Radhakrishnan PriyancaHon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Minister for Youth): Thank you Mr Speaker. This week is Youth Week and it's an excellent opportunity for us to acknowledge and celebrate our young people across Aotearoa New Zealand and also to recognise the mahi of youth workers youth-service providers and all who work alongside and for our youth. This year's theme is Our voices matter and we deserve to be heard." It's a theme that really resonates with me and I'll get to an explanation of why in a minute.I started my Youth Week at a really uplifting event which was the launch of He Kākano a seed funding pilot. It was a collaboration between the Ministry of Youth Development (MYD) and the Prince's Trust and it's really a pilot that gives young people who have decided to embark upon a business journey the opportunity to test the feasibility of their ideas. It gives them the investment the mentoring and the networking support that they need to scale up some of those ideas as well. Well just like that event there are about 277 different youth events happening across the motu; so if members are keen to get out there get involved and support their rangatahi I'd really appreciate that and encourage them to check out the details on the Ara Taiohi website or MYD's website as well.As the Minister for Youth I really want to see our young people supported to thrive and we can't do that well unless we make space to really listen to them to understand what's important to them what their concerns and aspirations are and then to act on that. And that's exactly what our Government is doing and I'm incredibly proud of it. This is particularly important in the current environment where we're into the third year of a global pandemic that has disproportionately impacted our young people. The specific impacts on our youth include things like missed education employment and training opportunities increased disengagement and disconnection and significant impacts on their mental wellbeing as well. Now none of these are new issues; they've experienced that before—they've been existing—but these have been exacerbated by COVID as well. And as if the pressures of a global pandemic weren't enough we're also seeing a global inflation spike as well as the result of ongoing supply-chain issues and the war in Ukraine also.And yet though it's been a tough few years—it's been a challenging few years especially for our rangatahi—we are also in New Zealand; we can take some comfort from the fact that compared to others we're doing well. That means we're now in a strong position to look at what investment is required to grow the economy further as we plan what the new normal looks like in a world where COVID is under control and inflation levels return to more normal levels as well. Because we need strong finances and sustainable growth as much as we need healthy and educated people clean air to breathe water to drink and strong communities that actually look after one another we need to look ahead to some of those big complex challenges because those when I'm out and about engaging with our young people are the issues that they talk to me about: being able to get a decent job that pays a decent wage climate change mental wellbeing housing affordability addressing family and sexual violence. And those are the areas that our Government is focused on.In my last general debate speech I talked about the 1 April changes that were brought into place—particularly the increases to the minimum wage and the halving of public transport costs—that young people have talked to me about. Minister Sepuloni has talked about the Apprenticeship Boost programme that will be extended. That is a programme that's supported more than 43000 people to get or keep an apprenticeship. It funds employers per apprentice providing a financial incentive to keep them on and as a result apprenticeships have increased by 55 percent in two years. We're extending that to support around 38000 apprentices—24000 of whom are likely to be new. This is one of the reasons that we've kept unemployment at a record low. In addition to that the Ministry of Youth Development supports youth-development programmes that keep young people connected to their communities a sense of purpose youth workers and mentorships—all of this to ensure that as a Government we support our young people to be the best they possibly can be to participate contribute and thrive. Thank you."