11. Question No. 11—Prime MinisterDEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori) to the Prime MinisterQuestion No. 11—Prime Minister11. DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all his Government's statements and actions?Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Prime Minister): Yes.Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: How can he stand by the track record of this Government which has not fully implemented any of the key recommendations of the Welfare Expert Advisory Group designed to ensure people have an adequate income and standard of living and can live with dignity?Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Because this Government's made enormous progress towards implementing the recommendations from the Welfare Expert Advisory Group including delivering significant increases to those on the lowest incomes and particularly those who are reliant on the State for their income.Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Does he agree that it is unacceptable to be punishing the poorest in society by slashing the little income they have with benefit sanctions especially at a time when onein-10 children and one-in-five tamariki Māori experience material hardship; if not why not?Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I do think it's important that in considering welfare policy we seek to get the balance right between ensuring that we are supporting the most vulnerable that we are encouraging people to go into work when they're able to go into work but that we also consider the consequences of those decisions on children.Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Will he then remove all benefit sanctions?Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: That's not something that we're currently considering.Ricardo Menéndez March: Is he comfortable that some disabled adults and children will get less from Work and Income via the disability allowance and temporary additional support because of the scrapping of the prescription fee policy when levels of support for disabled people have been identified as severely inadequate; if so will he finally increase the disability allowance and child disability allowance?Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The people that the member is speaking to will get the benefits of not having to pay the $5 prescription co-payment so I think the whole thrust of his question is incorrect.Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: What is he doing if anything to respond to the 165 percent increase in food bank use across the country over the last three years highlighted by the recent report of the Auckland City Mission that it now distributes 65000 food parcels a year up from 9000 food parcels 10 years ago?Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I'm particularly aware that if we're talking about food banks in Auckland one of the pressure points for them in recent times has been the effect of the recent severe weather and we have been working to support them through that. We are very focused as a Government and have been in the entire time we've been in Government on improving the lot of the New Zealanders who are living on the lowest incomes. That includes those working on the minimum wage—they've seen the minimum wage increase every year since we've been in Government. It includes those who are dependent on the State for their income whether that's superannuitants or those on the job seeker benefit or those who are unable to work. We have been focused on making sure that we are increasing the amount of income that they are getting as well. I don't think any party in Parliament should be satisfied with people having to go to food banks to seek that level of support.Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Does he stand by his decision to rule out removing GST from food when a recent poll showed that more than half of the country are buying less fruit and vegetables due to rising food costs which in the last year have had the highest annual increase for three decades?Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Removing GST off food would be an incredibly expensive policy. As I have indicated before repeatedly the Government has had a difficult balancing act in this year's Budget to make sure we're supporting people through a cost of living crisis whilst also making sure that we deal with some of the underlying drivers of that the most notable of which is the level of inflation that we have experienced. As the Reserve Bank indicated last week the Government's Budget is putting downward pressure on inflation and we should see inflation back within the target range by the end of next year. That is actually one of the best things we can do to ease the financial pressure that all New Zealand families are facing.