Russell DeborahDr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn): Talofa lava Mr Speaker. I am honoured to talk about our Budget this year: a Budget which is about continuing to keep Aotearoa New Zealand safe from COVID-19 a Budget which is about accelerating the recovery and rebuild from the impacts of COVID-19 a Budget which is about laying the foundations for the future and addressing some of the key issues that confront us. In particular this year we focus on child poverty and that motivates the benefit increases—the benefit increases this year that finally expunge the levels of cuts from the 1991 mother of all Budgets" and a benefit increase that meets the recommendations of the Welfare Expert Advisory Group. Of course there is more to do but it is wonderful to see this action being taken. And those increases in benefits will flow back to the local communities as families spend the extra money on their children and on the resources to support themselves—it's a great move.I want to cast our minds back to the lockdown last year which was I guess very difficult for many of us. In my neighbourhood what I noticed was many many people out walking about enjoying the native bush where I live and that bush is very precious to us out west in Auckland. The Waitakere Ranges are our jewel our treasure but in the Waitakere Ranges the kauri are dying. Kauri dieback has taken a really strong foothold there. We have all sorts of measures in place to try to reduce its impact but for many—in fact ever since I've entered this Parliament I've been advocating for a better approach to kauri dieback and this year this Budget delivers that.This year this Budget delivers $28 million towards rolling out a national pest management plan for kauri. Now what is that? Well it's a legal framework that brings together the work of Government of councils of iwi and of NGOs all together in a framework that means that activity is coordinated and that everyone is at the decision-making table and involved in understanding how to fight against kauri dieback.It's pretty interesting having a national pest management plan for kauri dieback. We have three in place currently: one for Psa-V in kiwifruit one for bovine tuberculosis and one for American foulbrood in bees. But interestingly those are all there to protect commercial crops and commercial species. This is the first time that a national pest management plan will be rolled out for a taonga species—for our kauri which have no commercial purpose but they are deeply important to us and we do need to do some astonishing work on trying to save them.I mentioned that it had been something that I'd concerned myself with since I entered this Parliament. I have a report here from the previous Parliament from the Environment Committee where at the time when I was chair we led a series of briefings into kauri dieback. And what we found at that stage was that the work around kauri dieback was fragmented it wasn't coordinated that there were lots of people trying to do lots of things but altogether the effort wasn't adding up to enough. As we talked to the various Government agencies we found that work was beginning on putting together a national pest management plan or some kind of coordinated plan. Our committee recommended that that be followed—that that go ahead as soon as possible. So it took a bit of time for the money to arrive but I would like to commend the Minister for Biosecurity the Hon Damien O'Connor for finally pulling together this package of funding which will ensure that kauri dieback is addressed properly.But as well as commending the Minister obviously I also would like to acknowledge the other people who've worked on this for many years and have been raising their concerns around it: people like Te Kawerau ā Maki from the Waitakeres who have this deep commitment to kauri; people like Dr Nick Waipara an absolute expert in plant pathogens who has brought his considerable knowledge to bear on this issue; people like the Save Our Kauri Trust—all people working to save our kauri. I'm very grateful for their work and for their advocacy for their input into the select committee briefings on kauri dieback for the contribution they have been making to the development of this national pest management plan and for creating the will to do it. So there's a lot of work that has gotten us to this point where in the Budget this year finally with the support of the Minister and to my great delight that money has been allocated. And it does contribute to our future it does contribute to our security it does contribute to our recovery. Why? Because it is part of our bush part of our New Zealand native species part of our treasures. Kauri are magnificent trees—they are absolutely fabulous trees. It has been heartbreaking to see them dying in my neighbourhood and it is wonderful to see this plan now rolling into place so that we can save our kauri."