Lubeck MarjaMARJA LUBECK (Labour): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. It's a real pleasure to speak in this general debate because these are positive times. I agree with Alfred Ngaro the previous speaker that it's important that you do hold to your promises and as a brand new Government we announced our Families Package in December 2017 and then two days ago—on 1 July actually; three days ago already—we rolled it out. This is our Government's major response to child poverty.I know the Hon Andrew Little has already mentioned the numbers involved but I think it's important that we're really clear on how many people are actually benefiting from this Families Package so I want to repeat those numbers: 64000 children will be lifted out of poverty as a consequence of this package 26000 more families will be eligible for Working for Families assistance and 384000 families with children will be better off by an average of $65 a week which is the biggest boost in household income in a decade. Let's also not forget that we have 1 million people that will be warmer this winter. It's a winter energy payment that will look after 700000 senior citizens and 275000 families will be getting help to stay warmer in their homes this winter. We've seen a lot of people getting sick and even being taken to hospital over the winter months because they can't stay warm. We've even seen people die and this Government believes that that is simply unacceptable. That is not the New Zealand that we should be settling for.Our Prime Minister took the time out over the weekend to make the announcement of the Families Package on Facebook and the post so far has hit over 16000 likes and loves and has been shared over 3000 times. There have been lots and lots of comments made and I'd just like to read a couple out that are specifically touching: Thank you. This will make a huge difference to so many families including ours. Finally a Government that cares." and "Thank you and as a grandparent raising grandchildren thank you for the additional clothing allowance for our mokos. I found out about the increase on Friday and I cried straight away because of the struggling lately."Now you can sneer about these struggles but in my previous role as president of the flight attendants' union and later as the head of aviation at E tū union I've seen those struggles first-hand and I've seen how over the last nine years because of changes made by that previous Government to employment law we've seen a decreasing share of the economic growth going to working families. It has created the working poor and that's really important to think about because the majority of the children in poverty are actually in families where both parents work. Both parents do shift work. They work their butts off. They hold multiple jobs they work shifts and they still have no time to look after their kids. They still have no money to provide for their families. They're locked out of the housing market.Now this Government has changed all that. We've changed it. We've given New Zealanders hope and a chance to get ahead and we're doing that with the Families Package and we're doing that with KiwiBuild. We're opening the door to affordable housing for so many families and people and we're addressing what has been a real housing crisis. The Hon Andrew Little told us that there have been 1100 people so far that have registered for this scheme but I was told just before that we are already up to 2000 people that have registered for this. So like our Prime Minister we are most proud of the fact that we are not scared to have empathy and well-being as measures to inform our policies. We have compassion and this Families Package like the Prime Minister said is one of our proudest moments. Under the leadership of our right honourable Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern we finally have a plan to fix the neglected problems of the past. We have ambition that things can be better and we have the willingness to try new things.But instead of being constructive the Opposition are negative and they seem confused. Simon Bridges is for the Families Package but at the same time he opposes it. He has plenty of criticism for it but yet at the same time he doesn't want to commit to removing it either. On Morning Report he called it "not targeted enough". But then he went to talk again about his tax cuts for all which are the most untargeted things you can think of because the money will go to the top 10 percent whereas this Government's Families Package delivers for middle and low income families.We are proud that we are rebuilding the foundations growing the economy and creating a New Zealand where everyone gets a fair go."