Sage EugenieHon EUGENIE SAGE (Minister of Conservation): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. What we're hearing from the Opposition benches is criticism criticism criticism but a failure to recognise the legacy that this Government inherited of lack of investment right across the social services right across housing health families young children conservation—a total failure to invest. What this Government is doing through the Wellbeing Budget is actually recognising that people and planet matter and investing in that.Mr Woodhouse this is a wellbeing Budget because 600000 New Zealanders now pay $20 to $30 less to go to the doctor. Mr Woodhouse this is a wellbeing Budget because we have free visits for all children under 14. This Government is about remedying the problems of the past. Hon Judith Collins talked about housing. What that member fails to recognise is that 41000 people were homeless in 2013 and right now there are more people in State house tenancies than at any other time. We have a programme because of Budget 2018 of an extra 6400 State houses over the four years and that programme is well on track as Minister Twyford noted in replies to questions today. It is recognising that people and planet matter. It is investing and I'm very proud to be part of a Government that is doing that.In conservation under the National Party when it was in Government we saw the loss of 200 staff and repeated cuts to Te Papa Atawhai. Budget 2019 delivers the biggest increase in conservation funding in 17 years for the second year in a row—$181 million over four years last year; another $180 million over four years this year. This is ensuring that we recognise that nature is the heart of our success whether it is in the primary production sector or in our biggest export industry in tourism. I'd like to commend the leadership of the Hon Kelvin Davis who's got a far more strategic approach to that tourism industry and it is the International Visitor Conservation and Tourism Levy—the implementation of that through our legislation on Budget night—that is enabling a significant investment both in conservation and tourism infrastructure and planning. Under National it was just interested in making visitor numbers grow but not protecting the landscapes and the indigenous biodiversity that so many international visitors come here to see.Thirty-two percent of international visitors say that their major reason for coming to Aotearoa New Zealand is our natural landscapes is our biodiversity. What was National doing? Slashing the funding. What is this Government doing? Investing to protect the basis of that industry to protect the basis of our marketing brand overseas and that is really delivering. We've got the biggest landscape-scale predator control operation being rolled out this winter in response to the beech mast year—over 12 percent of conservation land a million hectares. We've got kokako. Now new populations have been established in places like the Taranaki maunga east Taranaki and on the forested slopes of Mount Pirongia. What that shows is that where the Department of Conservation gets the funding where it invests in intensive management of threatened species we can turn around the decline that has been occurring.Part of Budget 2018—$76 million is in a biodiversity package; increased investment across the terrestrial the marine and the freshwater space. Again this Government is joined up. Ministers Parker and O'Connor at Fieldays this afternoon announced some of the detail of the $226 million that Budget 2019 is putting into more sustainable land and water use. Everyone has a right to swim in their local river but under National we saw our rivers get more and more polluted; 80 percent of monitored sites in rural catchments unable to swim in because of elevated E. coli; nitrate levels rising in places like Canterbury contaminating water supplies. Under this Government we are assisting farmers—over 2000 in this $35 million package—to get the tools that they need to transition to a much more sustainable land use that reduces nutrient runoff and pollution that reduces greenhouse emissions and that is about protecting our primary sector while also protecting the natural environment; that joined-up thinking—investing in the Climate Commission because of our commitment under the zero carbon bill to meet our commitments that we made in Paris.This Budget is about wellbeing for both people and planet—the major investment in mental health services recognising the crisis that we have there in our country. I'm really proud of the work that colleagues like Chlöe Swarbrick are doing in that space and the work that my colleague Jan Logie has done in the domestic and sexual violence space to recognise and own up to these problems and then to put in place the funding so that we can deliver services to all New Zealanders.Across the board there's been an investment in the areas that matter. Another is waste: under the former National Government we saw our waste going to landfill increasing year on year. What this Government is doing is recognising that we need to reduce that both to reduce our methane emissions—5 percent of our greenhouse emissions are from the waste sector. We need to respond to the waste crisis that we have internationally—the images of plastic pollution in oceans around the world. That is why under this Government I set up a task force with the Ministry for the Environment to respond to the National Sword initiative. Budget 2019 delivers an additional $4 million to the Ministry for the Environment over four years to do much more policy work so that we can roll out the framework to reduce waste. In 2017 the former National Government had recommendations to expand the landfill levy. Nothing happened. This Government is committed to expanding the landfill levy to provide an incentive to divert waste from landfill and that's what some of that $4 million will go into doing: doing the policy work to support that in responding to China's National Sword initiative working with councils and recycling operators around New Zealand to actually recharge our recycling and materials recovery system so that we have a more efficient economy.This Government is about a sustainable productive inclusive economy and as we make that transition to a circular economy that is far more efficient because instead of materials going to landfill they are recovered reused in new products. We're doing that in the plastics space investment through things like the Waste Minimisation Fund and the landfill levy will significantly expand the revenue to assist progressive businesses to assist councils to assist community organisations to divert waste from landfill and turn around our rubbish record on waste.In the Land Information New Zealand space again there is an investment in the Crown's management of Crown pastoral lands alongside leaseholders—an extra $3.6 million there so that the Crown can have a much more active role and not continue with the privatisation programme that was operating under the former Government which saw so many poor outcomes. There is additional funding for Land Information New Zealand to implement the Landonline renewal and significantly improve that whole system which is at the basis of property transactions around Aotearoa.This is a Budget that across the board is about an investment approach to correct the legacy that we were left by the National Party of not caring about people not caring about the planet and not investing where it mattered. This Government is ensuring that the investments are strategic that they are going to long-term change across all of those sectors and that they recognise that New Zealanders have a right to dignity have a right to living in safe warm dry houses have a right to swim in their local river and to hear the dawn chorus. That is why there has been such a lot of additional funding in all these critical areas so that we are ensuring that our future here in these islands of Aotearoa is sustainable and that we have a healthy country and a healthy economy. Kia ora.