Menéndez March Ricardo; Salesa JennyRICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): I'll take it Madam Speaker. I've been listening carefully to the debate and I've been reflecting on how Government Budgets are an opportunity to right some of the wrongs that have been created by successive Governments.Throughout this debate I've listened to the National Party's contributions where they've berated the Government over irresponsible spending and they keep talking about a prudent Government that will deliver for Aotearoa's communities that we are supposed to serve. But if we unpack what they've been saying what they've been proposing is nothing but tax cuts that will impact the wealthiest and at the same time talking about and complaining on the spending on the things that actually set up people for a good future: things like school lunches and things like increasing benefits—targeted programmes that will help our communities. What that tells me though is that if the National Party had its way with such legislation what we would be seeing are cuts to the things that ensure that people have a warm home to live in enough kai to put on the table and instead talk about just spending things on roads. Let me tell you something Mr David Bennett: people cannot eat roads. People deserve funding for things that will allow them to thrive.While there were many good initiatives in this Budget it is really clear to me that my Labour mates need to aspire for more than just doing somewhat more than the National Party. Our communities deserve a genuine aspirational Government that will deliver the transformative change that was put out in rhetoric. And there were some good initiatives; you know I was really stoked to see the Government moving towards the culture of free fares by cutting fares at least temporarily by 50 percent—and gosh I hope they listen to the campaigners who are calling for this change to be made permanent—and for public transport to be free so that more of our communities can participate in the clean public transport sector that will support people in our communities as we manage the climate crisis.I've also been thinking of how previous Budgets delivered heaps of high trust levels of support for businesses and yet for low-income people they've still had to go through hurdles at Work and Income to get the assistance that they needed. And we saw that reflected once again and the cost of living payment where the people who are doing it the toughest were once again excluded.Like their argument for excluding beneficiaries because they received the winter energy payment—which I note some of the Labour members were talking about—was completely out of touch. We know that the winter energy payment is there because baseline benefits do not allow people to get by on those winter months. So for us to be experiencing an all-time inflation and then to leave out people on the benefit from the key initiative to address those inequities just felt like a smack in the face particularly with the rhetoric that we have seen from this Government for so many years. I also heard from my Labour friends talk about addressing the climate crisis and that is something we of course feel very strong about and I know that our Minister—who I'm sure is doing heaps of work to ensure that this Government is on the right track.Again if the Government members want to honour that rhetoric around addressing the climate crisis they'd do good to support my colleague Eugenie Sage's bill to ban new mines on conservation land. We have to ensure that the rhetoric that we're seeing in this House is reflected also in the decisions and the votes and other legislation that sets to do what this Budget was intending to do which is to support our communities and protect our planet.Every Minister now is supposed to be Climate Change Minister and every Minister is supposed to also be committed to Te Aorerekura the strategy to end family violence. We saw some Budget initiatives but when I'm seeing the Minister of Immigration for example ram through changes that will see more migrant families put at risk of family violence it puts into question those commitments.So I want to end this contribution by encouraging my Labour friends to put action—that rhetoric that I'm seeing today in the House which is great but our communities deserve the policies that will ensure that they're able to thrive not just survive.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): I call on ACT. Who wants to take a five-minute call?