Webb Duncan; Rurawhe AdrianDr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Thank you Mr Speaker. I must say if you recall just before the dinner break I think Mr Seymour was speaking and frankly I don't know what economy he is living in. Do you remember Marvin from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? He made him look cheerful he really did. What a naysayer. What a doom and gloom merchant. Here were are we've got an economy which is humming along quite nicely particularly given current circumstances. We've got Treasury and the Reserve Bank for the first time agreeing with each other that things are going well with GDP growth projections which are outstanding. We've got projections that job growth's going to hit 200000 and yet he's telling us we're on some kind of temporary sugar hit. Nothing could be further from the truth. You know why? The reason is that this Budget is a carefully planned sustainable Budget for the future.As I was flicking through this glorious document I stopped on page 34 and genuinely was just having a bit of a read and it talked about the Ka Ora Ka Ako healthy school lunches programme and the fact—and you can look at it and you can go to the Estimates themselves and look at what it's going to cost. But I tell you this: to really put it in perspective you have to go and see it in action so I did exactly that only last week. I went to two schools in my electorate. I went to Mairehau High School and Linwood College and talked to both of those schools about what the lunch programme was doing there. I didn't just talk to the principal or the teachers; I talked to the kids themselves and do you know what I saw? I saw with my own eyes hungry kids grabbing lunches. I saw one fellow look at me cheekily as he grabbed two and I thought That is bloody good." because there's a kid that's hungry and he's going to get well fed. Then at the school gate as they leave or at the canteen as they leave they're there at 3 o'clock and if they want to grab the three or four spare ones for their siblings at home or even their mum and dad—go for it. So there's no waste.People have come to me and they've said "Oh what's all this school business? What's all this about? Surely it's all going to waste." You know I've got two things to say to that. If I had to make two school lunches so that one hungry kid gets fed I'd do it anyway and secondly they're not getting wasted; they're getting eaten and it's a fantastic initiative. The fact that those teachers tell me that those kids come to school they stay longer they turn up more often and they learn better—that is what this is about. That is why we are absolutely committed to relieving poverty because poverty causes barriers like that. Look can I just say what a fantastic job our Ministers have done around poverty and education. I've got to speak about period poverty because you know I think it's time some of us blokes stood up. I haven't got any daughters. I've got three sons so I've never had to spend too much time talking about it. But if there's a young woman and there's a barrier and her barrier going to school is period products I'll be the first to say we should absolutely be supplying those period products so that she can come to school and learn on the same footing as anyone else. So I'm absolutely in favour of it. Jan Tinetti great Minister good friend—fantastic job in getting that in place. I would have recognised Willow-Jean's work in there as well and her sister who's done a lot of work in the period poverty space as well. Of course this isn't even touching on the fact that we've managed to get rid of school donations in many of our schools so that people can send their kids to school engage in all of the activities and what have you and not have to struggle finding whatever it might be—150 bucks a year when they actually can't find it—and of course NCEA fees are gone. So we're absolutely committed to free—genuinely free—education to removing barriers and that's just part of this Government's commitment to eliminating poverty. It was great to hear the support of Julie Anne Genter. Of course Julie Anne Genter is going to say it's a good step in the right direction but the lift in benefit level is a huge change to the lives of many many New Zealanders and I absolutely endorse the fact that people need to be able to even if they're living on a benefit—the fact that they're living on a benefit should be no bar to leading a meaningful life with choices. Vocational education adult education reinstating adult education saying to people "We want to give you opportunity."—that's what this Budget is about. It is building our human infrastructure making sure that people can grow and learn and that doesn't even touch the sides of the physical aspect of it. But I do want to say that this is part of the wellness Budget framework. So those aspects of the Budget go straight to the heart of saying that we want people to be able to live the lives they choose the lives that they define as flourishing and to grow in that regard. That's a critical aspect of the philosophy that underpins this wellness Budget.But of course the other thing we're doing—Megan Woods. I think it was in Auckland today that she was announcing the housing infrastructure package the accelerator fund: $3 billion to unlock city councils. We can talk about some of our city councils perhaps not managing their assets as well as they could not rolling out that infrastructure but we're not here to lay blame. We're here to move ahead. We're here to give opportunities to people. So if we need to help councils to fund infrastructure whether that be roads whether it be drainage and three waters or whatever it is we are very much prepared to partner with others including the private sector if it works to unlock that land so that more houses can be built. Only today I read a report of a senior economist saying that by 2022 we will have a surplus of houses in Auckland because for the first time in a generation we are building more houses than the growth in population needs. So at last this Government from all the work it's done over the past four years is catching up. The race was being badly lost by the National Government but this Government is catching up. Of course the other thing we're doing in the housing space is making homes warmer. There is increased funding for insulation and coming from Christchurch I can tell you it gets pretty chilly down there and insulation is fantastic because not only does it make us warmer; it saves money and it saves energy and that is a fantastic initiative as well. That is directed at the people who need it most. A very very substantial subsidy to people who can then go and insulate their homes stay warm save on the energy bills and of course save on emissions at the same time particularly if they're using oil heaters and the like. In terms of those main benefits this is only the first step. In April next year they are going to go up in keeping with the Welfare Expert Advisory Group recommendations and some of those benefits over the term of this Labour Government will have gone up by 38 percent. Now what that tells me is that prior to this Government who has progressively raised benefits over its time there was abject poverty. People—particularly people with kids—simply couldn't get by. This Government is committed to changing that and of course the other thing we're changing in this Budget is the ability to earn—so the ability to earn whilst you are on a benefit is increased. So here we have a Budget which in fact is building a foundation for the future. We've got an economy which is doing really well but we know that in the future there are bottlenecks—infrastructure bottlenecks—and of course the climate change question that we must address. This Government is committed to making some of those choices because the last Government sat on its hands and did nothing for far too long—nothing on climate change nothing on infrastructure nothing on schools nothing on hospitals and nothing on mental health—and this is a Government that doesn't apologise for working hard trying and keeping going. We will continue to do so. A fantastic Budget that is putting in place a great economy for now and—DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired. This is a—Simon Watts: Mr Speaker well what an absolute—DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Order! This is a split call. You seek the call now. Simon Watts: Mr Speaker.DEPUTY SPEAKER: I call Simon Watts—five minutes."