Lubeck MarjaMARJA LUBECK (Labour): Tēnā koe Madam Deputy Speaker and thank you for the opportunity to take a call and speak about Budget 2018. This Budget lays the foundation for a better future and I'm proud to be able to stand here today as part of a Government that is committed to delivering for New Zealanders—a Government that is focused on transformation. No we can't of course fix everything in one Budget and that is why this is the very first Budget that starts setting us up on the road to rebuilding. This Budget is expressing the values of a coalition Government and I'm actually quite proud to be part of the three-headed Hydra—the reference made earlier by my colleague Michael Wood.We've heard a lot of criticism coming from the other side of the House and I guess that is the job of the Opposition but what they shouldn't do is they shouldn't continue to bring up misconceptions that just confuse people. I was watching Q+A over the weekend and Amy Adams in her Budget speech made a statement referring to it. She actually said that Labour's got the numbers wrong. I find it a bit rich because what she did in Q+A is she made a comment that National tax cuts would have given New Zealanders a thousand dollars a week. Now just think about that. She said that the tax cuts from National would have given New Zealanders a thousand dollars per week—and this is accusing this Government of overpromising. All I can say is I'm grateful that we have the Hon Grant Robertson do the numbers for us and not the Hon Amy Adams.Several other Opposition members have been grasping at straws to try and discredit the foundations that this Budget is putting in place for example in health. Now this Budget is putting in place $3.2 billion over four years in operating funding and an additional $750 million new capital for health projects. Now according to the Opposition they have invested more in health. What they forgot to mention conveniently is that Terranova case—that case that they dragged through three courts where the Supreme Court ultimately decided that they had to pay up. So to include this $2 billion pay equity settlement in the health budget is a little bit like the lines that I've seen mentioned somewhere—like Steven Joyce losing a copyright case to Eminem and calling it investing in the music industry. You can't count it into your Budget.But let's focus on the positive. For example we have great investment in education. We all agree that Kiwis deserve the best education. This Government agrees with it and in the Budget is a 45 percent increase in funding in education. This Budget provides $1.6 billion in new operating funding over four years and I'm sure nobody will dispute that there's still more to do. We still need more investments but that only shows how big the gap is that we need to plug. It just shows how much more catch-up there is to do over the years of underfunding. The education investment in this Budget is actually the biggest increase that the sector has seen in over a decade.What the Budget also has is the first universal adjustment for early childhood education and also the very first investment in over a decade with $500 million to better support early learning needs of 200000 children. So what this Budget does is it employs 1500 more teachers. It invests in teacher-aides. It builds hundreds more classrooms. It increases funding for those who need that extra support. That's what this Budget delivers.It also makes a crucial investment in the protection of our workers from exploitation. The Hon Minister Iain Lees-Galloway mentioned that before but it's really important that we put extra funding in the number of labour inspectors. The majority of New Zealand's employers are doing a good job by our workers but there are still those that don't and we need to ensure that the labour inspectorate has the resources to ensure that our New Zealand workers are protected from exploitation. That particular investment is good for working people but also for businesses because it creates a level playing field for them. Those businesses can get on with their job without unfair undermining.My favorite line in the Hon Grant Robertson's speech actually was that this Government will not declare success while at the same time underfunding the services we rely on. This Budget is doing exactly that. It starts to rebuild the foundations while growing the economy so it's ready for the future and it creates a New Zealand where everyone gets a fair go. Only then can we refer to the New Zealand economy as a truly rock star economy. Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker.