Salesa JennyHon JENNY SALESA (Minister for Building and Construction): Thank you so much for this opportunity to discuss what our Government is achieving in response to the Prime Minister the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern's statement. There is so much going on so much progress over the last two years that 10 minutes is actually not long enough for me to cover everything that this Government has delivered. I will however try to cover at least three of the portfolios that I'm responsible for and let me begin with building and construction. When we came into office in late 2017 we were facing a housing crisis one that the previous Government did not even acknowledge existed. We also had so many schools and hospitals that were not funded had not been maintained and the capital infrastructure had not been invested in those schools and those hospitals over the last period of nine years during the last Government. We were also facing a shortage of skills in building and construction by at least 30000 people. But in just two years we have achieved a lot of important steps to ensuring that we address these issues these long-term issues. I've got to say that one of those things that I'm really proud of is the fact that we in this Government we acknowledge that addressing long-term issues is not something that our Government can do on our own. We reached out to industry. We have now got the Construction Sector Accord. In addition to that we also have a partnership with local government because we know that in order to address the long-term issue in building construction we must work with industry and with local government. I've got to say when the Prime Minister the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern came to launch the Construction Sector Accord in April of last year in South Auckland we had 13 leaders from industry. Fast forward to today: we have over 500 leaders in industry and employers who are there partnering with us alongside council. Let me say one of the areas we have begun this delivery: procurement guidelines is one of those areas. Instead of just continuing to procure in the way of the past what we've done from October of last year is we've said as Government and Cabinet has signed off that from 1 October last year we will ensure that the $41 billion we procure—we will ensure that the folks the employers that we actually have contracts with are taking on people to train and to ensure that we have apprentices.In order for us to train as much as we have to to fill up the gap of 30000—and the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) tells me that because of such a demand in building and construction we're going to be short by about 80000 people in this area. So in order for us to ensure that we train up—and I've asked MBIE this question: how many do we have in building and construction? The answer is about 275000 workers. But when you look at how many of those people are coming from overseas there's only about less than 7 percent of those people coming from overseas. So one of the areas that our Government has actually come through with loud and clear is the investment in fees-free. Now people on the other side of the aisle you know they say that is not a good investment. But can I say one of the ways of ensuring we have the trained skilled workers that we need is investing in fees-free. When you choose to go to university it is one year fees-free but when you choose to go to a trade or polytechnic it's two years fees-free. In order for us to train as many workers as we need to build the houses the hospitals the schools that we need and the railroads that we need we need skilled people. We need to train up our own because when we look at those overall numbers as I say there's only about 7 percent of those who are coming from overseas so the long-term solution—this is another area that we have a differing opinion between this side of the House and the other side of the House. The long-term solution is we train up our own people to build up our own houses. When we look at the construction workforce in the last two years that we've been in Government we've grown the construction sector workforce by 11000 people—4700 new apprentices are learning a construction trade. We're lifting the status of trades in high schools with the Prime Minister's Vocational Excellence Award. Just under 1000 of our students are actually being awarded that.But I move now to the second area—customs. We in this Government are delivering in customs. Our coalition Government has achieved some stunning results in customs. I'd like first of all though to thank our customs officers who are at the forefront of our borders right now. But before I discuss the record haul of drugs that customs officers have been able to stop at the border last year let me first talk about how Customs is making life easier for some of our businesses—our exporters.We have rolled out the Secure Exports Scheme to air freight. This is an express service that allows exporters of wine kiwifruit manufactured parts and more to get their products to international consumers even faster than before. The Secure Exports Scheme cuts down the processing times with customs from one hour to only 60 seconds per order. It is progress like this that really matters to New Zealand businesses. Our message from Government is clear: we are here to work right alongside you businesses.Government is also here to work right alongside our communities because when it comes to preventing harm from hitting our streets via illegal drugs Customs has delivered. Our Government invested $58 million over the next four years to disrupt drug smuggling networks including $3.9 million for capital investment like technology and surveillance equipment. This investment is paying off.Now two weeks ago I reported to this House how that investment basically stopped three tonnes—three tonnes—of illegal drugs from hitting our streets and according to the drug health report that is actually the equivalent of $3 billion worth of drugs in terms of social harm that has not reached our streets. In terms of methamphetamine over 1000 kilograms of meth; meth precursors over 329 kilograms; MDMA or ecstasy 739 kilograms have been stopped; and cocaine 60 kilograms have been stopped at the border. Fifty-eight million dollars of our investment in this Government means smarter investments so that we're working with our offshore law enforcement people in Australia Canada and the US to stop these drug smugglers before they even leave some of those offshore places and it has also meant Customs has been enabled to hire nearly a hundred extra people to assist them with that work.In the last few minutes I want to talk about the work that we do in ethnic communities. In the ethnic communities portfolio this is another area where it's really different from this side of the House compared to the other side. And I can make this contrast like this: when we came into Government we looked at the ethnic communities portfolio and we know when the ethnic communities portfolio was created under the last Labour Government it was with a staff of about 22 full-time staff members. They had a fund—ECDF Ethnic Communities Development Fund—of about $500000 and at the time the director was a second-tier report meaning that that person reported directly to the chief executive of the Department of Internal Affairs. Under the last Government that was actually put down to a third-tier report and there was only an increase of $20000 to that fund. What we did in Government—as I announced last year in December—the Ethnic Communities Development Fund is now $4.2 million every year. We've actually expanded the criteria for the Ethnic Communities Development Fund to include not only social inclusion and community development but it now includes education as well as employment initiatives. The other thing that we've done in that sector is in terms of the Wellbeing Budget of last year $9.4 million was invested in ethnic communities.Also in terms of the Safer Communities Fund there's an investment of just under $7 million. In terms of what it is that we're doing for ethnic communities we are looking out for ethnic communities. We do have a lot of consultations that we've done especially after 15 March. I held the last of the interfaith hui here in Wellington—over a hundred leaders came to attend that particular hui and I can say that there was a lot of positive comments about just how different Ethnic Communities is today compared to what it was just over two years ago. We are a Government that's delivering. We're delivering in customs we're delivering in ethnic communities and we're most definitely delivering in building and construction. Thank you very much Madam Speaker.