Lee Melissa: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLee Melissa: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 21 May 2014. Volume:699;Page:18199. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MELISSA LEE (National): It is a great pleasure to share the spotlight with my colleague to my left Chris Auchinvole who is such an articulate speaker but I seem to have taken 5 minutes off his time. I think that is a reflection of my very caring whip who realised that I had suffered the flu and been sick in bed for a little while so he thought he would be gentle with me. But I would have actually liked the full 10 minutes because this is such a fantastic Budget and we have lots and lots to talk about.As an adult who had been sick and who should really have gone to the doctor but who had been relying on the traditional herbal medicine that my mother concocted I reflected back to when I was a young parent a new parent. When my child was sick I was desperate to get to the doctor to make sure that my son was OK even though it was just a cold. As a young parent you worry about that. I reflect on the Budget that we have delivered this year for families. There is $90 million in this year’s Budget to enable general practitioners to offer free doctors visits and prescriptions from 1 July next year for children under the age of 13. What a fantastic thing we are doing for the families and the young people and those people who are in need in this country. Budget 2014 is a fantastically solid Budget. New Zealand is heading in the right direction withconfidence. Over this past 6 years National’s good management of the economy has meant that our books are back in surplus. Growth is at 4 percent. Wages are rising faster than inflation and there is more money for families and businesses and for the most vulnerable people.If we can go back let us have a look at what we got back in 2008. In 2008 this country was in a recession. It is now growing at about 4 percent—a fantastic record. In Labour’s last 5 years there was a 50 percent increase in Government spending which helped push mortgage interest rates to almost 11 percent and crippled the internationally competitive part of the economy. People complained about 11 percent but if I remember back to when I first bought a house I think I paid about 20 percent for my first house. People think the 6 percent we currently pay now is very expensive and very high. National has got Government spending under control and mortgage interest rates have come down.Food prices went up 10.9 percent in the last year under Labour. They have gone up only 1.5 percent under National. House prices went up 96 percent over the 9 years that Labour had the Treasury benches—Chris Auchinvole: How much?MELISSA LEE: —96 percent—and they have gone up only 28 percent under this National Government. People say that electricity prices are very high. Well let me tell you that under Labour they went up 72 percent—Chris Auchinvole: How much?MELISSA LEE: —72 percent Mr Auchinvole—and under National they have gone up only 20 percent.This Government is committed to protecting children from abuse and neglect. We have had a terrible record of that and I have spoken about that with previous bills in this House. I have talked about the 22000 cases of abuse and neglect of our children a year. More than 50 children have died in the past 5 years which is an appalling statistic in this country. I am very proud of the Vulnerable Children Bill which is before the House and as chair of the Social Services Committee I am pleased to see that the operating funding for 2014-15 is going to be strengthened with $33.2 million. There is $3.2 million for the implementation of the bill making five Government departments accountable for protecting and improving the lives of vulnerable children.This National Government is delivering on the promises we make. We are growing this country. We are making sure that those children the most vulnerable children are getting a fair deal in this country. The Children’s Action Plan is well under way and the new funding will see a further eight Children’s Teams being set up throughout the country over the next financial year. We currently have one in Rotorua and the other one is in Whangarei. Through the new funding of $13.7 million for Child Youth and Family we want to make a difference to young people’s lives so that they do not have to become a statistic so that they do not have to end up on welfare and so that we do not have a generation of children who are dependent on welfare. This is a great Budget and I commend it to the House.