Woods MeganBUDGET DEBATEDebate resumed from 18 May on the Appropriation (2023/24 Estimates) Bill.Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Housing): It is my very great pleasure to rise in this debate to talk about the first Budget that the Hipkins Labour Government has delivered. I'd like to congratulate Chris Hipkins and I'd like to congratulate our Minister of Finance Grant Robertson on delivering his sixth Budget. This was a Budget that did exactly what it said on the tin: support for today and building for tomorrow. We know in our Government that there are many New Zealanders who are doing it tough right now. We're here to support them as we have in recent years by doing the basics well. But this is a Budget that also provides strong investment in the services that New Zealanders rely on and it has to get those priorities right. We still have to do the building for tomorrow piece. While we need to support New Zealanders today we do need to make sure that we are building for our future so that we are ensuring that New Zealand and New Zealanders are well set up for the decades ahead. Budget 2023 has made significant investment in education health and housing and this is the right thing to do. This is the bedrock of opportunity for each and every New Zealander. A warm dry place to call home the right to be well and the right to an education are all the things that sit as the values base that underpins Budget 2023. But as well as being a Minister of the Crown I'm also a very proud representative of the Wigram electorate and when I go around the Wigram electorate I can see how some of the measures that we have put in place are there for everyday New Zealanders. I want to talk about the $5 prescription fee and removing that. I know from talking to my constituents and talking to pharmacies in my electorate that this is a significant issue for a number of constituents. I visited with a chemist last week who was telling me that he had patients—constituents of mine—who would go into that chemist and make their own decisions on which one of their prescribed medicines from their GP they could afford to pick up that week. They would go in and they would have to say I can only afford two of those six medicines that my GP has prescribed for me. Can you help me make the choice on which ones? Is it my blood pressure medication is it my diabetes medication or is it something else that I really need?" and that is not the bedrock of a fair and decent society. This does make a difference so it is alarming—and I know it is alarming for many New Zealanders—to hear the National Party making absolute claims that they will bring back that surcharge for prescriptions and they believe it because they know it was the National Party that brought in those surcharges for prescriptions in the very first place. The other thing that I have heard from my constituents and from pharmacists in the electorate is how important that local pharmacy is as part of the infrastructure of health within our communities and within our neighbourhoods. While I was visiting one of the pharmacies a constituent came in and he was so happy that he could actually return to picking up his medicine from that local pharmacy which he'd been going to for years because he would no longer from 1 July have to pay that surcharge. Getting into the real world shows just how important that prescription charge removal is. We hear belittling of it saying "Well it's OK. It's only $100 a year and then the free prescriptions kick in." but if you have to go and pick up $75 worth of prescription in one go and you're on the pension that's $75 you cannot afford and I think it shows just how out of touch the National Party are. There were some other things that I was incredibly proud of in that Budget that will make such a difference. I want to talk about the bringing in of KiwiSaver contributions for parents who are on paid parental leave. This was a Budget for women. This was a Budget with so many wins for women in it and none more than the fact that their retirement security is not undermined by time out of the workforce. They know that they are still building pūtea and their children's future through retirement savings throughout that time they take out of the workforce. These are the things that make a difference and it is something I am incredibly proud that we've been able to put into this Budget. I'm also incredibly proud—and I know it is going to matter to my constituents—of the savings that can be made around early childhood education. I know that nearly $135 a week for those families that already have their two-year-olds in early childhood education is going to make a significant change. I also know that that up to $135 a week will make a significant difference for those families who are making the decision about whether or not a parent can go back to work. These are the things that make a difference to the lives of everyday New Zealanders and these are the things that are incredibly important. As well as the support for today that we've put in place I also want to talk about some of the long-term funding and thinking and vision that sits within the pages of Budget 2023. I want to talk about infrastructure spending. The Government has taken significant steps to finally address the infrastructure deficit that we have in this country. We had committed $71 billion worth of infrastructure investment over five years in addition to the $45 billion that we have spent in the last five years on infrastructure and it is this deficit that is one of the most crippling deficits that New Zealand faces and that we simply have to continue to have a commitment to address. Infrastructure sounds like such an abstract thing but for those in our communities that is their schools that is their hospitals that is our public housing that is their rail and their road network—the very things that make everyday life absolutely livable and that are critical for our communities our neighbourhoods our cities and our country. One of the things that we will be doing alongside this Budget is also working through the Infrastructure Action Plan. This comes out of the Infrastructure Strategy that is the result of our Government's commitment to making sure that we are taking a strategic approach to infrastructure that we are doing that plan and that we do need to do that futureproofing of our infrastructure. But in the final minute and a bit of my allotted time I want to talk about the commitment that this Government has yet again made to public housing in New Zealand. This Budget continues the funding that we have put in over our previous five Budgets to amount to the funding of 21000 new public housing places. This is something that is turning around decades of under-investment—Nicola Willis: The waiting list is longer. There's more kids in motels. Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: —and worse in public housing. Now I hear the former housing spokesperson for the National Party calling out "What's with the waiting list?" Well what I can tell that member is that if they had not sold off the houses when they were in Government and if they had built at the rate that we are building public houses there would be over 20000 additional public housing places in New Zealand today. So I know that there are members in that National Party that feel the shame of not only their inaction but their dereliction of duty on public housing in their nine years in Government. But our Budget 2023 continues our absolute commitment to turning around that dereliction of duty and to rebuilding a commitment to public housing in this country and that is something that we will continue to do. I look forward to hearing the plans from other political parties about what their commitment to public housing going forward is. What operational funding would they put in to show that they too are intent on fixing a housing crisis?"