Allan KiritapuKIRITAPU ALLAN (Labour): It's an honour to be able to stand today in this House and speak to the first ever well-being Budget. I want to commend my senior colleague the Minister of Finance the Hon Grant Robertson and also the executive who have wrapped around him in terms of showing leadership on the world stage because we know that for over at least eight years at an international level the OECD has been promoting the fact that GDP in and of its own right is an insufficient measure to measure the well-being of a nation's growth. We all know that it misses a range of different considerations in terms of measuring indeed how productive a country can be. Now before I turn to my substantive points I just want to make a brief comment on Jami-Lee Ross the previous speaker who drew an alignment between the previous Government's approach to investing in communities and what we're trying to do here with this well-being Budget. I must say that I have to fundamentally disagree with that previous speaker. This is a marked change from what the previous Government did over the past nine years. What the previous Government did over the last nine years when they were in Government was systematically withdraw funds. They focused on fiscal objectives over all other indicia of well-being which saw us—a country that was one of the most accredited in the world for being one of the leaders in terms of the way that we looked after our community—become in just under a decade one of the leaders in the highest youth suicide rates in the world. We had some of the highest-rising wage inequalities in such a brief period. We had a housing crisis that was monumental—Hon Judith Collins: Ha! KIRITAPU ALLAN: Whilst they may snigger across the aisle I would if I was in that position feel ashamed of myself. A Government that sat there at the helm with the public popularity that they had as well and they failed to make any form of movement in terms of housing those that need to be homed in terms of investing in the regions and creating jobs and actually giving young folks a bit of hope and making sure that young people who were coming up through the ranks in our country—why did we have that dearth? Why is it that New Zealand one of the most productive countries—well we're not actually. But one of the most pristine countries in the world—how come we had one of the highest suicide rates in the world? Because young people couldn't see themselves in our future. So that's really abhorrent. Anyway I just really wanted to mark away from the points that the previous speaker—Chris Bishop: That is trivialising an important issue. KIRITAPU ALLAN: No I disagree with that speaker as well. We're not trivialising it. We're making a statement that actually our Government's intending to do the exact opposite from what the previous Government were doing. They failed to recognise that there was a mental health crisis they failed to recognise that there was a housing crisis and they failed to invest in those people that deserved it the most. So if we turn to what the well-being Budget does and in terms of what the priorities are this year let's look at that. Well one of the things that we're doing is we're lifting Māori and Pacific incomes skills and opportunities. I must say that in terms of the submissions that we received on the Budget Policy Statement we were inundated by Māori organisations who for the first time I think in a very long time saw themselves recognised within the Budget Policy Statement objectives and the way that this Government was going about approaching how we assess well-being—because you know what? This isn't something new. This is something that Māori have been doing for a very long time. If we want to talk about models and so on and so forth Te Whare Tapa Whā is a Māori model that does effectively summarise for us the way that we holistically approach well-being. So I want to commend our Minister of Finance for putting it into a policy form and requiring that every single member of his executive is required to show how they will in this Budget bid coming up align their objectives for the year with these core Budget policy objectives. The next one: reducing child poverty and improving child well-being—again something that the previous Government failed to do. We had one of the highest rates in the OECD of children living in poverty and it was a shame. This is this country here—we had one of the highest rates. We turn to supporting mental well-being for all New Zealanders—again something that the previous Government failed to do. Now every single one of these Ministers here is required to show that in some way shape or form they are lifting and improving the lives of all New Zealanders. I am absolutely pleased to commend this Budget Policy Statement to the House.