White HelenHELEN WHITE (Labour): It's a pleasure to rise to take a call and to debate what's a very important snapshot of where we are in terms of our economy. I am relatively new to politics. I did about 25 to 30 years of law and I came on to this committee. So what I thought I'd do is give the public at home a snapshot of what I learnt from this report because it's a very interesting snapshot indeed.First of all I learnt that the Treasury confirmed the overall health of the balance sheet in the face of what have been major challenges—and that is mainly COVID. But also it confirmed that in terms of our long-term challenges. What it did was it talked about what a solid foundation we have had and that means that we actually have an overall—we owe $438000 billion. But we have sorry—sorry. Let's just—we actually have done well in terms of what we owe versus what we have borrowed.What we are also facing is a situation where actually the fact we went into the crisis as we did was really helped by the fact that we had a finance Minister who had kept a lid on the debt and that had made a huge difference. What I also learnt was that we have a—sorry I'm just having trouble with my glasses and I can't actually see the page. We have taken a very sound pathway and that sound pathway that we have taken in terms of the way we responded to the crisis is one that involves actually really using the money that we were investing in the places that mattered. So we used it to actually do things that mattered long term. There's a real confirmation in this report of just how wise that was because we've heard a lot today from the Opposition about the issue over the investment in infrastructure but actually there hadn't been enough investment in infrastructure. And what was lost was the opportunity that that would have given New Zealanders. Now the money is going into those places that matter.So when we talk about things like three waters we're talking about investments in the very infrastructure that's important because there had been a real slide in that area. We have not had investment in the pipes and the pure water that we need. As a consequence we've had some terrible crises. We've actually had people die; we've had people die of water quality. And so those things when we invest in them we actually invest forward into our future because that is actually exactly what a Government is for. We have got to do that obviously with housing as well. There is an acknowledgment in this report that that money needs to be spent in those areas and it needs to be spent by Government. In fact there is an encouragement to spend that money in areas that are about climate change because that actually is a very progressive investment because those are the risks we face and there's an acknowledgment of those risks. In fact the report writers warn that one of the things that we need to do is think very carefully about that climate change situation in terms of what it is putting at risk for us because it is putting us at risk when we don't acknowledge that we are going to face some real crises in that area—things like the water pipes that I was talking about. My understanding is that 4000 of those water pipes will be at risk because of climate change so we have to build robustly and we have to build things that actually don't put our children at risk of future debt. And we're doing that.In fact I was interested to hear several what I would call ideological comments come in from the other parties about what we should not be doing. There was the suggestion by ACT that we should be selling assets and there was a suggestion by National that Government doesn't do this well. What I would contrast that with is actually the report itself where there is a part of the report that talks about the public investment in infrastructure and it actually specifically talks about how the international experience is that it's really important for Government to invest in those areas because if it does actually other parties crowd in—they're encouraged to actually innovate and to invest as well. So it's very very important that our Government takes that kind of role and that's exactly what it's doing.What they also talk about is the significant opportunities that come out of actually looking at the risks that we face in an area like climate change and responding to them as a Government because if we take them on as opportunities we can do things that actually produce a lot more income for New Zealand. We can look at things like sustainable fuels. We can look at waste minimisation. These are all consistent with our climate goals but they're also ways of actually shoring up our economy.One of the things that is very clear in this report is that there is a robust review process. There's a discussion of this in the report and there's a discussion of this in the report that the Finance and Expenditure Committee made on it where we talked about the kinds of things that are here at the moment in our system that really keep eyes on the kinds of responses that the Government are making. So Treasury does things like it reviews the economic response it reviews wage subsidies it reviews the Business Finance Guarantee Scheme and it also intends to do a wellbeing report by the end of 2022 which is a very interesting concept I think because we're getting at the heart of matters.One of the things I'm most proud of of this Government is that there is a focus on employment and that was true in this response. Let's face it this Government did spectacularly when it came to keeping people employed. And while the Opposition likes to talk about self-reliance what I know from my career in law is that the most important thing that people can have if they want to be self-reliant is a job. They don't need any job; they need a well-paying job. Today we had statistics come out that said that Māori unemployment was down to 5.5 percent; Pacific unemployment was down to 5.4 percent. That is extremely important because that is taking a group that has been marginalised and unemployed in much higher numbers than Pākehā and they are now working. That's a sustainable future. That is a totally different thing that is going on when that happens and it's a very important thing that's happened and I'm very proud of it.I'd just like to end by saying that when I read this report I didn't feel despondent. I didn't spend my time worrying too much about the things that have been mentioned by the other side because it was an overwhelmingly positive report. It was quite a creative report it pointed us in the right direction and it talked about things like infrastructure and some of that was a little devastating that we hadn't done enough over a very long time over our infrastructure. But it pointed us absolutely in the right direction and it seemed to me a very robust system of really robust reporting that was going to put us on the right track.But more importantly I was proud of the Government that I'd come into for getting it right as much as they had—for actually making sure that when the pressure was on to try and spend more when it was not appropriate it hadn't. But when it was a rainy day it had spent the money that was required. And consequently we just have not had the awful forecasts we had—that people would be unemployed. We haven't had that. What we have is tough times at the moment but people have jobs and that is so so important to their dignity. It is so important to whether they can pay the mortgage. It is so important in terms of whether they can weather this storm. And that happened under this Government's watch and it is absolutely reflected in this report. So I am very pleased to commend this report to the House.