Genter Julie AnneHon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Minister for Women): Tēnā koe Madam Speaker. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. We are all in this together—COVID-19 has made that crystal clear. We have shown in the last two months that as a country we were able to all pull together to work together for our common good. And we've been cooperating not only in Aotearoa New Zealand but even internationally—the human race is all in this together. We've had to work together to combat COVID-19. In our country we can be so enormously proud of what New Zealanders have done working together to stop the spread of the virus—stop it right in its tracks. I'm incredibly proud of the work that's been done by our Prime Minister and our Public Service to pull together an incredibly rapid response and of course all the work that's had to go into this Budget to rethinking it completely because everything has changed and yet nothing has changed—we're still all in this together.Together we have to grapple with many losing their incomes and jobs due to our reduced ability to travel and interact closely while COVID-19 remains a threat. Our solutions to this economic shock have to take that into account and I think that this Budget has made an excellent start. I have to speak firstly about how proud I am of what the Green Party secured in this Budget: $1.1 billion for good green jobs practical jobs that will get New Zealanders out there to work looking after our waterways our conservation estate our natural environment. That is incredibly important mahi and I'm so proud that the Green Party has been able to deliver that.I'm proud of what this Government has already delivered with a record increase in State housing and the commitment to deliver 8000 new public and transitional housing units. I have to correct the Opposition who've been claiming that somehow housing hasn't been delivered. In fact Kāinga Ora has delivered and is delivering record amounts of new public housing and we'll continue to do that.School lunches: 200000 children in New Zealand will have access to school lunches. I think that is a fantastic initiative. It's so important to make sure that every child in New Zealand has enough to eat. By feeding people at school it means that we really are all in this together; that everyone has that opportunity. We know too many Kiwi children are currently left behind unable to learn because they were going hungry because we had an inequitable system. Admittedly that was more than just one Government that created that and it's going to take more than one term of Government to correct it but at least this Government has the aspiration to do something unlike that last National Government who never set any targets about reducing child poverty never even tried to increase the supply of public housing until right at the end—right at the end of their nine-year term started to grapple with the fact that they'd overseen a horrific housing crisis and done nothing.The last Government wasn't brave enough to set targets; they erased targets they stopped setting targets except for the ones that were easy to meet and they left a horribly underfunded health system which this Government has started to fix. I'm proud of the steps that we're taking and continue to take to rebuild our public health system which is needed now more than ever.The apprenticeships: again a fantastic initiative. As Minister for Women I am incredibly keen to ensure that we do everything we can to make sure that these are benefiting women as much as men that a diverse group of people are able to benefit from that and to upskill to retrain and to get into jobs that they are passionate about that will help make this country an even better place.Just talking about that economic shock the Budget we know—not everything has been announced yet and there's still more announcements to come and I'm really excited about the announcements that I have to make. I think we are making good progress on those areas that were under-invested in under the last Government including women's health maternity services—I hope to make an announcement about that soon.Of course we will be making further announcements about infrastructure. The Green Party is incredibly keen to see that sustainability and equity is at the heart of our recovery. There is no economy if we don't have healthy people who can do and make things for each other. There is no economy without a healthy planet for people to live on. We all need a stable climate. We are part of nature and we must look after it. We can provide for our needs now while tending to the earth in a way that will sustain us and future generations. Ultimately our lives and our livelihoods are all interdependent. The balance of one's bank account or the wealth one has means nothing if there aren't other people producing food and goods providing services healthcare and education. That is the backbone of our economy really are those public services that make sure that we have healthy happy nourished fed people that we have clean drinkable water that we have clean air and that we have a stable climate for future generations and the Green Party in Government is delivering on that. This Budget begins to deliver on that.But we don't for one second pretend that there isn't a lot more work to do and that we need to go further and faster to ensure that we do have an equitable New Zealand that we are looking after our planet for the long term and that ultimately by doing those things that is what will enrich us and our lives most of all; far more than short term—the Opposition can't stop talking about these really short-term silly ideas like oil and gas exploration as if that was going to create much jobs. No it is threatening life on the planet so it seems like a bad investment but sure if that's your big idea for how we're going to respond to COVID-19 and build a flourishing stable economy in the 21st century good luck to you in September! Good luck to you in September is all I can say to the Opposition.And as long as I'm speaking right after the member Chris Bishop I will correct him a little bit. I think his memory and his history is just a little bit off. So let's just go back to 2009 when Steven Joyce announced the roads of national significance. I just want to bring this up because this was the big flagship economic development idea from the National Party which has been spoken to in this debate. You know how much it was? It was seven highways—just seven highways they promised. Of course they promised a whole bunch of them without doing a business case first so it turned out that many of them had incredibly low benefit-cost ratio (BCRs). That means the cost of project is many times more than the actual economic benefits. I'm happy to provide the evidence of that for any of those members over there who I'm sure have never bothered to look at a business case for a highway project in their life.So Steven Joyce's big idea: seven highways two of them had already been committed to by the previous Labour Government. So two out of seven had already been promised by the Helen Clark-led fifth Labour Government that was the Waterview Connection which got delayed by Minister Joyce and of course only got delivered very recently and the Victoria Park Tunnel already started by the Labour Government. So that was a good project that had a relatively high BCR. Do you know that project was only $200 million—maybe $200 million $300 million. It seems incredibly efficient compared to the cost of the highways that were then proposed by the last National Government. So they then promised the Waikato Expressway Wellington Northern Corridor Pūhoi to Wellsford Christchurch and Tauranga.So they were spending the vast majority of the transport budget just around our largest cities on highways that don't even reduce congestion really. We all know highways induce more traffic. So within five years you have to expand them again. So you're spending billions of dollars for no gain. And it's funny the National Party are laughing at this as if they don't know. All around the world people know this now. So in 2009 they promised seven roads by the end of nine years: the five roads that were their idea all of which had incredibly low BCRs not yet completed; the Waikato Expressway not yet completed; the Wellington Northern Corridor not only not completed but their big idea for Wellington was a flyover which got rejected by the board of inquiry that they had put up; Pūhoi to Wellsford not done—they haven't even completed Pūhoi to Warkworth because Pūhoi to Wellsford was more than a billion dollars more than what they had estimated. That isn't done yet. That was signed up to as a public-private partnership (PPP) which is a total mess now. Transmission Gully a PPP: a total mess now. We've actually had to go back and resurface a bunch of these roads that the National Party delivered". So that was what they delivered.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): I'm sorry to interrupt the member but the time has come for the House to adjourn for the dinner break. The House will resume at 7.30 p.m. and the member will have 21 seconds should she wish to take it.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m."