Dowie Sarah: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDowie Sarah: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 26 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:4001. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SARAH DOWIE (National—Invercargill): It is my absolute pleasure to take this call on Budget 2015 firstly because I am 50 percent of “Team South” and apparently a percentage too of the young wing of our caucus. So if 40 years of age is considered to be youth I will take that along with taking it as read that this is a triumphant Budget with thanks to the Hon Bill English and his team. Let us put the facts on the table shall we? This is a Government that has grown the economy and that has continued to put measures in place to strengthen our position on the world stage. We have a clear economic plan with economic growth forecast to average 2.8 percent over the next 4 years. We have created 194000 jobs since 2011 and have forecast 150000 more over the next 4 years. Average wages have increased by 15 percent—that is a rise of $7000 by mid-2019—and unemployment is forecast to fall below 5 percent next year. For Mr Nash who waxed on about the regions that is 3.3 percent unemployment in Southland currently—Chris Bishop: How much?SARAH DOWIE: —3.3 percent and our province is currently producing 15 percent of total export receipts. So we are a province that is boxing above its weight and we are a province that is thriving and doing well under this National-led Government.But it is work that I want to focus on. As we have heard from many social agencies including the Salvation Army and my very own Southland Beneficiaries and Community Rights Centre based in Invercargill work is something that raises people out of hardshipand gives them dignity and a better quality of life. A job provides money and boosts standards of living. A job improves health and well-being provides social contact and contributes to social cohesion. A job contributes to life satisfaction and gives people a sense of identity and belonging and of course their efforts contribute to society. That is at the heart of our package—$790 million to help children in hardship. As part of that package there are pragmatic things that we are doing to support the vulnerable our families and to support parents and mums back into work. We have got a $25 a week after-tax rise in benefit rates for families with children—a real increase in benefits and the first Government to do so in 40 years.Chris Bishop: How long?SARAH DOWIE: That is the first Government to do so in 40 years. It is supporting the vulnerable and looking after people in hardship. We are giving $12.50 a week more in Working for Families to lower-income families—$12.50 a week—and for very low-income families there is an increase of $24.50 per week. We are placing greater work obligations on parents who are beneficiaries including asking most sole parents to look for work when the youngest child turns three. As part of that to remove the barriers as the Hon Paula Bennett covered earlier we are increasing childcare assistance for low-income families from $4 to $5 for up to 50 hours of childcare per week per child. The parents get out to work and gain all the benefits of work. They earn money and move themselves and their child out of hardship and the child is engaged in early childhood education learns and gets a good start in life.I just want to focus on an example that I was given. Being a working mother I was lamenting this during the Budget—the guilt associated with working. When you are at work you think you should be spending more time with the kids and when you are with the kids you think you should be meeting all those deadlines at work. A friend sent me an editorial the other day from the Pew Research Center. It surveyed 50000 adults in 25 countries and the research showed that daughters whose mothers work are more likely to stay in education longer earn a higher qualification be employed in a supervisory role and earn a higher income. So that is excellent all round for the movement of women. But wait—there is more. Although the research found that mothers at work did not affect males’ career choices it did influence their sons in that. Sons of working mothers did spend more time on childcare and housework. So I ask all those men out there: can they iron a shirt? I commend this Budget to the House.