SpeechJENNY MARCROFT (NZ First): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity to take my call to speak to Budget 2020. I'd just like to acknowledge my colleague opposite Nikki Kaye who's just resumed her seat on being elevated to her new position as head girl of the National—pardon me as the deputy leader of the National Party. I will begin my contribution this afternoon acknowledging the health sector in the response to this global pandemic. It has been a highly successful public health response and I think we can all agree with that. The way that every individual whether they stayed at home whether they were an essential worker and went out into their community and performed the function that was required of them—everybody played their part and we have had a really positive response. So a big thankyou particularly to all those essential workers working in the health sector for keeping the hospitals and the medical centres ticking over. Budget 2020 has a big number attached to it: $50 billion. There is another number I'd like to mention right now and that number is zero. It's a number that perhaps is a very small number or maybe it's not even a number at all. But it's a number that day after day for the last 12 days in particular we have wanted to hear that number: zero zip nil nada—cull—new cases of COVID. Throughout the course of lockdown and over the last number of weeks families and individuals gathered around their televisions or their iPhones—maybe it was even with your teenagers—and we watched at 1 o'clock as the mighty Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield told us about the situation of COVID. But particularly we have been watching with bated breath over the last couple of weeks to hear those words from him: No new cases of COVID." and so now we can focus our attention as a country on recovery and rebuilding. But I'd like to go back to a comment made by the previous speaker who said that when they were in Government they left world-class infrastructure. So I'd just like to mention: can you tell that to the thousands who were left homeless under their watch? Can you say that they left world-class infrastructure when there was faecal matter oozing down the sides of public hospitals? I say no. My leader the Rt Hon Winston Peters in his statement said that "It's a Budget that responds aggressively to our present conditions it's a Budget that will support our transition to recovery and it's a Budget that has our people New Zealanders front and centre." This Government has been focused from the get-go in 2017 when we came into Government on the people. Our health response was about protecting the people. Our economic response in Budget 2020 is about the people: getting them back to work and getting them back into jobs. I'd like to make note as we turn to our recovery of the health response inside Budget 2020: $5.6 billion in services and $755 million in capital investment and $3.9 billion has gone to the DHBs because our DHBs are playing catch-up and so that has been earmarked for healthcare spending over the next four years. Now this is a deliberate intention to mitigate the consequences of past belt-tightening and retrenchment policies. Also $160 million has been sent off to the combined pharmaceutical budget managed by Pharmac. Now this critical investment takes Pharmac's medicines budget to a record $1.045 billion and that's over the 2020-21 year. There is also $832.5 million for disability support services. So as we move ahead into our recovery I'd like to highlight that a lot of people actually read a few books while they were in lockdown—they had time and space to do that—and one thing that was very disappointing for a lot of people was that the libraries were shut. They were shut because absolutely everyone was home. But now that people are back out into our communities we can go back to these hubs of our communities and something that my colleague the Hon Tracey Martin through her budget of $58.8 million has done is made an investment in our libraries so that we can ensure free internet access at all libraries. There's 600 libraries in New Zealand with 2500 employees. So that announcement was made last week and on the very same day the Auckland Council basically said that across all their libraries for our relief librarians they won't be getting any extra work. There will be no extra hours for librarians if they needed to pick up a few extra hours of work. So as the Auckland Council said they will retrench in the library space. Our Minister said actually we need to invest in our libraries because of the importance of libraries being a connector in our communities. One of the things that we learn from history is that in times of crisis often it will stimulate exciting new artwork. Now we had an announcement about "What will we do and what is the role of art in the time of crisis?" so there is a new arts funding package. I'd like to draw your attention to the fact that over history we've seen some incredibly inspired artworks that have come from a period of time when there was political and social turmoil. So I'd take you back to the time during South Africa at the end of apartheid and the artwork that was being produced then the Solidarity era in Poland in the 1980s and also the time that accompanied the Berlin Wall coming down in the 1990s. During these periods of uncertainty and risk there is an amazing amount of art that is produced. It forces a crystallisation of thinking and we have now put in a package of $175 million to support the artists and the cultural creation in New Zealand which I believe is not just about "Can they produce more work?" but also they have families that will be taken care of because there will be some income there for them. There is $7.9 million for Careers Support for Creative Jobseekers $70 million for creative arts recovery and $60 million over three years for a cultural innovation fund. So we are backing the arts in a really big way because it is about people. Back in the early 1900s my grandmother Herene Kīngi travelled from the North in Tai Tokerau to Rotorua to work at Whakarewarewa. She went down to Te Puia to be a guide. From the arts and Māori tourism package $7.6 million has been delivered to Te Puia and the Māori Arts and Crafts Institute in Rotorua to keep our young people training in carving and weaving ensuring those skills will continue to be developed throughout this recovery period. As a young girl—because I grew up in Rotorua—my dad learnt to carve so I'm really pleased that that institution which has about a 100-year history in New Zealand will continue to thrive because of the heart of this Government caring about our people. I will just mention my connection up North in Tai Tokerau and Hokianga and the dreadful housing situation some whānau find themselves in whether it's homelessness or housing states that really no one should be living in. There is $40 million from the Māori and Iwi Housing Initiative the Māori housing and development programme and we saw it rolled out in a very real way as we went into lockdown in an immediate response working with the Māori collective Te Kahu o Taonui. They sent up 60 campervans to the Far North to support homeless whānau so they could be in a safe space and also be able to physically distance. This is a bold and exciting Budget package at a time where the country really needs to be united and to ensure that we can look after each other. We've done the health package. We have taken care to ensure that we have literally isolated ourselves from the COVID crisis. Now it is time to take care of our people as we move forward into jobs and work because it is necessary that we get the country moving again by getting our people employed and where they can't have a job any more with that job we can transition into new work. That will enable our economy to get moving again. So that is a grand plan and I'm proud to be part of this Government. Thank you Mr Speaker."