Andersen GinnyGINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you very much Mr Chair for the opportunity. As a member of the Governance and Administration Committee it was fantastic to be able to receive the annual review and look at the work that the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet had done. The area that I am most particularly interested in is the good work that they've done on monitoring child poverty and how we're doing and tracking in that space. There's a bit of background in that space. I think it's really interesting to point out how long it took New Zealand to put in place those very important targets that we now have in legislation that form a fundamental part of our ongoing Wellbeing Budget and how we're tracking. I remember very clearly how it was really put in the too-hard basket for the last Government how it was said that it was not possible to track and monitor something as important as child poverty. It was only in the very last hours before the last election that we actually got a commitment from the other side to try and track how we reduce child poverty in New Zealand. This Government is very much focused on providing housing and education and making sure families are well provided for so that we can look towards actively reducing child poverty in New Zealand. I'm proud to see how well our Prime Minister has championed this area in particular by fronting this by fronting this legislation and by putting in place clear targets that we're required to report back on on a regular basis. So in the Governance and Administration Committee it was really good to be able to hear that the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet said that the Child Poverty Reduction Bill since enacted works within the context of the framework and includes a requirement for Governments to report back on the impacts of their Budgets on child poverty. This works right across other Government departments and how we're tracking on cases. If I can say this one thing that I learnt in my time in New Zealand Police is that if it's not counted it doesn't happen. So the fact that we count this and we monitor it shows that we care about it and we are determined to deliver on those outcomes and that is why it is represented in legislation. So a key part of this Wellbeing Budget is in fact to monitor on an ongoing basis the wellbeing of our people and a big part of that is in reducing child poverty to see how well we're able to look at other parts of people's lives which goes a bit further than just measuring gross domestic product. GDP is a good measure of how we do but it is rather one-dimensional. What this Budget enables us to do in the space of child poverty and other very important parts of people's lives is to look deeper than that because we know that there is more to life than simply balancing the chequebook. Yes it is important to do that but there is far more to people's lives than just getting things into the black. We want to know how people's mental health is. We want to know how well they are connected into their communities—are they engaged? We want to make sure that our kids have parents who are able to play with and then talk to their children to give them that resilience for the next generation because that is what contributes to the long-term improvement of our community's mental health. Too often we see the current economic conditions requiring children to be put into childcare before school to be at school all day and to have to go into after-school care. That's because of the requirement for families to have two parents working very long hours. By increasing the hourly wages by making sure we are actively reducing the housing crisis and by bringing down the cost of housing while that's important to balance the books it also means that mums and dads and caregivers right across New Zealand have more time with their children and that is important for the children's growth and for their development and for the wellbeing of our country. That is what we are investing in this Budget—giving people the best chance to get ahead in life and giving our kids the things that they need the most to be the best generation that they can be in the future. So I'm proud to have seen the good work that's been done in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet to make sure that these measures are in place across the board. I'm even more proud to be part of a team that's delivering a wellbeing Budget that puts our people first.