Lorck AnnaANNA LORCK (Labour—Tukituki): Thank you—DEPUTY SPEAKER: Sorry to interrupt the member. This will be less than 10 minutes.ANNA LORCK: Thank you Mr Speaker. I arrive as the final member of the Labour Party to speak on the appropriation bill and I do so with extreme positivity and ambition. I am absolutely ambitious about what we are doing here on this side of the House. The thing I want to talk about the most is partnership—partnership—because when it comes to partnership this Government is prepared to work with business we're prepared to work with the local councils and we are working with iwi. Hon Member: Yeah right! ANNA LORCK: Now this side of the House say Yeah right!" and I say yes sir we absolutely are. We are talking about—I'll bring it back home. I'm going to bring it back home to Hastings because in Hastings where it's happening right on the housing front we are building houses. We are building hundreds of houses. I want to take you back to an interesting story that I had when I was earning the privilege to be the local member of Parliament for Tukituki. I talk about an area in Raureka in Campbell Street where for years the National Government left this land with empty State houses to wrack and ruin. The neighbourhood in Campbell Street was so distraught about what was happening there that they called a neighbourhood meeting and we stopped the sell-off of that State land and when Labour came in guess what happened? We've now built a whole community of housing there in Hastings. I was there when the first shovel was turned and I was there when the first family moved in. This is a neighbourhood that's been recreated through investing in housing. It takes innovation and teamwork to build houses. We also are growing jobs through building houses. We are working together. As a local person who's lived in Hawke's Bay all my life and in Hastings I have never seen so much investment coming into our region. It's because of this investment that we are growing jobs and it is because of that that we're able to keep a really good pathway forward for young people coming and wanting to live in Hastings. Yes because we're building houses affordable homes we're seeing young families wanting to return to Hastings. I want to talk about a couple of examples in our region where housing development has been accelerated through investment and infrastructure. I'd like to talk about an area in Flaxmere. Waingakau it's called and there the Government has invested $16 million into infrastructure—that's stuff that you need to get under way to be able to build the houses. Again I was there when the first soil was turned and again I was there when the first family moved in. That's the difference that we're seeing. That's how we can keep rebuilding and focusing on what truly matters in our region. Another project I'd like to talk about in Hastings back on the home front is one where we went through shovel-ready COVID response and recovery. We were given $9 million by this Government towards redoing an area of State highway for safety. As part of that we had local businesses who were able to turn in and get some more jobs going. We saw people being redeployed and brought in to start on contracting work. We had tradies—tradies who are really big and important in our district. They were building and they were getting the roads under way. Topline Contracting invested in 11 new apprentices. Those people who didn't have work came in on the ground and started working. That's the type of opportunity and that's the type of investment and ambition that I'm talking about. Now I'd like to talk about the regional housing programme where in Hastings we are making real progress. The development has accelerated again: 40 more houses being built in Kauri Street right in Mayfair. I know that there are members over there who try to turn up and tell me that that's not happening. Come along come and visit come in—I'll happily take you to Kauri Street and knock on those doors and you'll see those houses going. We have got a fantastic council that's working with us and iwi and building homes. That's what's happening in Hastings right now. On the ground we are delivering and we are accelerating the housing project. We are accelerating housing and that's where we're building. I'd like to say that we had 534 building consents issued in 2020—the highest level of homes being built in our history. The previous high was 390 houses back in 2006. Now this major new building programme includes Government investment in public housing for 180 public houses being built over 2020 and 2021 with purchasing intentions for a further 488 homes. These are real real numbers. These are real homes real houses being built here. Now let's just make sure I clarify for you again that it comes down to the best thing about this building programme and accelerating the infrastructure fund is it grows jobs. It grows more jobs. It also creates more business because in Hastings our economy is absolutely booming. This is a region going forward. I am so proud of Hastings because that's what we do. We get stuck in we work with Government and with iwi council private developers—everybody working together. That takes partnership and that's what this Budget is about. It's about investing in really hard-working New Zealanders growing jobs lifting wages and going forward. That is where Hastings has been one of the standout success stories in this country. It's because we're built on a backbone of investment and when things are going well we also see significant investment in our region. We've had Rockit Global just open a multimillion-dollar new horticultural plant we've had Heinz Wattie's come and invest and we've just seen the opening of the Tomoana pet food company. More jobs every day are coming through doing it hard because we have a region of hard-working New Zealanders and this is what this Budget is truly about. It's about backing hard-working New Zealanders backing businesses going forward—because this Budget is delivering and will keep delivering. This is a recovery I'm proud of."