Sio Hon Aupito William; Rurawhe AdrianHon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO (Minister for Pacific Peoples): COVID-19 highlighted the amazing power of technology and how important that power is to enabling Pacific economic development by staying connected by staying engaged and by informing our people. We were able to reach out to people and to the regions right across New Zealand and were able to stay in touch with them without having to leave the safety of our living rooms or offices. At every online meeting I held with Pacific peoples—whether it was with residents of the main metropolitan centres of Auckland or Christchurch or with people out in the regional economies of Palmerston North Gisborne Hastings or Whanganui or even online meetings with our community elders and church leaders nationwide or with my political friends and colleagues from across the vast Pacific blue region—the response and feedback I consistently received from them unsolicited has always been Please give Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and all the Government Ministers our thanks and our appreciation."Pacific peoples value good leadership they value kind leadership compassionate leadership humorous leadership but ultimately genuine leadership. This is the kind of leadership that Pacific people see our Prime Minister consistently exhibit. It is her leadership that is supported by all Government Ministers and very much respected by her coalition partners New Zealand First and the Greens. Pacific communities right across New Zealand recognise that our Prime Minister has led a decisive health response to COVID-19 and that decisive response has saved lives and positioned New Zealand for a strong economic recovery.My elders often say "E iloa le laau i ona fua." meaning every tree is known by the fruits they bear. I compare the fruits of our Prime Minister's decisive strong and compassionate leadership to what we now currently have: where New Zealand have had no new COVID-19 cases in the last 11 days. She has always credited—and I endorse—the contribution of 5 million New Zealanders the efforts of our officials and also the work of our Ministers and Cabinet. But the leadership role and the responsibility of the prime ministership fall squarely on her shoulders and she carries that responsibility alone and she has done an amazing job of it.Our incredible health response has positioned New Zealand well for a strong economic recovery. I want to acknowledge the amazing role of Grant Robertson in the role that he has played in making sure that we allocate $50 billion in the COVID-19 fund in Budget 2020 to respond to recover and to rebuild New Zealand's economy. We've seen it: the health response our support for businesses our support for the workforce and our support for the most vulnerable in our communities. Our plan to rebuild New Zealand is to protect jobs to create new jobs and prepare all New Zealanders for new employment and business opportunities to get New Zealand moving forward. Our coalition Government wants to make sure as part of that overall package that Pacific peoples don't miss out on employment and that business opportunities and are not left behind.The Pacific package of $195 million in Budget 2020—part of that bigger overall Government approach—is an unprecedented amount of targeted spending that's absolutely essential so that Pacific peoples don't miss out during the recovery and rebuilding phase. The patterns of past economic downturns have seen Pacific peoples become the first to be hit and the last to recover and we don't want to see that pattern repeated. We know the challenges our families face. We know the barriers Pacific peoples experience. We know about the inequities our children face and COVID-19 highlighted all those inequities and barriers for everyone to see but I want to acknowledge the response of this Government. I acknowledge Grant Robertson and the support of all Government Ministers right across the board and especially my Pacific ministerial colleagues for their ongoing efforts of support in our Pacific response and recovery to COVID-19 in Budget 2020.Our targeted approach for Pasifika as well as for Māori is evidence-based. It will help eliminate over time the barriers and inequities we face and significantly contribute to New Zealand's recovery and rebuild. The targeted approach is about recognising that the rebuilding of our Pacific economy requires us to work with everyone. That requires Government agencies trusting our communities to know what wellbeing means for themselves and that our communities have the capability to play a vital role—in fact the leading role—in our economic recovery work. Right from the outset we have worked on this side of the House hard to establish a genuine partnership between this Government and the wider Pacific community of Aotearoa. We acknowledge that New Zealand is a Pacific nation and that we're an integral member of the Pacific family within the vast blue Pacific context. Both the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister have worked hard—including the Minister of Defence—to maintain these links and lift our relationship to a higher level of cooperation and collaboration with Pacific countries. After all we have a sizable Pacific diaspora that have strong historic and family links with the Pacific region.We increased funding to the Ministry for Pacific Peoples to unprecedented levels to build up their capacity to reach out and engage with one of the youngest and fastest-growing population groups in New Zealand and to work across the whole-of-Government agencies. We captured Pacific people's dreams and aspirations for a new vision by engaging with them right across New Zealand and deliberately targeted at the view of our young people. Pacific people see themselves as being confident peoples of Aotearoa New Zealand and leading in so many different ways often unseen and unrecognised. Pacific peoples see themselves and their families as thriving resilient and prosperous but they see all of this from a Pacific lens where language and culture provides confidence in one's identity and one's world view where economic prosperity goes hand in hand with collective responsibility to one's aiga and community where health and wellness isn't just about physical health but also includes emotional and spiritual wellbeing and our young people are seen not as they are now but we see them for what they will become "Generation 6 Bs": people who are proudly brown brainy beautiful bilingual bicultural and bold.With support from the Minister of Finance and Treasury we were able to confirm that Pacific peoples of Aotearoa contribute $8 billion to New Zealand's GDP—this is despite the barriers and inequities Pacific peoples face in housing health and education. Our collective challenge is to envision a future where these barriers and these inequalities are eliminated and our Pacific package starts to go someplace begins the work to reaffirm and confirm those foundations of a targeted approach which helps us towards the right direction in removing those inequities and those barriers.So under this Budget our Pacific Ministers approach is important our Pacific languages and cultures kept our people safe. By providing that information in nine different languages we will continue that work. We will continue the work around home ownership and make sure that we lock in that goal of home ownership for future generations and we begin to start the work through financial literacy and debt management and making sure we unlock some of the land that sits with our churches and community organisations.We're going to increase investment into the sciences technology and mathematics. One of the things is a digital economy accelerator to offer up the opportunities for new jobs and for new business opportunities. We're providing wraparound support right across the whole country in Tupu Aotearoa making sure that wraparound support is provided to staircase people into further education or new job opportunities. That's just some of what this package has.I just want to finish off. The Pacific package in Budget 2020 is a recovery package that sets us up for the rebuilding phase. It is about jobs it's about new jobs it's about sustainable jobs it's about high-earning jobs it's about jobs that provide dignity it's about jobs that put food on the table and it gives confidence and security to families so they don't have to be worried about the landlord they don't have to be worried about paying for the bills—that's what Budget 2020 offers the Pacific community as part of that overall package. This approach has never been done before. That lot there can crow about what they did but it's nothing compared to what this Government has done by investing wisely by investing based on evidence by giving charge to our people recognising Pacific peoples are able and capable of leading their own recovery work for the benefit of all people—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! The member's time has expired. I understand this is a split call. I call Brett Hudson—five minutes."