Imprest Supply (First for 2026/27) Bill

Imprest Supply (First for 2026/27) Bill Second Reading Debate resumed. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Members, the House is resumed. We are on the Appropriation (2025/26 Supplementary Estimates) Bill, second reading. Call number five, which I believe is a New Zealand First call. Dr DAVID WILSON (NZ First) (09:00): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise today on behalf of New Zealand First to speak to the Appropriation (2025/26 Supplementary Estimates) Bill and Imprest Supply (First for 2026/27) Bill. I might start by saying that a previous speaker has opened up the whole debate around our political economic approach to this kind of management of the economy, and since that has been brought up, I felt like we needed to defend ourselves somewhat in this debate, and then we’ll get back to the bill like others did. Aside from the personal attack on one of the members in the National Party, we’ll look straight through that and straight past that because it’s not really relevant. But we’ll try and get some of the Greens out of their locked-in little echo chamber. I’ll start with a saying—a famous saying—“Jealousy is the tribute mediocrity pays to genius.” So let’s just have a little look at the Green Party’s approach to this debate yesterday. Let’s talk about tax—wealth tax, trust tax, what you commonly know as inheritance tax, otherwise known as death tax—[Interruption] ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Just for the members to note, because I was in the Chamber last night where the Speaker did want members to focus on the bill, you can reference things that were said by others in the debate, but I would then ask the member to quickly go back to the bill itself. Thank you. Dr DAVID WILSON: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I feel the right of reply is needed considering we were actually criticised last night. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Yes, a nice quick one though. Dr DAVID WILSON: If we’re looking at a range of tax, well, we know that certain members of the Parliament don’t like boomers very much, but you have worked all of your life to get to a tax-free position in owning your house and someone wants to tax you for that. It’s called a wealth tax. It’s not only wealth tax when you think about it for farmers. Think about that in terms of how hard they have worked all of their lives with their hands—not much with their mouths, right?—getting to a position where they actually have made a success of their life. So that’s just fantastic, isn’t it, when they work so hard to get to that position and, “Oh, hello, let’s have a crack at their wealth tax; let’s have a crack at their inheritance tax; let’s have a crack at the trust they’ve set up for their families for the future.” Actually, tax, tax, tax, tax. Small business, you’re not exempt. I’m sorry, small business, you’re in trouble too, because you’ve worked hard on your small business and got it to a position where you’re actually not owing that much money; “Oh, wealth tax.” Savers, you’re not exempt either. You’ve been saving diligently all of your life, putting your money away; you’re actually going to be subject to a double tax. Not only have you had your income taxed and you have saved, they want to tax your wealth at the end of that as well. So they’ll tax you when you save, they’ll tax you when you succeed, they’ll tax you when you work hard, they’ll tax you when you’re alive, and then they’ll tax you when you’re dead. Right, this is not a good story. This really sums up the communist Green manifesto, and the outcome that they want to achieve is that we will all be equal—we’ll all be equally poor. That’s the end of that kind of approach. Now, listen, I can equally take on the Labour Party with their political economy, even have a debate with my friends from the ACT Party about their political economy. We’re not going do that because the Speaker has told me to get to the point—thank you, Mr Speaker. But the one final thing I will say is what you have here—the sum of that—is what the economists call a dead weight on the economy. It’s a dead weight on initiative; it’s a dead weight on work; it’s a dead weight on innovation, and, actually, you need to go and see what some of those people who have succeeded actually provide in benefits towards the economy through jobs, through growth, through opportunity. We’re about growing the economy. That’s what we want, and you can watch this space because we’ll show you how to do it. This bill, really, is about things like ensuring that everybody gets their winter payments and superannuation keeps going. It’s a tidy-up for the Budget, business of Government, practical, demonstrated, prudent. Thank you, Mr Speaker. We commend the bill to the House. FRANCISCO HERNANDEZ (Green) (09:05): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I will do something radical in this debate and actually talk about the bill. I want to turn in particular to pages 22 and 23 of the appropriations where I’ll be concentrating the bulk of the remarks on my speech. The first thing that I wanted to concentrate on is the departmental output expenses on the Government Digital Delivery Agency—the appropriations that have been selected for that. I think that budget line enables me to talk about what the Government Digital Delivery Agency is being set up to do, which is to facilitate the rollout of digital technology in the Public Service, including the use of artificial intelligence. It’s a really hot topic at the moment, artificial intelligence, and rightfully so. There’s contested debate around artificial intelligence, including the role of data centres and the potential negative environmental impacts of AI use, including water consumption, energy consumption, and things of that nature. I think those are all valid critiques that people have. Another aspect of the critique around the use of AI has also been the potential for automated systems and artificial decision-making to override human decision-making, which would be a dangerous precedent. I think one of the things that people do rightfully have concerns about is the role of accountability when an AI makes a decision. I mean, we’ve seen, at least with human decision-making, when someone makes a mistake, there is usually a chain of custody. There’s usually a chain of responsibility for people that are then able to be held to account. We saw a classic example of that yesterday when everyone in the House—all the parties—united to condemn how the House had been misled, effectively, by Immigration New Zealand around the issue of the biometrics processing. I do think that people were able to be held responsible on that because it was made by humans, fundamentally. When we do shift to a system that is run by, or that AI have a better hand in, the chain of responsibility gets more complicated. If an artificial system makes a mistake, if automated decision-making makes a mistake, do you hold to account the Minister who transitioned the Public Service to artificial intelligence? Do you hold to account the chief executive who let that happen? Do you hold to account the staffers that generated the prompt? Or do you hold to account the company that uses these large language models to make these decisions? It’s a really contested field, and I do think, while we don’t necessarily support the replacement of public servants with AI, the Government Digital Delivery Agency, we acknowledge, has a role to answer some of these tricky questions and develop guidelines for artificial intelligence use within the Public Service because it is something that we can’t bury our head in the sand. It is increasingly going to become rolled out right across the country, and it will increasingly become one of the most contested terrains of the future. We already saw the Trump administration block the export use of Fable, one of the most powerful models that were developed by Anthropic. Now, what that does raise is raise questions around the issue of data sovereignty as well. If, through the use of AI in the Public Service, we are outsourcing our AI capacity to private companies that can then withdraw from the Government this capacity that we have paid for, because of pressures from foreign administrations, for example, then that could potentially grind our entire Public Service to a halt, just from a single action. When we are considering the use of AI in the Public Service, when we are considering AI technology as it gets deployed across the board, we need to keep these questions in mind. The Government’s digital delivery agency is rightfully the place where that will get rolled out and thought about across the Public Service. I also encourage colleagues across the House to engage with the issue of artificial intelligence, because this is an issue that is not going to go away, and this is an issue that increasingly we, as legislators, will have to grapple with. Thank you, Mr Speaker. RYAN HAMILTON (National—Hamilton East) (09:10): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to speak on this imprest supply debate. I know a lot of people at home will be wondering— ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): It’s the appropriation supplementary debate. RYAN HAMILTON: Sorry. That one, Mr Speaker. I know a lot of people will be wondering— ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): It’s just as exciting. RYAN HAMILTON: Ha, ha! Yeah. There has been a lot of Budget talk and it’s got me a bit excited. But what people at home might be wondering is what this bill does. It’s all about unlocking the proposed Budget, the execution of that spending. Of course, it’s very important because the authorisation of that money needs to be spent and allocated through budgetary purposes. I guess, firstly, one thing this Budget does is really focus on financial sustainability, closing the fiscal gap, and the fact that we’re now able to achieve a surplus a year earlier than forecast. It’s great news and great financial leadership from the Minister of Finance, this being her third Budget. It’s certainly one where we’ve been clear that it’s not about sugar hits; it’s about robust planning frameworks. It’s about restrained spending; it’s about closing and getting that debt curve down. We also know it’s not about taxing more and spending more. We’ve always said that New Zealand doesn’t have a tax problem; it has a spending problem. Yesterday evening, Julie Anne Genter talked about our debt. Our debt to GDP is—I think we’re trying to get it down to about 40 percent debt to GDP. Last night, Julie Anne Genter said, “Why don’t we just spend more and invest more in infrastructure?” In fact, she used Japan as an example, which has debt to GDP of 250 percent. Now, Japan might have a lot more privately owned domestic funding, but the more you borrow, the bigger the interest bill. Our current interest bill is around $9.5 billion. Why getting back to— Stuart Smith: How much principal does that pay off? RYAN HAMILTON: —a surplus—not much. We’re not paying any off at the moment; that’s the problem. Because we haven’t got to a surplus, we’re not even paying any of our principal back wholly. The purpose of getting to a surplus is so we can pay down that debt, and $9.5 billion is enough, as we know, for the whole New Zealand Defence Force, Corrections, Police, Customs. It’s an incredible amount of money and it just goes on treading water. That’s why we’re really, really focused on making some savings. I thought it would be good to provide some examples of savings to show that we can make cutbacks in appropriate ways and still deliver better services. In fact, the Minister of Finance has said, “Let’s make 2 percent additional baseline savings this year and an additional 5 percent and 5 percent the following years.” A couple of examples: in the Department of Conservation, over the next three years we can save $118 million. The Department of Internal Affairs is saving $80 million. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet is saving $10 million. Inland Revenue is saving $197 million. Land Information New Zealand is saving $26.4 million. The Ministry for Primary Industries is saving $164 million. The Ministry for Regulation: $5.3 million. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment: $170 million. The Ministry of Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport is saving $125 million. The total for 12 percent baseline reduction over the next three years: $2.388 billion. You can see it’s not just about spending but saving. It’s about good fiscal management. It’s about stewardship. Some might say kaia-titanga— Cameron Luxton: Kaitiaki. RYAN HAMILTON: Kaitiakitanga—stewardship of what we’ve got. Stewardship of our resources is very important. It was Marama Davidson yesterday who also talked about—we talked about the investment in the defence force. I said that it’s not just about spending on weapons; it’s about investment in our workforce, and she denied it. I wanted to show to the viewers that the defence force remuneration is $120 million over four years. In our summary of Estimates, it reads, “This initiative provides funding to enable the New Zealand Defence Force to provide remuneration uplifts for its workers and to meet additional non-discretionary remuneration increases.” Of course, for housing, in the Defence Capability Plan, we’ve got $3.4 million. The initiative provides funding to enable planning, detailed design, and delivery of modern residential dwellings for military personnel and their families at Trentham, Ōhākea, Linton, Woodbourne, Waiōuru, and Burnham. Our investment in defence isn’t just in terms of improving our fleet and all that very important stuff which is part of our national security; defence force is about the people, because they have a very important role on the front line. It’s important that they are looked after as well. The great thing within the Budget—we know that our parties spoke a big game around health, infrastructure, law and order, fuel response, and education. These things are all critical and we’re delivering for all of them—$7 billion in capital investment over the next 12 months, and an estimated 4,500 jobs for every billion dollars of infrastructure investment. Over the forecast period, we’re looking at 220,000 new jobs across the economy. It’s significant. Of course, Cambridge to Piarere, the road of national significance, one of the most dangerous spots in New Zealand—we’re investing in that. That will improve about 16 kilometres of roading infrastructure. It’s very important—very important for productivity, for connectivity. An extra special bonus if it gets to 110, because that’s my favourite speed of all, especially on cruise control, listening to AC/DC. Education is very important as well. Obviously, we talked about some of the investment and the hard infrastructure. We’ve done a lot of investment in the curriculum and the syllabus restructure supporting our front-line teachers. I was privileged in Hamilton East to have Hillcrest High School get an additional eight new learning classrooms and two new learning support classrooms, as well as four new classrooms at Knighton Normal School. Of course, the infrastructure we’re now able to deliver at half the cost that was previously being delivered under the last Government—half the cost. You get two for one. Isn’t that amazing? Just with good, practical financial stewardship, discipline, and going to the market with competitive tenders. Obviously, the prefab-type modular building is really key to all of that as well. The other thing, of course, is the Resource Management Act reform which was given a boost of money to help that transition. I stood on the Environment Committee with Catherine Wedd here and Cameron Luxton here in the House. It’s quite a robust process. We’ve gone through changing something first introduced in 1991 to two new planning bills, and that’s going through the process. Of course, it needs finance and it needs time to embed, but that’s really about unlocking productivity in this country. We’re working with councils, working with the water entities to enable us to cut through red tape and green tape just to get stuff done. We want more renewables in this country, but it’s just been too hard. The process that we’re working through will help to unlock and enable that. The Budget is also predicated on what our Prime Minister gave in what was probably a speech of the nation, really. One of the journalists who would probably normally be quite critical of him said it’s probably the best prime ministerial address in the last 20 years— Shanan Halbert: Ha, ha! Hon Phil Twyford: Best in the last two years. RYAN HAMILTON: —and he talked about national security being economic security—the last 20 years. That’s right. That’s a long time. I’ll send you a copy of it, Shanan Halbert. The Government understands that in an increasingly uncertain world, security is more than just a fence alone. It is not just about national security; it’s also about economic security and the two go hand in hand. Energy security and social cohesion: every major decision we make should be tested against whether it strengthens New Zealand in one of those areas. National security, increased defence investment, tougher law and order measures, and protecting critical infrastructure and resilience, and, of course, our relationship with other countries—we’ve done a fuel agreement with Singapore. We’ve worked in collaboration with Australia. We’re really strengthening our place in the bottom of the Pacific, which is critical. Economic security: Investment Boost came through in the last Budget, and, of course, we’re continuing that through. Trade agreements and export growth; support for business investment and productivity. Energy security: the need for reliable and affordable electricity; supporting renewable generation and grid resilience—the importance of avoiding energy shortages that undermine growth. Of course, then you bring in infrastructure. Underpinning all of that security—national security, energy security—is infrastructure, and our $7 billion capital programme goes a long way to help New Zealand to prosper. Roads, schools, hospitals, water infrastructure, and energy networks are all foundations of economic growth and national resilience. Every billion dollars in investment by Treasury is, as I said, estimating an extra 4,500 jobs. At a time when many countries are being forced to choose between growth and fiscal discipline, this Government is demonstrating that both matter. We’re investing where it counts, maintaining a path back to surplus, and strengthening the foundations of New Zealand’s future, fixing the basics, building the future. REUBEN DAVIDSON (Labour—Christchurch East) (09:21): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s great to be able to stand and take a call on the Appropriation (2025/26 Supplementary Estimates) Bill. Before I get started, I just wanted to acknowledge a couple of the funny wisecracks that the previous member, Ryan Hamilton, got into his contribution this morning, the first being a claim about a commitment to renewable energy, which is great, especially coming from a party who want to spend a billion dollars on a liquefied natural gas terminal! I really enjoyed that one. I also enjoyed hearing the claim that the Prime Minister had recently delivered the best speech any New Zealand Prime Minister has delivered in the last 20 years. What I want to say to that is it’s fantastic to hear that Christopher Luxon has finally found a speechwriter! I do look forward to the opportunity to review that speech and make my own assessment of whether it is, in fact, the best speech delivered by a Prime Minister in New Zealand in the last 20 years. I would say that that would be a minority opinion. I wouldn’t want to poll it. It’s not all fun and games in this debate. This is, in fact, a serious debate about what is in the Budget that was delivered in the House at the end of last month, and I think it’s important to look at that in the context of where we’re at economically in New Zealand at the moment and where we were forecast to be at. What we have seen is the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update in 2023, which was the first from this Government, and now what we’re looking at is the forecast for 2026. This is the context in which we need to look at this bill and at this Budget. GDP growth was forecast at 2.8 percent; it’s now 1.2 percent. Unemployment of 4.8 percent is now forecast to be 5.5 percent. Inflation was meant to be 2.2 percent. Ryan Hamilton: It was 7.3 under you. REUBEN DAVIDSON: It’s now forecast to be 4 percent, Mr Hamilton. Government debt is now $4 billion higher than forecast. Those are the numbers. That’s the context that we need to look at this Budget in. What’s really interesting, as we look through those appropriations in the Budget, is what has then happened in some of the areas and across some of the portfolios that are explicitly covered in this bill. Particularly, I’m really interested in the ones that are—and I’ve folded down the page so that I can find it easily—across pages 8 and 9 of the bill, when we’re looking at the investment into business, science, and innovation. That’s some of what I wanted to explore in my contribution to this debate. When the Minister of Finance came to the House and delivered her opening speech on this, she talked about the difference between money coming from the ether and money coming from the back pockets of New Zealanders. I think it’s also very important that we remember that; this Budget is the money from the back pockets of New Zealanders. It is not money that has come from the ether. On that, I agree with the Minister of Finance. If we look across the portfolios that I was able to examine in scrutiny week, last week, the broadcasting and media portfolio Minister, Minister Goldsmith, came and spoke to us about what’s happening there, but really that was a conversation about what’s not happening there. It was a conversation with a Minister who promised to take immediate action in the broadcasting and media space and has since presided over a series of cuts, quite deep ones, in the appropriations in this Budget across the broadcasting and media sector, which will have a direct impact on the media in New Zealand being able to be independent and being able to carry out the important role that they have. I did wonder, during those hearings, when we asked the Minister questions, whether it wouldn’t have been better for us to have Minister Seymour in the seat, because, in the offer of immediate action, if you look at specific journalists disappearing, if you look at CEOs being told their time is up, if you look at the Broadcasting Standards Authority being wound up, those have all been calls that have been made by other Ministers, Ministers other than the Minister for Media and Communications. Of all the things that have become reality in his time as the Minister, the most frustrating is when we’re talking about what supports the Minister is working on, what legislation the Minister is bringing to the House, so that we can ensure the financial viability of our independent news and current affairs media sector in New Zealand. The Minister could only say that he’s continuing to watch closely what’s happening in Australia, which he has been watching closely for close to two years now and taking absolutely no action on here. I want to convey my frustration at that and how that’s reflected in the appropriations, but also the frustration that is relayed to me, from across the media sector, at the lack of action taken in this space. The other area that’s covered really comprehensively in these appropriations, and that I wanted to look at where we got to with asking probing questions about priorities, both for the restructuring within the sector, which is our science, innovation, and tech sector, and also at the disruption caused to funding—and, therefore, to the pipeline of projects that should be coming through in our science, innovation, and technology sector. Let’s not forget, we are the best in the world at this, absolutely the best at innovating, inventing, and exploring new ideas and new thinking, but what we have at the moment is a hugely disruptive set of restructures and a freezing of funds that is seeing some of our best and brightest not being able to invest in our future and instead having to invest in tickets to take flight and leave New Zealand. This science sector, this innovation sector, tells us that it’s not just a holiday they’re taking; it’s potentially departure for the rest of their careers, the rest of their lives. That leaves a massive, massive gap in our science, innovation, and tech sector future and in the pipeline and ecosystem we need to see being created in that space. My first question to the Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology was whether she believed in science, and it might sound like a funny question, but it is actually a relevant question when she is presiding over so much disruption in that space, which we are seeing through the appropriations in this Budget—further disruption, further confusion, further lack of certainty. What might surprise you even more is that the answer wasn’t “Yes, absolutely, 100 percent”, which is what you would expect from the Minister; instead, it was “I hope so”. As we know, hope is not a strategy, and an answer as disconcerting as “I hope so” is both disturbing and frightening for a sector that is calling out for certainty. We see that across some of the amazing blue-skies research that is really not a priority for this Government. If we’re looking at an ecosystem which we need in our science, innovation, and tech sector, you are, essentially, cutting off the very beginning of where our best ideas come from. Very little funding, if any, is available in that space; “Let’s only focus on commercialisation.” There’s nothing wrong with that, but, in isolation, that is the most short-term strategy you could possibly bring. I don’t have time to go into some of the other concerns that I have: the lack of understanding around the gaming development sector rebate, which has seen an 86 percent revenue growth across the gaming sector in New Zealand—an industry that we lead the world in and where we are fantastically empowered by our geographic isolation, because we’re not talking about putting products on ships; we are simply talking about people around the world downloading the brilliant games and entertainment offerings that we create in New Zealand. This year, this sector has gone over a billion dollars in revenue, and yet the Minister is not prepared to take the baseline funding that sits there and make the rebate ceiling slightly higher to ensure that we keep some of our biggest companies here in New Zealand—really disappointing to see some of those future-focused opportunities missed. I haven’t even had a chance to get into some of the deeply concerning gaps in understanding strategy and budgeting for the use of artificial intelligence (AI) across the public sector. AI is not free. It is an amazing, powerful tool that has huge productivity potential, but only if governance is good and only if investment is made to ensure that we have the best possible products here to serve New Zealanders. That’s not what the appropriations in this Budget do. It’s not what I’m hearing in the speeches from the Government MPs in the House. DAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote) (09:31): Listeners at home wouldn’t have really noticed that we’re actually here discussing two bills today. The first is the Appropriation (2025/26 Supplementary Estimates) Bill and the second is the Imprest Supply (First for 2026/27) Bill. Both deserve scrutiny, and we’ll, on this side of the House, do that job. The others will just go to their talking points. But first to the imprest supply bill. Just to explain for the House and for listeners at home—all two of them—what the Supplementary Estimates bill is about. This bill is about ensuring that any changes through last year’s Budget in the appropriations are authorised by the House, and it’s Parliament’s job to scrutinise those changes for New Zealanders. Why on earth do we have this bill before the House? Well, simply put, the Budget is dependent on a range of forecasts and assumptions, and those forecasts and assumptions are outlined in the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update. You wouldn’t want to be a forecaster in this time of day. With all the external and internal uncertainty, those forecasts have a huge amount of uncertainty. Last year’s Budget actually indicated that those uncertainties were real, in the wake of external events like Trump’s tariffs and the impact of those tariffs and also to this year and the impact of one certain war in the Middle East, the war in Iran. Then there are a range of internal events that make a difference to the economic assumptions—things like natural weather events, the recession that New Zealand has been in, caused by a Reserve Bank - induced hike in interest rates from the inflation that we had under the previous Government. There’s a range of uncertainty out there when those projections are put forward in the Budget. Those projections, there’s unders and overs, but they ultimately have material impacts in terms of Government services and in terms of revenue. Essentially, the Supplementary Estimates bill reflects the changes in the 2025-26 Budget that have been spent or reductions in revenue, and that is why we are here today discussing that. It really demonstrates the responsiveness of our Government that we bring this bill back to the House to retrospectively give authority to those changes in expenditures. That is important in terms of accountability. It’s important in terms of oversight and in terms of fiscal management. Where does this all sit? Well, it all goes back to the Public Finance Act. On the Finance and Expenditure Committee, we’ve had a really good review on public performance and accountability reporting, and that will be actually coming to the House for discussion very soon, I understand, making some suggestions around how we improve accountability and financial reporting for Parliament and for the public. That is my remarks on the first bill, the Supplementary Estimates bill. The second bill that we’ve got before us today is the imprest supply bill. As was indicated in the speeches yesterday on the Budget, this Budget is really all about securing New Zealand’s economic future, making sure that we boost economic growth, boost real wage growth, reduce the role of the State on the economy, and pay down the debt burden that the previous Government left us with. Let’s just remind members on the opposite side the level of debt that we inherited from the previous Government. We not only inherited debt; we also inherited one of the largest fiscal deficits in the OECD. We’ve actually got, this year alone, this forecast year, $216 billion of nominal Government debt as a result of the poor decisions of the previous Government. Why does it matter for the New Zealanders at home? It matters because we have a mounting interest bill on that debt forecast to be, in this Budget alone, $9.7 billion—$9.7 billion. That is astronomical. We know from the Treasury forecasts for the next 20 to 30 years that debt and the interest bill on that debt is only going to grow higher because of superannuation and because of healthcare. We’ve got some parties in Parliament today that wish to put their heads in the sand and say, “No, we won’t make any changes to superannuation.” We’ve got realistic, pragmatic parties like National, who have always advocated for pragmatic, sustainable fiscal changes to our pension system to make sure that it’s sustainable in the future. I wish to turn the attention to some of the really important things that were announced in the Budget which the imprest supply bill, essentially, gives effect to. We’ve got targeted support for health, things like $35 million extra for our ambulance services—great news for Northcote and communities right up and down New Zealand. We’ve got $34 million funded for our three-day post-natal stays, allowing newborns and new mothers to remain in hospital for up to three days. It’s great news. We’ve got a lowering of the age of free bowel care screening from 68 to 66. That’s going to make a material difference for well over 200,000 New Zealanders per annum. Education—let’s go now to education. If there’s one really wasteful spending that we cut and that the previous Government had, it was the fees-free, which had no material impact on outcomes at all in terms of enrolment and in terms of education achievement. What have we been able to do with that? We’ve cut that funding and we’ve reallocated it for what is a great programme, the Trades Academy programme, and we’ve got an extra 20,000 places so that we can get people into trades, earning while they’re learning—earning while they’re learning. It was— Hon Member: And it was a billion dollars over four years. DAN BIDOIS: It was a billion dollars over the forecast period. It was a huge amount of wasteful money, and thank goodness we in the National Party and our finance Minister made some changes in that area. We’ve got more money to strengthen reading, writing, and maths achievement in our schools, and we’ve got continued roll-out of the structured literacy and mathematics, which is going really well, just according to all of my schools in Northcote. They’re doing really well, and I wish to thank teachers right across the country for really picking up and running with structured literacy and structured maths. The feedback I get right across the sector is positive, and the evidence, we know, is clear that it makes a difference. Those of you who are parents know how important it is to get your kids a better chance in life through education. With that, I think there’s some really good things in the Budget around education and healthcare. Law and order: remember three years ago, members, how common it was to have a ram raid, two ram raids a day—two ram raids a day—that’s down 85 percent under this Government. This Budget puts $500 million extra into correction facilities, so making sure that our communities are safe. We’ve got new police stations in places like Wanganui— Hon Member: That’s right—fantastic new police station. DAN BIDOIS: Fantastic new places. Actually, the Police Commissioner himself said that in the history of New Zealand, we’ve never had as many front-line police officers as we do now. Isn’t that great news? It’s all part of our plan to fix the basics and build the future. Fix the basics in healthcare, in education, in law and order, in infrastructure, in transport; fixing the basics in our Government finances; and building the future, so that my son, your kids, all of our future kids and grandkids can stay here in New Zealand, they don’t have to up shoots and leave like they have done for decades. So with that, I commend both of these bills to the House. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): The next call is a split call. Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū) (09:41): This Budget, after 2½ years, was essentially the National Government’s last chance to show New Zealanders that they were willing to do something about the cost of living crisis, that they understood the pain that people are feeling. But that moment has passed, and people have given up on this Government—you hear that everywhere you go in New Zealand; that’s what people say. You can see the cost of living crisis on the faces of the people that I represent in West Auckland. The effect of the National Government’s austerity policies, you can see it on the streets of Henderson, in Massey, in Rānui. People aren’t eating so well—they can’t afford to. The stress of trying to get to the end of the week to pay the bills is taking its toll—that feeling of working harder and harder and going backwards. For the most vulnerable in our communities, the most basic of safety nets has been ripped away by this Government. People turn up at my office on a Friday afternoon with the kids in the back of a car and they say, “We don’t have anywhere to sleep tonight.” It’s not very long ago that you could send them to Work and Income down the road and they would be guaranteed a roof over their heads. Under this Government’s policies, they’re basically given a lecture about personal responsibility and told to get out. That is what happens. It happens every day, every week in the community that I represent. That’s why there is record homelessness and people sleeping in their cars. It is directly attributable to this Government’s policies. The effect of this Government’s austerity policies is taking its toll in the health of the people. The emergency department at Waitākere Hospital is absolutely clogged. Why? Because people can’t afford to go to the GP, so they go along to the hospital emergency department, and that’s why the delays are so long; also because this Government refuses to employ our nursing grads, and there simply aren’t enough nurses in the hospital. For the most vulnerable people, they are feeling this in their health. A public nurse told me the other day that there is an outbreak of scabies. Skin disease is the canary in the coalmine for poverty: people who are not properly fed, who cannot live decent lives because of poverty and poor living conditions—skin disease is where it shows. What an absolute indictment of this Government’s austerity policies. What is this Government’s answer? What does this Budget say to those people? It gives them a lecture on fiscal policy—by a Government that gave huge tax breaks to landlords and tobacco companies and to the well-off, and has increased borrowing. It’s increased borrowing, not actually reduced it. They’ve slashed the Public Service, close to 10,000 jobs, which will inevitably affect front-line services. And what does that mean? It means longer queues, fewer border security checks, clogged courtrooms. This Government promised to fix things because Christopher Luxon was the business guy. He was going to run New Zealand like Air New Zealand, as if the country was a business—that was the promise: we’re going to fix the cost of living. Steve Abel: They’ve just run it down. Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Yep, the self-proclaimed economic geniuses on that side of the House have presided over record business-closures, higher unemployment, a collapse in business confidence, and a downgrade from the ratings agencies. That’s their record. Blissfully ignorant of decades and decades of economic history. What happens when you get rid of thousands of people out of paid employment? What happens when you cancel and delay hundreds of construction projects in transport and housing, and you have this magical thinking that somehow the private sector is going to step into the breach and make all of the investments and make the economy grow? Well, what happened? Investors and consumers stopped spending. This Government’s economic policies that are embedded in this Budget have caused a crisis. TOM RUTHERFORD (National—Bay of Plenty) (09:46): It gives me no great pleasure, on a Wednesday morning, to stand here and take a lecture from Phil Twyford, the man who couldn’t count to 100,000. He couldn’t get past a couple of thousand, and yet he wants to stand here with the short-term thinking and going, “Forget about that—forget about that—it’s the other guy’s fault. It’s their fault. Don’t worry about what I did or didn’t do, it’s the other guy’s fault.” Kiwis have not forgotten—Kiwis have not forgotten. Who remembers the Chinese-sounding surnames? Remember that? No contribution or mention of that in his speech, and yet here we are on a Wednesday morning. We’re actually here to talk about two things: one, it’s the Appropriation (2025/26 Supplementary Estimates) Bill, and also the Imprest Supply (First for 2026/27) Bill. Now, these bills are standard, but they are an important part of the parliamentary process. If we start with the appropriation bill, which is the Supplementary Estimates, it seeks Parliament’s approval for changes to the current year’s appropriation. My colleague Dan Bidois, our resident economist on this side of the House, actually highlighted really clearly why that was so important. Then he went on and talked about the imprest supply bill, which provides the necessary interim authority for the Government to continue delivering services until the main appropriation bill— Shanan Halbert: He can’t even count. TOM RUTHERFORD: —for 2026-27 is passed. And the irony, here, is I get heckled from the other side. Hon James Meager: Aw, they don’t understand. TOM RUTHERFORD: They don’t understand the financial literacy—or illiteracy on that side—that actually these bills play and the important role. The Supplementary Estimates reflect a Government that is focused on responsible fiscal management while continuing to deliver for New Zealanders. They show where additional investment has been required and where we’ve also needed to reprioritise spending, as my colleague Ryan Hamilton outlined in his earlier contribution. As a Government, we were elected to get the basics right, to restore the discipline to public finances. We have to remember the Government doesn’t have any of its own money; it has New Zealanders’ money. If we are to increase taxes or borrowing or anything of the sort, it is everyday New Zealanders that will pay the price for that, and we must justify to them why that is the case, and at the moment there is a clear void, particularly from the other side, as to the justification for the need to do so. We, as a Government, just like New Zealand households across this country, must live within our means. There is no magic money tree. Remember when the other side said—and they were asked, “Oh, where would you get the money from?” “Oh, we’ll just appropriate it—we’ll just appropriate it.” Do you know what that means? It means future generations will have to pick up the tab of the credit card. It’s future generations that will pay the increased interest and tax bill that that side of the House wants to put on everyday New Zealanders. We, as a Government, in this year’s Budget, have said, “No, we’re not going to take that path. We’ll make the tough and difficult decisions that everyday New Zealanders voted for us to do.” However, we can still do that and invest in critical services. Health: where we’re reducing wait times. The Minister for Mental Health has just released figures today, which show the incredible progress we are making in that space. There is still work to do—there is still work to do—but our investment in health and in mental health is having a positive impact to New Zealanders. We’re supporting infrastructure that will help grow our economy and create jobs—220,000 new jobs—but we’re also providing targeted cost of living relief where it’s needed most. Remember, when the fuel crisis started a few months ago, how easy it would have been to just open up the hose and spend taxpayers’ money left, right, and centre and spray it around. That was the easy thing to do, but it wouldn’t have been the right thing to do. Now, looking back, we made the right decisions. New Zealanders expect the Government to manage the public finances prudently, while still delivering on the services that they rely on. That’s exactly what these bills do. Both the appropriations and the imprest supply are part of our plan to fix the basics and build the future. Thank you. CUSHLA TANGAERE-MANUEL (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti) (09:51): [Authorised reo Māori text to be inserted by the Hansard Office.] [Authorised translation to be inserted by the Hansard Office.] I want to acknowledge the very lengthy explanation one of the members opposite gave about this bill. While I suspect he was doing that to take up some time, what I can guarantee you is while he was delivering that explanation, Aotearoa heard nothing. That meant nothing to the people who we serve. What Aotearoa wanted from this Government—that they promised—is that they would fix the cost of living, and they have not. The latest appropriations represent the culmination of a billion dollars slashed from targeted Māori investment—investments like Whai Kāinga Whai Oranga. We’ve heard from across the House that they acknowledge all housing is important, etc. A whare, a kāinga, doesn’t just represent four walls. If you want your kids to do well in school, they’re going to do much better if they’ve got somewhere warm, safe, and dry to live. We want them to be healthy; that also comes from having a warm, safe, dry home. Whai Kāinga Whai Oranga went beyond that. It actually supported development of whenua, giving whānau who live in those houses not just the shelter—the physical shelter of four walls and a roof. It gave them the connection to their whenua, it built up communities by ensuring tamariki got to go to these amazing new educational institutions the Government is purporting to provide, and it gave them meaningful contribution and connection to their whakapapa and their communities. That investment, in these appropriations, is gone. What you won’t see in these appropriations are Māori development programmes, development investment that supported programmes like the business hub in Wairoa. We’ve talked about regional investment and regional jobs—where are these 220,000 new jobs, by the way? That’s a great number. We should be excited by it, but as I traverse Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, I’m seeing people losing jobs and seriously considering—those who haven’t already—leaving Aotearoa. Now, leaving Aotearoa doesn’t just mean leaving your whānau. Again, it’s the connection to whenua I talked about; that’s what we’re risking here. We are risking isolating people from their whakapapa, their whenua, their communities, and, ultimately, investing in our country’s economy, which is what I understood this Government wanted. Back to talking about Wairoa. In spite of the cuts, thank God there are organisations like the Wairoa Business Hub, who are supporting people not only to get into business, to thrive, but supporting them in staying where they live, where they come from, where they want to be. Now, we heard that that’s what this Government wanted: to drive the economy, get people—we’ve heard it—off the couch and thriving into mahi. What a great idea. Imagine if we had something like the progressive procurement fund to support that. Wait a minute! We did, and this Government cut it. That contract represented a reinvestment of over $900 million from Māori business into this economy, into our communities, into regions, and this Government cut it. We heard the Minister say, yesterday, that this is all about making it easier to do business here in New Zealand. Easier for who? Why are we providing better opportunities for people offshore? Of course, there’s a place for that, but why would we take away a programme that was working and helping build business in our communities and contribute to the $126 billion Māori economy? That’s what’s missing from these appropriations. Another member opposite talked about the fees-free being wasteful spending. I took a phone call this very morning from someone who works in a tertiary education institution. It’s interesting: when the economy is struggling, that’s often when people will decide to retrain and reinvent themselves to get themselves back in the workforce. That’s what this supported. We know that there have been jobs slashed across Aotearoa, and so some people are looking to retrain. This fees-free would have supported them. The feedback from actual students impacted by this—the feedback from people actually impacted by this—who the Government members clearly don’t care about and don’t want to hear is that this is taking away their choices. This is taking away their choices. They already know you don’t care. They are taking away the choices and taking away another tool that would have gone to supporting the rebuilding not only of the economy of New Zealand, but also the impact on the back pockets of New Zealanders who regret voting this National-led Government in and will have great joy at bidding it farewell. Tom Rutherford: Campaign on it. If it’s so good, campaign on it. CUSHLA TANGAERE-MANUEL: Here’s the irony: the member who is now interjecting was complaining about interjecting. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Yeah, can I ask members not to have these rowdy conversations across the Chamber? Let’s go, Cushla Tangaere-Manuel. You may continue. CUSHLA TANGAERE-MANUEL: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Let’s move, now, to another area that’s having a direct impact on the economy of people’s households, and that’s public service cuts. Like I said, nobody heard the explanation of the member opposite, because all they know is that this Government promised to cut the cost of living and they have not. Now, we’ve got cuts to public services. Already, whānau often have to travel, sometimes over 100 kilometres one way, to see public servants. Now, with the increase of petrol costs and further cuts of public services, this is just overwhelming for a lot of whānau. A lot of them will not be able to access the services. Once again, people are feeling the pinch, feeling the crunch, much, much more from the cuts of this National-led coalition Government. That said, I come from Ikaroa-Rāwhiti where we bring the light every day. I want to acknowledge the innovation of our communities who, in spite of many, many cuts, continue to care for the vulnerable in their communities. I’ve heard some examples, again, just this very morning, of disability services in Tūranga-nui-a-Kiwa Gisborne, who are struggling because of the cuts they’ve had to make. That said, they are working hard to maintain some form of service for the vulnerable whānau that they support. I want to acknowledge people throughout Ikaroa-Rāwhiti and Aotearoa who continue to serve the communities in spite of, as I’ve said, the $1 billion of targeted funding—that’s just to Māori—that has been taken away from our communities. I also want to commend the innovation that I get to see as I traverse Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, from Wairarapa to Wainuiōmata, Kahungunu whānui, tae noa atu ki Te Tai Rāwhiti. [Authorised translation to be inserted by the Hansard Office.] Speaking of which, another thing we won’t see in these appropriations is any targeted response for the Tairāwhiti. We hear a lot of kōrero about farmers—excellent; we want farmers to do well. However, there is still a portion of very vulnerable farmers in Wharekahika who had a visit from Government Ministers and are still waiting for any response, and, sadly, they are not seeing it in these appropriations. As I’ve said, all Aotearoa knows right now is that while the Government can budget—again, a third underwhelming Budget; probably the most underwhelming—they are still living with the broken promise that the National-led coalition made to ease the cost of living. Whānau out there are not feeling it. I just want to mihi to you all out there,e hoa mā, e hika mā, kia kaha tonu koutou. [Authorised translation to be inserted by the Hansard Office.] You don’t have to endure this for much longer, e hoa mā. Haere, enrol, me pōti. Use your ultimate mana motuhake to change this Government and have a Government that is inclined to listen to you. NANCY LU (National) (10:01): Madam Speaker, it’s great to see you. I rise in support, to support two bills, and, for some of our New Zealanders who have turned on TV just now, let me be very clear: there are two bills. Particularly, we are on the second and the third reading of the Appropriation (2025/26 Supplementary Estimates) Bill, and also the Imprest Supply (First for 2026/27) Bill. These are very technical bills, but I think it’s very important to lay out the foundation which is to underpin the fundamental principle of our democracy, and that is that the Government cannot spend a single cent in our Government Budget without the authority of this Parliament. This is particularly important because every single dollar that this Government spends is a dollar that is earned by New Zealanders through their hard work. It comes from the workers that are doing the early shifts in the morning, like tradies and farmers. It comes from nurses and doctors who are doing their night shifts, taking care of New Zealanders. It comes from the small businesses that take on risks to invest, to open up, and to serve our community. It comes from the tradies, the retirees, and it also comes from families who are managing a very tight family budget, as well as large companies who are employing tens, hundreds, and thousands of New Zealanders around the country, who ultimately pay their tax dollars into Inland Revenue. Therefore, it is for our Government to be responsible and to fix the basics on many fronts in New Zealand but also to build the future for our New Zealanders around the country. Now, these bills are part of that responsibility that our Government—the National-led Government—is very serious about. We know that with this hard-earned taxpayer money paid by New Zealanders, they are expecting that this Government will be the mature parties in this House that will spend wisely and invest wisely and that will fix the basics in our core public services, including education, health, transport and infrastructure, and in restoring law and order, to provide better, more efficient, and more productive public services. New Zealanders also expect a Government that is mature, disciplined, careful, and relentless in delivering the outcomes from their hard-earned taxpayers’ money. New Zealanders are also expecting that the National-led Government is a Government that will deliver for the future of New Zealand, for many sectors and many of the hard-working New Zealanders who I’ve mentioned already but also for our younger generation and the future generations, including our children and our grandchildren. This is why it’s particularly important for me, I think, to talk not just about the Budget of 2025-26 but also the current Budget that we have in front of the House and in the public domain, which was released at the end of last month. We need to also remind New Zealanders who have tuned in about what we’ve done as a Government for the last three Budgets. Remember, we are a Government that has inherited messy, messy Government books. Before coming into politics, I was working as a professional chartered accountant, and I’ve never seen a reckless Government performance like what we’ve had and what we inherited, because in six years of the last Government, the debt for New Zealand had risen 20 times—20 times. I don’t believe that New Zealanders would be OK to think that their mortgages have risen 20 times in six years, and that comes with the consequence of paying now the interest bill. Just servicing the loan—not even paying down the loan, but just servicing the loan—is more than the combined budget that we give to five core public sectors, including justice, police, customs, and defence. It was actually quite astonishing for me when I came in as a member of Parliament, and now, while serving New Zealand, to see how reckless the last Government was. But in the last three Budgets, what we have delivered as the National Government is that we have found savings across many Government departments, including up to about $50 billion in savings across our last three Budgets. That is savings that were found, line by line, by our Ministers and their ministries by cutting down administrative costs, or costs that are deemed to be unproductive or not servicing New Zealanders well, and by still reprioritising some of the Budget amounts to the front line. For example, we are providing more policing funding, providing more funding to nurses and doctors, and making sure that we are providing the healthcare that New Zealanders need. This is what I call a Government that is disciplined, that is mature, and that is servicing New Zealand. Across the Budgets, we talked a lot about reprioritising and being disciplined in how we spend, but this Government, through the last three Budgets, has also put in a lot of emphasis on capital investment—particularly into building the future—because, ultimately, as a nation that has over $100 billion in debt, we are not going to grow out of that debt or return to a Government surplus by taxing everybody. That would drive down productivity and that would force capital to leave New Zealand. We are now having to find the extra money or reprioritise the extra money to pay and service our debt, but what is our plan to our plans reduce the debt and return the Government books to surplus? This is why we say building the future is particularly important for New Zealand and all New Zealanders. That’s why our Government has a plan and it is on track to deliver that plan early, in my opinion, to double the export value of all New Zealand exports in the next 10 years. We have already seen that there is a record in our primary and red meat products’ export value. We have now seen a record in the fibre and food export products, and this is how we are going to build a future for New Zealand, grow the Government books, return to surplus, and actually have money and have capital. This is a Government Budget where we can provide and prioritise servicing New Zealanders in education, in health, in justice, and in building the infrastructure that we need in New Zealand so that people can drive safer and better and be more connected between cities and rural towns, and that we actually have the infrastructure to accommodate the future growth of this country. If you look around the world in all this global uncertainty, New Zealand is often the most researched country by any other international countries because we are considered as safe. We are a very safe country. In fact, just a few weeks ago, New Zealand was ranked the second-safest country on earth, and that was a comeback for New Zealand, because that wasn’t the case six years ago. I remember opening my phone every day and reading that it will be ram raids here, someone losing a finger here, and cars ram-raiding into your shop. I visited, actually, a liquor store in the area that I live in, in Pakuranga, just a couple of streets away from my house, and they were ram-raided four times in six months—four times in six months. When I visited them, they were in tears, because they had no hope for the future. They just wanted some peace and certainty that they would be able to run a business, provide a living for the family and actually not be hurt or killed in those ram raids. It took us some years—it took the National Government some years—to restore that law and order. We reduced 46,000 victims—much earlier than even our original target, our original plan. That is, we reduced 46,000 victims and protected them from any harm, protected their family and their local communities. This is what we call fixing the basics, and one when we have a safe and certain environment where families feel happy and safe to go to work and come back to work, and for businesses to have the interest and also the courage and confidence in investing. That’s why we see so many, now, New Zealand businesses taking on the core concept of Budget 2025-26, which is Investment Boost. It’s that tax incentive that this Government, the National Government, have provided to New Zealand businesses to get the 20 percent tax deduction from investing into machineries or tools and equipment that will unlock productivity, that will help the businesses to grow and to regain business confidence. This is why, even in the global uncertainties, even when in our neighbouring countries are not doing so well politically or economically, we are seeing business confidence coming back. We are seeing that New Zealanders and, actually, people are interested to move to New Zealand, because they can see a brighter, better future with the National Government. Hon Members: Madam Speaker. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Shanan Halbert was the first person to call. SHANAN HALBERT (Labour) (10:12): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, today here we are discussing the Budget and appropriations. The reality is that the National Party and Christopher Luxon, they promised to fix the economy and provide cost of living relief. I ask every New Zealander in this country: have they done that—have they done that? This Budget was the last chance for the National Party to demonstrate that they are actually listening to New Zealanders, that they could provide solutions that ease the pressure to the cost of living challenges and the increased costs that Kiwis are experiencing on a day-to-day basis. New Zealanders had a little bit of hope in this Budget that come election year, this Government would stand up, put some good solutions on the table to tell them how things would get better, how things would get easier, and that the outcomes of difficult day-to-day lives would be changed. But instead, the National Party and this Government have decided to cut deeper, to build an economy that is about cuts, cutting it back to the bone. That’s not good economics, because when people are unemployed, they spend less money in our economy; they spend less money in local businesses; they tend to stay home, and therefore less money is spent out in our communities. We heard from National Party MPs. One says that she’s a chartered accountant. The other one says that he’s an economist. Well, let’s talk to the numbers today, because under the National Party’s watch, in the half year economic update, GDP growth of 2.8 percent is now 1.2 percent. Unemployment of 4.8 percent is now forecast to be 5.5 percent. Inflation was meant to be 2.2 percent; it’s now forecast to be 4 percent. This is an interesting one, because they went on and on about the expenditure of the last Government and that the last Government, under Labour, borrowed money. They easily forget that under their watch and Nicola Willis, they have borrowed more money. The question for the chartered accountant and the economist is: does that make sense—does that make sense to you? Is that the advice that you would ask? Tom Rutherford was blowing smoke on his colleague Dan Bidois, MP for Northcote, and his speech and comments that he was making. We know in our Northcote community that people are doing it tough, that they have found things more expensive as a result of this Government’s choices. Dan Bidois talked up the police count in Whanganui, but he failed to say that there’s actually less police on the North Shore under his watch. He talked about the introduction of structured literacy in schools, but he failed to acknowledge that it was under Jan Tinetti’s watch that those, in fact, schools in our community started teaching structured literacy. He failed to mention that under his watch, the attendant service for young people in our community has been scrapped. He’s lost it. Under his watch, the women’s centre has closed and Poutama Rangatahi has lost money by the hundreds of thousands. How is that for leadership of any community and how is that fiscally responsible? We come into this House to make the lives of our people and our communities better, but under this Government, under National, Christopher Luxon, it has got worse. It has absolutely got worse. Now, hear me out on fees-free, because this is a numbers game again. The chartered accountant and the economist, here’s the numbers for you. Labour’s investment was $1.1 billion in reducing debt for young people and next generations, investing in the skills that young people need for our future workforce. The promise by New Zealand First was to reinvest that money into a more targeted approach. What did they do in this Budget? They committed to Trades Academies. Tom Rutherford: Very good. SHANAN HALBERT: It is good, but it’s a loss to tertiary education, and that’s a reinvestment of that money going into compulsory education—a net loss. The other point there is that when we talk about the second initiative and youth guarantees—1,000 Youth Guarantee places—well, that’s good. But when we look at the numbers, we have 100,000 young people not engaged in education, training, or employment. Remove the additional 1,000 places, and the number left for this Government to answer is: how are you responding to the needs of 99,000 young people that still remain and you haven’t provided a solution for? If we add the Trades Academy numbers and we add the Youth Guarantee numbers, that’s 11,000 people that are impacted positively by this Government. But you look at what fees-free achieved: that impacted the lives positively of 40,000 young people. Let’s do the maths. That’s 29,000 young people that lose opportunity under the National Party’s watch. The chartered accountant and the economist, please do the numbers for me. How does that improve the lives of young New Zealanders in this country, and how does it improve upskilling our future workforce? I’m still waiting for an answer, because when tertiary education loses $1 billion of funding, where has that been redistributed to—where has that been redistributed to? The reality is a net loss is a net loss—less young New Zealanders being impacted positively by your decisions and less money going into the real things that matter. That’s on top of the thousands of apprentices that this Government has lost. That is on top of the 30,000 less apprentices, should I say, and 10,000 less young people that have access to the Apprenticeship Boost scheme. In fact, in this appropriation and this Budget, they don’t even spend the Apprenticeship Boost money, and they blame the downturn of the construction sector, which was their choice in the first place. The reality there is that, whether you’re the chartered accountant or whether you're the economist, do your maths. Do your maths, because the reality is that your numbers don't stack up, and I will challenge that every day. My last point here was around the exchange with Minister Potaka in the Whānau Ora space. For a length of time, we talked about a new data-capturing system. We know data is important. I celebrate that and acknowledge that, but the reality is that this Minister didn’t use that data to inform the Budget when I asked him. There’s a net drop, a net loss in the amount of funding, a small amount sliced off the bottom—which is not much anyway—but the question I asked him is, “What data are you actually using to inform this Budget?” No response. My second question was, “But surely providers tell you what their wait-list numbers are for the number of whānau waiting to access Whānau Ora services?” Doesn’t know. That really speaks to the reality of this Government, how out of touch they are, how they say, “Look over here.”, when, actually, the reality is over here. Because no matter where you live in New Zealand, no matter where you are in Aotearoa, you know that the political choices of Christopher Luxon and this Government have created worse outcomes no matter what community that you live in, unless you’re a landlord, unless you’re part of tobacco companies, because the reality is that’s who this Government backs. They don’t back young people, they don’t back learners, and they certainly don’t back the average New Zealanders out there. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Carl Bates was first on his feet, and I just need to inform the member that this is not a full call, because this debate will expire in around five minutes and four seconds. CARL BATES (National—Whanganui) (10:22): Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to take the call in this important debate. I think Shanan Halbert’s accounting and approach to numbers would be described as more creative than Immigration New Zealand’s approach to managing an IT project. He doesn’t understand that, actually, removing fees-free doesn’t change the spend that this Government is making in tertiary education. He doesn’t understand that, actually, the spend in tertiary education doesn’t change. It just changes the portion that already the number of students in New Zealand—the most supported students from a government perspective in the Western world—get from Government. It doesn’t change the amount of money that actually gets spent within the tertiary system. That’s because the Opposition basically doesn’t understand accounting. They don’t understand numbers. They don’t understand that their $100 billion of increased debt is being paid for every day in this country by New Zealanders today. It means we can’t spend money on social services, on education, on healthcare, on things that New Zealanders need today because we’re paying for their economic mismanagement. One million dollars every hour of every day, every year is being spent on the interest bill that that Government—that Opposition Government—created. Nine billion dollars in interest—$9 billion in interest. That is $1 for every $2 we spend on secondary school education. Just think about how much more this Government would be able to spend today if it wasn’t servicing their debt. The Opposition and the Opposition finance spokesperson from the Green Party like to make announcements, but they don’t understand that, actually, you’ve got to follow that announcement up with money, and then you’ve got to use the money to deliver the outcome. Let’s take mental health. The last Government committed $1.9 billion to mental health, and what did they do with it? Nothing. They couldn’t even find where to spend it, let alone achieve outcomes. On this side of the House, we not only understand how to invest Government money effectively, we understand that you have to connect that to an outcome. Today, we released the mental health targets for the last quarter and they are fantastic. We have a Minister for Mental Health who is actually achieving outcome by spending Government money, investing it, focusing on achieving that target, and this is what this Budget’s about. Across my region, Taranaki and Whanganui, I think there was only one target that was marginally below the target for those mental health outcomes. That was outstanding. Talking about the wonderful Whanganui electorate and this Budget, the last Government said, “Hey, let's build a new police station.” Did they fund it? No. Did they build it? No. Did they try and claim online that the fact that we’ve announced and we’re going to build it under this Budget is a result of the last Government? Yes. But if they committed to it and if they put the money behind it, where is it? I tell you what, it is not there. It didn’t get built because the Opposition know how to make announcements, but they don’t know how to follow through. So under this Budget, the Whanganui police station, along with the Greymouth one, will be built. I’ll give you another example. Chris Hipkins, as Minister of Education, said, “Hey, let’s change the high schools in Hāwera. Let’s build a new high school.” Did he fund it? No. Did he deliver it? No. But under this Budget, as announced last week by Minister Stanford, Te Paepae o Aotea in Hāwera gets the funding it needs to have the condition upgrade of that school that has been desperately required by that community, and as the local MP for Whanganui, I am very proud that it is this Government that not only says we will do things but we actually do them, commit the money, and ensure that the outcome gets delivered. This is a Budget that is fixing the basics and building the future. DEPUTY SPEAKER: The time for this debate has expired. A party vote was called for on the question, That Appropriation (2025/26 Supplementary Estimates) Bill and the Imprest Supply (First for 2026/27) Bill be now read a second time. Ayes 67 New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8. Noes 55 New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi. Motion agreed to. Appropriation (2025/26 Supplementary Estimates) Bill read a second time. Imprest Supply (First for 2026/27) Bill read a second time. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Those bills are set down for third reading immediately.