McKelvie Ian: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMcKelvie Ian: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 28 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:4145. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei):I have got a great feeling at the moment. Never in my time have I heard sheep have as much mention in this House as they have in the last couple of days. Of course you would have to go back to the 1951 wool boom to get the feeling that it is as good for agriculture as it is right now.Secondly and most important what a privilege it is to be a member of a Government led by the Prime Minister John Key who is able and prepared to spend a significant amount of money and a significant amount of energy supporting those people who do not have the best start in life through the child hardship package. Like everything else it comes with some obligations. There will be an obligation to look for work. There is also an obligation to the taxpayer of this country—who funds these things—to be work-ready where possible and having their children in education or care from the age of 3 will assist them to make good progress. We are increasing the childcare assistance rate from $4 to $5 and putting an extra $25 a week in their pockets. It does not sound like much but when you go to some of my communities and Taumarunui would be a good example of that it could well be an injection in excess of $1 million into that economy—follow that up in Marton Feilding and about a half of that in Raetihi Shannon Taihape and so on.This is a significant boost to rural and provincial New Zealand. It will also help those people I guess to grow in confidence and to give them the confidence to have a say in those communities where there is no question that the tourism and agricultural sector will increase their job opportunities. So I think we are going to see quite a significant change in provincial New Zealand as a result of those initiatives.Whānau Ora of course also received some $48 million in the Budget and again if you go to some of the communities in my electorate particularly Taumarunui you will see a programme that is working so well in this respect. It is pretty amazing in fact. I think it does a great job and it is making a significant difference for our community.Ultra-fast broadband will benefit by some $210 million and that in turn will put 80 percent of all New Zealanders on that track when complete. But more important for us of course is the Rural Broadband Initiative and the extension to it. It is critical to us and I certainly support the telecommunications levy which will help fund the rural broadband extension. If we want our rural and provincial areas to grow rural broadband is one of the single most important factors that we can concentrate on. It will enable them to get moving very quickly.The regional research institutes are another great initiative I think as are ACC levy cuts which will put some $375 million into our economy in 2016. In fact the ACC cuts will have amounted to just on $2 billion from 2012 to 2017. I am also very pleased to see the significant injection into science and innovation and I am equally as pleased to see the re-funding of the Riddet Institute at Massey University which has made a significant contribution in the last few years to research around I guess critical science and food-related factors. I am very pleased to see that be re-funded and I think it is going to produce great results for us. The investment in KiwiRail is vexing for any Government I guess but the $210 million of new capital introduced into that organisation will make quite a big difference to rural and provincial New Zealand. Much of our produce comes out of rural towns and ends up in our ports and KiwiRail is a very important part of getting that produce into the market.I also want to talk very briefly about workplace safety because I think it is critical to rural New Zealand. It is a fact that it has been giving a significant amount of grief to those of us in rural New Zealand. We certainly have an accident rate and a death rate that we cannot be proud of and I think this Government is making significant steps in the advancement of workplace safety. I am sure that when we get this legislation back into the House we will see it put in great order and we will see a significant improvement in our performance around this in rural New Zealand.There is so much in this great Budget aimed at continuing the strengthening of our economy and certainly of significant assistance to rural New Zealand. I look forward to the result of this and I think we are going to get a great result as we move on in the next year or two from this. Thank you.