Upston LouiseHon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): Thank you Mr Speaker. So for those who are watching this debate on the Appropriation (2021/22 Estimates) Bill and the second imprest supply bill yes this is about money it's about Budget and it's about priorities. It's about the Government's priorities and unfortunately what the current lockdown has clearly shown is how woefully unprepared the Government has been. With low rates of vaccination its own advisers saying lockdowns were inevitable makes the situation worse and it makes it even worse that this Government hasn't prioritised the preparation and the avoidance of such lockdowns. Even three days ago the Minister for Social Development and Employment has said on Māori TV that the Government wasn't ready for this outbreak.It begs the question: why? So when we talk about budget we talk about priorities and preparation for this outbreak clearly has not been a priority. So the question is: why hasn't the Government prepared for this lockdown? If you look at the Budget where is the contingency funding? Why are we here today with this second imprest supply bill—$24 billion? If you look at each Government department that's allocated funds and has bid in an intensive and competitive Budget process whether it's health education or social development—oh that's right because the top priority for health is to restructure or get rid of the DHBs. The top priority in education is to get rid of the polytechnics and the industry training organisations. Barbara Edmonds the member before me talked about significant investments in this Budget for school property. Well it's all very well but there's no point if the kids physically can't get to school because of yet another lockdown.In terms of the top priority in social development yes this Budget increased benefits. What about lockdowns and the reality that more and more people end up going on to benefit because they lose their jobs and under this Government they're staying there for longer? The Budget is about priorities. With such low rates of vaccination and New Zealand coming last or perhaps now second to last in the world the Government should have been preparing for this crisis in this so-called year of the vaccine.So where is the vaccine and the all-of-Government plan to vaccinate vaccinate vaccinate reflected in the Budget? Well you'd have to dig pretty deeply to see where. So we heard from Minister Sepuloni only a week ago that the Ministry of Social Development had no brief to support the 350000 New Zealanders receiving a benefit and those who are receiving a pension to get vaccinated many of the very New Zealanders that we know have the highest risks of COVID—older New Zealanders those with health conditions and disabilities. But no plan.We heard from Minister Henare that advice from Te Puni Kōkiri or actually a recommendation from them saying there is funding that is available—the recommendation that Whānau Ora commissioning agencies are at the table to help get more of the Māori and Pasifika populations vaccinated. But no the Minister turned it down and instead what is there? No plan. The Government were forewarned and unfortunately what we've seen yet again—he announced funding last week I think $40 million. So my colleague Michael Woodhouse that'll be part of the $24 billion in the second imprest supply—$40 million to Whānau Ora. Now I don't disagree with money going to Whānau Ora providers but it would have been better to have spent it in March and to have got higher proportions of our population vaccinated so we wouldn't be spending money on hardship at the bottom of the cliff when it's too late yet again.So if we look at the levers that the Government has to have increased vaccination rates earlier this year in the Year of the Vaccine" they haven't taken it. So looking at the Budget where was the all-of-Government plan ahead of this lockdown? So the advisers had said "With low rates of vaccination with Delta on the horizon we expect it will come to New Zealand. That's likely to mean more lockdowns." You might ask "So how was everyone prepared for that?"—how was everyone prepared for that? As we know significant hardship for those in Auckland who are still at level 4; for those outside Auckland it's still pretty tough. So the team of 5 million is paying for the fact that the Government has not prepared.So the Minister of Finance talked about the Budget priority being securing our recovery. Well for a third of New Zealand's population they're in the midst of a COVID level 4 lockdown; there ain't no sign of recovery any time soon and for many businesses households and communities we're going backwards fast. We're definitely not going forward we're definitely not securing our recovery so it makes a bit of a mockery of the title of this Budget. What happened? What happened is the Labour Government became complacent—quite happy to crow internationally that New Zealand had this beaten and unfortunately started to use the $50 billion COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund to spend that money on all sorts of projects. Many of them—far too many of them—had zero to do with COVID. So here we are and as my colleague has quite rightly said—he predicted it—no one was willing to accept the bet that the Government would be asking the Parliament for more money: another $24 billion. I put that down to a lack of preparation a lack of planning and a lack of vaccination. It's quite simple. It is not rocket science why we are here and why there's another $24 billion that this Government is asking New Zealand taxpayers to get from their pockets at a time that they're already struggling.So I've got a couple of requests. One is a letter that I've sent to the Minister of Finance and the Minister for Social Development and Employment to say the wage subsidy is an important investment. Why they only allocated $500 million in the imprest supply is a bit of a joke—$500 million didn't even cover a week of the wage subsidy. The Minister of Finance changed the rules in December 2020 but by the way didn't bother to tell anyone about the new rules. So when they came into effect when this lockdown occurred hundreds of businesses got caught out and then at the close-off of the system—oh they closed it early. So with the deadline of 11.59 then three hours before people who wanted to apply for the wage subsidy couldn't and so I've written to the Minister to request a two-week extension to ensure that businesses get paid and workers get paid. So I call on the Government to honour those applications and ensure New Zealanders who are playing their part get paid.Jobseeker: two weeks in and we're seeing 5000 more people on the jobseeker benefit. So yes the Minister of Finance might say demand-driven parts of the Budget are provided for but guess what! When you come back for an imprest supply bill of the scale of $24 billion it's because you know that demand has already gone through the roof and unfortunately the human cost of that is high. We're also seeing the human cost of hardship very high right now. And the organisations who are supporting New Zealanders in tough times do an amazing job but the reality is we are already seeing hardship grants for food having doubled grants increased by 50 percent in one week from nearly 28000 to over 41000 during this recent Delta outbreak and that's before we see organisations like the Salvation Army have an 84 percent increase of emergency food parcels in the first week of lockdown.The year 2021 was meant to be the year of the vaccine so Budget is about priorities. We were expecting that this year would have been the year of the vaccine but here we are in September in another level 4 lockdown and the Government has finally figured out they didn't do what they needed to do to get more people vaccinated and they haven't done what they needed to do to prepare at the very front line—whether it's schools or whether it's businesses. It was 10 o'clock last night before mask requirements were clarified for businesses that hoped to open this morning and for students going back to school. Now that is a disgrace. The Government should have been planning in advance. The questions remain: why was the Government not ready for this lockdown why was the Government so slow with vaccinations and why did the Government not budget for this crisis? Those are the questions the Prime Minister should answer."