Ardern JacindaRt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Business as usual in this place would dictate that today Budget day is the day that the Minister of Finance comes down to this House and delivers the Government's plan for the next year ahead and in fact the plan for the next three. Business as usual would then have the Opposition stand and give a speech opposing that Budget including initiatives and funding that has the potential to get our economy growing as early as next year. Business as usual would have everyone in this House retrench into their old patterns that the public know so well but if we're all being honest probably have very little time for. Today I'm afraid the Leader of the Opposition has assumed it's business as usual but nothing—and I mean nothing—about this time in our history is usual and so neither should our response be.We have been a Government that with the support and efforts of New Zealanders took us through an enormous health challenge and we will take the same approach to the recovery of our economy. I see that Mr Bridges did not move a motion of no confidence in this Budget and I take that as an assumption that the Opposition will vote for this Budget today. I hope so because this is a period in our history that is a global crisis and to see this Budget for what it is: a response to the rainy day we have planned for. Now is the time to come together as politicians to say that a rainy day demands of us that we shelter and protect New Zealand to weather the storm. Rather than argue about who gets to hold the umbrella I hope the Opposition steps away from business as usual and does vote for a Budget that delivers jobs.A mere six months ago nobody would have imagined a world that is in the grips of a global COVID-19 pandemic let alone one that would wreak havoc across health systems and the global economy. I still vividly remember at the beginning of the year reading about the first lockdowns overseas and thinking how remarkable it was to ask humans to stay in one place for such a long period of time; it just seemed unfathomable. And yet here we are having shut our borders and moved into lockdown and collectively built a wall of defence to a virus that was closing in on the world. There are few things now that I think I will ever consider to be outside the bounds of possibility any more.Perhaps that is the same perspective we now need as we start our recovery. We have to be focused. We have to be decisive. We have to go into this period knowing that it will be tough but that there is hope and there is possibility. In short I give my commitment to New Zealanders that they will see us this Government apply the same unrelenting focus we have had on our health response to COVID-19 to our economic response and that work has already started. From the very beginning we have said that jobs were our focus and they are. That is why in March we announced a wage subsidy scheme designed to keep people connected to work and to certainty and the dignity that comes with work. That programme has supported roughly 1.6 million New Zealanders to date and has meant that we have thus far avoided the spike in unemployment other countries have experienced while our country was in lockdown and our businesses were unable to open. It helped get many workers and businesses through the toughest weeks so that they now have the chance to reopen and move to recovery.But we must keep going. The times ahead will be tough. Global predictions are dire. Unemployment will rise and growth will slow dramatically. We know as a trading nation that will have an impact and it will be significant and it will be painful. We have never sugar coated what the future will look like but nor will we pretend that there is nothing we can do about it. Governments have choices just as we did when we faced COVID-19 and those choices are between sitting back and hoping or sitting up and taking action. We have chosen to act.Today we start by extending the wage subsidy. Now it won't be the same as the first time round as we look to make it more targeted. We know that there are businesses who are opening up again but we also know that there are some who cannot just yet while others will take more time to recover. It serves no one if in the meantime while businesses are opening back up they lay off staff unnecessarily. I know how important this is. I've received countless emails from people describing what a difference the wage subsidy has meant to them. In almost all of them they talk about their staff being their family and how important retaining and looking after them has been. So today we are extending the wage subsidy for another eight weeks with a focus on providing support to businesses who have been particularly affected by COVID-19. This will mean businesses and sectors like tourism and other small businesses across the country will be supported and it will ease the recovery for thousands. Like the first round of the wage subsidy saved jobs this targeted extension will save jobs too. That's why it's in such an important part of this jobs Budget. We believe it's the best thing we can do at this phase of our recovery to help businesses who are getting back on their feet and to support their staff.But our response must go beyond supporting those still in work. This isn't enough. Too many people have already lost their jobs and we need to support their path back to employment. For them we must be swift we must be practical but we also owe it to ourselves to take this opportunity to solve the problems of both today and the problems of yesterday as we go. If I'd asked you before COVID-19 what it is we must address as a nation what are our current challenges I imagine that many people would write a very similar list. We have long faced a housing crisis. Our environment has been suffering. Inequality and child poverty have all been issues that we have had to tackle. In three years' time I want to look back and say that COVID-19 was not the point those issues got worse but the chance we had to make them better. We can emerge from this crisis stronger than we were before. That's why we are focused on jobs but also jobs that solve each of these entrenched problems.So let's look at how. We have had a skills deficit and now on top of that we have more people who need the chance to train or retrain. That's why this Budget will target vocational training and apprenticeships we need most and make them free. I don't just mean school leavers; I mean everyone. It will mean more people training in building and construction in agriculture in manufacturing community health counselling and care work. This will help those who have lost their jobs retrain and others to train on the job. While many have lost work there are others who have labour shortages. Even through COVID-19 people have wanted to buy our high-quality food and fibre and that's why in this Budget we'll be looking to partner and support 10000 New Zealanders into the primary sector and the jobs that they need filled now. For our young people those who so often carry the brunt of crises like this we will fund 1000 more places in trades academy; expand He Poutama Rangatahi to support young people into work in west and South Auckland Hamilton Porirua and east Christchurch; and build group training schemes that support Māori apprenticeships. All in all this is a $1.6 billion investment into New Zealand's future and into rebuilding apprenticeships into closing our skills gap.That will be so important because of our next challenge: housing. Our response to COVID on the face of it had a very simple premise early on: stay home save lives. But that simple simple requirement forced us all as a country to ask a question: what if you don't have a home? The answer was simple: we will find you one. Through hard work and huge collaboration between Government local government iwi and the community sector that is exactly what happened. In the midst of this crisis we have housed the chronically homeless in New Zealand and now we need to keep it that way. In this Budget we are announcing an extra 8000 houses providing $5 billion of construction stimulus into the economy over the next four to five years for public housing and transitional housing. When combined with what we have already funded this takes the number of housing places for those who need homes to 17000 public houses and transitional housing. This represents the largest public housing building programme in recent decades and I hope it means that COVID-19 will be remembered as a period where New Zealand didn't just stay home; it made sure everyone had a home.Since coming into Government we have seen countless other examples of the under-investment in New Zealand's infrastructure. We've already invested $12 billion into the New Zealand Upgrade Programme and our $3 billion fund in this Budget will be squarely focused on projects that are ready to create jobs but also tackle issues like water infrastructure.But perhaps there is no better example of a way this Budget can bring together the challenges of today and the challenges of yesterday than the jobs it will create in regional New Zealand to restore our environment. Whether it's working with iwi on pest control to prevent the loss of North Island forests working with farmers to tackle everything from wallaby to fencing waterways or stabilising riverbanks or whether it's working with council local government local businesses and the Department of Conservation to employ thousands of people to restore wetlands boost predator control and improve tracks and huts this is win-win. Wilding pine controls alone require on-foot labour chainsaw operators heavy machinery operators and helicopters. It has a knock-on effect to accommodation vehicles repairs maintenance and even food providers. In total this Budget creates almost 11000 jobs for our environment for our regions and for our people.That brings me to the final challenge I wish to speak to today and that is child poverty. We know this has the potential to get even worse than where we are now. While we moved quickly even before lockdown providing increasing Government support to those out of work through benefit increases and through the winter energy payment today again we focus on kids with a major expansion of the food in schools programme. We already started this programme and now we expand healthy lunches into schools so that for around 200000 more children across the country school lunches will be part of their everyday. Based on what we know this will also create an estimated 2000 jobs in local communities—jobs that can sometimes cater for the care requirements of sole parents of mums and of dads who might have care responsibilities on their own. And equally important: it will mean in the tough days ahead we can guarantee our most vulnerable kids will get a filling healthy lunch every school day.I want to finish where I started: on our businesses on our job creators on our innovators and on those who have carried such a huge burden over these last weeks and months. We know they have faced challenges too—challenges that do pre-date COVID. They include the cost of innovation the need to constantly make productivity gains and the challenge of growing beyond New Zealand if you choose to make that leap. Many small businesses do need extra support to look beyond just the domestic borders of New Zealand—to look to export into Australia and beyond.That's why this Budget provides incentives and grants to encourage e-commerce train more digital advisers and provide information and support for small to medium sized enterprises wanting to incorporate e-commerce into their businesses. This is off the back of the significant work of the Small Business Council which was made up of small-business owners operators and backers who encouraged us to support small businesses to improve their productivity through these initiatives. It sees significant increase in support for entrepreneurs and businesses looking to invest in new products through research and development. This will help create jobs and the jobs New Zealand needs.It also puts $216 million into increasing the number of exporters who will be receiving intensive support from New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (NZTE). It will also increase digital services and tools offered by NZTE. We know at this time that it has been our primary production our food producers and our exporters who have been the backbone through the lockdown and they will continue to be our backbone. We need to support more of them to grow their exports to bring more into those exports and to position themselves well in the wake of the recovery. NZTE are well placed to do that and we will support them to expand the businesses that they give one-on-one support to. We will trade on our brand. It is a brand entrenched in quality in trust and in respect of the products that New Zealand trade. Our response to COVID-19 has only further reinforced our brand as a country that invests in its people that supports the health of its people and that puts quality first.I said yesterday that this Budget would be about jobs jobs jobs. In total it seeks to save as many as 140000 of them over the next two years and to support the growth of 370000 more jobs over four years. [Interruption] In case the Opposition missed that—370000 more jobs over the next four years. This Budget sets out a clear plan to generate green jobs rural jobs jobs rebuilding crumbling infrastructure and new training opportunities for those who need it. But even this is just stage one. You've heard today about some of our sector recovery funds. We must keep working alongside those industries who have been most gravely affected. Tourism has a package announced today. In coming days we will do the same for arts for sports and for large events—those who have been at the front line of COVID and its impacts.But just as the science informing our health response evolved so too will the economic situation both globally and domestically. It is for that reason that the finance Minister has announced today the next suite of actions we are putting in place but has also held back funds to tackle the next phase of our rebuild. That is what will be required to make sure we can be agile—and as agile as we have been today. We know businesses crave certainty in order to plan how they will operate and while there is much we cannot predict in these uncertain times what I can promise is that we know this is not the end of what we need to do. We will keep working with you. We will keep supporting workers and businesses. You can see the strength of the Government in this Budget and I do want to thank our coalition partner—our coalition partner New Zealand First; our Deputy Prime Minister—for the partnership bringing this Budget together today. I'd also like to also thank our confidence and supply partner the Greens for their consistent advocacy to be bold in tackling the challenges of both today and tomorrow.But finally I want to thank our Minister of Finance. Grant thank you for your determination and for your compassion. Through this crisis you have acted to protect the jobs and livelihoods of millions of New Zealanders. Today you deliver a Budget that will carry us through the crisis and get this economy moving and get us into growth as early as within a year and that is a remarkable thing. So now we get on with it. We went hard and we went early to fight COVID-19 and that success has opened up economic opportunities. Now it's time to make the most of the head start New Zealand has with this economic recovery. This Budget shows how we are positioning New Zealand for that right now. It shows that this is not the time for business as usual; it's a time for a relentless focus on jobs on training and on education and the role they all can play to support our environment and our people. So let's begin our recovery. Let's rebuild together.