Williams PotoHon POTO WILLIAMS (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector): Thank you Mr Speaker. This afternoon we had the privilege and pleasure—as we often do—of having children in the gallery to witness question time. When the children come through the door they immediately gravitate to the Prime Minister's chair. The children often come—oh and to you Mr Speaker of course. Perhaps just an aside Mr Speaker I do want to thank the Parliament for the delivery of that playground to make our Parliament much more accessible to the people of New Zealand—and I think there is a photo on social media that might have yourself sliding down that slide but I couldn't possibly comment on that. But what I do want to say is that children come to Parliament and they want to see our Prime Minister because they know that the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern is there for them. Before I became a member of Parliament I worked with Jacinda Ardern in her role as spokesperson for children and I completely believe and understand just how strong her commitment to children is.I want to start with that premise—that children are important and that this Government is committed to making New Zealand the best place to be a child. That's really important it's the focus of our work it's why we have an agenda that is about wellbeing and it's why we have also worked alongside Treasury to deliver the Living Standards Framework. What this is about is ensuring that all of the work of Government is delivered around five key priorities and one of the most important priorities is our children. Now that's you know really sensible because it's about our future and we want our children to do well. But more than that we want them to thrive. There are many many parts of our Families Package in particular that deliver specifically to children.I want to talk about how we look at building the income in a family. So not only is that looking at raising the minimum wage and looking to ensure that Government employees and contractors move to the living wage but that's also about supporting people at the most difficult time of a family's life and that's when a new baby comes into the house—how stressful that is. This Government has taken a universal approach to say that we know this is a difficult time for families so we're going to support you by making sure that you have an extra $60 in your pocket to make sure that you attend to baby's needs—whether that's formula or nappies or all those little things that you might need. Babies can be really expensive and we say that actually we know that it's important for every family to be supported in that way.We also want to create healthy environments for our children. I'm particularly proud—and I don't mind how often I say this because it impacts the children in my area in my city and in my region—of the work that we are doing in Mana Ake to support children who experience trauma particularly post-earthquake. I'm also proud of the work that we're doing with young people in terms of Piki to support their mental health. Children are fragile and when things happen they need support to recover and restore them from trauma. So I'm enormously proud of the work that we're doing in that area.But it's more than that; we're also looking at their education. So we have in this term of Parliament paid teachers more and we've paid early childhood educators more because we recognise that quality education comes from teachers who feel rewarded. Now we know that early childhood educators are also being rewarded for their work but we know that there is much more that we can do in that space. We encourage our colleagues to make sure that they keep telling us about the issues and the pressures that we face because we have started on this journey we've got much more to do but we don't always know the impact of our work until we're reminded by our friends and colleagues. So we encourage people to keep telling us about what more there is to be done.You know school lunches are going to be free and I often reflect on my grandson and what it means for him just like I reflect on what it means for other children to be well supported right at the beginning stages of their lives to have a great education to be supported when things don't go well and when they're at school to have the best education from the best teachers. And also if things aren't going so well at home that you've got support from nurses in schools that you've got support from Mana Ake and sometimes when families aren't doing so well that we can actually make sure that children are fed so that they have the opportunity to learn.I am proud of this Government and I am proud of our Prime Minister.