Tuesday, 25 June 2024 - Volume 776 Sitting date: 25 Jun 2024 TUESDAY, 25 JUNE 2024 The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m. KARAKIA/PRAYERS SPEAKER: Almighty God, we give thanks for the blessings which have been bestowed on us. Laying aside all personal interests, we acknowledge the King and pray for guidance in our deliberations, that we may conduct the affairs of this House with wisdom, justice, mercy, and humility for the welfare and peace of New Zealand. Amen. OBITUARIES Barbara Stewart Keith Locke MNZM SPEAKER: I regret to inform the House of the death on 2 June 2024 of Barbara Stewart, who served as a list member from 2002 to 2008 and from 2011 to 2017. During her membership of this House, she was a member of the Social Services Committee, the Health Committee, and the Business Committee. Members, I also regret to inform the House of the death on 21 June 2024 of Keith Locke MNZM, who served as a list member from 1999 until 2011. During his membership of this House, he was a member of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, and the Law and Order Committee. I desire, on behalf of this House, to express our sense of loss and sympathy with the relatives of the late former members. I now ask members to stand with me to observe a period of silence as a mark of respect to their memories. Members stood as a mark of respect. PETITIONS, PAPERS, SELECT COMMITTEE REPORTS, AND INTRODUCTION OF BILLS SPEAKER: Petitions have been delivered to the Clerk for presentation. CLERK: Petition of Alex Johnston requesting that the House accelerate the phase-out of free industrial allocations in the emissions trading scheme to end free credits by 2030 petition of Catrina McGregor requesting that the House initiate a full investigation into the promotion, funding, distribution, and prescription of all Essure devices for New Zealand women petition of Mark Potter requesting that the House inquire into the pace and content of changes proposed for the early childhood education sector petition of Tanya Dunstan requesting that the House pass legislation to require a public hearing into judicial conduct when eight or more members of the public make a complaint about the conduct of a judge petition of Chlöe Swarbrick requesting that the House urge the Government not to reverse the ban on oil and gas exploration and note that 36,062 people have signed a similar online petition. SPEAKER: Those petitions stand referred to the Petitions Committee. Ministers have delivered papers. CLERK: New Zealand Productivity Commission annual report for 2023-24 New Zealand Symphony Orchestra Limited annual report for 2022-23 Lotto New Zealand statement of intent for 2025 to 2029; statement of performance expectations for the year ending 30 June 2025 Orillion statement of corporate intent 2025 to 2027 Treasury strategic intentions for 2024 to 2028 Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment strategic intentions for 2023 to 2028 Government responses to the petitions of Brian Webb and petition of Focus on Iran Second Protocol to amend the agreement establishing the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Area together with the national interest analysis exchange of letters reaffirming an agreement between the Government of New Zealand and the Government of Australia on the application of the agreement establishing the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Area four agreements on the Indo-Pacific economic framework for prosperity together with the national interest analysis report of the Electoral Commission on the 2023 general election enrolment and voting statistics from the general election held on 14 October 2023. SPEAKER: Those papers are published under the authority of the House. Select committee reports have been delivered for presentation. CLERK: Report of the Environment Committee on the Hauraki Gulf / Tīkapa Moana Marine Protection Bill reports of the Finance and Expenditure Committee on the Employment Relations (Protection for Kiwisaver Members) Amendment Bill and the Supplementary Estimates of Appropriations for the year ending 30 June 2024 the report of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee on the briefing on the international treaty examination process report of the Intelligence and Security Committee on the Supplementary Estimates of Appropriations for Vote Communications Security and Intelligence and Vote Security Intelligence for the year ending 30 June 2024 reports of the Justice Committee on the Family Proceedings (Dissolution for Family Violence) Amendment Bill Local Government (Electoral Legislation and Māori Wards and Māori Constituencies) Amendment Bill Office of the Ombudsman, OPCAT reports Report of the Attorney-General under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 on the Parole Amendment Bill and on the Victims of Family Violence (Strengthening Legal Protections) Legislation Bill reports of the Petitions Committee on the petition of Bharat Guha and the petition of Christine McCarthy on the petition of Kevin Scott petition of MyMahi and the petition of Niru Wijesundara report of the Social Services and Community Committee on the Residential Property Managers Bill. SPEAKER: The bills are set down for second reading. The reports on the Supplementary Estimates, the briefing, the OPCAT reports, and the Attorney-General's report are set down for consideration. The Clerk has been informed of the introduction of bills. CLERK: Overseas Investment (Build-to-rent and Similar Rental Developments) Amendment Bill, introduction Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Scheme Agricultural Obligations) Amendment Bill, introduction Social Workers Registration Amendment Bill, introduction Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill, introduction Education and Training Amendment Bill, introduction Therapeutic Products Act Repeal Bill, introduction. SPEAKER: Those bills are set down for first reading. AMENDED ANSWERS TO ORAL QUESTIONS Question No. 6 to Minister, 22 May Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Housing): Point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek leave to correct an answer I gave to oral question No. 6 on Wednesday, 22 May 2024. SPEAKER: Leave is sought. Is there any objection to that course of action? There appears to be none. Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Thank you, Mr Speaker. In my answer to the Hon Kieran McAnulty's supplementary question asking whether 10,000 first-home buyers received the First Home Grant last year, I incorrectly responded with the number of homes purchased as part of the scheme, rather than the number of individuals who have relied on the scheme. For clarity, 11,483 people received a First Home Grant last year, whereas 7,870 homes were purchased using the scheme. URGENT DEBATES Grounding of Aratere Ferry—Government Response SPEAKER: I've received letters from Tangi Utikere and Chlöe Swarbrick seeking to debate under Standing Order 399 the running aground of the Interislander ferry Aratere and the Government's response to it. This is a particular case of recent occurrence for which there is ministerial responsibility. The ferries are an integral part of our national infrastructure; a serious incident involving them and the Government's response to it warrants the attention of the House today. I received Tangi Utikere's application first and will call on him to move that the House take notice of a matter of urgent public importance, at the conclusion of question time. [Loud noise]. Chlöe Swarbrick: It's the ferry running aground. SPEAKER: There you go. Yeah, it could well be. Just a little sensitive, being likened to a ferry though. ORAL QUESTIONS QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS Question No. 1—Finance 1. SAM UFFINDELL (National—Tauranga) to the Minister of Finance: What recent announcements has she made about personal income tax? Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): In the Budget, I announced an adjustment to personal income tax thresholds. Thresholds will rise from $14,000 to $15,600, from $48,000 to $53,500, and from $70,000 to $78,100. The effect of these increases is to reduce a person's income tax by up to $40 a fortnight. The changes will apply from 31 July. They are the first positive changes to personal income rates or thresholds for 14 long years. Sam Uffindell: What other tax relief was announced in the Budget? Hon NICOLA WILLIS: From 31 July, the in-work tax credit, which helps support low to middle income working families with children, will increase by $50 a fortnight. Depending on their family size and income, working families will therefore get up to $50 a fortnight extra. Eligibility for the independent earner tax credit has also been extended, from $48,000 a year to $70,000 a year of income. This credit is for people who do not get a benefit or Working for Families—the squeezed middle, if you will. Extending the credit will help an estimated 420,000 additional people, most of whom will get the full $20 a fortnight. This, of course, is on top of the new FamilyBoost childcare payment I announced in March that will give parents and caregivers up to 25 percent back in their early childhood education fees to a maximum of $150 a fortnight. We on this side of the House are proud to have given tax relief to hard-working New Zealanders. Members opposite voted against it. Sam Uffindell: How much will people receive in tax relief? Hon NICOLA WILLIS: The Budget material contains various scenarios. For example, a couple earning an average household income of $125,000 will benefit by up to $102 a fortnight. People's individual and family circumstances differ widely, however, which is why there is a tax calculator on the Budget website, which I'm advised more than 400,000 New Zealanders have visited. Treasury modelling shows that an estimated 727,000 households will benefit by at least $75 a fortnight; 187,000 will benefit by at least $100 a fortnight. On average, households with children will benefit by $78 a fortnight. I've occasionally heard people say that tax relief only benefits the well-off. Well, they are misinformed. Our changes to the in-work tax credit and introduction of FamilyBoost tilt the benefits of the tax package to low to middle income working families with children. Sam Uffindell: How is this tax relief funded? Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Well, tax relief in this Budget puts $3.7 billion a year back into the pockets of New Zealanders. As the Budget documents clearly show, this tax relief is fully funded by $3.7 billion of offsetting savings and revenue measures. This funding is broadly as set out in the National Party's fiscal plan, with a handful of changes to reflect coalition commitments. As it is fully funded, there is no borrowing for tax relief. We have made the savings so New Zealanders can have more in their bank accounts. Question No. 2—Prime Minister 2. Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all of his Government's statements and actions? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Prime Minister): Yes, and especially this Government's decision to fund an additional $604 million in medicines for Pharmac. Every New Zealander knows someone, a friend or a family, who has been affected by cancer and is fighting it, and we made a promise at the election we would support them in their fight and we are keeping that promise. This Government is funding 26 treatments for cancer as part of a package of 54 more medicines, supporting around 175,000 New Zealanders in the first year of the policy, and we are very proud of that. Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: How many Kiwi families will be disadvantaged over the next three years as a result of his Government's decision to abolish the First Home Grant? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Again—we've spoken about this before. We have decided to make sure that we can access 1,500 more community housing provider spaces rather than continuing with a programme that actually was not as effective as other options for that money. Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Point of order, Mr Speaker. SPEAKER: No, it was a very specific question. I think an answer to the question would be helpful. Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: If the member would like to put that question in writing, I will give him a proper answer. Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Does he not know how many people will be disadvantaged by the First Home Grant being abolished, or does he not care? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: There was about 7,000 people from memory, but I want to be able to give you a proper answer. Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Has the contract for the purchase of two new inter-island ferries been formally terminated; if so, what penalties did KiwiRail have to pay to terminate the contract? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Again, they're ongoing commercial conversations between KiwiRail and the provider, but what I'd say to that member is we are not going to do what that previous Government did, which is basically say to the New Zealand people we'll build you a house for $750,000 and it costs $3.2 million. Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Point of order. Mr Speaker, there were two parts to the question. One was whether the contract had been terminated and the other was whether there were any penalties. The Prime Minister hasn't addressed either of those. You could argue he's addressed the second one by saying that it's commercially sensitive—or couldn't release that commercially—but whether or not there's still a contract in place cannot be commercially sensitive. SPEAKER: Well, that would be for the Prime Minister to determine, but the Prime Minister may wish to expand or to re-answer the question. Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: KiwiRail have repudiated the contract, but there's ongoing commercial conversations. Rt Hon Winston Peters: Supplementary question. SPEAKER: Supplementary, Rt Hon Chris Hipkins. Rt Hon Winston Peters: He's had three. SPEAKER: I know that, I know that—but look, sorry, we've been through this before. Rt Hon Winston Peters: Yeah, I know, but you were wrong then and you're wrong now. SPEAKER: Tell you what, it's not a good idea to start the conversation from your seat like that. This is how its operated for quite a number of years and we're going to continue. The Rt Hon Chris Hipkins. Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Has the contract been formally terminated? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: They are subject to commercial conversations. Rt Hon Winston Peters: Could you, Prime Minister, let us know as to whether or not the person asking these questions, the Rt Hon Chris Hipkins right now, saw the contract about which he is demanding now to know more information? SPEAKER: No, that's not a question that the Prime Minister can answer. Rt Hon Winston Peters: Well, I'm asking him to confirm whether he knows that or not. That's not difficult, is it? SPEAKER: Oh, I see. OK. Rt Hon Winston Peters: It's axiomatic. If we're talking details, we need to know what we're talking about, and I want to know whether this Prime Minister here has been told that the previous Prime Minister saw that contract. SPEAKER: Very good. Ask the question again so we're all clear what it is. Rt Hon Winston Peters: Right, very slowly: Prime Minister, has the previous Prime Minister advised you or anyone in your Cabinet that he saw the contract about which he is now complaining? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, you'd have to assume he has, but the bottom line is he didn't manage the contract and we saw a massive cost blowout from $750 million to $3.2 billion and rising—another piece of the Labour Government's economic mismanagement. Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Is the Prime Minister aware of which Minister announced the deal to buy two new mega-ferries; if so, who was it? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I have no recall on that. Rt Hon Winston Peters: Has the Prime Minister been told— SPEAKER: Just a minute. We'll wait till you get a fair go from the whole House. Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I quite agree. Has the Prime Minister been advised as to the Minister who made the announcement that two ferries were to be purchased, but what was the prescription that was put around at the time, not as being described erroneously to the media by the Rt Hon Chris Hipkins? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I'm sure—knowing that Minister, how financially responsible he is and how well bounded he is—it would have been very well framed. But subsequent, what I'd say is that Government let it get out of control. Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Point of order, Mr Speaker. That answer from the Prime Minister simply cannot be compatible with the answer he gave immediately previous to that where he said he didn't know who the Minister was when he's now subsequently answered a question defending Winston Peters, who of course was the Minister who set up that deal. SPEAKER: Well, I think you made your point. You get another supplementary. Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Will he guarantee that any new inter-island ferries purchased will cost less than the contracted purchase price of the two ferries the Government has cancelled the order for? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Look, what I can guarantee and reassure that member about is that this Government knows how to run economics. We know how to manage projects, right? Unlike that Government, who somehow thought it was perfectly reasonable to go spend $750 million, which turns into $3.2 billion and rising. You have no economic credentials, no economic record; you haven't been able to deliver a pizza, let alone ferries. Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Point of order, Mr Speaker. If the Prime Minister is so great on economics, I'm sure he can answer the question, which is whether the new ferries are going to be more expensive than the ferries that he cancelled the contract for. Rt Hon Christopher Luxon: I can tell you it's going to be a lot less than $3.2 billion. Hon Nicola Willis: Can the Prime Minister confirm that by the time Project iReX was repudiated, the cost of the ferries themselves was only 21 percent of the total project cost; that is, the garage was going to cost four times as much as the ship that was going in it? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I can; 80 percent of the cost were now associated with port redevelopments in Wellington and Picton, for big ships that actually didn't work. Question No. 3—Prime Minister 3. DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Pāti Māori ) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his Government's statements and actions? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Prime Minister): Yes, I do, and especially this Government's work to take action on housing, including by freeing up the rules on granny flats. I'm particularly proud that we're consulting on how those rules can enable Māori communities to develop papakāinga and kaumātua housing on their own land. After years of neglect that saw the number of Kiwis living in emergency motels spike, we're taking action to deliver more choices on housing and more opportunities for Kiwis to get into a home of their own. Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: What is his response to native Hawaiians who are urging New Zealand to withdraw from the Rim of the Pacific Exercise (RIMPAC), which provides a forum for Israel to sell surveillance equipment and military training to other countries, and— Hon Shane Jones: Oh, tell us about Manurewa. SPEAKER: Listen—just a minute. Those outbursts are not helpful. When a question is being asked, the House is silent. Now, the member gets quite a degree of leeway with other interjections, so let's not transgress into the land of the question. Please start again. Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Thank you. What is his response to native Hawaiians who are urging New Zealand to withdraw from RIMPAC, which provides a forum for Israel to sell surveillance equipment and military training to other countries and directly profit from destruction of their native lands? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I haven't seen those comments. Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Does he accept that participating in these military exercises with Israel makes New Zealand complicit in Israel's war crimes in Palestine? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I'd just say to the member I'm not sure what she's referencing, but I'm very happy to take further questions on it and come back with a more considered answer. Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: What does he believe New Zealand's role is in upholding the human rights of our Pacific neighbours in Kanaky and West Papua who are fighting for their lives against oppressive colonial occupations? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, what I'd say to that member is that I have—you know, the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) is the central body by which Pacific leaders resolve Pacific challenges. On all of those issues, we try and use the centrality of PIF as the reason by which we resolve our regional issues, and we'll continue to do that when we meet together in Tonga at the Pacific Island leaders' forum. Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: What action, if any, will his Government take against Indonesia for their role in killing over 500,000 West Papuans in the last 60 years? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Again, we have a series of regional architecture where we raise regional issues and we develop regional solutions to those issues. Rawiri Waititi: How can he justify cutting the minimum wage subsidy for workers with disabilities when it will lead to hundreds of disabled workers being paid less than the minimum wage—some as low as $2 per hour further? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, again, what we want to do is make sure that, actually, disabled people who want to work can work. Many of them actually receive the minimum wage today, but for those that are more severely disabled that actually want to participate in work, we want to encourage them to be able to do so. There's obviously other support packages that are available to people from the system. Rawiri Waititi: Supplementary. [Interruption] SPEAKER: Just wait. Thank you. Rawiri Waititi: What is his response to organisations like the Auckland City Mission, who will need to cut annual food parcels to families in need from 50,000 to 20,000 at a time when food insecurity is at an all-time high as a result of this Government's Budget? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, that has been a function of a significant uplift of spending through the COVID period that was time-limited, and those funds have now come to an end. What we are doing incredibly hard in this Government is to make sure that we actually deal with the underlying cause of the challenges, which is inflation. We want to drive inflation down so we can drive interest rates down so we can grow the economy and keep people in work. Rawiri Waititi: Can he name any reports or evidence he has seen that shows policies such as the three-strikes legislation, military boot camps, and longer sentences will reduce crime rates in Aotearoa? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I can tell you the last six years showed us that carrying on doing more of the same didn't work, and those results are utterly unacceptable. No New Zealander wants to see a 33 percent increase in violent crime, a 100 percent increase in retail crime, a quadrupling of ram raids. This Government is determined to try things and do things differently to get different results. We make no apologies for being tough on crime and being tough on making sure we support young people who need to change the course of their lives. Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can I ask the Prime Minister as to whether he has seen any evidence that those on disability and being supported by the State were happy to receive the employment rates that they were getting until the previous Government interfered with it, and, consequently, so many of those disabled people then lost their job? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, the thing is we want to make sure that employers are encouraged to take on disabled people who want to be able to work, but, again, we have other support services through the beneficiary system to support those people. Rawiri Waititi: Does he agree with the evidence that shows that increased poverty and economic inequality is the leading cause of increased crime rates? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Sorry, I missed the last word in that question? SPEAKER: "Crime rates". Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Crime rates—oh, right. Well, what I can tell you is that accepting that crime is as it is is not acceptable to this Government. We actually are saying there is a major problem in crime in New Zealand. After six years of a "soft on crime" Government, we're going to do something very different about it. So, yes, we're going to continue to work on poverty by making sure we rebuild this economy, lower the cost of living, and actually grow the joint, and we're going to make sure that we restore law and order so New Zealanders feel safe in their homes, their businesses, and their communities. Question No. 4—Health 4. Dr HAMISH CAMPBELL (National—Ilam) to the Minister of Health: What recent announcements has the Government made about increasing access to medicines? Hon Dr SHANE RETI (Minister of Health): Yesterday, the Government delivered on our commitment to fund more cancer treatments, with an unprecedented and transformative investment in cancer and other treatments. This substantial injection will allow Pharmac to fund up to 26 cancer treatments alongside a further 28 other treatments. Increasing access to vital medicines is the right thing to do. I want to thank Associate Minister of Health the Hon David Seymour for his role in this announcement, and also New Zealand First, whose coalition agreement included increasing the Pharmac budget each year. Dr Hamish Campbell: What does this transformational announcement mean for New Zealanders? Hon Dr SHANE RETI: Up to 175,000 New Zealanders will benefit from the overall expanded package of up to 54 medicines in the first year alone. The announcement means that not only will treatments for all the cancer types in the pre-election manifesto list be covered but also a number of other treatments including for blood cancers and other tumours. This major announcement adds to a number of other cancer announcements that we have already made. We have set a target of 90 percent of patients to receive cancer management within 31 days of the decision to treat. We have also increased breast screening eligibility to 74-year-olds; funded PET scanning accessibility for pathology, like prostate cancer; expanded infusion services in Whanganui; invested in the new radiotherapy machine at Whangārei Hospital; and provided an extra $18 million a year to help people who need to travel for cancer treatments. Dr Hamish Campbell: What are the next steps to ensure New Zealanders can access these treatments? Hon Dr SHANE RETI: As a Government, we have worked hard to ensure that this announcement was not just one of new funding but also one of delivery. We had to make sure that we got the implementation right. That is why further funding to deliver and administer these new treatments has been made available for both Pharmac and Health New Zealand, further to our record investment of $16.68 billion into health as part of Budget 2024. New Zealanders should expect to see some of the newly funded cancer treatments become available from October-November this year, with more being phased in over the next year. This announcement shows that we're a Government committed to delivering on health, and specifically around cancer, which we know impacts many New Zealanders and their families each year. Dr Hamish Campbell: What feedback has the Minister seen about this announcement? Hon Dr SHANE RETI: The feedback that we have received has been overwhelmingly positive. Patient Voice Aotearoa chair Malcolm Mulholland has called this announcement a "game-changer" and "fantastic news for patients", saying that he is chuffed that 175,000 Kiwis will get access to the medicines that they so desperately need. Patient advocate Melissa Vining has said that she is "just so happy that patients won't have to face that burden of mortgaging their homes or setting up a Givealittle [page] to receive treatment that is available in comparable countries." Rachael Hart, chief executive of the Cancer Society of New Zealand, says that "This is a momentous day for New Zealand.", and other front-line oncologists have described this announcement as "truly a historic level of investment". Question No. 5—Finance 5. Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram) to the Minister of Finance: Does she stand by her statement that "I can swear, better times are ahead"; if so, how many additional people will be unemployed in 2025 according to her Budget? Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): To the first part of the question, yes. It is a particularly difficult time right now for New Zealanders, as high interest rates are required to bring down the rampant inflation that flourished in 2022 and 2023, but the economy will pick up and better times are ahead. To the second part of the question, there is no information in the Budget update itself about the number of people forecast to be unemployed. It does show forecasts, however, of the rate of unemployment, which has been rising since 2021. However, to be helpful, I am advised that Treasury's background forecasts not contained within the Budget show that the number of people unemployed in the September quarter of 2025 is expected to be 1,000 fewer than the number of people unemployed in the September quarter of 2024, and that, after that, the number of people unemployed continues to decline each quarter out to the end of the forecast period. I can swear better times are ahead. Hon Dr Megan Woods: How can better times be ahead for the 204,000 people who will be on jobseeker support when those people see no benefit of the tax cuts and there is nothing in the Budget for beneficiaries? Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Well, as I've just articulated, if the member listened, the number of people unemployed is set to decline between the September quarter of this year and next year, which is good news, I would have thought, by any read. I think perhaps what the member may be referring to is the spectacular achievement of the outgoing Government, which managed to have job seeker numbers increasing even while unemployment was reducing. Well, on this side of the House, we view it as an achievement to support people into work, and that is what Louise Upston is working very hard on doing. Hon Dr Megan Woods: Are better times ahead for the approximately 140,000 children who are currently in poverty and the additional 20,000 children who will be in poverty as a result of her Budget? Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Well, when you look at the child poverty report, it shows quite clearly that the rate of child poverty by one measure will reduce because of the initiatives in our Budget. What it also shows is that when you deliver tax relief to lower and middle income families with children, those households have more income as a result, and that is good for those kids. I just wish members opposite weren't so hard-hearted that they voted against that relief. Hon David Seymour: Can the Minister confirm that expenditure on welfare, excluding New Zealand super, is $18 billion or thereabouts, and only the Labour Party would describe that as nothing in the Budget for beneficiaries? Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Well, on that side of the House with the Labour Party, they believe that the sign of success— SPEAKER: No, no, no—the Minister can't answer for another party. The Minister can only answer the first part of that question. Hon NICOLA WILLIS: A very good question. Actually, on this side of the House, what we believe is that the sign of success is how many people you help into employment, not simply how much you spend on servicing their unemployment. Hon Dr Megan Woods: Are better times ahead for first-home buyers when their hopes of buying a home have been stripped by this Budget? Hon NICOLA WILLIS: I completely reject the characterisation in the member's question. Hon Dr Megan Woods: Are better times ahead when the New Zealand Construction Industry Council's Tommy Honey has said, "We're going to see a lot more construction companies at risk of going to the wall if they can't get the work that they've been getting over the last few years."? Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Well, there are a couple of things going on here. The first is that, as the member knows, interest rates have been high for a year. That has a very real impact on those in sectors that rely on borrowing. Now, what is important is that we do our bit to ensure that we're not adding fuel to the inflation fire, as that Government did so rampantly, causing interest rates to go higher than would have otherwise been the case. The second thing— Hon Dr Duncan Webb: Point of order. The member has had swipes at the former Government's policies throughout her answers and that is just another one, and it's entirely out of order. SPEAKER: No, there are two aspects. I've looked at this quite extensively. Reporting of historic facts or factual information is not unreasonable in an answer, but when it comes to answering for another party or making a suggestion about another party's policy, that is unreasonable. Hon Dr Duncan Webb: She said "rampant". SPEAKER: I'm not going to rule the word "rampant" out of order, but I would suggest that the Minister speaks about her own Government's performance more than a previous Government's performance. Hon NICOLA WILLIS: So as I said, two things going on: one, you've got to get the fundamentals right, which is actually about getting low, stable inflation so interest rates can decline, which helps everyone in the economy. Sorry to give you an economics lecture, but that is the truth of it. The second thing is about the Government's role in infrastructure investment. I'm advised that over the next five years, we will be investing $68 billion in infrastructure. Here's a critical difference: when we talk about investing in infrastructure, we don't mean visualisations of a light rail train on the front page of the New Zealand Herald. What we mean is actual people in hard hats with actual diggers and spades repairing potholes, fixing roads, and getting things built. Rt Hon Winston Peters: Could the Minister of Finance confirm that if house prices are stabilised, inflation and interest rates come down, and more homes are built, then it's very likely that first-home buyers will be massively advantaged? Hon NICOLA WILLIS: I can confirm exactly that, and what the Deputy Prime Minister conveys is a much deeper understanding of the housing market than the members opposite, who thought they'd fix it by building 100,000 KiwiBuild homes. Well, how did that work out? Hon Dr Megan Woods: Are the only group that can expect better times ahead landlords, who get a $2.9 billion tax cut? Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Well, the member would do well to dwell on the facts in my little tax book which says 3.5 million households benefit from tax relief, and she voted against it. Question No. 6—Health 6. LAURA TRASK (ACT) to the Associate Minister of Health: What announcements has he made about delivering more medicines to New Zealanders? Hon DAVID SEYMOUR (Associate Minister of Health): Well, thank you, Mr Speaker, it's an excellent question. Yesterday, in collaboration with my friend and fellow Whangārei-n, Dr Shane Reti, the Minister of Health, our Government's announced $604 million of extra money to buy medicines for New Zealanders over four years. This has been described as a game-changer, and in a country that has underinvested in medicines and treatments for far too long, it most certainly is. And Pharmac advised that this kind of money will help up to 175,000 people with medicines they wouldn't have otherwise had: 54 medicines; 26 of them aimed at cancer. That is a real change in our approach to healthcare in New Zealand. Laura Trask: Is he confident that Pharmac will be able to continue delivering improved access to medicines? Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: I have spoken with the chief executive of Pharmac and they accept that making sure that this huge uplift in funding is spent well, to get value for money for all New Zealand patients, is a challenge, and they have been allocated additional money in the range of $2 million to $3 million a year to help them with this enormous procurement task of more medicines for Kiwi patients. However, this is what Pharmac are good at. They are an entity filled with people—skills in finance and pharmacology and negotiating to get the best possible deal for Kiwi patients, and I'm very confident that's what they will do with these additional funds. Laura Trask: Why is it important that the Pharmac model is used to deliver new medicines? Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: As I've said, Pharmac is filled with people with, I think, extraordinary ability and I'm very proud to be the Minister responsible for this Crown entity. They have people with the skills and abilities, they know the pharmaceutical market, they know the developing technology, they know how to negotiate, and they know what value for money looks like. They are also an entity that is on a growth curve, improving its listening to patient voice and improving its agility and dexterity at delivering and funding medicines faster as the Government works through Medsafe to consent them faster. For all of those reasons, I think it's an excellent entity and it's going to do a very good job at delivering these extra medicines for Kiwi patients. Laura Trask: What else will he be doing to improve access to medicine? Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Well, we are reforming Medsafe and the way that it consents new medicines, in particular putting in place the rule of two where a pharmaceutical or treatment that is consented in two other peer countries must be consented in New Zealand within 30 days of application to Medsafe. We have already ensured that medicines which are being consented with Medsafe can begin consenting for funding with Pharmac simultaneously, saving time getting medicines for market so they can start making New Zealanders well more quickly. This is the kind of thinking and innovation that is required in order to get better outcomes for the patient and may actually save the taxpayer money elsewhere in the healthcare system by allowing New Zealanders to return to work and live more active lives, which is good for the taxpayer and good for them. Question No. 7—Prime Minister 7. CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Co-Leader—Green) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his Government's statements and actions? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Prime Minister): Yes, but I just also want to acknowledge co-leader Marama Davidson and wish her and her family well in the struggle and challenge that she's going through at this time. Look, yes, especially the Government's action to restore law and order, and crime has skyrocketed in recent years, and Kiwis, frankly, are sick of it. I'm sick of it, and everyone is. After years of neglect, this Government is finally taking action. We're going after the gangs. We're bringing back three-strikes. We're putting limits on judicial discounts, and, on Sunday, we announced there'll be more cops on the beat in Auckland Central from 1 July, fighting violent and retail crime. I'd just say to that member: if she cared about crime in Auckland and if she cared about keeping Kiwis safe, she'd back those policies and finally deliver better results for her constituents. Chlöe Swarbrick: How does he reconcile the statement of Christopher Luxon "We are fixated on making sure that we deliver on net zero carbon 2050" with his Government's decision to reopen oil and gas exploration? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I'd just say to that member: we need to make sure that we actually have gas in this country as part of our energy mix. It's really important. What we have inherited is a whole bunch of bumper stickers and announcements for an oil and gas ban—no follow-through, no plan, and now we have an energy security challenge in this country. So we need to reverse the oil and gas ban, and I'd encourage that member to support us. Chlöe Swarbrick: Is the Prime Minister aware that the average time for offshore oil and gas development, from exploration permit to first production, is 16 years? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: And that's why it had quite a chilling effect when that Government just announced the bumper sticker, under some political pressure, without thinking through the next steps. We are in a situation where we have a shortage of gas in this country. That's going to impact some of our businesses, and as a result of poorly thought-through policy, now we're dealing with the consequences, but we'll clean it up. Chlöe Swarbrick: So can the Prime Minister then confirm the purpose—what is the purpose?—of the Government's plan to open up new oil and gas exploration? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, energy security would be number one. The second thing would be to avoid using coal, so we can use gas. It's better than coal but not as good as renewables. Chlöe Swarbrick: What special data and evidence does the Prime Minister have access to in order to disagree with the International Energy Agency that "To achieve net zero, no new oil and gas fields are required beyond those already approved for development as of 2021"? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I'm worried about this country's energy security—hospitals, schools, and businesses running out of gas because of a poorly thought-through bumper sticker, Post-it note policy from the previous administration. Rt Hon Winston Peters: Could the Prime Minister confirm that the policy he's enunciating is in line with that of our closest economic partner, Australia, led by a Labor Party Government and Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, on the interest of gas being used in the transition, which is a realistic position, not one with the fairies? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: The reality is that we need gas as a transitory source of energy for this country's energy security. Chlöe Swarbrick: How does he reconcile drilling for more oil and gas with what Christopher Luxon, National Party leader, campaigned on, as I read from the National Party website: "To deliver on New Zealand's climate goals, we need whole sectors of the New Zealand economy to switch to clean electricity. It makes no sense to encourage the shift to electric vehicles if the power comes from burning coal. New Zealand must have enough renewable electricity to meet the rising demand."? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I'm really excited to hear the members enthusiasm for driving and doubling the amount of renewables in this country, and what I'd just say to you is that I'd encourage you to support our fast-track legislation, because what we want to do is double the amount of renewables, and I welcome your support, because if you cared about climate change, you'd back that. If you actually cared about climate change, you'd reverse the oil and gas ban. If you cared about actually mining for critical minerals that actually drive our climate change, come and support us. Chlöe Swarbrick: Dig that hole! Hon Shane Jones: Drill, drill! SPEAKER: We're just going to wait while the House calms down a bit. That sort of outburst is not particularly well received by the public who do watch this question time. So I would suggest that while passions run high over topics like climate change, some little bit of decorum might be well worth holding on to. Question No. 8—Social Development and Employment 8. Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston) to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: Does she stand by all her statements made at the Estimates hearing of the Social Services and Community Committee on 19 June? Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment): Yes. In particular my statement that when this Government took office, we inherited a welfare system that was supporting about 70,000 more people on jobseeker benefit than six years earlier, despite having gone through periods where workers were in high demand. Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Does the Minister stand by her statement that she received no advice regarding the 9,000 beneficiaries who will be worse off as a consequence of the tax changes? Hon LOUISE UPSTON: Yes. Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Is the Minister aware that this information was in the regulatory impact statement finalised on 24 April, and did the Minister not read the advice provided to her or read it but not understand it? Hon LOUISE UPSTON: In terms of any of the policies around the tax changes, they are the responsibility of the Minister of Finance. Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Point of order, Mr Speaker. That answer cannot be allowed to stand. This is a question about a statement that the Minister herself has made and the advice that she has received. She can't simply say that's another Minister's responsibility. She's responsible for her own statements. SPEAKER: OK, we'll have the question again. Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Is the Minister aware that this information was in the regulatory impact statement finalised on 24 April, and did the Minister not read the advice provided to her or read it but not understand it? Hon LOUISE UPSTON: I did not receive or seek advice directly about a tax change, because it is the responsibility of the Minister of Finance. Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Point of order, Mr Speaker. Regulatory impact statements go to all Cabinet Ministers, so the Minister's answer simply cannot be correct. SPEAKER: Well, it's probably a pedantic point, with all due respect. The Ministers in that case will be receiving multiples of impact statements. Now, I'm sure that Ministers in the member's Government probably read all of them, but I have to take the member's word in this case, and the House will make its own conclusions about that answer. Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan: Why did the Minister state that disabled people would lose their jobs if the minimum-wage exemption was scrapped, given over $11 million a year was budgeted by the previous Government to subsidise the employers to pay decent wages to those workers? Hon LOUISE UPSTON: The minimum-wage exemption that exists supports a number of often severely intellectually disabled people that receive the supported living payment and, in addition to that, have the opportunity to work through disability enterprises. They have provided feedback to me directly that what was proposed by the previous Government would not be successful and they would risk not being able to continue to employ disabled people. Helen White: What, if any, strategy does the Government have in place to respond to an increasing demand for food being experienced by groups like the Auckland City Mission, the Salvation Army, and other providers? Hon LOUISE UPSTON: Mr Speaker, that's not within the scope of the primary question, but I could answer it if you wish me to. SPEAKER: Well, I think the member should have a go at answering it. Hon LOUISE UPSTON: So there is obviously some very challenging times at the moment, which is why the Government's priority is rebuilding the economy, is reducing the cost of living crisis, and is providing tax relief so that New Zealanders are able to afford food. And in terms of demand for the provision through food banks, which is concerning, we are providing assistance to them and will continue to work with them to see if that demand goes further. Hon Carmel Sepuloni: How can beneficiaries, the working poor, and disabled people have any confidence in a Minister who doesn't remember or ignores advice she received, chooses to cut $11 million a year that was to be used to pay disabled people a minimum wage, and doesn't prioritise funding of social services who are feeding our most vulnerable during a challenging time? Hon LOUISE UPSTON: We are clear on this side of the House that we want to reduce the cost of living so more New Zealanders who are working get tax relief and don't require the support of places like food banks. We want to ensure that those who are severely disabled who receive the supported living payment continue to have the opportunity to be in employment, and we want to see a lot fewer job seekers than that former MP oversaw joining the beneficiary ranks. Question No. 9—Education 9. Dr VANESSA WEENINK (National—Banks Peninsula) to the Minister of Education: What recent announcements has she made about specialist schools in New Zealand? Hon ERICA STANFORD (Minister of Education): I was incredibly proud to recently announce a landmark $89 million investment in specialist schools that will improve the condition of classrooms around New Zealand for some of our learners with the most diverse, complex, and fragile needs. This funding secures the rebuild of Sommerville, Maitai, and Sir Keith Park specialist schools, in addition to a $26 million investment in 17 new satellite classrooms based in mainstream schools around the country. This Government believes in parental choice and, by upgrading and expanding specialist schools, we are providing this choice. To the 681 families who are on a waiting list to access specialist schools, this investment will mean more enrolments. I am delighted that our Government has been able to provide targeted investment to upgrade and expand the offering of our specialist schools to better meet the needs of families and their tamariki. Dr Vanessa Weenink: What reports has she seen that are supporting her announcements? Hon ERICA STANFORD: A recent report released by the Education Review Office (ERO), entitled Built in, not bolted on, highlighted some of the most vulnerable learners in our classrooms around the country that are in a terrible state. The ERO report quotes that they are not suitable to meet the needs of students. It's heartbreaking to learn of specialist classrooms that have been closed due to the growth of black mould and mushrooms, knowing the impact that this could have on the health and wellbeing of some of our most vulnerable learners. ERO also noted that there have been no new specialist schools built in the last 50 years, despite a 62 percent increase in their roll since 2013. The Special Education Principals' Association president said the announcement came after years of under-funding and she's grateful that this Government has strongly positioned specialist education as being part of the continuum of choice for parents, backed up with investment in property, which is long overdue. Dr Vanessa Weenink: What other changes did the Minister announce as part of this investment? Hon ERICA STANFORD: Well, this announcement is just the start and it signals this Government's firm commitment to specialist education provision and parental choice in education. ERO's report noted that specialist schools offer students a highly adapted programme of learning tailored to their abilities and interests and that all 27 specialist day schools employ a specialist workforce who support students' overall development. In line with ERO's recommendations, this Government will include specialist schools and satellite classrooms in network planning to better reflect demand and reduce wait times for this type of provision. The expansion of satellite classrooms will also make more of the specialist support available in mainstream settings and foster collaborative practice amongst our teachers. Dr Vanessa Weenink: What feedback has she seen about this announcement? Hon ERICA STANFORD: I've received strong support from across the sector. The principal of Blomfield Special School said she was delighted with the announcement of two new satellite teaching spaces at Bay of Islands College and felt relieved for whānau in the mid-North who did not have anywhere for current satellite students to go after primary school. I wish to just share a quick message with the House from a parent of a seven-year-old who has autism. They are on a waiting list for access to a specialist satellite classroom. She wrote: "It will be life changing for our son if we can get him into a unit." She spoke of the benefits of being able to work with specialist teachers and aids, with the hope that he will be able to attend school full time for the first time in his life. Those stories and those parents are why our Government has made this investment, and it is just the start. Question No. 10—State Owned Enterprises 10. TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North) to the Minister for State Owned Enterprises: Can he guarantee that the Government's replacement ferries for the Cook Strait will be cheaper than those to be delivered in the cancelled iReX project; if not, why not? Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister for State Owned Enterprises): While the Government has not made a formal decision around the purchase of new ferries, as the Prime Minister has said, "The Government is absolutely committed to ensuring that we can get great new ships on the Cook Strait". And, in doing so, we definitely expect the total cost of any such project to be significantly less than the $3 billion which was the cost of Project iReX when it was cancelled by KiwiRail. Hon Dr Duncan Webb: Point of order. That question was about the cost of the ferries, quite clearly, not the cost of the overall project. The Minister's answer referred only to the overall cost of the project but not the ferries themselves. SPEAKER: That's true, but the question— Rt Hon Winston Peters: Mr Speaker, can I help here? Please. SPEAKER: Well, look—I realise I'm fairly remedial in this job. Rt Hon Winston Peters: Look, Mr Speaker, he's a lawyer; he got— SPEAKER: Hang on, I haven't called you. Rt Hon Winston Peters: The iReX project wasn't just for the ferries; it was for the other infrastructure, and that's what he should have read in the first place. SPEAKER: Good, OK. Look, so I think the Minister's answer started with "There's been no formal Government decision". At that point, it's hard to expect that there would be a further qualification inside the answer. Tangi Utikere: Has the cancellation of iReX specifically related to the ferry build part of the contract actually been actioned; if not, why not? Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: The contract has been repudiated and ongoing discussions are continuing around the exit cost of that. The ferries will not be coming because we're not going to spend $3 billion on an overall project. Tangi Utikere: Can he confirm that indicative costs associated with the wind-down and cancellation of the build to date will total more than the $551 million figure for the build locked in by the previous Government? Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: No, I cannot confirm that, and I won't be making any comments about ongoing negotiation. The simple point is that it is a painful exercise we're going through, and it is one of the very many financial bombs that this Government discovered on coming into office—that we had a project that went from $700 million to more than $3 billion and it was unaffordable and inappropriate, and that's why this Government stopped that project. Tangi Utikere: Will the Government deliver new ferries by 2026, the date the new ferries were due to be operational; if not, when can New Zealanders expect to be using new ferries? Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Well, we're still considering options on replacement ferries and we have every expectation that we'll make progress well before the 2029 date that has been considered for the current ferries. And so what we're working through is dealing with a situation where we had a project that blew out unbelievably over the course of the past few years, which the previous Government didn't manage, and this Government is fixing up their mess. Hon Nicola Willis: Can the Minister confirm that even if the ships had arrived, there were still very real questions about where they would berth as they were too large for the berths; and can he also confirm that the harbour master had questioned whether they could actually safely go through the Tory Channel? Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: There were a wide range of issues with that project, and the primary one was that because the ships were so much bigger than the current ships and were rail-enabled, it required enormous costs to be put into the port's infrastructure. Now, as those prices escalated, the previous Government had many opportunities to deal with this matter. They didn't. They left it for this Government to deal with, and we have. Tangi Utikere: Was the ministerial advisory group's initial advice, upon their appointment, to continue with the contracted iReX ferry build? Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: The ministerial advisory group has given us plenty of advice and I'm not going to go into the details of that because we continue to have ongoing discussions about those issues. Tangi Utikere: Has KiwiRail warned the Government that due to reputational damage of breaking the contract, it may not be able to procure new ships for decades and that it could also impact other Government ship procurements? Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Well, we are having ongoing discussions around procuring new ships and I have not received any advice that it is impossible to get new ships. It's just a question of time and we're working our way through that process. Question No. 11—Children 11. TAMATHA PAUL (Green—Wellington Central) to the Minister for Children: Does she agree with the Chief Children's Commissioner, who said on the creation of the Young Serious Offender category and military-style bootcamps that she wants "to see an approach that helps to rehabilitate these young people and help them on to a better pathway, rather than labelling them"; if not, is she taking an approach that will have "unnecessarily punitive impacts" on young people? Hon DAVID SEYMOUR (Associate Minister of Justice) on behalf of the Minister for Children: I wish to say that I actually do agree that it's important that we have an approach that helps to rehabilitate these young people and help them on a better pathway. That is exactly what the Young Serious Offender declaration and military-style academies will do. It will learn from previous initiatives, and it will ensure that young people who may have gone a bit off the rails are actually given the support and the encouragement and, frankly, the discipline to allow them to become positive contributing citizens again in our country for their benefit and the benefit of all. In answer to the second part of the question, that there will be unnecessarily punitive impacts, well, no, I don't agree with that, but what I do sense from the member's question is that they still believe we should live in a world where no action has any consequence. Well, I'm sorry but if you're a young person that creates a serious offence such as a ram raid; such as an assault; such as we saw in Papatoetoe over the weekend, well, I'm sorry but there are consequences. One of the consequences might be that somebody labels you as a "Young Serious Offender" because that's what you are. If the Opposition can't understand actions and consequences, then no wonder we have had such a crime wave in the last six years under their leadership. Tamatha Paul: Does she agree with the Prime Minister's view on her approach to youth justice that "I don't care what you say about whether it does or doesn't work.", and, if so, is that why she is proceeding with an approach which domestic and international evidence shows does not work? Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Well, first of all, on behalf of the Minister for Children, I find that the Prime Minister has enormous wisdom and sometimes it comes out more fully when he is— Steve Abel: You've already made a speech. Just answer the question. Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: I beg your pardon? Steve Abel: You've already made a speech. Just answer the question. Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Well, I tell you what: that member is a long way from ever answering a question in this House. You know, he'd be more likely to be answering his questions from up a tree. The simple fact is that we have an approach here which is learning from previous experience. For example, the previous approach: actually, the evidence was that when students—when offenders, sorry—were in residence, actually, they had their— Chlöe Swarbrick: They are students. Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Well, they're often students that aren't attending school and that's one of the problems that we've inherited from the previous Government. But the evidence is that, actually, during the previous programme from 2010 to 2016, actually the offenders did improve while in residence. It was taking them back to the community where often things went wrong and they ended up reoffending. That's why the pilot of the new programme will have three months out of 12 in residence and focus for the subsequent nine months on proper wraparound support and rehabilitation. I believe that that will work. But if you'd like to see evidence of what doesn't work: the previous six years, which led to a crime wave so bad even some MPs were getting in on it. Tamatha Paul: Why is she rejecting official advice that military-style activities do not work to reduce offending, and going ahead with her political experiment that will only cause more harm to young people? Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: I completely reject the assertion in the member's question. If she wants to talk about a political experiment, how's this? Six years of thinking, "If only we're kind to criminals, they'll start being kind back if we just wait long enough." That was a political experiment undertaken by that Government. Hon Dr Duncan Webb: Point of order. That was simply an attack on the previous Government. It had no substance; it didn't refer to any concrete policies; it was just a swipe. It's usual David Seymour behaviour, but at that point— SPEAKER: Hang on. Points of order are heard in silence, whether you like them or not. So the member can start his point of order again. Hon Dr Duncan Webb: Those statements by the member were simply a list of allegations about the previous Government that didn't refer to any previous policies or facts and were entirely out of order. SPEAKER: I totally disagree with you— Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Speaking to the— SPEAKER: No. I'm ruling. I disagree with you because of the nature of the question that was asked. David Seymour—unless he's finished, which would be quite good. Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: No, no. I could always give you a bit more. Would you like—no? Hon Paul Goldsmith: Has he visited the stores and shops and spoken to the owners, victims of youth crime, like I have, and has he heard the repeated chorus that we've heard from many of them, "There are just no consequences for these young kids, who have caused me and my family enormous cost", and does he not agree that there is a basic requirement to have real consequences for these young offenders? Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Well, on behalf of the Minister for Children, I have observed Karen Chhour as one of the hardest-working Ministers, who gets around the country, goes and talks to the people that her ministry is responsible for, goes to the facilities, finds out what is wrong, and fixes it in a practical way. And, yes, she also, I am sure, visits and has many occasions to talk to the people who are the victims of crime, and that, among many strands of her rich and authentic life experience—which drives the left mad, might I add—is her motivation to make a difference in this Government and this House. Tamatha Paul: Does she accept advice from experts that when traumatised young people are subjected to harsh discipline in bootcamps, they are likely to associate their treatment with the abuse caused to them in the past, causing further anxiety and stress? Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Well, again, there's some difficulty because the member seems to have a sort of paint-by-numbers, cartoonish approach to characterising the Government's policy. What she is describing is not what this Government is putting in place. We are putting in place a pilot programme that will take the most serious offenders—those who have done assaults, who have done ram raids, between the ages of 14 and 17; those who go and hit people with hammers in their retail stores—and actually put them in a place where they get structure and discipline and have an opportunity to build self-esteem by making a real difference in their own lives. In order to do this, you need something called values—the idea that each person is equal in their dignity and able to make a positive difference, given the structure and the opportunity. That's what they'll be getting. Tamatha Paul: To what extent is a bootcamp programme that is going to involve just 10 young people at a cost that would never be scaled a genuine and serious solution to a problem, or is it just politicking with young people's lives for the sake of appearing to be tough on crime? Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Wow, look, I think—it's like a cliché machine that's taken the pseudoephedrine! This is a very serious matter. Youth crime has got out of control over the last six years. Lacking the values to give young people structure and discipline, having nowhere to take them—having them climb up on the roof and having to be bribed down with KFC actually made a mockery of the values that underpin this country. Now we have a Government that is putting approximately $5 million into a pilot. And, yes, the pilot will cost a lot more than the programme. That's because we're learning—because we're collecting evidence and data about how to do better for a very serious problem, including for those students. So my advice to the member is to stop the paint-by-numbers cliché machine and pay attention to the detail of what's actually being proposed, not what sounds good to her Wellington mates. Tamatha Paul: If the point is to do what works, why not invest in a pilot programme that was evidence-led, not retrofitted to a failed bootcamp model? Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Once again the member has a caricature of what the Government is doing which is simply untrue. This is a programme that will take young serious offenders and put them in a place where they get structure and discipline and opportunity to build self-esteem. That is three of the 12 months of the programme. The remaining nine months are outside of that facility, in the community, being rehabilitated, learning to live as good, honest citizens again—totally different from the caricature that the member has in her mind. And I can only say to her one more time: try focusing on what the Government is actually doing, not the caricature she's built in her mind. Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Save it for the ACT Party conference. SPEAKER: Thank you for that, Carmel Sepuloni; that's most useful. Question No. 12—Police 12. TOM RUTHERFORD (National—Bay of Plenty) to the Minister of Police: What recent announcements has Police made about deployments in our city centres? Hon MARK MITCHELL (Minister of Police): On Sunday, Police announced the establishment of community beat teams in major cities across New Zealand, as well as Operation Safer Streets in Auckland to target antisocial behaviour and crime in the CBD. From 1 July, 21 additional staff will be joining the beat team in Auckland CBD, with the intent to move to a 24/7 beat patrol model. This is part of the wider community beat teams deployment, over two years, of 63 staff to Auckland, 17 to Wellington, and 10 to Christchurch, to provide the public with reassurance and to deter and disrupt antisocial behaviour and retail crime. Sunday's announcement, alongside the announcement of the National Gang Unit and district gang disruption units, builds upon the work Police is doing to deliver on my letter of expectations and, more broadly, this Government's plan to restore law and order. Tom Rutherford: Why did he make police being highly visible in communities one of his expectations of the Police Commissioner? Hon MARK MITCHELL: I talk regularly with retail shop owners, business owners, and the public, and have had dozens of public meetings around the country, both as Minister and before. The number one piece of feedback—and I completely agree with it—is that the public have not in recent years had a sense that police are present in their communities. As police Minister, my focus is on ensuring that police are getting back out on the beat, providing reassurance, and deterring offending. Tom Rutherford: Does he agree with the Queens Arcade property manager, who believes that the announcement will help bring down crime in the Auckland CBD? Hon MARK MITCHELL: Yes, I do. I'm confident that having police highly visible in the CBD as part of Operation Safer Streets will ensure that the public get a sense that police are keeping them safe, and will give offenders a sense that their activity will not be tolerated. While it's heartening to see that Police are saying crime in the central city is starting to trend in the right direction, it is still at an unacceptable level and the public are still exposed to it and feel unsafe. This Government is focused on clamping down on crime. Tom Rutherford: Does he agree with the Wellington Chamber of Commerce chief executive that it is "surprising what [these] kind[s] of interventions can do."? Hon MARK MITCHELL: I agree with what he says. Because of my own experience, I've seen the positive effect of highly visible beat constables in their communities. Hon Ginny Andersen: Why does Christchurch have to wait two years for just 10 additional beat constables? Hon MARK MITCHELL: Well, Christchurch haven't had to wait for constables being more visible in their communities, because there's changes taking place already. As part of the established beat teams, there's going to be an additional 10 dedicated police constables that will be put into Christchurch. Hon Ginny Andersen: Sorry, point of order, Mr Speaker. My question was: why does Christchurch have to wait two years for just 10 more police officers? I got that they are waiting for two years, but he didn't explain the reason behind that. SPEAKER: No, no—think about the whole question that was asked. The Minister's opening statement was that they don't have to wait two years. So you can't be more definitive than that. URGENT DEBATES Grounding of Aratere Ferry—Government Response TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North): Mr Speaker, I so move, That the House take note of an urgent item. We all know that the InterIslander known as the Aratere ran aground just out of Picton on Friday evening with 47 people aboard. SPEAKER: Can I just interrupt the member, please, those who are leaving the House, do so quietly and without conversation on the way through. The member's time will start again. TANGI UTIKERE: Thank you, Mr Speaker. The InterIslander that we all know as the Aratere ran aground just out of Picton on Friday evening with 47 people aboard, and that was a very distressing sight for all of us to see and to take note of what had occurred over the coming hours. The primary focus, of course, at that time was on the safety and on the wellbeing of everyone who was on board. I want to acknowledge the efforts that were made to ensure that those who were on board were safe throughout the incident—particularly those who were seen as the first responders, the Maritime Union of New Zealand and other local MPs, including my colleague Rachel Boyack, who was there as well. There will be, no doubt, many lines of inquiry into what went wrong, and they will work through their processes for sure. But what I can say is that I'm sure all members of this House will know that it is extremely fortunate that we are not here this afternoon referring to an incident that had an outcome that would be much more devastating, much more dire, because it could have. If that vessel had made its way out of the location where it was into the Tory Channel or indeed into the Cook Strait proper, the outcome could have been one of devastation. Those are notorious water bodies, and everyone knows that. It is only luck that this breakdown was not more serious. It ran aground in relatively safe, calm waters. As we know, the Cook Strait ferries are massive machines. They are huge vessels often, actually, carrying hundreds of passengers and people, and they travel that expense nature of water with swells and winds, and a malfunction in the wrong place could be nothing short of fatal. This latest incident only further enforces the need for a reliable and sustainable Cook Strait ferry option but also ferries that are built to last. The current Government-owned InterIslander ferries, that are owned by the State-owned enterprise KiwiRail, are either at or past the end of their lives. They are limping along, and the cost of keeping them in a seaworthy state is large, and that continues by the day. I think, if there was a further disaster, you wouldn't need much more of an inquiry to determine perhaps what went wrong, and Government Ministers need to take responsibility in this space. They are the ones who run KiwiRail, in terms of setting the priorities and providing the financial envelope for them to function, and they need to make sure that they are taking responsibility for this. There were, last week, questions in the Transport and Infrastructure Committee that were put to Simeon Brown as the Minister of Transport around the nature of the ferry fleet. My colleague Arena Williams and I put very squarely to Minister Brown these questions. Now, this grounding came the very day after those questions were put to the Government to respond. Minister Brown pushed back on concerns that we raised relating to the need for an immediate replacement and that costs would actually continue to grow beyond the $551 million that the former Government was able to lock in as a suitable replacement. Not only that, but also the increasing nature of maintenance costs that some have established could be in the region of $65 million a year from next year. The Minister did not believe that there was a lot of substance to that, and just after 24 hours after those questions, we have this unfortunate situation where we still have no options in terms of what the replacement might look like moving forward. But of course, National have a habit of doing this. They have a habit of effectively switching out the lights and keeping people in the dark, and they simply need to front up to the communities of interest all around Aotearoa New Zealand to give certainty around what the future ferry options look like for the Cook Strait. And we do not have time to continue to dilly dally around and to wait for them to actually get their ducks in a row and to share with the community and to share with this House what their options will be. Nicola Willis, Simeon Brown, and Paul Goldsmith have placed us in this exact uncertainty that we find ourselves in. The solution to all of this was the ferries related to iRex, a brand-new set of ferries that were being built—actually were starting to be constructed by the Korean Hyundai Mipo dockyard back in 2021 when this was commissioned. They were to be delivered in February 2026 to avoid the business summer season. Now, the finance Minister, at the end of last year, indicated that she would simply cancel the contract. And she has been dragging her heels for the last six months while this Government has tried to sort themselves out about what the replacement option will be. And one I will say is if the Government can prioritise nearly $3 billion in tax cuts for landlords, they can prioritise a resilient, safe, and reliable ferry service between the North and South Islands. We are being seen as the laughing stock in maritime circles, not just here in New Zealand but all around the world. And all one needs to do is to look at the imagery and the photos of that 24-hour period to indicate why it is that New Zealand is seen as the laughing stock, where we are not taking any action in this particular space. And what is really important is that the Government seems to like to talk about cost overruns and blowouts and all of these sorts of things. The situation is this: what occurred on Friday evening was in the context of having no plan B—no plan B. We are still waiting to hear what their plan is going to be. Glen Bennett: What's the plan, Simmy? Plan C. TANGI UTIKERE: So what then did—plan C. Actually, I think Kiwis wouldn't mind plan D at this rate. I know that Nicola Willis says she does not want to have a Ferrari. OK. She said she prefers a Toyota Corolla. All right. I think people, at this stage, would settle for a Mini. They would settle for a Suzuki Swift. They would settle for a replacement that is going to meet the needs of communities to connect the two islands of Aotearoa New Zealand. Prior to the election, there had been a lot of work that was going on in this space. There had been work with KiwiRail on a more suitable and sustainable solution. That was then over to the Government to pick up that conversation and to pull together a plan. What they have done is they have made cancellation as the priority, although we actually heard in question time today that cancellation may actually not have been actioned. We, we hear repudiation is where things are at at the moment. The Government have said that, actually, it is cancelled, but I don't know. I'm none the wiser as to whether or not the contract has actually been cancelled, and it's over to the Government to share with us whether that is the case or not. We also hear that it is possible that the reputation of New Zealand in being able to secure future contracts in terms of ship builds could be compromised. It could be. I don't know, but it could be. All we need to do is think about that. When you are engaging with a partner as a form of business and someone wants to withdraw from a transaction that has been locked in back in 2021, then surely there must be some reputational risk to New Zealand as a result of that. But this is also a financial envelope that, just for the ferry build itself, is continuing to grow—the lock-in of $551 million for the ferry build itself. We don't know the full wind-down costs of that particular exercise. It could be $200 million; it could be 300 million. We don't know what the actual break penalty clause is as a result of cancelling these two ferries. It could be $100 million; it could be $200 million. That is on top of the wind-down costs. And then, of course, we have the shipyards that may still very well be building these ships all the way through to completion, because they started the build when the Government virtually signalled that they were going to cancel the build. And then if they sell them, then there is an opportunity that the cost would actually be, over that three-year period, significantly higher. So possibly three to four times higher as a build. So already the financial cost that is being drawn as a relation to this is probably much significantly higher than the $551 million just for the build itself, because the ferries, of course, were just a small component of that. It is unfortunate that there is no certainty for New Zealanders and for Kiwis around what a resilient service will look like between the North and South Islands. We continue to wait while this Government drags its heels. I thought, actually, maybe yesterday that we would have heard something, the Cabinet had come together and maybe had a chat and may have had a chance to actually think— Hon Peeni Henare: Where's the urgency? TANGI UTIKERE: You know what, where is the urgency? Well, there does not seem to be urgency from this Government in terms of providing a safe, secure, resilient, and sustainable connection for the future. We cannot wait to 2029 as Nicola Willis has said. She seems to think that it's all right; it's only a few years. Well, a few years are a few years far too late. We had a plan. We were prepared to deliver a safe, reliable, and sustainable option. This is a Government that is not prepared to do that. And despite the activities and actions of the last week or so, they continue to be no further down the road. Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Transport): Well, thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to respond in this debate. As is well-known, on Friday, 21 June, the Aratere ran aground at 9.56 p.m. just outside of Picton, with a total of 47 aboard: 39 crew and eight passengers. It is a relief to everyone that there was no one injured during this incident, and as it was a freight sailing, the usual travelling public were not aboard and not impacted by this event. I also want to acknowledge the swift action from the emergency response agencies to ensure that those aboard were safe, and the actions which led to the successful refloating of the vessel late on the evening of 22 June, the following day. The operation to refloat Aratere on Saturday night was successful and the vessel is now berthed in Picton. Now the ship has been safely refloated, investigations can begin into the incident and how KiwiRail can ensure that this does not happen again. There are three investigations under way at this stage. KiwiRail is undertaking its own internal investigation. Maritime New Zealand, as the regulator, is undertaking an investigation. This investigation may result in administrative action or prosecution in regard to the issues. The Transport Accident Investigation Commission will also be undertaking an independent safety investigation. This investigation will determine the circumstances and causes of accidents and incidents with a view of avoiding similar occurrences in the future, rather than to ascribe blame to any person. The debate that has been from the other side of the House is trying to put this perspective forward—that the incident that took place on Friday night would have all been fixed if iReX hadn't been cancelled. Well, that is quite frankly, completely untrue—completely untrue—and the point that they're trying to make is completely untrue. The reality is this is an issue that KiwiRail, as the owners and operators of those ferries, must take responsibility for. They are responsible for the maintenance of their ferries, and the reality is, over the last number of years, when the last Government was in charge, there was so much focus on the big shiny new ferries, they lost sight of the focus on actually maintaining what they already had—they lost sight on what they already had. So the focus was on the new thing—the new berths, the new flashy big ferries which the last Government signed up to, and the billions of dollars they were planning to spend—and they lost sight of the fact that their number one job is to keep New Zealanders safe going across the Cook Strait on those ferries. We've seen incident after incident in that regard and where the safety of New Zealanders has been put at risk by KiwiRail and by Interislander when that is their number one job. Unfortunately, on Friday night, the latest incident took place in relation to what we saw on the Cook Strait. As the member said earlier, we are grateful that it took place in the circumstances that it did and that no one's life was lost. But what this highlights, and what the shareholding Ministers for the State-owned enterprise KiwiRail have made very, very clear, is that this Government's expectation of KiwiRail is that the maintenance and the resilience and the safety of their existing ferries must be the number one priority for the board of KiwiRail—that must be the number one priority for the board of KiwiRail. So those expectations have been made abundantly clear by the shareholding Ministers—the Hon Paul Goldsmith and the Hon Nicola Willis—to KiwiRail in terms of their expectations, and the concerns that they have made has led to action being taken by KiwiRail in relation to the maintenance of those ferries. But the reality is not enough has been done. There has been work done by KiwiRail in relation to getting independent ferry safety experts in to actually ensure that they are undertaking full safety operations of those ferries, but there is more work that needs to be done. The reality is that regardless of the iReX decision, these ferries have to run for at least another two years, and so that work is critically, critically important. When I was in Picton on Saturday, we discussed these issues, and the Transport Accident Investigation Commission made this point, which I think is a very important point. They made the point in the meeting that there are a large number of ships of this age which operate around the world and which operate safely. So that is the point that needs to be debated here today. It is the need for KiwiRail and Interislander to ensure the safety and operation of those services. But the reality is that this does also raise questions in relation to the future. The member opposite—Tangi Utikere—tried to make the point that "Well, the ferries were only going to cost $550 million." Well, the iReX project was blown out to over $3 billion. The reality is that when it started, the project was worth $750 million. Now, that sounds perfectly reasonable. The analogy you could use is buying a house and land package, and you've signed the contract for $750,000. Well, you come back five years later and, whilst the house is still only worth $550,000, the land's gone up to $2.25 million, and suddenly it's worth $3 million. No one would continue to be signed up with that type of deal, but that is exactly what the last Government let happen. The landside, port-side infrastructure went from being around $200 million to being over $2.2 billion as part of that particular project. I have a letter here which the former finance Minister Hon Grant Robertson sent to KiwiRail on 19 September 2023, saying, "We note that KiwiRail under-scoped the landside infrastructure in 2021, meaning the decision to procure two large rail-enabled ships at the time was premature. To date, we are yet to see a satisfactory explanation for why this was the case." So— Dana Kirkpatrick: Who was the Government? Hon SIMEON BROWN: The Government at the time was the Labour Government. It was making the point which we were then shown when we became Government, which is that the cost of the landside infrastructure, which was being foisted on to the Crown, was being driven because of the fact that it was under-scoped due to the size of the ferries and also due to the fact that they were rail-enabled, leading to significant cost escalations on the port-side infrastructure. Tough decisions did have to be made when we came into Government. In fact, the time line that was released by the Minister of Finance when the decision was made showed that between early November 2023—before the Government had been formed, but we were briefed during the negotiation phase. The incoming Government was informed of the most recent cost escalation in early November 2023, and that it would be $2.6 billion. When we became Government, we were advised it was $3 billion. In less than a month, the cost had blown out by over $400 million—over $400 million. It would be, frankly, irresponsible to have continued with that project. This Government is committed to having a safe and resilient Cook Strait. We are committed to new ferries. The Minister of Finance and the Minister for State Owned Enterprises have a ministerial advisory group which has, just as of last week, provided a report with further advice on how we can assure the safety and resilience of the Cook Strait. There are options that will be considered. Decisions will be made in an affordable and cost-effective manner to ensure the resilience of this critically important part of our supply chain. Those are decisions which we will make in the appropriate time to make sure that we make those appropriate decisions, and we won't make the mistakes the last Government made where they let this project go from being $750 million to over $3 billion and counting, and they refuse to take responsibility and accountability over those things. We will make the tough decisions on this side of the House, and we will ensure the resilience of the Cook Strait. Thank you very much. CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Co-Leader—Green): E te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I think, just there, members of the New Zealand public have seen a shining example of why it is that we have an approximate $200 billion infrastructure deficit in this country. We constantly see the chopping and changing of legacy parties in charge, binning projects that the other one did not like, with no meaningful plan on the horizon. I just here want to refer to a document from 2020, and I want to quote from it, if I can. It says—and I quote—"This Government is committed to restoring rail to its rightful place in New Zealand. Bigger, better ships, with new technology are yet another step on that journey … These will be the first brand-new purpose built ferries New Zealand has had in over 25 years. Of the current ships, only the Aratere is rail-enabled, and an unwillingness from previous governments to invest properly in New Zealand's rail infrastructure has meant the Aratere has had a number of costly technical and mechanical issues. It is vital that we act now to ensure our Main Trunk Line between the North and South Islands is resilient and well-provisioned [into] the future". That is, of course, a quote from the Rt Hon Winston Peters, who then was acting in his capacity as Deputy Prime Minister, in a press release from 27 May 2020 titled "Government investment supports the acquisition of new Interislander ferries". Unfortunately, how times have changed, because what we've just heard there from one of the shareholding Ministers for KiwiRail, one of our State-owned enterprises, is that despite all of this bluster and approximately 10 minutes in a speech, we have no meaningful plans whatsoever for what is to happen in 2026 and beyond. Look, the Green Party can absolutely agree with the point from the Minister, as, actually, was reflected in this press release from the former Deputy Prime Minister and the now new Deputy Prime Minister or co-Deputy Prime Minister, that these are not new problems. We have known for a really long time that our ferry infrastructure, the Interislander ferries, need an upgrade. They need proper and meaningful investment. That is why the lead times exist on these kinds of investments. It is not a new problem and these investments could be requisitely made. This Government likes to talk a lot about how they are, for some reason, great financial managers. Let's dig into the detail on that specifically for this problem, which so well is an emblem of a lot of these issues that we have with the infrastructural deficit in this country. You'd tend to say that when you are a good financial manager that you invest early in an issue to stop it escalating. Well, as we already know, based on the hearings that other speakers have alluded to, we have already spent $424 million on this iReX project, yet we are now also not all too transparent from this Government when it comes to the cost of the cancellation fees. Yet, as I understand it, on breakfast television this morning, the Minister was not rebutting a figure in the arena of $300 million on the cancellation of that. We also, of course, have the cost of refloating the ferries every time they run into ground because, as we've seen, this is not a new problem, and it is likely to continue out into the future. The Government also passed up the opportunity to futureproof the fleet. We had a guarantee of delivery in 2026, but now we are looking at an approximate at least 40 percent increase in inflation in the cost of purchasing those new ships. On top of that, we've also passed up the opportunity to double capacity not only for passengers but also for freight. We also have passed up the opportunity to reduce carbon emissions of that fleet by 40 percent and to accommodate alternative fuel sources as they develop, not to mention a 100-year lifespan for both of the ports, and to get greater rail capacity, something that New Zealand First used to be proud of and campaign for, to get trucks off the road, and ultimately not only to reduce those carbon emissions but to reduce congestion, not least for rural Aotearoa New Zealand. The Minister just before was saying that he has expectations that the fleet keeps up with maintenance. I'm sure that's something that actually everybody in this House would fundamentally agree with—I didn't see any disagreement whatsoever on that basis—but the question for the Minister and for Government members is to show us the money, to show us the plan and the contribution, because right now we are left with far more questions than we have answers to as to what occurs in 2026. That bill is going to continue climb, not only because, based on the fact that I've just well canvassed that this is not a new problem, we are likely to see more groundings of these ships; we are likely to see more issues eventuate; and we also are going to continue to see price inflation for the purchasing of these new ships. To that effect, I think it also needs to be noted that as far as we're aware, there are only about 20 of these ships in the world, none of which are currently in action— ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Thank you. The member's time has expired. CAMERON LUXTON (ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. What we saw occur with the Aratere on Friday night was extremely concerning. It was a great relief, however, that there was no loss of life and everyone on board the ship was able to get off safely. But this actually does raise some serious concerns about KiwiRail and KiwiRail's mismanagement. In ACT's view, KiwiRail's 100 percent Government ownership has been a contributing factor to the general mismanagement of the Cook Strait ferry service in recent years. ACT's policy is to add KiwiRail to the mixed-ownership model. By selling 49 percent of the Government's shares, this would ensure KiwiRail has the accountability and flexibility needed to keep the ferry service running properly—100 percent Government ownership means KiwiRail isn't subject to commercial accountability; KiwiRail's investment decisions are dominated by politics rather than commercial realities. Right now, KiwiRail's commercial performance is monitored by a small, overworked team at Treasury. In Budget '24, the budget for Crown company monitoring—that's all Crown companies; not just State-owned enterprises (SOEs)—was roughly $5 million, whereas the net asset value of SOEs alone was roughly $40 billion. That's a management fee of 0.1 percent. Even the cheapest private equity funds charge around 1 percent plus performance fees. Either the Government is getting a bargain of the century or many taxpayer assets are being seriously under-managed. By contrast, the partially owned electricity companies and Air New Zealand have dozens of analysts from private sector investment funds and stockbrokers poring over their quarterly returns and other performance data. Those financial companies often have their own skin in the game, as shareholders and would-be shareholders. Their analysts can ask executives questions, and when they are truly dissatisfied with their performance, they can send a clear signal by selling their shares or advising their clients to do so. The stock price gives a signal to executives as to whether the market supports their business plan. That means things like maintenance schedules, capital investment programmes are rigorously monitored. With all the will in the world, the Public Service has neither the incentive nor the means to subject their portfolio companies to such scrutiny. Moreover, the SOE Act, quite properly, prevents Ministers from getting directly involved themselves. The investment statement prepared by Treasury in '22 helps confirm this. The Government stake in listed companies significantly outperformed their cost of capital, whereas Government stakes in unlisted companies underperformed. That's even with the then COVID-afflicted Air New Zealand being counted amongst the listed companies. That means the Government has lost taxpayers' money by leaving it in these unlisted companies, relative to the equivalent risk investments elsewhere. A more closely monitored KiwiRail may well have made fewer disastrous investments and maintenance choices. In addition to better accountability, partially private ownership would have given KiwiRail more flexibility to make decisions based on economics rather than politics. When the mixed-ownership or private companies need more capital, like KiwiRail has asked for with the ferry programme, they prove the case not to the Cabinet but to private investors. That means that access to capital is determined by the rates of return on offer rather than the Government's political or fiscal position. That makes it easier for good projects to go forward and bad projects to be stopped. Private investors have no incentive to throw good money after bad simply to avoid embarrassment. Private investors can move quickly when needed, rather than forestalling a decision for political convenience, as the previous finance Minister seems to have done. The involvement of private investors would have allowed for alternative financing of the ferry programme to be considered. Private and partially private transport companies are not immune from accidents, but they do tend to make fewer white elephant investments like iReX that delay and distract from the real solutions to ageing machinery. A 49 percent privatised KiwiRail would be more accountable, more flexible, and possibly better capitalised. That would make it less likely for a comedy of errors, like this ferry debacle has been, to occur. Thank you, Mr Speaker. ANDY FOSTER (NZ First): Thanks, Mr Speaker. Look, we all agree that the Cook Strait crossing is an essential part of New Zealand's transport infrastructure, and we all know it's a problem, which is why we're having the debate that we're having at the moment. However, Tangi Utikere opened this debate by, essentially, stating that plan A is still the right plan, is still a good plan—two large ferries. I'll come back to that in just a moment. But I say to him and to the Opposition: let's stop playing politics with this; let's work together to try and find the solution. Plan A was fundamentally flawed. We know that the cost of iReX project had blown out enormously. I would take that as an illustration that what we've got to stop doing is saying, "We think that a project is going to cost"—in this case—"$750 million." before we've done any of the design assessment, before we've done any of the geotechnical work, and before we have actually any real idea of what it's really going to cost. But, no, we go and say, "It's going to cost $750 million.", and then, a few years later, it turns out to be "It's $3 billion and counting." So the initial thing we should do with all of these projects is to be putting money aside to look at options, to look at feasibility, to look at geotech—to look at all those things—and then we've got some vague idea of what the cost is going to be. But that's not what happened in this case. The Opposition has told us that the ferry deal was a very good one. Actually, the ferry deal was a good one. It was a good one because it was done during COVID, it was done at a time when ship builders didn't have a lot of market, but the problem was that this is a package. It's not just a ferry; it is also a ferry and all the land-based infrastructure. We've already heard from the Minister there that the cost, effectively, of the land-based infrastructure exploded not by a factor of one, but a factor of 10 times—10 times more expensive. You can't have the ferries without the land-based infrastructure as well. So, Tangi Utikere, we had a plan, but the problem is that the plan was deeply flawed. Even— Hon Dr Duncan Webb: Your plan. ANDY FOSTER: —the then Minister of Finance Grant Robertson knew that it was a flawed plan. I don't think that he signed off on it, did he, Mr Webb? He didn't sign off on it either. The big problem here was that KiwiRail, I think, were exceedingly arrogant. I think that what, basically, they assumed is that everybody was going to jump to their tune. That was their assumption, and I'm going to come to some illustrations on that. They ordered the ferries before they had anywhere to put them—they ordered the ferries before they had anywhere to put them. I can remember, at the time when that was news, thinking that is extraordinarily brave—extraordinarily brave—to the point of being reckless. The other piece of information that we've had more latterly is that the port of Marlborough harbour master hadn't even given approval—in fact, I don't think, at that point, he'd even been asked to give approval—for whether these larger ferries would be able to operate in Tory Channel. He gave the indication that, in fact, he wasn't going to give that approval. So an extraordinary piece of work from KiwiRail. So let's talk about the port infrastructure at either end. At both ends, they are very difficult construction environments—at the Wellington end, particularly the seismic and sea-level rise. So look at this, an overall package: roughly one-sixth of the package is for the ferries; one-sixth is for the port of Marlborough end; and a whopping fourth-sixth—two-thirds of it—is from the port of Wellington end. That reflects the complexity of that end. It was $3 billion and counting. So either the incoming Government wrote a blank cheque and said, "Look, just keep going. However much it's going to cost, keep going."—and we know the business case for that would have been appalling—or push pause and think about that. Those of us who are members of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee would recall that KiwiRail appeared before us in February as part of their annual review, and both the chair and the CEO made the point that they had only come to the company in 2022. When they came to the company, they said, actually, they were alarmed at what they saw, and they alerted the then Minister of Finance to their concerns. So it's not as though the new administration of KiwiRail was saying this was all beer and skittles; they had real concerns. What I saw KiwiRail having done is wasting years and years of time that should have been used constructively to deliver an outcomes. So let's take the Wellington end. They wanted to bring large, new ferries into the inner harbour of Wellington, didn't mind about any other users, no mind about the impact on CentrePort's business—they were stuck right in the middle of CentrePort, they were, effectively, destroying the business—and no mind about the impact on the road network from having road and rail services at a new location. They didn't mind about any of that; they just assumed that everybody was going to jump to their tune. They did exactly the same thing at the other end with the port of Marlborough, as well, to the extent that the port of Marlborough said, "Yours. Your project. You work it out." So we have a fundamental problem here. It's a problem that we need to work together on. I'm really looking forward to seeing the outcome of the ministerial working group. That is the basis on which we should be moving forward from this. Anything else, at this stage, is speculation. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Before I move to the next speaker, just for the awareness of the House, if a party does not take their allocated call and there is no indication that they have transferred it, any other member who has not yet spoken may seek that call at the end of the debate. ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): This knee-jerk, political point-scoring, "shoot from the hip" Government has the chutzpah to come down to this House and give the Labour members a lecture on working together. This Government, who got out in front of the cameras at their first opportunity and said, "Look at us—we're so cool. We're going to get these chief executives who have been running up the costs by cancelling the contract." They're cancelling a contract which that member Andy Foster just told this House was a good deal: $551 million for ferries, which will enable a resilient crossing of the Cook Strait—a resilient crossing of the Cook Strait that that Minister of Transport, who spoke earlier in this debate, came to the Transport and Infrastructure Committee on Thursday and promised that committee in his answers. Further, the Prime Minister stood in front of cameras on Monday and promised New Zealanders a resilient crossing of the Cook Strait because it is nationally significant infrastructure, not only to the South Island but to all New Zealanders who rely on that for the economic benefits it gives to everyone. This is such an important piece of infrastructure investment in the hands of a Government that does not believe it is responsible for it—a Government that will stand here and kick the KiwiRail board. Those members will say they are reckless, will say that they are exceedingly arrogant, and will do everything they it can to undermine the public's trust in a State-owned enterprise and to push responsibility as far as they can away from this Cabinet, which is making decisions to undermine that resilient crossing that they are promising New Zealanders out one side of their mouth and undermining in the Cabinet room. We know, and we have confirmed today—not only the Minister for State Owned Enterprises but the Minister of Transport have told this House that they have had the advice back from their ministerial advisory group, that they have had a discussion about it around the Cabinet table, and that they know what the recommendations of that ministerial advisory group are. They actually have a solution in their heads. They are sitting through this debate, refusing to tell New Zealanders how we will have a resilient Cook Strait connection, and are instead blaming the KiwiRail board, saying that they need to prioritise safety. Well, the KiwiRail board have been asking for an upgrade of their infrastructure, which is causing a lack of safety to the people who they provide this business for, and they have a Cabinet here who haven't backed them. They have a Cabinet here who are pushing responsibility away for those infrastructure investments and have no plan B. When Andy Foster comes to this House and he says, "Well, Tangi Utikere wants plan A.", we just want anything. At this point, we would be grateful for a boat that could cross the Cook Strait and a Minister who was happy to be in charge of that. But, instead, they are here today and they are pushing responsibility as far away from themselves as they possibly can. We still don't know if the contract has been formally cancelled for those $551 million boats, but if KiwiRail is already out in the market trying to procure other boats. We don't know if New Zealanders are not only on the hook for that $551 million contract or however many hundreds of millions it will cost to break it, and another hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of some other project because Cabinet have decided to keep that information from New Zealanders and will not share it in this debate. They will not give us any clarity about the important decisions going forward which are in front of them. So the questions as I see them are these. Has the contract for the new Interislander ferries been terminated, and, if so, what is that penalty? We don't have that information—that hasn't been offered by the Government. We also don't know if those Ministers have had those discussions and what options they are considering next. We have certainly heard from the ACT member that it is the ACT Party's position, and probably the ACT Ministers' around the Cabinet table, that they would sell it—either all of it or part of it. So New Zealanders should remember that that is also a decision which is being considered by this Government and we deserve answers on that—answers which have not been provided by Government Ministers in this debate. I see the Minister for State Owned Enterprises here, so I hope he will take a call and explain his position on everything the ACT member has raised earlier in this debate. We also need to know whether this option to procure more ships is being explored at the same time as we are trying to exit that contract. Is New Zealand—because this Government represents us in these international agreements with Hyundai Mipo. We ask whether New Zealand is on the hook for one contract while also entering into a second contract. We need to know what future generations of New Zealanders are being signed up to in terms of serious debt. There is so much more to discuss on this topic. I look forward to the Minister for State Owned Enterprises taking a call. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. This is an urgent debate on the grounding of the MV Aratere on 9:56 p.m. on Friday 21 June and the Government's response to the issue. Now the grounding, and we've heard a lot of speechifying on a whole range of other topics in relation to this, but what we're talking about is the unfortunate grounding of a ship and whether or not some ferries might be coming in a couple of years' time or afterwards is of interest, I suppose, and the broader question around ferries, but not the specifically relevant to what happened on Friday 21 June and the safety of everybody involved. So there were 47 people on board; 39 crew and eight passengers. And obviously the primary reaction to this is relief that (a) the situation didn't happen in a more dangerous spot, and that it was resolved in this relatively—that it didn't lead to a more dramatic disaster and heaven forbid any injuries. And so we're relieved that it was a freight-only sailing and that not many members of the public were on board. We did also note the swift action of the emergency services in responding to ensure that people were safe and the actions led to the successful refloating of the ferry on the 22nd. I understand there was no water entering the vessel or oil going into the marine environment. So we were lucky. But obviously the primary issue in relation to this is that our safety infrastructure is working appropriately. And so the absolute primary response of the Government in the broadest sense is that the Transport Accident Investigation Commission and Maritime New Zealand both have statutory functions to conduct inquiries and investigations into the circumstances and causes of marine accidents and incidents with a view to avoiding similar occurrences in the future. Both of those agencies, the Transport Accident Investigation Commission and Maritime New Zealand, have confirmed their intention to inquire into or investigate the event in line with their statutory functions, and they are expected to take several months to continue. So in New Zealand we mercifully have had very few serious accidents, but we've had a few over the years. And each time anything happens, there is a thorough inquiry into what happened and lessons are learnt and operators are expected to deal with that. So we recognise the importance of the Cook Strait connectivity. Chlöe Swarbrick: What are you going to do about it? Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Well, like I say, the proper investigatory agencies are looking into what caused this particular trap and how it's going to be dealt with. And then of course KiwiRail and their board are directly responsible for the safety of those ships. The question then sort of lends itself to the question: "Well, what's going to happen in terms of the replacement of ageing ferries?" And well, of course, as has been well canvassed, one of the reasons why this Government is having to deal with an horrendous financial and fiscal situation is that the previous Government was out of control in its spending, and no more simple example of that was the fact that the replacement of ferries blew out from $700 million to over $3 billion. And it was in relation to the larger size of the ferries, the rail enablement, and all the work that needed to be done on the two port sites. So we, as any responsible Government and every New Zealander would expect the responsible Government to do, stopped that because it was unsustainable. And we've gone back and we're getting advice on alternatives. And one of the very simpler alternatives is not to build—not to take on much larger ferries that require different port infrastructure, but actually to get ferries that fit in within the current port infrastructure so that we can not have to spend so much money on what is an important event. So we're very focused on making sure that the investigation is done properly, firstly. And secondly, we've got some decent process in place in order to provide replacements. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): The member's time has expired. Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Kia ora, Mr Speaker. Thank you to the Minister for taking a call. I think it's really that as the Minister for State Owned Enterprises he does front up. It's important to recognise that the Minister of Transport and the Minister for State Owned Enterprises are responsible. This is happening on their watch. I do want to say, though, that there's been some pretty feisty debate here, but this is too important to be politicking about. That was a really significant event when that vessel ran aground. It ran aground for reasons that we don't yet know, but if it happened elsewhere, it would have been catastrophic. If it had happened with a passenger ferry in Tory Channel or at Barrett Reef, there could conceivably have been massive loss of life. That's the risk we're facing. That is why this Parliament and that Government needs to get it right. When we see what they've done, there's a word that's been bandied about in respect of the iReX ferries: they've "repudiated" them. Now, it's an interesting word to use—you don't see it very often. Here's what it means: we're refusing them; we're unilaterally declining to take them. Now, what I read into that is that the Government is now in a dispute resolution process, trying to find out how much they have to pay in damages for illegally breaking their contract. Now, that's going to be very expensive. There is a real risk here about our commercial reputation. New Zealand, as a sovereign nation, has a very good reputation for not breaking our promises. We've just broken a $550 million promise with a major commercial player in the marine and wider heavy industry sector. The Hyundai dockyards is not going to rush to build us our new vessels. Now, look, I do want to be clear: I was the former Minister for State Owned Enterprises; iReX was very, very difficult. It's accurate to say that the costs blew out—they did. But I'm convinced that pulling the rug on that contract is not the best thing for New Zealand, because that stretch of water, that most difficult stretch of water, is a lifeline connection to the South Island. I can tell you that South Islanders are feeling left out, left behind, and ignored by a Government that says, "It's all too hard. We'll kick that can down the road. We'll take some advice." There was a solution there. It was a lasting, long-term solution. I accept it was a solution that needed costs control. The documents that are now in the public domain will show that I as Minister for State Owned Enterprises, the Minister of Finance, and the Minister of Transport were continually putting disciplines around KiwiRail, both in cost savings and to make sure that they were using their own balance sheet to fund what was possible. But what we heard was a proposal which brought our ferry system into the 21st century, that was rail-enabled so that we can utilise our rail network to its best capacity, that had vessels that were low carbon, highly efficient, and extremely seaworthy, and port-side infrastructure that wasn't aging and falling apart but earthquake resilient. That's where a lot of the money was going: in Wellington port that would stand up to a major event. What we've got now is a Government that has thrown its hands up—and I've seen the figures. I've got a pretty good take on the fact that these new ferries—smaller ferries, three of them—are going to be $300 million each. So that's the best part of a billion dollars already. Getting out of the contract's another 200 million. And the ports still need upgrading, and will be we left with an outdated roll-on, roll-off system that is not a strong, safe, and resilient connection. So I do say to this Government, let's work hard on this. Let's not just dismiss it because it was expensive and the last Government's idea. Let's look carefully at the real options, and let's not under invest in our infrastructure. Let's make sure we have a genuinely strong connection between our islands, which is genuinely safe, because the risks of not doing it are too great. Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister for Infrastructure): That is a curious rewriting of history by the former Minister, the Hon Dr Duncan Webb. Here are the facts: the Government came to office—actually, even before the Government took office, briefings were provided to incoming Ministers about the iReX project. The situation was extremely alarming. Ministers had to confront the reality that a project that started life as a sensible ferry investment—which we all agree is a good idea, for the reasons the member outlines: the freight connection and passenger connection between the North and South Islands. We had to confront a situation where a project that started life as sensible, at least on the face of it, had grown to the point where the Crown was up for the thick end of $3 billion, possibly more. As it transpired, as Ministers dug into the detail—a thing that, I might add, the previous Government clearly had not done—it was not just two big new ferries; the consequence of that decision meant that the Crown was up for a massive amount of money on the land-side infrastructure to support those ferries. So members opposite are wilfully deluding themselves when they pretend that the Government had any other option but to repudiate the contract with Hyundai, because no one had done the hard work about the land-side infrastructure costs required. What's more, there are real questions about whether the size of the ferries purchased by KiwiRail, or intended to be purchased, could traverse the Cook Strait, in particular the Tory Channel. Now, I'm not a shareholding Minister in relation to this—I'm not an expert on it—but those are the facts as they appear to be. So members might want to rewrite history and say they did a good job of getting into the detail; the reality is they didn't—the reality is they simply did not—and the new Government, or newish Government, has had to confront fiscal reality. That is why we have made the decision we have done. We're committed to ferries across the Cook Strait. It's very important for the reasons Dr Duncan Webb mentions, but the Government is not up for a blank cheque. I am someone who is a believer in the ferry service across the Cook Strait, but the proposition that has been put to the Crown is simply not acceptable, and that is why the Government has made the decisions we have made. RACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Just after 10 o'clock on Friday night, I received a phone call from the Maritime New Zealand official based in Nelson, who covers the top of the South—Holly Payne—to tell me that the Aratere Interislander had run aground just after leaving the port of Marlborough. During that phone call, it became clear that Holly needed to get herself to Picton, and so we made the decision to drive over the hill across State Highway 6 through to Picton, where we proceeded to speak with some of the KiwiRail staff based at the terminal about what had happened. Over the coming nearly 24 hours, we spent time talking to KiwiRail staff and we also spent time with the crew and the passengers who had been on the ship when it went aground. As other members have noted today, there will be an inquiry, there will be multiple inquiries into what happened. But what is clear to me, and what is clear to the people across Te Tau Ihu, the top of the South, is that the Government's decision to cancel the contract for the new ferries was the wrong one. People are incredibly, incredibly frustrated that we now have an Interislander service that is at risk. This is a really serious matter, and, for me, it's very personal. My grandfather Edgar Boyack was the Minister's adviser on the Wahine inquiry. He was the most senior nautical advisor at the time during that inquiry. One of the things that inquiry found was the need to have tugs that were able to haul stricken ships to safety, and we got those. Those tugs were replaced between 2009 and 2014 with more powerful tugs, but, unfortunately, they're not actually able to safely take a ship out of open water and to safety. There are a number of things that we need to get right to ensure that we have a safe and sustainable and resilient Interislander service going forward. The people of the South Island, and particularly the people at the top of the South, rely on the service. We rely on it for tourism. The service brings people to our region who travel around, attend events, and spend money in our region. We also rely on it to bring goods back and forth between the North Island and South Island, and whenever the ferries are out of action, our small businesses in Nelson often face delays at getting goods that they are able to sell through their retail shops. It's a very real and pressing issue. We actually had a great deal on those ferries—$551 million for ferries—and members on the Government benches continue to push the false assertion that those ferries wouldn't have been able to traverse the Tory Channel. That is not correct. Those ferries were being custom-built specifically to be able to navigate the perils. Those ferries would have been delivered from next year, operational from 2026, and the people of the South Island want to know what the Government's plan is. The Government has continued to spend time in a blame game. Meanwhile, all the people of the South Island want is to know what the plan is. We currently only have one ferry in operation, the Kaiarahi is under maintenance, and who knows what is going to happen to the Aratere. It is incredibly frustrating for us to watch Government Ministers fly in, fly out, play blame games, and not actually listen to the people of the South Island about the need for this service to be operational, for it to be safe, and for it to be sustainable. I want to finish by acknowledging the crew, the many crew who I spoke to who were so professional during what was a very frightening incident that could have led to a large maritime disaster. They deserve better, the passengers who travel on these ships deserve better, and we in the South Island deserve better from this Government. We need to stop with the heckling and the blame games and have a proper plan so that we can actually get across the strait safely and resiliently. The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed. BUDGET DEBATE Debate resumed from 30 May on the Appropriation (2024/25 Estimates) Bill. Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Associate Minister of Finance): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. Well, I adjourned the Budget debate—when was it?—two or three weeks ago. A lot happened has since then, and we were about to begin Budget urgency. But the debate on the Budget—a very good Budget produced by my good friend and colleague the Hon Nicola Willis—continues. I wanted to run through some of the highlights, as I see it, from the Budget because it was a very good Budget. It was a challenging Budget delivered in challenging times for New Zealand. I want to start with that proposition because it is clear to anybody out there, walking around outside of Parliament in the real world, that it is challenging out there. Interest rates are high. The official cash rate is at elevated levels. Inflation is still outside the band, at over 4 percent. There is a palpable sense out there in the public that there are tough economic times, and people are feeling that. We acknowledge that on the Government benches, and I make the point that better times are ahead but it will be tough for quite some time because we are dealing with the hangover after the night before. We are dealing with the feeling that happens when you wake up a bit late, at 11 o'clock on a Sunday morning and you start craving hash browns, bacon, and sausages and, in my case, a bit of black pudding, and you think, "Oh gee, last night I had a bit too much pinot noir from Central Otago.", or, in my case, some whiskey, and that's kind of what happened to New Zealand. We printed a lot of money and Mr Robertson came along and spiked the punch at the same time, and fiscal policy was not a friend to monetary policy. In fact, we just went full tilt on the accelerator. We printed a lot and we spent a lot, and every year that Grant Robertson was the Minister of Finance, he exceeded his Budget allowance. So he'd always turn up at the Budget Policy Statement towards the end of the year and say, "Next year, I'm going to spend a certain amount of money". It was normally about $2 billion to $3 billion, and every year he would exceed it—every year. It's a bit like my diet. I always wake up on New Year's Day and say, "Oh, this year I'm going to really get down to 90 kilograms." and it never happens. It's a bit like that with Grant Robertson—he never met his allowances. As a result, the spending just rolls on, and, as financially literate members know—they're normally on this side of the House—those numbers just cascade on top of each other. So over time, you end up with enormous fiscal largesse. That's how we ended up with an 80 percent increase in Government spending in six years—because he just added to the allowances every year. They just built and built and built and built, and we've ended up in the fiscal situation we're in, to the point where—and this is in the Budget documents—Treasury advised there is a structural deficit. There is a structural deficit. So the first thing this Budget does is it starts the process of fiscal restraint, and that is extremely important. I find the attitude of members opposite towards this bizarre, because on the one hand—and Chris Hipkins is the sort of past master of this—Chris Hipkins says, "Well, Nicola Willis is borrowing all this money—tut, tut, tut. What about all the debt?" In this sort of new-found road to Damascus conversion of the friend of fiscal policy, he pretends to be worried about the debt, and then, on the other hand, he says, "But you're cutting funding to this. You need to increase spending here. What about this? What about that?" He's never seen something that's a Government programme he doesn't want to increase spending on. Well, actually, Government is about hard decisions. Government is about making tough choices, and the last Government pretended that they could just continue to increase spending and never confront trade-offs. As a result, the money hose just kept being spouted and money just continued to flow, to the point where we had an 80 percent increase in spending and we have massive debt that we are going to need to repay. So there are lower allowances in this Budget and we intend to stick to them. We start the process of fiscal restraint and we have gone through, line by line, and made a series of savings as a result of this Budget. Some of those decisions were hard. I've talked publicly about the First Home Grant decision, where we had to make the difficult choice to end first-home grants as low-value expenditure and reprioritise that money to social housing expenditure. Members are sort of crying a bit opposite, but they know I am right when it comes to effective public— Hon Jo Luxton: You're not right. Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Oh, I am right—I am right. This is effective public policy. Subsidising demand for housing does not create new houses. The way in which you create new houses is by fixing the building system, fixing the resource consent system, opening up land— Chlöe Swarbrick: Changing incentives, Bish. Hon CHRIS BISHOP: —and funding infrastructure, and that is what we are focused on. And I know Chlöe Swarbrick agrees with me. Isn't it interesting that the Labour Party have not promised to bring back the First Home Grant? They've criticised us for cutting it, but they have not promised to bring it back, and I find that intriguing. The second thing this Budget does—and it flows from the first—is it reprioritises funding from the back office to the front line. We are unashamed about reducing the size of the bureaucracy and making sure we employ more nurses and doctors and police officers. One of the best investments in this Budget—and I want to give a shout out to the hard-working New Zealand First on this, and my good friend and colleague Casey Costello—is the commitment to hiring 500 new police. We saw the first fruits of that on the weekend with the new police on the beat in our CBDs, and isn't that going to be a wonderful thing? When I go out there into the real world, people say to me, "We want to see cops on the beat. We want to see them walking down our main streets—we want to see them out and about.", and that is a real way of deterring crime in and of itself. That is just one example of the kinds of prudent and sensible investments you can make when you prioritise your resources. When you do the opposite, and you just pretend that money is free and that there's a magical fairy at the bottom of the garden who can just keep inventing money, essentially, you don't confront those tough trade-offs and you end up in the situation we're in, which is a real situation of fiscal crisis where we have to make hard decisions. The other thing this Budget does is deliver tax cuts—tax relief for hard-working New Zealanders. Now, there were a few people out there during the lead-up to the Budget—commonly, they're commentators—saying things like, "Well, the Government should really cancel the tax cuts." It's an interesting proposition—it's an interesting proposition. The thing about that proposition is it would have required the Government to break the central policy that the Government campaigned on. So I just think it's worth reflecting on—I mean, the Labour Party never believed in tax cuts in the first place. They've never seen a tax increase they weren't in favour of and they've never been in favour of tax relief ever—ever. When the Government books are not going so well, they say, "Now is not the time for tax cuts." When the Government books are doing well, they say, "Now is not the time for tax cuts. We should really do something else with the money." You can never win. They'll never be in favour of tax relief, and it goes to the central difference between the parties. On this side of the House, between the ACT Party, the National Party, and the New Zealand First Party, we believe in letting New Zealanders keep more of their own money because it's their money, and we believe they can spend it, generally, better than the Government can. We also believe in this: we believe that after 14 years of fiscal drag, it's time to remedy that situation. More and more people are pushed into higher and higher tax brackets, paying more and more of their money to the Government every year, to the point now where for people on the minimum wage, towards the end of their take-home pay, some of that money is in the middle-income tax brackets. That is wrong. That is crazy. Sensible countries do something about it, and we are now doing that. As I say, the Labour Party need to remember who they purport to represent, because most of these tax relief benefits flow to low and middle income New Zealanders. On average, households benefit by 60 bucks a fortnight; households with children, $78 a fortnight; 94 percent of households will benefit from the tax package in this Budget. I was so proud to see that legislation go through straight away on Budget night, because I know that come 31 July, a huge number of New Zealanders are going to wake up with more in their back pocket as a result of that package. They'll be able to afford things they weren't able to afford before: new school shoes for their kids, music lessons, and actually making it easier to pay the rent on time. Those things are important. That's what the Budget package does, and that's why I commend this Budget package to the House. Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): The Minister, Chris Bishop, who has just sat down, told us that Government is about hard choices. Well, we certainly saw those harsh choices that this Government has made in the Budget that was delivered in what seems like a lifetime ago now, given how much has been written about it. This is a Budget of broken promises, it is a Budget that is taking New Zealand backwards, and it is a Budget that exemplifies the wrong choices that our Government is making on behalf of New Zealanders. Now, New Zealanders were promised much on the campaign trail—not least $250 a fortnight in tax cuts from the National Party on the hustings. What have most New Zealanders who have gone to the calculator to find out what they'll be receiving found? They've found that it is way short of that. And what's more, they've found out they had to start shelling out for bus fares, because the previous investment in having free bus fares has gone. They've found they'll have to be paying for prescriptions again in many cases , because that is a choice that this Government has made to slash the funding in that area. They've found that, in their case, the free lunches in their child's school will be reduced to nothing more than a snack. And these are, once again, things that are going to come out of the back pocket of hard-working New Zealand families. New Zealand families realise the wool was pulled over their eyes and they are worse off as a result of this Budget and not better off. We have a Minister of Finance who is insistent on telling us that she hasn't borrowed for her $10 billion tax-cut package, despite borrowing $12 billion to pay for measures in the Budget. New Zealand's debt as a percentage of GDP has risen. If the Government had not chosen to deliver $10 billion worth of tax cuts, the need to borrow that $12 billion would not exist. But, over and over again, we have a Minister of Finance and a Prime Minister who are intent on telling New Zealanders that black is white and they have not borrowed for their tax cuts. That simply is not true. But what we do see as a result of this Budget is laid bare. I think one of the most interesting reads of any Budget is the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update. That tells us a great deal about what Treasury is saying the impacts of the Budget being delivered are. They tell us that house prices are going to continue to rise. They tell us that there is going to be upward pressure on rents because of the removal of interest deductibility. We also see in the analysis of the Budget that child poverty will rise. These are the results of the Budget and the choices that the members of the Government have made in a Budget that they are delivering to us. We know that it will take so many hard-working New Zealand families backwards and they will be worse off. If I have a look at what this Government is doing in terms of climate—and what they are not doing, more to the point—this is a Government in which the best they can say about their positive vision for addressing climate action is, "Well, we didn't cut that line of the previous Government's work." There is $3 billion worth of initiatives and climate action carved out in this Budget. There is $3 billion of investment that was about securing New Zealand's security, New Zealand jobs, and New Zealand's future that this Government has taken the knife to to pay for tax cuts and give tax benefits to landlords. That's the kind of self-interest we are seeing from members on the other benches. We've seen money to partner with New Zealand businesses to reduce industrial emissions and keep jobs in New Zealand slashed by a Government saying it doesn't want corporate welfare but has absolutely no plans to do anything about industrial allocation of emissions trading credits. What they are saying is they would rather go out and pay other countries $100, $200—who knows how many hundreds—per credit rather than cut emissions at home. Well, I can tell members—the economic geniuses, self-proclaimed, on the other side of the House—the New Zealand Steel deal delivered for New Zealand emissions reductions at $18 a tonne. Go out and find me an international credit anywhere that will deliver emissions reductions so cheaply and will benefit New Zealand in so many ways. But what was laid bare when we had the chance to scrutinise the Minister of Climate Change, the Minister for Energy, and any of the Ministers involved in this work was that is no plan, there is no vision, and, frankly, there is no understanding of how New Zealand needs to get to where it needs to get. We've seen money stripped out of the warmer Kiwi homes programme, a programme that returns so much more than it puts in. We've seen money pulled out of the Community Renewable Energy Fund, a programme put in place by our Government to work with communities to not only generate badly needed renewable electricity but also to create community resilience. Support for the energy, education, and communities programme—a programme that was working with some of the most vulnerable New Zealand households about how to reduce their power bills—is gone because this Government would rather fund $2.9 billion in tax relief for landlords than helping some of our most vulnerable families pay the bills and get by. The just transition programme and any money for us to stimulate a hydrogen industry in New Zealand is gone from a Government with no foresight who thinks economic development is selling houses to each other and then claiming interest deductibility on it. That's the kind of choices that are laid bare in this Budget. One of the things that we do know about the kinds of choices that this Government has made is that they are not interested in what will take New Zealand forwards. It is a Budget that consistently looked over its shoulder. It is a Budget that only is intent on taking New Zealand backwards. And let's look at some of the other markers that just show how far back this Budget is taking New Zealanders. Unemployment, according to the Budget, is due to peak this year at 5.3 percent, and I want everyone just to pause: 5.3 percent doesn't sound like a big number, but that represents hundreds and thousands of New Zealanders who will be without work and that will need to make ends meet. Was there anything in this Budget for them? No, there was not. What we've seen is we've seen the minimum-wage exemption for disabled people cut. There was money actually taken out of the Budget to make sure that we were paying disabled people the minimum wage, and we're told that we can't do that, otherwise disabled people will not be employed. No, they won't. There was money in the Budget to subsidise employers to ensure that dignity of work and good pay could be given to those people. What we are seeing is a set of choices laid bare. It is not, as we would be told by the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister, a Budget that is giving the biggest boost to working people. No, it is not. It is taking working people backwards. It is taking money out of the back pockets of working New Zealanders to pay for $2.9 billion worth of tax relief for our landlords. It is taking money out of our children's future by scrapping climate initiatives. If there was ever a greater testament to the lack of vision and the lack of ambition for New Zealand that a Government could carry, it was contained in the pages of the Budget that was delivered by this Government two or three weeks ago. It is a Budget that will not benefit those that need it the most; it is a Budget that is making the wrong choices and taking us backwards. Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment): The member who resumed her seat doesn't believe that 3.5 million New Zealanders believe tax relief—doesn't believe hard-working New Zealanders should get tax relief. Now, that's a sad place to start because in reality, the Budget that was delivered by the Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, on 30 May prioritised hard-working New Zealanders. I want to tell the House this, because that side of the House does not think those 3.5 million New Zealanders get it. They do. They absolutely get it. They know that each and every day that they are struggling, that they are doing it tough, they know, although we might still see some months ahead, it will actually get better, and they know why. They know, because they voted in a coalition Government at the election last year that they could depend on for delivering their promises. They knew that there was a Minister of Finance who not only delivered a Budget on 30 May but also delivered a mini-Budget before Christmas, literally weeks after coming in, to actually lay the foundations for what our country needs, not just in the days and weeks ahead but the months and years ahead. That side of the House thinks that New Zealanders don't get it. They think New Zealanders don't get it, but, actually, what are they doing at home? They are thinking about how they take more care with their weekly budget, how they balance it. Actually, for far too many it is too tough. Some of them might have to borrow to get through this period of time, but they are not wasting their money on frivolous things that don't lead to a better life for them. The other side of the House don't think that hard-working New Zealanders get what our Government is doing for them. So the 3.5 million New Zealanders who understand—and as Minister Bishop quite rightly laid out, he described it in other terms. I'm going to describe it as the sugar hit—the sugar hit of the previous Government spraying money away around everywhere, not caring whether it landed, not caring whether it actually delivered anything or delivered any outcomes. But you know what it's like when you've had too much sugar. If you stop sugar, it's a crash and you feel rotten, your head hurts, and you feel sick, but actually, once you've got through that period without the sugar, you are actually way better off. That's exactly the period of time. Unfortunately, based on Treasury's forecasts, it could be sort of six months—hopefully not too much longer than that—but this Government is up front with New Zealanders about the position we are in and what we have inherited, but more importantly, the steps we are taking to resolve it. It was fascinating—scrutiny week last week was the opportunity for the Opposition to grill Ministers on their budgets and on their estimates, and gosh, wasn't that surprising. There were actually very, very few opportunities for the Opposition to land a hit, because at the end of the day, New Zealanders everywhere, from one end of this country to the other, are contacting their new MPs—and we've got some fantastic new MPs in this House—and they are contacting Ministers and they are saying, "Keep going. We know the decisions you're taking are tough, but please keep going.", because they absolutely know they are the right decisions. So the member that resumed her seat before me was somewhat interesting when she talked about the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update and the fiscal update that was provided by Treasury and talked about the unemployment rate rising to 5.3 percent. If we can hold it at 5.3 percent, despite these absolutely dire economic situations and circumstances we have inherited, that's actually a win. Here's the thing: despite there being very low unemployment, that side of the House, when they were in Government, managed to clock up an extra 70,000 people on the jobseeker benefit— Hon Member: Outrageous. Hon LOUISE UPSTON: Absolutely outrageous. At a time when many businesses everywhere were desperate for staff, it is just unbelievable that they were so successful in doing that. So instead, this Government lays out a clear plan—it will be ambitious—for reducing the number of people on the jobseeker benefit by 50,000. But if we just picked a number out of the air and said, "Oh, well, sounds like a good number. Sounds like a good slogan."—no, there's a detailed plan that goes with it, because the coalition Government, every Minister, every MP that's working hard on the ground knows that it is our job, even in tough times, to improve the lives of the people we represent. So in social development and employment, it's reducing the number on the jobseeker benefit. So what have we done? First and foremost, we do believe, on this side of the House, that there are rights and responsibilities. If somebody's on the jobseeker benefit, they have the right to get welfare support, but they have the responsibility to take steps that they should be taking to improve their chances of finding a job, so if they don't, there should be a consequence. It's called a sanction. What else have we done to make the welfare system more active? We've introduced Kōrero Mahi, so if somebody signs on for the jobseeker benefit, within two weeks we want them back at a seminar connecting with the Ministry of Social Development talking about what steps they are taking to find a job—actually, not that kind of shocking or stunning, right? When we announced it, one of the journalists was like "But surely that already happens.", and, like, no, unfortunately it doesn't. After signing on for a benefit, somebody could go for up to 12 months with zero contact—zero. So instead, we are a Government that is focused on supporting people into employment. It will be hard, these times, particularly the next six months, and we do recognise in the Treasury documents that the numbers are due to increase. But rather than just say, "Oh, you know, that's tough.", no, we will double our efforts to support more Kiwis into work. That is exactly what this side of the House will do. Another group of New Zealanders that we are supporting in this Budget is of course, disabled New Zealanders. Unfortunately, what we've seen, and this is a classic example, in the creation of Whaikaha - Ministry of Disabled People—the previous Government set it up with a big fanfare and they set these wildly high expectations but actually didn't address the fundamental issues of funding the disability support service that they knew and were in the establishment Cabinet paper yet did nothing. They did nothing to address it, so this Government comes along and inherits a mess. Do we just surrender? No, we are doing the work; we have a review to understand exactly what has happened but more importantly what we need to do to solve it, because disabled New Zealanders, their carers, and their families deserve better than what the previous Government set up the ministry to do. I'm absolutely committed that Whaikaha will be successful. Disabled New Zealanders need them to be. They need us as a coalition Government to deliver better. Whether it's access, whether it's employment, whether it's ensuring there are sufficient care and support workers, our Government is focused on improving the lives of disabled people, their families, and carers. I want to return to where I started and say this is a Government who is absolutely delivering for New Zealanders. So even in challenging times, we focused on New Zealanders being able to keep more of what they earn. The other side of the House doesn't think they deserve it. They don't think they deserve it. It's outrageous—that is absolutely outrageous. They think they can spend it better than taxpayers can. Well, actually, no, we trust and we back New Zealanders. That's why we've allowed 3.5 million New Zealanders to keep their own money, and we will be incredibly careful with what they provide in tax. That's why every Minister has been very careful in looking at expenditure, focusing on the front line—is it delivering results or is it not? Yes, that means some tough choices, but if you think about this Budget, it's delivering more in health, more in education, more in disability, and in keeping our community safe. CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Co-Leader—Green): E te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. There are things that none of us could do alone. There are few New Zealanders who have the individual wealth to build schools or hospitals or pay the $20 billion annual superannuation cost that we have as a country. That is why we form society. It is why we decide to come together to help to pay for things, whether that be the infrastructure or the services that all of us fundamentally agree and value and say that we need. That is the point of a representative democracy—the point of all of us, as 120-odd MPs in this place, coming together to make decisions on behalf of New Zealanders about how we best make decisions in the collective. Unfortunately, the discussion that we are having tonight, on the bill which implements the spending announcements in Budget 2024, is that we are not so much grappling with vision for the future of this country, let alone the present day; what we are grappling with is a shredder. There are no foundations in this Budget for the flourishing or the wellbeing of people or the planet. There are a lot of different places I could start on this, so I'll start just firstly by responding to two Ministers who have so far contributed to this debate—the former, the Hon Louise Upston, who just said she thinks this side of the House thinks that New Zealanders just don't get it. And I'd really like to respond to that point, because this is something which I've been banging on about for the last six or seven years that I've had the privilege of occupying a seat in this Parliament. I think New Zealanders are a heck of a lot smarter than a lot of politicians and a lot of the mainstream media give them credit for. I think New Zealanders can see through a lot of the nonsense and the bluster and the slogans that come out of this place. So I just want to address that right upfront: New Zealanders are actually tired of the nonsense that comes out, probably in most people's perspective, of every single political party that's represented in this place. The best that any of us could do or hope for with the privilege of our position is to engage in a robust, evidence-informed debate. To that effect, I'd just like to put it on the record, for the sake of the House's knowledge, that I wrote to the Minister of Finance in the wake of the Budget and asked for her to carry on with the work that she had promised she would do in Opposition—that is, to pursue the independent policy costings unit, which, of course, the former Minister of Finance, the Hon Grant Robertson, and the Hon James Shaw, as associate finance Minister in our first term, in that relationship with Labour, tried to get across the line but was shot down by National. So we're hoping to revive that for the sake of transparency and independence, so that we can have a meaningful and informed, evidence-based debate on Budgets, least of all on a universal set of figures. Now, there have also been some statements from the likes of the Hon Chris Bishop, who was speaking about how this Budget is occurring in the context of unconventional monetary policy, especially post-COVID-19. For the uninitiated, unconventional monetary policy was the programme by which the Reserve Bank decided to basically print more money— Hon Paul Goldsmith: Money-printing. CHLÖE SWARBRICK: —yes, the Hon Paul Goldsmith—through programmes like the Large Scale Asset Purchase programme and Funding for Lending. Interestingly enough, back in 2020, Treasury and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand advised the Government—and the Greens actually went on about this quite a lot too over the last few years—that the pursual of this unconventional monetary policy without mitigating fiscal policy would result in what the Reserve Bank and Treasury called "distributional impacts" but what the rest of us in the real world call "greater inequality". That is something which the Greens are on the record time and again asking the former Government to meaningfully address. We cannot pretend that what the Reserve Bank did happened in a vacuum back then, and we cannot pretend that what they are doing now also operates in a vacuum. Monetary and fiscal policy are supposed to operate hand in glove. We also heard commentary about the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update, and there's a really interesting point in this, actually—that is that we know, based on the projections from this Government's operating allowance that they've handed themselves, that they have said, in this window of the next two years, they are going to have $2.4 billion of new operating allowances for each of those next two years. But guess what! What Treasury, what the Government's own officials say, is that you need at least $2.5 billion. That's $100 million more than the Government has already allocated themselves just to keep the lights on—that is, with the level of services that New Zealanders are accustomed to and expect. So that might be why it is that we are starting to hear, out of our nurses and our doctors and our medical profession, that there's, effectively, a hiring freeze on at the front line. And do you know what that does? When you don't invest in issues as they arise, those costs accumulate. That is in direct contradiction to all of the bluster and nonsense that we have heard from this Government—that they are somehow good economic or fiscal managers. You don't get to have that reputation simply by saying it, especially when the facts operate in entire contradiction to that. What this Budget does is, in fact, actually set us up for austerity. It sets a bunch of programmes up to fail, so that the Government can ultimately end up cutting those programmes or privatising those programmes. We see hints of that in the changes to the school lunches programme, which takes the average cost per child from approximately $8 to $2. I can point to a number of schools within my constituency who have written and pleaded with the Associate Minister of Education that this will not work for them and asked whether there is any wiggle room or discretion whatsoever. These are the hard choices that the Government keeps telling us about. Its hard choices are to cut school lunches for our kids and to hand $2.9 billion in tax cuts to landlords. Those are some really hard choices for this Government! We're also seeing the can kicked down the road on climate change, and the Hon Megan Woods spoke a little bit about this. Hon Simon Watts: What a load of rubbish. CHLÖE SWARBRICK: I'm so glad that the climate Minister is here in the House to actually hear the recounting of his inability to answer any straightforward questions at scrutiny week last week. We heard from that very climate Minister that the market was working properly, when the emissions trading scheme (ETS) auction failed last week. Do you know what that does? It puts a $700 million hole in their revenue plan and the Budget that is unable to now be directed, not into the Climate Emergency Response Fund—because they cut that; they're not interested in decarbonising industry. What it does is it cuts $700-odd million from the revenue that they need to fund their tax cuts for landlords. Madam Speaker, make it make sense! On top of that, we also heard both from the Minister of Climate Change and from the Minister of Finance that they are still committed to our nationally determined contribution on the Paris Agreement. This is a really important point, and if I can drill into it, because the Minister of Climate Change, of all people, should be interested in this. Our contribution as a country, as one of 196 countries under the Paris Agreement, is to say that we are going to keep below 1.5 degrees of warming. And as the UN Secretary-General put it just this past week, that is not just some airy theory, abstract target; that is the scientific fundamentals for retaining life on Earth as we know it—in fact, the climate necessary for growing food, which this Government constantly tells us it cares about. And do you know what? What we have from the Ministry for the Environment and from Treasury last year, in approximately November 2023, was an estimate paper that they pulled together to try and put some kind of figures on the amount of money that we are liable to be on the hook for, up to the year 2030, as a country, regardless of who's in Government. And do you know what they estimated? Our offshore liabilities are looking to be somewhere between $3.7 billion and $24 billion for offshore mitigation. That is a necessary figure, to the tune of however many billions of dollars, even if we were to meet our very own emissions reductions budgets, that we will have to pay others to reduce their emissions. Meanwhile—riddle me this—this Government has also made decisions knowing full well on their own official advice that their Budget will also increase emissions. But they haven't budgeted for those offshore liabilities, to the tune of billions of dollars to 2030—again, kicking the can down the road on that. And, on top of that, alongside shredding the work programme that was already under way at the Climate Change Commission to price agricultural emissions—the only sector in our economy that is currently not priced under the ETS but also represents 5 percent of our GDP and half of our emissions—they've also set up their own working group to apparently do this work by 2030, which, as we discovered at scrutiny week with the Minister of Climate Change, has no budget allocated to it. They can't tell us the terms of reference, who the members are, or how much this new working group is going to cost. We're left scratching our heads, and, again, in a position where we are dealing with a ticking time bomb, whether it is on the front of climate change or whether it is on the front of inequality or child poverty. There is so much more that could be said about the fact that this Government is just leaving the infrastructural deficit to continue eroding away at the quality of life that New Zealanders deserve. Different choices could be made. And I'd note, interestingly enough, that the Government itself and the Minister of Finance referred to the need for us to do fiscal consolidation. To that effect, there are tons of international bodies, the likes of the International Monetary Fund and the OECD, who have pointed out one of the key things we could do is fix our tax system with a capital gains tax. Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister for Energy): Well, thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to talk about the 2024 Budget, and what a great Budget for New Zealanders this Budget was. It's quite interesting when you follow the Green Party over there, because every single speech they end with has to be "A new tax. A new tax." It's all about more tax. They haven't seen something yet that they don't want to tax. Everything they see, they want to tax, and that's their modus operandi. But this Budget was about tax, and it was about tax relief for hard-working New Zealanders, who, by the way, haven't had tax relief since 2010—14 years. The other side have been happy to let inflation erode people's real incomes, let tax creep continue to take its toll on people's incomes, and they didn't do anything about it. In fact, I think it's really important to note that whilst it's been 14 years since New Zealanders have had tax relief, it would be a lot sooner if the last Government hadn't repealed the tax relief that the last National Government put in place in 2017. Because, of course, in 2017, the Hon Steven Joyce legislated tax relief, and the very, very, very first thing the Labour Party did when they came into power was to repeal the tax relief that New Zealanders had received under that National Government. That is exactly how that last Government operated: tax, tax, tax, spend, spend, spend, and not worry about the future, while this Government is now having to clean up the fiscal mess left behind by the last Government. And what a mess it is, a mess all over the place: the borrowing, the borrowing, and the spending. In fact, us as Ministers, going through our portfolios, having to clean up our portfolios and find the savings and make the tough decisions is exactly what the New Zealand public have been expecting of us. That is exactly why the New Zealand public voted to get rid of that last Government—because they could see the reckless spending that they were going down. Spending like drunken sailors, not worrying about the future, borrowing money and nothing to show for it—nothing to show for it. Then they have the audacity to stand up and say, "Oh, well, we have to be, you know, worrying about the $3 billion iReX project." Well, I'm sorry; again, nothing to show for it. Nothing to show for it, even after six years in Government. So, this Budget was about giving New Zealanders the tax relief that they need to ensure that New Zealanders can address the cost of living crisis. I've heard members on this side speaking in this debate about the pain that New Zealanders are currently feeling—and it is real, it is real. The economy is in a tough position left behind by the last Government who had no plan for the economy, who had no plan other than to tax, spend, borrow, tax, spend, borrow. Well, this Government has inherited that mess and we're having to make the tough decisions, but the first and number one priority for this Government is to provide that tax relief for working families, so that New Zealanders can just keep a little more of what they earn—the principle of keeping a bit more of what they earn. [Interruption] I tell the members on the other side of the House: they don't believe in it; they just want to take it. If they ever get back into Government—if they ever get back into Government—I can guarantee New Zealanders that the first thing they will do is increase taxes. The first thing they will do is increase taxes because that's exactly what every single Labour Government does. They get in and they increase taxes on working New Zealanders. [Interruption] They know it—they know it. They can feel it deep in their hearts. They can feel it. They feel the desire to keep taxing New Zealanders. It's bubbling away as they interject in my speech. They can't wait—but they won't because the public of New Zealand can see right through it. The public of New Zealand won't let them ever get hold of the Treasury benches ever again, because they know that this country has fundamental challenges which need fixing: the cost of living crisis, crime, public services—making sure that public services actually work for New Zealanders—and, of course, infrastructure. I heard the member who sat down just before, Chlöe Swarbrick, talk about the infrastructure deficit. Well, billions of dollars were borrowed, and what have we got to show for it? They cancelled the roads of national significance—gone. We think about the Northland Expressway up to Whangārei—cancelled. No planning done for the last six years. I came in and asked the NZ Transport Agency what major roading projects across the country had been consented. Well, the good news is—the good news—there's one. It's Warkworth to Te Hana, going north of Auckland. The bad news? There's only one: Warkworth to Te Hana. The pipeline of infrastructure was stopped by the last Government, other than, of course, the pretty pictures: the pretty pictures of "Auckland Light Fail" and Let's Get Wellington Moving. The beautiful pictures and slogans which they spent hundreds of millions of dollars on; they couldn't even deliver a business case—they couldn't even deliver a business case. An absolute fail. We have inherited an infrastructure deficit that we are tackling in this year's Budget, and I'm proud of the investment that we're putting into roads, into rail, into fixing the potholes on our roads, improving public transport for New Zealanders. This Budget delivers for infrastructure in New Zealand. As Minister of Transport, of course I'm incredibly proud of the $2.68 billion increase in investment in roads and rail and public transport to support the Government Policy Statement on land transport: another billion dollars to advance the roads of national significance and major public transport projects—isn't that great for the regions of New Zealand where roads are what are critical to unlocking the economic growth and productivity of our country—and $939 million for the recovery of the roads which were damaged by the East Coast, North Island weather events. That is going to make a huge difference to the State highways and the local roads. And $266.9 million for rail in our metropolitan rail networks. This is going to mean that the City Rail Link in Auckland is able to be opened, with the rail rebuild completed in 2026. This is going to make a huge difference to Auckland. For six years, talking about Auckland light fail, whilst the last National Government made the tough decisions to start the City Rail Link, which would double the capacity of our rail network in Auckland. That is real change for our public transport network. That will make a real difference to congestion and getting Aucklanders moving. The last Government didn't even deliver a business case, let alone some pretty pictures. Another $200 million to support KiwiRail to carry out maintenance and renewals of the national rail network; money for the Civil Aviation Authority so we can keep the important work they do going; money for Surf Life Saving in the Coastguard to help them on the critical safety work that they do. We have made a huge investment here as well in decarbonising the bus fleet, which is going to make a big difference in terms of lowering emissions in our public transport system. This additional $2.68 billion goes on top of the already announced draft Government policy statement, which includes over $20 billion of investment in the next three years. I'm proud of the decisions already made by the NZ Transport Agency to invest a 91 percent increase in pothole prevention and maintenance on our State highway network, and an increase of 50 percent of pothole prevention on local roads. It's not just about making sure there's increased funding—we need it—but also making sure that there are outcomes delivering for New Zealanders. We have set very clear expectations around how we want that money to be spent and the targets that we want the agency to be delivering against. This Budget delivers for the infrastructure that New Zealanders need. This Government understands the infrastructure challenges New Zealand has, and we've also set aside an increase in the multi-year capital allowance, increasing it to $7.5 billion because we do know there are other challenges and other decisions that need to be made in terms of infrastructure in the coming years. We've obviously had the conversation earlier today around the ferries; there's other major roading and rail projects and other infrastructure challenges this country faces. We will face up and make the tough decisions, invest in the infrastructure that New Zealanders rely on so we can grow our economy, boost productivity, and help New Zealanders get where they need to go quickly and safely. This Government's Budget delivers for infrastructure. Thank you, Madam Speaker. Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour): A Budget represents a series of choices that are made by a Government. A Budget makes a series of claims about what a Government is doing. But when we dig down into those choices, when we dig down into those claims, then the character of the Government is revealed. What is revealed in this Budget is something that I can only think of as being devious. It is a Budget that alleges that it gives with one hand, and then it takes with away with the other. It makes a whole series of choices that leave ordinary New Zealanders worse off. So they talked up large, they promised they would deliver, but what have they done? Public transport subsidies: gone. Free prescriptions: gone. Bare minimum wages for people with intellectual disabilities: gone. Proper school lunches: gone. The second year of the Apprenticeship Boost: gone. All these things, small amounts—a bit here, a bit there—but they all make a real difference to families. That Government over there talked up large about the tax threshold changes, talked up large about what that might do for families. But, on this side of the House, we've had family after family contact us, sending us messages, talking about the increased cost of public transport, talking about the prescription fees that they will now have to pay, talking about how they will be worse off as a result of the choices that that Government has chosen to make in this Budget. So they've made very small changes, on one hand, in the tax thresholds, and then they have taken them away on the other. Not only that, they have derided—they have derided—ordinary New Zealanders for the things that they choose to spend money on. A Minister talked about the "frivolous" things that people spend money on. Frivolous things like prescription charges, frivolous things like public transport, frivolous things like food for their children—characterised them as "frivolous" things. How outrageous. It is going to be so much tougher for so many people because of this Budget. On Friday evening—Thursday evening or Friday evening— 1Newsfeatured a story about food banks. I took particular notice because Lady Maliena Jones was featured in one of them; she runs a food bank in West Auckland. As it turns out, the Ministry of Social Development sends people along there for food parcels when they need them. On the one hand, people are struggling to get by, looking for Government assistance, but they get sent to a food bank—a food bank which is no longer receiving Government assistance itself. Taking away with one hand—sorry, allegedly giving with one hand, and taking away with the other. It is so hard for people out there. So when we look at this Budget, the word for it is "devious". That deviousness extends right through, into some of the stuff that has gone on in the Budget documents—right into this document I'm holding. Sitting in the Budget document, sitting in the revenue strategy, is a claim that a good tax system is one that rewards effort and individuals' investment in their own skills. Sitting in the regulatory impact statement for the tax threshold changes is the revelation that some people, as a result of this Budget, will face a personal income tax rate of 128 percent. For every single extra dollar they earn, they will be taxed $1.28 because of the changes that have been put in around the tax thresholds and the abatement rates and so on—it's a complicated place in there. But that example, sitting in the Government's own documentation, shows that they do not set out to reward hard work and effort. Instead, they create real barriers for ordinary people. That is a devious Budget. When we dug into the Budget numbers even further, we found that the examples of families were made-up—created through modelling, while someone tapped away on a calculator. They could not tell us how many families would actually receive each of these alleged changes in the tax threshold. Devious hidden charges on ordinary people. This is a shameful Budget. Hon PEENI HENARE (Labour): Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Thank you. First, I want to acknowledge all of our tamariki mokopuna who have descended upon Nelson—beautiful part of the country—who are performing in their national secondary school kapa haka competitions that started today. My nephew performed today. We wish them all the best and we want them to know that they are champions to all of us already. I also want to acknowledge the other champion team—the Blues—much to the disgust of a lot of Wellington members. I am very proud of the Blues team. But I want to come back to the kapa haka. The reason why I want to come back to the kapa haka is that if the members on the other side of the House simply listened to what our young people are saying—and they're performing it on the national stage that took place today and will take place over the next couple of days—they are clearly sending a message to this Government that the cuts, that the direction that this Government is taking this country in isn't the right one for future generations. It is one that looks towards the now and doesn't look towards the future. When we look towards the Budget, what became abundantly clear to members on this side of the House is that there are two ways to make an impact on the Budget if you're in the Government. The first one is to be a Minister and bungle a decision, and then, all of a sudden, the Minister of Finance has to scramble to find money and do a pre-Budget announcement because of a bungle by a Minister. That's one way to do it. The other way to do it is to, simply, break a promise during the election campaign, realise that people's lives depended on that particular promise, realise the mistake, and then, all of a sudden, start scrambling for next year's Budget money and make an announcement around the treatment of cancer patients. This has been a shambolic Budget process from this Government. We heard repackaged Labour announcements introduced again in this Budget. I want to talk about defence. One of the pre-Budget announcements was "Oh, we're going to invest in remuneration.", which is fantastic. We support that. We started a lengthy process to increase remuneration for our New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) personnel. However, the next announcement was "And we are replacing the Pinzgauer and Unimogs." That was already well under way under the Labour Government. In fact, we received the first tranche of those replacement vehicles while still in power. Yet we've had this repackaged, old announcement put into this Budget. The next announcement that came out was: "Oh, we're going to continue an investment into the Linton logistics hub." That was already started, well under way; in fact, the Rt Hon Dame Jacinda Ardern broke ground on that particular project, and it was under way in my tenure as a defence Minister. Now we've seen it repackaged again in the appropriations in the most recent Budget. So that tells me that the defence spending from this Government has decreased. It's simple mathematics. It will decrease to below 1 percent of GDP. Now, on that side of the House, we've heard numerous statements from the Prime Minister and members and Ministers saying that, "We've got to replace the 757s. We value the NZDF; they do this amazing work." They're just not prepared to invest in them. If we found the way that decision making happens in this Government, what we can do is continue to keep the pressure up to make sure that this Government puts their money where their mouth is when it comes to the replacement of the 757s. I heard today from the Prime Minister that we've got to try something new and we've got to try something different. In order to pay for the matters that they've announced in the Budget, they've taken away. One of those things they took away was something new, something different, something innovative, and it was Te Aka Whai Ora. It was made very clear that if you want different results, you had to actually do something different, and that's what Te Aka Whai Ora was. It was the ambulance at the top of the cliff—or the fence at the top of the cliff, in this case—and not the ambulance at the bottom. I'm really saddened by the decision from this Government to cut that and to put the money elsewhere, when I know that that was going to make a significant difference. Some of the words I heard through scrutiny week—cute language, by the way. For example, when questioned on why they were cutting allowances for NZDF personnel to be able to go on and do further study, which is a huge incentive for our NZDF personnel, these were the words that were offered back to me: "We aren't making cuts; we are simply limiting the allowance." Hmm! Cute language, to me. That tells our NZDF personnel that this Government doesn't care about them, will not invest in them, and will not invest in their future, and that can only mean that the NZDF is going backwards. Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Revenue): Well, thank you very much, Madam Speaker. It's an absolute pleasure to be back in the House and listening to the dreary stories coming from the other side. It sort of just makes you remember and go "Well, actually, didn't we just have a Budget, 26 days ago which actually provided significant relief to hard-working New Zealanders?" And that is the case. That was the reality 26 day ago. We had an absolutely superb Budget. Nicola Willis, our finance Minister, delivered on our promises to those families across this country. Hard-working Kiwi families are now going to get hard-earned tax relief after a decade of waiting. And this coalition Government has delivered upon its promise to make that a reality. I'm proud of that. I'm proud to be part of a coalition Government that is delivering because, gee, I must say after six long years of non-delivery and neglect, we are now having to tidy up that mess. But I'm proud that we are, and we are embarking on that process. You know what? The average-income household will be $102 a fortnight better off from 31 July. That is a real addition to those families and for an average-income household it's going to make a real significant impact. What's interesting though—[Interruption] Right; that's pretty reasonable. That's a contribution. Do you think that side of the House voted in support of that happening? Hon Member: Did they? Hon SIMON WATTS: No. No, they didn't. Labour, the Greens, and Te Pāti Māori voted it down, voted against the tax cuts, and that's proof that on that other side of the House, they are not facing the reality of what households in this country are facing. The Budget analysis also showed that 727,000 households will benefit by at least $75 a fortnight and 187,000 will benefit by at least $100 a fortnight. That is a significant element of a contribution versus the status quo. And let's remember, the status quo is no tax relief and it would have been no tax relief under Labour, Greens, and Te Pāti Māori. But this coalition Government has delivered upon the promises that we made. The sum of $3.7 billion is the amount of tax relief that is going back into the back pockets of hard-working Kiwis. And that is real change and real effect for what is an incredibly important part. And I'm pleased to be part of a Government that has delivered that aspect. I also am proud as the Minister of Revenue that the Inland Revenue Department, who have responsibility to make this a reality, are working very hard to be prepared to do that. They're doing a great job, and I am looking forward to a matter of weeks away when that money starts to flow into the back pockets of those individuals in particular, and that is going to be great. The other aspect, in regard to the relief that we provided, was also in the area of FamilyBoost, and that is acknowledging that a significant element of the amount of money that families with young children spend is on early childhood education—a significant amount. And again, this Government heard and listened in terms of the challenges and pressures that those families were under and took the leadership required to be able to provide relief to those families. And so, again, they are going to be able to claim up to about $900 or so a quarter to be able to provide relief to pay for those funds. And that is targeted again to families under a household income of $180 grand. And that is real. That is real money going into the back pockets. Again, in comparison to the status quo of what was being offered on that other side, that was zero. And so that is the reality again for that aspect. The other aspect in terms of the Budget that has been announced previously, as we've noted, is that it was against the backdrop of some pretty significant fiscal mismanagement. I mean, it's hard to sort of explain the reality of what we have inherited in regard to fiscal mismanagement. But every corner you turn, or one turns, there is a significant amount of challenges and issues, and there is wastage all over the place. But this Budget is a clean-up job. It is a clean-up job to make sure that after six years of New Zealand being neglected financially, we are able to start turning around that economic mismanagement and get back on the tracks to making sure that this economy will grow and prosper. And hard-working Kiwis who do that hard work for this country are going to be rewarded as part of that. And that is the right outcome for them. In regard to some of the key elements within this Budget, there is $1 billion for cyclone relief and resilience. I acknowledge the Hon Mark Mitchell for the work that he does in that portfolio—really, really important. But I tell you what, Minister Mark Mitchell has been on the ground in the regions, continuously working with those communities and $1 billion to sort that is significant. And I acknowledge the work that you have done. On my left, or on my right, we've got the investment of $2.5 billion of investment in roads, rails, and public transport. The Hon Simeon Brown has led that, and he has inherited a basket case. I think that's probably the most polite way that you could explain what he has inherited. But he has delivered $2.5 billion of investment, and I know that people in my community of the North Shore and in Auckland and around this country are thankful for the fact that they have actually got, at long last, someone in that seat that actually knows what they're doing, are going to deliver for hard working Kiwis, and get more roads built for this country to let this economy get ahead. Isn't that great to hear. Law and order: well, again, jeez, Mark Mitchell is doing a sterling job in that area with $2.92 billion of extra funding to restore law and order; $69 million of youth offending funding; $194 billion in terms of corrections, and $226 million importantly—importantly—on 500 additional police. I acknowledge the announcements you've also made this week about more police on the beat, because I know my community in the North Shore are sick and tired of the crims working like they run our streets. Well, I'm sorry, Minister Mark Mitchell is now back. We have got funding of $2.93 billion extra funding—crims, we're coming to get you and your period of the happy life is over, and Mark's going to deal with that and make sure the funding's there. So those are just a couple of the examples which show the importance. But in my portfolio of climate change, I am very proud that we have been able to ensure that we've got additional funding, particularly in the areas of climate adaptation. We know the implications of the impacts of climate change in our regions, in our provinces, in our cities. We saw that last year with the Auckland floods in the aspects around Tairāwhiti, Hawke's Bay, and Gisborne, etc., and $200 million for flood resilience is an excellent start in what is going to be an area that we are going to need to continue to invest in. It's $2.6 billion of climate change investment that we have continued. We've done an assessment in terms of what was being spent previously. I'll be clear: we did stop quite a lot because it wasn't adding any value. It wasn't reducing emissions. On this side of the House, we are focused on outcomes and reducing emissions, and we've got $2.6 billion to make sure that we deliver on that. We are going to be releasing a clear plan in terms of how we deal with the actions around climate change in a matter of weeks. We do have a plan and we do have a strategy, and that is two things that the other side didn't have. So I can tell you what: who owns climate change and who is taking action and who is going to deliver the outcomes? This side of the House are making the implications and the actions required. And they know it. You can hear them, they know this—they know the reality. I am proud to be able to be part of that and the investment in this Budget is making that a reality. So we've covered off a number of key aspects in regards to that—just a flavour, just a sampler, a sampler within that Budget, and I didn't even talk about education. In education, under Minister Erica Stanford, there's $2.93 billion of additional investment to lift educational achievement, and, my goodness, hasn't it dropped over the last six years? But Erica Stanford's back in that seat, she is getting into that area, and as a father of young children within the education system, I am, again, proud that we are investing in order to lift educational achievement. I'll tell you what, what all that sums up, what all of that says to me and to New Zealanders, no doubt, is that this Government is getting this country back on track. And isn't that a great thing. Isn't it great to be part of a Government that's getting stuff done, getting stuff done that matters to hard working Kiwis and getting our country back on track, and that is why I'm proud to be part of this Government. LAURA TRASK (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. This Budget lays the foundation of what ACT campaigned for—real change.You know, travelling up and down the country campaigning, there were two key issues that New Zealanders were facing: cost of living, and crime. I'm very proud to say that this Budget addresses those things. This Budget is for the change-makers of New Zealand, those people who wake up before dawn to tend to the farm, the people who take a risk to start their own businesses, and the parents who send their children off to school expecting a world-class education. My kids were here during the Budget urgency, and when I asked them about what they would do in their Budget, they said, "Free ice cream for all kids." Well, guess what, kids? We've got something better than that; we've got $153.3 million to establish charter schools to give you a real good, quality choice when it comes to your education. This Budget brings back charter schools to finally give New Zealand families a real choice when it comes to their education. One size does not always fit all, and charter schools will provide the ability for communities to innovate, create education facilities that work for their children—Māori, Pacific, rural; any community you can think of. Communities know what our children need, and now we will unlock their ability to do so. Of course, the Labour Party revelled when they shut down our charter schools, because they believe that the unions and the Post Primary Teachers' Association (PPTA) know what works for children's education more than the communities of the children in question. I'll listen to the success stories of the children who felt betrayed by the public school system and went on to charter schools and realised their true potential over the PPTA any day. There is $477.6 million to continue the healthy school lunch programme for two years. All of this drama created by the Opposition that we were axing the free lunches for school was just a big ruse. The reality is we were actually saving the programme. The previous Government didn't even budget or forecast for the coming years. It was a fiscal cliff, like many that the previous Government left us. Not only is the programme continuing but it's going to be more efficient and more cost-effective. After the many years of economic vandalism committed by the Ardern and Hipkins - led Government, we are finally on the right track to empowering our economy once again and supporting Kiwis where it really counts. For the first time in 14 years, we have delivered tax relief to hard-working New Zealanders, letting Kiwis decide how they spend their own money. Radical isn't it, guys? The Labour Party would disagree with this, thinking that they know better than Kiwis when it comes to how they spend their money. Well, the election results show us that Kiwis are sick of this mind-set. The Government is doing what Kiwi families have been doing—tightening our belts. We're cutting the back-office bureaucracy bloat in the Public Service, and we're getting back to the core focus on outcomes for New Zealanders. The ACT Ministers have been finding savings everywhere. Just to name a couple, in internal affairs, the Hon Brooke van Velden saved $421 million, eliminating unnecessary programmes and expensive initiatives such as three waters and fair-pay agreements. Oranga Tamariki: the Hon Karen Chhour shifted the focus to front-line staff, saving $319.6 million. Education savings: the Hon David Seymour saved $107 million in the school lunch programme. And this is just some of the savings that we have. We are cutting the bureaucracy and red tape across this country; removing agricultural emissions from the emissions trading scheme; bringing back mortgage interest deductibility because, guess what, owning a property and renting it is actually a business and you should be entitled to the benefits of running a business; opening up education opportunities with charter schools, bringing back three strikes; and much, much more in order to get New Zealand back on the right path. There is $668.7 million to address youth offending, including a military-style academy pilot. Crime has been out of control in New Zealand. In my suburb alone, robberies and ram raids have just gone out of control under the last Government. Cashmere, Z; the Warehouse, Barrington; Mobil, St Martins; Hornby Mall, Subway, Wigram are just some of the places that have been affected. "Between January 2017 and January 2024, there was a total of 2,186 ram raids," Chris Cahill, the New Zealand Police Association president, was quoted last year as saying in response to youth crime in Christchurch. Police are really struggling to deal with this recidivist group of the most serious offenders. Front-line officers feel hamstrung. Well, guess what? Six years of cuddling criminals and playing tag and release is over under this Government. We are calling time on the free ride home after a hard night ram raiding, creating harm and destruction within our communities. Serious youth offenders will now be held accountable for repetitive criminal behaviours, and our children's Minister, the Hon Karen Chhour, has done an excellent job in this space. Her announcement on Sunday shows how committed she is to giving our young people the right path and a brighter, more productive, and more positive future. We will never accept that it is a normal part of New Zealand life to see headlines about children as young as 11 involved in ram raids. In Christchurch there were some kids as young as eight even, which is actually quite outrageous. ACT will always go further, whether it is spending reduction or tax reduction. However, we can say with confidence that this Government's Budget has gone further with ACT as a leader in the team. This Budget is not for the politicians but for you, the New Zealanders, the change-makers who innovate, achieve, and work tirelessly to build a better life, a better country, and a better future for New Zealand. So thank you, Madam Speaker. Hon Paul Goldsmith: Mr Speaker—Madam Speaker. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): I call the late Hon Paul Goldsmith. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Justice): Well, I thought I had three minutes to go and here we go. It's great to be here talking in this Budget debate after what has been, I think, a very well received Budget up and down this country, where people have noticed the feel and experienced the pressures that are on many households after a long period of slow growth with higher interest rates and inflation that we've experienced as a country for a long while now. We now have a new Government that is determined to change that and turn that around. But first get inflation under control, which, longer term, leads to lower interest rates and allows people to get more for their money—their weekly pay packet—after all the housing costs that they experience. So that's the primary reason why this Budget has been a very disciplined Budget after a period of ill-discipline from that fellow called Grant Robertson, that used to hold that post. Secondly, for the first time in 14 years, this Government under Nicola Willis, with the leadership of Christopher Luxon and the rest of the coalition team, including my good friend and colleague Shane Jones sitting down the aisle there, is about offering the first tax relief in 14 years so that New Zealanders have more money in their pockets. A lot of people have had adjustments for inflation over the last few years, apart from taxpayers, and they've had to pay more and more. Now, I'm keen to talk about the investment in restoring law and order in this country that comes from this Budget, because the number one issue on the doorsteps was a concern around the cost of living, particularly in Auckland and the Waikato and the northern parts of New Zealand, but also around many parts of New Zealand was a concern around law and order and public safety. People want to feel safe in their communities, and they keep seeing ram raids, retail crime, violent crime increasing, gangs intimidating the population and taking over towns, and they feel unsafe and they're concerned about the safety of their community. They want a firmer response, and that's what this Government is delivering through its legislative programme and what it has allowed for in its Budget through extra resources for the police in order to go and catch people. Because one of the most important ways to deal with violent crime—we have a target to reduce the number of victims of crime by 20 percent—is to increase the chances of being caught, and, secondly, once you're caught, being held to account. The first part of that is about giving extra resources to the police to go out there—500 extra police out on the streets—and making it more likely that people are going to be caught. Secondly, of course, we heard the refrain time and time again when we visited the victims of crime, when we go the dairies, when we go to the sports shops and the many other retailers around the place who have been the victims of violent crime—the number one message that we hear over and again is, "Well, there's just no consequences. These kids, they caused $50,000 worth of damage to my shop. My insurance has gone up. I've been knocked about. We live in fear. We're feeling put upon and we're working our guts out trying to just make a go of this country and make a living to look after our kids and we're getting set upon time and time in by the same mob and there's no consequences for them." So we heard that message and we want to change that. That's why we're making changes in so many areas, such as stopping the gravy train cottage industry around cultural reports that have happened. Secondly, we're giving the police the extra powers that they need to go after gangs, banning gang patches, stopping them sort of gathering in groups, being able to give extra powers to deal with organising crime, and also dealing with the firearms that so threaten our safety in our society. Then we're going to bring back the three-strikes legislation. Now, one of the consequences of bringing three strikes is that it holds our worst repeat offenders in custody, out of harm's way, for longer. That's the purpose of it: that if you are a repeat serious offender who has had violent crimes over an extended period of time, we want you off the street so that you can create fewer victims. That's the purpose of it and that's what we're going to do. Then, secondly, we're going to deal with the youth crime situation that we've inherited. Even—what was the name, Jacinda Ardern? Even Jacinda Ardern admitted that we need extra tools to deal with the repeat youth offenders. Because it's blindingly obvious to everybody that there is a small group—I've got four young people in my family; most people in this country, most young people don't go anywhere near the court system. Actually, overall, youth crime has been falling over the last few decades. Most people do well; they don't get in trouble. Everything's fine. There's a small group who do get in trouble and for the majority of that group, the light-touch rehabilitative focus approach that we have—not dragging them through the courts, but actually giving them every opportunity to recognise the gravity of what they'd done and move on—works well. So the vast majority never go near the courts and the vast majority of the ones that do get into trouble, they do it once and they're never seen or heard of again. So the light-touch system works. But there is a small group—a small group—where that doesn't work. They are the serious repeat youth offenders who are doing the ram raids in our community, bringing in aggravated attacks with hammers, and causing chaos in our retail space in particular. That's the group where we need some different tools, and that's why we're introducing the Young Serious Offender category which dials up the consequences for them. It may, instead of a pat on the head and "We'll see you again next weekend", be an ankle bracelet or it might be juvenile facilities because there has to be consequences for serious crime. Secondly, we're providing for some military academies. Again, it's a different approach, another tool, that the judiciary can use. Now, people will say, "Oh well, you're only interested in punitive reactions." Well, yes, a little bit of punitive reaction is required, but nobody has ever suggested that's the only thing we're doing, because we're also focused on dealing with those long-term issues of crime. But you got to do both: you can't do one or the other. You can't just focus on long-term issues and think that everything is going to be solved, because you've got to deal with the problem right here, right now, on our streets and in our shops—those who are wielding the claw hammer and causing the damage. But long term, we've got to deal with a catastrophic rise in truancy that we've seen and the fact that 3,000 kids are waking up in emergency accommodation. And we need to work on those long-term housing, mental health, and addiction issues as well. So that's what this Government is certainly focused on. I just want to also just mention the arts before the end of my speech. I just want to just make the point that against a strong ripping tide where it has been a tough Budget, we held our ground. One of the great contributions we made was through Te Matatini and the kapa haka, and I was up in Ruatōria and I met with Tā Selwyn Parata this weekend and they're very proud of that and we're pleased to make that contribution. Thank you, Mr Speaker. Hon SHANE JONES (NZ First): My contribution to this debate is framed in the way I grew up—a product from the school of hard knocks. This Budget most certainly was designed to enable us to put our hands around the throat of expansionary expenditure of an operational nature. Now, just remember where we've come from: monetary policy that sunk to a global low; money printed as if a fiddler's elbow was turbocharged; fiscal policy that was loose as a goose. The Budget now is constructed in very straitened circumstances: number one, there is no monetary saviour coming our way. It's evident from the Governor of the Reserve Bank that he is going to hold the line and interest rates are only going to drop bit by bit. And the Crown, through this Budget, is confronted by the fact that if we continue the profligate approach enjoyed by the last regime, the ratings agencies will come knocking. So, then, what is the Government to do? First, strip unnecessary regulatory barriers from those who are willing to invest—boost their confidence, grow the certainty so that they will invest. How do we do that? As reflected in the expenditure items of the Budget, move on with a far more permissive resource management process that gives people the confidence when they make a commitment, they'll actually get an approval before they get the gold card. Secondly, give a greater degree of confidence to people that already have businesses that they will actually be able to invest without suffering too many penalties. And what's the response to that? The response is the fast-track bill, which, by the way, now has a majority of New Zealanders supporting it. Forget about all the apocryphal tales from the other side of the House. Forget about the fact that they left the deadweight hand of bureaucracy upon the economy. We are stripping all that away and we are introducing investors back to our natural legacy of mining, of fishing, of horticulture, where we are going to meet what the world wants. The world wants food, the world wants rare minerals. Now, of course, I can hear it now. My opponents, large in volume, small in number, will cry that somehow we're compromising Papatūānuku by actually going on to the Department of Conservation (DOC) estate and mining. The DOC estate covers an inordinate amount of New Zealand and it's overrun by rats and weasels and pests, etc. It's tailor-made for a new approach so that extractive sector investments can take place in appropriate places on the DOC estate, and this Budget, by contributing to the costs of passing the fast-track legislation, improving the Resource Management Act, is going to deliver an overdue dividend for regional New Zealand. Yes, there will be a loud number of minority voices, but they are only a tiny fraction of the New Zealand public. Yes, there were people covered in Gaza scarves and other such detritus walking up Queen Street. They don't represent New Zealand. They represent that tiny portion of the public who want to dislodge this Government. We are not going to allow the economy to be continually assailed by all of these catastrophising stories. We are going to turn on the engines of growth. How we're going to do that is not only through stripping red tape; we are going to work on a process of co-investment. And it falls to me, with my characteristic modesty, to remind everyone that we have the $1.2 billion fund which will help boost the productivity, develop the resilience of the regions of our motu. Now, there were a few critics who didn't quite like the administration of an earlier fund. Fortunately, now they're my dearest friends. In fact, I feel a whole lot of applications coming from certain members who may have had a doubting Thomas approach in the past. Oh, the winds of change, they do bring various beneficial offerings from time to time. Another thing I'd like to focus on is that we can't create a prosperous economy unless we modernise our infrastructure. But how do we modernise our infrastructure unless we can give investors, contractors, a sense of confidence that they'll not only get an approval but there is an agenda to blend private and public capital to accelerate the delivery of infrastructure. But what is the community looking for, in a commercial sense? It's looking for a long-term, broad range of projects so that capital can be mobilised, labour can be mobilised. And we have a long-term pipeline that will be delivered through the fast-track legislation which is wending its way through the Environment Committee. And as I said to a number of loud but largely dislocated voices in Thames the other day, improvements—I don't want to mention any names— Hon Mark Mitchell: Catherine. Hon SHANE JONES: Apparently I'm not allowed to refer to that person by that name. But those who were present, and in particular the person that you mention, their criticism of modernising infrastructure, I've described as belonging to the "Flintstone School of Economics". And what is their response when I go out and I actually meet with that tiny minority of loud Luddites who do not want us to develop mining, who do not want oil and gas? What do they say to me? Something akin to "yabba dabba do". We cannot back down when our economic circumstances are so dire. I want to finish my contribution off on the Māori side, beyond this Budget. The Waitangi Tribunal is overdue for a haircut, what we call in Kaitaia a kinacut. It not only needs better members, it needs a writ that brings it up sharp very quickly. In my view, it has no business entertaining concepts or undertaking inquiries to do with the constitution. That's the business of directly elected parliamentarians such as ourselves. So I look forward, during the course of the life of this Budget, to work taking place to bring the Waitangi Tribunal to a spot where, hopefully, both sides of the House can accept that it may have a role, but it is not the wandering, not the convolvulus, not the expansionary writ it is giving itself. And stop saying that the Treaty should only be known as Te Tiriti. The Treaty of Waitangi cannot be dismembered. The Treaty of Waitangi is a bilingual, bicultural, inseparable document. And this dangerous ideology pushed around by the party who's currently engulfed in about five or six reviews—so they're going to be busy on other matters for a while to come—should not gather traction in terms of how we view the future. Similarly, a change that no doubt will be ushered through during the course of this Budget, paid for by this Budget, will be reframing what is the extent, what is the width and the breadth of the seabed and foreshore legislation. That legislation, decisions made under that legislation, cannot continue if they have the effect of chilling, undermining, infrastructure development. The notion that when we expand our ports, as is the case of Tauranga, they are consistently and constantly having to pay a toll in order to keep the local claimants of the Takutai Moana brigade happy is not only offensive, it must be halted immediately. The final thing I'd say on this matter to do with Māori elements and the Budget: co-governance is gone, co-investment is in. If you want to know one reason why we're sitting here and they're sitting there, they allowed that viral, intimidating, undermining policy of co-governance to go into the recesses both of the State and policy where it didn't belong. Consequently, it will no longer blight or undermine the delivery of policy. I say again, the Treaty, our citizenship, is indivisible. Kia ora tātou. Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Labour): Here's four things about this Budget's impact on the health system that all New Zealanders need to know. The first is that the Government has been shamed into keeping its cancer medicine promise. I want to shout out to all the patient advocates who held their feet to the fire for three long weeks post-Budget, who demanded that they meet their commitments, and who pointed out the cruel and manipulative thing that has been done: making a promise to people with terminal illness during the election campaign and not following through. But has it kept its promise? Actually, no. It is not purchasing the 13 named medicines. It's giving Pharmac medicine to work down the options for investment list. Whose promise was that? That was Labour's promise. In fact, when I went up and down the country with Dr Reti, pointing out the problems with his commitment, pointing out that he had left out haematology patients, pointing out that it would undermine the independence of Pharmac, pointing out that it would reduce the ability to strike a good deal, what did he do? He ignored it. What did he do when he came into Government? He ignored it. He persisted with his idea that he could do things differently. What was he saying at the Health Committee up until a few days ago? That he was going to do this some other way, that he was still contemplating an alternative. Well, every single week he did that, meant people didn't get their medicines. It was foolish and it was unnecessary. Now, it's left the finance Minister in the position of rewriting Budget 2025 three weeks after she's delivered Budget 2024. This is a coalition of chaos. The second thing you need to know is that funding for the health system has come down in real terms. Each New Zealander is getting 4 percent less spent on them in their healthcare than they were in the last Budget. That is because the Government did not take new advice on the true cost pressures on the health system when they came into Government. Te Whatu Ora told us at annual review that the true cost pressures have increased from those estimated before the election, but the Government didn't fund it. The Minister of Health couldn't give a straight answer to our select committee on that, but the Council of Trade Unions have done the work: a 4 percent cut for every New Zealander. The third thing every New Zealander needs to know about the health system in this Budget is that as a result of the previous funding cut, there is a hiring freeze in public hospitals, there is a hiring freeze for back-office staff. That means that doctors and nurses are having to find their own notes, schedule their own clinics, do all the admin that takes them away from caring for people. We also hear reports of clinical vacancies, front-line roles being cut, vacancies not being filled, critical shortages at Palmerston North oncology department not being filled. Remember the promise that this Government was going to put money towards the front line? Well, it seems like that is not the case in the health system. There's a surgical hospital on the North Shore of Auckland that they cannot staff because of this hiring freeze in public hospitals, and when they do staff it, they're going to move staff from one ward, in an existing hospital, to another. There'll be no increase in capacity. Half the funding for medical students they promised—no nursing and midwifery bonding scheme. By the way, if you're a graduate nurse, the Government can't give a clear answer on what your chance of getting a job in a New Zealand hospital is. It's a disgrace. This Government campaigned on their being a workforce crisis, and now the workforce is going backwards. The fourth thing you need to know is that it's going to cost you more to go to the doctor—that's right. Dr Reti made lots of hints about funding primary care more, the ACT Party campaigned on a 13 percent increase for primary care, and what have they delivered? Four percent. And practices are allowed to, in compensation, put their prices up. So that's costs on to the people at home—you're going to pay more to go to the doctor because of this Government's underfunding of the health system. Now, look, I get it—running the health system is hard. We face so many challenges: with the workforce, with rising demand. It is a very tough job. In that situation, why wouldn't you use the best science and expert advice to run the system better? Why wouldn't you keep world-changing smoke-free legislation so that you'd have fewer people coming in for smoking-related illnesses? Why wouldn't you keep free prescriptions? Why wouldn't you support nutritious, healthy lunches? This Budget is taking New Zealand and its health system backwards. Hon JAN TINETTI (Labour): Very much like what's happening in the health system, the education system is also suffering from this Budget. It's only just on an hour ago, when I was talking to a parents' support group of young people with neurodiverse needs, that they were practically crying on that Zoom call to me about the lack of support that they have seen in this Budget for them and their young people. In fact, many of them on that call said to me that this Budget has nothing that will encourage inclusion in their young people's learning pathways. It was a real, real shame, and I felt such sadness for those people, of the experiences that their young people are facing at the moment, and them as parents as they're moving towards inclusion. One of the aspects that I think is absolutely criminal is the letting go of the people that have been supporting them and their young people towards an inclusive education pathway over the last few years. They talked about the work that had been done by the Ministry of Education and Whaikaha to build together towards that very much inclusive system—a system where we want to see young people in their mainstream classrooms, where their teachers understand the needs of those young people, where the support staff understand and are able to include those young people in every aspect of the schooling life, and, particularly, where those young people feel valued and where they have success in their schooling. That work had been ongoing, work that had come out of the Highest Needs Review, and yet we know from speaking to the people that were at the Ministry of Education who were leading that work that those people have been let go. I got very—well, non-answers last week from the Minister and the Ministry of Education about where that work is heading. In fact, in this Budget, when you look at target students as a whole, there is $5 million less in this Budget than what there was in the last Budget for our target students. That does not sound to me like a Government that is committed to inclusion and to making certain that every young person in the schooling system, in the education system, will experience success. Also, Madam Speaker, I heard exactly the same in your home patch yesterday when I was in Hokitika and Greymouth. Principals said to me that they could see nothing in there that was for the young people that they are seeing constantly, on a daily basis, coming through the doors of their schools, and they felt aggrieved that there was no support that was coming through that would help those young people be included within the schooling space, but also to support the teachers with the professional development for those young people. Yet we hear constantly this stream that "We're a Government that's committed to including all young people and to learning support." I'm calling on that—that is not right. When you're seeing that a Budget has $5 million less than the last Budget, that is not a Government that is committed to learning support in this country. Then we see that there is no money for that but we have $153 million set aside for charter schools—privatisation by a slow drip. We hear this political distraction: "That will help those young people that don't fit into school." Well, we're talking about a very small student population, but we also know that there's already people that are lining up and companies lining up to put their interests forward in becoming part of those charter schools—companies that are already making money out of early childhood, which isn't a slow drip of privatisation; it's a very fast drip of privatisation in this country. It scares me and so many other people that are very heavily involved in education that we would see this coming through into the compulsory sector as well. This is going to be the biggest undermining of a quality public education that we would ever see, and I am very much committed to fighting for that quality public education system. How can anybody justify spending that amount of money on a very small number of young people who possibly would succeed in school anyway over those young people who are really struggling to be included in the schooling pathways? Then the speaker prior to me, my colleague, talked about the school lunches. I spoke to people in Dobson yesterday about the school lunches and how much of a difference it makes to their young people. Next year, the year 7 and 8 in those schools are going to go without those lunches where the year 0 to 6s will continue on. That is not right. Those year 7 and 8s will be excluded from a programme that is making a huge difference to them at this point in time. It's gone from a lunch to a snack. This Budget is taking education backwards. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Members, this debate is interrupted. We will suspend for the dinner break and resume at 7.30. Thank you. Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. …