Bakshi Kanwaljit Singh: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBakshi Kanwaljit Singh: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 07 June 2016. Volume:714;Page:11711. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National): Thank you for the opportunity to participate in this debate. First of all I would like to wish all the Muslims of this country a happy Ramadan because this is the holy month of Ramadan and they are celebrating this. I would like to wish them a restful and peaceful Ramadan.Tim Macindoe: Salaam alaikum.KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI: Alaikum salaam. I would like to congratulate the Hon Bill English on presenting an excellent Budget. It is his eighth Budget and also it is my eighth Budget in this House. After a long time it has happened that I am following someone with a positive speech. My colleague Scott Simpson who is the hard-working member from Coromandel and who was speaking before me at least had something positive to say about this Budget. Otherwise all the time when I stand up in this House I have to follow some of the Opposition members who are whingeing and moaning all the time.This is very important—the Budget has really made us proud and we are getting a lot of appreciation from all walks of life. Over the weekend I attended an event where I met someone who has been overseas for the last 30 years and has recently migrated back to New Zealand. He mentioned that: “Every time I used to introduce myself as a New Zealander people used to talk about the All Blacks all the time and nothing else.” But he said that: “In the last 5 to 6 years the times have changed. Whenever I told people that I was from New Zealand they mentioned the Rt Hon John Key his strong leadership and how this country has progressed in the last 8 years.” I was very pleased to hear that from someone who has been overseas for the last 30 years.It was very important to say that before we took over in 2008 we were already in a depression and not progressing growth was negative and there were a lot of problems for the economy. Then in 2009 Bill English came up with his Budget and brought in some plans that have really progressed very well. In the last 8 years he has made sure that the economy has continuously grown and the projections for the next 3 years also are that we will have growth of about 2.8 percent. This is to be compared with what the previous Labour speaker David Clark mentioned—that there are no jobs no plans and the Budget is without any direction. I would like to clarify for him that even though we see that almost 70000 people have migrated to New Zealand annually we still have a very low rate of unemployment. The projection is that in the next 3 to 4 years the unemployment rate will drop below 5 percent which is a real achievement for this Government.I would like to share a few figures of what we are going to invest in this Budget in the justice sector. We are very fortunate to have the strong leadership of the Hon Amy Adams as well as the Hon Judith Collins who are leading our justice sector. There is $280 million being invested in the police who make sure that our society our people are safe day and night. We are also going to invest $8.2 million towards protection against child sex offenders. We will build up a register where we can register offenders who are criminalised for a crime against a child. There is $96 million being invested so that low-income people can have advice from community law centres. There is $19.7 million invested in Crown prosecutions because the people who have committed any crimes should be behind bars for as long as possible. We are also investing $356 million in the Department of Corrections so that reoffending can be reduced. We have a target to reduce reoffending by 25 percent and that we hope to achieve. With these words I support this Budget.