of the construction economy. And it’s worked: GDP in New Zealand is already back to pre-COVID levels. I think that’s remarkable—already back to pre-COVID levels. Economic growth is forecast to go to 4.2 percent during the forecast period, and we’re reaching an operating balance before gains and losses surplus in New Zealand a year earlier than the National Government managed to achieve after the global financial crisis (GFC).

Unemployment is at record lows: 3.2 percent. It’s something that we really celebrate on this side of the House. On the other side, they complain that as a consequence of that, our immigration settings are not loose enough, because they think that there are upward wage pressures in the economy. We celebrate wages going up, on this side of the House It is a matter of pride for us that every year until this inflation spike, wages were rising and salaries were rising faster than inflation. Again, it’s a subject of joy for us that from this coming year onwards, the wage growth is predicted to be higher than inflation again, and that even in this current year, where we’ve got inflation predicted to be about 6.8 percent, wage growth at 4.8 percent is 2 percent behind inflation, and over the whole period of this Government, people are well ahead.

There have been some highlights in this Budget, including the additional measures to support 2.1 million Kiwis to help with the impact of rising prices. The $350 payment goes to 2.1 million Kiwis, and it will help them in addition to the measures that we’ve already taken to slash excise duty on petrol, to reduce road-user charges, and to halve public transport costs. Those measures have all been extended in the Budget as well.

There were questions in the House today about gang activity. There is an additional $94 million in this Budget to target gangs and organised crime, to carry forward the work that this Government has had going in recent years to target gang activity, and we’ve heard how many arrests and guns have been seized as well as cash taken off the gangs.

Returning to one of the themes that I heard, and what I thought was a pretty unsatisfactory debate that we had in the legislation to give effect to the cost of living payment, there were claims by the Opposition that New Zealand is a highly taxed country. I dragged out the OECD stats on that over the weekend. There are 38 countries in the OECD. Tax as a proportion of the economy: New Zealand is 24th out of 38. So there are 23 countries who are more highly taxed than New Zealand, out of those 38. We are in the lower half of developed countries. In respect of the most recent OECD reports on New Zealand’s taxes, 32.2 percent of GDP is their most recent report, and, in comparison, the taxes as a proportion of GDP were 31.6 percent of GDP under National in 2012, after the GFC.

In respect of another initiative I just want to talk a little bit about: in the Budget, there is $179 million for implementation of the reforms of the resource management system. This is one of the measures that the Government has under way in order to improve productivity of the economy. I think this is an issue that we should be celebrating, around all sides of the House, progress on this particular issue. The Infrastructure Commission recently reported to Government, and this has been publicly released, that the cost of consenting infrastructure has increased to 250 percent of where it was 10 or 15 years ago—250 percent of where it was 10 or 15 years ago. That is an appalling outcome under the current Resource Management Act (RMA) system.

The RMA has failed in a lot of ways. It really does cost too much. Processes under it take too long. They haven’t protected the environment. We’ve had declining water quality, increasing climate changing emissions, and we haven’t properly protected our highly productive soils. All of these are outcomes of the RMA, so it hasn’t met its environmental purpose and, at the same time, it hasn’t met its development purposes. Its development purposes include making enough land available so that people have got the opportunity to build houses or apartments or places where more people can live. As a consequence, in part, of failings of the RMA, land supply has been very constrained in New Zealand and, therefore, house prices have spiked. So implementation of the new system is essential to its success.

The RMA in its principles was not poor legislation, but it was poorly implemented. There wasn’t sufficient national direction around things like making land available for supply. New plans were held up for many years in the Environment Court, because the Environment Court wasn’t funded to hear appeals, and there were many other causes of delay. There were no standard plans done, there were no common definitions, and, as a consequence, implementation of the RMA was very poor. Now, we’re in the middle of the legislative reform process, but we’ve got to get on and implement the new system, because if it’s not implemented any better than the RMA, then it would fail just as the RMA has failed.

So there’s $179 million in this Budget which is for implementation, for the development of model plans, for the codification of all existing national direction into the national planning framework, and for the completion of the part of national direction which relates to consenting of infrastructure. That piece of work’s being led by the Infrastructure Commission with input from other agencies, including the Ministry for the Environment, and, together, this money will ensure that when the new system is legislated, we will be a full decade ahead of where the RMA was at the time when it started to be implemented. Those are the sorts of changes that add to the productivity of the economy as well as meeting challenges like the shortage of affordable housing opportunities that we have in the country, as well as meeting the environmental challenges that, of course, environmental legislation is meant to address, including across climate change and water.

This is a very good Budget. It has been well-received by the economic pundits, and I have great pleasure in endorsing the Minister of Finance’s motion.

NICOLA WILLIS (Deputy Leader—National) (remote): Thank you, Mr Speaker. This is Labour’s “backwards Budget”. It will take New Zealanders backwards. It will take the Government books backwards. It will take our country backwards. It fails to address the underlying drivers of New Zealand’s challenges and it fails to provide a pathway back to prosperity and financial security.

The biggest economic challenge in New Zealand today is the cost of living crisis, yet David Parker, in that contribution, wouldn’t let the words pass his lips. Instead, he presented his case for more tax and, running out of material, decided to talk about his complicated ideas to tinker with the Resource Management Act one day—maybe.

The reality in New Zealand is stark. Prices are rising faster than they have in 30 years. Kiwis from all walks of life face rising costs for the bare essentials. Petrol, groceries, rent, their mortgage payments—all are getting more expensive and wages are not keeping up. Prices are rising twice as fast as wages. People are working harder to stay still, and many—many—are falling further and further behind.

So does this Budget steer a way out of the crisis? No, it does not. Contrary to Labour’s insistence that inflation is just a visitor from overseas here for a short time and soon to depart, in fact, this Budget says in black and white that the cost of living crisis is here to stay.

The Treasury notes that far from being something to simply blame Russia for, inflation is, in fact, being “driven by strong domestic demand pushing up against constrained supply”—domestic demand. Treasury predicts that inflation will be 6.7 percent this year, will persist at 5.2 percent next year, and will continue outside of the target range at 3.6 percent in 2024. The cost of living crisis is here to stay. Not in decades has New Zealand seen persistent inflation of this sort.

This will have a massive impact on New Zealanders, who will have to get used to the corrosive impact of rapidly rising prices for all that they do. Inflation is a robber at everyone’s door: savers having the purchasing power of their savings eaten away; families having to make cuts to their living standards just to make things add up. Up and down the country, it is already hitting home, and it’s going to get worse.

I visited a budget service with my colleague Simeon Brown in his electorate last week. The good men and women there say their caseload of families needing help has exploded. They now have double-income parents turning up in distress, some living in their own homes now struggling to pay the mortgage. Those budget advisers fear how many more people will be entering their doors as cost pressures bite and more and more squeezed middle-income Kiwis have to roll off one fixed-term mortgage and on to a much higher interest rate. The budget advisers talked of rising rents, which are up $50 a week in the past year alone; of more and more people being forced out into temporary and transitional accommodation as the State house waiting list soars to the highest on record, with 27,000 New Zealanders now without a suitable home; and of parents trying to raise their kids in emergency motel accommodation, paying hundreds on petrol to get those kids to school so far from their temporary home.

New Zealand communities are in a cost of living crisis and what they wanted from this Budget was hope. They wanted a credible pathway out and they wanted reassurance that while the world is in some turmoil, they can rely on the New Zealand Government to be careful, to be disciplined, to be prudent. Instead, what did the Minister of Finance offer them? He has responded with the biggest Budget spend-up in New Zealand history. It’s worth me stepping through just how big the spending is, because we knew it would be the biggest ever at $6 billion, but what we didn’t expect was the add-ons.

You see, not content with the spending he’d set aside for himself, what the Minister of Finance did was dip into next year’s kitty too—that’s right. He’s added climate change spending, COVID spending—a last-minute, panic-driven, poorly thought-through band-aid payment too—and then he wanted more. These Estimates show he has raided next year’s operating allowance and allocated that—$2 billion worth of raiding, in fact—and, not content with that, he’s raided 2024’s operating allowance as well, allocating $400 million from that year’s kitty, too. Never mind there’s the small matter of an election between now and then.

So, all up, the Minister of Finance ended up allocating $9.5 billion a year, utterly blowing the $6 billion out of the water. In a time of record high inflation, the Labour Government decided to put the money hose on full blast. It’s alarming. The Budget documents suggest that the Government’s own officials are alarmed too, because, unlike the members opposite, they know there isn’t a magic money tree at the bottom of the garden to pay for all of this.

This is what the Treasury officials have to say about the raiding of next year’s kitty. They say the Government will have $2.5 billion available to meet all other cost pressures and initiatives in next year’s Budget, but with the possibility of higher than normal cost pressures, because of the persistent inflation, it may be challenging to meet those costs. So what next? Well, the Government could reprioritise existing services—we know how allergic they are to that—they could increase tax, or they could increase debt. So what we know is that this Budget puts New Zealand books even further into debt, because, not content with delaying surplus until 2025, it may now be pushed out further, with debt soaring even higher than 40 percent of GDP. So much for leaving a buffer for a rainy day.

Inflation and big government spending has big consequences for New Zealanders—just ask anyone with a mortgage. The Reserve Bank has already begun its miserable yet necessary work of hiking interest rates. Mortgage rates have risen eye-wateringly fast. Never before has the Reserve Bank had to hike the official cash rate by 50 basis points twice in a row, but that’s the new reality. In their Monetary Policy Statement last week, the bank described “very high levels of Government spending”, and the Reserve Bank Governor acknowledged the upward pressure this spending places on inflation.

We are going to see more New Zealand mortgage-holders in financial stress. We are going to see thousands of dollars extracted from household budgets and paid to the bank. We are going to see more and more New Zealanders feeling the cost of living crisis knocking at their door, and while the Reserve Bank has its foot on the brake, Labour has its foot on the accelerator. It’s spraying that money hose around and it’s spending more and more.

What we needed to see in this Budget was a plan to deal with the structural drivers of inflation to stop adding costs, and, instead, the first move was to lay the architecture for more costs in the form of a jobs tax. That was the bill the Minister of Finance decided to introduce under urgency. We needed to see a plan to unblock bottlenecks by sorting out the mess in immigration. But no, no, that has not been presented.

We needed to see a plan to bring discipline to Government spending, to quit prioritising lavish expenditure on projects New Zealanders have not asked for and do not want: hundreds of millions on the Three Waters Review, confiscating local government assets; hundreds of millions restructuring the health system, even in the wake of a global pandemic, with a fatigued health workforce; and hundreds of millions merging Radio New Zealand and TVNZ to solve a problem no one even knows exists.

What this Budget fails to do is to get more delivery and value out of existing programmes of expenditure, like the $1.9 billion on mental health that failed to deliver one single extra specialist service, and to stop the waste—Mr Speaker, forgive me, I’m remote and so I don’t know where I’m at on my timing. Do I have—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): 10 seconds.

NICOLA WILLIS: 10 seconds. So what New Zealanders needed to see in this Budget was a plan that would take them forwards and out of the cost of living crisis. Instead, they were presented with a Budget that takes New Zealand backwards. New Zealanders deserve better.

Hon PEENI HENARE (Minister of Defence): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Tuatahi māku ka tuku i ngā roimata ki runga o Ngāti Whātua ki Ōrākei a te matenga o Joe Hawke ki roto i ngā wiki, a Te Kahurangi Aroha Crofts kua riro atu, te taniwha o Te Wai Pounamu, ka mutu huri tū atu ki roto i Te Tai Hauāuru, arā Te Tumuaki o te Hāhi Rātana, anā ka mutu ki roto i a au i Te Tai Tokerau, te kaumātua Pineaha Murray, kotahi tonu te kōrero ki a rātou kua riro atu ki te pō, haere mai, haere.

[Firstly, I shed tears for Ngāti Whātua ki Ōrakei with the recent death of Joe Hawke, Dame Aroha Crofts has also passed away, the powerful leader from the South Island, and I turn to the West Coast with the leader of the Rātana Church, and I finish in The Far North with the elder Pineaha Murray. There is one phrase for those who have passed away, may you rest in peace.]

I thought it rather fitting that in the passing of Mr Joe Hawke we remembered the 44-year anniversary of Takaparawhau, when Mr Joe Hawke stood defiantly to the then Government to make sure that his people continued to have land. What people think is that was the end of Mr Hawke’s legacy, but I’m proud to say, in acknowledgment of his whānau, what he also fought for was the wellbeing of his people. He fought for better health outcomes for his people. He fought for better social outcomes for his people, and economic benefit for his people. With respect to Ngāti Whātua, he did a very, very good job, but we’ve got a long way to go.

I want to acknowledge him, not just for his contribution to Māoridom but, as you will know, he was a member of our party—the Labour Party—and a sitting member of this House. I extend my heartfelt sympathies to his family, and to the people of Ngāti Whātua, and to all those who are suffering at this point in time.

I turn now to the Budget. I stand in support of what is a very impressive Budget. Over the past week, Māori Ministers have been travelling around the country, and what we’ve themed our roadshow as is a saying that goes “He oranga mauroa”, which means securing our future, and that’s exactly what this Budget does. I want to acknowledge the Minister of Finance, not just for this Budget, but if we look towards the announcements for the Māori Budget in this particular year, what we see is a building on years previous—in particular, through a challenging time of COVID-19 where I acknowledge many of the Māori health providers around the country and many of our community leaders who continue to support our people through the COVID pandemic. And just a friendly reminder to one and all: we aren’t quite through the pandemic. What we see now is a number of a cases, the daily average continuing to rise slowly, we see more—sadly—deaths of those from COVID-19.

So I want to just remind our whānau as we head into winter: we aren’t out of the COVID pandemic. Furthermore, as we look towards what we need to do to support each other through winter—which is traditionally a hard time on our people—I want to endorse the efforts made by communities to push our people to make sure they are vaccinated against the flu.

When we were out on the road talking about the Budget, there was so much to talk about. For Māori Ministers, it was another success of just over $1.2 billion announced in the Budget to make sure that we could continue to have what I just described as “He oranga mauroa”, or securing our wellbeing.

Now, what we saw in the Budget is over half a billion dollars towards wellbeing and health, and I want to talk about a little bit of those because they fall under my portfolios. I want to start with Whānau Ora.

In Budget 2022, the Minister of Finance announced $166 million for Whānau Ora over four years. Now, I want to take this opportunity to explain why that’s really significant. Since the start of the kaupaua of Whānau Ora, predecessors who have held this portfolio have always gone back to Governments and to Ministers of Finance to say, “Look, we need support for Whānau Ora. Whānau Ora does a fantastic job.” We saw it again over the past two years through the pandemic, where this Government invested significantly in Whānau Ora to continue to support the work that they’re doing. In Budget 2022, what we did was invest $166 million into Whānau Ora over four years. Why is that important? Because what that does is it secures the future for Whānau Ora. By putting it over four years, we now know that the Whānau Ora kaupapa is in the baseline of our expenditure, which means it has security moving forward.

We know that there was a money uplift through COVID-19, which was important because they took over a heck of a lot of support in our communities and they were servicing whānau that actually weren’t originally on their books. They had an open-door policy which saw many whānau come into Whānau Ora for their services. The $166 million announced in Budget 2022 will continue to secure Whānau Ora for the future. It represents almost a 50 percent uplift in the funding for Whānau Ora. Now, that is something that I’m proud of, and that is something that I know this Government is proud of.

There is also significant investment in Māori health. Recently, in Whangārei, I announced a $30 million fund to support health infrastructure for Māori health providers. I want to be clear: that infrastructure isn’t just on what we might term capital expenditure for buildings or whatever it might be but also to look towards how they prepare themselves for the health reform that we have in place, making sure that, come 1 July, our Māori health providers are supported to continue the good work that they’re doing while also making sure that they find their place in an important health reform—a health reform that has been decades in the making, and I’m proud that this Government’s leading it.

They were absolutely blown away by that announcement: $30 million doesn’t sound like a lot of money, but for Māori health providers who have received very little over decades, this is a game-changer, and I was quite clear to them then that this can’t be the beginning and the end of it. This bill’s also on the investment that we made through COVID-19 that saw Māori health providers who didn’t have mobile clinics to be able to immunise and vaccinate our communities get funding to be able to do that. This continues that, and I’m really proud of that announcement. I can tell you, as I stood in Whangārei amongst a collective of Māori health providers from Te Tai Tokerau as well as those who joined online, there was absolute support and also endorsement of the Budget and the announcement that I made that particular day.

A further $168 million to see the Māori Health Authority continue to drive commissioning not just at a national level but at a local level through iwi-Māori partnership boards. We’re quite clear that in order for us to be able to deliver these services, we must make sure that the money is there and available to commission those services.

But I want to highlight one other thing in the Budget: the nearly $40 million invested into the Māori health workforce. Here’s the reason: it’s no good saying that there’s a lack of money in the health budget. It’s no good saying that, actually, that’s not enough money when what we really need is a strong health workforce moving forward to be able to deliver these outcomes. We’ve already asked out health providers—and I look towards my colleague here Tangi Utikere, whose sister is a strong leader in health in their community as a nurse, and I continue to think about them. It’s easy to say that it needs more money, but it’s no good commissioning outcomes when you do not have the workforce to deliver it. I’m thankful that the workforce have worked hard through COVID-19. What we know is the $40 million investment announced in Budget 2022 will continue to support us to grow that workforce.

We saw during the vaccination of our people through COVID-19 that not only did we need regulated health workers that could give the vaccine and take charge of the vaccine distribution but what we needed was an entire other workforce that continued to support the back office and that continued to support promotions to bring our people out of their homes and into the community discussions that we’re having around health and COVID-19. My expectation is that $40 million will continue to look towards securing that workforce, transitioning them into health workforce career pathways. What I also expect from that money is to see an uplift of Māori and Pacific leaders in the health sector, not just those who have become GPs—and they’re awesome; they’re fantastic. What we want is those trained medical professionals to take the next step to be specialists to make sure that we can continue to support our communities.

Just one final one from me: $36 million to lower the screening age for Māori and Pacific people from the age of 60 to 50 for bowel-screening. On a personal note, my father had bowel cancer well before he was 60, and do you know what? We were lucky. We are privileged. My family, we were able to seek the care that he needed to beat bowel cancer. Sadly, we found bowel cancer in him because we were going in for what would be normal, regular heart and blood checks. What this announcement will do is make sure that we can reach a further 60,000 people who will now become eligible for bowel-screening, and I’m really proud of that. That’s one of the true gold nuggets that you hold a personal affinity to, something that makes me say I’m proud to support our Minister of Finance’s Budget. I’m proud of the work that we’re doing on this side of the House to make sure that our communities have the wellbeing that they deserve.

Finally, a big thankyou to the Minister of Finance. His trust and his inspiration for all of us here on this side of the House is something to behold, and I look forward to continuing to spell the virtues of this Budget as we go forward. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): Talofa lava, Mr Speaker. Protecting life on our planet from climate change and biodiversity loss is actually the defining issue of our time. The science is increasingly clear that we are going to have to take drastic action to ensure that future generations have half a chance at a decent life. In 2050, my children will be only 32 and 29 years old—so it’s not that far into the future. If we want—and I would hope that every member of this House would have this aspiration—them and their peers to have a decent chance at a good life, at a planet that has enough water, that has enough food, that has natural spaces where other types of species can thrive, then we need to act with very great speed to stop the destruction of nature, to limit global heating, and to make our economic system fairer so that it is supporting everyone in our communities and not extracting and concentrating wealth just for a few, which is the status quo that we have.

We in this House are elected to represent New Zealanders and to take decisions that are in line with their values and aspirations. I know that the vast majority of New Zealanders support protecting our taonga, our water, our soil, our native flora and fauna, and they support making our society fairer so that truly everyone has what they need to live a good life.

This Budget does show some small, modest steps in a positive direction. I have to acknowledge that. That’s why the Green Party voted for this Budget. There are far too many things missing, and the Green Party’s Budget would’ve done things quite different. I talked about the alternative Green Party vision during the general debate before the Budget, and I want to take this speech to just focus on two areas related to two of my portfolios: finance and transport.

So on finance and fiscal strategy, we know that we need a new approach. Globally, the economic literature is very, very clear on this. I believe that the IMF has produced research reports that show that the benefits of neo-liberalism, the economic reforms of the 1980s and 1990s, were oversold, and, in fact, they’ve had some very harmful consequences, and we need to take the lessons from that and make changes.

In New Zealand, that neo-liberal dogma of the 1980s and 1990s, the massive privatisation and the massive changes resulted in greater inequality, many more children living and growing up in poverty, and that really hasn’t changed enough yet. I know the Labour majority Government have aspirations to reduce child poverty, but we need a step change in how we’re approaching that. The neo-liberal reforms of the 1980s and 1990s also resulted in a deficit of productive infrastructure and core public services in New Zealand.

So, with this Budget, we saw an important step from the Government, which is their new fiscal strategy. Arbitrary debt targets have failed our country by creating a massive infrastructure deficit, which has been pointed out by the Infrastructure Commission, and also a social deficit. So allowing Government to take a new approach—because a Government is not like a household. Government finances should not be managed like household finances. There’s a really important countercyclical role that the Government plays. It’s appropriate for the Government to take on debt to invest in productive infrastructure and services that benefit all New Zealanders.

The new fiscal strategy, however, only goes so far. So it loosens those tight fiscal rules for physical infrastructure, and this is something that I am particularly interested in and passionate about. We’ve still got the operating spending tightly controlled by the accounting rules around running operating balance before gains and losses surpluses. If you think about it from an economist’s perspective, it doesn’t make sense. Somehow, we can borrow to invest in concrete, whether that’s a road or a building, and that counts as a productive asset against the Government’s books, but if we are investing in people—and we know that there’s a lot of economic literature and research that if we invest in education, if we pay people to do things that help out other people, it can actually have much-greater economic returns than a strip of concrete or a building, in and of itself. Yet that public spending for services—whether that’s childcare, healthcare, early childhood education teachers, midwives, nurses—it’s seen as an ongoing expense for Government, and so it’s kind of sort of against it. It’s not seen as a productive asset.

So we need to look at how we can change those rules so that we enable greater investment in the things that bring true economic dividends to our people. Even the Treasury says this in their analysis—and I quote—“the structure of the new rules will sharpen questions regarding what should count as an operating expense and what should count as an investment.” For instance, from an economist’s perspective, elements of education, conservation, and health expenditure have the characteristics of an investment, in that they provide enduring benefits into the future. So we want to see more money for early childhood teachers, for nurses, for midwives, for people working on pest control. All of that is an investment in our future, it’s an investment that most New Zealanders would love to see. Unfortunately, the way that the rules are changing still makes it difficult to increase operating spending, even when we know there will be a significant economic benefit, unless we significantly raise taxes.

So this new fiscal strategy needs to continue to evolve. We in the Greens call on the Government to consider whether putting such heavy reliance on the technical definitions of “capital” and “operating spend” will not create perverse incentives. Obviously, we’re calling on the Government to make our tax system fairer; implement a wealth tax which ensures that we have a fairer tax system, that we have a fairer economic system, and that we can invest in those core public services that ensure everyone in society has a fair go.

On transport: now, there’s no question that New Zealand has one of the highest car ownership rates in the developed world. That is not a good thing. That does not make us better off. It’s a huge cost burden on our society. We import all of our cars and all of the fuel to run them, unless they’re electric, and it’s a huge cost. If we can do the same amount of getting around our communities and around our country, with fewer private cars, with fewer trucks, with less oil, that is a direct productivity gain to New Zealand.

So what do we need? We need fast, frequent, and affordable buses and trains and ferries. We need safe design for our streets and our neighbourhoods and our infrastructure which means that people can walk or use e-scooters or bikes or e-bikes for those short trips, which takes up so much less space than one person in a car. I mean, the reality is that some cars and trucks can be very practical for some trips, but if you have everyone in a city trying to use a car at the same time, for one person to travel 1 to 5 kilometres, it doesn’t work very well; it’s very inefficient. The only reason we’re in that situation is because successive Governments have failed to invest in the alternatives to private cars.

Of course, this Government has taken some important steps in this Budget. Implementing a permanent 50 percent concession for community services card holders is something the Green Party campaigned on and worked on in the last term of Government. That means most tertiary students, as well, are going to get this 50 percent discount. That goes a long way towards Green Party election policy. They also committed hundreds of millions to support those sustainable alternatives, but that is, again, just a tiny fraction of our transport budget.

If we want our road network to work more efficiently, the best way to do that isn’t to add a couple of new links that are incredibly expensive, on the urban fringe. Again, the science is very, very clear: the way to make our roads operate more efficiently is to invest in the higher capacity ways of people getting around. That means bus lanes, that means increasing train services where we already have a train line, that means separated lanes that can be used by people on bikes or e-scooters or mobility scooters to move around their communities. We didn’t see this in the Budget. There was no subsidy to make e-bikes or cargo bikes, which are true alternatives to cars for those short trips, more accessible to New Zealanders. We did not see a reallocation of money away from those outrageously expensive urban-fringe highways into sustainable alternatives. The science is clear: we have to stop building traffic-inducing urban-fringe highways now. They don’t work. They’re not going to solve congestion. There is a huge opportunity cost.

A perfect example of something else that was missing was the $350 million needed for an investment in train services in the lower North Island that would mean frequent passenger trains between Wellington and Palmerston North, on the Kāpiti line, on the Wairarapa line. The Green Party would be supporting that incredibly cost-effective investment. We will continue to support many more pragmatic investments.

Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn): I’m delighted to have an opportunity to speak about this excellent Budget that has been prepared by Grant Robertson as Minister of Finance. He really has done a fantastic job, dealing with some of the problems we have to deal with. However, before I start talking directly about the Budget, I do wish to commend to the House, and to anyone who is watching, the Prime Minister’s speech at Harvard’s commencement ceremony last week. It really is worth watching, and it addresses a critical problem in our world: that of misinformation.

However, back to the Budget. And back to the Budget I want to go, talking about misinformation. And the misinformation that’s coming out is around inflation. Now, we know that our economy, like economies around the world, is experiencing a peak of inflation at the moment. It’s happening everywhere in the world. And we know that inflation worldwide is being driven by the problems with global supply lines, and demand here in this economy is running up against the problem of those supply lines. And we know it’s being driven by the war in Ukraine putting pressure on energy and energy supplies in Europe and driving up energy supplies everywhere. It’s flowing right through into inflation. And yet, the members on that side of the House would have it that it is New Zealand’s Government’s spending that is driving inflation in this country. Let me quote some of the words that eminent commentators have said about that view that it is New Zealand Government spending alone that is driving inflation: Shamubeel Eaqub said it was “economically illiterate”; Adrian Orr, the Governor of the Reserve Bank, said it was “simplistic and frankly wrong”. So, straightforwardly, the problem is not caused here, but whether or not the problem is caused here, whether or not Government spending has driven it here—and, frankly, it is “economically illiterate” and “simplistic and frankly wrong” to say that—it is our job as a Government to help people through. It is our job to do that, and this Budget addresses that problem.

I want to talk initially about what we have already done to help out. Now, on 1 April, we had a significant package which helped people on benefits. So, at that stage, on 1 April, benefits were adjusted upwards, superannuation was adjusted upwards, and family tax credits were adjusted upwards. So we’ve already made some adjustments for people on benefit and on superannuation. From May—so it’s already kicked in—the winter energy payment kicked in to help those people as well. So there’s extra money going into households and low-income households right now, which will help them to cope with inflation. We’ve also carried on with our lunches in schools programme, a programme that is directed at low-decile schools to ensure that children are fed every day. And not only does it ensure that children are fed every day, it takes a load off household budgets. So that’s another way we’re helping out low-income families. The minimum wage has gone up, helping families out again, making sure that more money is coming into households. So that’s all the work that is already being done to address the needs of low-income households to help them get through this inflation peak.

But we know that families who are in work—so not on benefits, not getting superannuation—need help too, and that’s what we’ve done in this Budget. That is what our $350 cost of living payment is about. It is not designed to pay an entire household budget. It is designed as a contribution to help out. And I want to talk a little bit about it, because it’s important that people know about this payment so that they can make sure that if they’re entitled to it, they do get it. So here’s how it’s going to work. It’s a one-off payment, but it comes in three instalments. So three instalments—$350 spread across three instalments. So that’s about $116 for each instalment. Those instalments will come in about $116 on 1 August, another $116 on 1 September, and another $116 or $117 or so on 1 October. So that’s when those payments will arrive. The criteria for it are very straightforward: if a person earned $70,000 or less in the year to 31 March 2022, if they are aged 18 years or older, and if they are a New Zealand tax resident and they’re resident here, then they can get that payment. It’s tax exempt, so it won’t be taxed in the recipient’s hands. And in order to get it, the best thing that a person can do to make sure they get it is to get online at IRD and update their bank account details, make sure their tax return is done for the year ended 31 March 2022, and get their bank account details updated.

I have an ask of everyone who’s watching today—hi, Dad, because I know you’ll be watching. I have an ask of people who are watching today: let other people know about this payment; let them know that they might be eligible to receive it; if you’re competent, if you’re able to manage getting into the IRD website, help someone out to get in there and get their payment. Now, there’s some really good information available about it on the IRD website. It’s available at ird.govt.nz/cost-of-living-payment. So it’s sitting there on the IRD website, and I invite people to go and have a look at it. Students can get it as long as they’re aged over 18 and earned some income last year. So they can get this payment, too, and it will help students out as well. So it’s very straightforward. That’s all you have to do. So it’s for people who are not already getting the winter energy payment, who earned $70,000 or less last year, who are aged over 18, and in order to get hold of it, make sure you get on to the IRD website and update your details there. So that’s the cost of living payment.

But wait, there’s more. There is more in our Budget to help out low-income families. Now, we’ve had a problem because of the world-wide problem around the price of energy. Of course, we’ve had petrol prices going up significantly, and in order to help out with that, we had a 25c cut in the fuel excise and an equivalent decrease in road-user charges. To go alongside that—because, of course, those measures help people who drive cars—we also had a measure to help people who use public transport: half-price public transport. Now, initially, those measure were in place for three months. In Budget 2022, we extended them for a further two months so that half-price public transport is going to be in place for a while longer.

Now, that will come to an end—all good things do—but it will stay in place for community services card holders. So people who have a community services card can continue to get half-price public transport. Now, again, there’s something here that’s not all that widely known: students can be eligible for a community services card. So if you have students in your family, if you know someone who’s a student, if you’re a student yourself, look into it and check out whether you can get that card. Perhaps, Mr Speaker, you might not personally, and I certainly won’t either any more, but I’ve got people in my family and my daughters’ friends who could get that community services card and, as students, get half-price public transport. So that’s an enormous help for those lower-income people.

So you can see that in our Budget, we have had a big focus on helping people get through this inflation spike. We know it’s a spike. We know that inflation is predicted to spike in the first half of this year and, then, to go down again. I know that many people find it a bit frightening. After all, we haven’t really had inflation in the economy for a good 25 years or so, but it’s back, and it’s back because of world-wide conditions. It’s back, and as a Government, our job is to help people through, and that is precisely what this Budget does. Why? Because as a Labour Government, we are doing the best we can to deliver a balanced Budget that addresses the needs of people with lower incomes and that secures our future. We’ve put money into issues that really matter, like health and climate change, education—all the usual things. This is a big Budget on health this time, which helps to secure our future. But at the same time, we have tried to help out with the short-term needs which are being driven, alas, by inflation. So our cost-of-living package—it’s a good one, and I commend this Budget to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): The next call, I understand, is a split call. I call Damien Smith—five minutes.

DAMIEN SMITH (ACT): This is the “ghost Budget”, with loads of manoeuvres and rearrangement of the deck chairs on the Titanic, but here’s what’s going to happen. Consumers Price Index inflation is currently at 6.9 percent. This Budget has ignited it further, and for that party over there to be telling the public of New Zealand that inflation’s going to go down precisely at this time is misleading and unfortunate and is going to be a very painful statement.

The Budget announced $6 billion worth of new operating spending, plus the cost of living package. Next year there’s another $5 billion. And if you look at the Green Party, they just think we should tax everybody more. There’s no fiscal responsibility with regards to actually cutting our cloth. So I will make a prediction here. Mr Orr will have to raise the official cash rate (OCR) to 4 percent, which is going to cause serious household pressure. It’s going to cause people to have to have 60 to 70 percent of their disposable income going to repayments, and it’s going to affect renters on a weekly increment rise.

So I’ll make a prediction now that next year the Government will be tempted to spend more to win the election, and on the $850 million cost of living payment, the Minister still believes that he’s better qualified to tell hard-working Kiwis how to spend their money. If he looked at the actual timing of the Budget, this was the Budget to give people back a tax break. We will make sure next year that that message comes across even further. He thinks that taking money out of the back pockets of those struggling with the cost of living crisis is the right thing to do. Does he even agree with Treasury’s advice that a broad-based, one-off payment is poor mechanism for supporting households with longer-term problems? It’s definitely going to add to inflationary pressure. It is a PR stunt. It was decided in record time when the Treasury recommended against it, and it can’t even be implemented by the Inland Revenue Department—they will have to find another 750 people and it’s in nine weeks’ time.

So 2 million New Zealanders—some economists say, “Is that a broad base?” It is a 96c per day cost of living payment. Now, let that sink in. Why is the Government opposed to letting Kiwis keep more of their hard-earned money? He also forecasts that in this environment, we’re going to be taking on an extra $12.7 billion in taxes. It’s a tax grab, a greedy grab, by this Government over the next five years. Maybe it should be called the “greedy Budget”. Maybe that’s what should be in the headlines now. What difference does he expect the cost of living payments, which are 0.6 percent of the median salary, to make for Kiwis struggling with inflation, which has risen over 10 times to 6.9 percent on his watch? Can you actually believe that fiscal managers on that side of the House actually believe that to be a relevant contribution to the people of New Zealand? I will rephrase that: 0.6 percent of the median salary, and inflation’s gone up 10 times to 6.9 percent on his watch.

The other thing that people seem to forget—it’s an inconvenient truth—is that $50 billion has been pumped out into the economy with Mr Orr and Mr Robertson, and that’s increased the money supply and that’s why we’ve got the inflation problem, and that’s why now we have to suffer the pain of OCR increases, and it will go over 4 percent. It will have to be reined in.

NICOLE McKEE (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m standing today to talk to what I saw in the Government’s 2022 Budget in the Vote Police aspect. I’m looking at $562 million overall going into that police budget, and you’ve got to ask: is this too little, too late, or is it just simply taxpayer abuse? I wonder if it is because, when we look at the spend that this money is going to undertake, we have a lot of questions to ask.

I want to speak, specifically, to the firearms regime, where a significant part of this funding is going to be going towards. I mean, half a billion dollars is a really big amount of money, and knowing that, of course, half a billion dollars came in through the proceeds of crime, it would be great to see it go back to police. But we want to make sure that that spend is good, and the Government has said that they’re going to put $95 million into organised crime—that’s great—but they’ve also said they’re going to put $208 million into a firearms registry, and I’ve got to wonder about the balance of spend there and the effectiveness of what it’s actually going to achieve. Because, in order for a database to be effective, it needs to have three aspects to it: it needs to be complete, it needs to be accurate, and it needs to be kept up to date. And if you are going to get compliance—full compliance—from firearm owners, they need to be assured that it’s going to be secure. And we’ve already had issues with police not keeping information secure in the past, and making available confiscation data when the buy-back occurred—available publicly on their database, as was reported in the media.

But the elephant in the room is about the gangs. And while we are trying to look at actually what’s happening with the gangs, what we’re hearing in the news is about so many shootings occurring each week that even us, as politicians, start to lose track over how many have occurred. There was five on one Saturday night, followed by another seven. I heard my colleague across the way today suggest that there were 12 overall; I actually calculated that there were 14 shootings that had occurred in under one week. So why would the gang members want to register their firearms? Why would they be compelled to do so, when they are going about wreaking havoc in our communities, already being unchecked? So who from that side of the House can tell those worried communities how a $208 million investment in registration of firearms is going to stop their kids’ bedrooms from being shot up this weekend? Who from that side of the House can tell the Northlanders and the South Aucklanders why the number of violent gun crimes has increased by over 47 percent, from 2018 to 2021? And who from that side of the House will tell communities that once they’ve spent the $208 million on a firearms registry that isn’t working because they do not have full compliance from the gang members, they need to put more money into it, like Canada did—the billions of dollars for that regime?

None of them across the House will say anything, because Labour’s answer is simply to throw more money at a problem, instead of using what they’ve got—for example, pursuit laws. If they actually went after the criminals, if they went into the gang pads, and they dismantled the firearms in there, then we might actually be able to combat the problem with what we’ve got, instead of throwing taxpayer money at it.

And what happens with registration when technology moves faster than Parliament? What happens when 3-D guns come in and they’re not registered or have serial numbers, either? Law abiding firearm owners are not the problem, yet police and Government constantly tell the public that we are—that firearms come solely from the licensed firearm owners. Yet both the police and the Government forget to say that over a dozen gang members were issued firearm licences and, while they’re mostly removed now, they still don’t need to comply. The KPIs for police are actually “business as usual”; looking at what they need to do with pistols and trying to get licensing under control and in a better state. We look forward to that, but we want safer communities, not scared ones.

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO (Minister for Courts): Talofa lau afioga i le Sui Fofoga Fetalai. O oe o le faletua o Toeolesulusulu Damon Salesa. Ia talofa foi i le mamalu o le fonotaga i le Maota Fono o Aotearoa New Zealand. In acknowledgment of Samoan Language Week, I just acknowledge you, Madam Speaker, as well as all the members in this House.

It gives me pleasure to speak this afternoon on what is truly a magnificent Budget for Pacific peoples of Aotearoa. On Thursday, alongside my tuakana teina of the Māori caucus, I announced Budget details on two great initiatives in the health area. Why? Because Pacific peoples deserve to live longer and healthier lives. That is why this Government is reforming our healthcare system, and why Budget 2022 invests in making services like bowel screening fairer by lowering the screening age.

First, I want to talk about bowel cancer screening. We’re investing over $36 million across four years to shift the starting age for bowel screening from 60 years old to 50 years old for Māori and Pacific people. Why are we concerned about this? Well, a higher proportion of bowel cancer occurs in these population groups before they reach 60. Approximately 21 percent Pacific people who have bowel cancer are more likely to die from their cancer compared to non-Pacific people. Their cancer is usually found later, when it is difficult to treat. Increased participation, early detection, and early treatment can result in a five-year survival rate of 90 percent.

Introducing bowel screening earlier will save lives. An extra 60,000 Māori and Pacific people will receive screening for bowel cancer with this initiative, and it is likely to result in earlier detection of bowel cancer for around 53 people. This could mean avoiding as many as 44 deaths each year—44 mothers, fathers, daughters, and sons. People in our families will live longer. A $36 million investment is significant, but preventing the deaths of loved ones means much more. Pacific health experts and academics and organisations across the board, including the New Zealand Cancer Society, Hei Āhuru Mōwai, and Bowel Cancer New Zealand have called on Government to address this inherent inequity and we have listened. The bowel screening initiative will roll out later this year across two regions, with the plan to go nationwide from July 2023. It’s important to fully implement the programme first, to ensure colonoscopy capacity and follow-up treatment facilities are in place to manage the additional procedures and cancers diagnosed as a result of a positive bowel-screening test.

So how will we do this? Well, we’re going to increase the Pacific workforce. Budget 2022 will deliver 1,900 new health workers and will support 2,700 more students into training programmes, through a $76 million investment to continue to grow the Māori and Pacific health workforce. For the Pacific workforce, this funding is an important step towards building a more diverse and sustainable pathway into health for Pacific peoples. It also ensures that as our health workforce grows, it reflects the communities it serves, and having the right workforce that delivers service to communities is just as important as having the right medicine and treatment. We saw how our workforce—with language skills, cultural intelligence—kept our community safe in the last two years. This investment will start to bring new people into the workforce where training can happen faster, such as Kaiāwhina, and for those who have already undertaken some health training, as well as ensuring we’re continuing to invest in more training for the longer term.

There is $37 million in new funding for the Pacific health workforce alone. We’re also investing to build on the successes we’ve had in responding to COVID-19 and to help transition Pacific people in COVID-19 roles into day-to-day roles in the health system. This includes 100 extra training places over four years and 100 places to grow additional workforces, focused on implementing “The Addressing the Burden of Diabetes in Pacific Communities” initiative, and helping our Pacific communities to address the burden of diabetes many of our families face.

I do want to pause and just acknowledge the Pacific caucus and all of my ministerial colleagues for the wonderful effort in getting out and about in the last recess. It was so important that you were there, and the response from our communities has been particularly positive. I’ve had to make some announcement on immigration on behalf of the Minister—kidding—but there was a lot of questions on immigration. Notwithstanding that, they are ongoing concerns and, as population Minister, of course I’ve got to raise those issues. But I want to thank my colleagues for being about, and I wanted to acknowledge also, as we moved about the Auckland region—others went to Levin, others were with the Hon Poto Williams in Christchurch—I couldn’t help but acknowledge the diversity of our Pasifika communities. I want to also acknowledge the aroha expressed to us—

Hon Scott Simpson: Trying to shore up the life raft.

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO: —hush—by Māori. I want to acknowledge the closeness of how they are working with Pasifika peoples on the ground.

One of the most significant investments that this Government announced as part of Budget 2022 is the partnership that Pasifika and Ngāti Toa here in Wellington—the partnership to develop 300 houses for Pasifika in Porirua East, with an initial investment of $49 million. This is a unique partnership. It is a partnership recognising the mana and value of the next generation coming through, that diverse generation that I often refer to as “Generation Six Bs”: people who are proudly brown, beautiful, brainy, bilingual, bicultural, and bold. Then, of course, in Māngere we call ourselves “Generation Eight Bs” because we’re just bloody brilliant—and there’s none of that brilliance on that side of the Chamber.

But, all fun aside, I want to acknowledge Ngāti Toa, the vision, and for your awhi, your aroha, your manaakitanga, your kaitiakitanga, in wrapping support around our whanaunga here in Porirua East. That’s a 10-year project, and the commitment of this Government is for that 10 years. The project actually will be more than $100 million, and it could be more than 300 houses, depending on how fast we can accelerate that with the support of a number of Government agencies.

It is also a model which I think is fitting for me to take around to talk to the many iwis that are prepared to speak to us. I’ve raised it with my colleague the Hon Kelvin Davis, as well as Nanaia Mahuta, and they are very, very supportive of the principle of this—of Māori and Pasifika working together.

The final part of the Budget that I want to acknowledge is the Minister of Finance and the leadership of our Prime Minister. The leadership is unparalleled—I don’t see it happening on that side of the House at all—but this is a leadership where our Government leaders are thinking not just of the immediate need but long term. For our community, it is so important for this Government to continue investing in the long term, because the challenges are many. When you’re talking about meeting those challenges, you’ve also got to address issues that just don’t seem to go away, and I’m talking about issues of racism and discrimination. It doesn’t help when our public hear rhetoric coming from that side of the House that seems to encourage that sort of behaviour.

But I speak of the $13.7 million of the investment in this Budget for the Dawn Raids. Following our apology from this Government last year, this is an investment that will collect the stories of those who were affected, impacted, by the harms of racism and discrimination in the 1970s, and the young people today are still talking about that. The young people today are not going to put up with the crap that comes from that side of the House, when those members believe that it is better to divide and rule the nation. We on this side of the House want to build a stronger nation, where our young people can thrive and prosper as Pacific peoples of Aotearoa. Kia kaha.

Faafetai mo lenei avanoa. Manuia le Vaiaso o le Gagana Samoa. Manuia le atoaga o le onosefulu tausaga o Samoa. Manuia le atoaga o le feagaiga faaleuo a Samoa. Soifua.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Faafetai tele lava Afioga Aupito Toeolesulusulu Tofae Su‘a William Sio. Manuia le aso. I call on Dr Shane Reti. Malo soifua.

Dr SHANE RETI (National): Talofa, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to speak to this Budget, a Budget that is clearly going backwards. I will turn my attentions to the health space particularly, and I have three broad concerns with this Budget in health. First of all, clearly not enough spending on the health workforce, I’ll give more detail around that. Secondly, dumb spending—and I’d put to you the health reforms is dumb spending. And thirdly, an inability to deliver any health benefits, with a poor track record that portends poorly that anything will actually be delivered in this Budget.

But before I drill into those, I want to talk about what’s not there before we critique what is there. The campaign 2020 promised to deliver 20 mobile dental clinics at $39.7 million. It was a promise in the first year of being elected. Didn’t happen last Budget. Well, maybe it was in this Budget, we were all thinking. Didn’t happen in this Budget either. And when the Minister’s asked on Q+A, where’s the 20 new mobile dental clinics? His weak response was, “Well, there’s still a bit of a parliamentary term to come.” Yeah, well winter’s coming as well and there’s still a lot of stuff to come, and we’re not seeing anything from this Government. So zero—zero—mobile dental clinics from a promise within the first-year campaign 2020. Zero.

That’s what’s not here. What is here that’s a problem? Well, the big signal was $1.8 billion for health. Health will always be grateful for funding, don’t get me wrong, health will always be grateful. But what’s not being said here is that $1.8 billion is simply to manage cost pressures. If you look at table 3.3 on the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update, it very clearly shows $1.796 billion for cost pressures and $266 million for new initiatives. The new stuff is only $266 million. The bulk of it is just shuffling the deck chairs. There are no new deck chairs that matter. It is just shuffling the deck chairs.

And how do we find ourselves that the cost pressures are that sort of figure? Well, maybe we’ll start with roughly $530 million of consolidated debt—probably the highest consolidated DHB deficit ever. And how do we get to that? Well, there was a number of reasons for that. First of all, the Government took their eyes off the annual plans that hold the DHBs to their fiscal accountability. There’s a number of Official Information Act (OIA) documents, what’s called “tranche 4” documents, particularly, that the Treasury sends to the Ministry of Health saying “We are disappointed in the negotiations you have reached with the DHBs”, fundamentally saying “You are not holding them to account.” So $1.8 billion, this big figure in health that we’re being told is the new health spend, is actually mismanagement by this Labour Government and we are paying for that. That is the shuffling of the existing deck chairs.

I want to talk to the $1.3 billion for health infrastructure—Nelson and Whangārei are highlighted. I want to talk about the upgrade at Whangārei Hospital, and I want to ask the Minister this: did the Capital Investment Committee reject and turn down a Northland DHB business case for $917 million and tell them they had to cut $200 million off it, down to $515 million, which will be the equivalent of 128 beds? If this is such a wonderful infrastructure Budget, can the Minister come down to this House and deny that his capital investment committee told the Whangārei people to take $200 million off their capital build, their promised new hospital upgrade, and to reduce the beds by 128? I challenge him to come down and address that.

The Nelson Hospital well and likely will require some attention, but this is a $1.3 billion health infrastructure build in this Budget, and I would suggest that there is no ability for this Government to deliver that. I’d say that in a context of several things. First of all, if we go to the investor confidence ratings, in the most recent investor confidence ratings from the Treasury, the Ministry of Health was given a “D” for their ability to manage projects. How are we supposed to expect that $1.3 billion is going to be adequately managed when they currently have one of the worst ratings, a “D”?

Secondly, we’ve had recent news around seismic concerns, news that I would contend the Government has known about for quite a while. We have Hutt Valley, with a New Building Standard (NBS) of 15 percent, evacuating their Heretaunga building. And the questions I’d like to ask, in fact I have asked and I have the answers: Written Parliamentary Question (WPQ) 15618, where I asked whether the Hutt Valley District Health Board Finance, Risk and Audit Committee had reported or made recommendations to the board in the past two years around seismic risk at Hutt Hospital. “No.” OK. Does the Hutt Valley Risk Register record the seismic risk to Hutt Valley Hospital? WPQ 15683. “No.” How can that be? How can the DHB be allowed to not record a risk that suddenly appears out of the blue, a significant risk that requires evacuation of patients, how can they be allowed to not put it on a risk register? Capital Coast had to put their ER, which was 15 percent NBS on their risk register. Why was the head of Heretaunga block not on the Hutt Valley risk register? And when we look at when the information came to hand at Hutt Valley, what we find in WPQ 15677 is that on 15 February, a detailed seismic assessment summary by Aurecon was presented to health officials. The evacuation occurred in May. What happened between February and May, over several months when the knowledge was known, and why was it so late before actions were taken?

There are other hospitals, other facilities around the sector who are saying, “Crikey, if Hutt Valley evacuates at 15 percent NBS—we’re at that level or lower—what does it mean for us?” Taranaki, thankfully, is being rebuilt and I think that’s a project that clearly needs to proceed. But as we can see, in other WPQs looking at the greatest seismic risk, there are a number of clinical-facing facilities that are at or equal to the NBS that evacuated Hutt Valley Hospital. And I would put some in exactly the same seismic risk category because you can say, “Well, look, in Northland, you don’t have the same seismic risk.” Some of the top 10 seismic buildings under concern actually do sit along fault lines, and so I think the ministry needs to take some accountability for that, as opposed to a WPQ where, fundamentally, Andrew Little threw the DHB under the bus and said “It’s not our responsibility, it’s not an MOH responsibility; it’s a DHB responsibility.” I don’t buy that. They submitted their risk registers every quarter, is my understanding. You must have seen or you should have seen—you need to own that.

What the Budget also raises concerns around is this Government’s ability to manage assets. And we need to imagine that Health New Zealand will be one of the biggest asset managers. What’s a concern then is part 3.5, and this looks at how Health New Zealand will be seen—I’m reading here—“as a high-quality asset manager for the health estate as measured by the Asset Management Maturity index for the health portfolio.” Now, the index goes from one to 100, and you would think with these sort of assets, you would want Health New Zealand to be at least up in the 75/80 percent, to show that they understand and are looking after New Zealand’s assets. Imagine our surprise then, in Budget 2022, when the standard they’ve set—the standard Health New Zealand has set—in that range of 0 to 100, is 40 to 60 percent. That’s the standard they’ve set, that’s what they’re hoping to achieve: that some of the time they’ll underperform, be under the 50 percent; and a small proportion of the time they’ll overperform; 40 to 60 percent is the Budget standard.

And what’s also revealing is there’s an assessment of performance here that says “The extent to which actual benefits meet the expected benefits from those capital investments as set out in the relevant business case”—now you’d expect to get darn near close to 100 percent of the benefits of your assets as you put them into a business case. But you know what the standard is for this particular reporting measure? Eighty percent. Budget 2022 says 80 percent of the time the assets have to align with what you said would happen in the business case. How can that be acceptable?

I now turn to part 3.5: “Capital Investment in Health New Zealand”, a really interesting entry. Here’s dumb spending: $31.5 million for capital investment in Health New Zealand and the health restructuring. And what really interested me was, under the performance reporting, is this statement: “An exemption has been sought under … the Public Finance Act 1999 as the performance information for the appropriation or category is not likely to be informative in the light of the nature of the transaction or causal event giving rise to the expenses.” So they’ve sought an exemption of over $31.5 million of Health New Zealand assets because they can’t imagine how they can report an end-of-year performance report on that. How can that be? How can there be such mismanagement of health assets that you will blatantly put into health Budget 2022 that you cannot imagine any sort of end-of-year performance reporting on that $31.5 million, and so you’ve sought an exemption under the Public Finance Act.

This is just an example of all the issues we have and that New Zealanders will have with this Budget. There is not enough health workforce. You can have the best policies in the world, but if you don’t have the health workforce to deliver it, it will fail. A lot of the spending is dumb. The health reform spending is dumb, and we have absolutely no faith that with a Government that sets an ambition of 40 to 60 percent on the assets and only 80 percent of the business case, they could ever hope to achieve what they think they are.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Talofa lava, I call on Barbara Edmonds.

BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana): Faafetai tele lava lau afioga i le Fofoga Fetalai.

I’m absolutely grateful to be able to stand and take a call on the second reading of this bill, the Budget bill, and that those “dumb” comments have concluded from the previous member.

This is the 14th Budget I’ve been involved in in some form or another. My observation of this Budget, compared to those of others, is this Budget has been set against some of the most challenging global and domestic environments any Budget has ever faced. The whole world is facing difficult times as COVID is causing significant supply chain issues and the war in Ukraine is exacerbating this.

And yet, despite these global settings, when our books were opened the economic forecast showed a return to surplus in 2024/25. [Interruption] Yes, ah—that’s a five-year return to surplus post the most severe economic contraction I’ve ever experienced and we’ve ever experienced in our lifetime. That’s one year faster than the return to surplus when the National Party managed the less-severe economic constrains under the global financial crisis—six years versus five years. So therefore, I commend the Minister of Finance for balancing the books, for balancing this Budget against what are severe economic pressures which are felt globally. Our strong economic management means we can invest in critical services and provide help for Kiwis who need it most, while keeping a lid on debt.

And how do we know whether this Budget will help? Well, last week, members of Labour Pasifika caucus, members of the Māori caucus, and members of our wider caucus went and spoke to people: people in our communities, people on the ground, people right throughout this country.

Last Monday, the 11-strong Labour Pasifika caucus started its post-Budget engagements in Takanini and Papakura. We spoke to community leaders and we spoke to them about how our cost of living package intends to ease the impacts on households, such as excise duty and road-user charges cuts to be extended for another two months, about half-price public transport extended and for community services card holders to be extended permanently. Around 2.1 million people will be eligible for the cost of living payment. As I said in the House two weeks ago, that is the population of Auckland, parts of Wellington, and Christchurch: 2.1 million people.

Then we move to Kelston Boys’ High School and Kelston Girls’ College because we needed to know what our rangatahi thought. We explained to them how this Budget will help keep record of their parents’ histories through the Dawn Raids historical accounts, with $13.7 million. We told them that we are supporting cadetship programmes, $18 million for Pacific STEAM futures, and $8 million for delivering employment and training services through Tupu Aotearoa.

Enabling Māori and Pacific businesses and people to achieve their aspirations is a core component of our strategy for transitioning to a high-wage and low-emissions economy. With the Minister for Small Business, Stuart Nash, my colleague Shanan Halbert, and Camilla Belich we visited in Manaaki at Indigo Studios in Grey Lynn and we met with a number of Māori and Pacific small-business owners. We discussed with them how the progressive procurement project will help to build Māori capability businesses to effectively participate in public sector procurement. That was so important to them, because how can we reach Māori and small businesses if our procurement process—as one of the biggest spenders in this country, the Government, if we do not have rules to support that.

I wanted to finish my contribution on something closer to home. The Pacific roadshow finished in Porirua on Monday with a post-Budget breakfast. We spoke to the Porirua community. The biggest highlight for me is a package to build up to 300 homes over the next 10 years for Pacific families in Eastern Porirua, with an initial funding of $49 million. This will mean for Pacific people, who have some of the highest rates of rheumatic fever, in Porirua East, that they will have warm, dry homes which they will be able to own. That is the fundamental difference between this package and other packages. It means working together with our local iwi, and again I echo the sentiments of our Minister before who thanked Ngāti Toa for their partnership with us.

This Budget is about securing a future for all New Zealanders, Māori, and Pacific. I commend this bill to the House.

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. Malo le soifua. I am delighted and extremely proud to speak in support of this Budget, Budget 2022, where we are securing the future for Aotearoa New Zealand in these very difficult times.

I endorse the remarks made by my colleague Barbara Edmonds. There is a global inflation bomb that’s hitting numerous Western countries throughout the world, and we’re not immune from it. But I’m so thankful that we have Minister Grant Robertson and our Government led by the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern, delivering this wellbeing Budget which addresses those issues but also addresses the short-term and the long-term aspirations that we have for Aotearoa. Our books are in sound shape. The fiscals are good, and that’s why we are putting the investments where they are needed, in the likes of our health system. I acknowledge the Hon Andrew Little and the momentous work that he’s doing, ably supported by the Hon Peeni Henare, in terms of our new health system structure.

One thing is for sure. Around the motu where we go, Māori are so excited and are looking forward with great anticipation to 1 July when our new health system will be brought into being. I want to acknowledge the contribution of my colleagues, the Māori Ministers in our roadshow that we have been doing in support of this Budget. That’s what we do—we get around this beautiful country of ours, into our vast electorates, our Māori electorates, and we talk and connect with our stakeholders and our people.

I was very proud to be able to accompany and guide, as a kaiārahi, six Māori Ministers to Dunedin—Ōtepoti—where we received a wonderful warm welcome and where we were imparting the good news of this Budget. We know that there are universal supports that are most welcome and most needed in terms of the households that are dealing with the cost of living issues, and that’s why I’m proud of the support. We have reduced the price of fuel. We have halved the price of public transport, and we are delivering a cost of living payment of $350 to 2.1 million individuals: Kiwis up and down the motu. There is a huge endorsement for the work we’re doing in that area.

I want to focus on the specific achievements and milestones that we are doing for Māori in this Budget. We’ve heard the big headline issues but I want to focus on the ones that may not get a lot of attention but have been hugely well received by Māori around the country. What I want to focus on is the announcement that we will be lowering the bowel cancer screening age from 60 to 50 for Māori and Pasifika men and Māori and Pasifika in general, because that is a much-needed wawata that we had. I’m proud that when I was the chair of the Māori Affairs Committee we did an inquiry into the inequities, particularly focusing on cancer, and that was one recommendation that we made, and I’m so delighted that that recommendation has now been put into action and 60,000 more tests will be able to be carried out, so as to be able to intervene at the right time to ensure that we can address the inequities around those terrible cancer statistics.

I really laud the announcement we’ve made around driver licences—64,000 Kiwis will have improved access to testing and training, and the ability for rangatahi, or anyone, to be able to have that licence just puts them on that rung to be able to be qualified, to ensure that they can meet the needs of 70 percent more jobs out there. To be able to provide that assistance, particularly to rural communities—those hard-to-reach places that don’t have traffic lights and don’t have the training—is a huge milestone.

I’m looking at the time—look, there is so much in this Budget. I’m extremely proud of the achievements of the $1 billion-plus targeted investment we have from this Budget for Māori, and endorse the work we are doing for Pasifika, and particularly all the work we’re doing around Aotearoa. This is a fantastic Budget and I support it wholeheartedly. Kia ora mai tātou.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Malo le soifua. I call the Minister, the Hon Andrew Little. This is a split call—five minutes.

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Health): What a great pleasure and an honour it is to stand here in support of yet another stunning Budget from this Government, the Jacinda Ardern and Grant Robertson - led Government that we all have the great joy of being a part of. For the member who’s just resumed his seat, Rino Tirikatene, I tautoko what he said, particularly in relation to that health initiative for bowel screening—that is health equity in action. That is a reflection of the fact that we know, when it comes to considering the prevalence of various diseases and health conditions, that they do not fall evenly across populations. We know from epidemiological studies and just from observance over many, many years that when it comes to things like bowel cancer and colon cancer, they do hit Māori and Pacific populations earlier in age than other population groups. So it makes sense when we’re doing bowel screening, which has been so critical and fundamental to actually getting ahead of the real challenges that that condition can lay down, to actually get to Māori and Pacific communities much earlier. We’re doing it and that is the right thing to do, and that is health equity in action.

But I want to talk about the health services generally that this Government has started the long, arduous process of rebuilding. We had to do it because it was just completely and utterly ignored and neglected year after year after year under the last Government. They do not care about health. We know that is a fact—National Governments do not care about health, so they let buildings run down. They underfund the system. They don’t care about people’s health conditions. They don’t top up Pharmac to the extent that we did—three years frozen, actually, under the National Government, and we have topped it up every year. Once again in this Budget, another top-up—$191 million over two years. We’ve got Pharmac now actively looking at that cancer list that the Cancer Control Agency put up, and we are closing the gap when it comes to cancer treatments—long overdue. That’ll save lives in New Zealand.

When you’re a Government that cares about health, that’s what you do. When you’re a political party that cares about health, that’s what you do, because that’s who we are. We can go all the way back to 1938 and that stunning Labour Government of that time that really set up a public health system, that created that commitment to public health. That is in our blood and it’s in our bones. That’s why whenever Labour is in Government, we give priority to health.

This time—this time—in my view, I’d have to say that we have done it. We’ve really done it now. We have looked at the ongoing deficits that started under the previous Government and across our DHBs and said, “No more.” Those deficits actually start to reflect a structural underfunding of health. So we said, “Oh yeah. We’re going to fix that up.” But actually, that’s not enough. We’ve got to put in more funding if we’re going to get the health services that New Zealanders are crying out for and have been for some time. So we put in, in addition to the nearly half a billion dollars, roughly thereabouts, of structural deficit, an additional $1.3 billion starting 1 July this year, each year. Then because this is a two-year Budget, we’ve done a further top-up in the second year—an additional $1.3 billion on top of that.

That is just a health system starting the long, arduous task of keeping up with what is demanded of it. That is a system now getting ready to be the system that New Zealanders demand of it, as part of our rebuild. We’re taking the 20 DHBs and we’re putting them into one organisation. We’ll get more coherent planning, better coordination, better services. We can actually deal with primary care as a nationwide set of services and deal with primary care providers, provide them the support that they need. We can actually, having learnt from the COVID campaign, the vaccination campaign, we can take the best out of that and we can have the best public health system in the world. That’s what our goal is. It can’t be anything less.

But there’s other stuff we’re doing too, because when you have a Government that spends nine years neglecting that there’s even an emerging mental health crisis, you’ve actually got a big job to do to pick up, and we’re doing that, too. So we made the big investment in 2019. That’s doing amazing things—more than 900 extra front-line people doing mental health. And now we put in another $100 million over four years to start dealing with that acute and specialist end, but, most importantly, focused on the community beds and community support for people who’ve been through their acute phase, who don’t need to be in hospitals, who are currently in hospitals now because there’s nowhere else for them to go, but actually getting them the support in the community so that they can recover and reintegrate as they wish to do.

There are so many things, as Rino Tirikatene said, that we could talk about. What about the ambulances? Sixty-one new vehicles and 248 ambulance crew now being added to our workforce to make it easier, and that’ll really help rural communities who struggle to get decent ambulance services.

Hon STUART NASH (Minister for Economic and Regional Development): Talofa lava, Madam Speaker. This is a difficult Budget to put together due to the international headwinds of inflation, distressed supply chains, stock market volatility, and still in the shadow of a global pandemic. It’s why the Budget’s title is economic certainty for Kiwis during good times and bad, because the Minister of Finance, Grant Robertson, has successfully managed our economy through COVID in a way that is the envy of the vast majority of developed countries. And this Government and the finance Minister Grant Robertson has put together a Budget to drive economic growth, high wages, and low emissions in a post-COVID world.

We are a Government that backs small business. I have been saying for a long time that this is the last generation of business owner that’ll thrive, let alone survive, without being digitally enabled. It’s why we put in place Digital Boost, and so far nearly 30,000 businesses have accepted the challenge. This is all free, but it’s allowing them to undertake that digital journey which is so important to survive and thrive and do really well and engage in a post-COVID world.

But one of the things that the Small Business Council that I put together last term identified is a lack of capital for these businesses to grow. It’s why in this Budget we’ve put together the Business Growth Fund. This is a $100 million fund that will help crowd in money from the large banks. There’s still a bit of work to do, but it’s worked really well in the UK, in Ireland, in Canada, in Australia, and we believe it’ll work really well here. Minister Robertson and I have been having a number of conversations with the large banks and with the Reserve Bank. As mentioned, there’s a little bit of work to do, but this is filling in that gap that exists at the moment. And thing with this is not only will it provide funding for small to medium businesses—around $3 to $30 million revenue—it will also provide a level of support and guidance and mentoring that we know a number of New Zealand small businesses need to go global and go international.

We are also a Government that backs the rebuild of tourism in a post-COVID world. We back a rebuild that is sustainable, that is innovative, and that is regenerative. It is why we have put together in this Budget a $54.2 million fund around innovation in the tourism sector. We’ll work in partnership with the industry to come up with innovative programmes to drive productivity and drive innovation in a way that will not only enhance our global brand but it will create fantastic storytellers from those who have travelled afar that will come here and understand that we are unique, and the experiences that they have over here, they will take away, they’ll become fantastic storytellers, and it will influence everyone that they talk to. It is a fantastic innovation fund that is needed to drive a post-COVID rebuild of the tourism sector.

We are also a Government that backs the economic transformation of our economy. And we’ve done this through our industry transformation plans: $148 million in this Budget to supplement the $41 million from our last Budget. And these are in areas where we believe that we have some form of global competitive advantage or we can develop a form of global competitive advantage going forward. They’re in eight areas of our economy that we are backing 100 percent. But the thing about these industry transformation plans is they’re done in partnership with Māori iwi, with the unions, with the sector, and with Government. And we’re coming up with really innovative ideas that can drive growth in a really sustainable way. What we’re seeing already out of the industry transformation plans is engagement and innovation in sectors of our economy that we haven’t seen before, and this is the sort of thing we need to put in place if we’re to get the sort of productivity that we haven’t had in the past but is so necessary if we are to be globally competitive.

We are also a Government that understands the value of forestry in decarbonising our economy and driving optimal land use across rural New Zealand. We are a Government that understands that the right tree in the right place at the right time is so important if we are to get our settings in rural New Zealand right. It’s again why we are working with iwi, it’s why we are working with our rural communities, it’s why we are working with Federated Farmers, Beef + Lamb New Zealand, all the key stakeholders who understand that we need to get this right. It’s not about planting up productive farmland, it is about ensuring optimal land use. In this Budget, there was $118.4 million for farm and forestry advisory services; again, working with stakeholders to make sure we get the right tree in the right place at the right time.

There is $256 million in the carbon emergency fund; again, to help maximise the contribution of forestry in boosting carbon sequestration. It’s about look-up tables, it’s about alternative fuel sources, and it’s about driving innovation in wood processing. This is a Government that believes in this economy, it’s a Government that backs business, it’s a Government that is transforming our economy in a way that only Labour Governments can, and I’m very proud to be part of this Government going forward.

MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. And wasn’t that interesting? The first sitting day back after the Government’s Budget, and they’ve been telling us this is a Budget about health—a health Budget—and the health Minister, Andrew Little, gets up for a short five-minute call. That’s all he could do for a health Budget. And then he spent the whole time just ranting and raving and talking about the last National Government. He didn’t even have enough confidence to talk about what he was putting forward. And I think it is about that word “confidence” because, here, this Labour Government is asking the public to trust them with a billion-dollar reform of the health system when you just look at what happened with the spend for mental health—$1.9 billion—that health Minister, Andrew Little, oversaw, and every member of that Labour Government—$1.9 billion—and the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission produced its first report that said there’ve been no material improvements. So here we are. They blew $1.9 billion on mental health with no material improvements, and now they’re saying, “Oh, in this Budget, we’ve got billions to restructure the health system. Trust us.” Well, I’m not sure. And not only that, the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission said what was needed was leadership in mental health and a clear plan to execute change, a clear well-managed plan. And that’s the concerning thing about this Budget. There’s a lot of figures in it but, actually, no plan as this Government takes a wrecking ball to 20 DHBs in the middle of a pandemic, throwing billions of dollars. But when asked by the Opposition to name one health outcome that will be improved in the first year, they can’t answer it. They don’t have anything. There is no plan. This is just about throwing money at an issue.

What was really interesting was that a few days before the Budget, you’ll remember the Government got caught out when they announced their Mana Ake programme. On 17 May 2022, they announced 195,000 children were set to benefit from more mental health support, and they talked about rolling out Mana Ake, which is a good programme, in fairness, doing a lot of good work in Canterbury. It’s going to be rolled out in Northland, Counties Manukau, Bay of Plenty, Lakes, and West Coast region. I thought, “Hmm, actually, I think I’ve heard that before.” So I went back through my research, as a diligent Opposition spokesperson, and found the PR on 15 April 2021—a year ago. It says, “Government expands Mana Ake.”—hold on—“The expansion of Mana Ake will start in five new DHB areas: Northland, Counties Manukau, Bay of Plenty, Lakes, and West Coast.” There are two PRs announcing the same thing, one year apart, but of course, this Government’s got form in this space, because Jan Tinetti—it must have been under associate education—announced counselling support for schools, a fund of around $75 million—$31 million for large secondary schools, $44 million for primary and secondary—and I thought, “I know, I’ve heard that one before, too. That was on 8 November 2021. Oh, look at this, Tracey Martin, the former education Minister under the last Government, announced the same programme—“a major investment of $75 million for schools.” Here they are, caught out re-announcing mental health funding.

And what’s really concerning for people, when they believed Labour was going to transform the mental health system, is that they’re pumping a large amount of this Budget’s funding in the mental health restructure and mental health does not have its own strategy. Under the health strategy, the Minister has to prepare a health strategy for Health New Zealand. There’s a range of strategies he needs to refer to and develop; mental health is not one of them. The Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission, the Mental Health Foundation, and all the other peak mental health bodies during the select committee stage of Pae Ora called mental health invisible in this bill that this Budget is funding. Now, the response by Andrew Little, the health Minister, was, “Oh, well, there’s a range of population groups; we can’t include all of them.” Well, how many population groups did you promise to transform the mental health system to? And that’s one: people with mental-health issues.

And it even gets worse because out of the entities the health Minister must consult in the development of Health’s strategy, the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission is not one of those entities. Who would have thought the health Minister would not need to consult the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission, especially when it was one of Labour’s recommendations from its own mental health inquiry. They spent great time and expense of this Parliament, setting up the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission, yet in their once-in-a-generation reform of the health system, they’ve left out the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission. And it just makes you wonder: was it because of the criticism of that commission’s first report of the Government that they’ve been left out? And, quite rightly, they are wanting to be included in this bill. This is really concerning because what we’ve got is a Government that promised to transform the mental health system, they made big announcements of funding, nothing changed, then they’re putting in legislation through this House to change our health system, and there’s nothing in it for mental health.

I’m standing here on behalf of the National Party, today, to support my leader, Christopher Luxon, in his motion calling this Budget a “backwards Budget”. This is a band-aid Budget, and I’ll tell you what: the public knows that, because you just need to look at the feedback these guys have been getting for the last couple of weeks and also the poll. The poll was interesting. I’ll tell you what: look at the attack ads coming out of Labour. Because you know one thing: when Labour starts going down in the polls, they get personal. Labour gets nasty. Look at the attack ads they’re putting out, because they’re feeling the pressure. This is a “backwards Budget” that was made up off the hoof—the $350 cost of living allowance they were dragged kicking and screaming to.

What was interesting, the papers that got put on during that debate under urgency—that policy got put together on 4 May. Who would have thought? It was too late to even be put in the costing of the Budget; it sat outside of it because, of course, they denied the cost of living crisis—they denied it. The reason they put up that $350 for New Zealanders was because of the Opposition. If it wasn’t for the Opposition, they wouldn’t have done it. And what you’ve got to do is scratch your head because the average Kiwi wage is 72K. With that $350, the entitlement stopped at 70K. So a New Zealander on the average wage is not even entitled to that. They get one of those big NZTA red zeros, and you’ve got to wonder at all this policy on the hoof. And that’s what the public is realising—these guys are making it up as they go.

Probably one of the most concerning things is that it said in the documentation that they were going to have to hire 750 fulltime-equivalents to facilitate that cost of living payment. We all know, under a Labour Government, 750 fulltime-equivalents actually means about a thousand. A thousand new bureaucrats on top of the extra 10,000—well, 14,000 now; the clock’s ticking. And what was interesting is the Minister, in his first reading for that bill, had to get up and admit they don’t have over 200,000 bank details for people who are entitled to that payment. That’s over 10 percent of the amount of people who are entitled. So you couldn’t make this up; it’s like Dad’s Army. And you can see why in the documentation the Treasury was saying, “No, IRD should be the lead agency”, and IRD said, “No, the Treasury”. They knew this was all made up off the hoof, and here we have a Government coming kicking and screaming to the cost of living. And now they’re saying, in the height of a pandemic, they’re taking a wrecking ball to 20 DHBs, and they’re saying, “Don’t worry; trust us. We know how this works. All you do is pump a lot of money into it. It doesn’t matter.” And that’s why the Auditor-General said, in his report for all their announcements of funding, there are no performance measures. The public doesn’t know if they get value for money on outcomes. That’s typical Labour.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Before I call the next member of the House, can I just say that this is call number 12. There’s been a few questions to me because there’s been a number of split calls.

Hon POTO WILLIAMS (Minister of Police): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Can I say Manuia le Vaiaso o le Gagana Samoa. I hope I got that OK? Welcome to Samoan Language Week.

There are a couple of things I want to address in my contribution today, and that is how we do things slightly differently. And the first thing I want to talk about is our wellbeing Budget—this is the fourth wellbeing Budget that our fantastic finance Minister, the Hon Grant Robertson, has delivered. And that’s really important, because wellbeing is about putting our people first. As a proud member of the Pacific caucus—you’ve heard some of my colleagues talk in the House already today—there is another aspect of this that is really significant for us, because one of the wellbeings in the wellbeing Budget is the aspirations for Māori and Pacific. As a caucus, in our planning and in the work that we do, we have made sure that our aspirations are reflected in this Budget, but also in all the planning that we do. So the documents that we prepare all line up, and it is a consistency and a coherence across our finance system that recognises who we are and the importance of what we do and how we do it.

I just want to touch on a couple of the aspects of that. My colleagues have spoken about this, but I think it’s really important, because some of the smaller aspects of the Budget are the things that are really important to many. Some of the things like the increase in dental grants from $300 to $1,000 a year; for some of us, that’s huge. Some of our whānau will find that really huge. The investment in 300 homes in Porirua, which means that Pacific people are not denied; they are supported into homeownership. And we know just how important that is to build your financial base. Things like 38,000 more apprentices, on top of the 190,000 apprentices we’ve supported since we’ve come to Government. For me, one of the things that I think is most important to us as Pasifika—it’s not only the acknowledgment of the Dawn Raids, not only the apology of the Dawn Raids but now what we will do about ensuring that our histories are recorded and our voice lives on in perpetuity about the issue of the Dawn Raids. We are not hiding from what has happened to us in the past; we are acknowledging and we are able to record our stories, which some may not think is really important but, for Māori and Pacific—and for many cultures—whakapapa, the recording of history, and what you learn from that is hugely important.

And, as the Minister of Police, I’m part of a group of justice Ministers—and this is the second big way that we do things differently—and, as a group of justice Ministers, we got together and collectively decided what was important in this Budget. And I have to say for me, as Minister of Police, I was so proud to be supported by my colleagues who said, at this time, we know that the issues that trouble our communities are about community safety, so we must invest in our police to ensure they have the resources and the tools to do the work that they need to do. I’m extraordinarily proud of the work that we have done, and the Budget that we’ve put to this, but this is upon a previous record Budget that was delivered by the previous Minister of Police so, altogether, we have invested nearly a billion dollars extra in our police since we came to Government, and that’s really important because we have to make sure we’ve got enough police on the ground to do this mahi—and we are ensuring we do that through a population ratio where will never get beyond one police officer to every 480 Kiwis. That’s our commitment: that we will make sure there are sufficient staff on the ground. We’ve made a huge commitment to the front-line safety of our officers, to make sure that they’re trained appropriately, to make sure that they have the intelligence and the tools that they need.

But one of the most important aspects is the firearms register—30 years, we have not known where firearms are located in our community. Now, some of the Opposition may see this as a list or something quite frivolous, but of the 1.5 million firearms in our community, there are some that we just don’t know where they reside. Of the 240,000 folk who have licences, we can say there are about six each but this—the firearms registry—will be the most important thing we do for safety in our community.

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Minister of Foreign Affairs): I want to acknowledge the leadership of the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern, who, at the beginning of the COVID outbreak, said that “the best economic response is a health response.” Time and time again, albeit so difficult, in these complex challenges of dealing with a global pandemic, we now have the opportunity to support our Minister of Finance, who has delivered a balanced Budget in the key areas that will make a significant difference to New Zealanders who are feeling the impacts of a war in Russia; a global pandemic, continuing to respond to that; growing inflation; constrained supply chains; and, importantly for New Zealanders, the everyday impacts on cost of living. This is a Budget that addresses the issues of now, such as cost of living, while responding to some of the significant longer challenges that New Zealand must address.

I’m really proud of the balanced Budget that our Minister of Finance has delivered. He said, in no uncertain terms, we have the opportunity, as an active Government, to do things in a very different way—and we have. In responding to cost of living challenges, in knowing that people were hurting at the petrol pump—the fact that we ensured that we were responding to those issues, I believe, is a clear signal to New Zealanders that we understood the impact of travel costs and the cost of petrol, and being able to extend the support for another extra two months is a real tangible way that people recognise that we hear their concerns. Cutting the cost of public transport in half for those on the community services card—again, a very real way to respond to things that people are concerned about.

The costs of living payment—$350 going to people who aren’t receiving the winter energy payment, taking the total number of people up to about 2.1 million. That is addressing fixed costs on often fixed-income households in areas where it will matter. I believe that, and many other of the aspects of the Budget that go to the heart of household costs, will make a very real difference.

There’s been a lot of contributions in the House around the range of reform. In particular, I want to also highlight the benefits of the health reforms that are coming through and the significant highlight of that within this Budget—because I know that where inequity exists, and especially in the health system, we can not only do it differently, we must do it differently, and we must ensure that the way in which our health service works for all New Zealanders across the country can be improved. I’m really confident about the changes that Minister Little is leading in this area. But what it will allow is the ability to commission health outcomes very differently and it will improve the health status for many more.

Now, I’ve just come off the back of a Māori Ministers Budget tour around the country, and I had the privilege of supporting my colleagues in promoting the aspects of the Budget that will make the biggest difference. The things that really resonated across our Māori communities were the education training incentives, what we’re continuing to do to ensure that apprenticeship training works for Māori but actually works for their local and regional economies, and what we’re doing in the area of education to ensure that more Māori are succeeding in education and moving on to tertiary education. These are incremental, positive changes that people are seeing the benefit of from the Budget 2022.

But let me pick out a couple of other areas that make a real difference across the whole economy. In the area of tourism, the way that we’re supporting the tourism sector to reorient itself after COVID will be absolutely critical. I want to applaud the efforts of our Minister of Tourism in the way that he’s wanting to ensure that we can pivot, can provide a high quality experience opportunity, and can invest in the tourism workforce that will underpin the future.

The other area is the support we’re giving to small businesses. We know that the backbone of the New Zealand economy, especially in our local communities, is built off the way in which we have been—over this really difficult time—able to support small to medium enterprise. We’re continuing to do that through the Small Business Cash Flow Scheme and also the way in which we’re supporting the ongoing challenges that our small businesses have during this period of time.

It’s a great Budget, it’s a balanced Budget, it’s a Budget that responds to cost of living issues, and it’s a Budget for now with the future in mind.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) (remote): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m coming in from my house in Auckland, having finally had the COVID catch up with me and having some time to recuperate. But we’re here to debate Budget 2022—the “backwards Budget”, we’ve called it, because it confirmed that New Zealand is going backwards under this Labour Government faster than ever. The Minister of Finance, Grant Robertson, needed to focus this Budget on helping the squeezed middle to overcome the escalating cost of living crisis and to stop Kiwis falling further and further behind, but it is clear he has failed. Instead, what we’ve seen is the “backwards Budget” of 2022.

Kiwis, the economy, and outcomes are all going backwards under Labour, and the Budget forecasts confirm the situation is getting worse. We’re experiencing the worst cost of living crisis in a generation. Inflation is at a 30-year high, it’s expected to be rampant for many years to come, and wages are simply not keeping up with the rising costs and prices that people are seeing everywhere on the supermarket shelves wherever they look. Mortgage costs are going up because of rising interest rates, rent is up $140 per week since this Government took office, food price inflation is the highest in a decade, at 6.4 percent, and petrol, as we all know, is well over $3 a litre. Kiwis are falling behind each week, squeezed by growing costs and a Government that refused to offer anything meaningful in terms of income tax relief, while it carries on with the biggest spend-up in New Zealand’s history.

I’d say Labour’s temporary cost of living package will do little to support Kiwi households through the cost of living crisis. It’s band-aid economics that we’re seeing, made up on the fly, with even the Treasury warning the Government that the one-off cost of living payment is a poor mechanism for addressing the long-term problem. What’s going to happen after three months, when the fuel taxes go back on, when the one-off payment ends—what’s going to happen then? Grant Robertson and this Government have no plan.

Just look at the BBC worldwide website—somebody drew my attention to it this afternoon—which tells the story of Chris, who is a builder, and his partner Harmony and their four daughters, who have just left Wellington to start a new life in Brisbane. Despite owning their own home and earning reasonable salaries, they were struggling in Wellington. They said—and this is the quote from Harmony—“[We] can’t make a living in New Zealand. There is no living. You’re just going backwards. You don’t get a choice if you want to live, you have to move, or New Zealand has to change. I want a future for my children and there is none in New Zealand,” she said.

What a very sad thing to read on the BBC website for all the world to see. The disappointment that that shows on that family just trying to get ahead, look after themselves, look after their family, provide for their family, and provide hope and aspiration, and they’re weighed down by costs and a Government that has no particular sympathy for hard-working Kiwis who are trying to look after themselves. That’s not what we want for this country, and we know we can do so much better.

The squeezed middle are paying the price for Labour’s economic mismanagement. If you are on the average wage of $72,000 or higher, you get nothing from this Budget aside from cheap bus fares for three months—if you happen to use the bus—and slightly less expensive petrol for a few weeks. Meantime, sneakily, subtly, the Government keeps taking more and more tax, using inflation to push more of people’s income into higher tax brackets. That’s why this Budget shows the highest ever tax take in New Zealand history. Grant Robertson is raking it in. He is the most rapacious tax collector in New Zealand’s history. There’s never enough tax for him and he always wants more.

Under National’s tax plan to inflation-adjust tax brackets, somebody on the average wage would get about $860 more of their own money back everywhere, and that would actually make a difference year in, year out. For us, we see the way forward is in growing the economy by welcoming investment, by welcoming new workers through immigration, by being restrained with regulations, and by being disciplined with Government spending so that we can, therefore, offer tax relief down the line. But of course this Government, responsible for this Budget, wants to keep the extra tax revenue, because they are addicted to spending, which means the Government’s books are always going backwards.

The Budget provides no plan to reduce benefit dependency, by the way, despite staff shortages across the country everywhere you go. We’ve been out and about in the recess week since the Budget. Every business you talk to—every business you talk to—is struggling to find workers, and yet benefit dependency has soared under Labour. Nobody can figure that out, but the obvious conclusion is that they’re not doing enough to encourage people to get off benefits and back to work.

Since 2017, 60 percent more people are on the jobseeker support benefit longer than one year—60 percent more—at a time when people are desperate for workers. While billions of dollars are poured into job programmes like Flexi-wage, Jobs for Nature, and shovel-ready projects, it’s unbelievable that at a time when businesses can’t find workers, the Government is still spending hundreds of millions of dollars on job creation schemes like Jobs for Nature—sort of Depression-era job creation schemes to employ people when we can’t find workers for the private sector. So the Government is borrowing money in order to hire people in job creation schemes and is taking those potential workers away from the businesses that are desperate to get people to pick fruit so that it doesn’t rot on the ground, for example, and to be able to export it so that we can make a living.

The lunacy of the economic strategy and mismanagement of this Government over the last couple of years I think, when history settles, will be quite astounding. Not only did Labour give themselves an extra $6 billion in this Budget—the biggest ever spend-up in New Zealand’s history—but they’ve also raided future Budgets. They’re spending $2 billion from Budget 2023, and $400 million from Budget 2024, and that’s before you count the climate spending accounting and the cost of living band-aid, which is taken from a separate pot. So, overall, the total new spending is more than $9 billion per year over the next three years.

Grant Robertson goes on about being fiscally responsible, but it’s always in the distant future when he’s going to be fiscally responsible, not now. So this year, he’s just an old-fashioned, 1970s-style, tax and spend Labour finance Minister. Nothing special, nothing unexpected, par for the course—spend, spend, spend, borrow, borrow, borrow, and hope for the best. That’s what the Budget’s all about, and all of his talk about being responsible is for another time. Because he’s raided next year’s Budget allowances, he doesn’t have enough left for next year to deal even with inflationary costs to stand still. I guarantee that next year, he will not stick to the amount he is allowed for spending in the next Budget.

Like St Augustine, he says to the world, “Let me be fiscally responsible, but not just yet—please, not just yet.” So much spending and so little to show for it.

With no clear plans or targets to deliver better outcomes, we have longer waiting times for surgeries, specialist assessments have blown out, literacy and numeracy achievement rates have hit lows, violent crime and gang membership has exploded, they’ve added more than 10,000 officials in the Public Service. A lot of PR consultants and communications assistants, and people running around trying to design big, pink zeroes for Michael Wood to prance around beside—a whole lot of people doing all sorts of things, but not contributing very much. New Zealand needs a Government with some fiscal discipline and a culture where Government cares about how every dollar is spent and the outcome that it will achieve. Kiwis across the country are tightening their belts and looking after every dollar they’re spending, and they expect the Government to do the same.

So where are we at? We’ve got a Budget that was supposed to be about climate change and health reforms. The first is an important issue and the second is a weird priority at a difficult time for the health sector, but neither of them are really the issue of the day. The issue of the day is the cost of living crisis that Kiwi families are facing. That’s why the Government has scrambled with its cost of living package.

But what about the other issues? How are we going to make this country more competitive to succeed globally? We never hear anything about that in the Budget. Nothing from Grant Robertson about how we’re going to make the country more competitive, but, when you look at what they’re doing, tomorrow we’ll be in the select committee talking about the fair pay agreements—so-called—that this Government is now introducing, which reintroduces inflexible, sector-wide, mandatory union deals across the sectors, so that if 10 percent of workers in a particular sector, whether it’s aged care or something like that, call for a fair pay agreement, everybody is forced to go into it. Gone is the flexibility and—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member’s time has expired. This is a split call.

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Minister of Agriculture): Thank you, Mr Speaker. What a miserable speech from a miserable member who looked as though he’s been locked away in that dark room for too long. Come out into the sunshine, I say, and look at the realities of where we are as an economy, as a country. This wellbeing Budget was about the wellbeing of this country in to the future and its people—and its people.

Fifty billion dollars—never before has this country earned $50 billion from primary sector exports. While that member may have been locked in his dark room, he may not realise, actually, the world is still challenged by COVID. The world is challenged by a war in the Ukraine; supply chain interruptions and transport issues for things like containers that are still challenging and will be for some time. And, in spite of all of those things, our economy is growing. We have increased the taxes, yes, and we’re proud of it—from a growing economy. We shouldn’t be ashamed and we are reinvesting that money back into infrastructure, because unlike the previous National Government that sold houses, it sold infrastructure like electricity assets, refused to invest in infrastructure, we are doing that.

Look, on top of what is the CERF, which is the Climate Emergency Response Fund, $710 million into the primary and agricultural sectors on the Monday. Then on the Thursday, we added to that $119 million in the primary sectors to put over $1 billion, or thereabouts, into our primary sectors to further grow, in a sustainable way, the wealth for this country and its people—and its people.

Little things like increasing money for driver licences. You may think that insignificant, but if you live in rural New Zealand, if you’re a young person in this country and you can’t afford to go through it, that is a huge hurdle, not just to get into the workforce, but then to increase your skills, even to attend the polytech—things like that are important. Making sure there is more money for paramedics, for ambulances and for helicopters; things that were ignored by the previous National Government we have invested in through this Budget. Upgrades in rural broadband; more police and prevention in rural areas; and, in my particular area, more money—$40 million extra—for biosecurity on top of the over $68 million that we’re continuing to invest to get rid of Mycoplasma bovis.

I have to say that this Government has done more for what might be seen as a non-traditional area of support, but an area that is crucial to our economy, the primary sectors, not just the farmers and the foresters and the fishers but all the support people that have enabled us to get to the $50 billion in export earnings and making sure that that money is invested for long-term benefits. A wellbeing Budget for the wellbeing of New Zealand, not just the opportunities for a few people at the top end of town.

The alternative put forward by the National Party was to cut taxes—they’re very good at that, except of course when it came to GST. Don’t let’s ever forget that it was the National Government that increased GST. So their claims of cutting back—and you know what, it wouldn’t surprise me if their tax cuts budget was calculated on an increase in GST if they were to ever come back into Government. Can anyone on the National Party absolutely refute the idea that they might increase GST in the future? Not a murmur. Not one of them is prepared to say that we won’t put up GST—not one of them.

I put to you the fact that my colleague Grant Robertson has been the most responsible, the most visionary finance Minister that we have seen since the last Labour Government. And indeed, because we are investing in long-term infrastructure and we will continue to spend money on people—because people are the most important asset that we have, taken for granted for so long by the National Government—to ensure that they get fair wages, they get fair conditions, they get access to education, that they get broadband, that they get the services that they deserve in the rural areas of New Zealand. This is an outstanding Budget from an outstanding Government for an outstanding future.

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector): Tēnā koe e te Māngai and—since it’s Samoan Language Week—talofa lava.

I’m actually going to pick up where the previous speaker, Minister O’Connor, left off, which is that I’m incredibly proud of Budget 2022 and our finance Minister, because this is a Budget that’s being delivered at a time that is really tough, and it has been for the past two and a half years. It is a Budget that balances the need to address some of the short-term pressures that New Zealanders are facing that we are acutely aware of—pressures that are being faced globally, really, as a result, firstly, of COVID, secondly of the war in Ukraine, and global inflation rising as well. While we may not be able to do much about some of those factors that have led to the increasing cost of living, what we can do and what we are doing as a Government is mitigating the impact of that for Kiwis. I’m proud of that.

I’m also proud that it is a future-focused Budget that secures our future. It lays the foundation for addressing things like climate change that, while parties on both sides of the House may agree—finally—that we need to do something about it, members on that side don’t agree with what we propose to do about it. So there’s a rhetoric there, perhaps, now that climate change is a thing—finally—but when we talk about the actions that we’re going to take, it’s only on this side of the House that we’re actually laying down the wero and doing something about it, and I’m proud of that.

There is no silver bullet to address the increasing cost of living, but we are taking a range of measures. For example, the fuel excise cut is being extended by another two months, as is the half-price public transport—and that will become permanent for those with a community services card as well. Cost of living payments of $350 for about 2.1 million New Zealand who earn $70,000 or less and are 18 and above—that is because we’ve heard from so many over the course of the past few months that those who miss out on the winter energy payment have actually missed out on any support to deal with cost of living pressure, and we are acting to mitigate that. That means 81 percent of New Zealanders aged 18 and above will be eligible for either the winter energy payment or the cost of living payment this year. We are also tackling the root causes of higher groceries bills that so many have told us about, by introducing urgent legislation to stop supermarkets from blocking competitors from accessing land and opening new stores.

In the time that I have left, I also want to highlight the point that Minister O’Connor made when he spoke, which is that we are supporting our people, because that is integral to us having the economy that we want to have here in New Zealand. I’m incredibly proud of the $15 million boost over four years to the youth development sector, because that is a 40 percent boost to services that are Ministry of Youth Development - funded and it’s the first time in 20 years that they have seen an increase to their funding. This is incredibly important because we know that COVID-19, for example, has had a disproportionate impact on our young people and we want to be able to support them. We know that these development services are helping a range of young people across the motu because they tell us so. The additional funding will support an additional 6,800 rangatahi, and what they tell me when I’m out there talking to them is the fact that many who access these services come from backgrounds where they may not have been able to see role models, where they haven’t been able to dream big, they haven’t seen people succeed in that space, and going through these services finally gives them that. Many have told me that they finally get a sense of family, a sense of purpose, and it builds their confidence and their self-esteem as well. Driver licensing: an increased 64,000 New Zealanders will benefit as a result of Budget ’22. This is a requirement for up to 70 percent of jobs, and is also something that will benefit our young people as well.

A final point that I’ll make is the investment in family and sexual violence prevention, a sector that I’ve worked in for many years prior to entering Parliament, particularly around the need to improve primary preventions. This is a Budget that will support a shift towards primary prevention and actually addressing the root causes that lead to violence, and strengthening protective factors as well. I’m incredibly proud of that. I am so proud of this Budget, which is a balanced Budget. As I mentioned, it addresses cost of living pressures and secures our future.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Energy and Resources): I’d like to start by offering a huge congratulations to our Minister of Finance, the Hon Grant Robertson, who has delivered a Budget that manages to do many, many complex things. The times in which we live call on a Minister of Finance when putting together a Budget to not only look at the here and now and to recognise the pain that many of our families are feeling at the moment but also to have the courage, to have the vision, to look to the future and to start fixing some of New Zealand’s long-term challenges.

That is what Budget 2022 delivers for New Zealanders. It does address some of the pain that New Zealanders are feeling in the wake of a global pandemic and on the back of a war in Ukraine. It does put in place the equivalent of the winter energy payment for those families earning up to $70,000 who were not already gaining their winter energy payment. That will bring 81 percent of all New Zealanders who will receive additional support with the cost of living this year. This Budget also extends the 25c a litre cut in fuel excise tax for an extra two months. It also extends out half-price public transport, and it also made permanent for those on a community services card half-price public transport. These are the ways in which we will meaningfully address the cost of living pressures that New Zealanders are feeling.

But this Budget couldn’t just deal with the here and now; this Budget had to deal with the long-term issues that New Zealand faces. It was a Budget that focused on climate, and it was a Budget that focused on health. It was yet another Budget delivered by our Government that also did not kick the infrastructure can down the road, that recognised that investment needs to be made or we will be left behind and we will be leaving it to another Government to play catch-up like we have had to in Government after nine years of under-investment in infrastructure from the previous National Government.

I am immensely proud of the Climate Emergency Response Fund and the way in which we are setting our country up to deal with the future. All parties—well, nearly all parties—in this Parliament agreed to a net zero figure for New Zealand by 2050. It is legislated. We agreed to a process with an independent climate commission whereby we would set carbon budgets. Those were accepted by the main Opposition party, the National Party. The next step on that is for a Government to produce a plan of how we are going to meet those targets and how we are going to pay for the measures required to meet those targets. I think the National Party have got themselves into a right pickle here in that they have said they agree to the budgets, but they are opposing every measure in the Climate Emergency Response Fund. If I look to my own portfolio of energy, they’re saying, “Oh, let’s just leave it to the emissions trading scheme for the industrial process heat sector to decarbonise.” I’ve got news for those businesses who are in manufacturing who are using fossil fuels as heat in their processors: the National Party want to accelerate the price of carbon to $180 in order for that to make economic sense. Instead, what we as a Government have done is take a partnership approach with business. We will walk with them. We know that we can meet our emissions targets; we have the technology there. But what it needs is Government commitment and a partnership approach with business to achieve this.

In the first round of the Government Investment in Decarbonising Industry fund—GIDI fund, as we like to call it—we spent $69 million. This catalysed nearly double that spending by business. This is about us working with business, but importantly it was the equivalent of taking 134,000 cars off the road. If the National Party is going to oppose these measures, I want to hear policies, I want to hear plans, and I want to hear real alternatives, because at the moment they’ve signed up for a budget there is no way they can meet.

Hon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Transport): I want to start my comments by saying something that you don’t hear very often, which is that I quite enjoyed Paul Goldsmith’s speech three or four speakers ago. It was the sheer mental flexibility shown by the man, which I imagine was a skill he had to learn when he wrote a hagiography about John Banks. What I particularly enjoyed about his speech was the fact that he opened up by extolling the benefits and the economic policies of living in Australia, and then he finished his speech with a rant from his dark little free-market cave in Epsom about tax rates and fair pay agreements, forgetting about the fact, very conveniently, that of course Australia has a higher marginal tax rate than we do here in New Zealand and for the best part of 40 years has had sector-based bargaining like fair pay agreements in place, which of course is one of the ways in which they have retained better wages and conditions for many of the working people of that country.

What is often very revealing in debates like this one is what is said but also what is not said by people when they take to the podium. What we heard from our Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern, and our Minister of Finance, Grant Robertson, in this Budget debate was a clear plan and a vision for how we build economic security now and in the future for all New Zealanders—not just a privileged few, but for all New Zealanders. We heard about how we are going to build on the strong and inclusive economy that we have as we move forward with our economic recovery, and let’s be very clear about the facts here. We can cut through the spin; we can cut through the speeches. We can go straight to the facts: at the end of the biggest economic crisis in a hundred years, 3.2 percent unemployment, jobs for New Zealanders, and unemployment down across all population groups, including our Māori and Pasifika communities, who, every time there has been an economic crisis in the past, have been crunched. Well, this Government has stood by all of our communities and has held up that rate: one of the lowest unemployment rates in the world at the end of two years of COVID, one of the strongest economic growth rates in the world, and one of the lowest Government debt rates in the world.

We have done that through inclusive, strong, clear strategic economic management, and I want to pay tribute to Grant Robertson for leading us through that. But, as I said, it’s also about looking forward, and so when we think about our economic plan going forward, it’s about important things like supporting our small and medium enterprises. That’s why one of the initiatives that I thought was fantastic in the Budget was the $101 million that we have invested to make sure that our small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) get access to the financing that they often struggle to get from the major bank. It is often one of the big things you hear from them: that they’re ready to go to the next step, they want to expand, but it’s very difficult for them to get that financial support from our financial institutions. Often the only way is to leverage off your own house. Well, here’s the Government looking to partner with our SMEs to give them that backing and that support to take the next step. That’s about how we build economic growth and security and jobs into the future.

But, as I said, it’s often about what you’re not hearing as well. Here’s an extraordinary thing: in his entire 19- or 20-minute address when the Leader of the Opposition got to speak in this debate, not a single word about climate change. In 2022, when every sector of our economy is faced not with a future threat of climate change but with a present-day reality of a climate change that is devastating parts of our agricultural sector, that is meaning significant challenges for low-lying regional and remote communities, and that is the biggest moral and economic challenge for future generations, he had nothing—nothing—to say about climate change at all. That speaks to a stale, tired old National Party that has no vision and no sense of the issues that we actually have to face in the years ahead.

Well, I was enormously proud of the investments we’ve made in the transport sector to help decarbonise that sector through our emissions reduction plan. On this side of the House, we are serious about what it takes to get down to net zero by 2050. You can’t just say the words. You can’t just sign up to say you support the carbon budgets without actually having the policies and funding the policies which will deliver on them. So I was pleased that our Clean Car Upgrade, a $500 million investment, will build on the success of our Clean Car Discount policy, which is getting record numbers of zero emission vehicles into our fleet. I was proud of the inclusive approach we’re taking with the social leasing scheme to get clean, efficient, cheap-to-run vehicles into our lower-income communities.

I was proud of the fact that we’re backing public transport with half-price fares for people on community services cards and an investment in better pay and conditions for our bus drivers, who we need to keep our public transport fleets running around the country, and I’m proud of our transport choices package, whereby we’re going to work with councils and communities to roll out more choices for low-carbon travel all around the country. This is a Budget which is about economic security now and in the future, and on this side of the House we are so proud of its work.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member’s time has expired.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): Thank you, Mr Speaker. We’ve heard lots from the other side about how proud they are of Budget 2022. I was staggered by one of the Ministers, whose biggest achievement was record amounts of tax they are taking from hard-working New Zealanders. It says it all—says it all—record amounts of tax that they are taking from hard-working New Zealanders. What are Budgets about? Budgets are about priorities. They’re about priorities for New Zealand today and in the future.

I want to look at this debate through the eyes of a few constituents. One I spoke to in Taupō last week: a woman that’s been in business for 29 years. When she looks at the Budget, she’s looking for what the measures are that demonstrate this is a Government who knows it’s about earning rather than just spending. What does she find—what did she find? Absolutely nothing. Actually, it was worse. It took her business backwards because of the additional costs that her business would face. She’s a proud employer. She’s proud to know that the income her business earns puts food on the tables of others. So what did she get out of this Budget? Absolutely nothing. That’s why National says this is the Budget that takes New Zealand backwards. It’s people like her, who have a business—albeit a small one, but 29 years in business is pretty outstanding. Do you know what the worst thing was? She didn’t know if she would make it to 30 years.

This is a Government whose priorities are completely back to front. They crow about spending—record spending: $6 billion and counting. Well, most people look at the Budget and say, “Where does this take me and my family? Where does this take my business? What does it do for our opportunities and our aspiration and this being the country we want to live in and grow old in? Well, not much.”—not much except eye-watering levels of debt, higher interest rates that will mean rents go up even further, mortgage rates go up, and the cost of living crisis that’s a crisis today is going to get a hell of a lot worse in the next six to 12 months.

The other thing that’s really interesting—I don’t pay a huge amount of attention to every poll that comes out, but the post-Budget poll is always interesting. This would have to be the first since I’ve been in Parliament—14 Budgets—where there hasn’t at least been a couple of percent boost for the Government of the day. So, to have committed the amount of money that Grant Robertson has, an absolute addiction to spending, and actually to realise New Zealanders aren’t stupid—lots of zeroes. And, to the Minister who spoke before me—who spoke about being careful and looking after all New Zealanders—well, I’m not sure they’d think that with the $30,000 he’s wasted on some red zeroes. That’s exactly the issue. The comprehension—just the utter embarrassment that he should have, being in charge of a Government department that thinks nothing of spending $30,000 on some fat red zeroes that they can promote to say they’re doing something just shows, actually, how far from reality they are.

I think about a family in Tokoroa who work incredibly hard—multi-generations who live in this family who are struggling to stay in their rental property because their rent keeps going up. Actually, a couple of years ago, they were aspirational to one day buying their own home. With interest rates the way they’re going—and they’ll be up for a long time—an average mortgage is potentially going to be $200 or $300 a week more in mortgage payments. They’ve just kissed that dream goodbye.

National is clear about the sorts of things that New Zealanders are looking for. They want to know they can get through the next period of time. They want to know the Government is as careful with their money—because it is their money, which they’ve handed over to the Government in terms of taxes. They want them to know they will be as careful as they are.

Actually, what’s a much better choice, as Nicola Willis, our finance spokesperson, and our leader, Christopher Luxon, have said on multiple occasions is that, actually, we would let people keep more of what they’ve earned, because we trust them. We trust them with their own money. Hello, on the other side: there is such a thing as trusting New Zealanders to be in charge of their own lives, making their own decisions, and knowing what is best for themselves and their families.

But instead those hard-working families—like the one I’ve referred to—are going backwards under this Government. They think those people will be incredibly grateful for that little pittance of a cost of living payment, only to find out that the jobs tax will cost them three times as much—three times as much.

This is the thing that I think people are waking up to. A lot of the big announcements don’t actually mean anything. I’ll give you another example. I’ve been a champion of driver licensing, and I know, as our social development and employment spokesperson, it’s a real barrier to employment when people don’t have their driver’s licence. In 2017, Labour campaigned on a driver-licensing initiative. Every secondary school student would get five hours of driving lessons, they would get defensive driving lessons, and they would get their tests paid for—every single secondary school. It was called the school leavers’ tool kit—you remember that?—2017. So what’s happened? Every Budget until this: nothing.

Todd Muller: That zero.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: Yeah—that zero. Let’s bring those zeroes out, Minister of Transport. That would be great. Oh—no, no. They’ve announced, five years in, they’re putting $86 million into driver licensing, and not for every school student; just for some.

That’s the difference. New Zealanders aren’t stupid. They see through the spin. They want the substance. They want the opportunities. They want to know that New Zealand can come through a challenging time but to actually still see that there’s a future for them here in New Zealand. If I look at my young adult children, I think probably within 12 months more of them will be overseas than they are here, and we’re going to see a return to the bad old days where our best and brightest leave at the very same time we don’t have enough nurses, we don’t have enough midwives, and we don’t have enough great teachers.

The other side crow about the unemployment rate—3.2 percent. Well, answer me this simple question: why has there been an absolute explosion in the number of people on the jobseeker benefit if unemployment is so low? At the very same time, there are businesses everywhere desperate for staff. Oh, no, but there’s billions of dollars—$5 billion or $6 billion in my last count—that is going into employment initiatives that actually aren’t getting the outcomes, aren’t getting results, and aren’t getting those who have been on the jobseeker benefit for a long time into work. So what’s the point of them?

That is the thing that New Zealanders want to see in their Budget. They want to see sensible spending. They want to see investments that actually deliver results. They don’t want to just see a press release with lots of zeroes on the end and some fancy smarmy words; they want to know that what is spent, what is committed, out of the money they earn and hand over to the Government of the day gets results.

The health reforms is a classic. How many more hip operations, how many more knee operations, and how much more time in a post-natal facility will the health reforms bring? Guess what: $60 million—6-0 million dollars—have been taken out of the maternity action plan to go into the health reforms. So the very time—the very time—we should be investing in the critical first few days of a baby’s life, oh, no, Labour’s decided that’s not a priority—taking that money out of the maternity action plan, giving it to Andrew Little and his behemoth of a reform that nobody knows will actually deliver anything, when, instead it could have been going to the mums and babies who need it most. That says it all. That’s exactly what Labour’s doing: taking us backwards.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is a split call. I call Ginny Andersen.

GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour—Hutt South): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. Budget 2022 creates economic security here and now and into the future, and that’s why it got it right on the right mark. Congratulations to Grant Robertson for not only thinking about how Kiwis are going to feel at the supermarket checkout, at the petrol pump, in their back pocket each week with the extra payment coming in at 1 August. Not only are those here-and-now provisions given in this Budget, but also those long-term challenges, those big challenges like climate change—which we have heard nothing about so far in the debate today. Those big challenges, like child poverty—which I also I haven’t heard much about at all in this debate—and also housing, how we’re addressing those long-term challenges that New Zealanders are going to have to grapple with.

But I’d like to pick out one today, and I’d like to highlight the importance of this Budget being the fourth Wellbeing Budget, and I’d like to say how proud I am that we are a Government that not only just looks at those fiscal and economic indicators of what wellbeing means but also those deeper social ones. That’s why having a Budget that provides better family violence and sexual violence investment in our future is so important. Budget 2022 does exactly that, with $114 million over four years to prevent and respond to family violence and sexual violence across New Zealand. In that investment includes a $38 million boost for community-led integrated responses, and that is so important. No longer is the Government dictating as it’s seen in previous Governments, but it’s going with communities and letting those organisations lead the way. There’s $37.6 million to prevent violence by strengthening particularly our Pacific and our Māori communities, to make sure that they have the ability to develop new initiatives. Those initiatives also include ethnic communities, older people, and youth. There is a $9.8 million boost specifically for victims and perpetrators of family violence. Our Government in investing in a future where everyone, no matter who you are, where they are from, or who they love, can live a life that is free from family violence and free from sexual violence.

Over the recess, I took the opportunity to drop into the Hutt Valley Women’s Refuge, and for the first time in a long while there was a smile on the chief executive’s face, because they were well-resourced. They were confident, they knew their people, they knew their communities, and they were looking forward to stepping up and helping lead a local response to family violence that we have never seen before. I would like to let people know that I remember well under the previous Government where there was not enough resourcing to adequately fund the very basic responses. I remember being at a roundtable where a decision was taken, due to the insufficient resourcing, that children under two would be prioritised if there was physical or sexual violence occurring in that household. I have to sit here and listen about fiscal discipline—well, fiscal discipline means cuts. Cuts to people’s services, and cuts that mean young people grow up in an environment with family harm and sexual violence. I find that world intolerable. This is a Government that continues to invest in our people, because we know that that is our primary resource. Budget 2022 will help us deliver better primary prevention services, support community-led responses, and improve workforce capability to strengthen our community approaches and also to eliminate family violence.

This will be developed in partnership. Te Aorerekura has identified six shifts that need to occur in order for tangata whenua, specialist sectors, communities, and the Government to work together towards being able to enjoy a life free from violence. It is so important that we have a national strategy, that we have community buy-in, that we work towards delivering a better future for our young people. This Budget will also provide $38.1 million to expand the integrated community-led response, which recognises the best solutions to complex social challenges like family violence come from within communities, with the support of Government agencies. There will also be an additional $8 million to address cost pressures in the health system, to allow for more victims to have access to timely specialist assessment, referral to specialist services, and support into non-fatal strangulation—a big driver of family violence.

I’m incredibly proud of a Budget that delivers for the here and now, and the big-term issues that we know need to be dealt with. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): Mr Speaker, talofa lava, on Samoan Language Week. When I look past your shoulder and I see that long seat there, I’m reminded of this time around 20 months ago, when my dear friend, mentor, and the former Cabinet Minister and member for Dunedin North the Hon Stan Rodger was sitting there for my maiden speech. It saddens me today. I’d like to acknowledge him in the House, his passing this week, on behalf of the caucus but also especially on behalf of the Dunedin MPs. Stan was at one time a Minister of Labour, Minister of State Services, Minister of Immigration, Minister for State-owned Enterprises, Minister of Railways, and Associate Minister of Finance—moe mai rā. But Stan would have loved this Budget because this is a Budget about fairness.

There are so many things about it that speak to the core Labour value of fairness. The careful balancing of the needs now with future generations, particularly in the climate area. The $1.2 billion of spend to address Māori inequities in health that are undeniable, and the health reforms that will see focused attention on our rural areas so that people in my electorate in Taieri—people in Kākā Point, Middlemarch, Milton, Balclutha—won’t feel that they are getting the short end of the postcode lottery. The fairness that will help mitigate the regressive impacts of the fuel hikes from the Russian war in Ukraine.

Moves such as half-price public transport for community services card holders. I spoke to somebody down at the Dunedin bus station who said he was taking his son out for the first time in months using the half-price public transport to go to the museum. He nearly cried when he spoke to me. That is what this Budget means.

One of the things I’m most excited about is the fairness that we are bringing to supermarkets. This is one of the Budget announcements that’s landed so well: the dismantling of the duopoly that has been allowed to exist for decades. We know that food prices are up. The supply chain is a stressor, so are the overseas stresses that have led to inflation. But we also know that Foodstuffs and Woolworths have 90 percent of market share for main food. They make outrageous profits. When I say “outrageous”, up to $1 million per day excess. Now, that’s not revenue or profit but excess profit over what the Commerce Commission would say is fair or appropriate in a properly competitive environment, and that’s just a conservative estimate. That is money out of the pockets of Kiwis, including my constituents in Taieri.

Now, the Commerce Commission reported on that. That report was actually commissioned by this Government, by my friend and colleague the Hon Dr David Clark from Dunedin. He has introduced a suite of laws addressing competition monopolies, duopolies, and anti-competitive practices. Budget 2022 tackles the root cause of that supermarket duopoly. It stops supermarkets from blocking competitors trying to access land to build new stores. That’s a serious move, and it has been done with urgency. In fact, we sat in this House the day after the Budget to get that law going through the House, and it’s already at select committee.

But Dr Clark has gone further than what the Commerce Commission has reported and recommended. Now, how often does that happen? He has rejected the three-year time frame for a review. He wants it done in one year. He is urgently pushing options to get competition into the market. So this Government will be introducing an industry regulator, a mandatory code of conduct, and compulsory unit pricing so that people can compare unit for unit, which makes it fairer for them to be able to see, actually, what they’re purchasing and what it’s worth compared to other products, and more transparent loyalty schemes so that there is transparency around the data collection and whether shoppers are actually being targeted, rather than being given true discounts.

So the Minister has put supermarkets on notice. He said to speed up the actions. He has also made it possible—and this is the big one—for the wholesaling to open up so that no longer does the dairy down the road have to buy something at the same price as at the supermarket and then charge on top of that; they can actually now start to compete. That is good for them as well as for us.

Look, if people don’t believe me, then they should listen to my former journalist colleague Rachel Smalley, who did an excellent report on this on radio: “Thank goodness the Govt has intervened in the supermarket duopoly”—and I quote—“This is what leadership looks like. This addresses what is unfair, not in the best interests of the public. More choice. Prices will come down. Groceries will be a more affordable, and hooray for that. Good on you for doing that with food, Government. For you, for me, and all of us, we will all win from that.”

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Members, it’s come time for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break. I will resume the Chair at 7 p.m.

Sitting suspended from 6.01 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to begin my contribution, as the previous speaker did—Ingrid Leary, member of Parliament for Taieri—by acknowledging the passing of the Hon Stan Rodger, who was a predecessor of mine in the finest electorate in New Zealand. I do want to acknowledge his family, in particular, and the wider family, and pass on the condolences of this House. We know something of that man and his statesman-like contribution to our country, in service in a Cabinet, but also in many other roles in our community, and serving Dunedin for a very long time. So I just want to put those respects on record. He was a man with style, is the final thing I’ll say. I very much enjoyed his anecdote, which I’m sure he shared with others: he sent a sealed letter to the Otago Daily Times (ODT) early in his parliamentary career, to be opened upon his retirement. And upon his retirement, that letter was opened by the ODT editor, and in it he had outlined very clearly that he intended to retire after the number of terms in Parliament that he actually was involved. So he was the member of Parliament for Dunedin North from 1978 through to 1990, and that was something that he was very clear on, early on. He had a spirit of service, and that was something that he was clear on, right at the start of his career.

This is a Budget debate, and I do want to acknowledge the Hon Grant Robertson in the Budget that he has delivered, which sees New Zealand well placed in a situation where there’s global uncertainty. Our debt is amongst the lowest in the OECD. We have a situation where we’ve got record low unemployment and we’ve got ratings agencies giving New Zealand triple A ratings, something very few other countries in the world can claim, and we’ve got a sure and strong leadership. It’s a Budget that is about providing economic security for the country, while supporting Kiwis who face cost of living pressures—and other speakers have spoken about the cost of living payment. I will mention in passing, of course, the continuation of the removal of the fuel excise, and also the half-price public transport fares, and that goes on in perpetuity for community services card holders. All excellent changes that are being passed through in the Budget.

I also would like to very much mention what we’re doing in the grocery sector. On Budget night, we put through some urgent legislation to ban practices which the major supermarket players, the duopoly, have used to block their competitors from coming into town. The use of exclusive covenants, restrictive covenants, exclusive leases—those things will be banned in the future. They will become unenforceable if they’ve been applied historically. And that is the first concrete step that we’ve taken in response to the Commerce Commission’s report, which found that the supermarket duopoly were taking, by their most conservative estimate, a million dollars a day in excess profits out of Kiwis’ pockets, each and every day of the year. That’s their most conservative estimate.

So we want to make sure that Kiwis are getting a fair deal at the checkout. The removal of covenants was the first step, and, of course, we’ve since announced further steps. The support for that work be resourced out of the Budget, too, for making sure that we explore how to put in place very clearly a mandatory backstop for a mandatory access to wholesale. The access to wholesale piece was something the Commerce Commission described as absolutely critical to ensuring a more competitive market. You can’t run a supermarket with empty shelves. So the retail part of the business requires wholesale supply. That is locked up by the duopoly currently, and we intend to free that up.

We’ve accepted 12 out of the 14 recommendations from the Commerce Commission. The other two were rejected on the basis that we want to go further. We want to have an access regime for wholesale, for other grocery retailers who might want to enter the market, or for smaller players to expand. We want a mandatory backstop to that, to make sure that it happens. And we also want reviews of competition done more regularly than the Commerce Commission suggested: not every three years, but every year. So we’ve gone further than the Commerce Commission wanted or suggested in their work, but we accept the findings that there are excess profits. We want Kiwis to be getting a fair deal at the checkout. We know cost of living pressure is hurting Kiwi families. That’s why we want to address the duopoly’s dominance.

Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Justice): Talofa lava, Mr Speaker. It is Samoan Language Week, so I offer you greetings in the language of Samoa, and I’ll return to some initiatives that will assist not just Samoans living in New Zealand but also those who are in the Pacific itself. But at the beginning of my speech, can I acknowledge the hard work and the result of that hard work by the Minister of Finance, the Hon Grant Robertson, our Deputy Prime Minister, in the context of the times in which this Budget is delivered—the pressures that are on New Zealand families at the moment, the global headwinds that most countries are facing at the moment. I believe that the Minister of Finance has delivered a Budget which addresses the pressures on New Zealand families at the moment but also looks to address the long-term challenges that New Zealand faces in investment and public services, and I’ll come to that.

As many speakers on this side of the House have mentioned during the course of this Budget debate, the delivery of assistance to low and middle income families within this Budget is significant. About 2.1 million Kiwis will get helped with the impact of rising prices. Those who are 18 and above who are earning up to $70,000 and who don’t get the winter energy payment will be eligible for the $350 payment that is made through this Budget. Also, the extension of the fuel excise cut—which is helping many Kiwi families and businesses at the moment with the increase in prices of petrol due to the global pressure of the conflict in Ukraine—is also very helpful.

One of the small things that did get a mention on Budget day itself but will, I think, make a massive difference to low-income Kiwis is the increase in funding—more than tripling of funding—from $300 to $1,000 for dental grants for those low-income Kiwi families. I know, as a former constituent MP, the pressure of the likes of dental bills on families, whether they be small or large, could be immense. I think that particular initiative within this Budget will make a big difference to lots of low-income families.

As I mentioned, it is Samoan Language Week. One of the smaller initiatives within the broadcasting portfolio in this year’s Budget is an increase of funding of close to $5.5 million to upgrade the shortwave Radio New Zealand Pacific service into the Pacific and also New Zealand. That is an extremely important service not just for our Pacific Island communities here in New Zealand but also an extremely important service for those in the likes of the Pacific who rely on information from New Zealand and further abroad through the Radio New Zealand Pacific service. That came to a head late last year or early this year, I think it was, when the volcano eruption in Tonga proved to cause massive communication problems in Tonga itself. In some instances, the only way that people on the ground could get information about what was happening was through the Radio New Zealand Pacific service. So the Government is very proud to make that significant, yet small—in the big scheme of things—investment into Radio New Zealand’s Pacific service into the Pacific Islands and also here in New Zealand.

Also as part of Samoan Language Week, I’d like to acknowledge the advocacy of the former New Zealand Law Society president Tiana Epati around the legal aid system and the need for investment in it. I know that the Opposition member Chris Penk, the shadow Attorney-General, raised this in the debate two or three weeks ago, and the absolute need for the funding issues that have been there for well over 10 years to be addressed. I would like to thank the advocacy of the Law Society and the survey that they did, which led to an increase in funding of $190 million to expand the legal aid services to about another 93,000 people, as one of the large investments in the justice sector. Also, I think, important to the justice sector is a continued investment in the likes of Te Ao Mārama, a judicially led initiative to make sure that our courthouses or court operations around the country can be better focused on looking after all people who go through that, both victims and those who want not to reoffend. So can I thank the finance Minister for his funding of an initiative of $190 million for that.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): Before I call Erica Stanford, I’ll apologise profusely for getting stared down by two Ministers and ignoring you. I apologise.

ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, it’s always good to follow the Minister of Immigration in any debate. It’s really interesting that the Minister of Immigration had his five minutes today and didn’t speak about immigration at all. The single biggest handbrake on our economy—it’s not just me saying that but Adrian Orr saying that in his comments last week, when he hiked up the official cash rate (OCR) again, seeing our interest rates going through the roof again—is our access to skilled labour, and there was not a single mention from the Minister of Immigration, who sits down after five minutes, and absolutely nothing.

Well, let’s get to that in a minute, but can I just say again we have this lovely Wellbeing Budget with a picture again of scenery after three years. We all remember that really embarrassing gaffe we had back in 2019, with the woman, that lovely model—I think her name was Vicky—on the front cover of the Budget, and the embarrassing gaffe was the fact that she actually had already left for Australia. It’s worth reminding ourselves why it was that she left for Australia. The Guardian reported that the model on the front page of the 2019 much-hyped Wellbeing Budget had left New Zealand because the cost of living was too high. She couldn’t pay her rent in Auckland. She didn’t earn enough, her cost of living was too high, and she left. That was back in 2019.

Well, since then, things have gotten so much worse on that front. Since 2019, we have seen rents shoot up $50 a week in the last year alone, the highest on record: $150 over the last four years. The cost of living crisis has been driven by a Government that ignored all of their officials’ warning advice when it came to brightline changes and tax changes that officials had provided to them, and instead ploughed ahead with those changes, and now we see rents going up faster than they ever have before. That’s why people like Lisa are—sorry, not Lisa—Vicky are still leaving New Zealand.

Every single speaker on the other side of the House tonight, from the Labour side, have trotted out the same pre-prepared lines that, no doubt, their leader’s office have given to them: “Don’t forget to blame Ukraine. Don’t forget to blame gas. Don’t forget to blame supply. But whatever you do, don’t take any responsibility for anything that we’ve done on this side”—that side—“of the House. Don’t talk about our out-of-control spending. Don’t talk about our lack of a plan. Don’t talk about our lack of outcomes. Don’t talk about any of that; just talk about all of those international factors.” Never any admission. Never taking any responsibility for their reckless spending. No admission that maybe that additional 10,000 bureaucrats weren’t the best idea, maybe those millions on a cycle bridge to nowhere wasn’t the best idea, or maybe those giant red zeroes weren’t the best idea.

Now, they crow, and they crow tonight. Damien O’Connor crowed about taking more and more of those hard-earned taxes off New Zealanders. Damien O’Connor said tonight that he was proud of taking those extra taxes. They then have the gall to say that National would make cuts to their investments—they like to call them investments. But here’s a word of advice to members opposite in the Labour Party: it’s not an investment if you don’t get a result; it’s waste. That’s what we have been talking about ad nauseam for the last few months. This is a Government that is addicted to spending without a care in the world for results. We see it in mental health. We see it in education. We see it in the New Zealand Transport Agency. We see it in the social development space, with money being pumped in and 50,000 more people on a benefit, more people unemployed. If we can’t get people employed under these conditions, when will we ever do that? We see it in immigration: $200 million extra in spending compared to 2017, yet every single visa category is taking much longer. We’re spending $5 billion extra in education, and everything is going backwards. We need fiscal discipline, we need results-driven spending, and this Budget delivers none of this. What we’re delivered was a bloated Budget with record spending, fuelling a cost of living crisis the like of which we have not seen in decades. While the other side can speak ad nauseam about Ukraine and gas and supply, they need to take responsibility. These costs that they have imposed on New Zealand are their costs. This is not just a cost of living crisis; this is a cost of Labour crisis.

The Reserve Bank is fighting back this huge red flame that sits in front of them by hiking the OCR in a desperate attempt to drive down inflation. We’ve seen twice, in two cycles, a 50 basis point increase—the first time in history in New Zealand that this has happened—and homeowners are going to feel the pinch, all of those homeowners in the last couple of years who bought houses at record prices. I think, in Auckland and my electorate, of those first-home buyers who have taken on huge, huge debt and are now looking to re-fix this year—60 percent of mortgage holders are looking to re-fix this year. They are going to be in a serious amount of trouble and it’s going to be really tough, all because Adrian Orr, the Reserve Bank Governor, is, like I say, desperately trying to fan out this giant red fire with the only tool that he has in his tool box.

Grant Robertson can use Ukraine, he can use oil prices, and even the lack of Gib—remember when he talked about Gib; that was a good one—but Kiwis aren’t stupid. They know that he has an addiction to spending. They know that he’s thieving from future-year Budgets because, not content with the $6 billion that he had, he had to reach his grubby hands into future years. Damien O’Connor said earlier tonight that Grant Robertson is visionary, and I’d have to agree with that. He’s so visionary, he looked to next year, he grabbed $2 billion, he looked to the year beyond that, and he grabbed another $0.4 billion.

But what I’m worried about is not his vision; it’s his hindsight, because when it comes to next year, when he’s sitting there, going “What am I going to do in an election year when I don’t have enough money just to keep pace with the cost of living and inflation?”, what’s he going to do then? Is he going to cut costs? Unlikely. Is he going to tax more? Well, Damien O’Connor would like to see that, because let’s not forget his comments earlier this evening about how proud he is of taxing hard-earning Kiwis more. The most likely scenario is that he is going to borrow more money. Someone give this man a patch—this guy is addicted to spending. He is out of control. It’s fuelling inflation, it’s driving up costs for Kiwis, and the real pain will be felt by those homeowners in the next 12 months.

Like the woman back in 2019, Kiwis are voting with their feet. They are leaving because of the cost of living crisis in this country. They are seeing opportunities overseas. Moving companies in Auckland are fully booked. Flights are full. The stats don’t lie: 7,300 net migration at the moment—a loss. We need to get back on top of inflation, and part of that is making sure we have access to workers, to skilled labour. There is a global war on talent. We have a declining birth rate, an ageing population, and a brain drain that is set to get worse.

Grant Robertson said in answer to oral questions today that the immigration rebalance—or reset or whatever they’re calling it now—and the opening of our borders will accelerate growth. Well, Adrian Orr said last week in the media and on breakfast television that scarcity of labour is the number one constraint on our economic activity right now. He doesn’t agree with Grant Robertson.

So the question has to be asked: if scarcity of labour is the number one constraint on the economy right now and if we can’t get workers because the Minister of Immigration can’t gear up immigration processing to open the borders to let workers in, is it not true that, actually, the Minister of Immigration is the number one constraint on the economy right now: $500 million extra in spending; 500 additional staff; every category going backwards; five months to process a work visa; five months to process a visitor visa; three months to process a student visa; 20,000 workers promised at the beginning of the year and we got 6,000 to the end of March; 10 percent of the 5,000 student visas have been filled because of bureaucracy, the last-minute process; we’ve only seen 700 working holidaymakers arrive in the country, when we normally see 73,000 a year; and then we get this pre-Budget announcement of the immigration rebalance, reset, which created a green list, which put nurses—which we need 4,000 of—on a two-year track to residence, when in Australia they can go there and get residence straight away and get better pay and better conditions. Why would they come here? The Minister of Immigration right royally screwed that one up. He didn’t need a two-year list; he just needed to give these people that we desperately need residence on arrival.

What they haven’t realised is they can’t take their ideological policy from 2018 to drive down migration, plop it into 2022, when we’ve had a global pandemic, there’s a war on talent, and we desperately need access to skilled workers. All they’re doing at every single turn is making it harder for people to get here: restrictions on work rights for partners, restrictions on work rights for students, no pathway to residence unless you’re on that green list, still. So I don’t know what he thinks is going to happen come 4 July, when he thinks all these workers are going to suddenly apply for work visas, when there is no pathway for them to get residence, and processing times that are, frankly, a joke. We need to compete on the world stage, and in order to do that in the immigration space, we need to be the best.

This is a backwards, band-aid Budget that is not supported by a Minister of Immigration at a time when we desperately need skilled workers to fire our economy.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): For the benefit of those members waiting to take a call, I’m back in order.

GLEN BENNETT (Labour—New Plymouth): Kia ora. I want to begin this evening in acknowledging our Minister of Finance, our Deputy Prime Minister, the Hon Grant Robertson, for delivering his fourth Wellbeing Budget and for delivering a Budget that found balance: looking at today, the here and now, but also looking to our future and future generations. I’m really grateful for the vision. I’m really grateful for the fact that we on this side of the House take a wellbeing approach. We lean, in that space, into the challenges we’re facing. The concept of the Wellbeing Budget is not operating in our silos, as we have for so long; it’s around Ministers talking to different Ministers, it’s around seeing that if you work over this space and this space, then the outcomes may be more impactive and more effective into the future.

I’m really grateful that we as the Labour Party are willing to try new things, to lean in, and to take this wellbeing approach. It’s not just about the economic and fiscal indicators; we’re looking at the social, we’re looking at the environmental, and this Budget of 2022—the Wellbeing Budget—has put those things in place. It’s around just transition, it’s around our physical and mental wellbeing, it’s around the future of work, it’s around our Māori and Pacific people, and it’s around our child wellbeing.

I’m grateful that we can stand here today—and, over the last week or so, I’ve been around the electorate of New Plymouth, getting around Taranaki, talking about what has happened and what has been in the Budget for the people in my region, and it’s been wonderful to share that around. Meeting up with Federated Farmers yesterday and last week with a farming group round the coast, talking around our $380 million invested into agricultural emissions reduction, accelerating the development of greenhouse gas emission reductants, ensuring that we can actually find the technology and find the ways that we can actually—because our farmers have the solutions, and we can support them to find the solutions that they need so that we can live and move into this low-carbon economy.

I’m grateful that we’ve put in $31 million to help maintain and lift animal welfare practices across New Zealand, ensuring that our farmers have what they need to ensure that the best care of their animals is taken care of and that we support that here. Getting around, as I said, the electorate talking and listening were all positives around what we are doing as a Government to ensure our emissions reductions, ensuring our animal welfare, and ensuring the future of our farming and agricultural sector.

Last night, I was in New Plymouth with Venture Taranaki at their Branching Out event, which was looking at food and fibre, looking at what they’re doing in terms of their spaces and places around Taranaki, and tasting and trying new things—not just dairy products but things from quinoa to our wonderful Juno gin—and looking to other industries that in Taranaki are diversifying—are branching out to support our future and to see what our economy will look like and what our economy will look like with a low-carbon economy.

In this Budget, our food and fibre package offered more than $1 billion, and that’s something that I’m proud of. Someone who comes from the rural sector and lives in a region like Taranaki can be proud that we’re investing heavily in our regions and we’re investing heavily in our rural people.

I also want to finish on the $18 million or thereabouts that was put into the development of our national energy strategy. Again, it’s something that’s significant for us in Taranaki and that’s so important. We’re looking at our regulatory framework when it comes to offshore renewable energy—something that people have been asking for, something that people have been wanting, and something that we’re delivering now in terms of that almost $18 million to ensure our energy strategy is right, to ensure our road map around hydrogen and what that looks like is right, and then, of course, to get that offshore regulatory framework right when it comes to renewable energy.

In closing, I just want to acknowledge a small amount that was put in—$2 million—around a fund to support community-led initiatives to foster social cohesion. This is a small piece of investment, but it is super-significant in terms of creating community-led development which looks at how we bring people and different communities together and how we have positive social interactions between different communities around our regions and around Aotearoa, where we ensure that communities are connected, where we ensure that people feel a part of our society, and where people feel that they are included. That’s very much what this Wellbeing Budget of 2022 is about. It’s around inclusion, it’s around our environment, it’s around our people, and it’s around our economy.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): I call Tāmati Coffey—five minutes.

TĀMATI COFFEY (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Beautiful contribution from the previous speaker, Glen Bennett; that’s why he’s going to continue to be the member of Parliament for New Plymouth in 2023 and beyond.

Can I say that this Budget is all about securing our future, but it’s also about making sure that we’re providing some instant relief for New Zealanders right across New Zealand—2.1 million New Zealanders will benefit from the cost of living payment which is going to kick in in August. Some may scoff at it and say, “$27 a week!”, but $27 a week for three months, actually, per person over the age of 18—it’s not per household; it’s per person—and the more that I went out there on the trail last week and spoke to people about what the Budget meant for them, the more they realised how significant this was. Actually, just short of $1 million spent on the cost of living pressures that Kiwi families are facing right now was absolutely welcomed and it was great to be able to get out there and talk to them about some of the good stuff that featured in this year’s Wellbeing Budget.

I want to talk about the Māori Health Authority, because as I also went out talking to different groups and organisations, there was a real feeling of optimism with Health New Zealand, with the Māori Health Authority, and also with iwi Māori partnership boards who, for a long time, have been waiting to participate meaningfully in the New Zealand health system and they haven’t had that ability to. Through the restructure, and, obviously, through the Budget funding as well, they are moving into a much more positive space; they know they’ve got something to contribute. Back home in Te Arawa, the Te Arawa iwi Māori partnership board is all set up and ready to go. They’ve done all of their background checks, they’ve put their people in place, and they are firing on all cylinders. Budget 2022 allows them to be able to do their job and I look forward to monitoring their progress.

Another thing that is hidden in the Budget—but for people that are really affected by it, it’s incredibly significant—is the lowering of the age for bowel cancer screening. This is something, especially amongst our Māori population that we’ve been wanting for quite some time. There have been some champions out there saying, “The age is too high; we need to lower it.” That age is coming down to 50 now, and, through funding in the Budget, we’re going to be able to prevent bowel cancer in our country, and hopefully we’ll see the rates come down from that as well.

There was a specific line in the Budget which had Rotorua’s name on it. Obviously, the geothermal paradise of New Zealand—but it was awesome for me to be able to see that, because what I know is that back home we do have a homelessness issue, but what we haven’t had for a long time is some real coordination in that space. A lot of social service agencies, whether they work in mental health or alcohol or other drug addictions, they’ve wanted a bit more coordination for quite some time. A call from the front line was to set up a hub, to call it Te Pokapū, which in Māori means “the centre” or “the hub”, and for everybody to be able to come together under the same roof to be able to triage people that come in that need emergency housing special needs grants.

The feeling was that the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) weren’t necessarily the best people to be able to triage the people that come in and need that kind of support. Thankfully, we now have a bespoke hub on main street Rotorua where people that need those grants can go in but they just don’t get the grants; Te Pokapū will actually be able to do the triaging with them. They’ve got clinicians from the local district health board, they’ve got MSD officials out the back that can help, they’ve got the social services located upstairs, and they knew that, despite setting all of this up, their funding was precarious. They only had funding to take them until July this year, they were very nervous about that, so I’m proud to be able to stand here in this House and say that Budget 2022 delivered for them $130 million over four years, which is going to be significant for them to be able to do the real triage that we need to do to be able to address our goals in the Aotearoa/New Zealand Homeless Action Plan but also to be able to treat people with respect and the mana that they deserve in a very fragile and very vulnerable time.

I want to also shout-out about the innovation fund that’s coming through tourism. We know that our tourism and hospitality industries have done it hard over COVID, but, in fact, tourism has had its own allocation this year through Budget 2022, and what we’re looking for is innovation in that tourism space. I spoke with some of our tourism providers last week and our regional tourism organisations. They’re incredibly excited about the potential to come, they’re looking forward to seeing how they can continue to provide that level of support for tourism operators all around Rotorua and around the country to be able to do the work that they need to do.

Budget 2022 is an absolute success. It addresses the initial cost of living crisis that we’re going through at the moment but also sets a pathway forward so that we’re tackling the big issues like climate change.

CHRIS BISHOP (National): I almost feel sorry for the Labour backbencher having to read out the research unit speeches. I really do, because, honestly—honestly—we hear this stuff from Tāmati Coffey about the Homelessness Action Plan. Well, unlike him, I’ve read the Homelessness Action Plan, and let me tell the Parliament and the people what it says about how the Government’s going on homelessness. The latest update says that all bar two of the metrics and the trackers that the Government uses to measure homelessness are going in the wrong direction.

Today, we found out that the State house waiting list, which measures the number of people who are in severe need of State housing—it’s hit a new high, since last month: 27,000 people. In fact, more than 27,000 people—a new record State house wait-list. And here’s the thing: it’s quintupled since Labour came to office. Not doubled, not trebled, not even quadrupled; it’s quintupled. When Labour came to office, about 5,000 people were on the State house waiting list—5,000 people too many, I fully accept that. Labour came to office and there were big promises from Jacinda Ardern and Phil Twyford and Megan Woods and Grant Robertson, and they said, “Don’t worry, we’ve got this.” Oh, sorry, actually it was, “Let’s do this.”—let’s do this. And everyone went, “OK, good stuff. Let’s see what you can do.” We’ve seen what they can do: 27,000 people are out there on the wait-list, a new record, almost five years into this Government’s time in office.

And they said they would fix the housing crisis. The Budget contains hundreds of millions of dollars for emergency housing, because, tomorrow morning, 4,500 kids will wake up in motels paid for by the New Zealand Government. They’ll wake up in motels, up and down the country. It’s not just in Rotorua. It’s in Lower Hutt and Upper Hutt. It’s in Northcote. It’s in Wairarapa. It’s all around the country. Kids will grow up in motels. Rents are up 150 bucks a week in the last 4½ years. And, again, this Government said they would fix this problem.

But don’t worry. The Budget also contains more money for the solution that Labour said would fix everything: KiwiBuild. It was 100,000 homes they said they’d do in 10 years.

Chris Penk: How’s that going?

CHRIS BISHOP: Well, I’ll tell you how it’s going, Chris Penk: 1,300 houses in four years—1,300 homes. Just 17 sold this year. I think it is fair to say that KiwiBuild is the biggest public policy failure in recent New Zealand history. I can’t personally think of one. Absolute disaster. And Tāmati Coffey stands up in the House and says, “Oh, well, the Budget addresses homelessness.” Yeah, right!—yeah, right! They’ve been saying that for so long, and yet this Government has failed a generation of New Zealanders when it comes to housing.

There’s three things that I looked for in the Budget, three takeaways that I had that I think we need to be aware of. The first is the inflation numbers, because the Government spent quite a long time denying that we’re in a cost of living crisis. You remember the start of the year? February, March, the Prime Minister didn’t want to use the words. She didn’t want to say that people were doing it really tough. Eventually, she brought herself to say, “Yeah, actually, it’s really tough.” And they tried to blame Ukraine, but they now at least accept that we are in a cost of living crisis. But if you look at the Budget, inflation’s 6.9 percent currently—let’s say 7 percent. The Budget shows, or the Budget predicts—forecasts—that that inflation rate will still be above 3 percent in 2025. So this is something that’s not going away. That’s, I think, the most startling thing out of the Budget—is that inflation is set to be above that 1 to 3 percent band that the Reserve Bank’s meant to keep inflation to, for a very long time.

Look, I’m 38. Mr Speaker, without being too pejorative, you will remember inflation much higher than 7 percent—around 10, 12, 15, 20. There’ll be a few other members in the House, not that many, but there’ll be a few others who remember inflation when it was at a serious level. But for 30 years in New Zealand, because of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act and because of the reforms of the late 1980s and early 1990s, we’ve got used to inflation being kept low—price stability, or close near enough to price stability. And what New Zealanders are discovering now is that inflation is the thief in your back pocket. It erodes the real value of money. It erodes the purchasing power of your money. Superannuitants are discovering it every time they go to the supermarket. Hard-working families are discovering it every time they go and fill their car up at the pump.

And isn’t it interesting to see petrol above three bucks a litre again? So that 25c reduction that knocked all the money out of the National Land Transport Fund didn’t last that long. And Phil Twyford’s sitting there, and he’s a former Minister of Transport, and he knows full well that the Government might have got a little sugar hit out of the 25c reduction, but it’s saving up money for a rainy day and they’re saving up a problem, I should say, for a rainy day. In the same way, the three months of cost of living payments is a little bit of a band-aid economic solution, but it’s saving up a problem for a rainy day.

Here’s a prediction. Is the Government really going to go into Christmas cutting people’s pay? That’s going to be the effect of it, because the money runs out in November. Is the Government seriously expecting us to believe that they’re going to turn up on 1 December, and the money that people have had three months of turning up in their bank accounts—for three months in a row—the Government’s going to go, “Oh, well, sorry, boss, run out of money. That’s just the way things are.”? Yeah, right!—yeah, right! We’ll see. So the inflation rate is going to be high for the next three years and beyond.

Here’s the other thing, the second point I wanted to make. The scale of spending in this Budget is just unbelievable. I’ve been doing business audiences in the last week or so, and speaking to community groups, and when I explain to them the spending splurge that Grant Robertson is on, they actually can’t believe it. When you run them through the numbers, it’s truly phenomenal, right? A 68 percent increase in the last four years, 50 billion bucks added in terms of Government spending—that’s before you get to this year’s Budget. Then you turn up to Budget 2022, this year. He took the operating allowance of $6 billion—that, in and of itself, was the single biggest increase in Government spending in New Zealand history. And then what he has done a very good job of submerging from New Zealanders is he’s taken $2 billion from next year’s Budget and brought that forward—people haven’t quite cottoned on to that yet. What they also don’t know is he’s taken half a billion from Budget 2024 and pulled that forward. And then, for reasons that I do not understand yet and I’m looking forward to someone taking a call and explaining, he’s just decreed that the cost of living payments are just outside the operating allowance. It’s new spending, but it’s just gone. It’s not in the operating allowance. So he’s just decided that.

So the net increase is $9.5 billion this year. Remember, we started with $6 billion. That all gets baked in, and if you look at the Budget documents, you will find over the next four years $38 billion in increased spending. That’s on top of the 68 percent increase that we’ve seen in the last five years. And I just put it to the House: are we 68 percent better off for the level of that spending? Have we seen a 68 percent reduction in child poverty? No, numbers have gone up. Has there been a 68 percent reduction in the State house waiting list? No, numbers have gone up by 500 percent. Has there been a 68 percent increase in hip operations? No, not at all.

So for all of that spending, what’s been the net outcome? What has been the net outcome? Well, I’ll tell you what. It’s stupid things like $30,000 to be spent on massive illuminated red zeros—oh, sorry, I’m wrong, they’re not just red; there’s also a green one and there’s a yellow one. I noticed there weren’t any blue zeros. But they spent 30 grand through the New Zealand Transport Agency on big red zeros, and we’re going to have a lot of fun with those photos over the next 18 months or so. They’ve got 10,000 more bureaucrats baked into the system in Wellington, working on three waters and working on the health reforms. And if you’re at KPMG or EY or PricewaterhouseCoopers, or literally any consultancy in Wellington or Auckland, it’s clover. It’s happy days for you, my friend, because there is so much money to be made out of bureaucratic restructuring and bureaucratic goings-on inside Wellington. And this Government’s never seen a programme they didn’t think would benefit from a working group or a good dollop of consultancies to throw some money at—they’ve never seen a project—and, of course, we are all bearing the consequence of that.

And so here’s the question. Grant Robertson spends 38 billion bucks over the next four years and he expects this House to believe, through this Budget, next year, election year, he’ll turn up here and he’ll say, “Oh, look, I’m just going to have to keep the fiscal spigot under control this time. I’ve only got $2.5 billion to spend this year, because I spent a little bit extra last year.” Yeah, right! There’ll be another blowout, because, every year, Grant Robertson turns up to Parliament and says, “Next year, I’ll get it under control.” It’s like my diets. I turn up every year and I say, “Oh, next year I’ll start the diet. Next year, I’ll get my weight under control.” It’ll never happen.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): I call the Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall for five minutes.

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Minister for Food Safety): Time for some health advice for the member across the other side, and a reminder that this Government is projected to return to zero net debt much earlier than the last Government did during the global financial crisis, that Minister Robertson’s balanced Budget does provide support for the here and now but also makes sure we carefully keep our future options open.

One of the things that’s really important about Budget 2022 is it provides us with economic security against these offshore shocks that we’ve heard about—the war in Ukraine and also supply chain challenges.

It is also a landmark Budget for health. That’s fitting, because our health system is a source of security. As we’ve seen, it’s protected us during the pandemic and, as we know it always has, mitigated the catastrophic effects of illness—and also, for so many of us, it protects our future opportunities. Budget 2022 includes a record ongoing annual funding boost for Health New Zealand—formerly our DHBs—$1.8 billion in year one, an additional $1.3 billion in year two. Thank goodness! It will end decades of an underfunded and fragmented DHB system. And I can tell you, from being a member of a DHB board in this region, that DHB deficits stifled our ability to do anything different. We couldn’t innovate. We couldn’t undertake service improvement, because everything had to be diverted to keeping the lights on.

For the first time ever, Budget 2022 creates funding certainty for two years for the health system, and these longer-term funding plans allow us to address some of the things that have been in the too-hard basket for the health system for far too long—our inability to invest in proper health information technology, for example. It also means that for hospitals, the health system can move off the one-year funding system that meant they were never able to get ahead. We’re investing more in primary care, mental health, and in Māori health. In particular, we’re investing more in public health through the creation of the Public Health Agency and the National Public Health Service, collectively assigned $61 million in this Budget. We should never again be in the situation where we have to scramble to stitch back together 12 different public health units so that we can respond to a pandemic. We’re also making sure that information can be shared at speed in this new health system, through a $10 million investment in public health IT. We’re investing in a world-class health workforce that have kept us safe during COVID-19.

Let’s look at some of the headline investments for health. In Pharmac, we have more than a single biggest ever increase for the Pharmac, an extra $191 million over two years. And immediately, we’ve had Pharmac consider increased spending on blood cancer drugs, multiple sclerosis, HIV, hormone replacement therapy, and breast cancer drugs. In primary care, $102 million to grow primary healthcare teams so they can identify and treat issues earlier. We want to prevent small issues going on to be big ones that mean you have to come to hospital. Already, this Government has created 3,000 more fulltime-equivalent nursing positions over recent Budgets, and those doctors and nurses will be on the top of our immigration green list to allow us to recruit from overseas. In this Budget, we’re investing $76 million to strengthen our health workforce, including 1,500 more training places in primary care. That’s nurses, physiotherapists, pharmacists, and 1,000 more training places for the whole hauora Māori workforce. We’re also investing in 48 additional ambulances, 13 vehicles for our ambulance fleet, and 248 more paramedics. These are the essential services that Budget 2022 is supporting.

I want to mention some specific issues that I’ve worked on that are close to my heart. I am particularly pleased that this Budget included investment to support people with dementia to have early intervention, and to provide respite to their carers. I also am pleased that we are making sure we’re continuing the Nurse-Family Partnership programme to improve some of our families with the biggest challenges, and the early care that children and those families receive.

Also, there are people who have not often been well served and included in our health system, and I’m thinking specifically of intersex and trans people, whose human rights we will uphold much better in our health system through dedicated work around promoting informed consent, gender affirming care, and guidelines. I am very proud to see Budget 2022 secure our future.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): I call Angie Warren-Clark, hiding behind the screen.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker, I didn’t realise I was hiding behind a screen. I’m really, really proud to stand here today to talk to the Budget 2022: A secure future. I want, first of all, to acknowledge the Hon Grant Robertson—he has worked really hard to enable us to have a Budget that strikes the right balance. It takes care of today, but it also looks at securing our future. I just want to acknowledge him for the hard work that he’s done, and some of the innovative practices that he’s brought to the Cabinet, to work collaboratively. I think it is tremendous what he has done.

There’s so much to talk about in this Budget, and it’s really difficult to just pick one thing, right? So I’m not going to; I’m going to pick a few things. But, you know, we cover the environment and infrastructure and climate change and health and education. Mainly, though, we cover—this is a Budget for people. That is the most important thing that we cover in this Budget. So I want to talk on social services funding in this Budget. It’s our fourth Wellbeing Budget, and this Budget also builds on our 1 April changes, from this year.

I’m really delighted to talk very quickly about dental grants for low-income Kiwis, and it’s moved from $300 per annum to $1,000 per annum. And this money is for all treatment; it’s not just for emergency treatment. Now, for people here that may not understand that with the mouth being the gateway to your health, this is actually quite transformational in terms of how we will get around the difficulties that people have with poor dental care. So I’m really delighted about that.

I’m also really delighted about the child support pass-on. Child support pass-on is, basically, about child support payments paid to single-income families—sole parent families, 41,550, approximately, families—where you have a single parent who the other parent has been paying, that income has gone directly to Work and Income, to the Government. It will now go to the families; it will be counted as income but, nevertheless, families will be much better off with this pass-on. And it’s about the connectedness.

My colleague Ginny Anderson spoke at some length about the family and sexual violence funding. I couldn’t go through a Budget speech without actually mihi-ing to this Government for the work that they are doing in this space. A lot of money every Budget goes into this most wicked of problems, and I’m really delighted that this Budget also adds on to Te Aorerekura the policies that we’ve now put in place—the road map—around ending sexual and family violence in this country.

Then, finally—finally, in my last one minute 30—I want to talk about the disability funding that we have put in place. One in four people in this country are considered, or consider themselves, to have a disability. That’s 26 percent of New Zealanders, and we have actually recognised this. There’s been work that has been happening for the last 10 or so years, but we still have intergenerational inequality here in this country around people with disabilities. We all know that there are significant barriers for our disabled community, and they are disproportionately represented in the poverty stats and inaccessibility and also in discrimination. So we have pledged a total of $943 million in operating funding to transform and support the Disability Support Services system, including $735 million to address volume and price pressures for Disability Support Services. We’ve put $100 million to support regional-based roll-out of Enabling Good Lives—google it—it’s a wonderful package. So $100 million in that, and then $108 million to establishing and supporting the ongoing operation for a new Ministry for Disabled People. So important. I’m grateful for this Budget. Thank you.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): Our next call is a remote call, and I call the Hon Eugenie Sage.

Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Green) (remote): Talofa lava, Mr Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): Five minutes, Eugenie—my apologies.

Hon EUGENIE SAGE: Correct. Budget 2022 is a climate Budget. It is a Budget that will cut pollution while going some way, but not nearly far enough, to make life easier for families across Aotearoa. If the Greens had the balance of power and Budget 2022 had a stronger Green hue, we would have gone much further. We would have introduced a wealth tax to boost Government revenue so that we can invest in more of the things and services we need. We would have had a guaranteed minimum income and would have made public transport free. Half-price fares have been a huge success. They’ve increased patronage, and free public transport would not only help more people get around but it would reduce our transport emissions, too. But Budget 2022 does show the difference that the Green Party is making through our cooperation agreement with Labour in helping deliver meaningful change, and it’s a landmark Budget because of its focus on our climate and action to reduce emissions and protect our future.

One after another National speakers in this debate have shown, despite the party’s past election slogans promising a better and brighter future, that they just don’t get it. They don’t get it: that protecting the climate and nature must be our number one priorities if we are to safeguard our wellbeing and our future as a species. They don’t even mention the climate. Yet, the launch of Aotearoa’s first emissions reduction plan on the Monday of Budget week and the climate focus of Budget 2022 is huge. That emissions reduction plan contains over 300 actions, across nearly every part of Government: 15 different Ministers, with 18 portfolios between them. And it’s the $2.9 billion which is coming from climate polluters, through the emissions trading scheme and is being recycled into avoiding and reducing emissions and implementing the suite of actions in that plan, that this Budget is really important for. I’d like to give a big shout-out to all the activists, the scientists, the academics, the councils, the community organisations, the businesses, and the individuals who have given the Government this mandate for change—the zero carbon Act, which set up the independent Climate Change Commission, the whole framework for setting emissions budgets, which have now been done, and then this comprehensive and funded emissions reduction plan.

In the Greens, we’ve made no secret of the fact that we want more rapid action to cut climate pollution. We want to phase out coal faster. We’d have a clear target date for an end to internal combustion engine vehicles being imported into New Zealand. And we want much more done to reduce agricultural emissions. But we really celebrate the recognition, in this Budget, of the crucial action we need to take to reduce climate pollution and the crucial role that nature-based solutions have in cutting climate pollution. I really congratulate the Minister of Finance and the conservation Minister, Kiritapu Allan, on the extra $374 million over four years in operational funding for Te Papa Atawhai, the Department of Conservation, to help it care for a third of Aotearoa’s lands and waters. That’s an investment in critical infrastructure—in ecosystems, indigenous forests, indigenous species—the infrastructure of nature: the ecosystem services that provide us with clean air, water to drink, places to play, and food to eat, as well as being the basis of our economy. When National talks about infrastructure, it’s motorways and more cars, more climate pollution; yet, it’s nature which is the critical infrastructure—that and the climate—which keep us alive.

Budget 2022 also just shows how much difference the Green Party’s cooperation with Labour is making. We’re really making progress on those commitments in conservation, with an extra $27 million for maintaining the current scale of aerial predator control of rats, stoats, and possums—that help improve the chances of threatened species like kiwi and kākā nesting and breeding successfully. And I’m really pleased that Budget ’22 contains an extra $30 million for deer and possum control and management. There’s been a huge increase in deer numbers, and their spread and browsing pressure is a major threat to the health of our native forests. And if, in this Budget, there’s $147 million being invested in more planting programmes to help sequester carbon, it’s only, as Forest & Bird has said, giving a free lunch to deer and goats if we don’t control them on conservation land and prevent them just browsing forests and suppressing regeneration. If this was a Green Budget—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): The member’s time has expired.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to begin by acknowledging that, in this Budget, the Government started shifting the dial on investment on climate action and healthcare infrastructure. And there are quite a few discrete things to like. We support the child support pass-on, as well as the increase in the eligibility for hardship grants for low-income workers—these are all things that will make a difference for our communities. But, at the core in this Budget, what we have accepted is that some families will continue living in hardship and needing to get into thousands of dollars of debt, with our own Government agencies that are designed to support them, just to survive. And it is very clear for us that, if the Greens held the balance of power, if we had a stronger influence in the decision making of this Government, we would have taken the opportunity to put in place policies that no longer tolerated families living in hardship.

What I’ve learnt in my time in this place is that it’s easy to fall into the habit of making decisions based on vibes, focus-group feedback, or simply high-level political narratives centred on what will keep us in this job, instead of doing what is right for the communities that we claim to serve.

We’ve actually known for decades that our healthcare system is under massive amounts of pressure; that many communities are struggling to make ends meet; and that unless we take urgent action to reduce emissions, countless numbers of people will face displacement. We know this because the communities we serve have told us so by marching in the streets demanding action, producing rigorous research on issues such as poverty, and shared countless numbers of stories on social media and mainstream media alike. Even the polls tell us that there is appetite for the collective care that many of us know is really valuable.

Yesterday, there was a poll talking about the Government cost of living payment, which is a $350 one-off payment for people who normally do not meet the criteria for the winter energy payment. And the polls showed that a clear majority of people wanted beneficiaries and pensioners to be included in this payment. For me, it speaks to the fact that, actually, in Aotearoa there is a desire for genuine progressive values, that people are rejecting this compromise just to keep this sort of sense in the narrative of fiscal responsibility and actually ignoring the responsibilities that we have to communities that are facing cost of living pressures.

What this Budget failed to acknowledge, and particularly the cost of living payment failed to acknowledge, is that people on the benefit are facing massive amounts of pressure. Some of them are actually having their income eaten up by debt, that they accrued by going to the agencies that supported them, of almost $27 a week. They’re missing out on what the cost of living payment would have provided. And so if we’re really serious about this Budget being a health and climate Budget, then we would have put into action the desire and the policies to no longer see children getting sick with preventable diseases that come from not having a warm, dry home, or liveable incomes.

One of the previous Labour speakers talked about the changes to dental grants in this year’s Budget, and the increase of eligibility of non-recoverable assistance—when you go get treatment for dental when you’re receiving assistance from Work and Income. And that is, of course, a step in the right direction. In fact, I would go further and say that we should be looking at things like free dental and that we should be exploring wiping the debt that people have accrued from needing that level of support. If we’re serious about supporting the oral health of our communities, this is why we would be putting in place higher benefits so that our families have access to abundant kai. We should not just be making services free once people get sick; we should be funding the things that support people not getting sick in the first place.

And I’ve heard the contributions from the members of the National Party who, back in 2013, rolled in all these horrible welfare reforms—punitive sanctions that saw thousands of parents losing their income. And many of these policies continue being in place despite members of Government speaking against them at the time. Again, if we’re really serious about supporting our communities in this Budget, we would have a commitment to roll back those punitive benefit sanctions that the National Party introduced, to genuinely listen to our communities and have increased core benefits further so that we’re not seeing people needing hardship grants just to make ends meet.

If the Greens held the balance of power, we would be fighting for a guaranteed minimum income that provided unconditional support to people in Aotearoa. This would not have the punitive relationship rules that mean that when people lose their job, they can’t even get access to income support, because their partner may be deemed to be earning far too much, pushing too many families into lower incomes and a perverse financial dependency. The Greens will continue fighting for outcomes that are just and push this Government to include the transformative policies that our communities deserve. Kia ora.

ANGELA ROBERTS (Labour): Talofa lava, Mr Speaker. There is so much to be proud of in this Budget and to be really pleased about from the investment across the board. We’ve heard from so many speakers in previous hours about the investment in health, primary industries, our rural communities, and climate change. Last week, many of us were privileged to spend time in our communities talking to constituents who will be better off and whose futures are more secure, because of this Budget, brought to us by the Hon Grant Robertson. I could talk about many things, but I’m just going to pick a few little highlights for me from education, because the best way to invest in our future—besides health, I believe—is investing in our young people in our education system, and there’s a lot to be really pleased about.

I’ll start with acknowledging the significant work that’s been done over many years by officials and Ministers to replace our decile funding system with a new Equity Index. It’s been a long time coming, and it is going to mean that our equity funding is better targeted to meet the needs of our students. Not only is it going to be better targeted; there is simply more of it. A 50 percent increase in equity funding is something we should be really, really pleased about. Not only are the Equity Index and the equity funding going up but our special education grant and our operation grants are also going up—$184 million over the next few years in order to do more than just keep the lights on. It’s wonderful. That really solid structural shift has been pursued relentlessly for years and has been brought about despite the significant challenges the sector has faced with COVID in the last couple of years.

That significant challenge we can see in our students. I’d like to acknowledge the money that has gone into the attendance services and alternative education, which is really going to support our most vulnerable students and those who work so hard tirelessly to support them as well as they can. At the other end—the investment at the other end—$11 million for PB4L, Positive Behaviour for Learning, schoolwide. It’s a refresh, because it’s an investment that we know—because it’s evidence-based; it isn’t chucking money around—provides a return, and we continue to make sure that the profession is able to deliver it across schools.

One thing we did see through COVID was the response to the COVID response fund, when principals were trusted to bring resources in to meet the needs of their particular communities and their particular students, and how important that was and how pleased they were to be able to access counselling or other services that met the needs of their students. It allowed them to be nimble and responsive. That response fund has become a regional response fund of $10 million a year, with which we will trust school communities to deliver better services for our vulnerable students. It’s something that we should be really, really pleased to hear about.

Once those students escape school, of course, we need them to be continuing their learning throughout their lives, and the Apprenticeship Boost initiative, of course, continues to need additional funding because it has been so successful. We need to provide further funding because we have more people wanting to become apprentices and more businesses wanting to take on apprentices and we need to support those—young; not necessarily young—new apprentices. There will be 38,000 more apprentices able to be supported, investing in the future of our economy, of our businesses—many of them small and medium enterprises—and, of course, our people who want to continue with their lifelong learning.

I’ve just got one little shout-out—one thing that nobody’s mentioned because, for many, it seems so insignificant but it is really important for our most remote communities. The boarding allowance will be going up—the boarding allowance that allows some of our students to get to school when a bus ain’t gonna cut it—8 percent. So to our families up in Mangamahu, Sarah Waldron and your kids; to the kids down at Halfmoon Bay School, who’ve been challenging this Government to think about how we can better support them; to the students and the teachers at Ōtorohanga College—there is just a little bit more there to help you to support those students.

LEMAUGA LYDIA SOSENE (Labour): Talofa lava lau afioga le Fofoga Fetalai, Mr Speaker, as we celebrate Samoan Language week.

Thank you for the opportunity to make a contribution on the Government’s Budget 2022. As the newest member to join the Labour parliamentary caucus, it’s been a really busy time in the last week through recess. We were traveling with Ministers and MPs across Aotearoa, specifically in Auckland Tamaki Makaurau—South Auckland, West Auckland—Levin, Christchurch, Upper Hutt, and Porirua, to present to our communities specifically—some of the Māori leaders, mana whenua, but mainly Pasifika community groups, business leaders, and church leaders. We had a number of young people present in the audiences who were quite fascinated to meet our ministerial colleagues and our members of Parliament.

Pacific communities have acknowledged that this is the largest Budget of the Government’s Budget 2022, with $196 million invested, not only to those Pacific groups but to Kiwis across Aotearoa and much more. We know Budget 2022 is the Government’s fourth Wellbeing Budget. The investment announcements for our communities are the Government’s response: prioritising Kiwis, the economic and health recovery so needed after COVID-19 for the last couple of years, responding very strong.

So I’m just going to mention a couple of the initiatives that have received funding and will be so worthwhile for our communities. Our Pasifika caucus, when we visited, did meet a number of young people. In one of the forums, in Levin, we had a young woman who was the only Pasifika consultant working in Horowhenua Learning Centre (HLC) provider. She explained to us that she has 55 young people of Māori and Pasifika descent, and she was successful in the programme of HLC as a community provider, being funded under the Tupu Aotearoa programme. It is with great pleasure that they have further received a contribution of $8 million, which will help many of the young people in this specific community. The young Pasifika consultant explained how difficult it has been to help, specifically three young men of Pasifika and Māori descent, just to empower them to get back into work, to help them through that journey, and to stay in work. Those three young males, who we met, how much of a struggle it has been with their health and their wellbeing. I share that story in this House tonight so that it can highlight just some of the young people that we are helping in the Budget.

The focus on wellbeing is huge, and for our communities, to help them with young basic skills—I’m just going to highlight lastly the driver licensing programme. For many of our year 13 students—I come from a community where many young—specifically males—want to drive, and they want to drive legally. But the fees for the learner, restricted, and full licenses are unaffordable, so what happens? They become quite discouraged but they drive anyway. The funding will help them and their families, and it’s a welcome announcement that they can get on the right side of the law, because, for many of them, they want to help mum and dad, and they have done. Some of them go to school with the new license and will be able to continue and not have indiscretions, and have a better future pathway.

I wanted to thank our Government for the impressive investment in Kiwis’ lives, specifically honing in on our young people—who are the future of this country—and continuing to build our nation, so very helpful for many Kiwi families. I also take the time to congratulate the Minister of Finance, Grant Robertson, and colleagues. Manuia le vaiaso o le Gagana Samoa, fa’fetai. Thank you.

BROOKE VAN VELDEN (Deputy Leader—ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Labour doesn’t have a clue; they don’t have a single clue how to produce a Budget that New Zealanders truly can get behind. This Budget that they’ve delivered is destroying New Zealand, it destroys the spirit of people who want to strive and work hard and strive for their families to have a better life than they had.

You know, New Zealanders have now gone through two years of a COVID pandemic, and what they really needed to see was a vision of hope and aspiration for the future. People are struggling with the cost of living, they’re struggling to put food on the table for their families, they’re struggling to afford their childcare, they’re struggling to afford the petrol they need to get to work and take their kids to school, they’re struggling to pay their rent, and all that this Budget delivers is more borrowing and spending. People want to see real change, and what the Government has delivered is a brain drain Budget. People want to work hard and be able to pay their bills for themselves, but that’s not what this Budget delivers. What this Budget delivers is another reason why you should leave New Zealand, and I don’t think that’s good enough. Treasury already expects that people will leave New Zealand, and we’re already seeing it. I’ve listened to countless MPs across this Chamber talk about the millions that they’ll be spending and handing out to various groups of people. Well, New Zealanders shouldn’t be proud of that. We shouldn’t be proud of a Government that continuously borrows and spends, because it’s too much tax on productive people, and we’re going to see productive people leave New Zealand.

There are so many costs that are imposed on people, and it is hard to get ahead. Not only that, it’s hard even just to stand still. Under this Budget, the amount of tax per person in New Zealand is around $22,000. That’s up from around $16,000 when this Government took over. You know, I spoke to a young man recently who said that he got a $2 pay rise per hour. That’s around $80 extra per week in his pocket. But he hasn’t felt like he’s seen a single cent of that. It’s all been sucked up by rising rents, higher costs at the grocery markets, and higher costs on petrol for him. That’s unacceptable, because I hope that young man doesn’t leave this country. I know a mother with four children who already says that she is, and middle-income earners have been left behind by this Government. Let’s stop fleecing Kiwis who actually work and strive. That $350 handout is insulting. We should give more Kiwis back the money that they earn in the first place.

If I go to housing, the Government increased the Budget for first-home grants and first-home loans, and I think that’s just an admission of the Government’s failure on housing. It’s an admission that the Government has pushed up housing prices, which is why they needed to increase the home grants in the first place, and now they can’t stop adding fuel to the fire. They’ve decided to pump an extra $148 million into an already inflated housing market. In 2019, Treasury said, on this policy, that it’s likely to increase prices when supply is constrained. Government spending is inflationary. Increasing the maximum house price to be eligible by hundreds of thousands of dollars is only going to increase the lower quintile of housing supply.

We don’t want New Zealanders to have to deal with a Government that just pumps more and more money into the economy and pushes up prices for New Zealanders. We’re sick of New Zealanders feeling like they’re fodder for a handout culture. New Zealanders want a Government that creates a healthy economy, and young New Zealanders want to know that they can afford to live, they can afford to rent, buy groceries, have childcare costs, that they can afford for themselves without a Government handout. So let’s create the environment for that. Let’s create a healthy, productive economy where people can strive, work, and feel proud. The Government shouldn’t feel proud of the handout culture that’s in this Budget. We need to get back to basics and give New Zealanders back more of the money that they earned in the first place. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

MARK CAMERON (ACT) (remote): Well, thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s an absolute pleasure to rise to speak to the 2022 Budget, and what it ultimately means to rural New Zealand. Fifty billion dollars in export, I know that Minister O’Connor canvassed this earlier. That’s absolutely tremendous, if not for the fact that we have come through COVID, and we’ve seen a Government that’s sprayed and walked away with billions of dollars of extra spending. So thank goodness for the rural sector to shore up the fiscal wellbeing of New Zealand!

Too often, though, we’ve seen a rural sector that felt marginalised and overlooked by this Government, where routinely political pontificating outweighs pragmatism. If I can, I’d actually like to contextualise what I mean by that. How many members of Parliament go outside in the banshee winds and the rain and sleet and the snow to understand what farmers go through every day? They’ve no idea. Winter grazing rules that were rewritten several times so they can actually make sense and be implemented on the ground; the ban of the live animal exports, well, there’s $261 million gone out of the sector; issues that are around significant natural areas and private property rights; and the national environmental standards and what it means for fresh water in rural New Zealand. Nonsensical and in consternation, you can imagine, farmers look at the sky frustrated.

We have seen several changes on the horizon affecting those in farming circles, most notably, and front and centre, around methane mitigation technologies and what reduction will ultimately mean. So how on earth when other emissions and initiatives in the methane space have never created commercially available technology—I want to touch on that if I can. Previously, the Minister of Climate Change asserted that over 12 years, or approximately 12 years, $200 million had been allocated towards research and technology and to methane mitigation. Well, where is the commercially available technology so farmers have surety of investment? It’s missing in action. And then he got offside with his own Minister of primary industries when he agreed that there was no need to reduce the national herd size, and then got pressed in the media and flip-flopped.

Well, I’m not an economist. To everyone here, that’s abundantly clear. I’m a farmer. But I was doing the numbers on $200 million over 10 years with little or no deliverables and to commercially available methane mitigation technology. I’d wager anyone here that investment is a bust. How on earth can the rural sector honestly invest the belief that this Minister is investing in, if not for a failed model that’s previously been illustrated here?

There’s a genuine need for significant investment. The ACT Party totally agrees with the technological research, and R & D for on-farm emissions is an imperative for New Zealand farmers to front-foot this research, and, most importantly—and we all agree on this—minimise our emissions.

There has been several times where in response to written parliamentary questions, gaping holes have appeared. What I mean by that, there is $339 million that has been appropriated for the Centre for Climate Action. Where will this actually go? Is it an indictment of a Government that’s making things on the fly? Now, I could contextualise this further, notably in response to written question No. 15729—and I’m paraphrasing for my colleagues here—it did not inform us that the explicit funding allocation decisions within the investment have not been made. Well, $339 million and we don’t actually know where it’s going. Reply to No. 16177 when asked “Will the new Centre for Climate Action on Agricultural Emissions hire farm advisors, if so, how many farm advisors will it hire?” Fair question I asked. The answer, if anyone in this House can make sense of it, it reads “The Centre for Climate Action will accelerate the research, development, and commercialisation of tools and technology to reduce biological emissions for agriculture.” Well, that’s a fair statement. But then he goes on, “The Centre will not hire any farm adviser.” Seriously? If we are taking this problem seriously, which I hope we are, we are not hiring farm advisers in this slush fund. Are we going to create a centre for farmer emissions where they have the tools at their disposal and the advice?

In short order, farmers are going to be pushed into an emissions trading scheme (ETS). We can see it coming, the ETS or He Waka Eke Noa or something of that equivalent.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): The member’s time is up. I call Greg O’Connor—five minutes.

GREG O’CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Now, I’m not sure whether it’s by good luck or by good management, but I often get to follow ACT speakers. Before I stand on my feet, I’m always looking for something to motivate me, and nothing motivates me more than listening to members of a party, individually a pack of good women and men—I know most of them individually—but, fundamentally, a scary bunch!

We’re here discussing the Budget. We’re here discussing a Budget that we are introducing at a very scary time in world history. We are not yet through a COVID pandemic that we only have to watch the newspapers to see New Zealanders around the world—whether they be on political trips, whether they be on sports trips, or whether they be on any sort of a trip overseas—stumbling across COVID wherever they go, evidence that we are still donkey-deep in the middle of this thing. We also, when we’re not looking at that, are looking at yet another climate emergency somewhere, generally in Australia but often elsewhere—clear evidence that there is climate change upon us. Yet here we are in the middle of a very important debate, the last two speakers, they may well have been speaking about what’s happening in this very room, because they seem to be able to ignore the fact that there is a war in Ukraine—well, I think that anyone who, maybe, can only read three words a day would know that. They may not be aware that there is a shortage of containerships, a shortage of containers, which, again, is aggravating our supply issues, and they, obviously, are also not aware that China’s main ports are shut down, aggravating the previous two factors. Now, on top of those three things, even alone one of them could have caused an economic issue around the world—certainly, given us a cold—together the three of them have given the world economy pneumonia.

So, in the midst of this, we are now doing what, actually, we come here to do. This is the centre point of politics. This is the centre point of the political year, where we actually produce a Budget. Now, this is a Budget where, particularly, we’re at a stage of world history that we probably haven’t seen. I think that historians will look back and say that what’s happening right now—it’s happened since 2020—will be akin in its impact on the world to probably the two world wars. So it is incredibly important that the Budget that we produce now is going to be one that is going to take us forward into the future.

As we learnt at the beginning of this pandemic, if you focus on the people, then the economy will actually follow that. You’ve only got to see the growth in our economy. You’ve only got to see the fact that the ratings agencies are now giving us high ratings rare in the Western World. These are because we did focus on our people.

Now, we’ve got a Prime Minister, the Prime Minister of this country, who will be the first to say that the reason she is getting the ability to promote our country the way she is is because she has this country of 5 million people behind her, who have done the right thing, who, as a result of doing the right thing, we have one of the lowest death rates in the world. If the Americans had followed our model, they wouldn’t have a million dead; they would actually have 60,000 dead.

So those members screaming across the aisle, you’re doing what you do as an Opposition, that’s fine, do that, but just be very wary that you’re not actually damaging this country, because you are. When I see the previous speaker from ACT, who is virtually buying people tickets to go to Australia—“Go, make us look good.”, they’re thinking, as an Opposition. Well, I would say, can we just sit and reflect and be proud of what we’ve achieved as a country, be proud of this Budget that gives us more to work on, and be able to do more in the future. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Simeon Brown: Oh, he’ll have more time for the RSA later!

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): Phew! Order! Order! I call Jo Luxton—five minutes.

JO LUXTON (Labour—Rangitata): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I promise to try and ensure to bring some calm back into the Chamber this evening. But before I begin my contribution, I would just like to acknowledge the Hon Grant Robertson for delivering a Budget to New Zealand for New Zealanders, one that focuses on supporting people in the here and now for those facing the cost of living pressures, but carefully managing our spending and keeping debt under control.

A member earlier, it may have been one of the ACT members, talked about—and I’m sure probably the others across the other side of the House babble on about it too—but “borrow and spend, borrow and spend”, and I just wanted to remind members that those sorts of things are what have supported businesses to pay people, to pay the wage subsidy, to ensure New Zealanders continued to be employed, to ensure that businesses continued to run.

But I will move on to the Budget that we are currently debating. There’s been some really big meaty announcements within that, one of those being the cost of living payment that we know is going to benefit 2.1 million Kiwis; 81 percent of Kiwis aged over 18 will receive either the winter energy payment or a cost of living payment. I think that’s fantastic.

I want to talk about some of the other things that perhaps haven’t been the big news items, that haven’t made the big headlines. Firstly, I want to focus on what’s happening for those in our rural community: $1 billion to assist farmers and growers to reduce emissions, better access to healthcare services for rural people, more investment in rural broadband, and making it easier for rural people to get a driver’s licence.

Now, I hear on a regular basis from constituents about the barriers that some of our young rural folk have in getting a driver’s licence. I think some of these measures will go a long way because those young people in our rural towns and communities that don’t have drivers’ licences yet want to have an after-school job or a job in the weekends, however it may be, have to rely on mum and dad to get them in and out of town. I think that better access to the ability to get drivers’ licences will be a huge benefit to our young rural folk.

Ninety-three thousand more people are going to be eligible for legal aid from January 2023. Now, this will ensure equity—people’s access to justice should not be based on their financial means. I think that’s a big deal, actually. Tim Jackson and Kelly Beazley, two lawyers from Timaru, just said in today’s Timaru Herald that this announcement is long overdue.

I note that South Canterbury leaders welcome more money for extending the Apprenticeship Boost scheme and that will see thousands more people entering the workforce through that scheme.

Dental grants for lower-income Kiwis will be more than tripled, from $300 to $1,000.

One of the things that I think that we haven’t actually heard anything about, perhaps, tonight—and not much at all—is the investment that we’re putting into strengthening New Zealand Sign Language in education to ensure continuation of current services as well as New Zealand Sign Language professional learning development to 150 schools with Deaf students. Now, I think that anything that helps our young people remove barriers for them participating in our educational system has got to be a good thing. There will also be funding for 100 more families to have access to First Signs. That is a home-based service enabling families to strengthen their communication with their Deaf child. First Signs makes a huge difference to whānau that have Deaf children.

There are so many good things in this Budget, so many things that members haven’t had the opportunity to speak about, many of these small things that haven’t made the big headlines, such as this funding into New Zealand Sign Language, but other members, I’m sure, will discuss some of these really good and positive things in our Budget. I just want to finish off, again, by acknowledging our Minister of Finance, Grant Robertson, congratulating him for this fantastic Budget.

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): COVID-19, climate change, and the war in Ukraine are teaching us that we need to build a more secure economy in which New Zealand households have protection from the sort of shocks that are putting household budgets under pressure right now. The lesson here is that we need a high-wage, low-emissions economy, and we need a Government that has a track record of building this country up, not a record of selling off State houses and saddling the DHBs with so much debt that there was sewage coming out of the walls at Middlemore Hospital. The difference between the Budgets delivered by this finance Minister, Grant Robertson, and his counterparts in the Opposition is that this Budget starts and finishes with the wellbeing of all people, and recognises that without investment in our people, we can’t do that.

There are three things in this Budget which show that commitment to people. The first is the cost of living payments, which cushion the impacts of inflation for 2.1 million Kiwis. The second is the first allocations from the Climate Emergency Response Fund that contributes to achieving the goals of the first emissions reduction plan. The third is the Equity Index, which replaces the decile system in our schools and means so much for South Aucklanders.

Let me speak quickly to this cost of living payment. It is a package which deals with the pressure that people are under now. It extends the reductions of the fuel excise tax. It creates the temporary $27 a week payment for everyone earning under $70,000 a year who doesn’t already qualify for the winter energy payment, and it extends half-price public transport fares. That extension for half-price public transport fares for people with a community services card will be permanent and will make a difference for people like students to access cheaper public transport and to shift modes of transport around the city.

Secondly, let me talk about the climate. The landmark emissions reduction plan and the first allocations for the Climate Emergency Response Fund puts us on track to meet our goals for the first emissions budget and ensure that New Zealand is on the course to build a low-emissions economy that provides a greater security for everyone.

This investment sits alongside other Government investments which put us on the right track, and all politics is local politics, so let me tell you about the $1 million that this Government has invested in the Puhinui Stream. The Puhinui Stream has suffered from under-investment for far too long, to the point at which it was so clogged and polluted that in some parts of Manukau, it didn’t flow at all. But in the leafy suburbs around, say, the Gardens, it was always well maintained. Then down the road in Rata Vine, it was undergrounded and not daylighted at all. It was used as a barrier between that suburb and other more new suburbs, and people couldn’t access it at all. It was a breeding ground for the famous rats the size of cats in Rata Vine. We are putting money into a system that allows collaboration between the Auckland Council, between mana whenua, and between the Sustainable Business Network to clean up that stream. It’s a serious investment in the drainage area in that area, that makes the land usable for the densely populated housing in that area, and it makes it possible for people to enjoy it and to have a relationship with their whenua.

Let me talk quickly about the Equity Index and its impact on South Auckland. We’re increasing the amount for schools that have students facing equity challenges and replacing the outdated school decile system that has not served us. Almost $300 million in Budget 2022 is being provided to implement this new Equity Index to replace that system, and that includes $75 million per year in additional equity funding for schools with higher levels of socio-economic need. That’s big news for Manurewa schools from my electorate who have lost out through a system of funding that has not changed to reflect the reality of our communities and the kids coming in the doors, because when deciles are funded based on the houses around a school, it doesn’t reflect the need of the kids coming in the doors, especially in those urban centres like South Auckland. This is an investment which represents that long-term thinking I’m talking about, and which represents an investment in the education of our children and ensures that every child in New Zealand is starting from the same starting line and not that South Auckland kids are starting 10 steps behind everyone else.

New Zealand’s economic security depends not only on addressing these near-term challenges, which is what the cost of living payments does, but it relies on us addressing things like supply chain disruptions and skills shortages and on the investments we make now for the security in the future. That’s why those long-term investments in health and climate and schools are there in this Budget. I acknowledge that the last few years have been very tough on everyone, and the things that have made it really hard are still with us. This Budget builds on the strong COVID response of the Government and the effective fiscal response and allows us to look forward. Madam Speaker, thank you.

SHANAN HALBERT (Labour—Northcote): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I like to think that I came from humble beginnings, and I apply that same thought process to my politics and the leadership that I show for my community. Budget 2022 creates economic security for now and in the future. Over the past few months, in the lead-up to Budget week, I’ve been canvassing my community, asking them what matters most, post-COVID, what matters most to them now, what they would like to see from this Government, and how they would like us to respond.

Simeon Brown: And what they want is a change of Government.

SHANAN HALBERT: The first one—they’re not saying that, Simeon Brown; what they’re saying is that they want to see higher investment in health. So we responded with an $11 billion investment in the restructuring of our poor health system and ensuring that everyone has the same equity of health and same access across this country.

The second thing they asked for is for this Government to respond to the cost of living, and so what we did was enable every individual an additional cost of living payment—$27 each—to help them with the day-to-day costs of the groceries that they need to buy. This looks after my community to ensure that alongside the 1 April payments and the cost of living payment, 60 percent of people in my electorate are supported by this Government with the cost of living.

Simeon Brown: Oh, you just want dependency.

SHANAN HALBERT: Now, the next one is that they told me—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! Order! I don’t want that at all, and can I just say to the member on my left, you’re about to have your own speech soon.

SHANAN HALBERT: You’ll have your own speech soon. The third thing that my community told me is that they wanted us to take action ensuring our communities are safe. Since I started and became a member of Parliament for Northcote, what my community asked me is to ensure that I had a focus on community policing. They remember the good old days when we had community police engaging with local people and ensuring that they are heard. Under this Budget in 2022, we deliver the largest police force ever. That includes an extra $94 million specifically to target gangs and organised crime in this country. That is important to people that live in Auckland.

But I’ll go back a couple of steps, because we know that on the front line, it is important to have good police—good police—responding to the negative activities that are happening in our communities. I look to my colleagues on the North Shore. Across the Waitematā, we have increased, by over a hundred, police officers on the beat since this Government came in—1,800 overall. We’ve met that target of increasing the number of police on the beat, and we’ve met it six months earlier.

But what we need to ensure is that we continue to grow and evolve and respond to the things that are in front of us. So I want to speak to the investment that we see in Budget 2022: an increase of community policing in the Kaipātiki and Northcote, and on the North Shore—an increase of community policing teams by 20 percent. That’s significant for us MPs on the North Shore. We know that our community likes community policing. They want to engage with police directly and know that their issues are heard directly. That increases a full team to 12, led by two sergeants, to enable and respond to the issues that are in front of them. It covers off areas including Northcote, Takapuna, Devonport, Sunnynook, Glenfield, Beach Haven, Greenhithe, Albany, and Browns Bay. That’s a 20 percent increase in the number of community police serving our North Shore community, and that is significant.

We’ve heard, obviously, lots around the spike in ram raids across Auckland. My community experienced it before COVID, they’re experiencing it now, and I was honoured to stand alongside the Minister of Police last week as we announced investment in ensuring that our retailers have the right security solutions in front of them to support the day-to-day impacts that they are experiencing.

But, lastly, the main issue in my community is family and domestic violence. That is what is showing in our police reports. That’s part of what we need to get on top of and to be very practical and pragmatic about ensuring that we have a response in place. Budget 2022 offers that. We’ve got to get on top of this and let our communities be safe.

SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the chance to be able to take a speech on this backwards Budget, which is leading New Zealanders backwards. And I just want to make a quick comment on what I just heard from the member opposite—Shanan Halbert—where he said, proudly, that 60 percent of the people in his electorate are now dependent on the State. That’s 60 percent of the people who are now dependent upon the State. I find that obnoxious. I’ve been here listening to members of Parliament from the Labour Party get up, one after the other, and proudly boast about how many people in their electorates are now dependent on the State. Well, I am proud to be a member of the National Party, which actually believes that people should keep more of what they earn, rather than having their money taken off them by a Government addicted to spending, and then shuffled through the bureaucracy and then having money dished back to make them feel happy. That is called socialism—that is called socialism. We are living under a socialist experiment by this Government, which is simply wanting to make more and more New Zealanders dependent upon the Sate.

And that’s what this cost of living payment is all about. It’s not about actually trying to help New Zealanders stand up on their own two feet, to be able to make their own decisions, to be able to work hard and to get ahead. It’s not about trying to ensure that there is a fair tax system which provides tax relief, which means that people aren’t being pushed into higher tax brackets based on their income, shoving them up into higher tax brackets. Actually, that’s what the National Party says: give them back a little bit of what they earn. But what the Labour Party says is, “No, what we’re going to do is tax them, tax them, tax them, and then we’ll give them a measly 350 bucks over three months.” You know what that equates to? A block of cheese and a pack of Weet-Bix a week. That’s what it amounts to.

And there’s no aspiration, there’s no ability to actually try and say to New Zealanders, “If you work hard, you’ll get ahead.”, because if you work any harder, oh, no, you won’t get your 350 bucks, because it’s only for people up to $70,000, people below the average wage in New Zealand. So the average wage earner in New Zealand doesn’t even get this block of cheese and a pack of Weet-Bix. That is shameful. And so it’s this dependency which this Government is pushing, more and more New Zealanders dependent on the State. I ask members on the other side, so what are they going to do when the three months is up? Because this cost of living ain’t going anywhere. The Budget documents make it clear: we’ve got inflation baked in for years to come, through to 2025. Inflation over 3 percent until 2025. This cost of living crisis ain’t going to be fixed by a block of cheese and a pack of Weet-Bix for three months. It’s going to take a lot more than that to try to actually help New Zealanders. And so this backwards Budget just puts a plaster over a gaping wound, and doesn’t actually address the real issues.

What we see in this Budget is we see a Government addicted to spending: a 68 percent increase in Government expenditure. And when you look at a 68 percent increase in Government expenditure, you think—and if you’re a typical Kiwi living in the wonderful electorate of Pakuranga, you’d go, “Well, I wonder if I’m getting a 68 percent increase in Government services. Or is Government performing 68 percent better than it was five years ago?” And the overwhelming answer is no. We have crime rates up. Ram raids every other night. We have the shootings that we’re seeing, seven shootings just in one night last week. We’re seeing worse outcomes through our education system, truancy rates at record highs. I have people contacting my electorate office almost on a daily basis, saying, “I’m trying to see a specialist.”, and they can’t get an appointment with a specialist. How’s that an aspirational Budget? That’s a backwards Budget. That’s taking New Zealanders backwards, and it’s leaving them worse off.

Now I come to transport, which is my portfolio, and you see the absolute wastage. Well, you know what the most aspirational thing in this Budget for transport was? It was $200 million for a light rail working group—$200 million for a working group. That’s all that the Minister of Transport could come up with, when he’s not wasting tens of millions of dollars on “Let’s Get Wellington Consulting”, tens of millions of dollars on a cycle bridge that he then cancels, or hiring out empty offices on the front of Auckland, or tens of thousands of dollars buying himself some big red zeros. He’s just wasting money on light rail working groups. He said light rail would be built from the CBD to Mount Roskill by 2021. Well, I’m not sure. These guys seem to be in a time warp, because it’s 2022. Hello? It’s 2022. It ain’t built—it ain’t built. All you’ve done is issue press releases. But that’s the outcome of this Government: they don’t care about the outcomes; they just want the press release, the announcement, the news.

And then we’ve got the delays. You’ve got the Cambridge-Piarere cancelled road—just cancelled. Mill Road—who on earth knows what’s happening at Mill Road? The Minister of Transport’s doing another review to see if they can come up with a different solution, which is more about carbon reduction. Well, I tell you what: when you’ve got thousands of cars stuck in traffic, all they’re doing is sitting there emitting carbon. If they had a road, they might be able to move a bit faster and emit a little bit less. But that doesn’t matter. Congestion’s just beautiful under this Government. They love congestion, and they have forced New Zealanders to have no choice when it comes to transport. Cancelling the Tauranga Northern Link—cancelled it twice. I mean, you don’t just cancel a road once under this Government; you cancel it twice. And then they re-announce it, but only build half of it. The Melling Interchange: how much has Chris Bishop had to fight for the Melling Interchange to get done?

Maureen Pugh: Years.

SIMEON BROWN: Years and years and years. And it’s on the books to, hopefully, start next year, if we see. Penlink, up in Mark Mitchell’s place—I mean, these guys promised it six years ago. What on earth has happened? Construction sometime in 2022? We don’t know. They don’t know.

Hon Mark Mitchell: Shovel-ready.

SIMEON BROWN: It’s meant to be shovel-ready, help New Zealand through this COVID-19 pandemic. Shovels aren’t even in the road. I don’t even know what Michael Wood’s been doing other than standing next to red zeros, which constantly remind New Zealanders how little he has done. Whether it’s light rail, Let’s Get Wellington Moving, or cycle bridges which get cancelled, that big red zero tells New Zealanders everything that New Zealanders need to know about the realities of the Minister of Transport and his ambition for New Zealand.

And then you’ve got all the projects which we did start. This is about all he’s got to do, is he goes around cutting ribbons on projects that National started. I just thought it was amazing watching him at Transmission Gully, talking about how amazing it was, that that road was going to transform the lower North Island. And it is an amazing road, constructed by the National Government, which he cut the ribbon on. So he’s happy to do that. Peka Peka to Ōtaki—well, we’re waiting for that one, but he’s looking forward to that. The Hamilton Bypass, Pūhoi to Warkworth—the only things this Government can point to in terms of progress in transport in New Zealand is things the National Government started and the legacy of the National Government.

But other than that, you have a big red zero, because there’s nothing coming in behind it to actually keep the construction sector busy, to make sure that there are jobs, to make sure that New Zealand has progress, that we can actually get things done, that we have better regional connections, that our freight can get to the ports so we can export the things that we sell to the world to make New Zealand a wealthy country, which is what the National Party wants to see happen, because we know it’s not just about dishing out the cash—because that’s what the Labour Party is very good at, dishing out the cash—it’s actually about growing the economy, it’s about productivity, getting our goods to market, selling it to the rest of the world, making a living so that we can have better quality public services in New Zealand. But all they’re good at is the spin. And you saw that at the New Zealand Transport Agency, where they’ve gone from 32 spin doctors, now they’ve got 88 spin doctors. They aren’t building a darn thing, but they’ve got 88 spin doctors to tell New Zealanders how little they’re doing. It’s absolutely shocking and it goes right through the Public Service, where we’re seeing tens of thousands of additional bureaucrats but worse outcomes, and that is incredibly sad.

Well, the reality is: Michael Wood is the backwards Minister in the backwards Government with the backwards Budget. He wants to take New Zealand backwards to the 1970s, where we all drove in trams. He wants to take us back to the 1970s, where we all had our carless days and we had to go around and choose which day we weren’t allowed to drive. Well, for him it’ll be every day, if he had his chance. He wants to take New Zealand backwards to the 1970s, where the unions had control in the workplace, where they set the terms of agreement between their staff and the employers. This is a backwards Government led by a backwards Prime Minister, and the Minister of Transport is one of the most backwards of them all because every single idea that he has is all about looking backwards.

I think New Zealand is ready for a forward-looking Government which wants to make a difference, which wants to grow our economy, which wants to let New Zealanders keep more of what they earn so they can make their own choices and be aspirational for our country. And I tell you what: all of these people on the other side in the backbench are jibber-jabbering—they’ll be gone, and, in 18 months, there’ll be a new National Government to take New Zealand forward.

RACHEL BROOKING (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker, for this opportunity to talk on the Wellbeing Budget 2022 A Secure Future. Like my southern colleague Ingrid Leary, I’d like to start by acknowledging the passing of the Hon Stan Rodger, who was a fine southern man who supported many people who are both currently in the House and who have been here over the decades since he was here.

With that, Stan Rodger worked at the Dunedin dental school. I want to just pause on that for a moment because, in Dunedin, Otago University has the only dental school in the country. When I was growing up, I was lucky enough to go there to have my braces—which is a very expensive and non-urgent dental process; I acknowledge that. The importance of dental care relates to all of our health and our mental health. It’s with great pleasure that I acknowledge in this Budget the $126 million that is going towards enabling those people on low incomes to have, rather than the previous $300 a year, $1,000 a year.

On this focus on the University of Otago, Madam Speaker Salesa—acknowledging your relationship with some other universities—there’s a lot in this Budget as well for students. One of the basic things for students is, of course, the ongoing half-price public transport for community services card holders. In addition, we’ve had the six Māori Ministers come to Ōtepoti and talk with us about a range of different issues. One of those is the $168 million to the Māori Health Authority for direct commissioning of services. While in Dunedin, we went to Te Kāika, which has dental services, in arrangement with the university, health services, and Whānau Ora, and tries to look at the whole wellbeing of a person, in the same way that this Budget is trying to do with the community.

We heard as well about $39 million for hauora Māori workforce development, and, of course, this is very important, as we improve our healthcare system, that we have people from across the community who are healthcare providers. Once again, at the University of Otago, the med school there has for a long time now had a “mirror on society” policy. This is to try and get through the percentage of the population that is Māori and that is Pasifika to become doctors. That has been a very successful policy, and long may it continue and even go further. Of course, when patients are seeing a doctor, there are lots of different elements that can put a patient at ease, and sometimes this will be having a doctor or a nurse of their own ethnicity. But also, when we’re thinking about the whole system of healthcare, you want to have diverse opinions so that we can work out the best way to do things for a range of people.

There’s $74 million to identify, uplift, and develop mātauranga Māori services, programmes, and resources across the health system, and I’m sure this will be of interest to many of the academics in Otago and elsewhere.

Also relevant particularly to the southern climate is the Warmer Kiwi Homes extension. That’s $73 million for an extra $26,500 houses to have insulation and heating retrofits. This is good. It’s a win-win. It’s one of these policies that’s good for both the climate and the economy and improves the health of people living there.

Last week, I was with my colleague Joseph Mooney up at Cardrona at a conservation landscape conference. Those people were talking about the amazing projects across the Southern Lakes District, many of which have been funded with Jobs for Nature. There’s a lot in this Budget for conservation—and I think that’s very important—including money for predator-free, for deer management and goat control, and for predator control.

It would be remiss of me not to mention the resource management reforms and the funding in there for the implementation and development of the three pieces of legislation. When the Resource Management Act came out in 1991, there was only $2 million that went with the implementation of that, and that’s been a real problem in the system.

So I commend this Budget to the House.

IBRAHIM OMER (Labour): Talofa lava, Madam Speaker. Happy Samoan Language Week. I’ve just been listening to the previous speaker from the Opposition, Simeon Brown. For 10 minutes, he’s been ranting, and all he could talk about was opposition to what the Labour Party is doing to help Kiwis, without offering any solution. And he keeps saying this Government is a socialist Government—and that is for helping Kiwis who are going through tough times. And if helping Kiwis at this difficult time makes us socialists, then so be it. We will be very proud of it.

Budget 2022 is the fourth Wellbeing Budget delivered by the Hon Grant Robertson. It’s the one, on this side of this House, we are very, very proud of. We are very proud of Grant Robertson, who is consistently putting the wellbeing of Kiwis at the forefront of all the Budgets that he delivers so far.

Now, more than ever, it’s a tough time and the Kiwis need us—they need our help because we are living in an extremely unusually difficult time. Two years of COVID-19 now and the Russian invasion of Ukraine means things are harder than ever. So we are not shying away from this; we are actually stepping up to help Kiwis during this difficult time.

Budget 2022 delivers a short-term cost of living payment for about 2.1 million Kiwis to help with the impact of rising costs. This support targets about 81 percent of New Zealanders aged 18 plus, who will be receiving the winter energy payment or the temporary cost of living payment this year. Budget 2022 also offers the 25c fuel excise cut and it keeps public transport half price for another two months. We are also making half-price public transport permanent for community services card holders.

Throughout Budget 2022, we are tackling the root cause of the higher grocery bills by introducing urgent legislation to stop supermarkets from blocking competitors from accessing the land to open new stores. Budget 2022 covers everything. Thanks to our strong economic management, we can now invest in critical services—from the dental grants to emergency care such as paramedics, ambulances, and helicopters, to delivering the largest police force on record. The list goes on.

With my colleagues from the ethnic caucus, we have been out and about talking to people. People who we have been talking to are very grateful—grateful for the incredible leadership from our Prime Minister, and the Finance Minister, who is very empathetic and puts people first. People we spoke to are happy because there is money in this Budget for the Ministry of Ethnic Communities to extend its engagement functions as ethnic communities grow. People are happy because there is $13.48 million in this Budget over the next three years to fund the cost of increases to support the resettlement of 1,500 quota refugees from 2022-23. There is a lot more. However, Budget 2022 is a Budget that strikes the balance. It’s the Budget that solves today’s problems but looks forward and proposes long-term solutions. Budget 2022 is about people; it’s the one that leaves no one behind.

Budget 2022 is a masterstroke—this is not my word; it was described by one of the well-known media outlets. It is the one we are immensely proud of. Thanks to our Prime Minister’s world-class leadership, and thanks to Grant for being such a caring finance Minister who always puts people first—especially poor people. At this time, Kiwis appreciate what you’re doing, Grant. You have done a very good job and you continue to put people forward. For that, ngā mihi nui. And we, in Labour, don’t shy away from facing tough times, from calling a tough time a tough time. But we’re not just sitting doing nothing; we are doing things to help Kiwis get through this difficult—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! Order! The member’s time is up.

Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Whangaparāoa): Yeah, thank you, Madam Speaker. The first thing that I noticed, sadly, in the Budget when it was released in relation to Police was—which was very consistent with this Government—a big knee-jerk reaction with the amount of public, media, and political pressure that was coming on the Minister and the Government around the rise in gang-related crime, fire-related crime, ram raids, youth and juvenile crime, a $500 million package to support the Police. Now, under any given circumstance, a Government should have expected a big bump and a very strong response from the public if they come out and make a $500 million announcement. They got nothing. There was largely no reporting through the media, it was very flat, and there was no real response at all from commentators. And the reason for that is because the public have clicked on that what this Government’s become very good at is big announcements and splashing money around. They’re actually not good at, or they can’t deliver, results. And the reason why I say that is quite simply this: growing Police to match population.

I want to acknowledge Chris Cahill and the Police Association, because I’m sure this is one of the things that they’ve been driving, they’ve been talking to the police Minister about, and they’ve been pushing forward, because they can see that it would be a useful tool in providing a pipeline of trained officers becoming operational and would allow the Police to be able to plan in the short, medium, and longer term in terms of a constant flow of officers. So I want to acknowledge Chris Cahill and the association and the work they’ve done around that.

But the fact of the matter is these guys weren’t going to do that; they weren’t the slightest bit interested in doing it. The only reason why we saw this announcement is because there was enormous political pressure coming on them. And how do we know that they weren’t going to do it? Because they didn’t cost it. They released a Budget—the Labour members are looking over here. They can’t believe it; they can’t believe that happened. I’m going to have to show them. There it is: growing Police to match population. It’s not costed.

Toni Severin: It was an ACT policy.

Hon MARK MITCHELL: Was that not ACT policy as well? So was Greg O’Connor aware that they were stealing your policies when he was up making his bizarre speech? He’ll have to correct that one. They didn’t cost a huge policy. There’s a huge fiscal commitment to moving to the ratio. Good? Like Chris Cahill, I think it’s a good thing. But if you’re going to make an announcement like that in the Budget and you’ve actually been thinking about it and you’ve been planning for it, then you cost it. So the amazing finance Minister, Grant Robertson, either had this thrust on him at the last minute so they didn’t have time to do the work or they just didn’t do the work and they didn’t cost it. You choose.

The other thing that this Government’s been very good at doing is politicising our New Zealand Police Service. And the reason I raise this is because it’s important because it involves deception, and it comes to the second line of the Budget that I’m going to get to, and that is around preventing community harm from organised crime with a cross-agency approach. So as an Opposition, when we started to highlight the growing number of firearms incidents and the growing number of gang violence, just about every day, every week we’d see gang members take over public roads and public spaces, and threaten and assault members of the public. The Minister came down to the House under oral questions in the House and, actually, written questions to her office as well. She kept saying in response that the Government’s response to that was Operation Tauwhiro. They sold to the country that Operation Tauwhiro was the Police response to the growing gang violence. Operation Tauwhiro had 43 admin officers. Operation Tauwhiro was smoke and mirrors.

And the reason why that was uncovered is because police officers who actually, in my experience, have a ton of integrity—they actually join the police because they want to protect their communities and they want to do the best thing that they can through their public service to make this a safer country. But they have integrity, and they didn’t like seeing the police Minister standing up and deceiving the public of New Zealand and making them believe that there was a strong response through Operation Tauwhiro to the rising level of gang violence in this country. It was quite simply business as usual. It was quite simply the fact that the front-line police officers going about their normal daily duties have been asked to record any gang interaction, any warrants executed, any firearms that were recovered—“Please record it against Operation Tauwhiro so it actually looks like to the public that we’ve got a proper dedicated and substantive response to gang violence.” That wasn’t the case. So they got found out. And by the way, the police—trust me when I say this—hate it because they feel like they’re being politicised by their own Minister.

What else can we have a look at here? The Retail Crime Unit. So, as we have ram-raid after ram-raid, we have, every day, violent robberies—

Nicola Grigg: Even in Selwyn.

Hon MARK MITCHELL: Even in Selwyn. They’ve been having ram raids down there. And by the way, the saddest human cost in all this is that it scares and terrifies not just the victims of those ram raids but every single shop owner and every single employee that turns up every day loyally to do their job because they don’t know what’s going to be coming through the front door—they don’t know what they’re going to have to face. And there’s a massive human cost to that on top of the economic cost. So what does this Government do? What does the Minister do, day after day? She comes down to this House when she’s being questioned about the ram raids, and she says, “Don’t worry. We’ve set up the Retail Crime Unit, and the Retail Crime Unit is going to deal with these ram raids and get on top of it.” And what do the public think? The public think, “That sounds good. That sounds like a substantive response to a really serious situation in the community.” But let’s look at the Retail Crime Unit. What is it? It’s nine people, the Retail Crime Unit—it’s not even nine sworn officers. And by the way—

Simeon Brown: Do they investigate ram raids, Mr Mitchell?

Hon MARK MITCHELL: No, they don’t investigate ram raids. We found out through written questions that, actually, they don’t investigate ram raids. And do you know who felt compelled to actually speak to the media and make a statement about that? It was the head of the Retail Crime Unit, because he kept on seeing the Minister stand up in the House, saying, “We’ll deal with the ram raids through the Retail Crime Unit.” He felt compelled that he had to settle the record straight. And by the way, I don’t want to diminish the role that those nine people have inside that unit. They’ve got an important role, but it’s not investigating or taking action against ram raids; it’s quite simply looking at recidivist shoplifters and loss prevention along with Retail NZ. So don’t come down to this House and keep trying to convince the public and politicise our police service by putting out Operation Tauwhiro, which is smoke and mirrors, or a Retail Crime Unit that has nine people. And by the way, it had nine people—I think they recruited their last person about a week ago. When it was announced in November, they didn’t have one person on that unit.

I just want to talk very quickly about the appropriation around a tactical response model that actually is a cross-agency model. I want to talk to that quickly and say this: the police service is not there—it is not trained and nor should it be trained to deal with people with mental health issues. They have to be dealt with by a crisis assessment treatment (CAT) team: experienced, well-trained, dedicated medical professionals that know how to deal with people with serious mental health issues. But what happens right now in this country is our police service is the only 24/7 social service that we have, and they have to keep dealing with mental health issues, which means that you can have a police officer—

Maureen Pugh: What about all the mental health money?

Hon MARK MITCHELL: Well, that’s exactly what I’m coming to. So my colleague and friend Maureen Pugh has made a very good point: $1.9 billion into mental health. Where are the CAT units? Where are the CAT units that are working 24/7 that are able to support the police service, and when can someone with some acute mental health issues actually be treated immediately by the professionals who have the ability to do that? Not taking police officers off the road so they can’t get out there, so they can’t have a high profile in their communities, so they can’t stop the ram raids and they can’t stop gang members and take firearms; they have to look after and care for mental health patients. Police can sometimes spend their whole shift doing that. So where’s the funding? Where’s the support to actually back up the police service? I could go on about exactly the same issue around Oranga Tamariki and our juvenile and youth offenders. Our police are not set up to be babysitters. You need to have professionals that are able to respond. There’s a lot more that I’d like to go into, but I see that my time is up. So thank you.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): I call on Vanushi Walters, and it’s good to see both of you—as well, Dr Gaurav Sharma—in cultural attire in recognition of Everest Day.

VANUSHI WALTERS (Labour—Upper Harbour): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. Namaste and kia ora tātou. What an absolute pleasure to speak in the House this evening. But, firstly, I would like to thank the Nepali community of New Zealand for coming with us to celebrate Everest Day today in the House. It was an absolute pleasure to host that with my colleague Gaurav Sharma, and a pleasure to be dressed in their traditional attire in the House today.

It’s a real pleasure to be able to share the work our Government is doing through the fourth Wellbeing Budget. I’ve been around the Upper Harbour electorate over the last week, I’ve been reflecting on the fact that this is the fourth Wellbeing Budget, and I remember when the first Wellbeing Budget was announced and the reviews around the world were fantastic. Because this was something new, this was something quite different. It seeded a very different approach to how we were funding the things that are important to us. It is very rare that a country’s leadership are asked to think about what the most important thing is. But we were asked that, over the COVID period, and ours is a Government who responded.

Because of the Wellbeing Budgets, we are now in a position where we’ve seen one of the lowest death rates, where our debt will peak at a much lower rate than our cousins over the Ditch in Australia, than the UK, and the US. We are in an excellent position now to be securing our future. And as we do, we still continue to think about what matters most to New Zealanders. Part of what matters most is our rich and diverse ethnic communities who cover the entirety of Aotearoa. As part of the support for that community, I was so proud to see the additional investment in the Ministry for Ethnic Communities, which will go into the ministry being able to outreach to some of our smaller ethnic communities, but also engage more effectively with other Government ministries as well.

As I was out in the Upper Harbour electorate, I was so mindful of what matters most to the people of Upper Harbour, and several weeks ago I surveyed the electorate to find out what the community were telling me that was important to them. It was community safety, it was health, it was education. These are exactly what we have invested in, in the Budget. We are seeing one of the biggest spends in the health sector, which will go a huge way to improving our hospitals on the North Shore and in Waitakere, which includes 30 new beds in Waitakere Hospital. We will see changes in our schools. We’ve already seen huge investment in terms of infrastructure in our schools, and I was delighted to be invited by the principal of Colwill School to come out and meet him last week and see the infrastructure project which is happening in that school in the heart of Massey. But not only that, we are also continuing to invest in the free healthy kai programme. And again, at Colwill School, I saw that last week. I saw what it meant not just to the kids, not just to the teachers, but the expression of what it meant to the community at large. It makes a profound difference when children have food in their tummies through the school day—a profound difference.

In terms of community safety, we had conversations with the Massey community on the North Shore, and I spoke to retailers in Greenhithe both about their concerns but also how positive they were about the steps our Government is taking to address community safety. We take a robust approach when it comes to community safety, not only putting the most police on the street who have been there, not only investing $94 million into preventing gangs and organised crime, and a $6 million fund to specifically aid retailers who are suffering, but also looking to prevent. I am incredibly proud of this Budget. It is a Budget for all New Zealanders to be proud of.

Dr EMILY HENDERSON (Labour—Whangārei): Really proud to stand up and take a call on this particular Budget. Not particularly to start to blow my Whangārei trumpet or anything, but I think that Whangārei is an excellent example of why this Budget is just so important, and why this Budget is such a good one for New Zealanders.

Earlier, one of the speakers across the House referred to us as a socialist Government. I remembered back, I thought back, to the 1938 Social Security Act, the first one to try and put in place a fully funded public health system where you would not have to pay for your own or go without when you’re poor. It was this year, $1.3 billion in capital funding into hospitals and health infrastructure in New Zealand, bringing the total spend of this Government on health infrastructure to some $6.9 billion and change—let’s not forget the change—in the five years since 2017. Now let’s give this some context. In their nine years of Government, the Opposition put in—wait for it, wait for it—$1 billion. Phwoar! Big spenders that they were. In the two years of 2014-2015, they put in—wait for it—zero. In the five years that we have been in Government, we have put in almost seven times as much as the members opposite. And let me put that even further into context. I have a hospital in my town, a hospital that is 65 years old, a hospital where there was excrement running down the walls earlier because it has been so neglected. It is the National health spokesperson across the House who was on our district health board, and he presided as electorate MP over two years in my town where not a cent was put into health infrastructure. So I was unbelievably proud to be—virtually—in this House on Budget day to have confirmed that this Government is actually going to put in the hard yards and rebuild Whangārei Hospital. Hallelujah, thank God for this Government.

But it’s not just in Whangārei in the hospital that I do want to talk about today. I also want to talk about the other access issue. We’ve got access to healthcare—hallelujah, Grant Robertson’s going to solve that for Whangārei, I am so grateful for that one—but there’s also an issue with access to justice, and I do want to turn to that. Because one of the aspects of this Government is a $191 million boost to legal aid. That is of such fundamental importance. If there is no access to justice, there is injustice. Having spent most of my adult life in the court, dealing with people who are on the lower end of the economic spectrum, who look at the wages that they have and then the amount they are going to have to pay for legal aid, who have been looking at the high threshold that they have to reach to even qualify for legal aid, it has been exceptionally difficult. It has been a crime to the way in which our people are able to access our courts. To know that, last year, our Law Society’s Access to Justice survey showed that 25 percent of lawyers who give legal aid services plan to do less of it or get out altogether because of the difficulty of the system, the inadequacy of the pay. To know that 20,000 Kiwis were turned away from legal aid representation last year, and to know that from next year, 93,000 more Kiwis will be able to access legal aid—that’s this Budget, that’s this Government, and I’m so darn proud.

Dr LIZ CRAIG (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Budget 2022 is fantastic for health. Basically, it provides an extra $11.1 billion to help transform our health system into something that delivers for all New Zealanders. And there’s a heck of a lot to talk about in Budget 2022, but I want to focus just on three main things. And the first of them is the $1.8 billion investment that’s going to be allowing Health New Zealand and the Māori Health Authority to start their work on 1 July with a clean slate. And the second one is the largest ever increase to Pharmac’s budget: so, basically, $191 million extra over the next two years for medicines. And then finally—which actually comes from Vote Social Development—is the tripling of the dental grant from $300 per year to $1,000 a year and increasing the ability of people to come in for multiple visits, which will make a massive difference to many people on low incomes.

So going first to the extra funding that’s going to come in so that Health New Zealand and the Māori Health Authority can start that clean slate on 1 July, because a lot of the things we used to hear when we were having DHBs in for the annual reviews in the Health Committee was their deficits. And I think the issue that they were facing was, after nearly a decade of under-investment by the previous Government, DHBs were grappling with a whole lot of costs that they had to meet. They’d put off things like maintenance, a lot of the basics, and yet they were then confronted with ongoing increases in terms of just cost pressures, wages, etc., and we ended up with large deficits. And since coming into Government, we have put in billions of extra into the health system, but there’s also a number of structural issues that have actually underpinned the need for reform.

And so Budget this year provides an extra $1.8 billion boost so that when Health New Zealand does take over from the DHBs on 1 July, it will basically cancel out those deficits. And it’ll also provide extra so that cost pressures for increasing population growth and other costs can be accommodated, which is fantastic news. But we’re also looking at multi-year funding. So then it locks in an extra $1.3 billion in operational funding over the following year. And that will again give Health New Zealand and the Māori Health Authority certainty so they can go on and plan and deliver the services they need across the country. And then from 2024 onwards, we’ll start with that three-yearly funding cycle, which will line up with the first three-year New Zealand health plan, which is due to start in 2024. So, basically, it means it resets the baseline and it allows our health system to move on without continually having to play catch-up.

One of the other really amazing things coming through Budget 2022 is the extra $191 million so Pharmac can get on and purchase the medicines it needs. So, again, this is something where the Health Committee—there were a lot of petitions coming both to the Health Committee and to the Petitions Committee from people saying, “Please get Pharmac to fund”. And then they would talk about the new transformational medicine they felt was needed. But a lot of those medications had a significant price tag. And so what we’re going to be doing is putting an extra $71 million in the 2022/23 year, and then another $120 million in 2023/24 year so that Pharmac can get on and purchase medications. And so, basically, what that means is that Pharmac’s operations for investment list will be able to take on and fund a number of new medicines, but also expand the scope and the range of some of the medicines for wider use that we already cover—so make a really big difference to many people’s lives.

And then, finally, the dental grant, which is actually not funded by Health but it’s funded by Vote Social Development. And what that sees is that dental grant increasing from $300 to $1,000 a year. And a lot of people talk to me about the difficulties they’re having accessing dental care, and the fact that they actually tend to just put it off until they absolutely have to go. And on the flip side is then dentists are coming and talking to me, saying, “Actually, once somebody comes in for that acute dental care, because they’ve left it so long, $300 doesn’t cover the cost.” And so what you’re confronted with is having to have an examination, x-rays, and often multiple fillings over several visits. And so funding that at $1,000 a year but allowing people to come in over several visits will make a real huge impact.

So there’s a lot of really good things in Budget 2022. I haven’t had the time to talk about the extra funding for mental health specialist addiction services or the boost to our ambulance and air ambulance services and extra funding for workforce development, but this is an absolutely fantastic Budget that will make a real difference to many people’s lives. And I’d just like to have a shout-out and thank our Minister of Finance for the investments he’s put into Health.

NAISI CHEN (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I was just sitting here reflecting on the fact that, speaking to my Youth MP and just kind of going over all of the applications that I had received for the position of my Youth MP recently, and just thinking if I was as young as they were, what would matter to me in this Budget the most. I reflected on the fact that we are tacking climate change, that we have the emissions trading scheme in terms of making sure that we not only support industries like our agriculture sector but also making sure that New Zealanders get access to low-emitting vehicles, even if they are part of the low socio-economic families, that they actually get a lease scheme to make sure that they have accessibility to those cars.

If I was a young person, what would I care about? I would care about mental health. Through this Budget, we have now just put in an extra $3.9 million into our addiction service, into our eating disorder service, on top of the $15 million that we have already put into this area. I hear so many different young people talking to me about the eating disorders that they are facing every single day—their friends in their schools. This is a Government that takes action and takes these things very seriously.

I would also reflect that, obviously, young people are worried about their families’ budget, about their cost of living. I reflect on not only that $350 of extra support but also the half-price public transport fees as well as the reduced road-user charge fees and also in our petrol.

I also think, in the electorate I live in, in Botany, what else do people care about. I reflect on that $100 million economic growth fund for our businesses. I’ve heard all across New Zealand, really, of small businesses coming up to me, every time when I go and visit them, especially in our migrant communities, saying that they’ve had to mortgage their own family homes to fund the next business venture of their small business. We’ve seen in countries like Canada, in the UK, in Australia, I think even in Ireland, that they’ve had this really successful growth fund. So we’ve taken that idea, we’ve brought it to New Zealand, the Government started with that seed fund of $100 million, and we’re also, obviously, inviting all of the commercial banks to join us in this as well—so a message directly to all of our commercial banks: come on board, let’s get this started—to make sure that we really are supporting our small and medium enterprises, to make sure that our mum and pop businesses get that boost through in that funding.

Why I especially mentioned ethnic community is because I know, for instance, as migrants, we find it actually really difficult to be engaging with the commercial, mainstream banks. We find it actually really difficult, whether it’s in terms of the language, whether it’s in terms of the culture of doing business—it’s a daunting thing to come to a new country and be able to start your business.

So, in order for the Government to be able to partner with them, we not only put in $100 million into this growth fund but also what we’ve been able to do is actually provide expert services, expert advice, and mentorships through this business growth fund as well. So not only are we making sure that we give you the fund but, I think, Minister Stuart Nash has characterised the Government as a patient investor. So to walk beside you in this business journey, to make sure that we not only give you the money but also give you that support, as well, throughout this journey—and we know that right now as we recover around COVID, it’s so important that we actually empower our small and medium enterprises to really go out there. So whether it’s expanding outside of your city or expanding from the New Zealand domestic market all the way into the international market, this Government is here for you.

It would be remiss of me not to also mihi to the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, the Hon Dr David Clark, for the amazing announcement that he started in the Budget about doing something about the competitiveness of our grocery sector. Today, we as the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee have already started our first meetings, we’re getting there to make sure that we ban all covenants that restrict land use of competition and other supermarkets, but also this morning we’ve also announced that further on we’re appointing a grocery watchdog to make sure that supermarkets are being competitive. We’re making it easier for new competitors to enter the market by opening up access to wholesale goods at a fair price. That will be for all your dairy shop owners. Also, we’re launching a mandatory code of conduct, and also a compulsory unit pricing on grocery goods.

So that’s why this Budget is a great Budget.

NICOLA GRIGG (National—Selwyn): I have listened with growing horror this evening to all of these speakers on the other side of the House casually spending money that they have never earned themselves. And we talked about this—I gave a little bit of a general debate speech, I think it was—pre-Budget, and we talked about Grant Robertson’s—well, we predicted it to be the “mother of all spend-ups”, and boy, did that man deliver for us: $38 billion in new spending over the next four years. But let us not forget the money that that finance Minister is spending has been earned, fair and square, by New Zealand’s primary production sector.

The Government has gone on to claim that it’s “investing”—in inverted commas—a billion dollars of new money into the primary sector. Well, I call that a masterclass in smoke and mirrors. I’ve spent so much time going through Damien O’Connor’s announcement line by line by line, and it is just extraordinary what this Government determines is investment in the primary sector. We’ve got vague waffle here, like “$118 million on advisory services to support farmers”. Well, what does that mean? What are the advisory services; what is the support they’re going to be given? What is the return on investment? What investment? What are they going to get in return? We’ve got Stuart Nash: $40 million to transform the forestry sector. Well, what is that? What does that mean? What is Stuart Nash’s great transformation of the forestry sector? We’ve got $31 million for Meka Whaitiri to go out and police farmers and send out compliance officers to hold them up for their practices and do nothing but get in the way of the general high animal welfare standards that they apply to their farming businesses. Thirty-two million dollars: it is nothing but a crackdown on farmers for increased compliance and enforcement and on-farm inspection.

Speaking of inspections, as I referred to just before, if you go—beg your pardon, Madam Speaker—if anyone were to go line by line through the appropriations, they will be quite stunned, as I am, that within this billion dollars of investment into the primary sector, this will include up to $95 million of “integrated advisory services”. What does that mean? It will also include—

Simon Watts: Even the member for Northcote doesn’t know.

NICOLA GRIGG: No, you’ll love this Simon Watts of Northcote: $68 million for a Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI) collective agreement. How is $68 million in an MPI staff, a collective agreement, considered an investment into the primary industry sector? There’s all sorts of bits and pieces in there which really are quite fascinating. And, I’ll tell you what, the one that was quite interesting was the $338 million into the agriculture emissions reduction—that’s great, but what are we going to get out of it? What are we going to get for $338 million being spent, considering there are already research institutes that New Zealand has signed up to around the world? This is clearly written by a Government that has not gone out to earn that money themselves. It’s just so terrifying. What worries me the most about these large sums of money being poured in is that they are being spent on compliance and policing and enforcement and inspection right at a time when farmers are absolutely fed up to the back teeth with regulatory change, time-consuming auditing, and a very, very grey picture of a future ahead of them. And it shouldn’t be like this, right at a time when this industry has earned nearly $50 billion in export receipts. We have never seen this industry earn so much money for this country, and this is why Grant Robertson can spend $38 billion of unallocated new spending. He is writing cheques that the agricultural sector is earning for him.

This Government has unleashed the most unprecedented levels of spending we have seen in this country’s history—

Shanan Halbert: We’ll still pay it off sooner than you did.

NICOLA GRIGG: The spending since this Government came in in 2017—Shanan Halbert, you might learn something—has gone up 68 percent, an extra $51 billion a year since coming into office. This is unsustainable. Anybody who has run a business and understands profit and loss will understand this is unsustainable, even for a sovereign country

Now, we would agree that spending to boost the likes of biosecurity measures is essential, but the refusal to rein in spending and take meaningful action to reduce inflation is quite terrifying. Last week, we saw another 50 basis point jump in the official cash rate (OCR); the first back-to-back jump of 50 basis points that we have seen in this country ever. So, therefore, going back to my primary industries, it does stand to reason that average farm debt of a dairy farm is about $4 million. Borrowings with a 100 basis point increase will see interest rates that will need to be paid back about another $40,000 a year in interest. That is frightening for anybody.

In my remaining minutes, I want to switch topics slightly and turn to another sector of society that is extremely near and dear to my heart, and that is the women and girls of New Zealand. As the National Party spokesperson for women, once again, I have been utterly horrified at the absolute lack of investment in 52 percent of this country. In a $9.5 billion spend up, would anyone like to guess what has been allocated to the Ministry for Women?

Simon Watts: At least a billion.

NICOLA GRIGG: Twelve million. Well, that’s up on last year; that was $10 million. I mean, what does that tell the women and girls of New Zealand as to the value that this Government places in them? It’s utterly appalling. I have often said that this is actually a reasonably nonpartisan portfolio for me. Like everybody in this room, I want to see the women and girls of New Zealand thrive. But actually, I will call out the Government when it’s just delivering nothing but waffle—it’s absolutely nothing but waffle. They’ve come up with a headline policy of improving the lives for women. But I would argue in an environment where post-COVID, 11,000 women have lost their jobs, the Minister has been beavering away on a workforce strategy that was due in October last year. It hasn’t turned up. That’s 11,000 women floundering out there when they could be re-entering the workforce gainfully.

Also, in the environment where 50,000 women have missed their mammogram, 50,000 women have missed their cervical smear test, it takes about 8.7 years for the 130,000 women in New Zealand who suffer from endometriosis to even get a diagnosis. I’ve heard many speakers on that side of the House crowing about the investment into the health services this year. Well, put your money where your mouth is and start investing in the women and girls of New Zealand—the 50,000 women who missed a mammogram and the other 50 that missed a smear test. Some of those women, I hate to say it, will die. They will have undiagnosed cancer because this Government cannot run a health system. It is utterly disgraceful.

There is also nothing in Vote Health for the long-promised maternity unit for the Christchurch women who are looking to become mums. The Canterbury District Health Board says it’s meant to be opening in 2023, but we have not seen anything yet. It is just appalling.

If we were to start looking for some ideas that this Government could, perhaps, implement, then I’ve got a couple to suggest. I’d suggest an urgent task force to clear those backlogs, to make sure those women get their screening tests, to make sure the year 13 girls around New Zealand actually get their HPV vaccinations. It is another massive risk to those girls. And what about advocating for more maternal beds while we’re at it? What about more midwifery training? What about advocating for National’s three-day stay? Or our first 1,000 Days programme? The title of this Budget is “Improving the Lives of Women”. Well, I would wager that any woman in this country would seriously disagree that their outcomes have improved under this Government. And while I am glad to see an announcement for a women’s health strategy in pae ora, it’s just a strategy. Not one cent has been allocated to it. What about some funding, some targets, some outcomes? Let’s actually invest in the women and girls of New Zealand and start showing them what they’re worth.

RACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson): Talofa lava, Madam Speaker. It’s an honour to speak tonight about the Government’s Wellbeing Budget that delivers for New Zealand and for Nelson. It is always a privilege to take a call at this time of night, and those of us on the graveyard shift often have a bit of a joke about the two people who are staying up to watch the excitement on Parliament TV. Well, last week, while I was having lunch in Richmond, I met one of those two people. Her name is Lou Reeves from my electorate of Nelson. And so at 9.30 p.m. tonight, oh it’s 9.45, it’s my pleasure to give a shout-out to Lou. And I hope she is watching tonight to hear the good news for Nelson in the 2022 Wellbeing Budget.

It’s well known that Nelson Hospital has two earthquake-prone buildings that need attention. The George Manson building, opened in the 1960s by the hospital superintendent, Dr Percy Brunette, was found in 2020 to be in the poorest condition of 24 clinical facilities across the country. The building is also earthquake-prone and meets only 22 percent of the building code. The Percy Brunette building, opened in the 1970s, is also earthquake-prone. George and Percy are old. For George, it’s time for a well-earned retirement. For Percy, it’s time for a couple of hip replacements. Investment in infrastructure has been a key focus for the Labour Government, laying foundations for future economic growth and productivity. Budget 2022 invests $1.3 billion of capital funding to upgrade our health infrastructure, and includes the initial funding needed to start the redevelopment of Nelson Hospital.

I want to put on record my thanks to my colleague the Hon Dr David Clark who undertook a stocktake of all health capital assets across the country and produced the National Asset Management Programme for district health boards in 2020. This was the first time ever that such a stocktake had been undertaken, and it has ensured that Nelson Hospital is at the top of the list where it rightly deserves to be. Rebuilding Nelson Hospital will be the biggest capital project in Nelson in a generation. It will ensure we have the facilities we need for our growing and ageing population and will also provide jobs as we secure our recovery from COVID-19. Some have commented that this project would have happened, regardless of which party was in Government. This graph shows clearly that that is not the case. New Zealanders deserve a world-class health system and facilities, and that is what we as a Labour Government are delivering on. You only have to look at this graph to work out where the National Party’s priorities are. They will cut funding to essential services like health infrastructure, leaving our hospitals earthquake-prone and in shoddy condition, all while they give people like Christopher Luxon an unneeded tax cut.

I’m extremely grateful to my colleagues, health Minister Andrew Little and finance Minister Grant Robertson, for seeing the need for this project and backing it, and also to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern for her commitment to this important project back in 2020. Thank you for the support you’ve shown to the people of Nelson, and to Te Tauihu.

Not only have we delivered on health but housing Minister Megan Woods had two exciting announcements for Nelson in the Budget. The first is a housing fund for affordable rentals. Last week, I met with Abbeyfield NZ, a community housing provider who provide affordable rentals for older people, and the Nelson Tasman Housing Trust, who have an ambitious plan to increase their social housing stock from 50 to 100 homes. Both community housing providers were excited by the announcement. I know the fund will make a real difference for Nelsonians who are doing it tough and struggling to find an affordable rental. I also met with Steve, Graham, and Shirley from G.J. Gardner in Nelson, who are very pleased about the lift in the price cap for first-home grants for new builds across Nelson-Tasman. And they are confident that they’ll be able to build below this new price cap so that first-home buyers can get into their own home.

The 2022 Wellbeing Budget also delivers on our election manifesto commitment to deliver accessible dental care for low-income people. Last week, I met with Nelson’s principal dental officer, Dr Rob Beaglehole, who has advocated for this. And I want to thank you, Rob, for your advocacy for our people.

Budget 2022 creates economic security for now, and into the future. Our strong economic management means we can invest in critical services like Nelson’s new hospital. I’m proud to be a member of a Labour Government delivering for Nelson.

CAMILLA BELICH (Labour): Talofa lava, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise to speak on this appropriations 2022/2023 Estimates debate, known as the Budget debate. First of all, I just wanted to say congratulations e hoa to my friend and colleague Grant Robertson for this Budget. It is an immense amount of work that he’s put into it, and I think that Grant has shown himself to be one of the great Labour finance Ministers, alongside the Hon Michael Cullen, who I know people on both sides of this House recall fondly and respect.

First of all, before commenting on the details of the Budget as I see them, I just wanted to respond to some of the comments made by the other side in relation to Labour’s history and whether, in fact, we stand up for women. Now, I don’t want to use too strong language in this parliamentary debate, as we are covered by the Standing Orders, but I do want to say: how dare the National Party criticise the Labour Party on our history of standing up for women. The National Party is the party that repealed the first piece of legislation that would have fully introduced pay equity into this House. The National Party are the party that used their veto, when there was majority support in the House, to vote against 26 weeks for babies for paid parental leave. And, in this Government, they have said again, when they had the opportunity to support pay transparency measures in select committee, that they don’t support those being mandatory either—the one thing that would increase women’s wages. So I stand by this Government and the Labour Government’s record on working for women. We stand up for women, and we have the actions to show it.

Speaking about those things in relation to the health issues that were also brought up in relation to COVID, we are fixing those. We are doing the mahi to make sure that women get their mammograms, that they get their cervical screenings. That work is under way, and we are making good progress.

Back to my comments that I prepared earlier in relation to this Budget. This is an excellent Budget that recognises not only the challenges that we face today through the cost of living payments that will reach 2.1 million New Zealanders and also the half-price public transport, which will be permanent for community services card holders. I’m particularly proud of that. That is a permanent change that makes emission-reducing transportation affordable for the people who need it the most—an excellent, excellent measure to bring in in this Budget.

It’s a balanced Budget that secures our economic security now and into the future. This Budget was the first Budget that I had the pleasure of being in the House for as an MP. I’d previously gone to some lock ups in previous roles in previous years. However, as I was on parental leave last year, I first experienced the Budget day during this 2022 Budget. It was very exciting as a new MP, and I think the Budget was really warmly received generally. However, it’s not how the Budget is really received on the day—although I think this Budget was received very, very well—it’s how history sees Budgets in terms of the projects and initiatives that are developed over time and how they impact and effect New Zealand and New Zealanders and—this is really important—in the context that this Budget was given. Obviously, we’ve had this period of time through COVID which has been extremely difficult—a global pandemic, some of the resulting toughest economic conditions that we’ve had for decades, and then also these challenging geopolitical times, including the war on Ukraine. So against this backdrop, this Budget not only addresses the current situation that I have just touched on in relation to the cost of living payment and initiatives like cheaper public transport; it also looks to the future through doing things like reforming our health system.

Now, you talk to any New Zealander, and you will not find anyone—no matter what their political beliefs—who does not understand now the fundamental importance of our health system. This Budget reforms the health system to make it more effective to make better use of taxpayers’ money, which I know is important to everyone. And it really does that, through making sure there’s no wastage and cutting for DHBs.

I just touch on, in my last few seconds, the climate fund that we have developed—$2.9 billion for the Climate Emergency Response Fund. One of the first things as an elected MP that I did in this House was vote that there was a climate emergency, and I’m so proud that this Budget takes action on climate to make sure that we are addressing this climate emergency. It’s not just rhetoric that we said at the beginning of this term; we are addressing it through this Budget into action. Thank you.

Dr GAURAV SHARMA (Labour—Hamilton West): Kia ora, namaste, and talofa, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure tonight to take a call on the Appropriation (2022/23 Estimates) Bill as part of the Budget debate, dressed in this beautiful traditional dress of the Sherpa people of Nepal, as we celebrate 69 years of mankind’s greatest achievements: the conquering of Mount Everest by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953. Thanks to members from across the political parties for joining me as I co-hosted the event today in Parliament, earlier on, with my colleague Vanushi Walters. But the celebrations haven’t ended, because thanks to this Labour Government and the finance Minister Grant Robertson, we have a Budget because of which everyone has something to celebrate about.

Two broad communities that I know will benefit from this Budget are the patients and the healthcare providers. When we talk about patients, we are talking about every New Zealander in this country, because at one point or other, we’ve all been a consumer of the healthcare system. But the grand system is far from perfect; postcode lottery and inequitable health outcomes are just a few issues that the current system has resulted in. With the health reforms that are going to be rolled out on 1 July, Kiwis can expect a more streamlined and less bureaucratic health system as district health boards are made obsolete and the greater focus is put on care—$11.1 billion for this. Thank you, Andrew Little, for your work and Grant Robertson, for supporting it.

But wait, that’s not it, you’ve also got $191 million over the next two years for a funding boost for Pharmac, which will ensure that more medicines will be available to Kiwis; medicines which in the past have not been available to people and their families as they’ve struggled through various conditions.

But wait, there’s more: $126 million for improving access to dental care—dental care for people on low incomes. We have a very unusual system in this country; you can get a $1 million liver transplant but you can’t get care for your teeth. While I understand that this doesn’t address the full problem, having $1,000 for a person who is on low income makes a huge difference and this is three times more than when we came into Government at the start. So $1,000 more for somebody who is on a low income to help with their dental care.

As co-chair of Parliamentary Champions for Accessibility Legislation, I’m also incredibly proud of the work that Ministers Carmel Sepuloni and Andrew Little have done in terms of bringing the Ministry for Disabled People, which will be launched on 1 July. I know my colleague and co-chair on the other side, Penny Simmonds, who’s sitting just there, will join me in congratulating Grant Robertson for providing $943 million for this ministry. This Government is putting their money where their mouth is, and that’s in a new ministry which will give a big voice for our disabled communities.

In the last few weeks since the Budget, I’ve been out and about in Hamilton, but also travelling to Auckland and Tauranga. I’ve talked to not only patient groups but talked to clinical researchers, different colleges of medicine, talked to pharmaceutical companies, talked to patient groups, and everyone has talked about the $191 million that’s going into Pharmac and how big a difference it would make.

But in addition to that, we’re also talking about the cost of living crisis, for which the Government is putting in $1 billion—$1 billion which will help with a $350 payment to people earning less than $70,000. Two-month extensions for fuel excise, which we’ve had in the past and has made a huge difference to people who are using their cars for commuting—but if you’re not using your cars for commuting, then maybe you would like to use public transport, which is now half the price for the next two months, again.

I would urge the member across from us, Simeon Brown, who has been talking a lot from the other side, to please use one of these public transport systems and take the train down Te Huia down to Hamilton.

Simeon Brown: I’d like to get on the light rail but it ain’t been built! It’s not gone anywhere. It’s “light fail”!

Dr GAURAV SHARMA: Well, I don’t think the light rail was going to come into Hamilton anyway, but that’s not a bad idea—while we’re looking at it, we’ll definitely consider. But while we have the Te Huia train, I would really encourage the former spokesperson for transport of the National Party to come and join us in Hamilton through the Te Huia train.

I’ve only got 10 seconds to go, and I just want to congratulate, once again, the Minister of Finance for a wellbeing Budget that, as I said before, puts the money where the mouth is. Thank you very much.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): This debate is interrupted and is set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow. Fa’afetai tele lava, manuia le po.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 9.59 p.m.