SpeechDr ANAE NERU LEAVASA (Labour—Takanini): Fa'afetai lava Mr Speaker. It is a pleasure to rise as the MP for Takanini in this general debate and first of all I just want to acknowledge the three Labour Ministers who have spoken before me: the Minister Grant Robertson and the work in terms of funding the policy of 1.4 million - plus people who have received a benefit in terms of the 1 April changes and I thank him for that. In my community of Takanini in South Auckland that has been greatly received and I thank the Minister for that. I also want to acknowledge Minister Peeni Henare for the work that he's done and also the announcement of the equity funding in terms of the capitation formula that will help our primary-care providers in terms of funding and assisting our communities where it's needed. I also want to acknowledge Minister Ginny Andersen and the police numbers. As we see today in June 2023 seeing the numbers increase to 1800 will be a huge benefit for our community in Takanini.Just coming off from the recess it's been a great recess: three weeks back home and doing the mahi back in the electorate. I know other MPs have worked hard. There's been a lot of engagement there activities and I just want to highlight some of those activities and also the changes and announcements from this Government that will definitely help our communities back in our own home electorates.Recently we celebrated Vaisakhi celebrations in terms of the spring harvest from our Sikh community and other faiths and I just want to acknowledge—because Takanini has the largest Sikh temple in Aotearoa New Zealand and I just want to acknowledge the activities that happened in our electorate back home. I also want to acknowledge Minister Michael Wood who came to one of those events held at the Takanini Sikh temple sports complex where we got to watch kabaddi and the activities there. I don't know if you know that kabaddi is a wrestling/tackling match that I thoroughly enjoy being a rugby player as well and I know there's going to be a lot of wrestling leading up to elections as well.One of the announcements that was greatly received as well within our community is the immigration-setting changes where we will see an assistance where 32 new health sector roles have been added to the straight to residence pathway green list. We need to support our health sector as many of our colleagues have mentioned and in that way changing the immigration settings—not only for nurses and doctors but this is across the board in the different specialties to uphold the health system. So thank you to our Takanini Sikh leaders who had that discussion with our Minister.On top of that the nurse pay equity changes—and we've seen some of the interim equity payments being paid across Aotearoa New Zealand. Yes my wife is a registered nurse (RN) and I acknowledge her and her colleagues back in South Auckland who are doing the hard mahi so we value—definitely value—our nurses and this will help in terms of making sure that we acknowledge the work and pay them appropriately. Some of this base pay goes up to 14 percent so some of these RNs are getting a $12000 boost to their pay package.I recently got to go and visit Manurewa East School which is in my electorate in terms of their Bikes in School programme. I want to acknowledge the Ministry of Education and the Minister and where they support our kids in accessing some of these bikes in order to improve health and wellbeing. I just want to acknowledge the principal there and the work that they're doing and the project-managing that we'll keep on supporting and I just want to make sure that I just say thanks to the ministry for doing their work as well.We've seen the 1 April changes come about and I want to also acknowledge the winter energy payments that our elderly folk and those who are eligible to access this funding to help during the winter months that are coming ahead and this is the overall health and wellbeing of our community. We recently sent out letters to make sure that they were aware of these 1 April changes and also the winter energy payment and we have received much correspondence from our communities saying thank you for the policies that help our community during these tough times—cost of living and also other events that have affected our South Auckland communities such as the flooding as well.I also acknowledge the boost to the Working for Families package as well as the students that are receiving a boost to their allowance and student loan living costs. I hold a Takanini youth council where we have the ages of 14 to 24 we have students from AUT—Auckland University of Technology—and this will greatly help them in supporting them during this time. I commend this Government's work to the House.