Henare PeeniHon PEENI HENARE (Minister of Defence): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker.Tuatahi māku ka tuku i ngā roimata ki runga o Ngāti Whātua ki Ōrākei a te matenga o Joe Hawke ki roto i ngā wiki a Te Kahurangi Aroha Crofts kua riro atu te taniwha o Te Wai Pounamu ka mutu huri tū atu ki roto i Te Tai Hauāuru arā Te Tumuaki o te Hāhi Rātana anā ka mutu ki roto i a au i Te Tai Tokerau te kaumātua Pineaha Murray kotahi tonu te kōrero ki a rātou kua riro atu ki te pō haere mai haere.[Firstly I shed tears for Ngāti Whātua ki Ōrakei with the recent death of Joe Hawke Dame Aroha Crofts has also passed away the powerful leader from the South Island and I turn to the West Coast with the leader of the Rātana Church and I finish in The Far North with the elder Pineaha Murray. There is one phrase for those who have passed away may you rest in peace.]I thought it rather fitting that in the passing of Mr Joe Hawke we remembered the 44-year anniversary of Takaparawhau when Mr Joe Hawke stood defiantly to the then Government to make sure that his people continued to have land. What people think is that was the end of Mr Hawke's legacy but I'm proud to say in acknowledgment of his whānau what he also fought for was the wellbeing of his people. He fought for better health outcomes for his people. He fought for better social outcomes for his people and economic benefit for his people. With respect to Ngāti Whātua he did a very very good job but we've got a long way to go. I want to acknowledge him not just for his contribution to Māoridom but as you will know he was a member of our party—the Labour Party—and a sitting member of this House. I extend my heartfelt sympathies to his family and to the people of Ngāti Whātua and to all those who are suffering at this point in time.I turn now to the Budget. I stand in support of what is a very impressive Budget. Over the past week Māori Ministers have been travelling around the country and what we've themed our roadshow as is a saying that goes He oranga mauroa" which means securing our future and that's exactly what this Budget does. I want to acknowledge the Minister of Finance not just for this Budget but if we look towards the announcements for the Māori Budget in this particular year what we see is a building on years previous—in particular through a challenging time of COVID-19 where I acknowledge many of the Māori health providers around the country and many of our community leaders who continue to support our people through the COVID pandemic. And just a friendly reminder to one and all: we aren't quite through the pandemic. What we see now is a number of a cases the daily average continuing to rise slowly we see more—sadly—deaths of those from COVID-19.So I want to just remind our whānau as we head into winter: we aren't out of the COVID pandemic. Furthermore as we look towards what we need to do to support each other through winter—which is traditionally a hard time on our people—I want to endorse the efforts made by communities to push our people to make sure they are vaccinated against the flu.When we were out on the road talking about the Budget there was so much to talk about. For Māori Ministers it was another success of just over $1.2 billion announced in the Budget to make sure that we could continue to have what I just described as "He oranga mauroa" or securing our wellbeing. Now what we saw in the Budget is over half a billion dollars towards wellbeing and health and I want to talk about a little bit of those because they fall under my portfolios. I want to start with Whānau Ora. In Budget 2022 the Minister of Finance announced $166 million for Whānau Ora over four years. Now I want to take this opportunity to explain why that's really significant. Since the start of the kaupaua of Whānau Ora predecessors who have held this portfolio have always gone back to Governments and to Ministers of Finance to say "Look we need support for Whānau Ora. Whānau Ora does a fantastic job." We saw it again over the past two years through the pandemic where this Government invested significantly in Whānau Ora to continue to support the work that they're doing. In Budget 2022 what we did was invest $166 million into Whānau Ora over four years. Why is that important? Because what that does is it secures the future for Whānau Ora. By putting it over four years we now know that the Whānau Ora kaupapa is in the baseline of our expenditure which means it has security moving forward.We know that there was a money uplift through COVID-19 which was important because they took over a heck of a lot of support in our communities and they were servicing whānau that actually weren't originally on their books. They had an open-door policy which saw many whānau come into Whānau Ora for their services. The $166 million announced in Budget 2022 will continue to secure Whānau Ora for the future. It represents almost a 50 percent uplift in the funding for Whānau Ora. Now that is something that I'm proud of and that is something that I know this Government is proud of.There is also significant investment in Māori health. Recently in Whangārei I announced a $30 million fund to support health infrastructure for Māori health providers. I want to be clear: that infrastructure isn't just on what we might term capital expenditure for buildings or whatever it might be but also to look towards how they prepare themselves for the health reform that we have in place making sure that come 1 July our Māori health providers are supported to continue the good work that they're doing while also making sure that they find their place in an important health reform—a health reform that has been decades in the making and I'm proud that this Government's leading it.They were absolutely blown away by that announcement: $30 million doesn't sound like a lot of money but for Māori health providers who have received very little over decades this is a game-changer and I was quite clear to them then that this can't be the beginning and the end of it. This bill's also on the investment that we made through COVID-19 that saw Māori health providers who didn't have mobile clinics to be able to immunise and vaccinate our communities get funding to be able to do that. This continues that and I'm really proud of that announcement. I can tell you as I stood in Whangārei amongst a collective of Māori health providers from Te Tai Tokerau as well as those who joined online there was absolute support and also endorsement of the Budget and the announcement that I made that particular day.A further $168 million to see the Māori Health Authority continue to drive commissioning not just at a national level but at a local level through iwi-Māori partnership boards. We're quite clear that in order for us to be able to deliver these services we must make sure that the money is there and available to commission those services.But I want to highlight one other thing in the Budget: the nearly $40 million invested into the Māori health workforce. Here's the reason: it's no good saying that there's a lack of money in the health budget. It's no good saying that actually that's not enough money when what we really need is a strong health workforce moving forward to be able to deliver these outcomes. We've already asked out health providers—and I look towards my colleague here Tangi Utikere whose sister is a strong leader in health in their community as a nurse and I continue to think about them. It's easy to say that it needs more money but it's no good commissioning outcomes when you do not have the workforce to deliver it. I'm thankful that the workforce have worked hard through COVID-19. What we know is the $40 million investment announced in Budget 2022 will continue to support us to grow that workforce.We saw during the vaccination of our people through COVID-19 that not only did we need regulated health workers that could give the vaccine and take charge of the vaccine distribution but what we needed was an entire other workforce that continued to support the back office and that continued to support promotions to bring our people out of their homes and into the community discussions that we're having around health and COVID-19. My expectation is that $40 million will continue to look towards securing that workforce transitioning them into health workforce career pathways. What I also expect from that money is to see an uplift of Māori and Pacific leaders in the health sector not just those who have become GPs—and they're awesome; they're fantastic. What we want is those trained medical professionals to take the next step to be specialists to make sure that we can continue to support our communities.Just one final one from me: $36 million to lower the screening age for Māori and Pacific people from the age of 60 to 50 for bowel-screening. On a personal note my father had bowel cancer well before he was 60 and do you know what? We were lucky. We are privileged. My family we were able to seek the care that he needed to beat bowel cancer. Sadly we found bowel cancer in him because we were going in for what would be normal regular heart and blood checks. What this announcement will do is make sure that we can reach a further 60000 people who will now become eligible for bowel-screening and I'm really proud of that. That's one of the true gold nuggets that you hold a personal affinity to something that makes me say I'm proud to support our Minister of Finance's Budget. I'm proud of the work that we're doing on this side of the House to make sure that our communities have the wellbeing that they deserve.Finally a big thankyou to the Minister of Finance. His trust and his inspiration for all of us here on this side of the House is something to behold and I look forward to continuing to spell the virtues of this Budget as we go forward. Thank you Mr Speaker."