Sio Hon Aupito William; Salesa JennyHon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO (Minister for Courts): Talofa lau afioga i le Sui Fofoga Fetalai. O oe o le faletua o Toeolesulusulu Damon Salesa. Ia talofa foi i le mamalu o le fonotaga i le Maota Fono o Aotearoa New Zealand. In acknowledgment of Samoan Language Week I just acknowledge you Madam Speaker as well as all the members in this House.It gives me pleasure to speak this afternoon on what is truly a magnificent Budget for Pacific peoples of Aotearoa. On Thursday alongside my tuakana teina of the Māori caucus I announced Budget details on two great initiatives in the health area. Why? Because Pacific peoples deserve to live longer and healthier lives. That is why this Government is reforming our healthcare system and why Budget 2022 invests in making services like bowel screening fairer by lowering the screening age.First I want to talk about bowel cancer screening. We're investing over $36 million across four years to shift the starting age for bowel screening from 60 years old to 50 years old for Māori and Pacific people. Why are we concerned about this? Well a higher proportion of bowel cancer occurs in these population groups before they reach 60. Approximately 21 percent Pacific people who have bowel cancer are more likely to die from their cancer compared to non-Pacific people. Their cancer is usually found later when it is difficult to treat. Increased participation early detection and early treatment can result in a five-year survival rate of 90 percent. Introducing bowel screening earlier will save lives. An extra 60000 Māori and Pacific people will receive screening for bowel cancer with this initiative and it is likely to result in earlier detection of bowel cancer for around 53 people. This could mean avoiding as many as 44 deaths each year—44 mothers fathers daughters and sons. People in our families will live longer. A $36 million investment is significant but preventing the deaths of loved ones means much more. Pacific health experts and academics and organisations across the board including the New Zealand Cancer Society Hei Āhuru Mōwai and Bowel Cancer New Zealand have called on Government to address this inherent inequity and we have listened. The bowel screening initiative will roll out later this year across two regions with the plan to go nationwide from July 2023. It's important to fully implement the programme first to ensure colonoscopy capacity and follow-up treatment facilities are in place to manage the additional procedures and cancers diagnosed as a result of a positive bowel-screening test. So how will we do this? Well we're going to increase the Pacific workforce. Budget 2022 will deliver 1900 new health workers and will support 2700 more students into training programmes through a $76 million investment to continue to grow the Māori and Pacific health workforce. For the Pacific workforce this funding is an important step towards building a more diverse and sustainable pathway into health for Pacific peoples. It also ensures that as our health workforce grows it reflects the communities it serves and having the right workforce that delivers service to communities is just as important as having the right medicine and treatment. We saw how our workforce—with language skills cultural intelligence—kept our community safe in the last two years. This investment will start to bring new people into the workforce where training can happen faster such as Kaiāwhina and for those who have already undertaken some health training as well as ensuring we're continuing to invest in more training for the longer term. There is $37 million in new funding for the Pacific health workforce alone. We're also investing to build on the successes we've had in responding to COVID-19 and to help transition Pacific people in COVID-19 roles into day-to-day roles in the health system. This includes 100 extra training places over four years and 100 places to grow additional workforces focused on implementing The Addressing the Burden of Diabetes in Pacific Communities" initiative and helping our Pacific communities to address the burden of diabetes many of our families face. I do want to pause and just acknowledge the Pacific caucus and all of my ministerial colleagues for the wonderful effort in getting out and about in the last recess. It was so important that you were there and the response from our communities has been particularly positive. I've had to make some announcement on immigration on behalf of the Minister—kidding—but there was a lot of questions on immigration. Notwithstanding that they are ongoing concerns and as population Minister of course I've got to raise those issues. But I want to thank my colleagues for being about and I wanted to acknowledge also as we moved about the Auckland region—others went to Levin others were with the Hon Poto Williams in Christchurch—I couldn't help but acknowledge the diversity of our Pasifika communities. I want to also acknowledge the aroha expressed to us—Hon Scott Simpson: Trying to shore up the life raft.Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO: —hush—by Māori. I want to acknowledge the closeness of how they are working with Pasifika peoples on the ground. One of the most significant investments that this Government announced as part of Budget 2022 is the partnership that Pasifika and Ngāti Toa here in Wellington—the partnership to develop 300 houses for Pasifika in Porirua East with an initial investment of $49 million. This is a unique partnership. It is a partnership recognising the mana and value of the next generation coming through that diverse generation that I often refer to as "Generation Six Bs": people who are proudly brown beautiful brainy bilingual bicultural and bold. Then of course in Māngere we call ourselves "Generation Eight Bs" because we're just bloody brilliant—and there's none of that brilliance on that side of the Chamber. But all fun aside I want to acknowledge Ngāti Toa the vision and for your awhi your aroha your manaakitanga your kaitiakitanga in wrapping support around our whanaunga here in Porirua East. That's a 10-year project and the commitment of this Government is for that 10 years. The project actually will be more than $100 million and it could be more than 300 houses depending on how fast we can accelerate that with the support of a number of Government agencies. It is also a model which I think is fitting for me to take around to talk to the many iwis that are prepared to speak to us. I've raised it with my colleague the Hon Kelvin Davis as well as Nanaia Mahuta and they are very very supportive of the principle of this—of Māori and Pasifika working together.The final part of the Budget that I want to acknowledge is the Minister of Finance and the leadership of our Prime Minister. The leadership is unparalleled—I don't see it happening on that side of the House at all—but this is a leadership where our Government leaders are thinking not just of the immediate need but long term. For our community it is so important for this Government to continue investing in the long term because the challenges are many. When you're talking about meeting those challenges you've also got to address issues that just don't seem to go away and I'm talking about issues of racism and discrimination. It doesn't help when our public hear rhetoric coming from that side of the House that seems to encourage that sort of behaviour. But I speak of the $13.7 million of the investment in this Budget for the Dawn Raids. Following our apology from this Government last year this is an investment that will collect the stories of those who were affected impacted by the harms of racism and discrimination in the 1970s and the young people today are still talking about that. The young people today are not going to put up with the crap that comes from that side of the House when those members believe that it is better to divide and rule the nation. We on this side of the House want to build a stronger nation where our young people can thrive and prosper as Pacific peoples of Aotearoa. Kia kaha.Faafetai mo lenei avanoa. Manuia le Vaiaso o le Gagana Samoa. Manuia le atoaga o le onosefulu tausaga o Samoa. Manuia le atoaga o le feagaiga faaleuo a Samoa. Soifua. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Faafetai tele lava Afioga Aupito Toeolesulusulu Tofae Su'a William Sio. Manuia le aso. I call on Dr Shane Reti. Malo soifua."