Wood MichaelBUDGET DEBATEDebate resumed from 20 June on the Appropriation (2019/20 Estimates) Bill.MICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): Mr Speaker I am very pleased to be able to stand in the Chamber today and acknowledge both our Prime Minister and our Minister of Finance for delivering a Budget that has done something that not only has not been done in New Zealand before but something that the whole world is looking at as a new and a better way of delivering a Budget to ensure the wellbeing of all of the people who we in this Chamber are elected to serve.I am of course talking about the Wellbeing Budget delivered in this House just a few short weeks ago. It is a Budget that does things differently. It is a Budget that fundamentally focuses not just on the narrow strictures of GDP; not just on the narrow measurement of a surplus or a deficit; this is a Budget that says Yes those things are important but they are means to an end." And that end which we in this Government stand towards and serve is the wellbeing of all of our people and all of our community. This is a Budget which delivers in a big way on those objectives.This Budget picks up that concept of wellbeing and delivers practical real-world change. Hon Gerry Brownlee: Name two things.MICHAEL WOOD: One thing that I have been enjoying doing over recent weeks—and I'm sure the honourable member for Ilam on the other side of the House has done this as well—has been to go around my community and speak to my community about the things that really matter to them. When you ask a room of New Zealanders what the things are that matter what are the things that they tell us? They tell us that what matters are the health and the happiness of their children living in a decent environment having a good education system so that everyone can be equipped to do well in life knowing your neighbours and having good social relationships and friends. The National Party needs some friends—we know about that—and most New Zealanders want to have friends and good relationships as well. These are the things that are important in the lives of New Zealanders but for too long successive Governments haven't focused enough on those things that actually make our lives worth living. This Wellbeing Budget says that we will not only talk about those things but we as a Government will measure ourselves against those things and ensure that the policies that we are delivering are driven by evidence and can actually be tracked to show the difference that we are making to the lives of our fellow New Zealanders. There are three key areas in which the Wellbeing Budget says that we will work differently as a Government to the way that Governments have worked previously. For a start this is going to be a Government that doesn't just look down narrow departmental budget lines; this is going to be a Government and a Budget which works across Government departments to actually deliver the outcomes that New Zealanders need. This is going to be a Government and a Budget that doesn't just focus on the short-term sugar hits to make a Government look good—something to get us through the next three years and make us look good at the next election—we're going to focus on the real long-term challenges that we need to reach to make New Zealand a better country for our fellow citizens. We're also going to focus on different and wider measures of success. I just want to speak about each of those in turn and some of the initiatives that point to the way that this Wellbeing Budget is different. The first is that cross-agency approach. After this debate in the House I am looking forward to going to a unique Estimates hearing that the Finance and Expenditure Committee will be hearing with a number of Government Ministers and Parliamentary Under-Secretary Jan Logie to talk about and ask questions about the family and sexual violence package a $300-plus million package that brings together different Government Ministers and different Government agencies and says "We have to work together as a country and as a Government if we want to solve the scourge of family and sexual violence in our country." I know that there is not a single person in this Chamber who believes it's acceptable that we have the rates of family and sexual violence in our country that we do but for too long individual agencies have been going down their own tracks and not working together. Well that changes with this Wellbeing Budget because in this Budget our Ministers were told by the finance Minister "Don't just come to me and ask for a cheque to be written to your department; come to me and tell me how you are going to reach our Government priorities to make life better for New Zealanders." One of those priorities was improving child wellbeing and dealing with that scourge of family and sexual violence. So we had multiple agencies and multiple Ministers coming together with an integrated plan. They have worked with the community agencies and there has been outstanding feedback from all of those people in our community groups who work with our families who work with the victims of sexual violence who have said "Yes finally there is a Government that listens and it's working collaboratively with us and collaboratively between Government departments to actually deliver a better outcome for our families." That is going to make a huge difference and I'm proud of it. This is a Budget that focuses on the long term not just the next electoral cycle. I want to speak about the relentless focus that our Prime Minister and the Minister for Child Poverty Reduction the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern has brought to that issue within this Budget because this is a Budget which does something that no other Budget has done before. No other Government has had the courage before to put numbers down in the Budget and commit themselves to reducing child poverty. Because of this Wellbeing Budget and the different approach that we are taking this Government and future Governments will be held to account at Budget time for reducing the number of kids living in poverty in Aotearoa. I don't think there can be a bigger stain on our nation's conscience than the potential of our children being squashed by living in poverty. This Government has said we will halve child poverty within 10 years and they're not just words; they're hard numbers in our Budget. We have put the programmes in there and the evidence in there to show that we are on track to reduce child poverty in this country. We on this side of the House are immensely proud of that. This is a Budget that builds on the Families Package last year that will shift between 50000 and 70000 of our kids out of child poverty. This is a Budget which does what the Children's Commissioner Andrew Becroft said last year was the single biggest thing that we could do to lift our kids out of child poverty and that is the indexation of benefits within our system. This is a Government which has had the courage to take on those steps for the benefit and the wellbeing of our children. This is a Budget which has a different measure of success; not just GDP not just a surplus or deficit. Those things are important and we are meeting all of our targets in this area. Let's not forget this is a Budget which delivers consistent surpluses over the next few years. This is a Budget which sees unemployment down at 4 percent lower than that previous Government ever got it to. This is a Budget which sees economic growth continuing at good levels well above most of our major trading partners. But it doesn't just measure those things—this Budget also says that we're finally going to take mental health seriously. I know that every person who is listening to this speech will have someone in their family or someone in their community who has suffered from mental health problems over the years and hasn't had the support that they needed. Well I am so proud that this Government finally takes mental health seriously and will invest a $1.9 billion package that will deliver free community-level mental health services for all New Zealanders who need that help. No longer once this package is implemented will Kiwis have to wait until they're at an acute or crisis stage to get mental health support. Kiwis will have access to a free and comprehensive mental health service in their communities delivered at the community level in a culturally appropriate way getting people the help they need when the problem can be dealt with. This Budget invests $40 million in suicide prevention measures and $100 million in Housing First so that the people who are living rough on our streets who often have mental health problems can get into a decent house and deal with those other problems—substance addiction mental health alcohol abuse—that so blight their lives. I am very proud that under our Minister for Ethnic Communities—who I serve as under-secretary—the Hon Jenny Salesa this Budget sees a significant uplift in our support for ethnic communities; the first major increase in resource since the early 2000s when the Office of Ethnic Communities was first set up. Nearly a 50 percent reduction in staffing across the Office of Ethnic Communities to directly work at grassroots with our ethnic communities—that is going to make a real difference. As I finish I would like to paraphrase the great Robert F Kennedy who spoke about the limitations of GDP around about 50 years ago and I'm paraphrasing here for a New Zealand context. He said that—well I'll say that GDP counts alarm systems for our homes and new prisons for those who break into them. It counts the repairs from rebuilding from climate change disasters and the culverting of the streams and urban sprawl. It counts the healthcare costs for preventable cancers and body armour for our police. It counts the buyback of dangerous military-style weapons and social media revenue driven by hate and intolerance but it measures neither our goodwill nor the great coming together of our people after the tragedy in Christchurch. It measures neither the happiness nor the health of our tamariki. In short GDP measures many important things but it does not measure the wellbeing of our country. This Government does measure the wellbeing of our country and this Government and this Budget support and improve the wellbeing of all of our fellow New Zealanders. Thank you Madam Speaker."