Faafoi Kris; Dean JacquiHon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Justice): Thank you Madam Speaker. As it's my first speech in the House this year can I acknowledge you and begin this year as we usually finish the parliamentary year by acknowledging the Speaker's team the Clerk's Office and also the Speaker's office who help us make sure we transact our business in wonderful House throughout the year. Can I also acknowledge everyone else in the Parliament and especially our new class of 2020 who are embarking on their first new year of their long and illustrious parliamentary careers. Can I also acknowledge those who may be bereft of anything else to do wherever they are and are listening to and watching my contribution this afternoon. As my colleague mentioned earlier I hope everyone has had a restful holiday. Madam Assistant Speaker Dean I spent some of my holidays in your electorate enjoying the wonderful Otago Rail Trail and I thank everyone amongst that for their wonderful hospitality to both me and my family. In amongst my travels despite my trying to not engage in politics at the many establishments that I visited there were numerous conversations with members of the public and publicans on the trail about just the absolute privilege that it was to be able to be operating and having customers and tourists in their area and I think I was one of many who took the opportunity to discover more of my own country during our Christmas break. Again I spoke to people along the trail who were very thankful considering what is going on in other countries that we're able to have what is considered a relatively normal holiday. We were able to go and enjoy it together with our families—be able to move freely be able to go and have dinner in a pub in the middle of Central Otago and be able to enjoy something a bit different in the North Island for instance. But certainly I think there was amongst the public a general consensus as we were celebrating Christmas and new year and a thankfulness and not just for the decisions that were made by the previous Government but also I think for the fact that we had all pulled through one of the biggest modern challenges globally to be able to get to a point where we could enjoy Christmas like that. So I hope others around this House are able to recharge in that environment because there are still many challenges ahead of us. It's very humbling to be able to speak as a Labour member of Parliament in this still relatively new Government. To have 65 MPs on our side of the House is relatively unprecedented and is a great signal to our team of the support and trust that the country has in us. But also it is a clear message that we have to take that responsibility seriously and make sure that we are governing in the interests of all New Zealanders and my message to those who are listening this afternoon is that that is exactly our focus: to make sure that we continue to keep New Zealanders safe as we've continued to traverse this global pandemic that is COVID-19 and continue to make decisions that keep us and our communities safe which as another speaker in this debate has said is also allowing us to be in a very privileged position as it comes to our economy. That is not to say that there aren't challenges. As we closed borders back in March of 2020 there have been a number of challenges that have been posed to families organisations businesses and sectors. I will commit as the Minister of Immigration to continue the kind of engagement that we have had in the last six months with the likes of the horticulture and viticulture sector. Now let's be perfectly honest: this is not a situation that anyone wants because for example at this time of year there would be roughly 14000 Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme workers here to pick fruit and who would be able to work on vineyards and work in the fields. That is not able to happen at the moment because of the restrictions that we have at the border but we have allowed a cohort from the Pacific a rather large cohort—a group of people from the likes of Samoa—to come here and assist in picking fruit. Now those from the hort and vit sector would say that that is nowhere near enough and we realise the challenge that we've got. But again we will commit to engaging with those sectors directly to do as best as we can to manage the flow of people in to assist those orchards to assist those businesses in a time of a global crisis and to do as best as we can. The challenge in amongst that—and I would like to thank a number of sectors in this respect—is that we really do have to take heed of the call that the reliance that New Zealanders on migrant workers in the past has to be addressed and we need to start training more New Zealanders to do some of the skilled work that we have traditionally relied on migrants to do. We stand firm on that because it is the right thing to do—to make sure that we can get New Zealanders into these jobs in challenging times—with the dual remit of making sure that we're being vigilant at the border to keep New Zealanders safe and we will not shirk that challenge. All the decisions that have been made have been difficult ones but New Zealand is now benefiting from them. I think you see that in some of the forecasts that we may have had around the likes of unemployment that we've seen in the last five months and the reality that is coming to the fore because of the support that the Labour-led Government offered—and this Labour Government will continue to offer—businesses whether they be big or small. The likes of the massive investment in the wage subsidy has enabled people to stay in jobs and to stay in work and to be able to continue to support their families and to be able to do simple things like pay the rent or pay the mortgage or keep food on the table. But also at the macro level it has seen the likes of unemployment fall at the last survey and I think again when you look at the situation around the world with economies struggling to contain both a health pandemic and economic crisis for us to be in this position is an extremely privileged one to be in. To give a little bit of context there on the unemployment front with our figures and I think it's 4.9 percent—that is in comparison to the likes of 6.8 percent across the Tasman. In the US it is 8.7 percent unemployment and there is an OECD average of 6.9 percent. So again for our unemployment to be below 5 percent at the moment is a massive indication of the work that the Hon Grant Robertson has done as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance to react to an economic shock that we have not seen in modern times. Again I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge a lot of the officials that made that happen. In particular I would like to acknowledge the likes of the Ministry of Social Development and the Inland Revenue Department for making the wage subsidy happen so quickly and also happen so broadly because I've heard story upon story from small-business people that I have managed to have discussions with where they say they've put an application in and within 24 hours or 48 hours the money was in their bank. I don't think we can underestimate the power that not just the money but the swiftness that that financial assistance for those companies met. They could keep staff who were more than staff who may have been experienced staff who they wanted to make sure that they could look after but it also said that The Government's got your back." I think we saw the fruits of that at the ballot last year but we as a Government are committed to making sure that as well as having their back we'll continue to work hard to protect them from the ills of the pandemic but also to make sure that we can build back better. That is again what I commit to as the Minister of Immigration: to make sure that we're having those robust discussions with a whole lot of sectors again who have traditionally relied on migrant labour who can't bring that labour in at the moment and need long-term plans to make sure we are training people and attracting New Zealanders into that work. That will mean training and the Hon Chris Hipkins has done a lot in that space pre-COVID. We are continuing to do more but it's also a robust discussion about making sure we've got wages and conditions that New Zealanders will see as attractive and that has been one of the challenges. So it's going to be a great year for the Labour Government. We are committed to keeping the kinds of results that we had from last year and I look forward to the House in 2021—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! The member's time has expired. The member will resume his seat."