Robertson Grant; Mallard TrevorHon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I thank all members who have contributed to this debate including the member who's just resumed her seat Erica Stanford who did I think manage some kind of world speed record with her speech. But I do thank her and all members and I also thank members in advance for the work that they're about to do in the Estimates hearings as we go through the full Budget process. It is a very important part of the accountability of Parliament to look through the processes. Some hearings will be better attended than others as we go through this period of time but they're all important and all ones that are going to contribute to the debate.This is a Budget that I am intensely proud to have presented on behalf of this Government. It is a Budget that builds on the hard work of New Zealanders over the course of the last year and a bit. When I stood up in this House in May 2020 we were facing down a period of significant economic restriction of a reduction in our GDP that had not been seen before of unemployment being close to 10 percent and we can proudly look today at a country where we have overachieved against those predictions and relative to the rest of the world. We continue to be able to look across the world and see that our strong public health response has enabled a limited amount of restrictions in our economy and has seen us able to operate in a way that other countries are still not able to do. Whatever the other side of the House want to say we take a look at whatever measure you like and the Bloomberg Index is the one that is being used by a lot of people—New Zealand sits at the top of that index. That index is not just about our health response it is not just about the work that New Zealanders did to support one another to get through COVID; it's also about our economic response.I can think of nothing more than that—and this Budget builds heavily on this—in the area of apprenticeship and trade training. I remember sitting in this House after the global financial crisis—in fact I remember being at a select committee hearing and asking how much money was going into making sure that apprentices could stay in their jobs. The short answer was that money was actually put aside and it wasn't spent and it wasn't used and apprentices got laid off. It meant that when it came time to do the recovery and to do the rebuilds there were not people trained up to do it. Well we made sure we didn't repeat that mistake and since 1 July last year as a result of this Government's policies more than 100000 New Zealanders have taken up apprenticeships and trade training for free—57000 of those people are new apprentices. Of that a third are in the construction industry an area where we now see a 7.1 percent increase in filled jobs in that sector over the course of the last year. That is the kind of thing that we have been able to do to make sure that we have got through this in a way that is relatively speaking better than a lot of the rest of the world.But COVID is not over and every person who watches the news each night—and tonight people will watch the news and they will see that the lockdown in Melbourne has been extended by another week—will look around the world and see the places that some members of this House have wanted to compare us to like Vietnam like Taiwan and see that those countries have further outbreaks and are now in restrictions and lockdowns. So we need to continue to invest in keeping New Zealanders safe from COVID and in making sure that we continue to play an active role in the economy to continue to stimulate the economy because every single economic forecast contains the words uncertainty" and "volatility". So that is why this Budget sets a very balanced approach investing in the areas where it is needed most but keeping an eye on the future keeping a lid on debt and making sure that we are looking out for future generations. The Budget invests heavily in the Government's number one priority of keeping New Zealanders safe from COVID-19 with $1.5 billion going into a vaccination programme that is ahead of schedule. You're not going to hear that from Mr Bishop are you? Ahead of schedule 9 percent ahead of schedule 235000 people fully vaccinated. On this side of the House we know that we will achieve our goal of making sure that every New Zealander who wants it over the age of 16 is vaccinated. At the same time we'll keep investing in the managed isolation facilities we'll keep investing in making sure that our border is safe and secure and this Budget does that.But what it also does is it has an eye to the future on the two other priorities of the Government this term: accelerating our recovery and our rebuild and making sure we get on with addressing those long-term challenges around climate change around housing affordability and around child wellbeing. There's $57.3 billion into infrastructure. This is the pipeline that the infrastructure industry asked for year after year after year under the previous Government and they did not get it. They got inconsistent haphazard investment in our infrastructure. Rather from this Government what they get is a long-term pipeline. Now there are constraints in the New Zealand economy at the moment caused by supply constraint caused by lack of labour supply but that means that at least those companies now know where that investment is coming from and that the Government is prepared to put its money where its mouth is. It's not about putting out press releases it's not about standing in the middle of a field and saying "This is where a road's going to be built." and putting no money in; it's about making sure that that money is actually on the table and ready to be spent. In addition to that is our ongoing investment in skills and in training and the reform of our vocational education system of looking ahead to a future where New Zealanders have high-paid jobs wherever they live in the country.In the time remaining I do want to focus on the third of those key priorities and that is the work that we have done in this Budget to improve child wellbeing. I want to congratulate the Minister Carmel Sepuloni for the hard work that she has put in over several years now in terms of the Welfare Expert Advisory Group and our ability to now be able to respond to further of their recommendations. I heard in one of the opening speeches in this—actually I didn't I heard about it later—from the Leader of the Opposition where she used the phrase that this was a "broken compass Budget". It's not. It's a "moral compass Budget". It's a Budget where a Government has got the moral compass back for New Zealand that has been lost over so many generations. We are not creating a world in which people who are living on main benefits are somehow or other going to be flush with cash. We are still expecting a 25 year old person to be able to live on $315 a week. Now that is a boost that is going to make a big difference to that person's life but that is far far from being some kind of lap of luxury life that we hear from some members across the House. This is about restoring dignity and it's about restoring hope and the same applies to the reinstatement of the Training Incentive Allowance for degree-level qualifications. It is another thing that is about giving a chance and an opportunity and a hope to those who want to go and get those qualifications and then add to the productivity of New Zealand through doing so. Alongside that we've got additional support around the childcare allowance additional support around the unsupported child and orphans benefit as well. All of these are things that add on to what we have already done meaning that New Zealand families will be better off 109000 of them by more than $175 a week since this Government came into office. The other two of those priorities are also important. This is the Budget that appropriates the $3.8 billion for the Housing Acceleration Fund practical work funding that will go out and build the roads and the drains and make sure that land is build-ready to put those houses on. It's what local governments asked for it's what the private sector has asked for and it is delivered inside this Budget. It is also a Budget where we finally take some proper steps around Māori housing and I do think it's really important that we note today the work of our Māori Ministers who are out there at the moment in our communities talking to the communities about where we can build houses where we can repair houses and give a clear basis for good development for our Māori communities. The same applies to the work being done in the Māori Health Authority establishment also funded in this Budget.Then there is the third of those priorities that are around climate change. This Budget—and I know you Mr Speaker will understand this as somebody who has helped put Budgets together—does something very significant. It says that all of the revenue that we will get through the emissions trading scheme will be hypothecated recycled into emissions reduction initiatives. This is not something the Treasury's always a particularly big fan of but it is something that is important because if we are truly to deal with an intergenerational issue like climate change then we must take a step such as this.So this is a Budget that secures our recovery. This is a Budget that gets the balance right between making sure we invest where it is needed most while being responsible and careful with the financial management of our country. It is a Budget that starts to get on top of our long-term issues around inequality in our society around making sure everybody has a warm dry safe home to live in and looks to the future of a low-emissions economy that will produce high-paying jobs. It is a Budget I am immensely proud to have delivered in this House.SPEAKER: The question is that the amendment in the name of the Leader of the Opposition be agreed to."