Mahuta NanaiaHon NANAIA MAHUTA (Minister of Foreign Affairs): I want to acknowledge the leadership of the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern who at the beginning of the COVID outbreak said that the best economic response is a health response." Time and time again albeit so difficult in these complex challenges of dealing with a global pandemic we now have the opportunity to support our Minister of Finance who has delivered a balanced Budget in the key areas that will make a significant difference to New Zealanders who are feeling the impacts of a war in Russia; a global pandemic continuing to respond to that; growing inflation; constrained supply chains; and importantly for New Zealanders the everyday impacts on cost of living. This is a Budget that addresses the issues of now such as cost of living while responding to some of the significant longer challenges that New Zealand must address.I'm really proud of the balanced Budget that our Minister of Finance has delivered. He said in no uncertain terms we have the opportunity as an active Government to do things in a very different way—and we have. In responding to cost of living challenges in knowing that people were hurting at the petrol pump—the fact that we ensured that we were responding to those issues I believe is a clear signal to New Zealanders that we understood the impact of travel costs and the cost of petrol and being able to extend the support for another extra two months is a real tangible way that people recognise that we hear their concerns. Cutting the cost of public transport in half for those on the community services card—again a very real way to respond to things that people are concerned about.The costs of living payment—$350 going to people who aren't receiving the winter energy payment taking the total number of people up to about 2.1 million. That is addressing fixed costs on often fixed-income households in areas where it will matter. I believe that and many other of the aspects of the Budget that go to the heart of household costs will make a very real difference.There's been a lot of contributions in the House around the range of reform. In particular I want to also highlight the benefits of the health reforms that are coming through and the significant highlight of that within this Budget—because I know that where inequity exists and especially in the health system we can not only do it differently we must do it differently and we must ensure that the way in which our health service works for all New Zealanders across the country can be improved. I'm really confident about the changes that Minister Little is leading in this area. But what it will allow is the ability to commission health outcomes very differently and it will improve the health status for many more.Now I've just come off the back of a Māori Ministers Budget tour around the country and I had the privilege of supporting my colleagues in promoting the aspects of the Budget that will make the biggest difference. The things that really resonated across our Māori communities were the education training incentives what we're continuing to do to ensure that apprenticeship training works for Māori but actually works for their local and regional economies and what we're doing in the area of education to ensure that more Māori are succeeding in education and moving on to tertiary education. These are incremental positive changes that people are seeing the benefit of from the Budget 2022.But let me pick out a couple of other areas that make a real difference across the whole economy. In the area of tourism the way that we're supporting the tourism sector to reorient itself after COVID will be absolutely critical. I want to applaud the efforts of our Minister of Tourism in the way that he's wanting to ensure that we can pivot can provide a high quality experience opportunity and can invest in the tourism workforce that will underpin the future.The other area is the support we're giving to small businesses. We know that the backbone of the New Zealand economy especially in our local communities is built off the way in which we have been—over this really difficult time—able to support small-to-medium enterprise. We're continuing to do that through the small business cash flow scheme and also the way in which we're supporting the ongoing challenges that our small businesses have during this period of time.It's a great Budget it's a balanced Budget it's a Budget that responds to cost of living issues and it's a Budget for now with the future in mind."