Edmonds BarbaraBARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana): Ia manuia le Vaiaso o le Gagana Samoa. This Budget targets investments that will set Aotearoa up to both recover from COVID and to tackle some of our long-term challenges. This Budget invests in our people in our tamariki. Now we've heard the numbers already but I am going to repeat them because in the words of our colleague Marja Lubeck they're so good: 33000 children lifted out of poverty 200000 more jobs 3300 more out-of-school care places so that 900 low-income parents remain in or transition into employment or training. These are not empty numbers; these are people tamariki tamaiti whānau aiga.This Budget invests in our future and the best way for me to evidence how is to tell you the story of a man called Selani. Selani was 38 when he had to give up his job as a navy clerk to care for his sick wife who was 33 and dying from cancer. At the age of 40 he was left a widower with four children under the age of 11. For eight years he brought up his children on the domestic purposes benefit and when his youngest went to college at the age of 48 he decided to retrain and become a social worker. The training incentive allowance that was in at the time paid for his petrol so he could get to his course without having to sacrifice food on the table for his children.He worked as a social worker for over 25 years. Two of his four children also became social workers. One was a bit of a black sheep and became a tax lawyer! But I know for a fact that the training incentive allowance not only benefited the children of solo parents but in the case of my father my sister and my brother in the 60 collective years that they have worked as social workers it benefited the thousands of children that they cared for through Oranga Tamariki. This Budget reinstates the training incentive allowance. This is a ladder to help people get ahead that was cruelly scaled back by the previous National Government. We are investing $127 million so that 16000 people like my dad Selani can retrain and gain high skills to the benefit of their children and other children.But we're also raising the main benefits so that we can lift more children out of poverty. This actually equates to food it equates to shoes and it equates to jackets. With the removal of school fees with the reinstatement of school lunches our families have a little bit more in their pockets. But that's why this Budget is so important to be able to help those who are more in need. At an uncertain time for the global and the New Zealand economy this provides more security for people who might be in and out of work.The last part I want to touch on in the Budget is the additional money that went to the Tupu Aotearoa programme. Since Minister Aupito Sio has become the Minister for Pacific Peoples he has increased the funding to go to Pacific peoples to $450 million—that is phenomenal investment. In this Budget $30.3 million goes to boost the Tupu Aotearoa programme. This will support 7500 Pasifika people into employment training and education across New Zealand—that is more people upskilling relearning getting into employment and being able to help our economy grow and strengthen.I go back to my main point: Budget 2021 is about securing our recovery and our future. I shouldn't have to stand here as a child of a beneficiary or as a child of a man who took the training incentive allowance but I'm proud to be on the side of this Government and I'm proud of my father and I'm proud of this Government for the training incentive allowance.