Smith StuartSTUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): It is a pleasure to take a call on Vote Social Development and Vote Building and Housing. I would like to start with social development first because it is a great pleasure and an honour to be involved with Oranga Tamariki which has $434 million from this vote going towards that process. I was also involved with the bill going through the Social Services Committee and it was a phenomenal piece of legislation I believe; a major step-change in the way we look after the most vulnerable tamariki. I think it is phenomenal to back that up with such a large vote of $434 million.What came through very clearly through all of the submissions on that bill was that a major change needed to happen and it was not any good just fiddling around the edges. In order to make that change of course requires a large investment which Minister Tolley made a successful bid for and that came through in the vote. So I would like to congratulate her on that.I guess the centrepiece of the whole Budget really was the $2 billion Family Incomes Package particularly Working for Families and the accommodation supplement but also the tax bracket changes or tax thresholds. Bracket creep is something that has been building up for some time; to make that major change is a really good reset for that tax system. And that benefits everybody because we all pay tax. So I think that is a phenomenal step forward for our economy as well.I would also like to touch on social investment $320 million—$321 million to be exact—going towards the social investment approach. Yet again it is another completely separate or new way of looking at things because we are relentlessly positive over here. When we are looking at social investment rather than saying Let's just put more money in the vote." we are saying "Let's target things in the vote that are going to make a difference."—a material difference to people's lives—and get around the people whom we can identify through the data that is now available to identify those who need it most and put those wraparound services around those young people in particular and get ahead of the problem. Too often all we have done is throw money at it and think that the best way to be a good Government is just to hand money out to people—Matt Doocey: Willy-nilly.STUART SMITH: —yes willy-nilly—but we are not taking that approach at all. The Ministers in this sector are relentlessly positive. They have stepped up and made a big change in the way we think about social development and I think that is to be applauded.I would also like to touch on what was mentioned before by the previous speaker Mojo Mathers about jobs and how hard it is to get jobs. Well I would actually challenge that. We have in fact the highest labour force participation rate that we have ever had and we are among the highest in the OECD. I think that is something to be applauded. Today the unemployment figures came out—down to 4.8 percent. That is a phenomenal achievement. We still have people who are unable to get jobs for lots of reasons. It is not because there is not the work there—there certainly is—it is because they have all sorts of issues going on in their lives and that is where we are going through this social investment approach among others to help those people get jobs.I would like to talk about the 3K to Work programme. It was just announced today that 1200 people have been supported off benefits in the last year and into work. The best way to help those people is to help them help themselves or enable them to help themselves. I know from being a former patron of the work scheme that goes through the military that it has been phenomenal to see how those people—their heads go up it completely changes their lives they feel a lot better about themselves and their families and everybody benefits from that.I would just like to finish by saying that a fresh approach is what has actually come this way. We are relentlessly positive over here and it is a great pleasure to have taken this call."